Book/Manga/Movie Recs, as of 5/17/10
Monday, May 17th, 2010 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsukoIn Movies:
Babies: I would have been curious to see this movie even if I were not pregnant, and I was not disappointed. There is some gorgeous photography in this movie, whether of wide open spaces (Africa and Mongolia, and the Tokyo skyline) or of intimate moments between children, parents and children, or children and their environments. The two main complaints I've heard about this movie are that it's too cute and that it's too boring (two contradictory criticisms), both of which I am pleased to be able to refute. While this movie was made by the same people who were responsible for "March of the Penguins", the pervading sense of cute of that movie is not in this one. In "Babies", there's no narration or subtitles--the speech of the families of the children fades into a pleasant background noise, because it's not important to any of the stories. And while there are cute moments, these do not dominate the stories onscreen, and they're not augmented with cute music cues; they are simply cute moments that happen and are quickly contrasted with less cute experiences--frustration! Rage at injustice! It's hard to be a kid! As for boring... well, this depends on the viewer, I suppose. But I was fascinated to see the differences in parenting, in standards of living, and in the children these environments produced. The babies in Mongolia and Africa are left to fend for themselves (often in the company of siblings, who don't always make the best babysitters) for longer periods of time than their American or Japanese counterparts. The American child lives a life surrounded by books and toys, but she seems no happier or better off than the other children, who improvise toys and pets from the animals they're surrounded with. (The animals featured in this film are some of the most patient cats and dogs on the entire planet.) The film's final shot (the Mongolian boy's expression of triumph as he pulls himself up to stand on his own two feet for the first time) is a beautiful reminder of the universal human experience--we were all that small once, and we all learned to navigate the world in our own ways. This is not a boring or overly cute movie. It's a celebration of things we share and that make us human.
In Manga:
Kingyo Used Books, Volume 1, Text/Art by Seimu Yoshizaki: Speaking of universal experiences, reading is one of them that I understand and celebrate on a daily basis. Kingyo Used Books is a love letter to manga, reading, and the shared bonds that stories afford us. The Kingyo Used Book store specializes in manga and caters to a knowledgeable and nostalgic clientele. It's staffed by eccentric weirdos (the reclusive Shiba-san, who loves all things comic-related) and one incredibly efficient and kindly manager (Natsuki-san, who parcels out her manga industry knowledge with a cheerful, knowing look). Each of the stories is a stand-alone idea, centered around a particular manga and how it changed one reader's life. The most effective of these stories is the first in the collection, about a businessman who's thinking of selling off his manga collection because he should be reading "more grown-up" things. Then he attends his elementary school class reunion party and the evening turns into a massive nostalgic conversation about the manga they all read, loved and discarded. In the end, he takes the entire group to the used bookstore and his friends enthusiastically reminisce as they find the long-lost volumes. "...to remember the past is to know the truth of your present. Knowing what your heart is made of. That's what they're all remembering." Natsuki wisely observes. The artwork in this book is excellent, as are the cultural notes at the back (although they are the author's original observations about the manga themselves, just translated.) I highly recommend this, especially if you can find the out-of-print manga that Yoshizaki references!
In Books:
My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme: It's a credit to Prud'homme's editing and writing skills that this book holds Child's voice for the duration of the entire story. And it's a credit to Julia herself that the story is so funny, so engaging, and so passionate. I can understand why she fell in love with France and French cooking, and the world is better for it.
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: My Adventures in Life and Food, by Moira Hodgson: Hodgson's father was in the British foreign service, and as a child, she spent time in Egypt, Beirut, Lebanon, Saigon, Berlin, Sweden, and her native Britain, looked after by her strong-minded Irish grandmother. It's unsurprising that she grew up to be a food critic for The New York Observer. The book also includes recipes, some of which would be difficult to reproduce now (her grandmother's wartime recipes for making assorted puddings during the rationing don't look hard to make, but the ingredients are somehow foreign and often very improvised.) I also love the title, too, although so far, there haven't been any real disasters in the narrative that explain its origin. :)
Pregnancy Books talk: The first book I read was Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth, which was pretty much exactly as I expected: honest, to-the-point, and highly political. The anatomical drawings and diagrams in this book are very explicit and while this was/is helpful to me,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yebisu9's facial expression when he first came upon one was priceless. I've since received a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting, which is somewhat heteronormative ("Just because we use the words "father-to-be" doesn't mean we're excluding anyone! Mentally fill in your own words for what you are!") but very helpfully laid out in month-to-month format. It has been incredibly reassuring to me in several instances, and I like the calm tone that pervades throughout. I just got a copy of Baby Bargains, which is also written with a large grain of down to earth salt.
In an ironic note, in order to get free shipping from Medusa.com, I ordered the first baby book along with a copy of On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears, by Stephen T. Asma. This literary double feature has been amusing me ever since, although the chapter on deformed fetuses was so horrible that I could not read it. (Definitely a shift in my mental outlook; a year ago, such a chapter would not have bothered me at all.) Fortunately, the rest of Asma's book is accessibly written and engaging. He traces the mythological evolution of monsters, religious and secular, through history and especially in their modern, horror-movie permutations. Worthwhile, although the illustrations and photos are somewhat jarring if you turn the page without thinking.
Babies: I would have been curious to see this movie even if I were not pregnant, and I was not disappointed. There is some gorgeous photography in this movie, whether of wide open spaces (Africa and Mongolia, and the Tokyo skyline) or of intimate moments between children, parents and children, or children and their environments. The two main complaints I've heard about this movie are that it's too cute and that it's too boring (two contradictory criticisms), both of which I am pleased to be able to refute. While this movie was made by the same people who were responsible for "March of the Penguins", the pervading sense of cute of that movie is not in this one. In "Babies", there's no narration or subtitles--the speech of the families of the children fades into a pleasant background noise, because it's not important to any of the stories. And while there are cute moments, these do not dominate the stories onscreen, and they're not augmented with cute music cues; they are simply cute moments that happen and are quickly contrasted with less cute experiences--frustration! Rage at injustice! It's hard to be a kid! As for boring... well, this depends on the viewer, I suppose. But I was fascinated to see the differences in parenting, in standards of living, and in the children these environments produced. The babies in Mongolia and Africa are left to fend for themselves (often in the company of siblings, who don't always make the best babysitters) for longer periods of time than their American or Japanese counterparts. The American child lives a life surrounded by books and toys, but she seems no happier or better off than the other children, who improvise toys and pets from the animals they're surrounded with. (The animals featured in this film are some of the most patient cats and dogs on the entire planet.) The film's final shot (the Mongolian boy's expression of triumph as he pulls himself up to stand on his own two feet for the first time) is a beautiful reminder of the universal human experience--we were all that small once, and we all learned to navigate the world in our own ways. This is not a boring or overly cute movie. It's a celebration of things we share and that make us human.
In Manga:
Kingyo Used Books, Volume 1, Text/Art by Seimu Yoshizaki: Speaking of universal experiences, reading is one of them that I understand and celebrate on a daily basis. Kingyo Used Books is a love letter to manga, reading, and the shared bonds that stories afford us. The Kingyo Used Book store specializes in manga and caters to a knowledgeable and nostalgic clientele. It's staffed by eccentric weirdos (the reclusive Shiba-san, who loves all things comic-related) and one incredibly efficient and kindly manager (Natsuki-san, who parcels out her manga industry knowledge with a cheerful, knowing look). Each of the stories is a stand-alone idea, centered around a particular manga and how it changed one reader's life. The most effective of these stories is the first in the collection, about a businessman who's thinking of selling off his manga collection because he should be reading "more grown-up" things. Then he attends his elementary school class reunion party and the evening turns into a massive nostalgic conversation about the manga they all read, loved and discarded. In the end, he takes the entire group to the used bookstore and his friends enthusiastically reminisce as they find the long-lost volumes. "...to remember the past is to know the truth of your present. Knowing what your heart is made of. That's what they're all remembering." Natsuki wisely observes. The artwork in this book is excellent, as are the cultural notes at the back (although they are the author's original observations about the manga themselves, just translated.) I highly recommend this, especially if you can find the out-of-print manga that Yoshizaki references!
In Books:
My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme: It's a credit to Prud'homme's editing and writing skills that this book holds Child's voice for the duration of the entire story. And it's a credit to Julia herself that the story is so funny, so engaging, and so passionate. I can understand why she fell in love with France and French cooking, and the world is better for it.
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: My Adventures in Life and Food, by Moira Hodgson: Hodgson's father was in the British foreign service, and as a child, she spent time in Egypt, Beirut, Lebanon, Saigon, Berlin, Sweden, and her native Britain, looked after by her strong-minded Irish grandmother. It's unsurprising that she grew up to be a food critic for The New York Observer. The book also includes recipes, some of which would be difficult to reproduce now (her grandmother's wartime recipes for making assorted puddings during the rationing don't look hard to make, but the ingredients are somehow foreign and often very improvised.) I also love the title, too, although so far, there haven't been any real disasters in the narrative that explain its origin. :)
Pregnancy Books talk: The first book I read was Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth, which was pretty much exactly as I expected: honest, to-the-point, and highly political. The anatomical drawings and diagrams in this book are very explicit and while this was/is helpful to me,
yebisu9's facial expression when he first came upon one was priceless. I've since received a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting, which is somewhat heteronormative ("Just because we use the words "father-to-be" doesn't mean we're excluding anyone! Mentally fill in your own words for what you are!") but very helpfully laid out in month-to-month format. It has been incredibly reassuring to me in several instances, and I like the calm tone that pervades throughout. I just got a copy of Baby Bargains, which is also written with a large grain of down to earth salt.In an ironic note, in order to get free shipping from Medusa.com, I ordered the first baby book along with a copy of On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears, by Stephen T. Asma. This literary double feature has been amusing me ever since, although the chapter on deformed fetuses was so horrible that I could not read it. (Definitely a shift in my mental outlook; a year ago, such a chapter would not have bothered me at all.) Fortunately, the rest of Asma's book is accessibly written and engaging. He traces the mythological evolution of monsters, religious and secular, through history and especially in their modern, horror-movie permutations. Worthwhile, although the illustrations and photos are somewhat jarring if you turn the page without thinking.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:33 pm (UTC)As for parenting books, everyone and their dog has been recommending them. So I guess we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. ;p
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:35 pm (UTC)Pregnancy is all about books! And I think the baby industry is even more insidious than the wedding industry, in terms of trying to trap you as a customer FOR LIFE. ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:37 pm (UTC)Cusk's book is...blunt. It's not all sunshine and roses but it was a lot closer to my early experiences of motherhood than a lot of the baby blogs I read.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:26 pm (UTC)Also, there's a hysterical parody of 'What to Expect' out there, called 'What to Expect When You're Expected,' from the fetus's point of view.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:36 pm (UTC)