Wednesday 31 January 2018

The Monthly Ledger: January 2017

Hello!

I hope you're doing well! I've just finished school (I miss it already!) and I can already see the light at the end of the terrifying tunnel of US college admissions! UK and Canada awaits, so I shall stall no longer with this month's reads!


          1. Origin by Dan Brown - finished 28/12/2017

Image result for dan brown originI mean, need I say anything? I've been a long-time lover of Dan Brown and have found no other author that can meld mystery and fact together so skillfully.

Origin begins with Robert going to the tech-prophet Edmond Kirsh's (a genius that can predict the future with statistics and computing - go data science and analytics!) unveiling of a presentation that could potentially destroy religion by presenting solid evidence that could upend the fundamental laws of all world religions. On the day of the presentation, however (perhaps a little bit too predictably) Edmond Kirsh is shot. The story then follows Robert Langdon and Ambra Vidal, who helped organize Kirsh's presentation, as they try to unveil Edmond Kirsh's secret.

Edmond Kirsch is definitely one of my favourite characters from the Dan Brown series. His flair for the dramatic, his combined love for poetry and computing, his open hate derision of religion make him an interesting, varied character. I also liked how Dan Brown didn't completely stereotype him - Edmond Kirch was a tousled hair, sarastic-t-shirt wearing, unassuming genius at college, but is now a fashion-savvy, 'totally hip' man that knows how to ruffle the feathers of the masses (Elon Muskian, in my opinion)

And as always, I loved the references to poems of yore, the description of Guggenheim and other tourist sites, the sheer amount of information about everything, the omnipresent symbols and the intellectual discussions between the main characters, particularly one between Langdon and the priest of Sagrada Familia - the conversation was purely intellectual and academic from both sides, with no fierce emotion clouding rationality - I liked that. 

On the other hand, I felt Dan Brown went overboard with the descriptions that is annoying when all the reader wants is action. Some of the characters, despite being very informed and 'intellectual', seem to forget simple bits of information at crucial times. The plot was also quite predictable: 24-hour treasure hunt set in an exotic location (mostly European/Middle East) as Robert is being hunted by said exotic location's goverment while he runs around, trying to crack the code with an exotic beauty (in this case, Spanish). 

Quite unlike his previous novels, Langdon takes a backseat in terms of knowledge in this book, probably because it has a lot of technology in it. 

Origin maybe isn't Dan Brown's best work, but having been starved of a book for four insufferable years, it was reliving to meet Robert Langdon in another mindblowing thriller again.

           2.  Gone Girl by Gilian Flynn - finished 07/01/2018

Image result for gone girl book
My list of psychopathic books is limited to only two- The Shining, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (and the farmhouse part from The Girl who Played with Fire). 

Gone Girl is another addition to my short, I-hope-I-don't-read-this-kind-of-thing-anymore-oh-wait-I-will list of books. When my friends told me this was disturbing, I never imagined the extent to which it would ravage my sanity. Gone Girl was chilling, disturbing, traumatizing and definitely, entertaining. 

The book revolves around Amy and Nick, unhappily married, unhappy because when they met, both of them pretended to be 'cool' to impress each other. It's this effort to impress that leads to an initially happy marriage, and soon, an alleged murder, frame-up, a righteous vendetta, actual murder and an alleged-kidnap-and-murder and a psychotic sociopath that is downright scary.






A quick punctuated list of Gone Girl's highlights:
  1. Amy and Nick - what a clever choice of names to contrast a story so insidious. Just your average Nick and your average Amy. 
  2. The book, like many, intelligently portrays that justice is largely determined by society - there's no 'right' or 'wrong', just 'what does the public think'. Towards the end, when a character is (wrongly) thought to be blameless and another wants to convict (spoiler alert) her, a police officer says it isn't possible, because it's all about 'what the public opinion is' (not verbatim). This malleability of justice is liberating in some cases - it has what made homosexuality, which was previously considered criminal, to be legal. In other cases, this malleability could be exploited by criminals that have actually committed a crime like murder or rape (which have always  been considered a crime in nearly all societies - should even this change in the future, we know we've hit rock-bottom) because public opinion is always driven by emotions and TRP ratings, not the truth. 
  3. The uncannily persuasive narrative writing style. Flynn's writing style literally messed up my sense of judgment - it takes advantage of our prejudices, our lack of knowledge of our lack of knowledge. Insanely clever. 
  4. At a point in the novel, we find out that it was Amy's 'Cool Girl' persona that initially drew Nick to her. It really made me think of personality standards, as I had discussed (ranted?) in the previous post. Amy complains of how men prefer the 'Cool Girl' - young, funny, attractive, easy-to-maintain, light-hearted and undemanding. As though men want an undemanding creature for their entertainment, not recognizing that the creature is an entirely separate being, a woman, who can be grim, demanding, attention-seeking, dramatic, high-maintenence if she goddamn wants to. And for that reason, I understood Amy and her (spoiler alert, sort of) God-like dole out of punishments. 
And with that, I give you January!

Goodbye!

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