The Reader-Bernhard Schlink (06/04/2010~06/09/2010)

The Reader (Paperback, Media Tie In) - Vintage International
베른하르트 슐링크 지음, Janeway, Carol Brown 옮김 / Vintage Books / 2008년 12월

Before I read the book, I confronted the movie first, and I was so impressed by plot. Although the plot is not much complicated or thrilling, it has a power to make the audience keep reading. Considering I had a week bombarded by homework, finishing this book in 5 days means this book was absorbing.

Before talking about the book, please give me a moment to compare the book and the motion picture. Usually, in the case that I went through both a book and a movie, I used to choose which one is better than the other. Even though I didn’t mean to do it, but I tend to prefer one to the other. However, in case of The Reader, I should break down some. The movie was good at describing the moment they were together, and the book was better at depicting the process of the trial and afterward. I will leave this here and continue at the movie review.      

The best thing I like about this book is it shows the stream of protagonist's consciousness through his monologues and dialogues, and thinking about how his consciousness(especially toward Hanna) changes as time passes is difficult but pleasant process of reading this book.

Personally, I think the kid’s love started as a complex of manic and erotic love and finished as Agape (I’m not perfectly sure about Agape, though).

When he met Hanna, two things I pointed out were he was fifteen and sick. It depends on people, but around fourteen to seventeen many people experience their puberty and he was in the moment of starting puberty. Going through puberty and his low self-esteem were the best condition for the kid to crush on older woman. Another point is he was sick when he firstly met Hanna near her house and Hanna took care of him by washing out his puke on the street and taking him back to the home. As Hanna got the kid out of physical illness, she got him out of dull life and immatureness. To the kid, she was the medicine for the body and the mentality. And then, he became totally crush on her. How much he loved and cared about her is well expressed by his a few comments after first fighting with Hanna.

	I understood that she was upset. I understood that she wasn't upset because I couldn't upset her. I understood that I couldn't upset her, but that she simply couldn't allow me to behave that way to her. In the end, I was happy that she admitted I'd hurt her.
	-p.48, The Reader, Paperbook, Published by Vintage Books in 2008

 This has two meanings; firstly, he was happy that he was imporant person to Hanna even having power to hurt her, and secondly, he was happy that as she admitted he hurted her, he got a chance to apologize and get the relationship back. I mean his love is just unconditional love which has power to embrace her upset by attributing her upset to his fault. He was totally into her.  

However, as time passes and he spent more time with his friends, his love became a little bit different than before. He still loved Hanna more than anything, but in the meantime, his sacrificing love was kind of faded away. 

	Then when I proceded to get bad-tempered myself and we started a fight and Hanna treaded me like a nonentity, the fear of losing her returned and I humbled myself and begged her pardon until she took me back. But I was filled with resentment.
	-p.73, The Reader, Paperbook, Published by Vintage Books in 2008

 He still asked her forgiveness, but he started to be captured by resentment. This is definitely a change from before and finally he became to lose her. Hanna suddenly took off to somewhere else. Then, he couldn't seem to get her out of his mind, and several years passed.  

When he ended up meeting Hanna again in the trial, his went blank as he said "I recognized her, but I felt nothing. Nothing at all." I was thinking about where his blankness came from. I would say it is the blankness coming from full of confusion between past and present, and also love and betrayal. He didn't feel anything but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about Hanna if you consider the fact that he went to the trial without absences. He did not know how to deal with this trial and Hanna's behavior standing in the middle of Hanna in the past and Hanna in the present. Anyway, finally she was sentenced to life and he became going back to his life.  

While she was in jail, he decided to read to Hanna on tape. He recorded all kinds of book and sent to her and finally she became literate. Then what he felt to Hanna was a proud. He thought he was proud of her. This is the moment that all kinds of his complex feelings turns into Agape. He respects and admires her. Beyond the sexual or manic love, he shows his homage towards her.  This is why this book is such a perspicuous book; as the boy becomes old and mature, his love also becomes ripe and mature. This jorney is quite bitter but worthy.  

I loved it. Especially the book elaborated the process of trial which the movie quite failed to describe. I did not discuss about Hanna and Nazi-related problem in this blog, because I only focused on the change of protagonist's consciousness but the political view this book takes was really interesting too.   

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English is pretty easy comparing to other books, and it is not that long as well. It's good for those who want to study English, I guess.

영어 원서로 책을 읽는 이유

요즘엔 영어 원서로만 책을 읽고 있다.
가장 큰 이유는 당연히 영어실력(문장구성능력,단어능력)을 키우기 위해서이고. 
두번째 이유는 지금 내가 미국에 있어서 한국책을 구할 수 없기 때문이었다. 

원래는 이 두가지 이유가 전부였다.
하지만 최근에 영어 원서를 부쩍 읽다보니 다른 이유가 생겼다.
작가가 영어권 사람이어서 영어로 책을 써냈으면, 그 책을 영어로 읽어야지 가장 작가의 말하고자 하는 바를 포착해내기 쉽다는 것에 대한 깨달음이다. 
나는 한국 번역자들이 번역을 제대로 못하고 있다는 소리가 아니다.
단지, 다른 언어의 차이에서부터 생길 수 있는 미묘한 의미차이가 당연히 생기기 마련이고, 그 차이를 놓치고 싶지 않다는 것이다. 

예를 들면 미국티비쇼 프렌즈를 한국어 자막을 해 놓고 보면 별로 재미가 없다. 
하지만, 자막없이 그냥 본다면, 영어에서부터 오는 농담이라든지, 사소한 말장난같은 것에 낄낄거리고 웃을 수 있는 것이다. 

그래서 원서가 있는 책은 원서로 읽는게 최고인 것 같다. 

이렇게 놓고 본다면, 내가 독일어를 못하기에 The Reader의 독일어로 읽지 못했다는 것, 일본어가 유창하지 않기에 무라카미하루키의 해변의 카프카를 일본어로 못읽었다는 것은 참으로 안타까운 것 같다. (뭐 일본어는 워낙 한국말과 비슷하긴하지만 그래도..) 

그렇다면 시를 생각했을때 안타까움은 더하다. 단어 하나 하나마다 의미를 담고 있는 시같은 경우에... 
독일어를 잘해서 독일어로 마리아 라이너 릴케의 시를 읽는다면, 프랑스어를 잘해서 프랑스어로 랭보의 시를 읽는다면  
아 그 epiphany는 생각만해도 짜릿한데 말이지.   

Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner (Paperback)
칼레드 호세이니 지음 / Riverhead Books / 2004년 4월

I should have written down the review right after finishing the book not to forget what I felt at that moment.
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Hmm. Kite Runner. I didn't actually expect this book to be riveting. I confronted this book from 지식인의 서재, 이미도편 and this was one of his recommending books. How cannot pick it up and read it? I mean, come on. That is THE 이미도's recommending one. As soon as seeing that book, I ordered used one through Amazon. (Actually I bought two other books with it, The Blank Slate and The Sparks of Genius.) This book totally got my interest. It blew me away.  
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Isabel Allende praise this novel by saying "this is one of those unforgettable stories that stays with you for years. All the great themes of literature and of life are the fabric of this extraordinary novel; love, honor, guilt, fear, redemption." Like she said, this book has little bit of everything of our lives, but that doesn't bother me at all, because those flakes of our lives are really well fabricated in Khaled Hosseini's hand.

Sin and redemption. Amir wants to redeem himself from the sin that he observes Hassan get raped by Assef but escapes from that situation. The sin caused by fear puts him feel guilty through his whole life and makes him decide to redeem himself when Rahim Khan let him know the way to be good again. Sin is committed by fear, but redeeming himself is the process of overcoming the fear. When he confronted the fear against Assef in 1975, which I want to call first crisis, he denied Hassan by running away from the situation. However, when he met Assef after becoming an adult, which I want to call second crisis, he fought against Assef and fear. This is the only way to be good again like Rahim Khan said, and Amir totally redeems himself even adopting Hassan's child, Sohrab.  

The symbolic meaning of the kite is obvious. The thread of the kite is the passage connecting past and present, and also Hassan to Sohrab. To Amir, the past has two contradicting meanings. On the one hand, that was the time he was innocent and had enjoyable time with Hassan running kites. However, on the other hand, the past was his most sinful moments relating with low self-esteem which also comes from the love that Baba showed to Hassan not to him. By fixing the latter part, he wants to be totally good man, but he becomes to find out Hassan is already dead, so he is adopting Sohrab instead.  

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The book is unexpectable and enough to fascinate me. If I think about Afghanistan, I automatically relate it to some kinds of malecious terrorists, but there are children who are just like any other children in all over the world. Even though I have an interest in Middle East history, meeting Afghanistan by novel is another exotic experience. I might read Khaled Hosseni's another famous novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.  

Girl with a pearl earring

진주 귀걸이를 한 소녀 - Girl with a Pearl Earring
영화

Actually, I didn't read the original book of this movie. It came out with the book first, and then the movie is made based on the novel. So I don't know about the novel--my friend, Emily, told me the novel is way better--but I doubt it. Paintings are "pictures" not "letters." Since this is the story about Johannese Vermeer, "showing" a process of finishing a masterpiece is better than "writing" a process of it. It's just my thought, but I don't know. I may read the book, too.  

The movie totally blew my mind! I think I love to watch European classic movie such as Pride and Prejudice, The Duchess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Little Princess and on and on. Of course I am fascinated by that kind of stories, but more attracting factors come from somewhere else.

First, I love some distinctive sounds that I can only hear from European (or Western) classic movies. For instance, wood cracking from the floor when someone walks on, the sound of clinked silverware when a maid pours soup on a master's plate and the sound from horse walking on sandstone after rainy day make me pleased. I can see how movie staffs take care of these sound effects when they make a classic movie. It is just delightful and essential part of the classic movie.

Secondly, I love classic fashion of people. I don't really appreciate colorful clothes, and instead love black, white and red. Usually, the colors of maid's clothes are composed of black and white which appeals alot to me. I don't know what to call it but scarf maids usually hang around their heads is neat going with jet black simple dress.

Overall the atmosphere of stories background is usually chilly and cold. Putting on several black or brown blankets around their body, people go to markets to get some plain baguette. 

Just all of them are lovely to watch and enjoy.  Then it is easy to guess how I feel about this movie, Girl with a Pearl Earring. This movie was BEAUTIFUL.

First of all, I should confess I have little knowledge about Johannese Vermeer. Although, I DIG his masterpieces and especially, The Girl with a Red Hat(picture on the right). She looks so classy and the contrast between colors are also nice. People who don't know well about Vermeer even had seen this picture, I guess. Anyway, this is not the movie about. lol
 

This movie is about Vermeer's one of the masterpieces, Girl with a Pearl Earring (picture on the left). I looked for some information about this picture and the movie, but this story is not related to the movie at all. Actually, the life of Johannese Vermeer is almost a mystery having little information about him, needless to say his paintings. And personally, I don't believe only this girl was attracting to Vermeer. Of course she definitely has beautiful atmoshpere, but it is hard to exaggerate their relationship like a novel, for almost all of Vermeer's paintings are portraits or workers by themselves.  

The real painting is so mysterious. Are her wide eyes and enigmatic half-smile innocent or seductive? And why is she wearing a pearl earring? The movie doesn't deal with her smile, but does deal with her earring. If the whole story is created in the author's brain, I want to give her a hand. It was pretty brilliant.  

 Speaking of the movie, I was glad those factors that I mentioned above was fully in the movie. I was astonished when Griet(the main character) firstly enters Vermeer's studio to clean it up because the studio was just like the one in his real painting! The movie takes good care about his studio. Neat white wall, proper amount of light, just everything was perfect.

One disturbing thing to me was the way Scarlett Johannson plays. Maybe some don't agree with me, but she was overreacting in case of her facial expression. It was awkward.

Overall, I love it. The storyline was simple, but it was good to know how this masterpiece came out to the world even though it is the author's imagination. :) Don't even talk about the atmosphere of the movie. It was gorgeous.

UP IN THE AIR

인 디 에어 - Up In The Air
영화

 The Original title is UP IN THE AIR not IN THE AIR. I don't know why they intentionally change the title. (I mean, it's just one more word, so why cannot put the same title with original one?) 

Well, I don't know how to start it. It was quite boring, but I don't feel like saying it was boring because the theme of the movie was pretty touching.   

<From now on, this contains the storyline of the movie.>
The story is about a corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham(George Clooney) and his travels. He flies to every part of the States letting workers know that they are fired. Riding planes, staying best hotels, having light relationship with cool girls Ryan has satisfied with his life. In an airport, he meets Alex who has same way of thinking with Ryan, and they begin a casual relationship. 

In the meantime, Ryan is called back to his company's offices in Omaha, Nebraska, where he finds out that an ambitious young coworker named Natalie Keener is promoting a plan to cut costs by having employees stay grounded and conduct layoffs over the internet. Ryan argues that Natalie knows nothing about the process of firing people, and the boss assigns him to take Natalie with him on his upcoming travels to show her what it's like. They fly together and step by step Ryan shows Natalie firing people is not easy job like she does over Internet.   

While on the road, Natalie's boyfriend dumps her by text message, and she is pissed off about how Ryan treats the deep relationship like a nothing. She tries to explain Ryan the importance of interdependence between people, and Ryan gets slowly realized. He takes Alex to his sister's wedding, and acknowledge the importance of being part of someone. Later, while his speech, he just stops giving speech and runs to the airport to fly to Chicago where Alex lives. When she opens the door, it's apparent that she's a married woman with young children. Stunned, Ryan leaves without saying a word.  

On the flight home, the crew announces that Ryan has just crossed his ten million miles mark and the airline's chief pilot comes out of the cockpit and the two have a conversation. When the captin asks Ryan where is he from. Ryan ponders the question for a moment and then answers: "I'm from here." 
<Written by Wikipedia and Me.>

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I was so upset about Alex having her own family. The only one who was not cool enough was Ryan who might have found out how living someone is gonna be. Nobody can lives wtihout counting on somebody. It just doesn't work becaue we live in society. Long time ago, I had also thought like Ryan having fun by myself, and enjoying life by doing whatever you wanna do. But I know I end up seeing someone and looking for being secured. That is just how we are.  

Pretty good movie as it makes me think about life, but somewhat slow and boring.