November Books

It would appear that I have lost my reading mojo, gone are the months of reading five or more books. But I feel like it is important to realise that reading 1 or 2 books (or even none) in a month isn’t so bad. It would appear that I just simply wasn’t in the right mood to juggle several books this month. And spending more time with a book allows you to absorb it and deconstruct it’s affect on you better anyway.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Essential reading. The Fire Next Time is a book containing two letters written 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Baldwin explores racism in America, and how very little has been achieved in the way of equality within the 100 years since. This needs to be read by anyone who is looking to understand (not that it’s hard to understand basic human rights) the Black Lives Matter movement because it’s 157 years since 1863 (the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation) and it’s also quite hard to see that much progress has been made since Baldwin’s time!

Get your copy:

Waterstones

Abebooks

or check in with your local library via the Libby App

At Least We Can Apologize (사과는 잘해요) by Lee Ki-ho

At Least We Can Apologize follows two characters as they re-adjust to life after being released from a strange mental hospital. As they have minimal skills and are in dire need of money they wander around their town gathering clients to apologize on behalf of. This book is a satirical look at the expectations and pressures of Korean society and post-modern commodification culture. And while I understand what Lee was doing with this novel I just can’t say I liked the execution of it very much.

Me throughout the book.

Get your copy:

Waterstones

Abebooks

or check in with your local library via the Libby App

*Please note that some links are affiliate links and if you do decide to make a purchase through them I earn a small commission.

More Bookish Content.

Korean Cinema: 도망친 여자 (The Woman Who Ran) Review

It’s safe to say that if a Hong Sang-soo film becomes available to watch in the UK I will jump at the chance to see it. Thankfully the London Korea Film Festival went digital this year as I was seriously weighing up whether it was worth risking a trip to the cinema to see his latest film.

The Woman Who Ran stars Hong’s long time muse Kim Min-hee who once again gives a fantastically understated performance as Gam-hee a woman we follow through three encounters with three different friends. Something I absolutely love about Hong’s films is that they always feel like the lives on display exist in reality, that if the camera wasn’t rolling everything would happen that way regardless.

In the first segment, Gam-hee visits a friend at their semi-rural apartment complex. Here the characters discuss a variety of topics which randomly involve animals, from the prettiness of cow’s eyes that cause the two women to consider becoming vegetarian briefly (while eating meat) to the aggressive dominance a Cockerel has over the neighbour’s chickens and another neighbour who ardently wants the apartments stray cat community to be cut off from being fed, dubbing them ‘robber cats’.

What struck me with these conversations is that there is always more to them than what meets the eye, especially with the conversation about the Cockerel, which could easily be a metaphor for sexual harassment and abuse women face when a man aggressively expresses his dominance.

The Cat Man, on the other hand, can be seen as a symbol of the human ego; he declares that the people of the apartment complex are more important than the stray cats, while Young-soon’s roommate insists that the cats have every right to survive. Is Hong weaving a conversation on the climate crisis into the film? Perhaps, that’s the impression I got anyway.

‘People in love should always stick to each other’

It soon becomes apparent that conversations with men are shot from behind; why does Hong make the men mainly faceless? Exposing them just for a few mere moments as they arrive or depart the destination of the conversation.

Another thing to consider is that each man is causing problems for the women they are conversing with. Cat Man tells Gam-hee’s hosts that they need to stop feeding stray cats, a young poet stalks Gam-hee’s second friend after a drunken one-night stand and Gam-hee herself is confronted by her self-important ex.

Gam-hee’s husband is mentioned several times and is actually faceless as he never appears in the film, but his view that ‘people in love should always stick to each other’ dominates Gam-hee’s life (as she is only now away from him after five years of marriage).

In this way, it feels like Hong is showcasing women’s lives with a very obvious #metoo sentiment; he is revealing how some men behave towards women and how things are made far more complicated for them because of the men they encounter.

This is all done with an obvious sense of humour, the women are all smart and engage in varied conversations whereas the men all come off rather foolish. And of course, this wouldn’t be a Hong Sang-soo film if he didn’t manage to weave in his usual musings of art and artists which is always a pleasure to watch.

Book Club: Announcement + The Prose Edda

I am starting a new Book Club. It’s all about global literature.

It will allow me to curate the reading list around one of my biggest passions in reading, World Literature. I love exploring different cultures through their literature, and it again fits in with the ethos of this Book Club, epic stories and ‘seeing’ all the world has to offer through books.

Just check back here at the end of each month to discuss the book and find out what we’ll be reading the following month.

The first read of the Book Club will be none other than The Prose Edda by Icelandic historian, poet, and politician Snorri Sturluson (there is debate around whether he wrote the whole thing it or just compiled it and wrote the last section). It is the most comprehensive collection of Norse Mythology that has survived to this day.

Where to get your copy from:

Free copy from Project Gutenberg

Second hand from AbeBooks

New from Waterstones

Our journey so far:

27 Things I have Learned in 27 Years

I turned 27 recently (last month, to be exact, but it took me a while to write this post!). Yikes, how did that even happen? So, in honour of me orbiting the sun 27 times and becoming infinitely wiser for it, I thought that I would share some important life lessons with you (because clearly, I am a fount of all knowledge, not just some clueless 27-year-old utterly perplexed by the complexity of life).

1. Material possessions aren’t all they're cracked up to be. Tyler Durden was right when he said ‘the things you own end up owning you’. Instead, quality time with quality people has become precious to me. But how does one quantify quality? F**k knows, it’s a very personal thing I guess, but it’s pretty obvious Covidiots are not quality people.

2. Autumn and Spring are the best seasons, and it’s because they are seasons of change. Life and Death are encapsulated in the blooming of flowers and the decay of leaves. These seasons help us to remember that nothing stays the same for long so cherish the present, or if your having a tough time know that it will pass.

3. I’m not actually that bad. I used to hate myself, perhaps it was the usual teen/young adult angst or maybe it was depression. Either way, I used to avoid social events because I felt I would run out of things to talk about (forgetting that it’s not my sole responsibility to hold up a conversation) or that people would find me utterly lacking in all possible ways one can utterly lack.

4. Books are the best - I learnt this pretty early in life.

5. I know what I want to do in my life. It has taken me 27 years but I finally know! I may have my head in the clouds but I really want to write a book (or several if I’m any good) and I want to direct films. Obviously, I will have to start small and probably with no funding and amateur actors but I’m inspired by filmmakers like Hong Sangsoo (the king of Korean Indie cinema) or Thomas Vinterberg (Festen) and Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) whose early films were super low budget but absolutely fantastic. I also feel like I have it in me to direct because I’ve been obsessed with movies pretty much ever since I can remember and I love how films can combine stories and visuals symbolically.

6. Coffee is essential to life. If you don’t drink coffee are you even alive right now?

7. Smart is the new sexy. Cerebral conversations can be seductive, and a good spot of verbal sparring is an absolute aphrodisiac. I used to think that I should dumb myself down to get people to like me but I am totally over that. I am a nerd and proud.

8. Don’t always pretend you’re ok. Sometimes you need to ask for help and that’s completely fine.

9. Nature is epic. I love trees, mountains, oceans, animals and everything else within the natural world (except maybe those flies that burrow into people’s eyes, natural disasters and diseases). And spending time in the ‘great, infinite scream’ (Edvard Munch really summing up the power of nature here) of nature is humbling, nurturing and awe-inspiring. And let’s not forget, David Attenborough, what a magnificent bastard, if it wasn’t for his documentaries and unwavering defence of the natural world I don’t think I would be as in love with nature as I am now.

10. Not choosing is a choice, and it’s most often the worst choice. I am a typical Libra, indecisive to a fault. And because I find it so hard to decide on or choose things I often do nothing which ends up making everything more complicated and rather infuriating. Don’t let life happen to you, make some damn choices and be in control of your future. Or in as much control as possible, given that life, is really just a stab in the dark half the time. Life is essentially Polonius behind the curtain in Hamlet.

11. Getting older is a luxury. 15,000 young children die every day. Let that sink in.

12. I can cook, kind of. It’s been a running joke in my family that I am a terrible cook ever since I cracked two eggs straight onto the floor while trying to bake a cake. However, fast forward several years and a decade or two in the midst of a pandemic I have undergone a metamorphosis akin to the to Butterfly. Now, I’m by no means Michelin star-worthy but people don’t wretch when they eat my food anymore, so that’s progress.

13. It’s really hard to think of all the things you’ve learnt in 27 years of life.

14. Education is a lifelong pursuit. Our education system here in the UK is pretty flawed and there are so many things you don’t learn at school (hello life skills!). Our History lessons are probably the most biased, all through school you learn about Romans (but only what they did in Britain!), WWI & II, the same medieval stuff over and over again, Henry VIII, maybe a term on the civil rights movement but that’s about it. It wasn’t until university that I learnt about European colonialism and how fucked up it was and still is. We never really learnt about world history, like what about the Mongolian Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Crusades, The Aztecs, The Gupta Empire? Maybe the school curriculum has changed in the last 10-15 years (yikes I’m getting on a bit). If so then thank goodness for that, but I am still kinda pissed that I had to suffer through what felt like a millennium on The Dark Ages!

15. I can’t dance, but I like doing it anyway, as long as no one is around.

16. I need to learn to finish things. I am a serial juggler. I have multiple books I’m reading at any one time, I have multiple story ideas I’m working on, blog ideas too. Learning one language isn’t enough so I flit between three. I start so many different things but I hardly ever finish them! This needs to stop!

17. We live in the Matrix. Just kidding…or do we? We’ll never know!

18. 9 out of 10 concerns are unfounded.

19. Humans are basically plants. We need shelter, water, food and nurturing.

20. Drinking warm water is the winter survival hack to end all winter survival hacks. I always used to get so dehydrated in the winter because I would avoid drinking water as it makes you cold. So a few years back I decided to start drinking warm water. My life has never been the same since!

21. Small pleasures are everything. Dancing around the kitchen while cooking dinner, watching the sunset while sipping on a glass of wine, reminiscing about a shared memory with a loved one, reading a good book on a rainy day. All these small moments make life just a little better.

22. Be more empathetic. Everyone is on their own journey, one full of struggles, hardships, sorrows and hopes and joys. Life isn’t easy so don’t make other people’s existence harder.

23. Makeup is a tool not a mask. Don’t hide your face, enhance it.

24. I don’t need to be perfect. I always try out new things but I often abandon them because I suck at them. Newsflash so did Picasso when he first painted (I hope so anyway), so did Jane Austen when she first wrote. You don’t need to be perfect you just need to be getting better by putting in the practice.

25. 4 Minute showers are sufficient. Save some water and turn the shower off in between washing your hair and your body. This will save you some money on your water bill and have a little but meaningful impact on the planet. The more people who do this the more it will help.

26. Blazers can elevate any outfit. If in doubt stick to the classics that way you can’t go wrong.

27. “Fear is the Mind Killer” (Frank Herbert, 1965). No truer words have been said, well except maybe “Tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes” (Bullock, 1716). I have avoided so many things and situations because of fear and I am kind of sick of it controlling my life! No more.

Korean Cinema: 버티고 (Vertigo) Review

Directed by Jeon Gye-soo, Vertigo explores Seo-young’s life in corporate Korea. It’s a dizzying world of uncertainty where simply being seen wearing a hearing aid could lose her a contract renewal. Seo-young’s secret affair with her handsome and popular boss is also another risk. Soon her life begins to spiral out of control when her inner ear problem causes her to start experiencing Vertigo in her high-rise office.

 I watched this film as part of the London Korean Film Festival, which went digital this year as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a kind of stroke of luck for me as I have wanted to see Vertigo for quite a while, and I wouldn’t have been able to see it at its originally planned screening in London.

Narratively the central focus of the film is on Seo-young, but Vertigo also explores two men and their connection to her. Seo-young is very much in love with her boss Lee Jin-soo (Teo Yoo from the fantastic Russian film Leto!), which is displayed through her looking at him longingly while he religiously works and how she seeks physical contact with him.

His distance and unavailability are perhaps part of the draw, but it is clear she craves something more from the relationship. Kwon-Woo a window cleaner, is a point of fascination for Seo-young, he is literally and metaphorically on the outside looking in. He cleans windows suspended from a rope and can observe corporate meetings and lunchtime rituals, but he is also poor and of different social standing, and his interest in the melancholy Seo-young becomes a focal point in his life.

There is one moment where he writes Cheer Up on the windows in soap suds, which causes Seo-young to cry (and I must admit I did too!). However, one must also note that while Kwon-woo had the best of intentions his behaviour throughout the film was questionable and actually stalking.

Beautifully shot with a minimalistic colour palette Vertigo really stands out when audio and visuals vividly collide to bring Set-young’s vertigo to life. Visually we experience the disorientation, the panic and the off-kilter feeling through the use of a SnorriCam (essentially, the camera is mounted onto the actor, so it appears that they don’t move while everything around them does). The sound engineering in these moments mimics tinnitus with the high pitch ringing and the muffling of voices which I found to be really powerful, and as I have tinnitus myself rather realistic too.

While Vertigo starts off strong towards the end the film becomes rather over the top and a bit too melodramatic for my liking (though it does make for a spectacular cinematographic moment), but overall it was a beautiful film to watch and an interesting portrait of a woman on the brink. There were also some important moments throughout the film that highlighted social issues like sexual harassment and prejudices within the workplace.