Sad and Beautiful World

Sad and Beautiful World is the last in the 12 part comic series, Demo, written by Brian Wood. Each issue is a separate self contained short story in which Wood wanted to explore the experience of a group of ‘mutant’ youths, albeit set in a non-super hero setting.

Sad and Beautiful World is my favourite story of the twelve because the idea itself can be seen as an extended metaphor and brings a sort of poetic beauty to it. The story features a young couple who have over the years come to fall out of love, but cannot physically be apart from each other or their bodies will tear apart, literally. I love the fact that you can compare this to a modern destructive relationship that have learnt to hate each other through love but cannot bear to be apart.

The comic features beautiful repetition of the phrase: ‘And we healed’ showing the on going pain the couple face of having conflicting wants and needs. The style of the art work, by Becky Cloonan, is aggressive black and white panels, featuring thick black strokes which almost look like rips. I like how it feels like each panel is tearing out of the page at you, as though the panel itself wants to leave but can’t, the same as the characters.

The narrative style features both points of view, from the girl and from the boy, first person, though their stories don’t contradict each other. It describes the times they have tried to leave each other, gradually revealing the climax of their dilemma, and also the process of trying to live everyday life with each other whilst keeping a happy distance. Somehow one of them even manages to have an afraid despite their proximity issues.

My favourite part about this short story is the face that it can be seen as a large metaphor for life; learning to live with each other, how it can cause so much pain, but how you always heal.

If you haven’t read it already, do.

Book Review - The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami has been part of my life for a while now; I've spent months savouring every moment in the hope that the story will last longer if you read slower.

The story at the heart of The Wind Up Bird is a simple one; a man who loses his wife and will do anything to get her back.A classic tale of love. The novel is spun into a series of intertwining stories set off by one seemingly meaningless event; the disappearance of a cat. My favourite thing about this book is the fact that it is enriched with stories within stories within stories.

A downfall of the book is a 2-D character called May based on a 14 year old girl who's dropped out of school. Although I believed in the character's persona at first, the novel never seemed to break through the '14 year old girl profile' and develop into a deeper person. This is emphasised later in the novel when May continues to write letters to the lead character, revealing pivotol information; which is withdrawn at the end when you realise the letters were never read.

The Wind Up Bird is full of Murakami's usual queer reasoning; where he never answers a question but always find a resolution; which is a quality in Murakami which you either love or hate. I enjoyed the journey of query after query after query until the final two chapters, when I feel Murakami uncharacteristically tried to find a satisfying resolution. It's not the resolutions that I disapproved of but the characters' actions which seemed against their personality in the final moments.

I have enjoyed having this book as being a part of my life and as a result will always sleep with a baseball bat beside my bed from now on....