roach's reviews
269 reviews

------------------------------------

I stumbled over philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe recently during a late-night session of going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. The Last Messiah is the first of his texts that I've read now.

In this essay, Zapffe presents his position that humanity is suffering under its overdeveloped consciousness by making us too aware of the suffering and demise around us. He claims that modern life of humans has become a net of defense mechanisms because of that and pinpoints a few specific ways of how our society has established those in everyday life.
Zapffe was also a big proponent of antinatalism and so the final conclusion to his essay is that the titular metaphorical last messiah might come and urge people to stop procreation to prevent the cycle.

It's a really interesting point of view on life and a fascinating strain of fatalist philosophy to discuss. Parts of it remind me of my misanthropic teenage years when I was convinced of the same things, and that consciousness and intellectuality are the reason for most of humanity's suffering. I don't agree with the purely pessimistic, immature, and unchangeable attitude with which my younger self proposed those thoughts anymore, but there are still parts of that mindset that I do subscribe to, to a certain degree, and Zapffe manages to talk about them without putting all the fault into the corruption of mankind or anything like that. It doesn't seem like what he is writing has a hateful or malicious basis, and that is a bit of a fresh breeze considering the subject.
It makes it interesting to take apart.

Zapffe's essay is well written and even has a poetic sense to it at points which I liked. Many points he makes about certain "defense mechanisms" against misery are grounded in reality. I liked how he even is self-aware at a point when he describes how humans tend to work our sorrow in writings as one way to distance yourself from them, and so this very essay he writes could be an example of that as well.
He talks about isolation and how it became common courtesy to hide our personal sorrows from one another, and how the life of the high society is mostly made up of distractions because those became the things we value. Things like that. There is definitely a truth in many of these observations.

Whether or not the final conclusion to that should be antinatalism is a different conversation though, but, in a philosophical setting, it is an interesting one to have.

I really wish there were more of Zapff's texts that got translated. I'd love to read more.

I've read the first two books of Koji Suzuki's Ring series years ago and absolutely loved them. I grew a bit of an obsession with the entire Ring franchise rooting from having seen the American remake as a kid and then watching all the Japanese films, as well as reading those two aforementioned books. 
But when I originally started the third novel back then, life got in the way and I didn't finish it. This week I picked up the book from my shelf and gave it a second, proper read, starting from the beginning. 

The book started out pretty solid with some decent character exposition and a good set-up for the protagonist's goals and aspirations, also sprinkling in, as expected with this series, a bunch of interesting medical and science elements.
However, as we get closer to the final act and the main technological concept of this installment in the series becomes clearer, it ultimately takes an unexpected turn that establishes some new major information about everything that happened in the previous book and puts the entire story in a different, weird point of view. While I appreciate the attempt at adding some fairly high-concept science fiction elements, this one was at the same time so hamstrung that I wasn't really able to immerse myself very well, as well as retconning the stories of the previous two books in a way that didn't really work for me personally.

Loop is not a terrible book and I did enjoy at least half of it fairly well – as well as have a little bit of low-brow fun at the unexpected direction this ended up going in – but this is definitely the weakest book in the series for me so far and the first one I wouldn't recommend.

Not bad for a horror short originally released printed on toilet paper.

It's kind of funny that Suzuki begins the story by talking about water, a rotting curse, and a well, considering he wrote the infamous "Ring" novels. But there are no wells here. This story is set in a toilet stall and it's written in a way as if the protagonist was the reader.
It's a neat little thing but doesn't really become something very memorable aside from the toilet paper gimmick. It's a decent short with a fairly good idea but probably one of his weaker texts.

I also had to read an unofficial English translation, so I cannot really comment on his use of words here. 

I've heard of the Strugatsky's before but wasn't familiar with any of their work. I wouldn't even have read Roadside Picnic if it wasn't for a book club thing I spontaneously participated in. But I'm pretty glad I did decide to join that and I'm interested in reading other more fleshed-out novels by them now.

This book sets up a very interesting futuristic world that ages very well. None of its mystery and intrigue was lost over the 50 years since it was first conceived.
Even though it was a good read pretty much from the beginning and had me quite interested all the way through, a lot of the first half of the book left me wanting more because there are a lot of interesting things mentioned and thrown around in passing, but barely any immediate interaction or thorough exploration happens. Thankfully that thirst gets squelched pretty well in a later chapter.
My favorite part of the book however ended up being part 3 of the 4 chapters, which, through a perspective change to a different character, builds up a pretty fun almost crime/mystery subplot for a little bit and, more importantly, has a very lengthy scene of two characters theorizing and philosophizing about the world they live in and what the circumstances of the alien visit might have meant. That was very fun and very satisfying to read.

Roadside Picnic has some weaker spots including some more abrupt character actions that I didn't like too much, and it really seems like this whole thing only scratches the surface of the world that was created here, but it's a very fun read with some great, lengthy moments and a really intriguing setting.

I've seen the movie adaptation of "Girl, Interrupted" before, years ago, and I liked it a lot. Ever since then I wanted to read the source material. I have a soft spot for stories set in psychiatric hospitals anyway.
So, I borrowed this copy of the book from a friend and started reading in January of 2020. Funnily enough, when I began reading this book, I was at the tail end of a psychiatric stay myself.
I'm not sure what I expected from the book after already being familiar with the film, but I was a bit underwhelmed and after the first 100 pages, the book began to lie dormant on my shelf for about a year and a half. I finally picked it up again recently and finished it.

It was actually hard for me to see a lot of similarities between the movie and the book. They are both very different shades of media. The film is streamlined, dramatic, and has a clear thread. Kaysen's book however is more like a choppy collection of individual memories and impressions of her real stay at a clinic in the 60s.
It has some very interesting observations and some entertaining moments involving the other patients. But overall, it was quite repetitive and at points even a little bit annoying thanks to the adolescent characters, some of which very clearly like to be bitchy just for the sake of being bitchy and to mess around with the hospital staff. That sort of stuff can get grating for me personally.
I was also kind of mission the point at moments. I guess the main intention of this book is for Kaysen to chronicle her memories with 60s style therapy and coming to terms with what it means to have a mental illness including the stigmas. It does that pretty well at points, mainly in the beginning and end of the book, when it is the most reflective. But in-between, a lot of the text is rather mundane and doesn't hold that much for interest. There are fascinating little moments like the whole "where are my bones" breakdown, but there is also a lot of mundane chitchatting and bickering between the young adults here. There isn't much of a consistent storyline here, as the movie might have you believe.

So, I'm pretty conflicted about this book as a whole. It has value and I wouldn't say it's a bad piece of literature. Especially the final few pages where Kaysen dives into her actual diagnosis for the first time properly, was very interesting. There are also a few good bits and pieces about the relationship between patient and therapist, and even though this true story took place in the 60s where therapy was still pretty awful and very different from today, there are details here that still ring true to this day and that even I could find similarities to my own experiences with psychiatric hospitals.
Though I gotta say, I've read more interesting and better-structured books about first experiences with therapy and the isolated life in a clinic before, so this kind of pales in comparison. I got more out of Vizzini's "It's Kind Of A Funny Story", for example. Which coincidentally is also based on the author's real experiences.

It's a decent book with some clear merits but I'm far from loving it. In my opinion, this is one of those rare cases where the movie adaptation is actually better.

Alan Cumming is an actor I've always liked seeing in films when he popped up. Be it "X-Men 2", "Spy Kids" or even undisputable cinematic catastrophes like "Son of the Mask", he always brings a lot of charm and character to his performances.
Over the last few years, I began to learn more about him and his other works in the entertainment industry outside of the movie scene, and it was pretty clear very early on that Cumming had a very varied life story. So, with that in mind, I decided to read his first memoir, "Not My Father's Son".

"Not My Father's Son" is a very well-structured book about child abuse and how it can be to live up in a violent household. I'm sure a lot of people out there can sympathize with that, and I'm sure almost everyone can empathize with the situations Cumming recalls here. There are some very unflinching passages.
But besides all of that, this book manages to become a very multi-facetted story by jumping back and forth in time, re-telling parts of his childhood and contrasting that with the present of Cumming not only struggling with his late, estranged father but also managing to deal with some other family enlightenment as he takes part in the filming of an episode of a show that aims to research another enigmatic person in his family tree.
It comes together really well and it's almost astounding at moments how well the timing of the different parts of the real-life stories seems to be. It's also fascinating to watch the episode of that tv show after having read the book and seeing his genuine reactions on screen as a part of his family's history unravels before him, and it absolutely matches what he wrote in this memoir of his experiences on set during filming.

Alan Cumming's first memoir is a shocking and heavy text in many moments, but it's also very hopeful and ultimately a story of empowerment and growth. I like to read biographies and memoirs of people in show business in general, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Cumming's outing here. It ended up surpassing my expectations and I was pretty glued to the pages, especially during the second half of it.
It's written in a way that feels very brisk without ever breezing over heavier or emotional moments. It's very well-paced and Cumming has a very charming, easy-to-read writing style.

I would absolutely recommend this book wholeheartedly to people who might have had a violent childhood themselves and struggled with finding themselves long afterward. I would also recommend this book to people who are just generally interested in the meaning of a father role in one's life, the search of belonging somewhere, and our connection to family members that we never actually met.