Balzac’s “Old Goriot”

Taking into serious consideration an old assignment for school, I decided to embark on a short Balzac journey. I’ve always considered French literature delightful after the 20th century, but utterly horrid before that. I have no idea why this kind of aesthetics doesn’t speak to me like it probably should. I do have the conscience of looking at a grand personality in literature when I’m looking at Balzac, but this doesn’t stop me from perceiving it as something dry, inert and downright boring. Of course, after a summer of Nabokov, everything seems tedious and pointless.

I don’t really enjoy this whole typology of character thingy. The subject is repugnant but that’s not really what’s important in a book. It’s the style – which is far from being great. In fact there is no style, no effervescence of language, no orgasmic syntax, no nothing that could sprung in me the joyful pleasures of good good literature. It was an irritating read, well it was flowy and easy, but not the kind of lecturing pleasure that makes you stop seeing letters. In fact, letters were all I’ve seen throughout this spectacle of rudimentary words, letting my imagination run wild in completely different sectors.

So no, I don’t plan on reading Balzac anymore, since this is, supposedly, a great introduction into his work. Maybe I would’ve enjoyed it in some earlier years in my youth, but now is certainly not a good time. Style is everything for me, and this one just doesn’t have it.

Peroni

My adoration of this tiny Italian beer started last summer, on a hot summer day cliché, sipping one in front of Carrefour, in the car, after an overwhelming thirst. I don’t know if it’s just the context, or this is really a good beer, but the savor feels like nothing else on the market right now.

The taste is very fresh and malty and invades you with a crispy beerish-bitter flavor in the beginning, only to mold in a sweetened aftertaste that feels much better than the usual sordid taste that beers usually leave behind. It’s not very fizzled, possibly a little flat, not very tasteful, which is a feature that I like, a sort of smoothness and dryness providing nice change from very flavored beers on the market. It’s just what you need when you’re really really thirsty, but don’t actually feel like drinking tap water either. Every beer, if consumed immediately after Peroni, tastes like shit to me.

I’m having Peroni when I’m movie editing later in the night, and it’s quite a refreshing way to put an end to a day.

Honey And Clover

Ok, so usually I skip this kind of drama slice-of-life anime. I’m more of a Naruto, Bleach, Death Note sort of anime watcher, and that’s not because I dislike drama (because I do really enjoy it in cinema and tv shows) but because I tend to regard it as ridiculous in cartoons. Or maybe because I was so indulged in my elementary school years with classic anime drama for kids (like Candy Candy, Kiss me Licia, Sandy Bell and the likes) that I tend to stereotype easily when I’m confronted with this category.

But obviously I was profoundly wrong. Honey and Clover is so good that it’s almost unimaginable. I really didn’t know anything about this show – it was just recommended to me by a friend who uttered “it’s cool and it’s about some kids at an art school”. Therefore one day I was so bored with everything else, and I decided to sunk in some new anime to obsess to. And I found this gem.

First of, let me start with the premise. A bunch of art students, in a dorm. That’s it.

There are 2 elements that make Honey and Clover the excellent anime that it really is: 1. atmosphere 2. character development. These 2 qualities bring it up there with the greats like Makoto Shinkai, Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii.

The intermingled relationships between these 5 youngsters are what make the series so enjoyable. Friendship is much more important and brought into focus in a subtle, natural way, without patronizing the viewer with the creator’s own opinions upon the way into which this should be perceived. Characters interact in various modes, and have different opinions and personalities that collide frequently, forming a pattern of complex dialogues and situations. From the mellow, laid back, quiet Takemoto, to the over-excited, psychotic Morita, to the more mature, financially achieved Mayama, to Yamada self-destructive behavior and up to Hagu’s weird autistic conduct, there’s a very wide array of characters, and all is done without stereotyping too much and without the common mistake of creating caricatures. These are three-dimensional personages, who react and think differently and their friendship gradually builds up during the show. However, when we are first introduced to the characters we don’t get the feeling that one usually gets when entering a fictional world: that all has been set up for the viewer, but rather a feeling of intrusion into a real group of people, whose lives were there from before the watcher started to perform the act of viewing, of intrusion.

Character development is done with refinement. Morita intrigues by his wild temper and his sudden unpredictable voyages, but also leaves the feeling that there’s more under the surface of a foolish young man. His will to take care of his friends, his great artistic talent and inability to let go of the campus life are all assets of a complex persona. Takemoto, my other favorite character, is the one who suffers the most dramatic change during the series. His story is a typical coming-of-age one that ends with a remarkable soul-searching trip, when he spontaneously takes his bike and just rides it and rides it, frenetically, without looking back. We also take an insight into Takemoto’s family and issues that he had back at home. The people he meets during his lonely trip, the discoveries he makes about himself, are all going to reverberate in his later behavior and process of growing up. Mayama’s relationship to an older woman is also intensely portrayed. And Yamada, the pottery maker is very realistically portrayed as the young girl who engages in self-destructive behavior (like drinking until she collapses on the floor) because of disappointment in love.

Another aspect nicely done is the leitmotiv of the spinning wheel. It’s funny how many elements of this anime are rather symbolic and it’s sad how so many people nowadays regard anime as being somewhat of a retarded tv show for young audiences. The spinning wheel appears regularly on the show: there is the giant Ferris wheel from Tokyo that the characters all ride together one day and there is also Takemoto’s spinning bicycle wheel. The aftertaste (despite of the rather melancholic feel of the whole show) leaves a feeling of warmth that I have yet to see in an anime series.

(Honey and Clover – directed by Kenichi Kasai, STUDIO J.C.STAFF, after an anime created by Chika Umino)

First post

Erm “hello world” says the inspired wordpress first generated post, so I’m going to abide to that passively. I am further going to engage in reviewing everything that I find intriguing during life. Just for the sake of stating an opinion.

Cheers.