of freaky green eyes and a tin princess

Freaky Green Eyes (Joyce Carol Oates) is one of those few books that draws me into its world so completely that reality does not seem as real any more. One of the reviews I read called it a “predictable plot” with “stereotyped parents” in almost disdainful tones. So what if it’s predictable? If it makes you still feel anxious, your heart beating a quicker tempo, flipping the pages almost frantically… then hasn’t it achieved something? As for “stereotyped parents”, may be this is just me, but if Oates had portrayed the parents in any other way, the reviewer would have labelled them thus anyway. What doesn’t constitute as stereotypical parents? What kind of stereotypical parents were the reviewer alluding to? Ach, I’m just being pedantic – don’t mind me rant.

I guess you could say I don’t entirely agree with her review – each to their own *shrugS*. I haven’t read Oates’ previous novel, Big Mouth & Ugly Girl, to make a comparison to, but it makes me wonder – why do we have to compare it to previous writings? Why can’t we just judge it purely on its own basis? Meh.

Personally, I loved the book – I guess because I also felt like I could relate to the protagonist, Franky. Feel what she’s going through.. though Oates writing style made it easy to.

Some books do not go beyond “ooh I want to know what happens next, but that was a nice/lovely/terrible ending” – not having that kind of impact on me to make me think of things in terms of my life. That’s what particularly struck me about this book. It made me wonder about marriage, relationships, how things could get so bad without you realising… or not wanting to see. Blindly loving, easily hating – wanting to believe the things the person you love tells you, that their word is truth, that they would never lie to you.

A couple of reviewers also mentioned the impatience of waiting for Franky to realise and understand the reality of what’s happening between her parents. I know I’ve experienced that in so many books, once I actually threw the book across the room because I was so horridly upset at the main protagonist that I would happily have throttled her stupid scrawny neck if she was next to me. (That was extreme, yes I know *hangs her head in shame* BM was shocked and appalled at my actions, and I felt bad, but also resentful that the author wrote something like this to inflame their reader so.) But, in this book, the slow-to-realise-protagonist worked. I actually didn’t get impatient with Franky, frustratedly yelling at her to just open her eyes to see. I understood why she chose not to see, I sympathised, but I won’t say I didn’t mentally urged her to just open her eyes and see how manipulative, emotionally and physically, her father was.

It scared me to think that people could be like this – if this book portrayed stereotyped parents. Manipulating people closest to them for their own motives/gain, or even worse, believing their own innocence, in their own twisted reality. To have such power over people, bend their thinking to yours… is absolutely a terrifying thought for me. It’s almost like losing your own identity and substituting someone else’s idea of who you are, what you should be,and how you should think, as your own state of mind.

It was an excellently heart-wrenching book; I got rather teary in it several times. I loved Oates’ writing style, the way she conveyed the emotions running rampaged, the characters she detailed. I loved how it drew me in, how it made me question my views on life.

Freaky Green Eyes ~ Joyce Carol Oates
Published by HarperTempest in 2003
ISBN 0066237599 (Hardcover, 341 pages)

The Tin Princess (Philip Pullman) was beautifully told and I wanted a happy, fairytale ending – a Hollywood ending that we’ve all come to maybe secretly want, but hate. (Tom Cruise should never have been left living in The Last Samurai for example)

I guess it was a happy ending of sorts, but I left me wanting more – I guess he’s leaving the door opened for more adventures for the protagonists, as I rightfully suspected and guessed, he had written books prior to The Tin Princess that had featured these protagonists, or rather protagonist-turned-supporting-characters. *sighs* Because I’m pedantic, I was slightly annoyed that I started “in the middle of the series” (so to speak, as the prior books turn out to be a trilogy and this is just a… umm spin off? Kind of?).

Here is another author who’s written a book that wickedly pulls me into its reality, not wanting to leave, wanting to help out and set things right. Pullman is an exceptional storyteller, making things seem believable and not too overly fantastic that it couldn’t happen in real life. Hehe, rather you would want it to happen!

Looking forward to read that trilogy (i.e. Sally Lockheart Trilogy) and “His Dark Materials” trilogy.

The Tin Princess ~ Philip Pullman
Published by Scholastic Ltd in 2004
ISBN 0439977797 (Paperback, 277 pages)

of coldplay, gorillapod, and soggy weetbix

On 21 October 2005, Corporal Cow and floopyj bought 4 Coldplay tickets: B Reserve seats, section 34, Row A, Seats 11-14. There were lots of excitment and a few bemoans about how long it would be until the actual night: Wednesday, 28 June 2006.

Most of us had totally forgotten about it til the weekend before, realising that the day we’ve been waiting for was almost upon us. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited and hyped up… but all was “full of sound and fury,signifying nothing”, as we were pretty lacking in the organisation department. Myle and Corp. Cow pretty much polished off 2 bottles of wine between them during dinner @ Menya and was a tad “happy” whilst waiting in the queue.

The opening act was Youth Group, who had already started playing as people were filing in. We really wanted to hear them play “Forever Young” and fretted that they had already played it. Our concerns were for naught, as we heard the familiar chords wafting on the expectant crowd. There was a crazy burst of cheering, screaming, and whooping.

Their other songs weren’t too bad either, quite mellowing. =)

But then, when their time was up… we waited for a whole hour for Coldplay to appear. Floopyj almost fell asleep and I was right on her tail. hehe

The crowd went mad when they finally did appear, us included. There were lots of screaming. They were great performers, drawing in the crowd. Chris Martin was pretty funny – he stuffed up twice in two songs and made jokes at his own expense… especially when he tried to bust a balloon with his guitar, but it bounced off. Heheh cute…

We were sorry when it was all over, especially when he ran up to a section of seated audience!!! We were kinda cursing that we got the seats we were in hehe. They played most of our favourite songs, and we left satisfied with a smile plastered on our faces.

Saturday night saw us at The White Horse in Surrey Hills for a friend’s farewell drinks thingy. It’s a pretty place. I just wanted to blog about it so I can put up the pretty pictures I took with my gorillapod and camera attached. I love gorillapod.

After The White Horse, BM raced over to this Korean BBQ place in Belfield. The meat was quite delish, while the other food were so-so. All-you-can-eat for 26 bucks. Some said it wasn’t worth it… mebbe it was because the fire under our hot plate thingy kept going out, before finally it went *poof*…. *white plume of smoke* T_T

Yup, it blew a fuse, but it kept working after he put in lots of wood =D Yay! I was so stuffed.

We went to have ice-cream somewhere in Concorde. We were all freezing our butts off, but it was pretty fun, just bumming around and chatting about silly things ^_^

After waiting 3 months for the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (it was on “request” @ Bonnyrigg library – there were like 6 ppl on the waitin list before me T_T), I FINALLY and happily borrowed it today. While digging into my Weetbix quickly before it could suck up all the milk, I opened up the book tingling with a quiet excitment and anticipation.

I read the first couple of boxes before placing the event at the middle of the movie. Then I noticed something… something that sends a chill down a bookworm’s spine and strikes fear into their heart… being able to see the book’s bindings. It’s like someone breaking their leg and seeing their white bone protruding from their skin.

My eyes quickly darted to the top of the page… A bold “83″ was printed there. “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,” I wailed. I cursed the person who lost 82 pages, I cursed the kinds of people who are destructive and uncaring of public property, I cursed my luck. I realised that if I had bought the book when I wanted to, I would have already received it, read it, and basked in its glory. *shakes fist*

I put an order for it @ Abebooks and belatedly remembered about my Weetbix. Daym. It had sucked up all the milk -_-

On a bittersweet note, I have finally managed to get my grubby hands on “The Thief Lord” by Cornelia Funke, which has been on my “to read” list for a loooong while but never could find it in the library, and a couple of Phillip Pullman’s books. w00t!