Books – Ripple Effects

Japanese Literature Challenge 17: Keigo Higashino’s Latest, ‘The Final Curtain’

Keigo Higashino is a prolific writer, more than sixty novels published and not only in the mystery genre, yet only thirteen have been translated into English. The Final Curtain is his latest, albeit it was published in Japan in 2014. English version by Giles Murray in 2023.

Thanks to Bellezza for hosting Japanese Literature Challenge for the seventeenth year, I get the chance to read this book with her. Yes, she has been my read-along pal all through my blogging years, dating way back to Midnight’s Children in 2012, and later Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, just to name a few.

Now, to Higashino. In The Final Curtain, something hits home for Detective Kaga, for it involves the death of his mother, who had deserted his father and him when he was a teenager. We learn that years ago Kaga knows of his mother’s mysterious death in the city of Sendai from an unknown woman who opens a bar there. That begins the rich and multi-layered story. As it turns out, the person that secretly releases the information to the bar owner is tied to at least two deaths in Tokyo in present day, weaving up a complex net of stories and family relations.

Yes, it’s sometimes confusing trying to figure out which character is which, for the names can be hard to distinguish. Be glad that the translator has a list of characters in the first page of the book where you can always turn to refresh your memory. The middle part could make a reader feel sluggish somewhat, but don’t get bogged down by it because this part sets the stage for a page-turning last section. Beginning with Chapter 22, there’s a dramatic switch in character description and perspective, you’ll be hooked to find out what had happened years ago that had led to the present day behaviour and demeanor of the characters.

Once again, Kaga comes through as a deep thinking, rational, and very clever young man. I don’t think of him as “A modern-day Poirot” as the description says on the book cover. Why, Kaga is a broad shouldered man with an impressive physique and in this book, a notable point and a crucial thread to the mystery is that Kaga is a kendo (Japanese sword) champion.

Every time I read Higashino I’m not only intrigued by the interwoven plot and the connections of characters, but the cultural aspects he presents during his storytelling. One notable point here is the importance of early school life has on the characters, and how readily old school mates are able to recall past events of students and teachers. People do have great memory power in Higashino’s novels.

Another aspect of Japanese culture I specifically look for is what the characters eat and drink. I’ve always had my eyes peeled to note Higashino’s description of Japanese food. Kaga and his detective cousin Matsumiya like to exchange info over beer. And what goes with it? “Matsumiya popped a few beans into his mouth and took a swig of beer as he contemplated his cousin.” And Kaga “shoveled some simmered burdock into his mouth with his chopsticks.” I admit I’ve to Google what burdock is. Other culinary delights mentioned are sashimi, grilled fish, tofu and rolled omelet.

I’d rate The Final Curtain to be one of my favourite Higashino mysteries, together with The Devotion of Suspect X. While it reveals the causes of the three major deaths in Tokyo, the ending of The Final Curtain gives me a feeling of ‘to be continued’, as the mystery of Kaga’s mother still lingers in my mind. I look forward eagerly to more Higanshino to be translated soon.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

Other Keigo Higashino Ripple reviews:

JLC16: The Swan and The Bat

The Devotion of Suspect X

Newcomer

Books to kick off 2024

Before talking about the top movies of 2023 and the upcoming Oscars nominations later this month, let me start off with books. The first two below I’ve just finished, the rest are TBR ‘on my night table.’

The first book I finished this year is Nita Prose’s The Mystery Guest, her sequel to The Maid, which has brought a fresh take on the mystery genre. Very original, funny, and with a warm touch of human kindness. Molly Gray, now head maid of the Regency Grand Hotel, owes a lot to her upbringing by her grandmother, who had instilled in her a positive outlook, proper etiquette, fearless honesty, and a love of learning. Her innate talent for language and vocabulary surprisingly help her with crime solving while diligently fulfilling her duties at the Regency Grand.

Between Two Kingdoms: a Memoir of Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad. I came across this book while writing my review of American Symphony, the documentary on musician Jon Batiste who married Jaouad in 2022. Jaouad had gone through years of gruelling chemo-therapy and other treatments including bone marrow transplant for her acute myeloid leukemia diagnosed when she was 22. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jaouad herself, with short musical interludes by Batiste. In her calm and clear voice, Jaouad chronicles her excruciating experiences of physical torments, the inner conflicts they bring, and her courageous road trip across the country to visit other sufferers. Poignant and inspiring.

I’ll be joining the Japanese Literature Challenge this month, the 17th year Bellezza has been hosting. This time, I’ll be reading together with Bellezza The Final Curtain, the latest Keigo Higashino’s novels translated into English. This one features Detective Kaga and a revealing of the family secret and mystery behind his mother who had left him and her husband sixteen years ago when Kaga was a teenager. I’ve just finished the first two chapters and it has already captivated me. Another intriguing read by the prolific mystery writer Higashino.

1937 Club sounds alluring. That’s the reading challenge hosted by Simon, and this year it’s reading books published in 1937. Why, I’ve got one on my shelf which I’ve not yet read and the year was right on, published in 1937: Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, real name Karen Blixen. After watching the movie many years ago, I’d always wanted to read the book. What is it really like in the literary landscape without the images of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford emerging in my mind whenever I think of the title.

Last year I ‘discovered’ Elif Batuman, read her two novels The Idiot (2017) and Either/Or (2022). The former was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Autobiographical, these two books are based on the life of a young woman entering Harvard with eye-opening and mind-boggling episodes. Academic and intellectual subjects are involved as well as a crush and the vain search for true love, but what stands out in Batuman’s writing is her humor. Pleasant surprises come with laughing out loud while reading. Recently I bought The Possessed, her first book (2010) –– couldn’t resist the book cover–– a collection of essays about her experiences in her specialization, Russian literature.

Another book cover I simply couldn’t resist while browsing in a bookstore. No, not Manga or graphic novel, but Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. I read it years ago but forgot most of it. What an interesting book cover. If you enlarge the picture you can see there are bubble dialogues. I’m just too curious to see how the publisher ‘reconciles’ the stream of consciousness content with the comic book like cover. But maybe no need to, after all, it’s a postmodern age we’re in.

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. My main interest is in its storyline of English writer William Somerset Maugham visiting Malaya during the 1920’s, at that time a British colony. I’d watched biographical video on WSM on YouTube and learned that his personal secretary/companion who was with him in his travels to Malaya held a deceitful agenda which ultimately ruined Maugham’s financial assets and alienated him from his family at the end of his life. Just wonder how Tan tells his story re. the relationship between the two.

The Everyman Chesterton. From the Everyman’s Library, the 899 page volume includes some essential reads of the English writer, philosopher, Christian thinker, arts and literary critic G. K. Chesterton: his Autobiography, Biography of Charles Dickens, Commentary on the Victorian Age in Literature, Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, St. Thomas Aquinas, Father Brown Stories and Poems. I won’t be reading all of these but will definitely select some of these classic works to explore.

The Hemingway Stories, a book gifted to me which was purchased at the Hemingway House in Key West, Florida. Some of the stories I’d read before, but definitely a memorable collection of the nineteen notable stories from 1923 to 1936, including The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Killers, The Three Day Blow, and for me to reread A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, and Hills like White Elephants.

The Plays of Anton Tchekov which includes ‘The Sea Gull,’ ‘The Cherry Orchard,’ ‘Three Sisters,’ ‘Uncle Vanya.’ Also a gift to me, and what’s significant about this volume is that it’s a Modern Library, New York edition with a Preface written by Eva Le Gallienne (1899-1991) in the year 1929. Gallienne I just checked was a classic herself, British-American stage actress, producer, director, author, translator. Would this be considered a rare book?

The Netflix Diversion

As two of my highly anticipated movies (see my list here) coming out in the fall will be on Netflix: Maestro and NYAD, I just can’t resist anymore. Three days ago I decided to subscribe to Netflix. While waiting for these two movies to show up, I’ve got plenty of others to watch. These past few days, I’ve finished a few. Yes… daily life has been a bit diverted. My capsule reviews in the following. All three TV series are worth watching and the doc on Joan Didion, a must-see.

BEEF –– A road rage incident pushes two lives down the abyss of rage and revenge which ultimately torpedoes into an explosive meltdown. The fight between Amy Lau (Ali Wong), an entrepreneur, wife and mother living in an upper middle class neighborhood and her adversary Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), a handyman striving to make ends meet as a dutiful son and watchful older brother is not only a satire of the disparity between the rich and the poor, but a realistic depiction of the existential angsts shared by all regardless of social and economic status, or, as the series has effectively shown, racial background. Highly addictive, cleverly written and first-rate acting. 13 Primetime Emmy Awards nominations.

The Diplomat –– Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is appointed by the POTUS (Michael McKean) as the new ambassador to the United Kingdom, a post she reluctantly takes up. With her previous experience in war-torn countries and Afghanistan which she expects to return, her new post in London is a major cultural clash, hence resulting in some mismatched decorum and humorous moments. Adding to her maladjustment and complicating matters when dealing with volatile, international crises is her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), himself the former ambassador to the UK. The once political influencer now has to take up the role as a diplomat’s wife in a precarious marriage. Interesting play on gender politics, marital/power relationships, on top of intense, political chess play. Russell is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in the upcoming Emmy Awards, deservedly. Interesting to note some of the language used here is quite similar to the rage-filled one in BEEF.

The Lincoln Lawyer –– I pick up from the current Season 3. While I like Michael Connelly’s character, former LAPD detective Harry Bosch, more than his Mickey Haller, a lawyer who works out of a Lincoln dealing with seedy clients, I’ve enjoyed the TV adaptation. Haller, aptly played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, is a pleasing yet complex character, resourceful, smart, an upholder of the law but has his blind spots. As a recovering addict, vulnerability coexists with his assets. Other characters are also well cast, jumping out of Connelly’s novels to become well fleshed-out and likable human beings (we just might be using this term more now to distinguish between the real and the fake), making up a lively supporting cast. Interesting to note that in the 10 episodes of S3, despite dealing with crimes and criminals, the language used is relatively free of foul play.

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Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold

Directed by Griffin Dunne, actor/director and Joan Didion’s nephew, this brief, biographical documentary of Didion follows her career and life during some of America’s tumultuous decades. Dunne’s interviews with her aunt elicit some intimate conversation and poignant memories from Didion, by now frail and with apparent impediment. An astute observer of society, Didion had given us some monumental commentaries of her times with her writings. Listening to the narration in the documentary and seeing the iconic photos and footage of significant turns of history, Didion’s analyses just as well could have applied to our world today, just as she has quoted in her Slouching Towards Bethlehem the line in Yeats’s poem: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

The latter part of the documentary is about Didion’s own personal tragedy, chronicling the sudden death of her husband John Gregory Dunne and just months later, her daughter Quintana, her grief poured out in The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights. English playwright David Hare had been her anchor in transforming mourning and loss into artistic expression on stage, giving her some sort of a closure. Hare directs the Broadway play adaptation of The Year of Magical Thinking with Vanessa Redgrave as the sole performer. Redgrave shared a similar experience as her daughter Natasha Richardson died suddenly after a ski accident. The documentary has kept a short clip from the play and presented personal recollections from Hare and those close to her life, friends and colleagues. A poignant and moving feature.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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Related Posts on Ripple Effects:

Blue Nights: A Book Review

Voice of the Poet: Things Fall Apart

Upcoming Books to Screen Reading List

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Towles’ 2016 novel is currently filming and will likely come out at the end of 2023 or early 2024. Ewan McGregor plays Count Alexander Rostov who, in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, is kept under house arrest in at the Metropol Hotel across the street from the Kremlin, a sentence laid down by a Bolshevik tribunal. The book is developed into an 8-episode TV series on Amazon. Quite an original story idea and the dramatization will likely liven up the seemingly mundane life of the aristocrat banished to the servants quarter of a luxury hotel.

Caste: The Origin of our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

Oscar-nominated Ava DuVernay is producing, directing and writing the screen adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s critically acclaimed non-fiction work, using a multiple story structure to investigate the ‘unspoken system that has shaped America and chronicles how lives today are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions dating back generations.’ DuVernay has been a powerful filmmaker and spokesperson probing systemic inequality, the nation’s discriminatory past and present. Her works include Selma (2014), 13^th (2016), and When They See Us (2019). Caste will be a Netflix movie.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

The memoir of the lead musician of the indie pop band Japanese Breakfast is Goodreads Choice Awards for Memoir in 2022. Zauner movingly describes how she comes to terms with her identity as a Korean-American when she goes back to her root in Oregon to care for her mother suffering from terminal cancer. Music and food strengthen their bond. The actor in The White Lotus and director of The Electrical Life of Louis Wain Will Sharpe will direct. A casting call went out on Twitter to play Zauner on screen. Just a thought… Zauner could be a prime candidate to play herself.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

Where there’s oil, there will be blood. One of the most-touted movies of 2023 is this adaptation of the non-fiction book by Grann, winner of the 2018 Edgar Award. Grann chronicles the discovery of oil in the Osage County in Oklahoma where several of the natives there were murdered. The Osage Murders is the newly created FBI’s first big case, with its young director J. Edgar Hoover rising to the challenge. Premiered at Cannes in May and under the helm of Martin Scorsese, with a superb cast with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Brandon Fraser, Jesse Plemon, John Lithgow, and Tantoo Cardinal, herself a highly decorated Canadian aboriginal actress, the movie will be nothing short of epic.

Mrs. March by Virginia Feito

Reads like a Patricia Highsmith psychological novel with a touch of mystery… in particular, Edith’s Diary. Suspense novels nowadays often feature an unreliable narrator stringing out a sequence of events and perceptions that blur the line between reality and the delusionary. Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss’s new production company is developing the movie and Moss will play the title character. I’ve listened to the audiobook and look forward to seeing how Moss portrays the internal multiverse of Mrs. March. The old classic The Three Faces of Eve (1957) comes to mind. Feito is writing the screenplay.

Idaho by Emily Ruskovich

Ruskovich is an O. Henry Prize winner and this her debut novel has garnered praises on its originality, masterful language and imagery. A family spending a hot August day in an Idaho mountain collecting birch wood faces a fateful turn in their lives. A psychological thriller exploring dementia and its ripple effects. The New Yorker review has this powerful statement: ‘The book is also an affecting portrait of how love can endure when memory fails.’ This one is high on my TBR list. Another title Elizabeth Moss’s new production company is developing.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

2022 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction. Here’s another example of some outstanding Asian American writers and artists not known for their mixed racial roots and identity but have approached the subject in their novels nonetheless. Zevin, whose mother is Korean and father Jewish, touches on such an issue from an original and fresh perspective: two young people meet in the real world of video game creation. I’ve listened to the audiobook and found it to be one of the most unique and interesting reads I’ve come across in recent years. Zevin’s other book The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is now streaming on various platforms.

The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

British writer Martin Amis’s 2015 Walter Scott Prize winning novel is turned into a film directed by Jonathan Glazer. Premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and garnering the Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Prize. The story is a macabre juxtaposition of horror and a love affair. The commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Höss, and his wife strive to build an idyllic family home situated right next to the death camp. To add to the horrific irony and complexity, a Nazi official has an affair with the commandant’s wife. Critics have cited Amis’s book as a very different Holocaust novel, and the movie has now become a notable in the 2023 international awards circuit.

Emily Henry’s Books to Screen

For beach read fans, summer reading has to include Emily Henry’s novels. If you’re a fan of hers and like to see her works on screen, here’s the good news: all three of Henry’s popular books are in development into rom-coms:

People We Meet on Vacation
The 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards for Romance Novel is to be directed by Brett Haley. Screenwriter Yulin Kuang’s adapted script has already received endorsement and high praise from Henry herself.

Book Lovers
Two years in a row, Henry won the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards for Romance with Book Lovers, perhaps a contemporary queen of the genre? Sarah Heyward is set to write the script, movie will be produced by Tango (Aftersun, 2022)

Beach Read
Just announced is that the Emmy nominated writer director Yulin Kuang, screenwriter for People We Meet on Vacation, is taking the helm to write and direct Beach Read, Henry’s third popular fiction to be transported onto screen. Contemporary rom-com, breezy, light, and… will it re-create the wave that Nora Ephron was once so well-known for?

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‘Foster’ by Claire Keegan

Reading Ireland Month 2023 has led me to the short stories by Claire Keegan. I’m excited for this ‘new discovery’. Keegan’s is the kind of writing I admire, sparse but telling, simple prose revealing deep emotional undercurrents.

“Foster” the short story written by Keegan first appeared in The New Yorker. It was later published as a standalone work in book form in 2010. Keegan in an interview had stressed that it was not a novella but a long short story. The book cover in the photo is a new edition that came out in 2022.

The story is written from the point of view of a young girl from an impoverished family, both materially and emotionally. She is sent far away to stay with her mother’s sister Edna and her husband John Kinsella for the summer to lift the burden off her busy mother who has a house full of children and one more expecting. The Kinsellas are childless and live in a farm house in rural Wexford county.

The age of the girl isn’t mentioned, most probably around eight or nine. Interesting too that her name isn’t mentioned except just a few times, Petal, maybe giving a sense of the neglect she has been having all her young life. The title is ironic, I find, for the word foster often comes in contradiction in a lesser sense, or secondary, to natural birth parents. But here during her short stay at the Kinsellas, the girl has made new discoveries she has not experienced before, what it means to be loved and cared for, and begins to learn kindness and self-worth. Moreover, she is also exposed to the complexity and the dark range in the adult world, the loss and pain that come with life.

Foster has been adapted into film with the new title The Quiet Girl. It is Ireland’s official entry to the 95^thAcademy Awards held this past Sunday, a nominee in the Best International Feature category, with its language being Irish (Gaelic). I still haven’t the chance to watch it, now a must-see movie for me. Hopefully I can watch it soon before the Reading Ireland event ends.

When I read “Foster”, I noticed that Keegan’s style is an exemplar of that writing advice we hear often: show, not tell. In some passages, Keegan instills in my mind visuals like watching a scene in a good film, actions and nuanced expressions speak clearly in depicting the characters with no need for dialogues. A couple of examples:

Here’s when the girl and his father whom she calls Da have a meal with the Kinsellas after he has dropped her off before heading right back home:

When we sit in at the table, Da reaches for the beetroot. He doesn’t use the little serving fork but pitches it onto the plate with his own. It stains the pink ham, bleeds.

Here’s another example, when Edna brings into her house some fresh rhubarb stalks from her garden for the girl’s father to bring home:

My father takes the rhubarb from her, but it is awkward as a baby in his arms. A stalk falls to the floor and then another. He waits for her to pick it up, to hand it to him. She waits for him to do it. Neither one of them will budge. In the end, it’s Kinsella who stoops to lift it.

‘There now,’ he says.

Just this short description has revealed the character and the relational dynamics among the three adults. Furthermore, these two passages also tell much about the girl, deep within her reticence, she is observant, precocious, and the reader can assume too that she must be eager to experience what’s waiting for her in the days ahead living with these two ‘foster parents’ for the summer.

The Kinsellas hold a family secret, one that’s heavy in their heart and mind, albeit unspoken. Again, Keegan’s writing comes through with subtle yet powerful revealing. The girl learns of their past from a nosy neighbour, and that is a moment of awakening for her. What happens later in the climax I will not spoil anyone’s reading pleasure. However, John Kinsella’s kind words to her observing her quiet demeanour earlier in the story, we know the girl will keep close to her heart for a long time:

‘You don’t ever have to say anything,’ he says. ‘Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

As she mulls over the Kinsella’s hidden past, and her own experience while staying with them, she is now empowered by love and loyalty to keep silent that which needs to be kept in confidence. The girl might be reticent, but the single word she utters ending the story is most poignant and heart-wrenching. Again, Keegan has used the minimal to bring her readers to the depths of pathos and meaning.

~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

This is my second post in participation in the Reading Ireland Month hosted by Cathy 746 Books.

Previous post: The Banshees of Inisherin Movie Review

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JLC 16: The Swan and the Bat by Keigo Higashino

Take this as a preview rather than a review. Why, this book has not been translated into English yet. The prominent Japanese mystery writer Keigo Higashino has written more than sixty novels but only eleven had been translated and published in English so far.

The latest, A Death in Tokyo, was published in Dec. 2022 by Minotaur Books. Its original Japanese title 麒麟の翼 (The Wing of the Kirin) was actually published in Japan more than ten years ago in 2011. I’ve read eight of Higashino’s translated mystery, including A Death in Tokyo. So, after finishing it, I thought I would have to wait a few years before I have the chance to devour another.

That’s why I couldn’t believe what I found when I came across The Swan and the Bat in our local library. Not sure if it’s Higashino’s latest but it was published in Japan in 2021, and translated into Traditional Chinese language published in Taiwan in 2022. And it’s brand new, beautiful and untouched in its transparent plastic wrap.

Here’s the synopsis of the story. A respected lawyer in Tokyo is murdered. Not long after that, a man goes to the police and gives himself up, confessing that he’s the murderer and not only that, revealing that he had committed a previous unsolved murder thirty years ago. The novel touches on issues such as the propriety of the statute of limitations, and the impact of crime on the victim’s family as well as the culprit’s. The puzzling thing is, why does this man take the initiative to go to the police and offer his confession on both crimes?

Not sure what the future English translation will be like but reading the Chinese version, there are words and concepts we seldom find in mystery novels written in English: sin and redemption, guilt and forgiveness, and the readiness to offer apology. Characters are bound more by their conscience than the law. In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskalnikov gets away with murder for a while, trying to rationalize his way out of psychological torments. Higashino’s character does not rationalize but sacrifice.

A thoroughly intriguing read. Different from previous Higashino’s novels in that The Swan and the Bat has a more contemporary setting where social media plays a major role in the court of public opinion, radiating added pain in the victim’s and the perpetrator’s family. Rather than depending on the police to solve the crimes, two people from families on opposing sides of the adversarial legal system play Sherlock on their own, making the novel more complex and captivating.

If this will be translated into English in the future, I would not hesitate to read it again. The Swan and the Bat (title might be changed in the English version) has become my best Keigo Higashino book replacing The Devotion of Suspect X which sits securely in second place.

Thank you to Dolce Bellezza for hosting Japanese Literature Challenge for the sixteenth year.

Reading the Season: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s God is in the Manger

Reading the Season is an annual post on Ripple Effects in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Christmas festivities. An interlude to find rest and to ponder on the reason for the season. Lately, I reread the popular fiction All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr; my mind is haunted by the horrors of a world war raged by a madman. And then I came across this book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections of Advent and Christmas. What a timely discovery!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in WWII Germany. A brilliant intellectual who received his doctorate from the University of Berlin at age 21, Bonhoeffer bravely stood against Hitler, involved in the Resistance, captured, imprisoned, and paid the ultimate price. He was hanged at the Flossenbürg prison on April 9, 1945, just two weeks before the Allies marched in, and three weeks before Hitler took his own life.

Here are a few excerpts from Bonhoeffer’s God is in the Manger:

The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty… Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world… It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.

Replace the word mystery with miracle…

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Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous… God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

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God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.

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For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep in their souls from which they shy away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ.

And you think he’s intense and serious, well, yes he is, brilliant in insights and brave to speak truth to power. But from his other writings, there’s also humour, equally enlightening. Here’s a quote taken from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. (Click on the link to my read-along post)

If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.

Have a restful and joyous Christmas Season!

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Reading the Season in Previous Years:

2021: Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

2020: Jack by Marilynne Robinson

2019: ‘A Hidden Life’ – A Film for the Season

2018: A Verse from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season

2017: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

2016: Silence by Shusaku Endo

2015: The Book of Ruth

2014: Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2013: Poetry by Madeleine L’Engle

2012: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

2011: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

2010: A Widening Light by Luci Shaw

2009: The Irrational Season by Madeleine L’Engle

2008: The Bible and the New York Times by Fleming Rutledge

2008: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

Books to Screen Adaptations 2023 and Beyond

Like to read the book first before watching the movie adaptation in the theatre or streaming? Here’s a new list.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner is being developed into a Netflix mini-series. To seek authentic representation, the filmmakers embarked on a global search for a blind actor to play Marie-Laure, one of the two main characters in the historical novel set in WWII. Penn State doctoral student Aria Mia Loberti won the casting call. An outstanding academic achiever, this will be Loberti’s acting debut.

A Man Called Otto (Ove) by Fredrik Backman

The English version of the heartwarming Swedish novel-turned-movie A Man Called Ove, about a grumpy old man’s suicide attempt being disrupted by his boisterous new neighbours. The title character’s name is changed to a relatively more common name and will be played by an even more familiar name, Tom, Tom Hanks.

A Haunting in Venice (Hallowe’en Party) by Agatha Christie

The adaptation of Hercule Poirot’s 32nd mystery will be directed by once again, Kenneth Branagh, his third Poirot role, after Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. Set in post WWII Venice where the renowned detective finds himself again as an accidental sleuth in a murder mystery. An eclectic cast with Kelly Reilly (abrasive Yellowstone schemer), James Dornan (no shade), Tina Fey (no kidding), and Michelle Yeoh (for kicks?)

A Time for Mercy by John Grisham

A sequel to Grisham’s debut novel A Time to Kill (1989). Matthew McConaughey will reprise his role as lawyer Jake Brigance, from the 1996 movie adaptation. A Time for Mercy (2020) is Grisham’s third Brigance novel after Sycamore Row (2013). It will be adapted into an HBO series.

The Ambassadors by Henry James

In pre-production and to be directed by Mike Newell whose filmography include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Great Expectations, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, among 78 titles, which means, he can do rom coms and literary adaptations. The heavy and serious Henry James just might get a makeover under the helm of Newell. I have this book on my shelf, now’s a good time to dust it off.

The Critic (Curtain Call) by Anthony Quinn

A crime thriller in a theatre setting. According to IMDb, it’s a story of ambition, blackmail and desire… a whodunnit wrapped in a Faustian pact. And the cast just makes it hard to resist: Leslie Manville, Gemma Arterton, Romola Garai, Mark Strong, Ian McKellen, Ben Barnes. Directed by Anand Tucker (Girl with a Pearl Earring)

The Maid by Nita Prose

The popular novel would make one entertaining movie. Molly Gray, a maid in a luxury hotel, is caught in a web of a murder mystery, her innocence and pure heart is no defence from the accusations and schemes of the real world. Many readers and reviewers place her in an autistic spectrum but I just see her as the female version of Sheldon Cooper (of The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon). Florence Pugh (Oscar nom for her role as Amy in Little Women, 2019) is on board to play Molly, a good choice.

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai’s own production company, Extracurricular, is in talks to adapt Chou’s debut novel for an Apple TV+ series. That’s a most interesting combination of talents. Book is a satire, yes, LOL humour at times, about a Taiwanese American doctoral student playing literary sleuth and trying to stay afloat in the turbulent academic sea. Reminds me of Sandra Oh in The Chair.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah’s worldwide bestseller about two estranged sisters during the German occupation of France in WWII will be played by real life sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning, each a star in their own right. Its release had been delayed, but might not need to wait till 2023. The latest info is late December, 2022.

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Upcoming Remakes:

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carr´é

One Day by David Nicholls

Proust and the Multiverse

A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see in the same aspect as the things of Earth. The only true voyage… would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is.

This could be taken as dialogues from Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, or, Everything Everywhere All At Once, both 2022 movies flying high on the trending theme of multiple universes. But of course, the excerpt is Proust’s, and the universes he refers to are internal ones.

The above quote is taken from In Search of Lost Time Volume V: The Captive and The Fugitive (343), as the narrator Marcel acknowledges the infinite views that can arise from personal experiences of different individuals filtered through their own subjective lens. There are as many viewpoints as there are people, therefore, every object or event can evoke a variety of perspectives and responses. Subjectivity is Proust’s master stroke. Take this other excerpt from the same volume. As Marcel awakens in the morning:

… from my bed, I hear the world awake, now to one sort of weather, now to another! Yes, I have been forced to whittle down the facts, and to be a liar, but it is not one universe, but millions, almost as many as the number of human eyes and brains in existence, that awake every morning. (V:250)

Today, November 18^th, is the centenary of Proust’s death at the age of 51 (1871-1922). A look at his contemporaries could help us place him in a historical context and probably source the influence of his introspective sensitivity and his ultra-reflexive writing. Again, the disclaimer here is that, I’m no Proust scholar… mere ripples out of my own tiny universe. I can think of the following iconic figures as I consider the historical context of Proust’s writing.

It was the era of psychoanalysis. I’m sure Freud (1856-1939) would have been eager to apply his own theory to explain the case of Marcel’s longing for his mother’s goodnight kiss as he lies in bed waiting for her to come up to his room every night. And then there was Carl Jung, (1875 – 1961), whose theory on personality and the unconscious could have sparked some light into Marcel’s epiphany of the involuntary memories: ephemeral flashbacks that fuel his imaginative mind with creative thoughts. It’s such kind of subliminal emergence of Time past that fills him with joy and meaning.

And of course, there are the other writers whom Marcel has mentioned in the book, Henry James (1843-1916) whose brother is also a prominent psychologist of the time, William James (1842-1910), across the Atlantic. Another notable, Marcel’s enthusiasm is heightened when talking about Dostoevsky (1821-1881), the master of characterizing the human psyche.

And what’s with all the space travel idea, flying from star to star, while the Wright brothers had just successfully flown the very first aeroplane only in 1903? Huge imagination and insight for one to think of multiverses at that time. I’m not sure what the original French word is. Those who read In Search of Lost Time in French, is the word the same as its English translation, ‘universe’? (V: 250, 343)

Reading this sparked a personal flashback as I remember my experience of visiting “The Infinity Mirrored Room” created by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto a few years ago. Infinite reflections from these tiny silver balls:

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Having said all the above about Proust’s sensitivity to subjective universes, here’s the rub. It is utterly ironic that these insights are taken from Volume V: The Captive and The Fugitive. Why, here in this volume, Marcel has taken Albertine captive in his parents’ home where he stays while in Paris. He first met Albertine in Balbec; she has now become his lover/mistress. No, she isn’t in chains, but the restraints Marcel puts on her is psychological rather than physical. He tracks her every move, “whenever the door opened I gave a start.” (494) In reality, there just might be two captives in that house, Albertine and Marcel himself, both caught in a psychological tug of war, maintaining a fragile relationship based on lies and evasiveness.

As much as he knows about his own thoughts and feelings, or even that of his housekeeper Francoise’s, Marcel’s empathy does not extend to Albertine’s universe. He might think his keeping her in his house is for her own good, “to save her from her orgiastic life which Albertine had led before she met me.” (474). Yet his ‘love’ for her is built upon his own possessiveness and jealousy; his displeasure with her intensifies when he learns it’s with other women that she seeks intimacy. Eventually, fleeing a stifling life, gasping for the air of freedom, Albertine leaves the house abruptly one morning. The captive now becomes the fugitive.

The events that follow are like a test of Marcel’s love for Albertine, showing if it is genuine or merely self-indulgence, egotism, or even just lust. Spoiler Alert from here on.

Marcel has never gone out to look for the fugitive. Until one day, he gets the news that Albertine has died in a horse-riding accident. Surely there is grief and pain in the immediate aftermath, but what does he miss most? “I needed her presence, her kisses.” (642) While he goes on to reminisce the good and the bad sides of Albertine, not long after that he has given her up for another:

The memory of Albertine had become so fragmentary that it no longer caused me any sadness and was no more now than a transition to fresh desires, like a chord which announces a change of key. And indeed, any idea of a passing sensual whim being ruled out, in so far as I was still faithful to Albertine’s memory, I was happier at having Andrée in my company than I would have been at having an Albertine miraculously restored… my tenderness for her, both physically and emotionally, had already vanished. (809-810)

“like a chord which announces a change of key…” O the fickleness of desire! The deceits of hidden motives and the capricious emotion one calls love. Marcel might be insightful in acknowledging multiple universes within individuals, pure love remains elusive. Dr. Strange crushes his enemies from the multiverse spectacularly, but the beast that lurks within oneself might be more formidable a foe to conquer.

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In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust: A Movie Reviewer’s Long Take

“Life is too short, and Proust is too long.” – Anatole France, French writer and poet

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Nobel laureate Anatole France died in 1924, three years short of seeing the publication of the complete seven volumes of Proust’s autobiographical novel In Search of Lost Time.

My reading journey began in 2013 when I read the first two volumes, Swann’s Way and Within a Budding Grove, as a Read Along on Ripple Effects. For reasons I can’t recall, it took me a few years to get through the third volume The Guermantes Way, finishing at the beginning of 2018. After that, I thought, that would be all for me.

I’m glad I came across Emma’s Book Around the Corner in January of this year to learn that 2022 is the Centenary of Proust’s death (July 10, 1871 – Nov. 18, 1922). That prodded me to finish up the remaining three volumes. Also, since I own the Modern Library six-volume box set, I hate to see it as just a decorative item, however smart it does look.

So glad I finally finish the last three volumes this year in nine months, just in time for the centenary of Proust’s death in November: Vol. IV Sodom and Gomorrah, Vol. V The Captive and The Fugitive (originally in two volumes), and Vol. VI Time Regained. For me, a hobby Proust reader, not until I come to the last volume Time Regained do I realize the significance of the first three volumes and why Proust writes in such minute details about the narrator’s childhood and youthful experiences.

There are many websites and scholastic discussions on this 4,300 page autobiographical novel. Instead of summarizing––an impossible task for me––I’ll pick out those passages or ideas that have stirred up some ripples within me filtered through the lens of a movie reviewer, hopefully offering something that’s different and easy to chew.

At the end of Volume VI there are over 200 pages listing characters, places, and themes. Some of the subjects in the 44 pages of Index to Themes include beauty, brothels, dreams, literature, language, music, painting, politics, the Dreyfus Affair, anti-semitism, war, love, sexuality, old age, death… just to name a few. Imagine you’re standing by a smorgasbord of a huge array of culinary offerings, yes including those that are hard to digest or don’t agree with your system, and you can only eat so much, of course you would pick and choose your favourite foods. So, here’s what’s on my plate at this buffet.

In the last part of Vol. VI: Time Regained, the narrator discovers the crucial dimension of Time. Surely, Time over the years has rendered many people he has had crossed path with in his life frail and infirmed, or lost their good looks due to ageing, and some have died, like Swann. But the subliminal power of memories allows him to relive his childhood experiences once again and see these people reappear in his mind as he had known them in his youth. His memories have preserved them like they have not grown old.

So the end of this long book brings readers back to the beginning. It’s not so much about going back, but rather, bringing the past to the present as the two form a continuation of life. Yes, a virtual back to the future.

A reader bearing with him from the beginning and now reaching this eureka moment can feel the narrator’s joy in discovering this secret chamber deep in his psyche where he, unknowingly, has stored up treasured moments of his past. The length of the book could well be a virtual reality as we see his life unfold at a slow pace, then vicariously feel the joy of the discovery of this hidden, mental treasure trove years later. Sharing such ecstasy with readers has now become the purpose of his writing:

The happiness which I was feeling was a product not of a purely subjective tension of the nerves which isolated me from the past, but on the contrary of an enlargement of my mind, within which the past was re-forming and actualizing itself , giving me –– but alas! only momentarily––something whose value was eternal. This I should have liked to bequeath to those who might have been enriched by my treasure. (VI: 513)

The above quote found towards the end of the long book brings readers back to the beginning. Many movies are just like this, a bookend finish: The last scenes bring viewers back to the beginning scenes, revealing their significance and then move on to wrap up the whole work. That’s the feeling I got when reading the last volume, Time Regained. Proust brings us back to the pleasure of enjoying the madeleine soaked in tea, the ringing of the bell on the garden gate when he was a child waiting impatiently for his mother to see Swann off so she could come up to kiss him goodnight, Combray memories, the Swann and the Guermantes way––precious scenes to go one full circle back to the beginning–––to regain Time, to cherish a life in continuity. Call it the Circle of Life if you will, but to the narrator, the present has never been separated from the past.

Another ripple from my mental pond is how mindful the narrator is in his everyday living. BTW, he is also called Marcel, so I take it as Proust’s own view of things. His exceptional sensitivity and the minute details in his observation and introspection form the signature of his book.

As I read how he’d stop and see things and people with incisive perception, a movie quote comes to mind. Nope, not from any old sage but spoken time and again by a high school wise guy who wants to play hooky for a day. In a very Proustian posture, Ferris Beuller (Matthew Broderick) lies in bed one morning as he considers a good reason for skipping school that day:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you can miss it.” –– from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986, directed by John Hughes.

Ferris Bueller might not have read Proust, but just shows how relevant Proust can be in contemporary life.

Click here to the next Proust Post:
Proust and the Multiverse

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Past Proust posts on Ripple Effects:

Proust Read Along: Swann’s Way Part I, Combray

Proust Read Along: The Swann and Gatsby Foil

Proust Read Along: Within a Budding Grove

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

Paris in July: A Culinary Sojourn

In 2008, Ann Mah, food writer and Francophile wife of an American diplomat, had her deepest desire realized when her husband Calvin was appointed a post in Paris. Having moved to three different cities in the previous five years: New York, Beijing, Washington, D.C., a three-year sojourn in Paris was beyond her wildest dream.

Then came the rub. Soon after they arrived in the City of Light, Calvin was called away to another diplomatic mission: in Baghdad, Iraq, by himself for one year. Just months arriving in Paris, Ann had a taste of fate in the most ironic form: to live in her dream City, alone. She knew that would probably be the hardest year of her life.

To fight off the loneliness and isolation she was experiencing, Mah began to look to another diplomat’s wife in Paris sixty years earlier for inspiration and channel her pioneering gusto: Julia Child.

The title is a giveaway. Mastering the Art of French Eating––instead of ‘Cooking’ as Child’s book––is a humble homage to the food journalist’s heroine. While she didn’t follow Child to the prestigious culinary school Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, in her year of living in France all by herself, Mah charted her own culinary journey to various regions in the country to taste and research on the cuisine of the land. The subtitle is also enticingly delicious: Lessons in food and love from a year in Paris.

In ten chapters, Mah presents the ten places she had visited, from Paris bistros to farmhouse kitchen, haute cuisine to communal cooking, she records her experience in the specific locales and their signature dish along with historical perspective. And at the end of each chapter, the recipe:

Paris / Steak Frites
Troyes / Andouillette
Brittany / Crêpes
Lyon / Salade Lyonnaise
Provence / Soupe au Pistou
Toulouse, Castelnaudary, Carcassonne / Cassoulet
Savoie & Haute-Savoie / Fondue
Burgundy / Boeuf Bourguignon
Aveyron / Aligot

From her last name, you might also be curious about her own background. Yes, within this little food memoir are sprinkled with stories of Mah growing up Chinese American in California. While her love of France brewed very early in her life following her family tour there as a child, she wasn’t given the chance to learn the language that she loved, French, but had to go to Chinese school on Saturdays as stipulated by some sort of a ‘tiger mom’. Within these chapters, then, embeds the quest for identity and personhood. Here’s a quote that more or less sums it up:

“Diplomacy has been called the world’s second-oldest profession, and ever since the sixteenth century––and maybe even before––other wives of diplomats have endured similar existential crises, fading into obscurity while their husbands’ achievements were recorded in history. Perhaps, then, that is why I turned to Julia [Child] for inspiration… not just because she loved food, and had also lived in China, and was also a trailing spouse, just like me––but because I was looking for proof that professional success and marriage to a diplomat were not mutually exclusive.” –– P. 218

A delightful read for Paris in July and actually, anytime.

Thyme for Tea and Readerbuzz are the hosts of this annual blogging event.

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I listened to the audiobook first then read the hardcopy: Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love by Ann Mah, Viking Penguin Books, 2013. 273 pages. The audiobook is narrated by the actress Mozhan Marnò (The Blacklist, House of Cards), ideal for learning the pronunciation of the French words. Hardcopy is good for getting the recipes, and makes the narratives and anecdotes more memorable.

Top Ripples 2021

December 2021 was a hectic month, thus the delay of this year-end wrap up. 2021 was another unusual year. No in-person at a theatre to watch movies, but there were several excellent titles. Glad I could watch them online. As for books, I surprised myself as I counted over 50 books from my list on Goodreads, albeit I admit, many of them are audiobooks.

Here are the Top Ripples of my 2021. Links are to my reviews.

MOVIES

Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes in The Dig, based on an historic event in Suffolk, England, 1939.

The Dig – I’d left this one out on my last list by (a huge) mistake, now corrected. This is one of the best movies I’ve watched during the pandemic. Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes in their unusual roles based on a true, historic event. Beautifully shot.

Passing – Both book and movie adaptation are very well done.

Nomadland – Oscar 2021 Best Picture, Director and Actress. Both book and film are inspiring.

Minari – Autobiographical pic of Korean American director Lee Isaac Chung. Yuh-Jung Youn won the Oscar Best Actress in a Supporting Role for playing the eccentric grandma.

The Father – Anthony Hopkins nails it as the father afflicted with dementia and deservedly won his second Oscar at 84, the oldest Acting Oscar winner.

Promising Young Woman – Excellent Oscar winning screenplay by debut director Emerald Fennell. But it’s Carey Mulligan’s performance that speaks most poignantly for promising young women.

Drive My Car – Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi has created a play within a play while adapting a short story by Haruki Murakami. How ingenious is that? Japan’s official entry to the coming 94th Academy Awards. (Link to my review on Asian American Press)

BOOKS

Joan Didion, Dec. 5, 1934 – Dec. 23, 2021.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion

The Education of an Idealist: a Memoir by Samantha Power

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Passing by Nella Larsen

Brat: an 80’s Story by Andrew McCarthy

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write by Claire Messud

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