Book Review: The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

Still not working, I have spent a lot of my down time reading. Before leaving for DC I packed a recent acquisition with me, The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers. I had seen it in a used bookstore in Berkeley, CA, but the store was cash only and I had no cash on me. So i made a mental note of the book, and bought it online. Given the large amount of free time I have, even though it is roughly 700 pages, I have finished it.

As a side-note, reading for pleasure is such a welcome change. I don't know how long it has been since I have really read for pleasure, either due to time constraints or "reading burnout" from 90% of my out-of-class work being reading material. It is really nice to just read a great story. So I am grateful to this book for letting me rediscover the simple pleasure of just reading a story.

The Review:

The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear is a novel written by German author Walter Moers. If I had to describe the book in one word, it would be: delightful. This novel is essentially a children's story for adults. I imagine that children would like it as well, but it also should appeal to any adults who still retain child-like wonder at a good story.

My copy of The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

Part fantasy, part adventure story, the novel tells the tale of Bluebear, a blue bear who lives on the mythical continent of Zamonia. It tells the story of the first half of his life -- or rather, the first 13.5 of his 27 lives as a Bluebear (as all Bluebears have 27 lives). A "life" in the story is essentially a chapter in the novel, each chapter describing a distinct time, in a distinct place, where Bluebear got into a distinct adventure. The reader follows Bluebear as he goes through all of these stages of the first 13.5 periods in his life, from adventure to adventure.

This is not a profound novel in the way that something by an author like Kafka or Cormac McCarthy is "profound." It does not to aspire to pretensions of being the next great work of literature. But in its own unassuming way, it is, because the author gives over completely to a world of uninhibited imagination. And he is able to do so through compelling storytelling such that the reader cares about the characters, even though they are wacky and fantastical, such as the blob-like alien Gelatine Prince Qwerty from the 2364th dimension. I have read a lot of books and novels and short stories; I tend to be kind of an at-arms-length reader, so I often don't get personally invested in (or react to) the characters any more than a standard reader would in order to enjoy the story. That being said, in all those stories and books, I have rarely had such a palpable dislike or outright hostility towards a character, than I had towards one of the main villains in the novel, a equally fantastical and not-at-all-real Trogolotroll. I think that the fact that the author can elicit such emotion and response from readers to characters who, by their basic external descriptions, are patently absurd, is a testament to the compelling strength and effectiveness of Moers' storytelling, plot and character development. The novel succeeds because while it maintains an almost childlike creativity in putting the world of Zamonia to paper, it manages to realistically convey experiences and emotional responses to those experiences that the adult reader would recognize from our own world. As a law student who spends her days in the mire of the very real reality of everyday life, of always looking at the world through the lens of the completely logical and sound, escaping to this world of gleeful non-logic and zaniness, was a welcome and much-needed break. As a law student or lawyer, you sometimes get moments where you can be creative (think of defenses like "the Twinkie defense"), but don't often get moments where you can imagine. I thank this book for allowing me to do so.

Other reviewers of the book (on Amazon.com) have said that the novel is stylistically and structurally similar to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and that if the reader enjoys Hitcherhiker's, he or she will enjoy Bluebear. Having never read Hitchhiker's, I cannot attest to the validity of this statement. But, I can say that if you are an adult who enjoys stories that celebrate imagination, that give over to the fun of storytelling, while all the while retaining something fundamentally and recognizably "human" in the experiences it relates, then you will enjoy this novel.

The novel is, as I said, a bit over 700 pages, but is actually a pretty quick read. The language is not complicated, and it is quick-paced. It is also interspersed with equally delightful illustrations of the characters and Zamonian landscape, which cuts down on the actual word-length of the novel.

Example of Moers' whimsical illustrations. From page 276

Overall, I would give the book 8.5/10.

The Great Gatsby

Today was a grey, cool, drizzly and generally crappy day, so I decided to go see a movie. I had been wanting to see the new The Great Gatsby movie, directed by Baz Luhrmann (of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge fame), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan. I had read the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald in high school, and it is one of my favorite books. The 1970's version of the movie, starring Robert Redford and directed by Martin Scorsese, however, I found to be a dreadful bore and virtually unwatchable. So I was curious how Luhrmann's take would pan out. After seeing it, I say that I like it. Here are my observations about/review of the movie:

Spoilers alert!

The Pros

1. First, if you are a literary purist, stop now, because you probably will not like the movie. The movie's story, as far as movie adaptations go, is pretty faithful to the basic plot and overall arch of the original story. They did not change much about the major events that happen, the important plot points and climax moments. What they did change, however, was the details. Basically, the film embellished a lot of details and "extras," both scene-wise and dialogue-wise, that were not necessarily in the book. A lot of what was added made explicit things that were hinted at or implied in the original story (Jay Gatsby's backstory, Jay and Daisy's backstory, Nick Carraway's backstory, etc.), but never fully explored. The movie added more detail and "meat" to those stories. It also added additional details in the movie about the everyday goings-on of the various characters, such as Nick Carraway's (Tobey MaGuire) job as a Wall Street trader, Gatsby's business dealings, etc.

While adding things to a movie from a book can be risky, I think that it worked here, because the details they added were logical or in line with the overall original plot. Nothing that was added substantively changed the overall story, it just made it -- and the character's emotions/motivations/feelings -- more explicit. I also think that this embellishment was, frankly, necessary to the make the movie filmable. In the original book, honestly, not much happens. It is very internally-driven. The problem with the Robert Redford movie, I think, was that it tried to be too faithful to the original source material, and tried to just film what physically, externally happened in the novel. Which ended up making the film really boring. Plus, I think the fact that the director/writer of the new version added more details made the story richer, in the sense that there was more character development, motivation, etc. on display than in the older movie. Literary purists may not like that Luhrmann pulled out and made explicit the internal nature of the characters, but to make a movie, I think making this choice is necessary.

Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio as Daisy and Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. Photo courtesy of dcmetrotheatrearts.com

2.Luhrmann made an interesting choice in framing the story, which is actually probably more in line with the original novel than the Redford version. The original novel is told as a memoir from Nick Carraway's perspective. If I am not mistaken (I might be, as the last time I saw that movie was in senior year of high school), the Redford movie kind of just plays out what happens in Carraway's story. In the new movie, the plot is framed as a story that a slightly older Nick Carraway is writing/retelling to his shrink (in the new movie, the frame is that the events of the story have made Carraway depressed and an alcoholic, so he is basically in rehab. He tells the story as part of his treatment, eventually writing it down and turning it into the novel). While the exact manner by which Nick telling his story comes about is an embellishment by the filmmakers, I think having it as a narrated/flashback-type mode of film, actually helps it stay closer to, or acknowledge, its literary source material. It is closer to the original in this respect because it remains essentially a (fictional) memoir. The film does a couple cool shots when Nick is typing his story on a typewriter, and there is an overlay of text as to what he is writing. The other nice thing about this technique, is that it allowed the film to pull and use some text from the original novel for the moments when Nick's character is narrating, without it being awkward or seeming out of place. I at least like this because in so doing, the film always has an acknowledgment of its original source material underlying whatever additions or embellishments the film thought necessary to tell the complete story. I think it allowed the filmmakers to change things when needed, without getting away from the story's core, which is the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby.Photo courtesy of beyondhollywood.com

3.The music. A lot has been made of the fact that Luhrmann used anachronistic, modern, often hip-hop music in the score of the film. Obviously, there was not hip-hop, Beyonce, or Alicia Keys in 1920s America. Many people have complained about this, because the film is not fantasy, but is rather set in a real, historical time frame, and is generally trying to be realistic. Thus, to have hip-hop would be out of place and weird, or so the argument goes. I understand this argument, and I can see how people might object to the music's use. And I can also see this technique going horribly wrong. But, I actually think it works here. One of the things that the original novel underscores, is the frivolousness and the excess of the roaring '20s (and specifically, of the monied classes of the time). In a way, the Tom Buchanan/Daisy/Jordan characters portray or personify that shallowness and excess. The movie, while trying to be generally realist, was also trying to be evocative of that sense or impression that Fitzgerald conveyed in his novel. The hip-hop music, the use of hyper-realism when filming the party scenes and many of the scenes in New York City, I believe did convey that sense of living the carefree high life, the "bling," the party atmosphere. So while the music may not have been "correct," the mood or environment that it did create, was "correct" in the sense that it successfully created the "roaring" of the "roaring" 1920s. In fact, I think one of the failures of the older movie, was the fact that it failed to capture that extravagance: while there were party scenes, they weren't much more crazy or over-the-top than your average higher-end wedding. I think also the success of the modern music was that Luhrmann used it judiciously. There wasn't really any scene where you heard a full Jay-Z song. Rather, it would be maybe a 30-second clip of a recognizable song in the background (a good example would be a shot of New York City with a few bars of Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind playing softly in the background). If extended music was used (for the party scenes especially), it had a modern beat, but didn't have words or wasn't a recognizable modern song, and the modern tune was often remixed with, or clearly derived from, 1920s-era jazz music. Full-on playing a whole P.Diddy song in the background would admittedly be "off," but I think the way in which Luhrmann used music in the film, while unconventional, was ultimately successful.

Party scene from The Great Gatsby.Photo courtesy of pagetopremiere.com

4.Performances. Not much to be said here, with the clearly strong cast. The acting was very good, but then with a cast headlined by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey MaGuire, anything less would be surprising. Tobey MaGuire in particular did a very good job playing the the naive newcomer to the New York scene; as essentially an observer of the stories of those around him, you see him get sucked into this crazy, hyper-real world, and you can see how, through the movie, his greater understanding of and involvement with that world turns his naiveté into disillusionment. I think it also helped that MaGuire, in whatever role he plays, just kind of comes off as that naive guy, so it worked. As for DiCaprio, 'nuff said. Did a great job. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when he is preparing to see Daisy, the lost love of his life, for the first time after five years. He gets that awkward, embarrassed, doesn't-know-how-to-act-in-front-of-someone-he-still-has-feelings-for run-up to the big meet down to a frickin T. I can't really explain why it is so good, except for the fact that any of us who have ever been in that kind of situation will recognize and identify with it immediately. He channels the nervous 17-year-old asking his crush to prom, basically perfectly. Carey Mulligan as the confused, heartbroken, but ultimately shallow Daisy displays remarkable complexity; you see her emotion, and she conveys her affection for Gatsby realistically. It is clear that she loves the man very deeply, which makes her final decision to retreat back into the money and what is easy all the more maddening. And I got to hand it to Joel Edgerton, who played the antagonist Tom Buchanan: while the audience may not (and is not really supposed to) like Daisy's husband, there a few moments in the movie where, through the shallow, lusty and generally douchey character that is Tom Buchanan, the audience actually sees his humanity, his feelings and some of his vulnerability. While the audience may not like him, there are moments where it can sympathize with, or at least understand, him. Considering the character, that is quite the achievement.

Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Image courtesy of screenrant.com

Since it is still too early I think for there to be clips of the movie available on YouTube, I am putting in a clip of the trailer, so you can get an idea of the performances:

The Cons

1.Timing. One thing that I found "off," was the pacing of the movie. Namely, it was very uneven. A lot of the scenes with the additional details and dialogue were quite extensive relative to the movie, and yet some of the scenes of real importance (such as the car accident scene), felt kind of rushed in comparison. Also, the party scenes and New York City scenes were often sped-up, done in a hyper-real or almost fantastical way. And yet a lot of the rest of the movie was paced more like your standard drama, more subdued and slower. While I think the craziness of the party and some of the other scenes was intentional, the differences in the pacing, and the often-abrupt changes in pacing, could be somewhat jarring. Plus there were a few moments where the hyper-real came in to a scene that was otherwise "normal," so that was also somewhat off-putting.

2.Somewhat related to the above, but some of the sequential storytelling was off. The movie added a lot of necessary detail to the characters' stories, often through flashbacks. While I think these were necessary, sometimes the place in the story which a lot this backstory or explanation happened, was kind of random, or seemed somehow out of place. I guess what I am trying to say is that, in places, the story was jumpy. I think this came from the fact that the filmmakers were trying to add in the necessary details, but I think they could have been more successful in so doing, without creating this kind of hopping-back-and-forth sense that could take the viewer out of the current story. There were several places that flashed forward to Nick's telling of the story; while breaks back and forth like that are necessary for the storyteller frame narrative, sometimes where the break happened, was kind of random. So more logical transitions between the shifting time frames would have helped the movie.

Overall, I really liked the movie. I think that Luhrmann did, ultimately, make a version of Gatsby that could be filmed and watched (and enjoyed) by audiences. He had to do this by essentially creating "more" to the story, but I think that, in the end, it worked. If I had to give the movie a rating, I would say 7/10. Purists may not like the changes that were made, but from a storytelling perspective, I think it made the myth of Jay Gatsby much more accessible and "real."

One of the interesting things about the movie, is that it captured an element of the story that I hadn't noticed or remembered from the book. Namely, it is pretty clear that in the Daisy-Tom relationship, they are both clearly married to the wrong person. While it is clear that they care (or cared) for one another, and at least at one point had some kind of love for each other, their true, (at risk of sounding hokey) soul mate love was elsewhere. In Daisy's case, she obviously should have been with Gatsby. Tom's case is interesting, though. A major plot point is his affair with the wife of a lowly auto mechanic; when she ends up dying, and Tom looks over her dead body, the audience sees the kind of emotion, love and sadness on his face, that he never really shows around Daisy. While he may have loved Daisy, he loved this lowly woman. But, due essentially to their social positions (Gatsby was poor when Daisy met him, the wife is just a working-class woman), neither Tom nor Daisy can pursue the love that would truly make them happiest, instead relegated to clandestine affairs that are doomed to tragic failure (it is interesting to note that, in the end, both the "other" paramours vis-a-vis the Tom-Daisy marriage -- the mechanic's wife and Gatsby -- end up dead). I don't know how much of this was originally in the book (it's been a while since I read it), and how much was Luhrmann playing up that angle, but I do think it was an angle or bent to the story that ultimately worked in the overall plot or "point" of the movie.

The Greatest Post Ever

...was not written by me.

Actually, the whole move process has been hell (as per usual, I have been made to understand). So this is why I have been lame in updating lately. Again, I am not dead. Actually, the move story is kind of great/awful, so when life has finally returned to normal, I will entertain you all with its absurdity.

In the meantime, I found the following on Amazon.com, as my boyfriend and I were looking for a new bookshelf to replace the ones that got destroyed-ish in the aforementioned move (on the bright side, one of the bookshelves was free, and the other inexpensive). I won't say any more, because this product review really doesn't need an introduction. Mad props to a Mr. Brandon May, the author of said awesomeness.

The Worst Shelf In the World and a Life Changing Epiphany... August 10, 2009

By Brandon May

This is long but stay with me. I am not an unreasonable man. Most would consider me a semi pleasant person; I love puppies, enjoy Judd Apatow comedies, and find babies mildly amusing when they aren't pooping, vomiting, or screaming. However in spite of my generally jovial disposition I have a seething, nay crippling hatred for this shelf which may be the geographic center of all of the world's evil and the root of all moral decay. Now in my afore mentioned passionate hatred of this festering pile of evil do not want to overstate it's faults and thus do not want to lightly throw out the term worse than Hitler but it's certainly worse than Mussolini (the George Castanza of WW2). I know this may seem a reach to you who have not experienced "the shelf" but allow me to explain and maybe change your mind.

First the good part it was packed securely. Shelf wobbles in a cartoonish way similar to a Dr. Seuss cartoon which entertains small children and slow witted teenagers. Okay that's all the good parts.

Now the negatives which I could literally fill a library with, seriously after putting the abomination together I was ready to move to Montana and write a manifesto but I digress. Firstly I'm color blind and I can see that this is not black, it's red, and when they can't even get the color right you know you are in trouble. However if you place this in a dark room it darkens like all things placed in a dark room and given it's tinker toy like construction might I highly recommend a dark room and Styrofoam books. Secondly it's not made of wood it is made of MDF (medium density fiberboard aka crap) which is wood in the same way a drag queen is a woman, it is given the appearance of wood by a veneer which is fancy talk for a sticker with wood designs on it. Yes, high quality indeed. Next much like a middle aged man with a fake tan and a Corvette it's hardware is simply too short to be of any real use, the fun part of this is it gives the shelf an air of excitement similar to that of crossing a 100 plus year old rope bridge that leaves you wondering...is it going to hold the weight or collapse. The suspense would be entertaining if it hadn't A) cost me $[censored] and B) wasn't holding my $[censored] Blu-Ray player.

The assembly is nightmarish and I am a person who is reasonably handy. Now let me clarify the steps themselves aren't difficult but step 1 should really be the last step and you will have much fun with the all too short hardware as mentioned above. Of particular joy was the fun of trying to drill the two center pieces that hold the shelves in since; one, MDF (crap) is prone to splintering and two, veneer really highlights any flaws it makes trying to drive ¼ screws into "wood" that was barely an inch thick a real treat. I especially enjoyed the part where my left arm went numb and the vein in my eye burst leaving me blind and with alight slur to my speech for several days. Good times! Now as part of the assembly you are given some trim to hide the poor construction and all of the ugly parts, using my drag queen metaphor think of this as the scarf to hide the Adam's apple, this trim will drive you beyond the point of insanity. It continually pops off, due to the short hardware, and is very difficult to get on straight which again with the wonder of MDF and veneer your assembly ineptitude and poor construction is highlighted as sort of a scarlet letter that sort of screams "hey look at me I'm cheap furniture!" Once you have dealt with the trim and decided life truly has no meaning you will be confronted by the back covering which at least gets credit for a semblance of honesty. See the back has abandoned any pretense of being wood and is honest to god cardboard with a front side covered with the wood sticker veneer. I, who at this point had moved to an Apocalypse Now level of insanity, decided I would not stoop to putting cardboard on my furniture and maintain what little dignity I had remaining but the problem with that is the cardboard holds the adjustable shelves in place and is the only thing that keeps them from sliding out of the back so pick your poison, your dignity or shelves on the floor? Speaking of the adjustable shelves, they rest on tiny plug in things and are not secured at all this again adds to the rope bridge suspense factor I mentioned earlier.

Here is the synopsis combined with a diatribe about our low expectations. Many people say "you get what you pay for" but the fact is that the price of this shelf is nothing to sneeze at, this is a crisis of our being conditioned to expect poor quality. In 1983 my ex-girlfriend's mother bought a 1,400 square foot brick house on 3.75 acres of property for $43,000 I don't think I'm asking for much to get something made of actual wood (one of the most plentiful supplies on Earth) for the price I paid (they censor dollar amounts I'm not being purposely coy) a mere 25 years later. As consumers we have choice and while some people's reviews on here are shrugging 4 star "it is what it is" type reviews I'm asking that we start demanding quality not just in furniture but in all products, break this cycle of being conditioned to get hosed out of our money and save your money for something better than this. There are great craftsman and builders everywhere (in your own neighborhood even) who could build you something from real wood for a marginally higher price that could be an heirloom piece of furniture you could pass down to your kids when they go to college. This thing likely won't make it a year. As much as I loathe this horrible shelf it inspired me to demand better and I am now building a book case (told you I was handy) that is 72 wide by 38 high and is made of solid 2x12's and the real wood for this enormous shelf only cost me 1/3 the price of this shelf at Home Depot plus nail gun rental, 1/2 gallon of black paint, and a few dollars of sand paper. So for about 2/3 what I paid for this insult to American craftsmanship and a few hours of my weekend I am getting something that not only can I be proud of but something of great quality that is still going to be standing strong 25 years from now. Sorry to get sort of serious and manifesto-like here in this last paragraph but I guess I just miss not only getting but expecting quality for my hard earned money.

Sir, I cower in your genius. That was one of the greatest bits of dry humor that I have read online. And yet also quite profound.

PS: Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr. May gave the poor shelf a 1/5 stars on Amazon's rating system.