Ugh, maybe I gotta stay away from YouTube for a few days. People already seem to be putting potential Star Wars spoilers in the freaking titles of their videos.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi comes out in two weeks!

It’s only been a few hours since I saw The Last Jedi, but I already want to see it again.

After watching Episodes I to VI again (going to watch VII one or two days before I go see the new one), I suppose this is another way I can have fun with Star Wars while avoiding spoilers before The Last Jedi comes out.

(Warning: Spoilers for The Force Awakens in the caption for the second photo.)

Looks like I got kind of lazy with my queue and tagging these past couple days. Hopefully I can get back on track now.

Some reflections on first-person narrative after reading Turtles All the Way Down

(Perhaps some very minor spoilers [mostly from the beginning of the novel] below. I did not mention any major revelations or plot points. I also tried to refrain from saying anything hinting at those, and hopefully I succeeded.)

Reading Turtles All the Way Down got me thinking about why I like novels. In particular, novels in first-person perspective. I don’t think it’s something I’ve talked about on this blog yet, but I suppose it’s a pretty strong conviction I have.

In a way, I see first-person novels as a sort of way to inhabit a character’s consciousness. You, the reader, sees the world through the eyes of the protagonist, or at the very least, sits down with the protagonist as they relay events, thoughts, and feelings to you.

It’s this strong sense of intimacy that draws me into those stories, in a way that can be hard to describe sometimes. Like in Turtles All the Way Down, Aza’s way of seeing the world shows in so many ways. In how, in at least a couple of instances, she describes a clean environment as “sterile”. How her mind constantly drifts to thoughts of microbiota whenever she experiences close physical intimacy. How her thought spirals spin out of control, once resulting in a stream-of-consciousness horror of interior dialogue with her intrusive thoughts. How those thoughts sometimes compel her to do dangerous things, like eating hand sanitizer, because they think it will help her. I felt such empathy for Aza Holmes; from hopefully coming to a greater understanding of what she’s going through, and from--in some way--recognizing a few pieces of her within myself.

I remember reading John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction and disagreeing with a lot of what he said. In particular, he seemed to have something against first-person narrative. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with it having too narrow of a perspective, being inherently judgmental and opinionated, and having the potential to fall into a trap of having most of the tension in situations come from the point-of-view character’s mind instead of the external circumstances. Gardner seemed to be of the idea that a “great” and “noble” work of fiction is supposed to cover a very broad--perhaps “objective--perspective, or something to that effect. (Hopefully I’m not misunderstanding or misremembering something.)

What I found interesting is that he seemed to dismiss first-person narrative for the very reasons that I like them.

Sure, I cared about the plot of Turtles. I cared about whether or not they would find Russell Pickett, and what consequences that would have for Aza, Davis, Daisy, and Noah.

And yes, I think it’s important that different perspectives are (and were) represented in the novel. Like how Davis’ lack of an effective father figure leaves him emotionally fragile, highly reflective, and unable to take care of his younger brother. How Daisy’s lack of the privileges others take for granted drives her to seek the cash reward for information on Pickett. How the loss Aza’s mother suffered in the past makes her worry so much about her daughter.

But at the same time, I think first-person narrative is kind of a recognition of the limits of our experience. We do have necessarily narrow perspectives (though these can be mitigated by listening to and representing others’); we view the world through our own emotions, judgments, and biases; and yes, sometimes we have responses to situations that can be considered irrational, and perhaps cause more struggle than the situation itself.

And because of this, I see value in engaging with a first-person narrative. The sheer intimacy of experiencing the world in the way the protagonist does is unlike anything else. Reading a first-person narrative is like being with a friend. It has different goals from whatever Gardner may think is “noble” literature: it may not necessarily expose you to a wide perspective or a comprehensive way of seeing the world, but it will acquaint you with one person’s way of seeing things very closely.

Looking back after reading it, Turtles felt like a necessary rebuttal to the thoughts expressed in Gardner’s book, especially the one about tension. Because sometimes our greatest struggles don’t necessarily come from our external situations or circumstances; they come from within ourselves. And maybe, just maybe, inhabiting the consciousness of someone is an effective way of showing that.

But above all, I see narratives as, among other things, a conduit for empathy. And, at least for me, Turtles All the Way Down is a prime example of how effective first-person narrative can be in this regard. Thank you so much John Green for writing this book.

I have quite a few new games in my library I still have to play, books that I want to read, and anime from this year I want to watch. A lot of it is stuff I bought or took out of the library recently, too.

But I also have a very strong desire to replay the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games. :/

Before I take a break from Tumblr for a few days, just wanted to show off what I got in the mail today: Turtles All the Way Down signed by John Green!

Definitely looking forward to reading this when I have the time.

Don’t really feel like managing my queue for the next two or three days, so you can look forward to it spitting out one post per day until like maybe Wednesday or something.

I was happy that the time change was happening this weekend because I thought it would help me sleep earlier (or rather, sleep at the same time, even though it’s one hour earlier), but now I’ve stayed up this late and I guess I’m kicking myself for it.

Turtles thoughts, part 2

These thoughts are both a continuation of a post I made earlier about Turtles All the Way Down, as well as additional thoughts I had while writing a response to a post by @sejinpk about Kara no Kyoukai.

Thinking about these things got me trying to imagine what a film adaptation of Turtles All the Way Down might look like, if they took a mostly visual approach to the storytelling (previous John Green adaptations used narration, though of course, they couldn’t include everything without bogging down the film and so some stuff is lost as a result).

Aza doesn’t talk much, especially towards the beginning of the novel, so a lot of it would probably look like her just being there as things happen around her. We’d see her take part in her compulsive behaviours, but it’s the obsessive thoughts that really help us understand who she is. When she talks about them in her awkward explanations to other characters, it would be more like a revelation to the viewer like halfway through the story, rather than a part of the intimate and empathetic journey that the reader goes through with her since the beginning.

I guess all (or some) of the essential events would be shown in such a film, but it’d be an entirely different experience. And considering that the novel relies so much on Aza’s thought process, I imagine it’d be an experience that I think would miss the point of the story altogether.

That said, I think there are probably visual/audio ways of emulating these thought processes in some way, though I think it would require some creative cinematography, sound design, and editing to get the point across, if that makes sense. Even then though, I’d think that would maybe give viewers a more visceral sensation of it, rather than the more cerebral understanding that the novel provides. Maybe then, you could take the novel and film as two different but complementary works. And I guess in a way, maybe that’s how I like to think of adaptations.

tfw you go to the record store to buy an album you’ve been looking forward to, only to find out that they don’t carry it and can’t order it in, and the only way you can buy a physical CD copy is to shell out $25 online for it.

I guess that’s the pain of liking bands on smaller record labels.

I think Turtles All the Way Down might just be my favourite John Green book.

I think I may have underestimated how important Love Live! Sunshine!! is to me.

When I was arranging my queue and writing my tags, I felt kind of surprised by how emotional I got while doing it. For one, it surprises me a little how I could recall certain little details from the first season about the characters to sort of paint a larger picture of them and what they’re going through. I think I kind of struggle sometimes when it comes to understanding characterization. That’s when I sort of realized that this is probably the first time in a while that I’ve felt so invested in a set of characters.

I don’t really know what it is. I think at its core, Love Live! is a pretty simple series, and maybe its characters aren’t as complex as the ones in other things I’ve seen and read. That said, I think I’m able to recognize some very human things in them. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just projecting based on my own experiences, but at the same time, I can really feel it.

Reflecting upon it, the first season of Sunshine!! and its themes really resonated with me as someone who’s interested in creativity, and maybe as someone who at time struggles with expressing myself and being heard (though, I suppose, in a different way from what the series depicts).

Meanwhile, this first episode of the new season shows the characters dealing with the strong possibility of a huge change in their lives with the (likely) impending closure of their school. I’m not really the best at coping with change. And with some major changes that are going to happen for me soon (I’ll be graduating university in a few months) on a backdrop of troubled times, I suppose this episode just really resonated with me at this point in my life.

It’s funny. When I think back to five or six years ago, I think the me from back then would have likely dismissed the series or never given it a chance. In the end, I’m really glad that I did.

I guess I just wanted to express how thankful I am that Love Live! Sunshine!! is back (which I suppose is appropriate, since Canadian Thanksgiving is tomorrow). I’ll be looking forward to each and every episode for the next three months or so.

Queued a whole bunch of Love Live! Sunshine!! reblogs from yesterday’s episode. Followers, brace yourselves. lol

So today, I saw it.

By it, I mean It.

Yes, I saw It.

I saw It...

Yeah... It...

It.