a blog about a lot of things

Purity The newest novel by Jonathan Franzen is the kind of novel which an author can only write when previous success has occurred. Without that track record of reliability or quality, the editors would have given the book much greater scrutiny. Purity suffers badly from a lack of editing. The main character is nominally the recent college graduate Purity, nicknamed Pip, though the Julian Assange-like figure of Andreas Wolf steals the spotlight as soon as he appears. The best of the entire novel is set in East Berlin and if more of the focus of the novel was spent on Wolf, it’s possible the novel would have been far more entertaining. The parts with Wolf are not without flaws, however, especially as the character’s repeated stating of his devotion to his mother and love for his past partner, are his motivations begins to seem less plausible as the book goes on. The other main character, Tom Aberrant, an editor at Denver Independent, gives us the most emotional parts ...

Picked from directors who are Latin American or Caribbean by birth or upbringing or film in those countries regularly (at least 3 films in the region). Exceptions will be made for quality film-makers of Latin American or Caribbean descent who film stories in the United States of America or Canada about Latin Americans or Caribbeans. Or perhaps for directors not of Latin American or Caribbean descent or residence but who film about the diaspora. Stories about the children of immigrants in North America counted in a separate section.  To qualify I'm making it that the director has to release an excellent film (in my opinion) during the 21st century and I need to be able to find at least 3 excellent reference films. Same criteria as the previous lists.  13. Jose Padilha -   Brazil Directing Timespan : 2002- Present Reference Films: Bus 174(2002); Tropa de Elite (2007); Secrets of the Tribe (2010) 12. Pablo Trapero -   Argentina Dir...

Midnight’s children Midnight’s Children immediately reminds the reader of two other novels upon reading, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. These are two of the major novels of twentieth century literature and foundation works of the genre of magical realism. Midnight’s Children falls comfortably into the same category of importance as these novels. As well as magical realism Midnight’s Children also encompasses several other literary modes such historical fiction and is considered an allegorical novel and a postcolonial novel. Despite the complexity of categorizing, the book itself is not difficult to read. The language and style which Rusdie employs provide an energy which powers the entire story. The allegory is that of the events in India leading up to independence and what follows after. The narrator of the book is Saleem Sinai who was born at the moment India gained independence on August 15 th 1947. He and ot...

Kitchen Confidential is the book that catapulted Anthony Bourdain into the world of popular acclaim. It is the book that enabled him to become a television show host which ironically meant that he is no longer a chef. Considering the book is all about life as a chef, it’s a bit strange Bourdain is no longer one. The book showcases the author’s love for food and the first part of the book revolves around the realization that ‘food is important’. The first time he ate an oyster is described as a seminal event in his life and in the author’s opinion, is when he took his first steps towards becoming a man. That love for the best ingredients also shows up in the book as a series of warnings. He famously warns against eating fish on Monday since the fish has been around all weekend. He also tells of some of the cooking practices in the restaurants he has worked in, such as steak being cooked hours before and only re-warmed with sauce before actually going to a customer. A ...

The job market is, like every other market, affected by the laws of supply and demand. When I graduated in June 2010, the West Texas Intermediate WTI crude price was $81.25. That was the lowest value oil would be at until October 2014 when the slide in oil prices which had huge effects on several economies, such as Russia and Venezuela, began.   I have never worked in the oil and gas industry. It’s not from lack of trying.Working for an oil company allows regular travel opportunities and travel has always been a huge motivation for me. Nominally, according to my undergraduate degree, I’m an engineer (though I haven’t worked as one for almost three years). Oil companies have more demand for engineers than several other degree specializations, yet whilst the oil price stayed above $100 for the vast majority of my job search, I was continuously out of luck. However, I was not an exceptional graduate and was closer to the mid-level band of my graduating class than the upper pe...

Best Actor Most Likely Winner: Eddie Redmayne  as Stephen Hawking in  The Theory of Everything.   Wins at the SAG, BAFTAs and Globes makes Redmayne much more secure as frontrunner than a month ago. The academy tends to prefer dramatic portrayals over comedic ones as well. Even though the representation of Hawking by Redmayne manages to regularly show Hawking's trademark wit and sense of fun, it's mostly quite a serious take on the Professor. Factor in the difficulty of playing a real (famous) person coupled with the difficult representation needed to show Hawking's physical disabilities and it's very likely the Oscar goes to Eddie Redmayne.   Backup Pick:  Michael Keaton  as Riggan Thomson in  Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) . At the start of the year Keaton and Redmayne were almost at the same odds to win, but he's faded since then in the reckoning. That doesn't diminish the performance in any way, as the perfect mix of...

The Museum of Innocence   is Orhan Pamuk’s first novel since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006. It is set in Istanbul, the city which fuels Pamuk’s imagination, during the 1970’s. Pamuk once again explores the uneasy relationship between east and west in Turkish society from the eyes of Kemal, son of one of the city’s richest families. In the beginning of the novel Kemal is to be married to Sibel, who also comes from a wealthy family, and so they occupy the niche of the westernized part of society. But this is Turkey in the 1970’s, as western as they try to be sexual etiquette is still very much stalled in the past. Virginity is expected to be part of the bride’s dowry. This all becomes relevant when Kemal begins an affair with Fusun, a distant, younger relative. The city of Istanbul is a character in the novel as much as any of the other. The decaying old houses contrast with the apartments of the nouveau riche. These apartments become relevant for Kemal as...