Journey Under the Midnight Sun wasn't a disappointment, but neither an accomplishment from the great Keigo Higashino. It was indeed a complex mystery novel, as promised by its reviews, reflective of Higashino's literary plot brilliance, but it fell short in stringing individual narratives into one epic mystery. In this book, I felt there were too many loose ends. If Higashino desired to have his readers piece together 20 over years worth of narratives and plot development into some first-hand, reader engaging detective work (since the mystery isn't technically solved by our non-hero Detective Sasagaki), the sheer magnitude and detail of these accounts is off putting and redundant. The attempt at leaving the story to the reader's imagination is disappointing, but of course, the convoluted mystery surrounding 2 children and their path of development compensates. 4/5.
Discontent and its Civilizations started strong. It was intimate, compelling and persuasive in its call to rethink what civilization means under the forces of globalisation. Is Hamid a Westernised-Pakistani, or an Islamised-American? Or does that even matter? I liked how this short collection of essays are structured: first about his life, second, art and lastly, politics. The first two sections were promising - anecdotal style, Hamid looks back, reflects on his life and draws link to the current state of Pakistan and his lifestyle. I like the second section especially, where he contends art and politics are inextricably intertwined, drawing from his own experience in Lahore as a child, and in America as a literature student. Sadly, it gets abit too dry and opinionated in the third section of politics. Perhaps it was because of the stark dissociation from his personal life in the later essays, or all the big, confusing talk on politics which I do not have sufficient interest in. 3/5.
My current read! I'm about 40% through
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I'm excited for this one. If it keeps up, it might just make it into one of my favourite books! I'm so happy to have come across this book; I get so absorbed in it.
I haven't been writing much. The holidays give me too much time to do too much introspection, which, I feel, does more harm than good. In spirit of this time-endorsed metacognition, I've analysed abit of my journal writings to find an unsettling shift towards abstraction-based ramblings, from my original intention of recording what I did for the day. It kills me to experience unpleasant emotions now from my past entries, and seeing how unpleasantness had snowballed into a change in writing is terrifying. I don't think this departure is right, or healthy, so I'm not too keen on writing now.
I haven't been updating or reviewing much all these while too. In all honesty, the original intention of this update was to inform everyone, or rather, anyone out there my dispirit in writing/reviewing/anything, but now I end up sharp as heck at 1 AM. I often vacillate between putting all my thoughts into words, and not writing at all. I end up neither here nor there: putting private thoughts into the vaguest terms, in hopes of the cathartic effect of writing while maintaining confidentiality. It gets tiring deciding what is good for me - to write or not.
Therefore I hope to meet more people!!!!!! Instead of unduly soul-searching which confuses me with myself, interacting with people, though tiring it'll be, keeps me grounded! In this lull period, I met
1. J, who is recovering from teenage-onset schizophrenia. He was interested in whatever I am doing in university, and asked for my ambition, to which I issued a feeble, all-too-familiar: "I DON'T KNOW, I AM NOT TOO SURE YET, BECAUSE MY DEGREE ALLOWS ME TO DO MANY THINGS, SO I AM TAKING THE TIME TO EXPLORE, I DON'T KNOW". While on the other hand, to my reciprocal question he answered without hesitation "Peer Support Specialist", and the best I could muster was yet another feeble "Oh wow that's great!" which was sorely unreflective of my deep admiration.
2. N, who geeked out over his recent business analytics competition, explaining to me in great detail his entry with palpable passion. I tried sharing what I study, but it came out all garbled and vague. He wants to create something helpful for the community.
Meeting people driven by passion makes me feel like a complete loser, but they make me happy because they're so admirable and worth emulating. I think I'll take a break from revealing anything personal and substantial, such as this reflection, and channel all updating and writing into reviewing books. I hope to meet more people!!
