Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Read – 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami
Somebody once gave me a copy of Norwegian Wood by Murakami, and I obviously wasn’t ready for it, because it remained unread for years. This year I was given a book token for my birthday – surely the best present anyone could receive!
I found myself gravitating towards the two hefty volumes of 1Q84, the first containing the first two books of the trilogy and the second containing the third book. Apparently they are split in this way because the third book had a different translator.
Make no mistake about it, this is a huge read. It tells the story of two young Japanese people in alternating chapters. Both are extraordinary characters who become involved in extraordinary events, and both are the kind of character that you never forget.
The world that Murakami conjures up is similar to 1984, in which it is nominally set, but it’s not quite how you would expect it. This was compounded in my case because I have always found Japan to be a somewhat alien place, and I had no idea while reading it whether certain things that happened regularly in the novels were actually familiar to Japanese people or just made up for the book. I actually liked this.
The most wonderful thing about these books is that these two characters and their separate struggles are utterly compelling, and they are so beautifully imagined and written that you care very much about them. I was on the edge of my seat all the time while I ploughed through it, often holding my breath, while at the same time not having a clue as to what was happening, just like them.
I can’t recommend this enough. It’s the best trilogy I’ve read since I discovered Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, and that’s the highest praise I can bestow on it.
Watched – The Nutcracker, Cinema
I’m a latecomer to live shows at the cinema. It wasn’t that I was avoiding them, I was just never able to go to one I liked. Then I saw Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry doing Twelfth Night at the Globe and I was hooked.
It’s easy to put yourself off beforehand, but actually going and experiencing the phenomenon is a revelation. It’s very close to going to the show itself. The cinema is always packed, and there’s a real buzz while the clock ticks down to the start of the performance. And you get to see the actors close up in a way you never would somewhere at the back if the Circle.
Until last week I had not been to a ballet performed live in a cinema. I was persuaded to go, and I wasn’t sure, mainly because I’m a man, and men don’t like ballet. It’s obvious, because in general we don’t take pleasure in beautiful costumes, and we’re uncomfortable with the tights that the male ballet dancers wear. There’s something wrong with that type of absence of trousers.
To be fair, classical ballet doesn’t help itself much. You can’t get anyone to explain the plot to you, and the fans don’t seem to care either, so you spend the whole evening trying to understand who’s doing that dance with who and what it means. The worst thing you can do is ask the person sitting next to you while it’s happening.
But this performance came with printed notes, including a resume of the story. While it wouldn’t work in a Dan Brown novel (even!), it made a huge difference to me, and I have to say that having the cameras so close to the action gave me a much better appreciation of the extraordinary skills and sheer hard work of the dancers.
Tchaikovsky’s music was also rather wonderful, and seeing the conductor arrive and all those expectant faces squeezed into the extraordinary Royal Opera House was almost as good as being there. And I even enjoyed the costumes. Next thing will be an opera, I think.
Watched – Borgen Series 3, TV
I’m not very good with television. Perhaps it’s a lack of routine in my life, but I often fail totally to be aware of significant programmes or series while they’re on. There’s nothing more annoying then hearing someone go on and on about a wonderful series, only to find out that you’ve already missed most of it.
That’s why I’ve become a boxsetter. If a series has been around for several seasons or people are still talking about it six months later, that’s when I’ll go find the box set.
The other joys of watching series on DVD are that there are no adverts and you avoid having to wait a week for the next episode. But in the last few weeks all that has gone out of the window.
We first watched Borgen, the Danish series about politics, after temporarily running out of The Killing. I had heard it was good, but the prospect of watching a lot of foreign politicians sitting round a table working out how to form a coalition government and who would become Prime Minister never quite enticed me. But I was wrong.
From the start, we focus on Birgitte Nyborg, played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, a conviction politician with a strong sense of morality. We follow her through her political life, and there are also the lives of her colleagues and staff, as well as the machinations of her opponents and collaborators in other parties.
Watching her trying to steer a straight course through all these complications as well as dealing with the inevitable complications thrown up by events in the world quickly became compulsive viewing, and the sorrow of reaching the end was only countered by the realisation that there was already a second series out on DVD.
The thing I love most about Birgitte is that she is so much a character. She has disasters as well as triumphs, and she is very rooted in her home and her family, even though she’s not very good at the business of being a mother and a Prime Minister. She also tends to get it quite wrong in her personal life in ways we can all relate to. At the same time she’s so enthusiastic and committed to her political life, and can turn on iron will and determination when it’s needed. I can’t but help wishing we had some real politicians like her.
This time, it would have been tragic to miss the third series and have to wait for several months, so we managed to record it all, two episodes a week, and watch it as soon as we could. And now it’s over. What on earth am I going to watch next?
Image: juliespluga under CC BY 2.0
