My first instinct was to say that this was an easy read, but I don’t think that’s really accurate.  Certainly it was quick, I finished it in around 8 hours, and the language isn’t particularly difficult if you have a passing knowledge of the basics of science fiction.  I hesitate to call it “easy” though, because it addresses some fairly deep philosophical and existential points, and leaves it to the reader to decide where they stand on the issues.  The book isn’t just a straightforward sci-fi action piece, but an examination of what it means to be human, and how people might react when the line between human and machine begins to blur.

My biggest worry when starting the book was that it would be primarily the same as Blade Runner.  That wouldn’t be the worst thing of course, but it would certainly take away some of the experience to know exactly what would happen.  There are definitely some overlaps, of course, and the basic plot points are the same, but the book and the movie are fairly distinct stories.  The book has much more of an examination of who Deckard and the other people around him are, while still telling the story of the escaped androids he’s hunting.  There is also a much deeper look at the society that operates, what society remains after some sort of nuclear apocalypse at any rate.  It’s a world that’s slowly falling to pieces, and many people seem to be only going through the motions while waiting patiently to die.  Deckard especially seems deeply unhappy about his life and the world around him, but doesn’t quite know why or what do do about it.  He keeps on with a job he hates thinking that if he could just get that one new thing, in this case a live animal, maybe that will be what he needs.

The book isn’t without its flaws of course.  Like many of the early sci-fi writers, Dick really has some troubles with his prose.  Much of the phrasing and dialogue is clunky and awkward, which removes you from the story at times.  The concepts and imagery is compelling, but then someone says some horrible line like “Get your crude cop’s hands away from me.”  As interesting as I found the distinctions between android and human, I found the notion of empathy overused and overly simplistic.  I think humanity is unique for more than just our empathetic feelings.  As an extension of that, his made up religion, Mercerism, seemed a bit overused and too convenient a cure all for humanity’s ills.  It didn’t seem to be developed enough to explain the importance he placed on it.  And, like the Man in the High Castle the end of the book dissolves into a meandering, nearly inarticulate philosophizing examination of the central themes.  It felt forced and confusing without adding much to the story.

Overall it’s an intriguing, but flawed look at humanity, and a fun read even if you ignore the deeper intellectual issues the book raises.  Maybe it fails to use some of the ambiguity that the movie revels in, but it also has some deeply disturbing scenes, especially near the end, that you won’t find anywhere in Blade Runner.

Why did Bowie insist his shirts always had 8 buttons?

Because he loved to Fascinate!

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] And so he did what countless punk-rock songs had told him to do so many times before: he lived his life.

I figured I would like this movie a lot, I didn’t realize I would love this movie.  It’s a conceit that could have easily been hokey, but a deft directorial approach coupled with some excellent acting make for a unique, clever, entertaining film.

9/10

Pan: “Ugh you could drown a toddler in my panties… Not that you’d want to.”

Linda: Nobody’s perfect. There was never a perfect person around. You just have half-angel and half-devil in you.

Gorgeous shots and incredible scenery, like a visual poem to the Mid-West.  There isn’t much to the story though, it’s about as simple and straightforward as you’re likely to find.

7/10

Alfie: I don’t want no bird’s respect – I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

As much an exercise in exhausting Michael Caine’s substantial charisma as it is a biting commentary on the “Swinging” 60s and its misogynist sub-culture. An impressive showcase of unrelenting meanness, but the movie really lacks any true character ark or dynamic depth.

7/10

Ricky Gervais wrote an essay on how great Mr. Bowie is!

I emailed David on his 57th birthday. It read: “57???? Isn’t it about time you got a proper job? Ricky Gervais, 42, Comedian.” He replied: “I have a proper job. David Bowie, 57, Rock God.”

Time put up some of their favorite Bowie pictures!

Slicing up Eyeballs found 8 of Bowie’s old live shows from the last 26 years!

When I first heard about this book, around a decade ago, I was pretty excited to read about it.  I was consuming a fair bit of WWII history at the time, and a story about Danzig up to and during the war sounded pretty fascinating.  With all that said, this book ended up being a slog, stretching out over half a year and happily put aside to read all of the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Perhaps it was the translation, or perhaps it was the style of narrative.  I’ve read a number of books that sketch a character’s life in total rather than work in a traditional three act structure.  To me even when the particular episodes are interesting, I always lose interest when it becomes clear that there is no particular direction, only a series of events linked by a personality.  I don’t need a story to follow the traditional story path of introduction, rising action, climax, but it’s nice to see that there is some direction, some driving point to the whole thing.

It’s a strange story, but unlike a number of strange stories none of the oddness ever really resonated much with me.  It’s a narrative that seems to be extremely reliant on your feelings about the characters in it, more so than the actual events, and I found most of them too difficult to empathize with to care what happened to them.  This is especially true of the narrator, a stubborn, stand-offish, selfish and bizarrely obsessive about nurses and the sexual lifestyles of his relatives.  Unless I badly misread the book, he’s also a rapist, once successfully and once only in an attempt on a nun involving a rug.  For the most part, his supposed intentional choice to remain the size of a three year old and communicate only through his drum and glass shattering shrieks for most of his life seems to only be used to make the lives of those around him fairly miserable and difficult.  By half way through I was so exhausted by the whole thing that I welcomed the chance to delve into something else.

Added to that, the book seems largely unconcerned with the war itself.  There’s quite a bit of foreshadowing as characters join or oppose the Nazi party, but after a climactic showdown at the Polish Post Office, the war seems to largely become an afterthought.  It’s referenced in passing, but seems to have hardly any impact on the characters or the plot.  Perhaps I missed the psychological subtext and deeper symbols implied in the story, as mentally checked out of the story as I was, but what was there seemed perfunctory.  A wasted opportunity to look at the war’s effects on the city and the people involved in it.

I am perhaps too down on the book, and I certainly think that many people find it incredibly engaging and it is generally considered one of the greatest modern German novels.  Wikipedia for instance calls the narrator a “complex, magically symbolic character, embodying the wish to dismantle the emergent Nazi party as well as the violence of the party.”  I can certainly credit Grass for his excellent use of language, which he uses to create a great array of word play, and his creativity.  There are a number of humorous and bizarre situations in the story which greatly impressed me.

Whatever the case, the book was not for me, I think.  I was never fully engaged in the story, and I lost interest.  Finishing the book felt like a chore I grudgingly took on, rather than a fun and enlightening experience.