Shakespeare

It is clear that the most famous poet and playwright is William Shakespeare. He wrote a lot of dramas and poetry. Those works are all sophisticated and we find that he was so clever. Now he appears in a lot of movies and TV programs. He became an actor after he died! By the way, his wife is Anne Hathaway! It is too bad that she didn’t appear in The Devil Wears Prada.

I have read Macbeth and King Lear when I was in high school. Fortunately, I passed early the entrance examination and I have a lot of time. So my Japanese teacher gave me homework (reading those books) and in his class I watched “Kumono-sujo”, in which the plot of Macbeth transposes to Japanese situation at the age of Sengoku, and “Ran”, in which the plot of King Lear transposes to Japanese situation at the age of Sengoku. Both of works were created by Akira Kurosawa. They really shocked me, so when I talk about Shakespeare, I always remember the scene of those movies.

When I searched the Internet for Shakespeare information, I found an interesting article. It is said there that Shakespeare was not one person but a name of many playwrights. I know it is perfectly myth. However, if it should be true, the world would be thrown into an uproar. I want to be involved in the uproar just a little as a student who is studying English literature.

 

Zombie!

I believed zombies were definitely imaginary monsters. But I found an unbelievable article.

In Miami, a naked man was eating most of a homeless man’s face on May 26th. He didn’t stop chewing, so was shot by a policeman. But he didn’t stop eating! The policeman had no choice but shot him about six times and the man was died. The homeless man managed to be saved, but lost more than 70% of his face.

The media reported the news with headlines “Miami zombie” or “Zombie apocalypse”. Actually, the man’s crazy action seems to have been caused by a drug “Bathsalt”, which is now regarded as problematic because it is considered to be legitimate and can be bought at a low price.

Reading this news, I wondered if the origin of zombies was somehow connected with science like Frankenstein. I mean, zombies may have been created to give a lesson to human, though they are just a word which represents crazy men. There is no zombie in Japan and most of Japanese monsters have been an object of awe rather than that of threat or fear. That is one of interesting differences between Japanese monsters and European monsters, I think.

Humor

I read the beginning of The River of London by Ben Aaronovitch. Actually, I didn’t know about the author at all. But as soon as I found information that he had worked on Doctor Who, I came to feel close to him because I learned and watched the TV series last year and was fascinated by it.

The River of London also fascinated me with sentences studded with humor. The author didn’t use some difficult literary technique but composed sentences with a lot of humor caused by the choice of words, which makes the readers read the book more even if they can’t understand the settings in first few pages and feel bad about it.

On the other hand, Neal Stephenson used a lot of similes and metaphors. That technique attracts the readers’ attention. In Anathem, there is no explanation to us of what is happening (told) at the beginning. However, humor caused by the literary technique makes the readers keep on reading.

Both of the works are very interesting even for Japanese, but it seems to be difficult for me to translate them into Japanese if I am a translator. Humor is closely connected to the culture and it is not easy to express humor to people who don’t know the culture at all. So I really want to know how the sentences are translated, but to my disappointment, they haven’t been translated yet.

Wuthering Heights

I read the first three pages of Wuthering Heights, and thought that it was the most difficult first three pages that I had ever read. That is because I can never sympathize with anyone in the scene. Everyone seems to be so selfish and self-centered that they don’t have kindness and don’t behave friendly. My teacher said “horrible people are horrible to each other.” I think that it really makes sense.

The author, Emily Bronte was born and grew up in Yorkshire, where there isn’t anything gorgeous or showy but is vast nature. She was likely to write this novel in the silence surrounded by green. I wonder what led her to create such horrible people. Did she have something trouble with human relations? I searched on the Internet, and found that this story was created almost by her imagination: no model or experience. It was amazing that such complex human relations were made only by imagination. However, this novel was criticized severely while she was alive. So not knowing the admiration, she died. Moreover it is regrettable that this is only long novel of her works. If she had written another long novel, what would have been it like?

Music

I like music. I had taken electronic organ lessons for more than ten years and played a trombone because I belonged to a wind-instrument music club. If I hadn’t been interested in English literature, I would have taken a music course after I graduated from high school.

When I was a third-year student in high school, I borrowed a CD album named “Fearless” from my friend. That was my first time to listen to songs of Taylor Swift. Since then, I have been a big fan of Taylor. I really studied English hard with her songs, and I passed the entrance examination in December. Thanks to passing the exam earlier, I could go to her live concert in Budokan in February. It was wonderful time for me. I saw her directly with my own eyes! I extremely want to go to her concert again.

Recently, I found a song which I have heard on TV but I didn’t know the name. It is The Rose. I was impressed with the melody and the lyrics deeply, so I looked it up on the Internet and found that the song was used in a movie, “The Rose”. I really got interested in the movie, so I will watch it this week.

Rule of Three

We often find a three-piece set in literature, speeches, and movies. Oh! I have just used the three-piece set: literature, speeches and movies. I used the set because it’s more rhythmical to use three things to give examples of media. But some sophisticated writers add other elements to rule of three and make sentences more powerful and memorable like Ursula Le Guin did.

There is rule of three not only in English but also in Japanese. For example, fairy tales such as Momotaro and Sanmai-no-ofuda. In both English and Japanese books, there are usually trios (mostly two boys and one girl or siblings). The most famous example is Harry, Ron and Hermione. Also, there are lots of proverbs related to three; What had happened twice will happen three times (nidoarukoto-wa-sandoaru), Preseverance prevails (Ishi-no-uenimo-sannen) and so on. Three seems to be a basic point of things and generally a symbol of something powerful or good.

[Reply to comments]
I laughed at your comment on The Wrath of Titans because my mother told me the same comment. And, don't you like The Lord of the Rings so much? I like the actors of the movies and its ending. But I don’t remember the details because I watched them nearly ten years ago, so I will watch again.

Movie

I love seeing movies. I have seen a lot of movies especially for the past one year because I started to live by myself and had more time to see them.

Yesterday, I wanted to see a bit old film like Stand by Me or Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, and rented Leon, which I didn’t know at all. I was just interested in Natalie Portman’s acting in her childhood when I saw the package. I started to see the movie with a soft drink and as a result, the 500 ml drink gushed out of my eyes. I can’t express how sad I was. I don’t want to talk about the content because it is too painful for me to recall it (this does not mean I hate this movie, and I won’t regret seeing it). If you got interested in this film, I tremendously recommend you to see it, but you need to prepare yourself to accept shock.

Recently, I studied The picture of Dorian Gray and I thought I had seen this kind of story somewhere. It is a movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In this movie Dorian Gray is one of main characters, but actually he is... Anyway I enjoyed the movie!

A Princess of Mars

I learned some information of A Princess of Mars in class a few days ago, but actually I didn’t know anything about John Carter before the class. I read only the foreword page and found several mysteries in just 6 pages. That is a fascinating start of a story for me. If someone is reading the foreword at bookstore, he may buy and read the book just because he wants to know the real facts of those mysteries. Except for those mysteries, I like the scene that Uncle Jack is praying in the moonlight. In the real world, I will regard a man who is standing with his arms stretched out to the heavens as somewhat crazy. However, in novels, that kind of scene is dreamy and makes me comfortable (I really love fantastic situations!).

Now, A Princess of Mars was made into a movie by Disney. Last week my mother in Hiroshima called me and told me that my family (my parents and brother) had seen the movie. I was very surprised because it was too timely. In my mother’s opinion, the movie is so-so, but my brother seems to like it partly because it has a lot of battles. Maybe I won’t like the movie very much, so I won’t go to a theater but I will rent DVD to see the view of the world visually.