Teo Degas' Books & Decks

If I had to describe Ghostopolis in a few words I would say "Fun and adventure cinematic story." This is a book for young teens and adults young at heart. Ghosthopolis tells the adventures of Garth Hale after he is accidentally sent to the world of the afterlife. Frank Gallows (the agent who sent Garth there) and his ex-girlfriend ghost Claire Voyant, both former members of the Supernatural Immigration Task Force, decide to go to his rescue and  get him back to earth. Garth's strong life force attracts the attention of Ghostopolis's ruler Vaugner, who tries to capture him to get Garth's energy and use it for evil purposes. Garth happens to find her grandpa Cecil right after landing, although in a form of a child of his age who keeps growing and becoming an adult during the story.

This is  an old-style comic book, one of those I grew up reading when I was a kid: entertaining, imaginative, good graphics, full colour, battles, adventure, the heroes and the badies, fun, lots of fun!, monsters, skulls, skeletons, castles, mummies. One of those books you cannot put down until you finish reading it in a seating.The book targets children, so the narrative has the common clichés of the genre, and of course is predictable, but that doesn't rest interest or fun to the reading. 

The adventures being mostly in the afterlife, one would expect macabre and very dark images, but the contrary is true. All the creatures in the afterworld are likeable, funny, naughty  and not scary at all.  There is a bit of Christian symbolism in the book but it is very subtle, not straightforward, and not preachy at all. The creator is called Joe the builder, a Tuskegee airman, an Afro-American pilot of the WW2.

One of the things I love the most about the book is how cinematic it feels, and how funny is. The character of Frank Gallows is really a cracker, cheeky and likeable. Some of the names are also very funny, like Claire Voyant, or Boogie Boogie Avenue. Vaughner, the bad-man, looks very much like a punk-rock Bylly Idol, although the mouth is very much Marilyn Mason, and he is wearing skinny jeans! Some of the dialogues are also light-hearted and full of pun:

"Assemble my fastest team of night mares, a company of royal skeleton guards, and a carriage for thet wo lovebirds" [the skeleton king says when ordering to prepare his horses] (p. 183)

"Well show them that you don't have to have organs to have guts!" [the skeleton says] (p. 194)

The novel immediately reminds one of Ghostbusters, and of some of Tim Burton's early movie, in which the extraordinary and the ordinary live in dysfunctional harmony. However, to be fair, we cannot reduce the plot or the novel to a Burton-alike story because darkness seems always more natural than the normal world or normal people in Burton's Universe, and that is not the case here.  Unlike Ghostbusters, the ghosts in this novel aren't on earth to scare anybody, they are there to enjoy the peaceful surroundings as the afterlife is a bit messy.  In that regard, Man in black seems more in tune with this story, especially having a group of police officers devoted to capture intruder ghosts and bring them back to their own world. 

I don't think the book has anything really that would bother parents to give their children, even if they are agnostics, lapse Christians, Buddhists or Hindus.
 

PLOT HOLES

> If Garth is dying, why is his energy in the afterworld so humongous? After all he has just a few weeks of life left. I think the fact that he was so sick was a reason why the accident happened; otherwise, the plasma device would have not been taken him. Just saying!

> The appearance of Garth's son is senseless and breaks the rules of believality. One understands that the afterlife has not time or space. Great, but for the sake of the story, please show old Cecil.

THE GRAPHIC ART

Dough TenNapel is not only the author of the story, is also the main illustrator, drawer and penciler/inker.  He has a great talent and can do anything: beautiful rural escapes, cityscapes or action-packed crazy scenes. The arrangement of the vignettes is very dynamic and never boring, and every few pages there is a B&W silhouetted vignette inserted between the others, a kind of wink to the reader. I think that TenNapel shines when he creates simpler images, less busy visually, which are among my favourites. I loved the graphic depiction and development of some of the characters: Claire, Frank, Vaughner, the skeleton king, and all the mumies. I didn't like the depiction of Garth, his mother, and I hesitate about Joe as much .   

I found the subdued and washed out colouring very good, similar to  that in old vintage comics. Not my favourite sort of colouring, but splendid nevertheless.There is a large group of colourists who have to be praised: The lead colourists are Katherine Gardner and Tom Rhodes, helped by assistants Matt Laskodi, Aaaron Crayne, Wes Scog, Rick Randolph, Kenny Hitt, Ethan Nicolle, Eric Barnscume, Dirk Erick Schulz, Sean McGowan and David Kowalyk.

The author of the lettering is not mentioned in the credits, but the lettering is one of the best things in this book. I absolutely loved the lettering fonts, sizing and colouring, even the accurate onomatopoeyic wording of it.  The wording felt like real sounds in my head, not like other times when I read the ambience noises in a comic and I don't hear anything in my head. The lettering perfectly suits the book overall look and style, and it is in harmony with it. 

MIND
More for mid-grade children than for proper teens, I think. I would say about 8-13y.o.a. Older children would be already reading adults stuff or complex books to feed their hunger for adulthood.

NOTE

A movie based on the novel is in development at the time of this review. TenNapel gave an interview about comic creation where he gives some details about the film. The interview is on YouTubbe (1h +).

The city of Ember is the first episode of a series of four novels narrating the adventures of Lina & Doon. They are two teenagers who live in a mysterious and isolated city-state called Ember just assigned their profession at the end of their school days. They start to question whether the life in the city is good for them and become unhappy when the power outages and food shortage become increasingly frequent and they discover that the mayor is involved in some serious activities. After finding and deciphering a broken note with instructions on how to exit the city, they decide to escape. 

THE STORY
 The novel has the format of a traditional serial novel, with a lot of slow pace that builds up to the end, when the real action commences and a cliff-hanger is provided for you to hold on until next episode. I have never heard of read the original Jeanne DuPrau's novels or seen the movie, so I cannot comment on Dallas Middaugh's adaptation. However, I expected, a priori, a bit of chopping off for having done for the graphic book. Although I enjoyed the graphic novel, I felt that the story was a bit hurried at times, a bit too slow others, and a bit superficial others, especially with regards to the relationship between the characters.

Although I enjoyed the novel, I felt that the story was a bit hurried at times, a bit too slow others, and a bit superficial others, especially with regards to the relationship between the characters.  Also, I found some of the "next morning" text unnecessary, as the story itself and the images tell you that without the need to write it all the time.

The City of Ember, nevertheless, is a delightful science fiction story that is not just what it looks like. 

EXPLORING THE BOOK 

Many themes are touched in this novel and you can use the book to start a conversation with your children or with your students on different subjects. Some of the questions that came to mind were:
~~ Is it OK  to question authority?
~~ If affirmative, in which circumstances?
~~ In which way/s can a Government keep its citizens in the dark? Any examples in your country, region or the world nowadays you think of?
~~ Do you think of any circumstances when keeping somebody in the dark about something could/would  benefit them? 
~~  If you are kept in the dark, how do see what is real and what is not?
~~ Which government system does build a better society and makes individuals happier?
~~ Why do we fear a future of doom instead of dreaming of  a future where society is better?
~~ Can individuals help change society?
~~ Which things would surprise you in your daily life if you didn't take them for granted?
~~ How would you describe the things that surround you if you saw them for the first time ever?
~~ What is needed for any person to *see* the world for what it really is?

~~ Would society be better if instead of choosing our professions, the Government randomly assigned those needed and available?
~~ Would your life be different if instead of following a profession of your interest you were assigned another for life? Could you still develop your talent and qualities in any circumstances and profession disregarding which one is?  Could you still be useful or more useful to society?  Could you be happy?
~~ Do the plot, themes or characters in this book remind you of any others you have previous read?
~~ In which way does this novel relate to the Platonic allegory of the cave?  
~~ In which way is the escape of the womb of a city similar to leaving the parental home when you become an adult?

Niklas Asker is the illustrator of this graphic novel. I love his artwork. He has created an expressive world and a visual narrative that doesn't need of much text to be understood. I never take that for granted. The book feels very cinematic, the composition and arrangement of the vignettes and visual frames is varied and interesting, with interior, exterior and landscape scenes that are always appropriate and feel right to me. I especially love the indoors images as they feel warm and cozy, like a real home. The characters are very expressive as well.

The colouring by Niklas Asker & Bo Ashi is wonderful. The shadow work is amazing and very detailed, and helps tremendously to create ambience and mood. Ember is an underground city so one expects the images to be dark and lighted at the same time. This sort of colouring and lighting is always my cup of tea.

Chris Dickey's lettering is quite classic and, mostly, non-invasive. Dialogues are included in classic balloons, and narrative references in square marquees at the top or bottom of the page; the start of a chapter has a lovely broken piece of paper that mirrors the broken instructions sheet in the story. On the contrary, I didn't like the noise and ambience lettering, which was invasive, too bold, too large, and too much of a fracture. Although it has a narrative value and captures well what is happening in the scene, it is out of tune with the rest of the book's imagery.
  
THE NEXT GRAPHIC EPISODES, ARE THEY COMING  OUT ANY SOON?
There is nothing that I find more frustrating and irritating that  realising that a book I'm reading is just the first part of something that we don't know if is ever to be continued. DuPrau published the other three books in the series a while ago, so I wonder why making a graphic novel just out of the first book and not out of the whole series, or why not publishing the other volumes at a reasonable pace? Is this an ongoing project and other volumes will see the light (pun!) soonish? Or is this just an isolated graphic book that will never been continued? 

RENDERING FOR KINDLE
I am quite happy on how this graphic novel works on Kindle, the quality of graphics and colours in my tablet, and the fact that the size of the downloadable file is reasonable. There is no index in the lateral bar, something that I don't see why not and that could be easily fixed in the electronic edition.  


MIND
This graphic book is just an abridged version on the first book of the series.  This book is mostly for mid-grade children and young teens. If you want to read the whole series you better grab the written books.

What What What?! WTF!

If I had to make a list of the weirdest more shocking books I have ever read, this novel would definitely be one of the top ones.

The Squirrel Machine is a B&W graphic novel set in 19th century New England. It narrates the artistic life of the brothers William and Edmund Torpor, who live out of their father's inheritance with their mother. The Torpors are talented musicians, hyper-creative guys, with a hunger for exploring the unexplored to create unique musical instruments and sounds, which turn out to be quite macabre. The novel is structured in four parts, through which we see the boys go from teens to old people in a non-linear narrative.

This novel has everything I want in a graphic book to be memorable: good graphics, great dose of imagination, uniqueness in style and story, they tease my emotions and/or my intellect, and the story keeps me thinking well after I finish the book. The Squirrel Machine has all of that, but it is not the usual moderate dose, it is the baddaboom dose. This novel is fast, slippery and naughty as a mutant squirrel. The Squirrel Machine is provocative, weird, macabre, disgusting, shocking, erotic, gory, trippy, disturbing, dark, irreverent, thought-provoking, deeply oneiric and sweet and funny at times. All of those ingredients are given to the reader with generosity, not a pinch of spices, more like a whole tin  of them. Can you stomach it? Can you forget the pungent flavour of the spices to discover the ingredient that lies underneath?

MAIN THEMES AND MAIN SUBJECT 

The reviews I have read about his novel, are a mix of enthusiasm and perplexity. What is the novel all about? Is there any story at all? Is there anything to be understood, or just a collection of odd images? That is perhaps what makes the reading captivating, because even if you don't like this book, you want to know, to dig and take out the hidden secret, to "get it".  

To me, this novel is a triptych that creates a whole. The three main panels or themes are: The interrelation between oniric and awaken state, the communication between the conscious and subconscious, and the process of creating Art. They are all linked, I guess because they reflect the kind of artist Rickheit is. Of course, I am just guessing, I don't know the artist and I stumbled upon this book more than I sought it. The written introduction gives many clues about what this book is about, it is just that one forget the words easily, and here one should not.

1/If you tend to your dreams or a dream-worker you will find easier to go through some of the pages in this book. Rickheit might not be a dream-worker but he knows dream language and transposes into his images and story, and I find something amazing. There is a fine line separating the real world and the oneiric work and Rickheit gives readers several clues, first in the written introduction and then in some of the images that directly connect both words. It is raining, Edmund is sleeping and his dream reflect how the exterior world affects the story going in the dream. Most importantly, the world of dreams is symbolic and metaphorical and none of the images and words said is literal, and what is literal is like you have it in front of your nose and cannot see it. The world of dreams is a world of constant puns and metaphors, sometimes very obvious, others very hidden. For example, the erotic scene in the snails is apparently nonsense, but is it? What is the imagery telling? Doesn't intercourse feels like a constant generation and expulsion of slimy juices coming out of the body? Many of the scenes in the book can be read that way. Instead of seeing what you have in the vignette and taking it literally, ask yourself, what would be the message the image is conveying if translated, literally, into words? Is Edmund entering a secret world underneath the bed, or underneath the blankets? Is the image of William's empty skin a way of saying that he is a hollow man that has been discarded and whose life has been shattered into pieces? Is the image of a man falling from a cliff when talking about his love of a woman, a way of depicting the saying "he has fallen for her"? I read many of the images in the book this way and they seemed to make more sense than in an other way. It is also more rewarding, because it forces one to see reality for what is removing the lens of perception. It also forces to properly look at things for what they are not for what they provoke in us or the way we see them.

2/ On the other hand, this novel felt quite Jungian to me! The squirrel seems to sending messages from the upper or conscious world to the underground or the world of the unconscious, from the upper awaken world to the underground world or vice versa. The underground world is always the world of the unconscious, all our hidden self is: the surprising, the shocking, the trauma, the repressed stuff, the genius, the creativity, the fear, the wholly-molly of our inner world, a world that we don't know anything about but influences how we behave in the world. The Squirrel Machine is a constant going and coming to the underground, to the unconscious/subconscious, and the dark stuff comes from there. The relation of the unconscious & the irrational v. the conscious & rational is also exposed in the images and story in ways that aren't apparent either. It shows in the relationship between the Torpors and Emma the pig-keeper, who looks and behaves mostly like an animal, moves and acts out of her basic instincts, the animal part in all of us; however, Emma is also the owner of the book on the Squirrel Machine. She and Edmund connect directly themselves and what Edmund sees made him sick for days. Like looking inside ourselves and seeing our inner monster, our basic animality. The play of conscious/unconscious and rational/irrational are constantly used in the novel. Mrs Torpor, seems to be the only person among the main characters that has some sort of equilibrium.

3/ The exploration of the oneiric, the conscious, the unconscious, the rational and the irrational are are not the subjects of this book, they are as aids to the main subject of the book -- the artistic creative process, the way artistic creation works, the things that artistic creation brings up for the artist, and for society, and what needs to stay and what needs to be destroyed or will destroy the artist. In a way, the artist is presented as a constant explorer of the inner world, an explorer of the unconscious, the explorer of the irrational, the magician that confronts face to face the psyche and its monsters and gets its secrets out. What are the Torpor boys dreaming of? It is mostly of Art, even though their creations turn out to be monstrous and socially unacceptable. It came to me that some of the biggest artists in the 19th and early 20th century, those who revolutionised the world of Art and whose Art creations are now called masterpieces, were considered mad men at the time, their Art was considered disgusting, revolting and monstrous in a way. Like these artists, the Torpor boys have a hunger for creating, for creating something different, for experimentation and for accessing that magic well (pun!) from where inspiration comes from. The creative world has no end, keeps growing and growing, yet it is not a matter of growth, is a matter of the creative side being organic, healthy and beneficial mostly to the creator.

WHAT IS THE SQUIRREL MACHINE? 

What is the Squirrel Machine and what does it do? To me, it is that magic "thing" that connects the inner and outer self, all the parts that form who we are as persons and as human beings. he main question is not what the squirrel machine does, the question is that is beneficial to you and to your Art. Is beneficial for the Torpors? Can they stand it? What does to them? Are they ready to face the machine? There are things inside us that should never been seen by any other person, or just for those who are willing and ready, things that we are not even prepared to face without losing ourselves in them and losing who we are.

FUNNY MOMENTS

The book has also some very funny moments, which serve as a sort of release of the accumulated dark tension. Some of the scene sex are very comic, as are Mrs Torpor's paintings, and the use of the word torpor as surname. Torpor is "a state of mental or physical inactivity", which is the contrary of which these guys are, even the mother is far from torpor. There are little elements depicted in the backgrounds that are really cute.

THE ARTWORK

I have a natural preference for minimalist B&W images and lines, and for gorgeous coloured drawings, for which very busy vignettes, as the ones in this book, are never going to be my cup of tea. However, I cannot but recognise Rickheit's visual talent, and the way he is able to create amazing detailed indoor images, baroque surrealist images, cityscapes and a bit of country escape. I found that facial expressions are, on the contrary, a bit loose or not fully detailed. It might be intentional as most of the characters look a bit under the effects of hallucinogens or just hyperventilated. I like Mrs Torpor, she is balanced and has a face :)) 

WARNING

Despite the cute title and intriguing book cover, The Squirrel Machine is not a a book for children, and certainly not for most adults. Gory, violent, sexual and everything you want your children not to read until they are mature enough to understand it. Strictly for open minded adults, as well.

If you have the stomach, this is an awesome book. I found it equally repulsive and amazing. It is just me and the way I am. But I have read it twice. That is something!

I have this app installed in all my gadgets. I use it on a daily basis and I have done so for many years. I rarely read on paper nowadays, and part of the reason is because how comfortable and enjoyable the reading experience is in Kindle. The fact that the app is free is nothing I take for granted. The Kindle App is an awesome app, but not perfect.

Here a wrap up of my experience using Kindle.

THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THINGS

 <> Kindle allows you to read comfortably by letting you adjust the type of font, size of the font, colour of the background, interlinear space and margin space in your reading area.
<> The side bar is very useful to move throughout the book, between books and to access and manage your notes and highlights. You can even edit those in a batches to create a personalised notebook with them.
<> Variety of background colours: white, sepia, green (this is the last addition and quite enjoyable), and black (my least favourite).

<> Normal books download really fast. Graphic books a bit slower but quite fast as well. Of course the speed of your data connection matters, but it is not just that. 

<> All your books are safely stored in the Amazon's cloud, for which you will never lose them. You can erase them from your device if you wish, something I do so as not to bulk the memory of my tablet and phones, or erase them from a place and not for other.

<> The app is fully synchronisable and you can leave a book in page 10 in a gadget, reopen it in another gadget, and the app will tell the last page in the book you were reading and if you want to go there or not.Synchronisation also affects your highlighted text.

<> Many of the issues in the past affecting  graphic and illustrated books, have been solved, especially since Amazon acquired Comixology, as the reading of comics was and is better in the latter because they focus just on comics. At present, there is little difference regarding the quality of the reading experience in Comixology, and Kindle and you can decide whether reading on one or the other depending the book you have purchased. If the editors bother to prepare them accordingly, you will have a fantastic experience, moving around the pages, moving from vignette to vignette, zooming in and out and feeling that you have the comic book in your hands.
<> If you wish, you can access the Kindle shop from your Kindle app, browse books, add them to your lists and purchase them using your preferred settings. 

SUGGESTIONS TO  IMPROVE THE APP,

+ Launch updates when they are ready and trouble free. If Amazon needs testers, search for them and use them before the general public downloads any update.

+ Add a light green colour highlighter. At the moment most of the highlights are warm colours except for blue. I don't like the orange highlighter as it looks ugly in all backgrounds.

+ Add a few more reading fonts to enhance customisation and allow a more enjoyable reading.
+  Allow the use of fonts that are scalable in size, so you can go from size 1 to 2 in several steps is you want, not in just one jump. 

 + Add a light grey reading background and make the black background perhaps a dark grey. The latter works better than black as it offers high contrast for poor-sighted people but it is much enjoyable for reading.

+ Add a visual effect for page-passing (like Google's reader) as this makes the reading more natural and real. That improvement has been due for years. 

+ Fix a dysfunction, or perhaps a bug, that turns some books that have their text fully justified into non-justified when you increase the font size.
+ When cutting and pasting bits of a given book, allow customers to choose whether pasting them with the bibliographic reference in full, as it happens now, or perhaps a short version of it. I use the cut and paste for personal reasons at times, and others for quoting or keeping some work material together, so I don't always need the bibliographic reference pasted in full every single time I copy a bit of text. 

+ Add the customer's list/s to the recommended readings in the home screen area. At the moment, we get the suggestions made by Amazon on its own accord, i.e. following an algorithm. In my case I have never purchased any of the book suggested, so it is a waste of your time and my space, Mr Algorithm. If the items in my book lists were displayed there, I would buy them more often.
+ The developers keep updating the app all the time, which is intrinsically good. I see major updates in Kindle and how they have improved my reading experience and the use and versatility of the app. However, I don't find acceptable the frequency of the updates and the fact that customers are the lab rats to test them. Most developers do the same, to be fair, but the fact that everybody is doing it, shouldn't be an excuse to keep doing it.
+ I would work on a way to compressing the graphic book files still offering great quality of image and detailed zooming. At present, most comics are between 100-200 MB, some of them reaching the 500. OK if you have unlimited Internet, if you use mobile Internet or data-capped Internet, that is a lot of money you are paying for downloading a graphic book. 
 + The search tool is not the best search too around, let me tell you. I would invest some effort in improving it.

OBVIOUS, BUT IT NEEDS TO BE SAID

This is an app developed by a merchant called Amazon to sell us books in its own format, called Kindle books, which Amazon sells to you.  Therefore, you cannot read, oh surprise! surprise?, Kobo books, Pub books, PDF books, documents and or any other book that is not in Kindle format. Actually, you can read PDF and doc. documents, but Kindle is not designed for that and handles them badly. You can still find online tools to convert any of those books into Kindle and use them in your Kindle. You can also use other apps to turn articles in the Wikipedia and read them in Kindle. Yet, doing the opposite is impossible or almost. It used to be possible in the past, but the results were pathetic.  

COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Some books are not really ready for Kindle; therefore, depending on the case, you cannot use the final index, cannot see some of the images properly, or the notes are a bit messed up. Of course, this is not the developers' fault, but it affects my Kindle experience. Amazon should be working to let editors know that their books won't be accepted into Kindle unless properly prepared. Is that or charging Kindle customers less money for ebooks.

MY ADVICE TO CUSTOMERS

Get the app and try it. However, do not update the app frequently unless it is malfunctioning and you see that the new releases have good reviews in Amazon and Google Play. It will save you time, data, and a headache at times.

The Hen who Dreamed she Could Fly is a modern fable for mid-aged children and adults written by the Korean writer Hwang Sun mi.

This is a short and sweet novella, that you will devour in a seating. It has all the elements of successful classic tales for children but will captivate also adults. For a start, the story is Universal as there are no location names, no human names, so the story could be happening anywhere, Korea, USA, or Spain. The story also speaks to any culture, religion or social class. The settings and characters are those of a traditional fable: a barn, anthropomorphic domestic animals; good, bad and evil characters; a hero, a subversion of the animal order of some sort, and an embedded moral lesson. Unlike classic fables and folk tales, the moral lessons in this novella are very contemporary, very 21st century.  One of the main messages of the book is explicitly mentioned:

 Just because you’re the same kind doesn’t mean you’re all one happy family. The important thing is to understand each other. That’s love! (Kindle Locations 984-985).

The reading of the book is far from linear as there are different layers and themes touched at the same time, which will appeal to people of different conditions, even to people who see the world very differently. Two major themes are obvious to me:

1/  Nature simple "is"

2/ Our nature does not always equal Nature

> Does motherhood equal womanhood?
>  Does being of a different race or of the same gender make a difference in being a good parent? Said differently, can a mother from a race or gender that is not that somebody born with make a difference in your growing up?
> Is surrogacy OK?
> Does Nature define your nature?
> What is more cruel, the cruelty of Nature or subverting Nature for the sake of personal fulfilment and getting hurt because of it?

Eventually, what you will enjoy the most about the book is the sentimental part of it, the emotions that this foolish mother of a hen called Sprout brings in you. Interracial inter-religious and gay couple will find their struggle reflected in the fable. Any struggling single mother will cry at finding her harshness and devotion reflected. The book will also touch non-mothers because the story will remind them of the abnegation, love and willingness to overcome obstacles that some mothers have, perhaps their own. 

The characters in this novella  are well drawn. The weasel is my favourite, s/he know who s/he is, his place in Nature, and doesn't  apologise for whom s/he is, what other people think of his/her way of life or the hatred s/he attracts. Sprout the hen is foolish, yet we are immediately drawn to her compassion, selfless love, and the way she stands the harshness of life, even though she put herself in that position.  

The ending is great. A great lesson. Because there are things in life you cannot change or subvert, as simple as that, you like it or not. 

The translation by Kim Chi-Young really flows. The language used is very simple, but I guess that was also in the original as this is, after all, a book mainly  for  children. Yet, sometimes I found some wording that was a bit off to me, probably because English is not my first language. However, there is one occasion that the word of choice seemed not appropriate:

One of the sentences reads "She tried not to lose consciousness, wondering what was happening." (Loc. 64).  

I thought that a talking hen would have never used this expression because hens simply don't have consciousness, something one can easily put aside because this is a fable. However, talking of a hen  in the third person, I would have simply said  "not to faint." I thought, this would be easier to understand for children as well.  This is, of course, a very personal appreciation.

I love the black-and-white minimalist illustrations by Japanese artist Kazuko Nomoto's (aka Nomoco's), who is also the author of the paperback and hardcover's covers. There are very few illustrations in the book, just at the beginning of each chapter, and a flowery line at the end of the chapter. I thought there was room for more illustrations, and that the book would have benefited from more.

As happens with other Korean books that become popular in the West, senseless comparisons to English-speaking novels immediately sprout or are summoned: Animal Farm and Charlotte's Web. Really? Why the need to say something as senseless?! Those novels have nothing in common with this book except for the fact that they have animal characters in a farm. I have never read John Livingston Seagull, which is another book frequently mentioned, so I cannot comment on that. Personally, the only influences that came to mind when reading it were European, Aesop's fables and the Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen, although to be fair, the script of the movie Babe, which is Australian, also came to mind. Yet, this book is quite different in mood and message from all of those.    

NOTES

~o~ The book was first published in Korean in the year 2000, and it is a modern classic there. The novel was first published in English in 2010, this edition being of 2014, way behind the date when it was translated into other major languages.

~o~The story was brought to the big screen in 2011 in a Korean animated film titled in English Leafie, a Hen into the Wild and also Daisy a Hen into the Wild, and turned into the theatre stage in 2015. The book was also adapted to a comic book.

KINDLE RENDERING
Although you can easily individuate and zoom in the illustrations, the images are not very big, they don't fit the full page in my tablet. When you double-tap and individuate the image this is still a bit small, even if you zoom it by pinch it in, and it doesn't look neat enough. This could be easily solved in the Kindle edition, so the image can be zoomed without losing quality and zoomed in more.

A WARNING
This book is not for small children and needs of parental supervision as deals with themes that aren't easily understandable to children. I would not give it or read it to a small child, unless s/he is older than 6y.o.a.

Korea. The impossible Country is a passionate comprehensive introduction to Korea, its culture and its people. The book is easy to read, engaging, very informative, and a great introduction to the country, especially if you intend visiting. Tudor's depth of knowledge is admirable and impressive and although his expertise  is economics and business,  the book has a soul. What is more, Tudor is able to dig into the Korean soul and present it to you in its many faces. You will dive through Korea's collective psyche and understand why Koreans behave and do things in a certain way.

This could have been a Wikipedia sort of book or a travel guide sort of book, does none of that, but succeeds at being informative and a good companion for travelling. The book touches on the eternal and the mundane in five fascinating sections:

1- Foundations: We are presented with a brief analysis of the most influential religions in Korea (Buddhism, Christianity and Confucianism) and the specific ways that Capitalism and Democracy show in that country. 
2- Cultural Codes: We immerse ourselves into those beliefs, ways of being and attitudes that make Koreans who they are and are: Jeong, Chemyon, Han, Heung, competition, family and neophilia.
3- Cold Reality, focuses on those aspects of life that make the functioning of society possible but aren't as thrilling as others: politics, business, work,  marriage, studying and being fluent in English.
4- In the hours not spent working: Eating, drinking, music, cinema, and the living space are the subject of this part.
5- More of Us and Less of them analyses Korean attitudes towards foreigners, gays, women, and the many faces of Korean nationalism.
 

The book is preceded by a short historical introduction.Generally speaking, I dread those, especially when they come from non historians, but I have to confess that the introduction is short and sweet, very informative. and a good first approach to the History of Korea. Plenty of historical details are also found in each chapter when a historical background is needed.The epilogue is, in a good part, a brief summary of what Tudor discusses throughout the book, that is, what makes Koreans a remarkable nation and the challenges that Korea has and needs to face in the changing world we live in.

Tudor is basically an economist, and there are plenty of statistics and business and economical references in this book. However, they add to the overall believability of the book.

I love that one can read the chapters individually if one wants, as they are complete in themselves, so this makes the book very versatile and practical. 

I didn't find any typo in the book, something really cool.

THE ABSENTEES
>>> Two of the main absentees in the book are Korea's working classes and rural dwellers, who are barely mentioned in this work. Korea is a  very urban country, I get that, but I would have liked having a bit of more background on rural Korea and its culture and see how it differs from urban Korea, or not. On the other hand, the working class is barely mentioned, and I would have liked to know more about them as well. Are their interests, struggles and obsessions similar to those of the people who send their kids to an American University and have plastic surgery to look better in their resumé?

>>> There is a total absence of Korean literature,  theatre, painting, sculpture,  and visual arts, except for movies, in section 4, they are basically ignored. Korea has a vibrant literary scene, a scene where women are dominating the field, and are well-respected. I love Korean films, but what about visual arts like painting, sculpture, experimental artists, any around in Korea?

>>> One of the chapters I was looking forward to reading was that on Korean food.  One can find a list of typical Korean dishes anywhere, so I expected this chapter to go beyond that and offer some depth about Korean culinary culture. But there is little depth, and other things are taken for granted, as the author supposes that we already know many things about it. Some of the questions I wanted to know about and aren't mentioned in the book:  Which hours do they eat in the day? Is their main meal in the morning, midday or evening? Is there a foodie culture in Korea as we have it in Western countries?  Is eating out expensive? Does everybody cook at home these days or is still a women's task? Do Koreans have a strong street food culture? Which differences do you see in food eating according to social classes in Korea? Is there a "vernacular" tea culture in Korea? Do they love TV programs like MasterChef? Which foreign food/s do they love the most? Tudor knows all of this and much more and I would love have loved that sort of information commented on, even if lightly. Perhaps in the new edition of the book?

KOREAN, REALLY?
Some of the things Tudor says about Korean can be seen also in Western Europe, USA and Australia, so I wonder in which ways they are specifically Korean. For example:
# Yummy mummies who don't work or have achieved nothing in life and use their children's achievements to push their own egos and, therefore, push their kids unnecessarily for their own sake are everywhere.
# The obsession with technology. Sure, Korean moves faster than any other country on neophilia. Yet, I found very similar attitudes and obsessions in countries like Australia, where teens can be seen with super-duper phones and their parents renew their handsets in less than two years. In many Western countries people camp outside Apple stores before the launch of a new product to be the first to get it.

# Gay actors who keep in the closet not to destroy their careers. Certainly, gay people have a brighter life in the Western World (Wester Europe especially) and no actor is going to be publicly shamed or condemned for being gay. In real life, though, there are youngsters who are bullied, abused, and marginalised because of their sexual orientation in different countries called civilised and very Western. The Australian ex-swimmer Ian Thorpe had depression, publicly denied being guy, wrote a biography in which he denied it again, and when he came out of the closet said that he had kept it secret out of fear because he didn't know if his country would accept him. Also in Australia, a pop singer Anthony Callea kept his gay self hidden for work career purposes, he said, as most of his fans were female teens. Of course, nobody is making life difficult for them, but Korea is not the only country in which the attitudes mentioned in the book are part of the daily life of gays. 

> The problem of the ageing population and low birth rates. I cannot but agree with what Tudor says, but this is not a typically Korean problem, as it affects most countries in Western Europe, Spain and Italy with one the lowest birth rates in the world and the population ageing at the speed of ageing :).

THE EDITING
I notice the editing when the editing is not good. When it is is, I don't notice anything. I focus on the writing, the message of the book or the story being told. This book could have been a better book if the editing had been better. An editor is not just a person who corrects typos and grammar in writing (which is excellent here by the way), an editor also focuses on content, how one says things and the way one says them, what is superfluous and what is not, which things have been repeated many times and which things should be mentioned and they haven't. Just a few examples:

> Tudor repeats himself quite often, things are said over and over again in different chapters, sometimes in the same chapter, and it is not always necessary. Just one example, the per capita earnings of  Koreans in the post-war era. 
>  At times the book reads like a blog, others like a newspaper article, and others like a proper book. That is, there is no coherence in the style. That is distracting to me and not good for any book.
> The "Special Feature: Interview with Choi Min-sik" feels like a cut-&-paste from a blog or article added here. I don't know if that is the case, but it reads as a pastiche even though I loved Oldboy. The question that matters here is, is this interview really relevant to know the film culture of Korea and necessary to be included in the book? The answer is no.
> The data that Tudor uses for some references to religious practices relates to the 1990s! Hello hello, 2016 calling. I wonder how accurate the statistics were in 2012, when the book was written, and today.

> The author mentions a few books and articles, but does not properly quote them. I understand that the book is for the general public, but including an endnote after an explicit reference would not disturb the general populace, it is a matter of courtesy to the author mentioned, it is the right thing to do when you are a professional writer as it backs up your reputation, and some readers could be interested in that book or article. Just an example:

" In a paper on the influence of chemyon on Korean consumer culture, Yoosun Hann of the University of Illinois wrote that it was important “not to stand out, but to fit in” (pp. 112-113)

RENDERING FOR KINDLE
~~ The comprehensive final index is not rendered for Kindle, therefore, not linked, therefore, useless for Kindle users. Moreover, the number of pages relates to the printed edition. Cheat!  Cheat! Cheat!
~~ If I get an e-book, I expect the book to have any website mentioned in the text out-linked.

A WISH
After reading the book I am sure he is an expert on Korea. Why not including a list of  must-read books and reputed sources on Korea?

IN SHORT
I cannot highlight enough how much I enjoyed this book and how much I recommend it to anybody interested in Korea.  However, the book is also lacking in finesse, and some themes that are also very Korean, aren't mentioned.

The Vegetarian (채식주의자) is a Korean novel, and the winner of the 2016's Man Booker International Prize.

This is a tree-part novella, each narrated by a different character. The main character is Yeon-hye, a young married woman who suffers a mental crisis and becomes a vegan in a country and family where veganism is almost unknown and not well-seen. Her crisis will affect all members of her family in unexpected ways, opening a box of Pandora that will varnish with emotional turmoil everyone it touches. The other two major characters are her sister In-hye, and her brother-in-law (an unnamed artist and In-hye's husband.)

The three parts are:

Ω Ω Ω

The unbearable heaviness of being is an expression that comes to mind when I think of all the characters in this novel. The three main characters are masterfully composed, and we come to understand the three of them, to put ourselves in their shoes and see their view of the world and experience their inner pain. None of them oozes happiness.

I love the way the character of Yeong-hye is portrayed, like an ethereal ghost-like being even though there is little lightness about her. The depiction of her mental crisis and conversion to veganism is very real. I have come across many cases of real women in the 19th century, just to use an example, who developed food phobias and anorexia nervosa as a part of severe mental problems, some of them with deeply spiritual roots. There is something about the way you feed you body affects your soul, and vice versa, and this is masterly captured in the book.

I love the character of In-hye. I think she is a reflection of most of  us, we who endure life and don't live it to the fullest, we who mute our inner voice, we who please instead of enjoy, we who repress anger to show how civilise we are but really angrier than those who do the contrary. To me, the character of In-hye is the most insane of all even though she is sane in her mind.

It is very difficult, at least for me, to like the character of In-hye's artist husband as he appears as a selfish, self-centred, and self-absorbed prick. He, like Yeon-hue, wants to die, but in a different way. His art comes from his core, is created to feed his soul, and in this case to die, to be one with the Universe, with Nature, to become one with humans, animals and plants as he expressly says. It is not a surprise that the character mentions as a source of inspiration an untitled audiovisual work by the avant-garde Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, which I think is self-obliteration. 

Ω Ω Ω

There is a heavy presence of oneiric elements and moments in the novel that I find remarkable:

  ‘I had a dream … and that’s why I don’t eat meat.’ (Locations 1079-1080).

In-hye has also dreams, as does her son, and her husband. Dreams are mentioned throughout the book, even at the very end.

‘I have dreams too, you know. Dreams … and I could let myself dissolve into them, let them take me over … but surely the dream isn’t all there is? We have to wake up at some point, don’t we? Because … because then …(Kindle Locations 2174-2176). 

The oneiric element works perfectly in the novel because, dreams are the messengers of the psyche, they are the bed where the soul rests, the mirror of the true self, that part of the human being that is honest and says to you how you feel even when your conscious mind doesn't want to accept it. Dreams are also a space where reality and non-reality mix in organic but mysterious ways. The dream is the seed of our hidden truth, of our moments of elation, despair and anguish. The dream is always emotional. We see our characters' frigid emotionality in their awaken life, but very emotional in their oneiric life and very connected to their inner truth trough dreams. We see their dreams speaking their inner truth.

However, the dream is not only an literary element here. There is a strong dream culture in South Korea, still alive nowadays. Jeremy Seligson says in his entry on traditional Korean Dreams that:

"In traditional Korea, clairvoyant and precognitive dreams have played a vital role in the individual's and family's life at every level of society"

and also, and relevant for this novel, 

"Once an event is foreseen in a dream, the dreamer takes steps to prepare for its arrival" (see Deirdre Barrett, D. & McNamara, P.. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams: The Evolution, Function, Nature, and Mysteries of Slumber. Greenwood, 2012, vol. 2, pps. 774-776.)

Ω Ω Ω

The book spans out for only 160 pages. The story and narrative are brilliant, the language I don't know. I always prefer that to three volumes of epic adventures full of fluff that are populating the charts of best-sellers around the English-speaking world.

There are images powerfully lyric and visually artistic and cinematic in this book. One of my favourites is in the fist part, when Yeong-hye in the courtyard in the hospital with a bird in his hand.Almost like a modern painting. Or the image of In-hye reflected in the mirror with a bleeding eye, very surrealist. Others, on the contrary are very dramatic, shocking and horrific, like the dream with the dog. Those images will stay with you for a long time, tattooed onto your retina long after you finish the book.

Ω Ω Ω

The translation by Deborah Smith is good. Most of the book flows and that is the sort of experience we want as translators and readers to have when translating literary works.  However, as I reader, I thought that the first chapter needed of a better editing because, personally, I found it lacking in punctuation at times, some unnecessarily wording others, and the choice of some words over others a bit distracting, at least to me.

Ω Ω Ω

TWO  NOTES 
Ѫ The Vegetarian was originally published in 2007, compiling three novelettes previously published separately. However, the story, according to Hang herself, developed organically, but turned dark, from  a short story of hers "Fruits of my Woman" written in the year 2000:

The main characters are a man and woman, and one day when the man returns home from work, he sees that his wife has become a plant. So he moves her into a pot, waters her, and takes care of her. As the seasons change, the woman spits out her last hard seeds. As he takes the seeds out to the balcony, he wonders whether his wife will be able to bloom again in spring. Overall the story isn’t so dark, and is also magical, but after writing it, I wanted to write it again from a different perspective. So I thought for years about how to write it. From the very first page, The Vegetarian came out very dark and different. (in "Violence and Being Human: A Conversation with Han Kang" by Krys Lee (World Literature Today, January 2016).

 Ѫ The book was taken to the screen in 2009 under the direction of Woo-Seong Lim. The movie was also called The Vegetarian.

A TYPO
> I couldn’t get my head round it. (Locations 48-49).
> natural it was to not wear clothes. (Location 1220).

A WARNING
This word contains explicit violence, human and animal, and explicit sex scenes.
 
A QUERY
Why was the book called Vegetarian in English is the character becomes a vegan? Was the title in Korean the same?