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"The light we lost", by Jill Santopolo : Book review

Date of reading : 1st May, 2018

I have procrastinated until this time, and I write this review finally.
A first person narrative is the type I most prefer when I read a novel.
It makes it easy to concentrate on reading and well understand characters, their behaviour, why they did that and above all it makes me feel like as if I were the narrator themselves.

That is the beauty of reading a novel. A good novel gives me to have an opportunitiy to experience lives that I have never experienced before in my real life. On a rare occasion, something similar or the same may happen to life, and this invaluable experience might help me see the situation straight, what is at stake, what is important, why it has happened, and most importantly what I must do.

This book caught me while I was off the guard. I was not expecting much from this book, but it turned out to be one of the most impressive novels. Lucy, the narrator and heroin, feels so real and alive. I was her. I could feel everything Lucy had felt.

I want to finish this review with my favorite quote in this book. A woman filled with light makes everything she touches brighter.

Book Review, "The Course of Love" by Alain de Botton

Purchasing : late 2017
Reading date : Sunday, 1st April, 2018

 The fundamental reason that I read a novel is that there is a hope that I would find at least a single sentence which articualtes what I have felt in my real life before or at the moment and what I could deeply sympathize with. There is a time when emotions are extreme, but it is difficult to understand properly what I am feeling or to say it in right words. Alain de Botton in this book, "The Course of Love", shows us many insightful words that we can readily sympathize with. I could sense, while reading it, that he centainly understands how to love someone properly.

 It tells us how we begin to love someone, how we become frustrated, and how we overcome it. At the beginning of love infatuation captures us. Objective knowledge doesn't come into it. It bypasses the normal processes of reason.

 At the beginning, we are frightened and anxious. When we face someone we are deeply in love with we become clumsy, scared of saying and doing the wrong thing, and cannot find anything to talk about. It is always strange that 'we tend not to get very anxious when seducing people we don't much care about', says Alain de Botton.

He also says 'Love reaches a pitch at those moments when our beloved turns out to understand, more clearly than others have ever been able to, and perhpas even better than we do ourselves, the chaotic, embarrasing and shameful parts of us. We can admit to not being as respectable or as sober, as even-keeled or as 'normal', as society believes. We can be childish, imaginative, wild, hopeful, cynical, fragile, and multiple- all of this our lover can understand and accept us for.'

I cannot agree more with the view that to love someone means to give them the power to hurt us. When love reaches a certain point they are dependant on each partner. Each of them wants to be understood, heard. But, 'our romantic lives are fated to be sad and incomplete, because we are creatures driven by two essetial desires which point powerfully in entirely opposing directions.' When hurt, Alain de Botton encourages us to understand that 'few in this world are very simply nasty; those who hurt us are themselves in pain. The appropriate response is hence never cynicism or aggression but, at the rare moments one can manage it, always love.'

Alain de Botton is an observant, acute and clever writer. 'The Course of Love' explores how to maintain love over time as he constantlys says love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm. This doesn't mean that we should be anti-Romantist. It is completely opposite. Love is a skill because it is not so much the start of love as accumulating processes of understanding it.

Book Review : "The Last Letter From Your Lover", by Jojo Moyes

Date of purchase : 2014 or 2015 possibly
Date of reading : 1st reading 2015 possibly, 2nd reading 3rd March 2018

 I finished 'The Last Letter From Your Lover', by Jojo Moyes a second time. It is a special book to me because this was almost the first book that gave me an idea of what love is. Also, it is the first book I read by Jojo Moyes which eventually made me read the rest of her works.

 It is pointless to define love in simple words. Even so, if I should, I believe it is all about caring. When one is in real love who believes she is a soulmate, her safety, convenience, and smile become his only life concern. She becomes the centre of his life and everything he does is for her. She is the reason for his existence.

As mentioned in the book, it is indeed a gift to have someone to love. To love properly, I think one needs to understand what their love must be and have his own idea of love. Loving someone should be a constant effort to understand them properly and correctly. It is all about understanding.

I would like to mention two favorite quotes from The Last Letter From your Lover.

“Somewhere in this world is a man who loves you, who understands how precious and clever and kind you are. A man who has always loved you and, to his detriment, suspects he always will.” 


“To have someone out there who understands you, who desires you, who sees you as a better version of yourself, is the most astonishing gift.” 


Every single person who has loved someone in their life can understand the meaning of these two quotes. These are exactly what we feel towards someone whom we love, but it is excessively difficult to express them in exact words. And Jojo Moyes is one of the few who actually achieved this in this book.

Book Review : 'The Remains of the Day', by Kazuo Ishiguro

Date of purchase : Tuesday, 31st October, 2017
Date of reading : Sunday, 31st December, 2017

<Main chracters>
Mr Stevens : The Narrator/a butler
Miss Kenton : former housekeeper
Lord Darlington : former employer
Mr Farraday : current employer from America

'The Remains of the Day', by Kazuo Ishiguro tells a story of an English Butler, Mr Stevens, who reminisces about his past as he goes through a few days trp to West Country. He thinks of his former employer-Lord Darlington-, foremr housekeeper-Miss Kenton, and many affairs associated with them.

He keeps emphasizing professionalism as he narrates. I have to admit it seems nice at first as Mr Steven tried to be sincere in his work and to his employer, only to find out how foolish and ignorant he has been.

I was angry and indignant most of the time when he remineces about occasions with Miss Kenton. It sometimes looked that he was sort of psychopath who was not able to empathize with human.

Lord Darlington he had looked up to was not a man who he desperately believeed to be - rather most foolish. A love came and slipped through him while he genuinly believed that suppressing one's feelings is an admiring trait a butler must have acquire.

Indignant as I was, maybe I see some similarities that I have gone through. Vanity, fooling myself, and escaping reality.

Book Review : "Never Let Me Go", by Kazuo Ishiguro

Date of Reading : Sunday, 24th December, 2017
Date of Purchase : Thursday, 26th October, 2017
Purchase of Location : Kyobo bookstore offline
Reading of Location : Cafe HeungShinSoh near Hangyang University

******** Be aware that there are some spoliers in thsi review ********

<Main Characters>

Kathy : Narrator and main protagonist 

Ruth : Kathy's cloesest friend

Tommy : A male donor and friend of Kathy and Ruth.

Miss Emily : Headmistress of Hailsham

Madame(Marie Claude) : A female who visits Hailsham regularly and collects some of the best art works.

 I came across 'Kazuo Ishiguro' September or October 2017 when the media made a huge fuss about his being nominated for Nobel price in literature. After a few weeks later, I visited Kyobo in Gwang-Hwa-Moon and saw his books displayed at the most freuquented spot. I bought "Never Let Me Go" and "The Remains of the Day" there.

 The first impression I got from his way of writing is he understands a human mind which is a fundamental qualification to be a great writer. He describes what and how we feel in plain words with simplicity, but I know this is the most difficult thing to acheive as writer.

 Speaking of the book, it tells a world with clones who should donoate their vital organs until they complete, which means death. Main characters are raised to be a donor at Hailsham. They are trained by guardians to learn art and other various subjects. Especially, art is the most important subject they should master and some of the best works are selected by Madame, Marie-Claude. Later, this confuses them very much because what they are trained to learn seems practically pointless if all clones would become donors anyway.

 Young Tommy suggests a theory why guardians emphasizes art so much and Madame collects their best drawing or poetry to Gallery. There is some rumor that donors can 'deferral' if two donors are in love. 'Deferral' means thay can be granted a few extra years to live with each other without donating their vital organs. Tommy's theory is that art is thought to reveal a soul and their arts collected will act as evaluation guideline to prove their being in love. This theory arises again when adult Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy meet again and Tommy's theory proves to be partly correct.

 It was partly correct because there has never been such a thing like 'deferral'. Tommy is about to face 'fouth donation' soon. Most donors complete at third donation, and some even at second. This means Tommy will definitely complete after fourth donation. Ruth gave them the address of Madame before she completed. Kathy and Tommy decided to go and see Madame to talk to her about 'deferral'. They meet miss Emily in her house. Miss Emily explains everything the reason why they are trained at all. This is a part of ther conversation in the book :

'Why did we do all of that work in the first place? Why train us, encourage us, make us produce all of that? If we're just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons? Why all those books and discussions?'

'Why Hailsham at all?' 

'You said it was because your art would reaveal what were like. What you were like inside. That's what you said, wasn't it? Well, you weren't far wrong about that. We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.'

'Why did you have to prove a thing like that, Miss Emily? DId someone think we didn't have souls?

'It wasn't something commonly held when we first set out all those years ago. And though we've come a long way since then, it's still not a notion universally held, even today.'

 On the way back to Kingsfield hospital by car, Tommy wants some air and Kathy pulls up the car. After a few minutes, she hears a man's scream. Kathy describes the scene: I caught a glmpse of his face in the moonlight, caked in mud and distorted with fury, then I reached for his flailing arms and held on tight. He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting and I felt the fight go out of him. Then I realized he too had his arms around me. And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field, for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onth each ohter because that was the only way to stop us being wept away into the night.

 Kathy told Tommy that he might have always knwon at some level and maybe it was the reason he used to give tantrums like that. Tommy says it might be true he knew somewhere deep down.

 Kathy danced in an empty classroom at Hailsham. There was a song which went: 'Baby, baby, never let me go'. She imagines there is a woman who's been told she couldn't have babies, who'd really wanted them all ger life. Then, there's a sort of miracle and she has a baby. Eyes closed she is dancing as if she was holding a baby, so pleased that ever so tightly to her breast. At the end of the book, while she is passing by Norfolk she imagines a little fantasy : I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that because she didn't let it. Tears rolled down her face and she drives off to whereever it is she is supposed to be.

BOOK REVIEW : "Nothging to be frightened of", by Julian Barnes

place of purchase : Kyobo bookstore in Shin Nonhyun

Date of purchase : probably Thursday, 26th October, 2017

Date of reading : Saturday, 16th December, 2017

place of last reading : cafe nearby Hanyang university

For a few months, Barnes caught my attention, and I decided to concentrate on his books. 'The sense of an Ending' was my first and made me love him. The second was 'The Noise of Time' which was also interesting. But, I could not finish reading 'Nothing To Be Frightened of'. I tried, but failed. 

This book can be categorized as non-fiction. It tells about his history, memoir. It tells about his belif, mentality, and principle. And unfortuantely, I could not concentrate on reading. It did not trigger my curiosity.

Perhaps, if I had read this book straight in 2 or 3 days, I might have finished it. But, I read this book mainly in subway during my commute, the lack of continuity and connection between pages made it almost impossible for me to extract a single interesting point from this book.

There is one line that got my attention, though. "What the novel does is it tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths." I completely agree on it. A novel contain stories, episodes which have not actually happned, but are based on reality. I say a novel is a mirror of our reality mixed with comedy and tragedy.