a variety of notions to be consumed

dispatch #1:
i recently finished cloud atlas by david mitchell, and i have to say, this is going on my favorite books list. i'm pretty sure this will be the best book i read this year. i looked up david mitchell after i read the book and inadvertently found out that a movie version of the book will be released in a year or two. the wachowski brother(s) are directing! or should it be the wachowski borther and sister? movie adaptations of book tend to fall short. we'll see. well, summertime has begun! summer reading list is activated, and i am hyped!

dispatch #2:
i want to make a note of why i enjoyed cloud atlas so much. it deals with the human race, which is always an interesting topic. is that too vague? it deals with the destruction of the human race, the movement of predacity from one era to the next, the nonchalant exploitation of one's own species. greed + power = hunger. greed may always be there, but it is suppressed and controlled. power is what takes control and directs greed into the heart of darkness. and with this hunger, we eat. predacity was shown in different ways and this book was so strategically constructed/unconstructed. mitchell really knew what he wanted. the book consists of a man on a ship sailing across an ancient pacific, a pretentious musician who had a taste for sex, a columnist whose metaphysics shows contempt amid society, a good for nothing editor who is betrayed by his own kin, a cloned slave, and a group of people struggling to rise after the world had fallen, collapsed its own malicious core. my favorite were the little notes to the reader hidden behind the dialogue of the characters. mitchell often explains himself to the reader. this can be missed, if not indulged. language changes with the times, and the book stretches across a millennium. how david mitchell allowed the reader to drift across the sky along with the characters and their stories is a great question. history is always present. what a genius. the book was difficult at times, but breathtaking and it sheds a sense of wanderlust, of denial, and of humane direction. the interaction among humans is evident, and i often think of the world as a sad place. but this novel renders a celestial hope, like the moon rising and falling in the night sky. it leaves a reader wondering what kind of person he or she is.

dispatch #3:
i think this book is the cause for the quantity of apocalyptic dreams i've been having. dreams are always hard to remember, but certain parts of them are vivid: ships nearing shore, attacking with full force of nuclear weapons; extensive, infinite car crashes that send drivers and passengers into purgatory; rumbling earthquakes that broadcast a deafening silence across the surface of the planet while its inhabitants stumble into the cracks of the fiery abyss; humans fallen prey to other humans in a world of deceit and war. there are many more. yet, in each dream, i am never a victim. i watch evil dawning, but it doesn't affect me. there is no spatial relativity. i just watch. and wait. i've seriously had at least 2 apocalyptic dreams a week since i've read this book, and i can't seem to pick up another book. my mind wraps its arms around the thought of such an evil that we may in fact succumb to. people say movies and books are fake. life isn't like the movies, apparently. but oh, it is. these recreational adaptations of real life are, at times, hyperbolic. like a distorted mirror, they still show a reflection.

dispatch #4:
sometimes feel disappointed. sometimes i feel sad. what i liked about the apocalypse in the book was that there was no malevolent divine intervention and no disastrous natural disaster or series of natural disasters. we, the human race, caused our own demise. we slew our brothers and pushed our neighbors. we threw ourselves in the pit. god and science were left out of the fall, but god and science exist in the novel... at least for some and not for others.

dispatch #5:
i want you to read the book.
best,
t. tran