Author Archives: Jaclyn

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About Jaclyn

Reader, writer, bookaholic for life!

Review: Train Man, Nakano Hitori (Bonnie Elliott, trans.)

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Japan, 2004. A hopeless geek saves a young woman from a drunk on a train, and posts about it on the 2-Channel chat forum. “I’ve never been thanked by a woman before,” the twenty-two year old techie admits, “so… I got so nerrrrrrvoussss.” The next day, the woman sends him a pair of Hermes teacups to say thanks. The geek gets giddy: “Damn. I’m getting all feverish. Gotta take a chill pill.” The other geeks on the forum urge “Train Man” to call “Lady Miss Hermes” and ask her out. So begins a wonderfully sweet, endearing romance recorded on the Internet and compiled by chat forum participant Nakano Hitori in the book Train Man.

I love Big Bang Theory, but I think the geeks in this book may actually out-geek Sheldon and Leonard. These are real geeks, in a real story, and I think that just makes this story so much more touching. Train Man’s previous encounters with women are, quite literally, just from anime and manga, and he elicits dating advice from the forum. What makes this extra endearing is that, since the others in the forum are also equally clueless with women, they search on the Internet for highly rated restaurants and acceptable date fashion. The romance moves much more slowly than in Western culture, possibly partly because of Japanese culture and partly because of Train Man’s shyness, and this makes each tiny step (Hermes sent him an email!) even more significant. After the second or third date, for example, Train Man agonizes about whether it’s time to make his Big Move: admitting to Hermes that he thinks she’s cute. I loved cheering Train Man on, as he developed from being too scared to call Hermes to casually telling the chat forum he’s seeing her again in a few hours.

Perhaps even more touching, however, are the other participants in the forum, who are almost mostly hopeless geeks. As Train Man’s story develops, others share their own (mostly disastrous) attempts at talking to women. One geek was once turned down by a girl who said she wouldn’t want to see his face while she ate. When a female participant said Train Man’s story makes her think of her happy twenty-year marriage, and makes her want to be reincarnated as a geek, another participant immediately replied that he wouldn’t recommend it. They live vicariously through Train Man’s romance, rushing home right after work to see if there are any updates. They analyze each of Hermes’ actions. It reminded me of high school, when my friends and I would dissect each sentence one of our crushes had said, but in Train Man’s case, it’s people from at least all over Japan discussing each minute detail with him.

Each of Train Man’s successes elicits cheers, squeals, and at times, even tears, as some forum participants confess to crying without knowing why. After one particularly significant piece of news, the participants responded with a series of giant images (animals or humans made up of dashes and slashes in cheering poses).   Among pages of those images and various congratulatory messages, one line stood out: “Shit, forgot to get my ASCI ready.” (From the context, I assume ASCI is what they call those images? Anyway, that line made me laugh.)

Reading the forum transcript, it’s impossible not to get caught up in the emotions, and I found myself cheering Train Man all the way. He is such a sweet, shy guy, and I wanted him to succeed with Hermes. The story has apparently been adapted in many different ways in Japan (movie, TV series, manga), but I’m not sure how many are available in an English translation like the book I read. Overall, it’s a cute, touching romance, which as forum participants noted, gives hope that geeks can become gods. One participant in particular posted that, inspired by Train Man, he gave a woman directions one day. Unfortunately, he chickened out when she asked for his name. Another participant responds: “You could’ve been Guide Man!”

[I bought my copy at Fully Booked in the Philippines, but this book is also available at Chapters Indigo in Canada, if you’re interested in checking it out.]

Interview with Switch author Tish Cohen

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Hey all! Last month, I got to participate in Harper Collins Canada’s blog tour for Switch, Tish Cohen‘s contemporary take on the classic Freaky Friday tale. What if you could live someone else’s life? Whose would it be? As I said in my review, I love the book, and I was impressed by how real it felt, despite the fantastical premise.

Thanks to Shannon at Harper Collins Canada, I even got a chance to ask Tish some questions! Lots of interesting answers, and best of all, good news for any readers like me, who wanted Joules to get more page time (Check out Question 6!). Enjoy!

1.      Why did you decide to stick to Andrea’s POV instead of switching between her and Joules?

I found Andrea’s point of view to be the most interesting. Her situation at home-being the only natural children of foster parents-intrigued me.

2.      I love the character of Gran. Did you base her on anyone in your own life?

I based Gran on my mother.

3.      I love that Gran gives unusual, one-of-a-kind gifts, like gloves from a fortune teller on a road in Africa. What was the most unusual gift you’ve received?

The sparkly feathered magic gloves from the book.  They were actually given to me by my mother for Christmas two years ago.

4.      In Switch, you deal a lot with the difficulties of growing up in a foster family. What interested you about foster parenting? And what in particular interested you about the only non-foster child in a foster family?

I am fascinated by the generosity of people who take in foster children. I am also fascinated by what it would be like to have your brothers and sisters constantly coming and going from your life.

5.      If you could have any famous rock star to be your father, who would it be and why?

David Bowie. He could sing Cat People to me as a lullaby.

6.      I found Joules such a compelling character, and I think she ends up having to go through even more drastic changes than Andrea does by the end of the book. Do you have any plans for a sequel, this time from Joules’ perspective?

Yes I do.

Review: The Beasts of New York, Jon Evans

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My initial reaction when I received Jon Evans’ Beasts of New York in the mail was, what a beautiful book! With the rise of e-reading, I’ve long believed that the future of print publishing is in books that are practically works of art. The Madame Bovary translation by Lydia Davis released last year, for example, had such a beautiful cover that I decided against getting the cheaper Kindle ed or waiting for the paperback. I’ve also made no secret at work of my love for the Penguin Essentials series released recently, which prompted me to buy myself another copy of The Great Gatsby.

So, when I saw the absolutely beautiful way Porcupine’s Quill printed Beasts of New York, I fell in love with the textured, cream-coloured pages and the ornate letters that opened each section. I also love the wood engravings by Jim Westergard. I was totally grossed out by the one of the rats, but overall, they’re beautiful. I love how realistic the fur looks, and am amazed whenever I remember that these images were originally created on wood. This book is a work of art, an example of the kind of reading experience e-books can’t offer (an image of a wood engraving on a screen will also be beautiful, but not quite as beautiful as on this type of paper, I think).

I was also intrigued by the plot: a squirrel named Patch travels to New York City to search for food and finds out about a war in the animal kingdom. Growing up, one of my favourite books was The Secret of NIMH, and one of my favourite movies was Homeward Bound.. To be honest, the Beasts’ first chapter excerpt on the publisher’s website didn’t really grab me. With details like a squirrel’s home being called a drey, I was afraid the book would end up being like a nature documentary. Luckily, however, the story becomes much more involved than that. I quickly became intrigued by Patch’s adventures, and loved seeing New York City through his eyes. Cars become “death machines” and apartment buildings are “mountains.” In the hands of a lesser writer, I can imagine such descriptions being cutesy, but Evans pulls it off. At times, even I felt like I was traveling in a hostile, utterly alien environment, and I grew up in a city!

Politics — alliances, betrayals, war councils — in this story is wonderfully intricate. What I loved most, however, was that Evans never lets us forget that these are animals. In a particularly chilling scene, when trapped with a group of other animals, Patch sets a fox free from his cage on the condition that the fox swear on the moon (an oath deeper than blood, so powerful Patch literally feels a shudder when he does it) never to eat squirrels again. Other creatures then beg to be set free, so the fox frees a rabbit, then promptly devours it, saying, quite reasonably, that he’d never promised the same for rabbits.

The battle scenes are gory, filled with characters biting each other, and bleeding to death. The ultimate villain, the King Beneath, is an absolutely frightening, mysterious creature. He might not have been as scary if we could just label him a certain type of animal, but because we’re seeing the story through Patch’s eyes and Patch himself doesn’t know what the King is, or indeed if the King is anything more than a legend being used by the power-mad rat Snout, the King is mostly an eerie, shadowy presence to us as well.

The one thing I didn’t like was inclusion of the coyote and the turtle, especially in the last  chapter. For a book with such power in the realism of its details and dialogue, I found the attempt at mythology to be unnecessary. It was like Evans was trying to add gravitas to the story by making it part of a much larger tradition, when I was most moved by the focus of the story on one squirrel, for whom one city already seems too much for the world to contain.

Beasts of New York is a contemporary urban fable, geared for adults, but also a story that I think mature kids will appreciate. There aren’t a lot of adult books starring animals, and Evans’ animals seem less anthropomorphized than the books and movies I remember. Beasts is an exciting tale overall, and a beautiful, beautiful book.