BRAIN DRAIN

Ask me to recommend a work of fiction and nine times out of ten my answer will be Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind. I was quite taken by it, expecting at first a tale of fantasy (how could I not, with a “cemetery of forgotten books” and all?) only to be presently surprised by a story more akin to a thriller about an enigmatic author named Julian Carax and one Daniel Sempere’s attempt to unearth that mysterious writer’s past. Because of Ruiz Zafon’s knack for literary smoke and mirrors, not to mention the way he romanticizes postwar Barcelona throughout the novel, Shadow of the Wind remains to this day the only book I’ve ever been compelled to read from cover to cover in one sitting.

Hence, it’s neither difficult to imagine how high my expectations were for Ruiz Zafon’s follow-on offering, The Angel’s Game, nor how disappointed I felt that the book didn’t live up to them.

To be fair, coming into a book — or anything, for that matter — expecting so much is an experience that can’t possibly end well. On that score, I did find The Angel’s Game a page-turner; not because I was so engrossed in the story and couldn’t wait to see what happens next but because I was just waiting to find the same qualities in the novel that so enamored me of Shadow of the Wind. Perhaps I would’ve been better served had I approached the book as an entirely new experience, as if it were uncharted territory just waiting to be discovered.

Except that everything I was looking for — the drama, mystey and suspense woven around a superb period piece — was there, but only in glimpses, drip fed in doses too weak for me to enjoy.

Ironically, what I liked least about The Angel’s Game was how it came across as fantasy masquerading as a thriller. The eponymous “game” that Ruiz Zafon’s protagonist David Martin plays — whereby he ultimately sells his soul to become a prolific writer — was too steeped in the unlikely and impossible for another almost-period piece. No doubt, it’s an appealing premise conceptually, and up until the point where Martin is commissioned by his seemingly ageless “Angel” the book had my attention. Thereafter, however, I found the events that unfolded in Martin’s life and his transformation until the novel’s conclusion a bit of a stretch, especially for what turned out to be a prequel, if only tangentially, for Shadow of the Wind.

That said, I do envy the person who first discovers Ruiz Zafon’s work through The Angel’s Game and thereafter with Shadow of the Wind. To see the broader tableau of the author’s vision unfold in that manner and hit its crescendo as it should is to be treated to quite an experience. For my part, I wax philosophical. Maybe it is unfair to judge an author’s new work against a previous one that is, for all intents and purposes, exceptional. Maybe it isn’t even healthy to expect the newer addition to capture all those qualities in the earlier installment that made such an impression. But hey, a guy can hope.

“Outrageous” and “violent” certainly come to mind about Battle Royale. Not without reason, of course: any story about a class of high school kids left on island and expected to fight each other to the death is bound to be over the top. I had no issue with that. Learning that it was already a popular manga, anime and series of movies in Japan, however, is what didn’t sit well with me. Wouldn’t that be unnecessaily graphic? Is that even in good taste? Suffice it to say that I wasn’t inclined to check it out in the least.

Then I learned that before it made its way to visual media, Battle Royale was a novel by Koushun Takami. That, to me, seemed interesting. I just had to find out: could a novel with such a premise be so good as to inspire its own comic, animated series, and movies?

The answer is yes. Yes it borders on good taste, albeit barely. Yes it is undeniably graphic, more so because it leaves quite a lot (some might say too much) to the imagination. And yes, it is quite good, controversy be damned.

Granted, it’s rather violent. Despite this, it was the big picture — Takami’s vision of a dystopian Japanese empire — that I found captivating. It takes a sick mind to conjure up a story of kids killing their classmates in the most gruesome ways imaginable. But to do so in a way that makes sense and in the context of subtle yet compelling socio-political commentary? That takes a fair amount of creativity…and guts. Some have likened Battle Royale to Lord of the Flies, I suppose because of the premise. I can’t say for sure if the comparison is warranted (seeing as I haven’t read Sir William Golding’s novel, with my being a philistine and all). Yet I am prepared to say that Takami’s work reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984, because of its atmosphere and psychology. And that’s saying something.

That’s why it’s not all about the violence, which gets tiresome as the story progresses and more students fall victim to the game, and to each other. For all that, however, it does make for an effective hook to catch the reader’s interest. Forty-two students begin the game, at most one can be declared the winner. How will it all end? Will anyone come out of it all right? in that sense, at least, the novel manages to be quite the page turner.

Battle Royale surely isn’t for everyone, but I’d say it’s a far better novel than it might seem at first blush.

Oh, and it is pretty violent, too.

So there you go.