The Year in Review (So Far)

2010 is hardly completely over, but I thought I would do a brief year in review.

Best Book Read (Fiction): Let the Great World Spin was beautiful and much of the writing was lyrical (as much as it is a cliche to refer to writing as that). Involving the interlocking stories of several individuals set around the famous tightrope walk across the twin towers, it's brand of fluent storytelling and compelling characters made for a great read. More than the eventual winner of the Booker Prize, Parrot and Olivier in America was filled with Peter Carey's trademark wit and humour. It was fun, hilarious, and filled with immensely well drawn characters. C, by Tom McCarthy was considered by many to be the front runner for the Booker and it is easy to see why. It has the edgy experimentalism that is a trademark of past Booker winners. Set in the decades from the turn of the century, it is in many ways a technological fable, each section hinging on the emerging science of telegraphy or signals.

Best Book Read (Non-Fiction): Nothing to Envy presents a harrowing portrait of North Korea through the oral testimony of a small number of individuals who defected. A book that is wonderfully woven together, it is a painful, shocking and flabbergasting read. In Search of Orwell in Burma follows a British journalist who traces Orwell's time as a colonial administrator in the country, and how it affected his life and writings. There are definitely chilling and Machiavellian parallels that can be drawn between the two (think 1984) and this book is effective for not over-reaching with the metaphors.

Best Film Seen (Current Release): Inception is a superior movie: thought provoking, multi-layered, filled with brilliant ideas. Oh, it also contained some excellent action sequences. A movie only Christoper Nolan could have pulled off.

Best Film Seen (Other Release): The National Museum's cinema has been a virtual gold mine since it opened, offering the opportunity to see great cinema classics in full restored cinematic glory. I am still kicking myself for missing the Fellini retrospective they staged, but the chance to see the great holocaust documentary, Shoah, was one that I thankfully grabbed. It is a film unlike anything ever made - nine hours that never feels overlong. A documentary in its most traditional form - just interviews, no recreations, no gimmicks, no set pieces. But what testimony, what horrifying details. We all owe Claude Lanzamann a great debt. Of equal worth in upholding a basic sense of the innate worth of every human being was the Apu trilogy. Satyajit Ray manages to create beauty and poetry out of the life of a young Bengali boy. A movie captivating in its simplicity. Surely the bildungsroman to make all others irrelevant.

Best Performance: Pink Martini were a real treat - an enormous multipiece band led by two wonderfully charismatic individuals. China Forbes did not disappoint with her superb vocals and presence. Tom Lauderdale was kooky, random, and very funny. And boy can he play the piano.

Other Media: I never played the original Starcraft. But there was enormous hype over the sequel. Ten years in the making. Talks of extensive delays. Was it worth the wait? No doubt about it. Starcraft II must rank as one of the greatest computer games ever created. Superb cinematic quality cut scenes, very well developed characters and voice acting. Well crafted individual missions with varied maps, and objectives. My only beef - you play for the most part as the Humans only. Still, an immense game. Simply superb.