Ren Warom's Blog, page 4

September 11, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge, Book 32: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

I was intrigued by the hoo-haa aorund this book, the suggestion that it might be somewhat extreme, also by a few reviews on amazon that suggested the things suffered by the character Jude were excessive and therefore unrealistic. That latter is patently nonsense, but I wanted to form my own opinion and to see if the novel was as brutal as The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. It is not. Not even close. However, it is an incredible, absorbing, beautifully written literary work. (NB: I am no...

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Published on September 11, 2015 06:08

September 7, 2015

MHM – Recovery 10

Today I’m tackling the subject of what I like to call ‘the bullshit mantra’ – the varied and unpleasant nonsense my head likes to bully me with, especially when I’m at my most vulnerable or sad. We all have the voices of doubt in our heads, we all fret about fitting in, succeeding, being seen as genuine, being understood, not being seen as incapable or incompetent as we fear we might be. When suffering from mental health problems, this parade of uncertainty connects itself to anything destruc...

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Published on September 07, 2015 11:15

September 5, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge, Book 31: The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya

I forgot to mention so much that I love about this book, the Consequences for instance – mutations that everyone after The Blast is born with, some horrific, others barely noticeable. This terrific satire of Russian literature and culture, of modern culture in general is such a wonderful, complex, meaty read, that I was bound to forget how many things I’d have talked about if I’d have made the video right after reading it.

All I can do is tell you to find it and read it. Yes, it’s weird and a...

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Published on September 05, 2015 07:37

August 29, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge, Book 30: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

This is a book of short stories by Murakami and possesses all of his usual magic in the every day and some of the usual supernatural touches he handles so very well. There were some stories I didn’t gel with but I still enjoyed the writing of course. Most of these stories were excellent and my favourite by far was Hanalei Bay, the story of a woman whose son is killed by a shark whilst surfing at Hanalei Bay, and Hunting Knife, a story about a chance encounter with a man in a wheelchair. Both...

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Published on August 29, 2015 05:03

August 24, 2015

MHM Recovery 9 – Excess Emotion

Forgot to put an intro card on this video – where is my head? I dunno. *eyeroll*

So, excess emotions? Straightforward right? Nope. Not only are we talking about being overwhelmed by emotional states in illness (such as despair or anger), we’re talking about regaining emotions after being flatlined for a long time and not knowing how to express them. Feeling like every response is either too much or too little to be authentic and genuine. Is that a problem? Yes. As we already feel alienated, t...

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Published on August 24, 2015 10:46

August 21, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge, Book 29: Room by Emma Donoghue

If you’ve seen the trailer for the upcoming film, you’ll know the subject here is a sensitive one. A woman snatched off the streets and held prisoner for nefarious reasons, who ends up giving birth to a boy called Jack and raising him in a tiny room. We join them as Jack reaches his fifth birthday. Five years in Room, and ma wants to escape.

Handled beautifully, written from Jack’s perspective, this novel delves into a subject few wish to face with warmth, compassion and searing honesty. It f...

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Published on August 21, 2015 12:27

August 14, 2015

2015 Reading Challeng, Book 28: Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear

This is excellent science fiction, but it didn’t resonate with me entirely. I don’t often fail to gel with a book, and very rarely do I manage to read the entirety of a book I don’t gel with, but this is Greg Bear and he’s damn good at what he does, so I was able to continue to the end despite my disconnection.

It has a beginning much like the film Pandorum (to the extent I wondered in the first few pages if the movie was based on this book) – a man wakes alone in a dark, dangerous space ship...

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Published on August 14, 2015 11:35

August 10, 2015

MHM Recovery 8 – Dissociation and Distraction

Today I’m talking about the art of disappearing, either into yourself or something else. It can be a powerful tool against trauma, is in fact one of the most powerful ways the mind combats it. It’s also a body defense against stress, the actual nervous system behind that shutting down of all but the most basic faculties.

Whilst it is a function of the nervous system, you can also cause the state without it. As a child I used to disappear into the wall, just stare at it until everything I was...

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Published on August 10, 2015 11:55

August 7, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge, Book 27: The Somnambulist By Essie Fox

This is a Victorian Gothic mystery or murder mystery I’ve had hanging about in my bookcase for a good while. I put it on my reading challenge list as the whole idea was to expand my reading habits and generally speaking I avoid all Victoriana related things as they’re a little too stylised and misty-eyed. Or else too elaborate and painstaking. I’m not fond basically. Once I started this, however, I got into it fairly easily.

This is the rather complicated story of Phoebe Turner, who uncovers...

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Published on August 07, 2015 13:10

July 31, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge, Book 26: Bad Brains by Kathe Koja

Austen is an artist who isn’t creating anymore after some serious mess in his personal life and general artistic frustration. Stuck in a dull 9-5 job and drifting through life, he has a prat fall in a parking lot that leaves him with brain damage and hefty epilepsy. His fits leave him with strange visions of a silverish figure and he takes off on an odyssey to try and find out whether it’s real or not.

Koja’s writing is not immediately accesible, it’s a sensory experience, difficult and often...

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Published on July 31, 2015 07:40