I recently re-watched the movie Big Fish, and since I enjoyed the quirky and somewhat melancholy vibe of the movie, I thought I\u2019d read the book that it was based on. That book was not available via the library but this one was, a non-fiction book on the author\u2019s admiration of his brother-in-law, and how he reacted to said brother-in-law\u2019s suicide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly dark, I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But reading the book you can easily pick up on the same quirky vibe and emotion-centric writing style that I sort of sensed in the movie. There is some great story-telling, which really brings back to life William Nealy, the husband of the author\u2019s sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He led a fascinating life (actually everyone in this book did) and only later did the author discover that things weren\u2019t quite as wonderful as they seemed behind the scenes. We never know what is really going on inside someone\u2019s head, and it can be especially surprising what someone that has been idealized might actually be dealing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This book has both light and dark, the good news in the beginning and the bad news at the end. So while I really enjoyed the happiness and soul searching at the beginning it was tough going to get through the end of the book. Sometimes I felt that the issues that the writer was bringing up were better dealt with in private – but in the end most of the people they involve were already dead. Maybe their issues could help other people – and I think that is why the book exists in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I\u2019m glad I read the book, and it has given me a chance to reflect on my own past and when I used to journal (right here on this site!) nearly every day after coming to Japan. I took some time to go back through old posts and get reacquainted with that version of me – I like him a lot! He is funny, flexible and full of curiosity. I can\u2019t imagine what it would be like to go through old journals and hate what you see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still think I\u2019ll keep an eye out for Big Fish, but this was a pretty intense read. Next I am reading The Mountain In The Sea by Ray Nayler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently re-watched the movie Big Fish, and since I enjoyed the quirky and somewhat melancholy vibe of the movie, I thought I\u2019d read the book that it was based on. That book was not available via the library but this one was, a non-fiction book on the author\u2019s admiration of his brother-in-law, and how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-Vh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}