Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: A reading list
By Margaret
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: A reading list
By Margaret
We're celebrating the release of Pierre Földes adaptation of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, a new animated feature film adapted from the short stories of Haruki Murakami. now in cinemas!
Based on a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami, this animation follows the lives of multiple characters as they navigate post-Tsunami existence and the existential repercussions of urban life, including a bank employee without ambition, his disheartened wife, a delusional accountant, a lost cat and a giant talkative frog.
Get tickets: modernfilms.com/blindwillow
Meanwhile, Discover a curated book selection from director Pierre Foldes.
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes
£10.99 £10.44Wonderful, inspiring, fun, deep, light, all over the place, moving, one of my top five. Numerous times, while reading it I thought, oh I should adapt this! And then forgot about it and just kept reading. Amazing to be transported into another time, but with the same stupid human beings, thinking just the same stupid things we’ve always been thinking.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Alexander Text
William Shakespeare
£16.99 £16.14Not much to say really, loved most of it, I read it all as one big novel. One after the other hardly noticing when there happened to be an ending at one of the plays. So all plays got totally mixed up in one bigger one; A little like the process of adapting short stories into one bigger one now I think about it
Her Lover
Albert Cohen and David Coward
£19.99 £18.99Also, a book I read when I was very young. The tragic reality (or is it really) of love. But only tragic if all you want is to keep that intensity of the first weeks, rather than letting that passion evolve into something else. Anyway, the book goes through so much stuff, so many styles, such intensity! I remember once, living in the countryside, preparing a piano contest for months, while reading that book. It put me in such a crazy, beautiful, romantic state.. I could somehow connect with what George Sand said of Chopin when he was in her Majorca house, writing his amazingly beautiful preludes. Getting into such a state that he didn’t wash, didn’t speak, just wrote those beautiful pieces. I read that when they left the house and ordered a “cab” the guy didn’t want to take them because they were too dirty, stank too much. Chopin died not too long after. There’s a kind of link between those preludes and Belle du Seigneur.. Not really, but kind of…
The Map and the Territory
Michel Houellebecq
£9.99 £9.49Well, I’ve read pretty much all his books. Maybe some are better than others, sure, like anyone. For me, once an author has written something amazing, it just means they are capable of that, and if some other stuff is not quite as good; Too bad, who cares? Everyone has good days and not so good ones. It also means, perhaps, that that author, composer, filmmaker, is trying something else, not just re-doing what (s)he knows. Anyway, I remember reading that one and smiling pretty much all the time. I love his style, his humor, his intelligence, I don’t give a shit if it's not always correct (politically); he a true visionary as well.
Farewell Waltz
Milan Kundera
£9.99 £9.49Kundera used to live just above a good friend of mine. My friend had the type of dog that was described in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I think The Farewell Waltz is like a rehearsal of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I can’t say I remember it, I only remember that I was fully captivated and amused. Such witt! Such intelligence! A great author.
Editions currently unavailable via Bookshop.org
Chimères (the Mirage) Naguib Mahfouz
I read this book when I was very young. I was amazed by the strength of his style. Most people hate it though, can’t take this long, whiney monologue. Sure, I understand, but whatever, I think it’s great, powerful, moving. I’m going to adapt it into a feature film, part live-action, part animation.
Le Hussard sur le Toit (The Horseman on the Roof) - Jean Giono
An amazing romantic journey. Just (not quite) remembering it now, makes me want to smoke little cigars. Read it, and you’ll understand. The film? Yeah, don’t remember.
Yanoama - Ettore Biocca
Again, a book I read a very long time ago. I was absolutely fascinated by it. It tells the story of a woman who was abducted as a child by a tribe from the Amazon forest and ended up escaping with her children as an adult. She told her story to Ettore Biocca who went into the forest and met people who knew her, so that he could verify her story. It’s so beautiful and powerful. Dramatic, terrifying, enchanting as well. A masterpiece and it's all true. Everything there is to know about life and death and humans is there. We’re all just primates, of the worst kind.