09.Jan.2010 Orbis Terrarum Wrap-up

I kinda dreaded wrapping up this challenge, because I predicted it would be the longest of them all. And it is. But here we go, my last challenge wrap-up of 2009!

I joined Orbis Terrarum Challenge in March 2009, running from 1 March to 31 December 2009. The rule is to read 10 different books by 10 different authors from 10 different countries. The trick was, you should go by the country of origin of the author, or the country he/she lives in (a bit different with my personal project Reading the World in which I go with either the book setting or the origin of author, whichever is more prominent).

I read many books from 10 different countries (I intended to not count any from US or UK because that’s the majority where the English books are from, but then I counted US anyway because some books are thick with historical and cultural descriptions of parts of the country. I only list here the ones that have a strong sense of place.)

Australia
Sugarbabe by Holly Hill (finished 03/09, rating 4/5)
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan (finished 05/09, rating 5/5)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (finished 06/09, rating 5/5)

Sweden
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman (author born in Sweden, US nationality, book set in Poland) (finished 03/09, rating 5/5)

Japan
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (finished 03/09, rating 3/5)
Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara (finished 08/09, rating 3/5)
Strangers by Taichi Yamada (finished 09/09, rating 2.5/5)
I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume Vol One (finished 12/09, rating 4/5)

Afghanistan
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (finished 04/09, rating 4/5)

Nigeria
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (finished 06/09, rating 4.5/5)

South Africa
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee (finished 06/09, rating 4.5/5)

USA
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (finished 08/09, rating 5/5) – Detroit
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (finished 09/09, rating 4/5) – New York 1940s
Firmin by Sam Savage (finished 12/09, rating 4/5) – Boston, 1950s

Pakistan
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (finished 08/09, rating 3/5)

Italy
Silk by Alessandro Baricco (finished 09/09, rating 4/5)

Cuba
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino (author born in Cuba, now Italian) (finished 11/09, rating 3.5/5)

I enjoyed most of them. My highlights would be Shaun Tan‘s books, The Complete Maus, and Middlesex, but you’ve probably heard me talk about them a few times. Let me see… Purple Hibiscus and Disgrace are totally worth highlighting too (and I read them consecutively) because they deal with important issues. A lot of them are unique, so even if one is not a perfect piece of literature, I still got a lot out of it. I have to make mental note to read more International literature. I love armchair travelling! (And real life travelling too, of course :)

Biggest disappointment was Burnt Shadows, which is Orange shortlisted in 2009, but rather painful to read. Strangers was disappointing too but it wasn’t as long and outrageous as Burnt Shadows. It was just meh. Burnt Shadows was eye-rolling-and-groan disappointing. Okay, I’m gonna stop being mean.

Apart from books, there’s Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge that challenged us to watch 10 films, 10 different countries, by 10 different directors in 10 months. Again, it has to go by the origin or residence of the director.

I was really really bad at keeping track of this one. I definitely watched a bunch of foreign movies, some deliberate for the challenge, some not, but I’m not sure if the directors were from 10 different countries. I plan to keep track of movies watched in 2010 — just a list, not review for all of them. I’ll try to do mini-reviews for foreign movies and movies based on books.

Let me just point out a few of my highlights below. I highly highly recommended these three movies. Go watch the trailers, I promise they’ll be worth it.

The Cave of the Yellow Dog
Director: Byambasuren Davaa, Mongolia/German, 2005
A gentle movie about the life of a family of Mongolian nomad. The details of their everyday life are so fascinating. Beautiful setting — so beautiful it’s worth seeing for the setting alone. I have a book that the movie is based on, which I look forward to reading, because it would be wonderful to know even more details on the life of the nomads.

Pom Poko
Director: Isao Takahata, Japan, 1994
I LOVE Studio Ghibli’s movies (makers of Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, etc) and this year I watched so many of them, thanks to the Sydney Japanese Foundation Library. If I have to pick a favorite this year, it would be Pom Poko. As you probably know, Japanese people often believe that foxes and raccoons are shape-shifters. In this movie, we get to know a community of raccoons who have to fight human development that keep pushing away and destroying their home forest. They do everything they can, including shape-shifting to fool the humans. It gets sadder and more serious towards the end, but it’s inevitable as the reality hits.

Not One Less
Director: Zhang Yimou, China, 1999
This movie has won many International awards and the girl who played the main character was given a scholarship to Hawaii because the film attracted so much attention. She was able to change her fortune and left the mountainous village in China because of the miraculous encounter. It’s like a fairy tale. You can read her full story here. Not One Less starts when 13 year old girl Wei Minzhi (her real name in life) is brought to be a temporary substitute teacher. She was told to not lose even one student, otherwise she won’t get paid. This is the time when education is often not appreciated by many poor families and students are often disappearing for no notice at all because they are forced to work and stop studying. One day it does happen to one of the students and Wei is off to the city to find the child and bring him back.

The last mini challenge I intended to participate was Bilingual Mini-Challenge in which we are asked to read 5 books in their original languages by 5 different authors (or 10 different short stories or 10 children’s chapter books).

I failed this big time. I didn’t touch any Indonesian or Japanese books I have lying around at home. I was all for English books last year. Oh well, too many books too little time, right?

Thanks so much to Bethany for hosting all these challenges. Given the time, I’m happy with what I achieved :)