Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

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  • The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

    The Flight AttendantThe Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    Maybe it was because of the hauntingly enigmatic cover page with a title that was both realistic and alluring associated with the popular image of the profession: Glamour, Romance, and Adventure in the high skies of the world separating the profession from its terrestrial counterparts. Or maybe it was because I had once wanted to become a flight attendant myself. But above all of these speculations, I had never imagined myself enjoying a contemporary fiction until I found The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian upon reading the excerpt of the book; that it’s actually a thriller about a lone woman on the emotional run for her life tangled in a web of international intrigues and personal intricacies unraveled in the progress of the story, which compels the reader to stay tuned for each next chapter.

    The story begins when the protagonist Cassandra (“Cassie”) Bowden, a mid-thritish flight attendant wakes up one morning with a terrible hangover in a hotel in Dubai only to find a dead body of a man, a hedge-fund company man partial to Russian literature whom Cassie met on her flight a day ago and spent a night with, lying next to her. Thenceforth, her reluctant adventure of escaping not only from a suspicion of killing the man she barely knows but also from all that has been troubling her mind as her anxiety is translated into a borderline paranoia. But Cassie is hardly a pathetic figure; she is a great functional alcoholic, prefers a one-night stand with a stranger she meets during her flight or at a bar. She also lies pretty well although most of her lies are absent from malice. And yet, it’s also hard to dislike her or stigmatize her as a loose woman, for in one way or another, the reader may find her related to herself in the deprivations of love and security, of intimacy and support. She’s the perfect embodiment of imperfect heroine not uncommon but exceptional to recognize.

    In fact, Bohjalian’s superb narrative skills that show Cassie’s truculent inner crisis without using cerebral terms of psychology lucidly and effectively builds the development of the story all the more flawlessly and sleekly at the same time. Without using flowery words or baroque-styled sentences, Bohjalan’s unlikely heroine of the story seems convincingly realistic and vivid as if the reader were inside of Cassie’s mind. In terms of subject matters of the story, Bohjalian skillfully incorporates social issues of self-destructive alcoholism, white-color crimes, depression, and other types of addiction into the story without inculcating a moral undertone in the narrative. Also, Bohjalian’s choice of flight attendant as the profession of Cassie proves that writing truthfully and entertainingly about everyday life in contemporary setting always works best to attract the reader to the world of literary creation that seem so real. In this respect, Bohjalian follows the footstep of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the creator of Anne ff Green Gables, who once said the idea of a good story results from making use of the real to perfect the ideal which includes encompassing foibles and idiosyncrasies of the human nature because they can enhance literary imaginations viscerally and effectually to the extent possible.

    All in all, The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian achieves its purpose of entertaining the reader with pages filled with vivid characters, lucid descriptions of the scenes, and plots that twist even the most logical assumptions of each chapter thanks to Bohjalian’s diligent research of all the components of the story, ranging from the work routine of a flight attendant to FBI investigation procedures, behavior patterns of a functioning alcoholic, and to the world of financial espionages, all packaged fabulously in straightforwardly powerful language he employs. The reader will be engrossed in the story, wanting to know more about the fate of Cassie as if she were an acquaintance. It’s the art of Bohjalian that lured me into this riveting thriller. The Flight Attendant is a classic of our time that has a style without neologism, contemporary with our time with its powerful, fresh, and universal appeal to the reader of this modern time.

     

  • One Man’s Fighting for Justice and Honor: Film Review on The Verdict by Paul Newman

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    Release date: December 8, 1982 (USA)
    Director: Sidney Lumet
    Story by: Barry Reed
    Screenplay: David Mamet, Jay Presson Allen

    This is not a movie about a courtroom drama displayed by the verbal theatrics that we can easily see in today’s legal dramas. It’s a movie about a man’s redeeming of his honor tainted by his self-destructive resort to alcoholism and disorientation in life pursuant to the destruction of his youthful idealism as a novice lawyer. Once bitten, twice diffident, the lawyer’s god-sent chance to turn over a new leaf in his later chapters of life comes to him when he is asked by a woman to represent her sister, a young woman whose life is forever bedridden in a coma as a result of inadvertent administration of anesthetics by doctors at a Catholic hospital. As the lawyer works on the case for a trial, he regains his confidence, hope, and meaning for his own life.

    Paul Newman’s excellent performance as the lawyer struggling with his own life is the gem of the movie, rendering the verisimilitude of the character that evokes the pathos. His trademarks of fierce blue eyes that seem to be the only distinct features of his weary, forlorn face symbolize a suppressed light of intelligence, bludgeoned confidence, and vanquished hope, all of which still struggle to be liberated from self-imprisonment at any moment. The viewer will never fail to notice the feelings and the emotions Newman’s character tries to subdue or express by his brilliant method acting.

    “The Verdict” is indeed a thought-provoking movie about the human nature and a light of hope that we all have in our lifetime. Without any courtroom theatrics full of sensational machinations and exchanging of fiery tirades between the lawyers of the opposite parties, this movie proves how a well written script based upon a realistic subject matter that elicits universal empathy in concert with the excellent performances of fine actors could work a wonder.

  • My Alpine Path

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    from google

    How far shall I tread upon the road to Alpine Path
    As rigid as the road to Delphi days and nights
    Across a wilderness of delights decayed in weary wrath,
    To reach the peaks splendid in secret triumphs?

  • Ready, Steady, Play!

    in-the-box-mary-stevenson-cassatt
    In The Box Painting by Mary Stevenson Cassatt from google

    Life is a scriptless stage and a plotless play.
    Learn to perform its demands with wits to the end,
    Casting a heavy mantle of bleakness away
    Or act in a shadow of sorrows at your wits’ end.
    Set the stage with Oblivion and Memory:
    Invoke Oblivion when times are gloomy,
    Cherish Memory when they are flowery.

  • Rational Optimist

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    Paul was still struggling to repel a hangover from last night’s spirited social with the town’s business committee chaired by Kohn Elephant at his elegant mansion. It was a nice occasion to meet with other men of his age who owned means of business either solely or jointly in the town. Besides, such evening social could provide Paul a chance to get away from Pula’s tittle-tattling about drudgery of household management, such as a need to have a leaking sink pipe fixed, writing checks for their monthly dues, setting up a weekly sales agenda for their Bonjour Cake Shop. Paula may be an excellent housewife dedicated to the wellbeing of her family with frugality, she seemed to be out of touch with sweet malibriety that had delighted Paul before their daughter Laura was born. That was what Paul was missing from Paula. That was what kept himself away from Paula.

    photo (4)“I will have a slice of Pecan Pie and a cup of cafe au lait.” Paul ordered his staple morning diet at La Boum and then started reading the newest issue of the Times. He scanned the front page to see if there was anything interesting except articles regarding sports, entertainment,  and politics – yes, politics, which Aristotle once said that anyone not interested in politics should be either a divine being or a beast. Paul was unsure of which of the kinds he would belong to, depending upon his mood of a day, but it wasn’t simply his cup of tea because it’s all a reality show. Of course, Paul being a good citizen casts his vote in gubernatorial, mayoral, general, not to mention, presidential elections. But the idea of politics as a subject looks too grim and pompopus and prepertorial. Paul’s vision of the world is of a Rational Optimist equipped with bookish knowledge and abstract ideas about humanity balanced with his sharp intelligence.

    However, Paul loves to read about those farcical world leaders whose scurrilous remarks on their political nemesis done in equally outrageous gestures or facial expressions all in captured in the eye of camera. At the moment, Paul’s prime interest was fixated on Jong-Un Kim, the puffed up man in anachronistic Mao suit tyrannizing the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.  That fat man sure had guts to defy the international rules and regulations to respect human rights in all defiant manners. Paul thought to himself while reading an article about Kim’s turning surly over the joint military drills executed by U.S. and S. Korea last week. You gotta be kidding, Paul could not believe that this so-called a leader of a nation could possible act like a spoiled kid. And Paul would love to discipline him by every possible civil means of chastisement. For what else can work for such a short-fused, ruthless despot running his country as it were a huge concentration camp – a bigger, more surreal version of Far Eastern Auschwitz camp? Paul was also going to follow up on whether or not the US – North Korea summit meeting on disband N. Korea’s nuclear programs  would be indeed held on June 11th in Singapore, a rich city-state in Far East because he would love to know if Kim would show up in a Mao suit again at such a historic meeting. He would bet $50.00 for Kim’s materialization in the ugly communist uniform.

    porky

     

     

  • Caligula: A Life From Beginning to End by Hourly History

    Caligula: A Life From Beginning to EndCaligula: A Life From Beginning to End by Hourly History

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    For nearly two thousand years, Ancient Rome was a great arena of fearless political gladiators whose ambitious instincts to rule the world coincided with epochal shifts in demography and geopolitics in the regions it had conquered. No wonder the history of Ancient Rome is fraught with memorable figures whose names are immortalized in a variety of literary forms: Plays, Poems, Paintings, and Films depict the deeds and actions of these men of exceptional characters, one of whom is unforgettable Caligula as elegantly narrated in Caligula by Hourly History.

    Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was born in 12 A.D. The nickname “caligula” derived from caliga, meaning “little military boot” was attached to him as a term of endearment as Caligula accompanied his father Germanicus on the military campaign to Germania at the age of two attired in a full soldier’s uniform. In fact, Germanicus was a renowned Roman general whose valor was second to none and very popular among soldiers and citizenry. Perhaps it was this great popularity that caused his demise and the tragic end of his beloved family under the rule of Tiberius, the second emperor, the successor of the first emperor Caesar Augustus (which also indicates that Caligula was a distant nephew of Julius Caesar.) It was believed that Piso was responsible for the assassination of Germanicus out of jealousy and imprisonment of the family except Caligula who had managed to escape the arrest by fleeing to Tiberius in Capri when his mother Agrippina the Elder and his two elder brothers were horribly mistreated in prison and beaten to death. And it was this Tiberius who named the only living son of the popular Germanicus to be his successor – the third emperor.

    Thus Caligula’s rise to the throne of the emperor was the sine qua non of the tumulus aftermath as a result of his father’s death that rekindled the ember of political intrigues of the Senate and the Praetorian Guard. What’s more, the first six months of Caligula’s reign was regarded as quite innovative and auspicious. With a huge sum of money in the Roman Treasury, Caligula’s achievements included the following: 1) to reinstate the popular vote allowing all citizens to speak in the government process; (2) to make the ledgers of the use of treasury funds public; (3) to raise the salaries and provide bonuses to every branch of military; and (4) to recall all those who had been exiled under Tiberius.

    According to a popular theory, Caligula was struck with a serious mental illness eight months after his enthronement. Some say that Caligula suffered from a lifelong epilepsy as evidenced by his having never learnt to swim, whereas swimming was a popular form of exercise at the time. It was also this time when Gemellus, the young grandson of Tiberius who had supposed to co-rule with Caligula was executed under his order along with Caligula’s father-in-law and brother-in-law with his younger sisters being sent into exile. However, curiously enough, he saved his uncle Claudius, who had been afflicted with a serious illness that left him with a severe limp and partial deafness.

    Caligula’s stupendousness of eccentricity continued in building two large ships for personal use, one of which was a floating palace and erecting many monuments commemorating himself as well as theaters, temples, and entertainment complexes for his personal use at the expense of the treasury funds. Furthermore, by 40 AD Caligula proclaimed himself to be a god in attempt to dictate religious aspects into political policies by beginning to refer to himself as “Jupiter” in public documentation while still alive.

    However, the reign of Caligula’s pseudo-theocracy met its end when Cassius Chaerea, a member of the Praetorian Guard, and his accomplices faced Caligula during a public event held in honor of Augustus and stabbed the emperor until he fell to the ground and breathed no more. It was only three years and ten months that Caligula ruled the young empire and it was how it was ended.

    Caligula by Hourly History is a comparatively light read, written in plain English from insightful views on the notorious emperor Caligula based upon factual analysis and historical backgrounds that help the reader understand the cohesiveness of how Caligula rose to power in the turbulent time of political intricacies, which might have caused the young and impetuous emperor to be agitated and anxious evermore as his ambition to emulate the ruling style of Augustus and the popularity of his beloved father clashed with a harsh reality. Caligula’s acting upon instincts or “guts” did not work out for him because of his trauma as a result of the tragedy of his once beloved family in combination with his impulsive temperament that needed a wise guardian to tame it. If you have heard about Caligula but do not know much about him other than you have seen him in movies, which have a tendency to portray him as a downright madman indulging in every form of debauchery you can possibly imagine, this is the read you can enjoy in your spare time at one sitting.