01.18.07
Traveling With Kino
I suppose, really, that at the core of the geek and nerd philosophy, underneath all of the layers of complexity and complication that we seem to adore, geeks have a deep-rooted appreciation of simplicity. The concept of something being elegant, functional, and simple is the greatest goal for any engineer, technical person, or electronics enthusiast. But within the simplicity, there can be myriad layers of complexity and complications. When complexity and confusion is distilled into a simple, elegant solution, that is often considered the ‘best’ solution.
The concept behind the anthology follows a young girl, Kino, who wanders the world with her (quite vocal) motorcycle Hermes. Why Hermes is intelligent and can speak isn’t explained, and really doesn’t need much of an explanation. Why Kino herself is wandering isn’t explained, but the reason she set out in the first place is given. (On a tangent, the stories in this volume were sorted into a chronological order for the English translation, but in the original the tales were shuffled. I’d actually rather that the original order have been preserved, and so I read them in a random order, but it might be easier to follow as it stands.)
Looking over the stories in the first volume of the anthology, Kino’s Journey is easily one of the most elegant tales I’ve ever read. The prose is very muted, and the stories told aren’t ostentatious or overwrought. There’s no core tension, no overarching villain, no one versus one rivalry and no central goal to Kino’s wanderings. The stories are tales of exploration and inquisition, stories which level a critical eye at various viewpoints.
What I find most fascinating about Kino’s character, actually, is that she and Hermes seem to be the only moderates on the face of the planet. Everyone in the world seems to have latched onto an idea and taken it to an unreasonable extreme. I’m well aware that the purpose of taking such positions is really only to pick apart a philosophy, and that if everyone was moderate in their beliefs before they screwed up their concept, it wouldn’t quite make for a very good story. Still, it could be seen as being a little preachy in places.
The series is being marketed as a young-adult set, which meshes almost with the Japanese “light novel” description. I’m not exactly sure that it’s the right classification, but it is very hard to argue with the way that comparisons to “The Little Prince” just seem to be apt. I would probably say it should be more for teens on the order of 16 to 18 as opposed to the more-traditional “13 and up”. If this got brought into a high-school English class, I’d be pretty happy about it– actually, if my old English teacher was still in the trenches, I’d have already sent her a copy. Come to think of it, I think maybe I ought to do that anyway.
There’s still quite a bit more to say about Kino’s Journey, but to say anything really would spoil so much of it. Tomorrow, I’ll give a quick little overview of my few hours with the 360 in general and Rainbow Six: Vegas in particular.
Inconsequential Update: I’m past 70,000 words and 126 pages now, with about 25 scenes left to write. I’ve got a lot of inspiration built up for this; three days ago I wanted to cut out a meaty sub-plot, but thanks to some discussion on the forums (by people who had no idea they were actually helping me), I’ve chosen to keep it. Assuming I don’t get suckered into more counter-terrorism fun tonight, I’ll be adding even more to the main plot (yes, there actually has congealed a main plot out of this whole mess).