Today I did not go to school.

Why? Well, yesterday we went to a mini-book fair organized by our school. During schooltime, of course. At any rate, the books were crap. Books with this size of font, books with 30 pages, and books with ridiculous and childish themes were all I found. Really, the only good books were those from A Series of Unfortunate Events. And they technically are children books.

Just to give you an example, there was a certain editorial that freaking insulted every aged literature book by giving them horrible, computer-rendered and extremely childish covers. When you opened, you could notice the font was huge and there were not even 50 pages long. For god´s sake, they resumed a whole chapter of the metamorphosis in one freaking paragraph.

This prompted a lot of comentaries and laughes (is that even a word?) from me and my two good friends, of which I have a lot of common, which in turned caused ashamed looks from the ones that were selling them. One of the things I said to them that did not mock or insult the books that were being sold was that Kafka is better than Shakespeare (actually, it was more like "Kafka can kick Shakespeare´s ass"), to which they both agreed.

That was one of the three things I concluded from that book fair.

One other was that adventure books shouldn´t be written anymore. There are far better ways to tell an adventure story (like videogames) than books. Books should be focused on psychological and metaphorical stuff. Don´t get me wrong, though. I am merely talking about books whose main thing is adventure, not those that merely have adventure. 

The other one was that they seriously underestimate middle schooler´s psyches.

Oh yeah. And did I mention the mother of my literature teacher was trying to sell her book? A lot of akwardness filled the atmosphere...

At any rate, I told my mother and though she disagreed with Kafka being better than Shakespeare, she said I could skip school to go to the real book fair with her today.

Too bad it had ended.

But where does this go? Well, to know that we have to go to Sunday. I was reading about Goichi Suda on Wikipedia because I think he´s a genius because he made Killer7, Contact and another game that I would like to play. Because I couldn´t play Killer7 due to being at my mother´s house because I refuse to play it on that small TV.

At any rate, while I already knew and was excited about him working with official videogame genius Hideo Kojima, (I´m also excited about No More Heroes) for "Project S", I also found something that made me much more interested: Kurayami.

If case that link doesn´t work, allow me to save you a trip to wikipedia. Kurayami is a videogame concept from Suda based on Kafka´s book, The Castle.

This makes me think of a lot of things. The most important thing is: Could in the future this fine industry retell literature through videogames?

Not all books could, of course (though hey, graphic adventure games, anyone?), but I can imagine Macbeth as a videogame. Just begin before the book begins and add some of the wars Macbeth was in. In fact, start where the book begins and throw the battles as flashback--plus some surreal battles that only take place in Macbeth´s head as he falls into disgrace. It would be awesome. And then when the player finds out it was a book, he might go on and read some other Shakespeare books and be drawn into such stuff.

Just think about it, reader. Think about what Kurayami, and what it could mean to this fine industry.

Going back to today, my mother took me to a library instead. I looked around a bit, and there it was. The Castle, by Franz Kafka. I have read quite a bit of Kafka (The Trial and the Metamorphosis) and he is my second favorite author. So yeah, I might have read it anyway, but it is thanks to Suda and Kurayami that it sits there just now, on top of a pile of Wii and PS2 games (and one DS game).

Before even playing the game, before it even starts development, Kurayami has landed a book in my arms. And even though I will wait to finish Kafka on the Shore and then Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World before I begin with The Castle, I love it. The situation, The Castle, and Kurayami.

Yes, I have a lot of reading to do. But Kurayami is still a concept--I have the time.