Haruki Murakami- Dance Dance Dance

Dance Dance Dance

Vintage

 Haruki Murakami

1988 (Japanese)/ 1994 (English)
Translated by Jay Rubin
 

Other Murakami Reviews- A Wild Sheep Chase - Dance Dance Dance - Underground - Sputnik Sweetheart - after the quake - After Dark - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - 1Q84- Books I & II - Book III - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Strange Library

“Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock 'n' roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights.”

In a somewhat morbid realisation of life being too short, I recently decided to stop spacing out as-yet unread novels by my absolute favourite authors, hence more Charles Bukowski and Paul Auster reviews recently. The daddy of them all in this regard was Dance Dance Dance, the last unread book available from Haruki Murakami, which I'd been saving on my to-read pile for a long time. It was kind of like my own tribute to Desmond Hume from Lost, the man trapped in an underground bunker  on a really weird island who saved his copy of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend so it can be the last thing he ever reads before he dies. I wasn't going to take it that far, but I liked the idea of having that one book by (probably) my favourite author left over to constantly look forward to.

But then he wrote Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Jay Rubin translated it to English, and it's scheduled to turn up on my doorstep sometime around mid-August. So, after taking a short reading break following Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions, I began to read Dance Dance Dance, albeit not without a sense of apprehension. Written in an early stage of Murakami's superstar novelist career, it sits nicely in his bibliography nestled between Norwegian Wood (the novel that gave him national fame) and the novella South of the Border, West of the Sun (one of my personal favourites)- all of which sounded great, until I saw that it was a sequel to his earlier work The Trilogy of the Rat. Of those three books I haven't read the first two because they haven't been printed in English aside from an early limited run (second-hand copies of which go for annoyingly high prices on the 'net, and I haven't given in to temptation yet), and the third is A Wild Sheep Chase.

As my hasty review of it showed, I didn't really get on with that book. The prose style and characterisations were fine, though naturally not as well-mastered as later novels, but most importantly the use of magical realism (or postmodernism or surrealism or whatever you want to call it) felt too poorly controlled in its portrayal of what was actually going on. Murakami can write labyrinthine stories, yes, but on this one occasion I wasn't spellbound. The thought of returning to that style or similar was disheartening.

The nameless narrating lead character returns, not surprisingly, still blunt, not particularly friendly, and full of hard-boiled dialogue; this time, I found, with a more pronounced sense of fatigue. Straight away I knew there was a much greater chance of me enjoying this book, as the author's voice and style seemed so much more well defined and evocative. Though A Wild Sheep Chase was described as a postmodern detective story, I felt the latter aspect dominated the former to such an extent it became irrelevent, but Dance Dance Dance readdresses that balance through the superb narration; there's plenty of pulp detective fiction embedded, of the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. As Murakami begins to lay the story out things become even clearer; while returning characters and some references to prior events in The Trilogy of the Rat do exist, the reader doesn't need to be aware of them (or in awe of them) to make the book work whatsoever, as instead they sit back comfortably after initially helping to set the scene.

The plot revolves around the narrator's unwavering need to return to the mysterious Dolphin Hotel, to confront and understand the horror-like past memories it once left him with. When he does return, he finds the hotel rebuilt and restaffed, superficially seeming completely normal but retaining the ethereal sense of dread, an aura like the Overlook Hotel of King's The Shining (and you know when I say King I really mean Kubrick). While vaguely investigating, the narrator comes across a new set of important characters, some of whom link him again to his past, some of whom change his life very unexpectedly; like Yuri, a neglected 13-year-old daughter to rich parents, whom the narrator befriends and takes care of in a unique relationship that was the highlight of the book for me, such is Murakami's brilliant way of transposing two different characters across each other to create a relationship that almost feels real.

The thematic bulk of the book turned out to be something I absolutely loved, in that it was preaching to the choir by presenting a well-structured post-modern detective story, where, without giving too much away, Murakami focuses on the mysterious nature of unexplained connections between people and places as his character investigates a possible murder mystery. In actual fact it's probably a much more straightforward book than his other longer novels (Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle spring immediately to mind as far more complicated structurally), which somewhat limits its full potential, compared to later Murakami novels, but allows it to more fully embrace the notion of twisted genre fiction. It continues this way mostly to the end, which is again a lot clearer than other Murakami and provides somewhat of a happy send-off to his narrator or four books. I was pleasantly surprised by the ending and it added to my enjoyment overall, concluding the novel as a strong example of the author balancing his experimental nature with his control over the story. As his writing developed in the years to come he was able to more fully engage his experiments without damaging the narrative, and this book felt like an important stage in that development.

And so, unless I can quickly find copies of Murakami's first two novels for a reasonable price (ie less than a hundred pounds) I'm currently caught up on his available bibliography, around six years after I started. I can't wait for his next book to come out, I'm going to gush over it until I make everyone who reads this blog sick.

The web of Dance Dance Dance

One of those posts...

... where I make excuses for not posting in a while. Though, thinking about it, this nine day gap is much smaller delay than I used to cause on this blog, so I'm getting better. Truthfully the problem is I've barely sat down to read recently, thanks to a combination of work and a crippling addiction to Pokemon Emerald on the Game Boy Advance.

Since I finished The Book of Illusions I was so impressed by it that I haven't wanted to try and grapple with another heavyweight bout of surrealist literature again. I did pick up my copy of The Complete Short Fiction of Oscar Wilde, and I've read a bit of that but not much. I am planning to read the final available Haruki Murakami book I'm yet to read; Dance Dance Dance, but I read one chapter and never got back to it.

This hasn't helped my To Read pile problem. Just the other day I randomly looked in HMV and came across three first-hand cheap books by Bret Easton Ellis, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jean Cocteau. The day before that I randomly found Science of the Discworld IV in Tesco. Must start reading....

Paul Auster- The Book of Illusions

The Book of Illusions

Picador Press

Paul Auster

2003

Other Paul Auster Reviews- The Invention of Solitude - The Country of Last Things - Moon Palace - The Art of Hunger - Mr. Vertigo - Timbuktu - The Book of Illusions - Oracle Night - Invisible

“It was one of the most sublimely exhilarating moments of my life. I was half a step in front of the real, an inch or two beyond the confines of my body, and when the thing happened just as I thought it would, I felt my skin had become transparent. I wasn't occupying space anymore so much as melting into it. What was around me was also inside me, and I had only to look into myself in order to see the world.” 

As I continue to fill the gaps in my collection of the bibliography of Paul Auster, my fandom has definitely increased remarkably over the past few months thanks to reading firstly the recently-reviewed Oracle Night, and now the book he wrote just prior to that- and subject of this review, obviously- the uniquely curious The Book of Illusions. I noticed this specifically recently when briefly skimming through reader reviews posted on Goodreads, and became curiously angry with the few people who chose to give Illusions a poor score; unfair of me I know, since everyone has the right to their opinion, and art by its very nature is subjective, but after just finishing the book myself the idea of people massively negatively criticising it drove me somewhat insane, especially since said criticisms were all exactly the same, exactly the same in fact as any criticisms I ever see of Auster novels; that they're self-absorbed and pretentious. Well first of all, yes Auster certainly is absorbed with particular philosophical and post-modern concepts he addresses from different angles in most of his books, but he's so adept at it and each effort so rich with individual attributes that you might as well criticise Dickens for being overly concerned with Victorian England, or Orwell for worrying about fascism.

I definitely prefer this cover.

While I don't like to begin a review with a bit of a whiny complaint, the truth is that I enjoyed The Book of Illusions so much for so many reasons that I can't help biting back at such harsh criticism. I found this book to be one of Paul Auster's very best efforts (that I've read so far, at least), particularly for its ability to stick with Auster's trademark introspective, often noir-ish post-modern take on murky issues of identity and narrative power without slowing down the genuinely outstanding, constantly intriguing plot. Auster creates a rich backstory for two very different, but somehow similar main characters and brings it to the forefront with a developing human drama that somehow sits comfortably between real human drama and uncontrolled surrealism, containing elements of magical realism without ever pushing too far into that genre.

The book begins with a tale of human tragedy that sets the stage for things to come. First person narration from lead character Robert Zimmer (who, like so many Auster leads, is a curious amalgamation of the author's own traits) introduces his life as a ruined mess. Once happily married with two children, writer and professor Zimmer's immediately family were all killed simultaneously in a commercial airplane crash, leaving Zimmer absolutely devastated, unable to work, unable to talk to other people, unable to do anything bar wander his now-otherwise empty home and drink very heavily. Zimmer is clearly heading towards suicide, until a moment of chance saves him; while drunkenly watching television he comes across an old silent film by a comedian named Hector Mann, and, miraculously, it makes him laugh for the first time in months. At that moment a spark of obsessive compulsive behaviour saves his life and gives it meaning, as Zimmer decides to find out more about the man who bought about a moment of happiness to him. He discovers that Mann's career in Hollywood was mysterious cut short through his abrupt vanishing and presumed death. As it happens, Zimmer discovers that very recently a previously unseen set of Hector Mann films has been mysteriously sent to various museums and film houses across the world, and from that moment Zimmer decides to watch every one of those films and write a book about Mann's career.

Not too bad either.

Eventually Zimmer achieves his goal, becoming a foremost expert on the works of the comedian, but that's really only the start of the novel. After his book is published, Zimmer receives a letter out of the blue purporting to be from Hector Mann's wife. Fifty years after Hector Mann's presumed death, Zimmer is told that he is alive somewhere, and he wishes to meet the man who so expertly wrote about his life. Zimmer is naturally suspicious, but a visit from a young woman (and future love interest) claiming to be part of Mann's family finally changes his mind, and inevitably wraps him into a fifty year plot involving murder, deceit, and the last, never before seen films of Hector Mann. I found this plot to be gripping, eerie in places and constantly tragic, but involving honourable, likable characters that somehow balance out the tragedy with uplifting hope for the future. Auster meticulously lays out the foundations for the plot's present through detailed descriptions of a murky past, essentially making Robert Zimmer and Hector Mann equally important as characters, and interesting reflections of themselves as a similar character archetype.

Interestingly. I found this book somewhat balanced in style between Auster's classic experiments using postmodernism techniques to explore the intangible questions of identity and reality, and his more recent efforts to ground his characters in realism through more relatable human drama. Everything in this book is technically possible (unlike the fantasy of of Mr. Vertigo, for example), with the overarching aura of surrealism surrounding the events powered by coincidence, or narrative fate. It's perhaps a more traditional way of progressing the plot than other Auster books (I think it could make a good low-key on-screen drama), but I found that it engaged me with the fate of the characters very well, and gave the mixed messages of tragedy and human resilience more power upon the novel's dramatic conclusion. Auster also cleverly uses the Hector Mann's Hollywood background and subsequent underground film making as another way to more directly present a few powerful, fantastical scenes packed with resonating symbolism entwined with the novel as a whole, within the context of Hector's films. It's very carefully composed, a labyrinthine arrangement of plot threads unfolding on each page.

So, as I always end up doing with Auster, I'm going to recommend this book to anyone looking for cutting edge contemporary literature by a master of the style. With a rounded, conclusive story that you don't always get from him, The Book of Illusions would probably be a great introduction to Auster for someone who likes the sound of what he does.

Not Books III- Walking Dead Edition, Apparantly

TV Shows-

The Walking Dead- Season 04

Like so many millions of others, I'm a complete Walking Dead junkie, and lapped up every episode of the latest season. The mid-season break and the stylistic differences between the two halves made it seem, to me, though these were two separate seasons, and all the better for it. Things started off fairly poorly compared to the third season, thanks to the mostly dull and uninspiring plot of the group all catching scurvy or super-flu or something; a seemingly unpleasant new disease with the very fortunate side effect of being unable to kill any of the main cast. The writers were clearly time wasting and building the tension for the inevitable return of the Governor, back to ruin the civilization that destroyed his. Amazingly when he did return the show cut away from the main cast for two whole episodes for the sake of filling in the back story since we last saw him. It felt like something from Lost and I greatly enjoyed it, particularly the effect it had of promoting the Governor from the status of end of level boss to somewhat of an anti-hero main character with his own complex motivations. When he returned to the prison to confront Rick and co. for the mid-season finale it blew my mind through not only its sheer bloody violence but how that violence was meticulously crafted by the writers to mean so much more than just visual eye-candy in its impact on the surviving characters.

When the show returned, the events of the mid-season finale shook things up greatly for the first time in a while, as the group was split and scattered across the Georgia forest (though not too far, for storyline purposes), and mostly kept apart for the entire season. The attempts at world-building by the characters was replaced with a constant fight for survival in the wilderness, presented as mostly done-in-one episodes barely progressing the plot other than to aim the wandering characters into the right direction as they each became drawn to the mysterious sanctuary-advertising Terminus. To be honest not all of it was compelling, but it was an exercise in tension building and character development leading towards the season finale. Like the mid-season one, it was extremely bloody and vicious, offering more action and danger than past episodes in order to reward the fans patience with the recent slower pace. Barely ten minutes in to the episode and I was wide-eyed, thanks to converging characters bringing each other death and destruction. As it finished, I was already damning the up-coming wait for season five, whenever that may be.

Films-

 

The Lost World- Jurassic Park (1997)

In all my writings on this blog I don't think I've ever mentioned of how much of a role Michael Crichton's 1990 science fiction novel Jurassic Park played in my personal development as a reader and student of literature. Like many other kids I was mad on dinosaurs, and so Steven Spielberg's amazing film adaptation was perfect for me. After seeing that I was given a copy of the book by a family member, easily the most complicated, mature piece of writing I'd ever come across at the tender age of seven. Because I was so obsessed I read the book over and over again, understanding the different aspects more and more each time, and with it becoming more accustomed to mature fiction. I went on a Crichton kick, naturally including the follow-up book The Lost World, which as a novel is blatantly not as good as a stand alone piece but I feel works well as an extended epilogue exploring the themes from a different perspective without really advancing the main story to any extent.

About twenty years later, I found myself watching the much-maligned sequel on television, not for the first, nor even the tenth time, and it seemed fairly obvious where the problems begin. Spielberg's follow-up was pretty much doomed from the start through its halfhearted attempts to adapt the awkward source material while sustaining the awe of a big budget Hollywood action film, ultimately failing on both counts. I like the book but there's no mistaking that it cruises on the success of the original, adding almost nothing new of its own but instead expanding on some of the original themes, such as the industrial espionage and conspiracy of the powerful companies behind the Jurassic Park technology, and the behaviour of the dinosaurs themselves. Clearly a straight adaptation would not have worked (a very odd stylistic decision by Crichton indeed when you consider the money he must have made from the success of the franchise already), making changes absolutely necessary.

As you all must be remembering by now, what we actually from the adaptation was absolutely ridiculous, specifically from the point where the characters get off the island and the bad guys somehow manage to bring a T-Rex with them directly to San Diego, in hope of adding it to their insane Jurassic Park in the city concept. It's a massive shame, I thought while watching it this time, that the rewrite became most stupid without Crichton's work to rely on, because the prior aspects set on the island itself really aren't that bad. It's not as good as the original, of course (my favourite film of all time), but it's okay, at times even shockingly decent compared to its reputation. The island looks amazing thanks to the on-location filming, the CGI is top notch for the time, and the film sensibly sticks with the success of the first one by having a massive T-Rex attack (this time doubled) and then some Velociraptor action- though the latter is admittedly damaged heavily by the 'efforts' of Ian Malcolm's wretched step-daughter kicking one in the face.

When the massive boat with the T-Rex crashes into the San Diego harbour after the massive dinosaur somehow manages to kill everyone on board without them radioing for help and despite it being trapped in the massive cargo hold presumable unable to reach half of them, everything goes to hell. The actors stop bothering to try, the writers gave up long ago, and any sense of legitimate wonder, awe and horror built up by the earlier action scenes set in the scenic jungle is quickly flushed down the toilet for the sake of some abysmal humour involving a dog and a kid. It's probably all even worse than Jurassic Park 3, which is saying something. Hopefully the upcoming Jurassic World will re-embrace the serious wonder of the original and the first half of this film and leave the later rotten attempts at family entertainment as a bad memory. 

 Frankenweenie (2012)

I didn't give this one a fair chance from the start, to be honest. There's a short and uninteresting back story- I spent the best part of ten years avoiding the deluge of CGI animated films from Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks, just because I thought they looked corny and I was too cool. Then, last year, my fiance  and I decided to watch a load of them together to get me over it. Wreck-It Ralph and Rise of the Guardians were really good, but a few crap ones (and my growing, but hopefully temporary, disinterest in watching films in general) ruined that, and I gave up. She wanted to watch Frankenweenie, and in my eyes it was doomed before it started.

It didn't help when I found out that not only was it a Tim Burton film, but a remake by Tim Burton of an earlier Tim Burton film. That seemed like way too much Tim Burton for me; especially since I haven't enjoyed a new film by him in some time, finding the constant recycling of actors, images, styles and themes to be self-indulgent and unbalanced by a lack of coherant, interesting storytelling. Frankenweenie, then, is Tim Burton re-doing Frankenstein by way of Disney, and though while I'll admit that combination probably really appeals to a massive audience of alternative-styled teenage girls, it didn't really have anything for me. In hindsight it was interesting to see quite a fluid mesh of styles between Burton stereotypes and Disney stereotypes, where Burton seemed to reign in some of his inherent weirdness for the sake of a happier story and ending, but to be honest I didn't much care. Oh, and it's all in black and white, did I mention that? 

Natural Born Killers (1994)

A very, very curious film that I watched once at university and for some reason barely paid attention to, but saw again recently and found much more interesting. Oliver Stone's one hundred mile-an-hour take on Quentin Tarantino's screenplay seems far too flawed and, well, totally insane for many people to call it a true 90's classic, in the same vein as the writer's other efforts, but it was very interesting. Having not long ago read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood I couldn't help comparing the two narrative's exploration of the mass media reporting of serial killers, and coming to the conclusion that Natural Born Killers is a fictional culmination of atmospheres like the ones surrounding the Clutter murder case, taken to the furthest degree. In terms of presenting a fairly straightforward message criticising the glorification of serial killers by the media it does get the message across, but not without coming across a series of various problems that the film just can't get past.

First of all the biggest problem I have, particularly regarding the end of the film, is centered around the status of the Micky and Mallory characters and how they're presented in reference to the message of the film. On the one hand the narrative seems designed to give some sympathy to them through their hard-luck back stories, and it seemed clear to me that Oliver Stone wanted to portray them somewhat as victims pushed into an expanding role by the country around them; a force of nature, or of media. The problem seems to be do to with the treatment of Tarantino's script by Stone, where the transmogrification really leaves them stuck between two ideas- Tarantino's effort, in his typical style, creates two incredibly charismatic, enigmatic and frankly damned cool characters, genre picture characters seemingly influenced heavily by Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands, who start out the film as incredibly cool, perfectly formed physical manifestations of anarchy. Once that's established it effectively makes the overall message kind of pointless, or so it seemed to me. The scenes where Robert Downey Jr. interviews Woody Harrelson live from prison are so fantastic as establishing Mickey as a super Charley Manson type figure that it just perpetuates the entire serial killer myth that the film is (occasionally) trying  to criticise. It's good, but it's a bit of a mess.

 Westworld (1973)

When I first saw Westworld around two years ago I was very impressed and really enjoyed it. This time around though it just wasn't anywhere near as much fun. Writer and director Michael Crichton will always be a favourite of mine thanks to his novels, and Westworld contains many of the ideas that he would later expand on (specifically in Jurassic Park), but it's not a brilliant piece of film-making. The pacing is fairly slow, as Crichton stretches a plot that really only has enough detail for a short-story (The Simpsons did a great parody with that episode where they go to Itchy and Scratchy Land) over 90-minutes, and as a result I was bored more often than not. The pacing changes for the last third of the film, as does the tone, shifting into a far more sinister mood as things go horrible awry. For those who haven't seen it, Westworld is a science fiction film presumably set in the future where technology has enabled the creation of perfect lifelike animatronic robots. For a cool $1000 a day, people can visit the holiday resort of Dellos where said robots are used to create fantasy adventure holidays. Westworld is one of those holiday options, a fully recreated wild west setting where holidaymakers can drink, whore and trade pistols at dawn, without any risk to themselves or others.

Obviously things to wrong, leading to a series of events resembling both Jurassic Park and The Terminator. Yul Brynner is the most memorable performer as a murderous, unstoppable android, hellbent on avenging those who've thoughtlessly killed him many times before without a second thought. It's a short parable on the dangers of science creating artificial life, verging on the horror genre in places, but to be honest there's simply not enough detail put into the plot, not enough refinement of just how things are about to go wrong, and Richard Benjamin's main character is far too much of a wet blanket to leave a memorable imprint onscreen. Still, while it might be a film most only want to see once, it has a memorable, eerie style to it and top of the range sci-fi morality ambitions, leaving me to recommend it to anyone who really considers themselves a fan of the genre.

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Christ, such a bland, stupid and uninteresting film I can barely be bothered to write about it. It's ironic really, as clearly a huge amount of time and effort was put into creating this, but almost nothing clicks. I must begin by saying I really have no idea what The Lone Ranger character really is or where he comes from; I assume a pulp hero character from the early parts of last century that made the leap to television. I'm from England where the Western genre doesn't really permeate popular culture very often beyond hardcore fans, so the title character had no instant appeal to me. With that in mind, actor Arnie Hammer (who I'd never heard of before this) did a great job of making the character seem as banal, generic and uninteresting as possible. Lead attraction Johnny Depp, meanwhile, decided to play supporting character Tonto as Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow playing Tonto, which was interesting but not remotely enough to save the movie.

Regardless of the cast though the plot of this film is such a mixture of convoluted rubbish and barely thought-out genericism that it was destined to failure anyway. The stunts are admittedly impressive, but otherwise this is a boring-looking film for something that had a bajillion dollars spent on it. Finally it doesn't help the suspense of disbelief that the film takes the Pirates of the Caribbean trope of making each action scene look very, very choreographed, and puts even more effort into it. How are you supposed to care about the supposedly human characters when they seem to be able to escape every situation through some sort of unexplained cowboy spider-sense? Anyway now I can't be bothered to write about this film anymore.

Video Games-

 The Walking Dead- Season One (2012)

As I sit typing this it has been at least two weeks since I completed the fifth and final episode of season one of The Walking Dead videogame, and truth be told I'm still not entirely sure how to approach this mini-review. It should be impossible to sum up the ambitions and achievements of this game in such a short space of time, particularly from someone who hasn't written a serious video game review in probably five years. The main impression it left me with was that it not only lived up to both Robert Kirkman's original comic book series and AMC's beautifully gruesome television adaptation, but used the power of the format to arguably improve on them. That's right,I think The Walking Dead game is the highest quality of the entire franchise, down to the fact that the writers and developers took advantage of the potential of the medium and tailored the game to have as much emotional impact on the player as possible. When I finished the game I didn't know where to scream or cry.

Aside from a couple of cameos, this game populates the popular post-apocalyptic zombiefest world with new characters. The player is Lee Everett, a man on his way to prison for the accidental murder of his wife's lover when the world goes to hell and a zombie inflicted car crash grants him his freedom. It's not long before he encounters Clementine, a six-year-old girl hiding in her tree-house, hoping for her parents to return. From that point on Lee vows to look after Clementine, and it's this stroke of genius that makes the game what it is. Supposedly the writers spent a lot of time perfecting the Clementine character and it shows; she's easily the best child character in a game thanks to her endearing nature and believable vulnerability. I'm mostly pretty cynical and disconnected to this sort of thing in fiction, but the interactive nature of the game combined with Clementine's brilliant character made me care for her more than I ever would've suspected.

The gameplay itself is something I knew would appeal to me, as it's basically just a 21st century adventure game, and I love adventure games. In truth it's mostly very easy, intentionally so to keep the player moving forward and exploring the narrative. This is essentially as close to a TV show as a game can be, done as well as possible. The game tries to alter the experience somewhat for each player by giving them choices to make at set points, usually relating to choosing certain bits of dialogue, or sometimes to make important life or death decisions for other people, and though it's essentially an illusion in regards to the eventual progression of the plot, it does alter certain bits of non player character behaviour enough to make it seem like you've made a difference. It also promises replay value where none otherwise exists.

Season two began some time ago and two episodes have been released, but I'll wait for them all to become available before diving in headfirst and binge-playing them. To be honest I think I'll appreciate the breather- I don't want to give any spoilers away but the story becomes so dramatic and intense as it develops that I need the break. Amazing, amazing game, probably the best new game I've played in years.