A Particular Approach of an Interpretation of a Text: GUN KISS written by Khaled Talib

The title caught my interest almost immediately, GUN is a weapon…to kill, and KISS is a sibilant Word that invites me (in my imagination) to make silence. I drank the whole story at once. If I stopped reading, an inactive bitterness soon would invade my mind. But when I reached the last page I got sad, almost angry, because Goldie and Blake were happy and steady…but action was over. I think this is the main difference between fiction and real life where action never ends. So, here is when my private party starts by bringing the book back to life. I re-read the complete book again, tasting every sip, and paying attention to all the details that I had skipped devoured by my anxiety. First I concentrate on my mental map and joined in a kind of exciting trip all the countries mentioned in the book. I started with Iraq, in reference at the war that joined Blake and Jack past lives; to follow to the actual fashionable Hollywood, where Goldie lives her movie life sharing it with Yoda quotes from Star Wars; and at the same time with certain reminiscence of the American past when Blake recreates his contact with John Wilkes Booth in his intention to mend history through a revision of his killing Abraham Lincoln. Soon I am transported to Russia with Blake and Jack introductory mission in recovering Booth’s Derringer. This erratic travelling includes an American country, Mexico, with all the political and social troubles of Lord of drugs and dealers, migrations borders and exotic birds in their endless forests sprinkled with words in Spanish. In the middle there is a romantic escape to cold Switzerland in Europe and a mysterious performance of a magician who lives in the far away China. All this places have been very well described through the locations, so vividly that I could peer in them while actions were carrying on. Then I collected data from the characters backgrounds. Imaging I am strolling around… near the sea and I pick up empty shells. Each of them has a secret of every character that justifies their reactions. Thus I found out that Blake is a loser who has a pirate script he couldn’t have filmed. And that Goldie is good at cooking …and having wine. I realized that Jack could reactivate his destiny after being tied up to a fake bomb and Maya disappeared from the plot because she is a teacher with a common destiny. I confirmed once again that Dai Lo is a logic and insane man who imposes his will to mask his limitations, both physical and mental. And Agent Drew had to draw all the possible relations with films directors who were systematically killed by Dai Lo to annoy Goldie. My best time with a book is when I establish an intimate relation with the words that each of the character says. This is the match point that wins my heart and beats my mind. These words have been chosen carefully and wrapped in a fine and clever sense of humor; the exact dose, and their meaning are connected to communication technology. I met characters that read the Bible in paper but also the USA TODAY in their tablets. Blake conquered me with his first line when he was taken drugged after being with an easy girl and heard the voice of the agents and said: “What happened to your sweet voice?” or when he was explained the new mission and he answered easily: “I save things not people”. I almost heard him saying “blondies”. Of course it is a cliché that betrayed my mind; I am totally against that prejudice that says that “Blondies” are stupid creatures! Goldie is a proof of that!!! In this deeply second reading I also rescued lovely sentences that consider women as better skilled in linguistics. For example in their first meeting after the first rescue when Blake felt overwhelmed and Goldie advance directly with: “Are you going to ask me out or not?” But later in another occasion they resolve it together when suddenly she asked: “Was I being too forward when I asked you out?” and He had to confess that: “Women have a built in intuition, they can detect emotion”. But my favorite quotes are those that Blake uttered marking limits to Goldie, especially when she felt in dismay: “That’s your ego talking”; or “It’s your mind saying you are tired”; even when she could not control her words flowing with wine and he said: “That’s alcohol talking”. Goldie expressed vividly her feelings of repulse about Dai Lo when she said that she was not physically harmed but admitted none dramatically: “He raped my mind”. Cosmic connections between characters are my best of all the favorites and I enjoyed images in sentences like “clashes of the souls that keep them in touch forever” when they made love. And nearly at the end of the book when Blake speaks to the universe in despair: “I can locate stolen artifacts but I don’t know where to find her”. And when Goldie called him in her thoughts in her run away from Dai Lo’s imprisonment on her own: “If you can hear me, stay strong, I’ll find you one way or another”. Finally I like the last lines of the book compensating the destruction with the reopening of Mama Tacos and Goldie’s Foundation to help the families. But the remarkable idea is that Blake scrip becomes a movie where past fiction and present lives mixed up. This reminds me of an old Meryl Streep and Jeremy Iron movie of the eighties: “The French Lieutenants’ wife” in which present lives of actors, and past characters, interacted in a mixed up plot. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen, and the actors had to study English to speak it perfectly according to the age!!!