BOOKS 2011: May
That time of the month again. A treat: these reviews are especially badly written! I need to start making time for them, rather than knocking them out between more important activities.
1. Alexander the Great: Son of the Gods - Alan Fildes and Joann Fletcher
(176 pages)
The structure of this book makes it utterly unworth reviewing, to be honest. I picked it up because I wanted to get the chronology of Alexander straightened in my head after reading Renault's trilogy, and before embarking on more serious academic texts. For that it is perfectly adequate: straightforward and simple, it gives you a brief overview of his short but thrilling life. Does exactly what it says on the tin.
2. The Peregrine - J.A. Baker
(320 pages)
The issue of book (and page number) I refer to reflects an edition that encompasses three sets of writing by J.A. Baker: The Peregrine, The Hill of Summer and the diaries published just for this edition. Partly because Baker's prose is so rich and luminous (and also a lot to do with the fact that I wanted to up my book count) I've decided to treat them as separate books and read them at different points. As such I'll not have a page count for the rest of the book. Disclaimer sorted, on to the reviewing. The Peregrine is held up as not only the pinnacle of nature writing, but a classic of non-fiction literature. Detailing a man's obsession with this one species, the book is somewhat light on solid facts, being more a diary of candid experiences of the wild birds, but simultaneously manages to convey so much more about the creature than any RSPB handbook ever could. There are questions as to the book's authenticity, but as much as one can appreciate the validity of these doubts the fact of the matter is the book feels incredibly true. Something about the lucid, fierce quality of the writing, the detail in describing the birds time and time again and the power of the hunt, the way their personalities blaze through the page, does not feel at all false. It feels like it is written by what it is written by: a man obsessed to the point of possession with one thing. I have never read such wonderful descriptions of flight, and the peregrine falcon's flight at that, the fastest creature on earth in its sky-rending stoop. You feel both the heartwrenching thrill of it, and the envy that we cannot do the same. Baker is plain in the misery of his own earthbound nature, committing a good deal of his writing to discussing how air (and water) creatures know a freedom us terrestrial creatures cannot. I referred to this book before as "prose"; this is wrong. It is beyond that, far closer to poetry. Another reviewer describes Baker as a "writer's writer" and that about sums it up. Few authors have managed to capture a creature or a thing so well as Baker has captured peregrines; it is something every storyteller and nature writer and poet should aspire to.
3. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
(384 pages)
I need to stop picking up books described as the "next Harry Potter" purely on the basis that they never are the next Harry Potter. It's unfair for me to compare the two, because the non-HP book inevitably fails in comparision as it is always going to do. No book series has ever gripped me or had me fall in love with its characters like Harry Potter, so all books described as such are disappointing. What I don't get is how they consistently shoot so wide of the mark, as this book does. Yes, that's right, I'm going to whine about YA fiction again! I'm an ass. Seriously, though, I just didn't care about this. Such a fun idea and yet written so obnoxiously I could never enjoy it. What is it with all young adult literature being written in first person these days? It's so difficult to get right and yet so many mediocre authors seem to think they have what it takes. You don't! Stop! There is no faster way of getting me to dislike a main character than first person written by an author without the necessary skill. (On the other hand, when it's done to perfection - A Clockwork Orange, I Capture the Castle etc. -, then it is the quickest way to my heart.) Percy's narrative is painful: I get it, he's twelve, but stop trying to make him talk like a Joss Whedon character. An unfunny Joss Whedon character (and I hate Joss Whedon). And don't get me started on Grover. Did I ever hate Grover. Let's just say I didn't fall in love with the characters. The overriding thought in my head reading this was "this author/narrator doesn't know when to stop and take things seriously." It was distracting. Something apparently terrifying or worldchanging or heartbreaking was supposed to be happening and you'd have Percy cracking wise. It's obnoxious. Back to the HP comparisions: those books were fun and funny, but JKR always knew when to reel that in and hold back and let you just feel sad. I doubt there was anyone who read The Forest Again in DH and laughed. You're just allowed to feel the tragedy of it. There seems to be this patronising view of kids that all they want is action and comedy and that they can't appreciate real depth of feeling or messages in books. I was barely older than Percy Jackson when I read the first four HP books, and as much as I loved the adventure and comedy it was the depths of the books that really intrigued me, this idea of even good people being deeply flawed and having your own agency, the ability to make your own choices and whether or not you can choose what's right over what's easy. It's unfair for me to compare just one book of a series I haven't read with one I have read multiple times, but I got more profundity out of The Philosopher's Stone when I was twelve than I did this book as an adult. So that's my review of Harry Potter :D (Also: not enough Hades. Also also: No matter how an author chooses to describe him, I will always imagine Hades as he is in the Disney film - blue, with fire for hair and the voice of James Woods.)
4. The Dogs of Babel - Carolyn Parkhurst
(288 pages)
This book is sold as Lorelei's Secret in the UK, but it was under the original title I heard it recommended and under that title I bought, and prefer, it. The premise is what hooked me: a woman dies falling from a tree, and the only witness was the dog. Her husband, a linguist and left in grief, decides to teach the dog to speak so he can know what happened in those final hours, and why. With such a premise this book could so easily be awful and ridiculous, but what we have instead is a wonderful study into how people cope with grief. There were one or two moments where I felt things were getting a bit cheesy and Lexy had more than a little "manic pixie" about her - but as the story progresses you realise that that is because Paul is remembering her through the eyes of a widower, and her nature was much darker and unhappier than what initially seems the case. A charming, sad little book; if you're the sort of person who likes to cry at books, you probably will.
5. The King Must Die - Mary Renault
(368 pages)
Really disappointed by this. It took ages to get started, but I plodded on, safe in the knowledge that there was going to be a maneating half-man, half-bull at the end. Except as I plodded on, I became steadily unsurer of this, and then finally certain that it was not going to happen. This was a "realistic" version of the Minotaur myth, a plausible retelling. Which is not what I wanted. My own fault, perhaps, but the bloody blurb mislead me of all things. On top of that the book had its own faults. It was rather boring for long periods, and Theseus's attitude towards women made my skin crawl. It seems silly to criticise an ancient Greek king for holding negative opinions of women, but his outright sneering was really unappealing, and I don't know that we were supposed to consider it unappealing. It made me very uncomfortable, and really dislike the character, and question Renault occasionally difficult views of women. I have the second in the series, Bull from the Sea, but can't say I'm going to rush into it.
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
(542 pages)
First things first, they should have kept the original Swedish title: Men Who Hate Women. The English title is clunky and awful, with the aggravating addition of saying very little about the book. Maybe Lisbeth is the star of the story, but Men Who Hate Women in its brutality says so much more. That said, I was not impressed by this book. I can't say I was expecting to love it - I rarely love bestsellers, and I'm disinterested by crime fiction as a general rule -, but I was expecting something better written. Ordinarily I'd give non-English fiction the benefit of the doubt - I assume something has been lost in translation, or the translator just isn't up to scratch - but I don't think that was the case here. The tone was just bland. The dialogue was bordering on atrocious, so stilted and awful there were moments I squirmed with embarrassment. Most telling of all, and why I'm not willing to believe any of this is the fault of the translator, was the extraneous detail. I'm not one to complain about additional detailing as a rule, but this book was so desperate for a good editor I nearly took a red pen to it myself. (The library would not approve.) Why it was felt I need to know exactly what bland activities Blomkvist and Salander got up to during their day, what their make of computer and motorbike and what novel they are reading is, what food they ate (protip: it's always a sandwich) I don't know. It's a shame because when the actual murder investigation story was underway I enjoyed the story, in a not-great-writing-but-it's-a-romp sort of way, and I really loved the theme of violence against women with its strongly feminist undertones, but time and time again that was waylaid by pointless excursions into needless details and the author's own interests that are not mine. The corporation nonsense was boring as hell too, but I'm willing to wave that one off as just personal taste. The rest, however, is poor writing and really bad editing. I realise that the author died soon after delivering these books, and feel kind of a douche for complaining about the lack of editing as such, but that doesn't detract from my frustration. You could hack away 50% of this book and end up with a much better novel for it, but that wasn't done, and if the sale figures are anything to go by then a lot of other people don't seem to mind either. I've added the film to my LOVEFiLM queue, in the vague hope that this has been achieved in the time-limited visual medium. Perhaps I'll "get it" that way.
7. The Hill of Summer - J.A. Baker
(---)
Following on from The Peregrine comes The Hill of Summer. It is very similar to the former book - the same scintillating, visceral language and preoccupation with death. However, where The Peregrine was a study into Baker's obsession with one creature, this book is much broader in its scope, and in some ways more satisfying for it. So many books like this descend into a sort of smug, self-satisfied tweeness, but Baker's writing never seems to do that, keeping wildlife strange and fierce and fearful. Lovely.
8. Diaries - J.A. Baker
(---)
It is always a pleasure to see how a good writer puts together his or her writing, and I suppose that is how these diaries function. Without the structure or painstaking work put into them, these are lighter than the previous two books, yet still beautiful. I am deeply envious of Baker's talent for describing the plumage of a bird time and again without it ever becoming dull; he describes how different lights bring out other qualities in the feathers of birds, which is curiously eye-opening and so much more effective than a photograph in a book. He makes birds seem what they are: infinitely mysterious and fascinating.
9. Under the Skin - Michael Faber
(304 pages)
I'm going to try and review this book without giving away its twist, so please bear with me. I feel I'm in a weird place with this book. There were points that it was really quite gripping and I couldn't stop reading. Elements of it I loved, and its spooky and unexpected sci-fi quality made for quite a wonderful atmosphere at times. As a first novel I can appreciate its bravery - few authors would risk a story that is so peculiar and awful. That said, I didn't like it. Far from gushing about the author's writing like some reviewers did, I found it sloppy and uninspired. The characterisation for the hitchers especially was very poor: a series of stereotypes, most of whom seemed to be terrible people that I couldn't stoke any sort of sympathy for. Ultimately, however, I think my dislike boiled down to the "moral" of the story. I don't mind morals in stories - I think stories should have points, and if that point is for an author to express a moral or ethical stance then so be it. It can be done very well: I loved A Clockwork Orange for instance, which is a study into the importance of free will ("is it better to choose to be evil than be forced to be good?") However, with this book I disagreed with the "moral" so profoundly that it ruined any enjoyment I could have possibly gleaned. Once it became obvious where the story was going I could not shake of the thought that no, the conditions of the book do not adequately satirise the reality because they are not remotely comparable. I get that there are people who hold this opinion in real life - I'm assuming the author does too, though I could very well be wrong -, but I'm of the opinion that these people are at best misguided, and at worst sociopathic. It's difficult to explain what I'm angry about without actually ruining the book for you, but for those of you who have or will it's not the lifestyle choice being lauded that bothers me (I find it quite admirable, actually) but this idea that what the character of this book does to her victims is somehow comparable to the real life situation that it claims to satirise. It isn't. It is such a shame it gets bogged down like this because it could have been a delightfully unsettling novel. Isserley could have been such an interesting study of an outcast. It could have been a terrific horror. However, feeling like an agenda that I disagreed with so viscerally was being shoved in my face pushed all other plot points out of my head. It didn't "make me think", it just made me cross. (And I don't believe for a minute that all men are that obsessed with breasts either.)
10. The Nature of Alexander - Mary Renault
(240 pages)
After my brief throw from Mary Renault due to the misogynistic boring bullshit that was The King Must Die, I am back in the saddle with this book and loving it all over again. Ordinarily a novelist, I believe this is Renault's only non-fiction, a biography of Alexander the Great. I must say, bearing in mind that I do realise that novelists rarely are the best people to approach for historical accuracy, I really enjoyed this. The novelist's touch meant it was very readable, a ripping yarn full of excitement and intrigue. And Renault really does appear to know her sources. I say this, but I'm not going to say I trusted all her conclusions; she evidently had a giant boner for Alexander, and I took a lot of her verdicts with a giant pinch of salt. As much as I'm inclined to agree with her that judging a man who lived over 2000 years ago by our own moral standards is ridiculous, I also think she let him off a loosely a little too often. There always seemed a "reasonable explanation" for his transgressions, rather than just the fact that maybe he was being a bit of a dick that day. Other characters are not given the same leniancy; she favours, for instance, the theory that Roxane perhaps had something to do with Hephaistion's untimately death, suggesting that as she murdered Alexander's second (and chief) wife after his death, that perhaps she was the jealous kind and that she did it to Hephaistion too. Whereas I can appreciate that Roxane was an ambitious woman (as Stateira's murder shows), I don't think that the the two motives are comparable. Stateira, like Roxane was, could have been carrying Alexander's heir, after all. The whole thing smacked of Renault's occasional misogyny (baffling, given than she lived her life with another woman and emigrated to South Africa due of its ex-pat gay community; but I suppose queer women are no less inclined to self-inflicted sexism as non-queer), and it rather tainted a book I was up to that point enjoying. Other than that I really liked it, rather more than I expected given I rarely read history or biography, and think I might try and approach some more historical non-fiction given opportunity. Taken with a hefty pinch of salt and a certain talent for casting a blind eye to less savoury aspects, this is a good book.
11. Gods Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips
(288 pages)
I fancied a piece of fluff and this fit the bill just fine. A modern hero myth involving a pair of mortals too awkward to ask one another out (I could not help but imagine Martin Freeman in the role of the male protaganist) and a cast of deteriorated Olympians, this is a cute book if not great literature. It never made me laugh out loud but I might have smirked a few times. There were a few moments when I felt the book lost some steam but it picked up again towards the climax. The actual ending itself was a bit flimsy and rushed but I don't feel like I can whinge properly because I wasn't expecting anything life-changing. A middling sort of a book.
12. The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today - Kat Banyard
(304 pages)
So comes the fourth and final of the clutch of books on feminism I bought earlier in the year. It's been an interesting journey, allowing me to put into words ideas that I had previously found difficult to articulate. I don't know if I've had any of my opinions changed - rather, they've just become more entrenched and informed - but it's allowed me to appreciate, for example, the reasons that some feminists do not care for the sex industry, even if reformed. This book approaches the subject in a “day in the life” format, each chapter dealing with an important (un)equality issue. It starts with one interviewee waking up with an eating disorder (body issues), progresses through the workplace, coming home to abusive boyfriend (domestic abuse) and an evening out in the sex industry, and ends with a young woman waiting up for her partner to return from a “lad's night out” after being left, once again, holding the baby (unequal reproduction rights and expectations of parents.) It's a nice introduction to the subject, written with clarity and stacked with statistics which will make you wince. Though mostly based in the western world and Britain in particular, Banyard does not entirely ignore issues outside of that sphere, and indeed makes a point of pointing out the hypocrisy of our deploring FGM while simultaneously saying that a woman undergoing elective labiaplasty is making a “choice” (this despite that many women in societies that value FGM undergo it “by choice” also, because it “looks right.”) A good book for the sort of person who twists their face at otherwise seemingly intelligent people saying they are “not a feminist”, yet is not sure why.
13. World War Z - Max Brooks
(352 pages)
I have been known to have said that of the “big three” supernatural (werewolves, vampires, zombies), that zombies are my least favourite. I think I might have to reconsider that. The presence of 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead in my DVD collection are perhaps indications of a change in winds, though I've had those years and still claimed that I don't like zombies. I watched The Walking Dead when it aired on Channel Five and liked it, but not enough that I wanted to rush out and strip HMV bare of its zombie apocalypse merchandise. This, however, might be the book to change my mind. I loved it. I've always felt a lot of zombie stuff fails to comprehend the real gravity of the situation, so this book went above and beyond my expectation. Based around “interviews” with survivors of the zombie apocalypse, this book is both wonderfully broad and keenly intense in its subject. Sure, there's a virus (hurray!) that turns people into walking cannibalistic corpses upon entering the bloodstream, but there are also countries collapsing, nuclear wars, mass evacuation, ravaging diseases, environmental catastrophy, extinction of entire species, feral children and evolved housecats. The book, which could easily remain within its comfort zone of the United States, globetrots with seeming ease, studying the affects the outbreak has on different countries and how it causes their people to react. There are so many seams in this story, some of which are only glanced upon, and that makes it so much more fascinating to read. You want to write fic about this book. Where, for example, (and I'm going to allow for some minor spoilers here), did the entire population of North Korea go? The stories we were allowed to follow were in themselves fantastic, partly because Brooks makes some very odd choices of who he is going to “interview”. How can you not find the story of the zombie apocalypse as told by an Australian astronaut who was in space for the entire duration not thrill you? Or through the eyes of a dog-handler, for that matter? I was excited by the little details; the story of the battle beneath Paris, and the fact that Europeans held out against the hoarde in castles. A fantastic, sweeping, bursting sort of book, at turns scary and uplifting, and always thrilling, I can, as a non-zombie fan, recommend this one.
14. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
(304 pages)
Unlike everyone ever on the internet, I have never wanted to fling myself at the feet of Neil Gaiman. I've liked all of his books that I have read, but I've never fallen in love with any of them. I find I tend to like his ideas better than the actual on-page rendition of them. I'm not sure what it is that falls just short for me, but there we have it. This book is not going to change that. It's cute, don't get me wrong. I really liked parts of it - the “lesson” at the end of the story is the kind I can agree with, and I enjoyed some of the characters and the illustrations. But it ends there, at like. Once again it comes short of making me love it. Once again, I don't really know why. I think part of it is my antagonistic relationship with “whimsy”. I don't particularly want to accuse Gaiman's books of it - I detest whimsy - but there is an element of it, a sort of smug gothic tweeness that comes to its aggravating conclusion with Tim Burton's movies. (I have been known to go into a spitting, spiteful rage at some of Mr Burton's “contributions”.) I think at the end of it the book just felt a little too superficial to me, a way of Gaiman playing with an environment (the graveyard) he's wanted to do something with rather than a real book about real characters with a good solid story (which I also felt rather lacking.) Of course, I'm saying this from the perspective of an adult who has recently discovered an unfortunate habit of slagging off books meant for children, which I feel bad for but not so much I don't continue to do it. What a dick.
Total books so far: 62
Total pages so far: 18,871
In addition to reading, I have joined LOVEFiLM and so can finally catch up on films I haven't been watching (three times a month.) This month I've managed:
Let Me In: Loved the original but this was utterly pointless. I was prepared to give it time because I was interested in the changes they'd made to the guardian's relationship, but as it turned out it was utterly pointless because they barely bothered exploring it. The script sounded weird and stilted in English, Chloe Moretz (who I LOVED as Hit Girl) was far too pretty and healthy-looking to play "Abby" (and I missed the weird dubbed-over voice effect), and the forced angst was aggravating. The fantastic pool scene lost all of its creeptastic quiet horror in this. On the other hand, kind of loved the female victim chomping on her own arm, and they got rid of that silly bit with the cats.
Notes on a Scandal: Liked this, though I didn't love it like I did the book. Probably because I loved the book. This didn't deviate too much, and I like to be surprised at least a little. Sheba is less scatty and irritating than in the book, which I suppose makes her more culpable. Fantastic performances all round: Judi Dench is especially good (of course). I don't think anyone could be a more perfect Barbara. I'm not sure what I felt about the sexual aspect they seemed to add in the film. I say seemed: perhaps when reading the book I was just being naive and missed that, but I never read Barbara's obsession with Sheba like that. It was a new element, and I'm not sure whether it was unnecessary or just added to the overall creepiness of the whole thing. I don't think I disliked it. Definitely worth a watch, though read the book first.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: You know my feelings about the book by now and the film didn't improve things. I was kind of enjoying it at first - Percy seemed less obnoxious, and I didn't want to turn Grover into delicious curry -, but then it just got stupid and I found myself sympathising with fans of the series despite not liking it myself. What they did with Hades just outright offended the mythology fangirl in me. Fuck you, stupid kids' movie.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Not as bad as the third movie but that's kind of like saying General Franco wasn't as bad as Hitler. Still sucked, ya know? Largely tedious and blatantly money-grabbing (eight-fucking-quid by yours stupid), I did quite like the bit with the mermaids - though the subsequent romance was stupid and pointless and what that end? I saw a review in the Metro saying that Jack Sparrow is less Keith Richards and more Russell Brand these days, and that sums it up for me. He's lost his charm and jumped the shark, and I wish he'd just go away and snog Katy Perry's herp-derp face now kay thanks.
I also watched some terrible made-for-tv films, but my reviews for them are staying on my Twitter, to entertain or perhaps merely irritate my tiny handful of readers. I love you guys!
1. Alexander the Great: Son of the Gods - Alan Fildes and Joann Fletcher
(176 pages)
The structure of this book makes it utterly unworth reviewing, to be honest. I picked it up because I wanted to get the chronology of Alexander straightened in my head after reading Renault's trilogy, and before embarking on more serious academic texts. For that it is perfectly adequate: straightforward and simple, it gives you a brief overview of his short but thrilling life. Does exactly what it says on the tin.
2. The Peregrine - J.A. Baker
(320 pages)
The issue of book (and page number) I refer to reflects an edition that encompasses three sets of writing by J.A. Baker: The Peregrine, The Hill of Summer and the diaries published just for this edition. Partly because Baker's prose is so rich and luminous (and also a lot to do with the fact that I wanted to up my book count) I've decided to treat them as separate books and read them at different points. As such I'll not have a page count for the rest of the book. Disclaimer sorted, on to the reviewing. The Peregrine is held up as not only the pinnacle of nature writing, but a classic of non-fiction literature. Detailing a man's obsession with this one species, the book is somewhat light on solid facts, being more a diary of candid experiences of the wild birds, but simultaneously manages to convey so much more about the creature than any RSPB handbook ever could. There are questions as to the book's authenticity, but as much as one can appreciate the validity of these doubts the fact of the matter is the book feels incredibly true. Something about the lucid, fierce quality of the writing, the detail in describing the birds time and time again and the power of the hunt, the way their personalities blaze through the page, does not feel at all false. It feels like it is written by what it is written by: a man obsessed to the point of possession with one thing. I have never read such wonderful descriptions of flight, and the peregrine falcon's flight at that, the fastest creature on earth in its sky-rending stoop. You feel both the heartwrenching thrill of it, and the envy that we cannot do the same. Baker is plain in the misery of his own earthbound nature, committing a good deal of his writing to discussing how air (and water) creatures know a freedom us terrestrial creatures cannot. I referred to this book before as "prose"; this is wrong. It is beyond that, far closer to poetry. Another reviewer describes Baker as a "writer's writer" and that about sums it up. Few authors have managed to capture a creature or a thing so well as Baker has captured peregrines; it is something every storyteller and nature writer and poet should aspire to.
3. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
(384 pages)
I need to stop picking up books described as the "next Harry Potter" purely on the basis that they never are the next Harry Potter. It's unfair for me to compare the two, because the non-HP book inevitably fails in comparision as it is always going to do. No book series has ever gripped me or had me fall in love with its characters like Harry Potter, so all books described as such are disappointing. What I don't get is how they consistently shoot so wide of the mark, as this book does. Yes, that's right, I'm going to whine about YA fiction again! I'm an ass. Seriously, though, I just didn't care about this. Such a fun idea and yet written so obnoxiously I could never enjoy it. What is it with all young adult literature being written in first person these days? It's so difficult to get right and yet so many mediocre authors seem to think they have what it takes. You don't! Stop! There is no faster way of getting me to dislike a main character than first person written by an author without the necessary skill. (On the other hand, when it's done to perfection - A Clockwork Orange, I Capture the Castle etc. -, then it is the quickest way to my heart.) Percy's narrative is painful: I get it, he's twelve, but stop trying to make him talk like a Joss Whedon character. An unfunny Joss Whedon character (and I hate Joss Whedon). And don't get me started on Grover. Did I ever hate Grover. Let's just say I didn't fall in love with the characters. The overriding thought in my head reading this was "this author/narrator doesn't know when to stop and take things seriously." It was distracting. Something apparently terrifying or worldchanging or heartbreaking was supposed to be happening and you'd have Percy cracking wise. It's obnoxious. Back to the HP comparisions: those books were fun and funny, but JKR always knew when to reel that in and hold back and let you just feel sad. I doubt there was anyone who read The Forest Again in DH and laughed. You're just allowed to feel the tragedy of it. There seems to be this patronising view of kids that all they want is action and comedy and that they can't appreciate real depth of feeling or messages in books. I was barely older than Percy Jackson when I read the first four HP books, and as much as I loved the adventure and comedy it was the depths of the books that really intrigued me, this idea of even good people being deeply flawed and having your own agency, the ability to make your own choices and whether or not you can choose what's right over what's easy. It's unfair for me to compare just one book of a series I haven't read with one I have read multiple times, but I got more profundity out of The Philosopher's Stone when I was twelve than I did this book as an adult. So that's my review of Harry Potter :D (Also: not enough Hades. Also also: No matter how an author chooses to describe him, I will always imagine Hades as he is in the Disney film - blue, with fire for hair and the voice of James Woods.)
4. The Dogs of Babel - Carolyn Parkhurst
(288 pages)
This book is sold as Lorelei's Secret in the UK, but it was under the original title I heard it recommended and under that title I bought, and prefer, it. The premise is what hooked me: a woman dies falling from a tree, and the only witness was the dog. Her husband, a linguist and left in grief, decides to teach the dog to speak so he can know what happened in those final hours, and why. With such a premise this book could so easily be awful and ridiculous, but what we have instead is a wonderful study into how people cope with grief. There were one or two moments where I felt things were getting a bit cheesy and Lexy had more than a little "manic pixie" about her - but as the story progresses you realise that that is because Paul is remembering her through the eyes of a widower, and her nature was much darker and unhappier than what initially seems the case. A charming, sad little book; if you're the sort of person who likes to cry at books, you probably will.
5. The King Must Die - Mary Renault
(368 pages)
Really disappointed by this. It took ages to get started, but I plodded on, safe in the knowledge that there was going to be a maneating half-man, half-bull at the end. Except as I plodded on, I became steadily unsurer of this, and then finally certain that it was not going to happen. This was a "realistic" version of the Minotaur myth, a plausible retelling. Which is not what I wanted. My own fault, perhaps, but the bloody blurb mislead me of all things. On top of that the book had its own faults. It was rather boring for long periods, and Theseus's attitude towards women made my skin crawl. It seems silly to criticise an ancient Greek king for holding negative opinions of women, but his outright sneering was really unappealing, and I don't know that we were supposed to consider it unappealing. It made me very uncomfortable, and really dislike the character, and question Renault occasionally difficult views of women. I have the second in the series, Bull from the Sea, but can't say I'm going to rush into it.
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
(542 pages)
First things first, they should have kept the original Swedish title: Men Who Hate Women. The English title is clunky and awful, with the aggravating addition of saying very little about the book. Maybe Lisbeth is the star of the story, but Men Who Hate Women in its brutality says so much more. That said, I was not impressed by this book. I can't say I was expecting to love it - I rarely love bestsellers, and I'm disinterested by crime fiction as a general rule -, but I was expecting something better written. Ordinarily I'd give non-English fiction the benefit of the doubt - I assume something has been lost in translation, or the translator just isn't up to scratch - but I don't think that was the case here. The tone was just bland. The dialogue was bordering on atrocious, so stilted and awful there were moments I squirmed with embarrassment. Most telling of all, and why I'm not willing to believe any of this is the fault of the translator, was the extraneous detail. I'm not one to complain about additional detailing as a rule, but this book was so desperate for a good editor I nearly took a red pen to it myself. (The library would not approve.) Why it was felt I need to know exactly what bland activities Blomkvist and Salander got up to during their day, what their make of computer and motorbike and what novel they are reading is, what food they ate (protip: it's always a sandwich) I don't know. It's a shame because when the actual murder investigation story was underway I enjoyed the story, in a not-great-writing-but-it's-a-romp sort of way, and I really loved the theme of violence against women with its strongly feminist undertones, but time and time again that was waylaid by pointless excursions into needless details and the author's own interests that are not mine. The corporation nonsense was boring as hell too, but I'm willing to wave that one off as just personal taste. The rest, however, is poor writing and really bad editing. I realise that the author died soon after delivering these books, and feel kind of a douche for complaining about the lack of editing as such, but that doesn't detract from my frustration. You could hack away 50% of this book and end up with a much better novel for it, but that wasn't done, and if the sale figures are anything to go by then a lot of other people don't seem to mind either. I've added the film to my LOVEFiLM queue, in the vague hope that this has been achieved in the time-limited visual medium. Perhaps I'll "get it" that way.
7. The Hill of Summer - J.A. Baker
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Following on from The Peregrine comes The Hill of Summer. It is very similar to the former book - the same scintillating, visceral language and preoccupation with death. However, where The Peregrine was a study into Baker's obsession with one creature, this book is much broader in its scope, and in some ways more satisfying for it. So many books like this descend into a sort of smug, self-satisfied tweeness, but Baker's writing never seems to do that, keeping wildlife strange and fierce and fearful. Lovely.
8. Diaries - J.A. Baker
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It is always a pleasure to see how a good writer puts together his or her writing, and I suppose that is how these diaries function. Without the structure or painstaking work put into them, these are lighter than the previous two books, yet still beautiful. I am deeply envious of Baker's talent for describing the plumage of a bird time and again without it ever becoming dull; he describes how different lights bring out other qualities in the feathers of birds, which is curiously eye-opening and so much more effective than a photograph in a book. He makes birds seem what they are: infinitely mysterious and fascinating.
9. Under the Skin - Michael Faber
(304 pages)
I'm going to try and review this book without giving away its twist, so please bear with me. I feel I'm in a weird place with this book. There were points that it was really quite gripping and I couldn't stop reading. Elements of it I loved, and its spooky and unexpected sci-fi quality made for quite a wonderful atmosphere at times. As a first novel I can appreciate its bravery - few authors would risk a story that is so peculiar and awful. That said, I didn't like it. Far from gushing about the author's writing like some reviewers did, I found it sloppy and uninspired. The characterisation for the hitchers especially was very poor: a series of stereotypes, most of whom seemed to be terrible people that I couldn't stoke any sort of sympathy for. Ultimately, however, I think my dislike boiled down to the "moral" of the story. I don't mind morals in stories - I think stories should have points, and if that point is for an author to express a moral or ethical stance then so be it. It can be done very well: I loved A Clockwork Orange for instance, which is a study into the importance of free will ("is it better to choose to be evil than be forced to be good?") However, with this book I disagreed with the "moral" so profoundly that it ruined any enjoyment I could have possibly gleaned. Once it became obvious where the story was going I could not shake of the thought that no, the conditions of the book do not adequately satirise the reality because they are not remotely comparable. I get that there are people who hold this opinion in real life - I'm assuming the author does too, though I could very well be wrong -, but I'm of the opinion that these people are at best misguided, and at worst sociopathic. It's difficult to explain what I'm angry about without actually ruining the book for you, but for those of you who have or will it's not the lifestyle choice being lauded that bothers me (I find it quite admirable, actually) but this idea that what the character of this book does to her victims is somehow comparable to the real life situation that it claims to satirise. It isn't. It is such a shame it gets bogged down like this because it could have been a delightfully unsettling novel. Isserley could have been such an interesting study of an outcast. It could have been a terrific horror. However, feeling like an agenda that I disagreed with so viscerally was being shoved in my face pushed all other plot points out of my head. It didn't "make me think", it just made me cross. (And I don't believe for a minute that all men are that obsessed with breasts either.)
10. The Nature of Alexander - Mary Renault
(240 pages)
After my brief throw from Mary Renault due to the misogynistic boring bullshit that was The King Must Die, I am back in the saddle with this book and loving it all over again. Ordinarily a novelist, I believe this is Renault's only non-fiction, a biography of Alexander the Great. I must say, bearing in mind that I do realise that novelists rarely are the best people to approach for historical accuracy, I really enjoyed this. The novelist's touch meant it was very readable, a ripping yarn full of excitement and intrigue. And Renault really does appear to know her sources. I say this, but I'm not going to say I trusted all her conclusions; she evidently had a giant boner for Alexander, and I took a lot of her verdicts with a giant pinch of salt. As much as I'm inclined to agree with her that judging a man who lived over 2000 years ago by our own moral standards is ridiculous, I also think she let him off a loosely a little too often. There always seemed a "reasonable explanation" for his transgressions, rather than just the fact that maybe he was being a bit of a dick that day. Other characters are not given the same leniancy; she favours, for instance, the theory that Roxane perhaps had something to do with Hephaistion's untimately death, suggesting that as she murdered Alexander's second (and chief) wife after his death, that perhaps she was the jealous kind and that she did it to Hephaistion too. Whereas I can appreciate that Roxane was an ambitious woman (as Stateira's murder shows), I don't think that the the two motives are comparable. Stateira, like Roxane was, could have been carrying Alexander's heir, after all. The whole thing smacked of Renault's occasional misogyny (baffling, given than she lived her life with another woman and emigrated to South Africa due of its ex-pat gay community; but I suppose queer women are no less inclined to self-inflicted sexism as non-queer), and it rather tainted a book I was up to that point enjoying. Other than that I really liked it, rather more than I expected given I rarely read history or biography, and think I might try and approach some more historical non-fiction given opportunity. Taken with a hefty pinch of salt and a certain talent for casting a blind eye to less savoury aspects, this is a good book.
11. Gods Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips
(288 pages)
I fancied a piece of fluff and this fit the bill just fine. A modern hero myth involving a pair of mortals too awkward to ask one another out (I could not help but imagine Martin Freeman in the role of the male protaganist) and a cast of deteriorated Olympians, this is a cute book if not great literature. It never made me laugh out loud but I might have smirked a few times. There were a few moments when I felt the book lost some steam but it picked up again towards the climax. The actual ending itself was a bit flimsy and rushed but I don't feel like I can whinge properly because I wasn't expecting anything life-changing. A middling sort of a book.
12. The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today - Kat Banyard
(304 pages)
So comes the fourth and final of the clutch of books on feminism I bought earlier in the year. It's been an interesting journey, allowing me to put into words ideas that I had previously found difficult to articulate. I don't know if I've had any of my opinions changed - rather, they've just become more entrenched and informed - but it's allowed me to appreciate, for example, the reasons that some feminists do not care for the sex industry, even if reformed. This book approaches the subject in a “day in the life” format, each chapter dealing with an important (un)equality issue. It starts with one interviewee waking up with an eating disorder (body issues), progresses through the workplace, coming home to abusive boyfriend (domestic abuse) and an evening out in the sex industry, and ends with a young woman waiting up for her partner to return from a “lad's night out” after being left, once again, holding the baby (unequal reproduction rights and expectations of parents.) It's a nice introduction to the subject, written with clarity and stacked with statistics which will make you wince. Though mostly based in the western world and Britain in particular, Banyard does not entirely ignore issues outside of that sphere, and indeed makes a point of pointing out the hypocrisy of our deploring FGM while simultaneously saying that a woman undergoing elective labiaplasty is making a “choice” (this despite that many women in societies that value FGM undergo it “by choice” also, because it “looks right.”) A good book for the sort of person who twists their face at otherwise seemingly intelligent people saying they are “not a feminist”, yet is not sure why.
13. World War Z - Max Brooks
(352 pages)
I have been known to have said that of the “big three” supernatural (werewolves, vampires, zombies), that zombies are my least favourite. I think I might have to reconsider that. The presence of 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead in my DVD collection are perhaps indications of a change in winds, though I've had those years and still claimed that I don't like zombies. I watched The Walking Dead when it aired on Channel Five and liked it, but not enough that I wanted to rush out and strip HMV bare of its zombie apocalypse merchandise. This, however, might be the book to change my mind. I loved it. I've always felt a lot of zombie stuff fails to comprehend the real gravity of the situation, so this book went above and beyond my expectation. Based around “interviews” with survivors of the zombie apocalypse, this book is both wonderfully broad and keenly intense in its subject. Sure, there's a virus (hurray!) that turns people into walking cannibalistic corpses upon entering the bloodstream, but there are also countries collapsing, nuclear wars, mass evacuation, ravaging diseases, environmental catastrophy, extinction of entire species, feral children and evolved housecats. The book, which could easily remain within its comfort zone of the United States, globetrots with seeming ease, studying the affects the outbreak has on different countries and how it causes their people to react. There are so many seams in this story, some of which are only glanced upon, and that makes it so much more fascinating to read. You want to write fic about this book. Where, for example, (and I'm going to allow for some minor spoilers here), did the entire population of North Korea go? The stories we were allowed to follow were in themselves fantastic, partly because Brooks makes some very odd choices of who he is going to “interview”. How can you not find the story of the zombie apocalypse as told by an Australian astronaut who was in space for the entire duration not thrill you? Or through the eyes of a dog-handler, for that matter? I was excited by the little details; the story of the battle beneath Paris, and the fact that Europeans held out against the hoarde in castles. A fantastic, sweeping, bursting sort of book, at turns scary and uplifting, and always thrilling, I can, as a non-zombie fan, recommend this one.
14. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
(304 pages)
Unlike everyone ever on the internet, I have never wanted to fling myself at the feet of Neil Gaiman. I've liked all of his books that I have read, but I've never fallen in love with any of them. I find I tend to like his ideas better than the actual on-page rendition of them. I'm not sure what it is that falls just short for me, but there we have it. This book is not going to change that. It's cute, don't get me wrong. I really liked parts of it - the “lesson” at the end of the story is the kind I can agree with, and I enjoyed some of the characters and the illustrations. But it ends there, at like. Once again it comes short of making me love it. Once again, I don't really know why. I think part of it is my antagonistic relationship with “whimsy”. I don't particularly want to accuse Gaiman's books of it - I detest whimsy - but there is an element of it, a sort of smug gothic tweeness that comes to its aggravating conclusion with Tim Burton's movies. (I have been known to go into a spitting, spiteful rage at some of Mr Burton's “contributions”.) I think at the end of it the book just felt a little too superficial to me, a way of Gaiman playing with an environment (the graveyard) he's wanted to do something with rather than a real book about real characters with a good solid story (which I also felt rather lacking.) Of course, I'm saying this from the perspective of an adult who has recently discovered an unfortunate habit of slagging off books meant for children, which I feel bad for but not so much I don't continue to do it. What a dick.
Total books so far: 62
Total pages so far: 18,871
In addition to reading, I have joined LOVEFiLM and so can finally catch up on films I haven't been watching (three times a month.) This month I've managed:
Let Me In: Loved the original but this was utterly pointless. I was prepared to give it time because I was interested in the changes they'd made to the guardian's relationship, but as it turned out it was utterly pointless because they barely bothered exploring it. The script sounded weird and stilted in English, Chloe Moretz (who I LOVED as Hit Girl) was far too pretty and healthy-looking to play "Abby" (and I missed the weird dubbed-over voice effect), and the forced angst was aggravating. The fantastic pool scene lost all of its creeptastic quiet horror in this. On the other hand, kind of loved the female victim chomping on her own arm, and they got rid of that silly bit with the cats.
Notes on a Scandal: Liked this, though I didn't love it like I did the book. Probably because I loved the book. This didn't deviate too much, and I like to be surprised at least a little. Sheba is less scatty and irritating than in the book, which I suppose makes her more culpable. Fantastic performances all round: Judi Dench is especially good (of course). I don't think anyone could be a more perfect Barbara. I'm not sure what I felt about the sexual aspect they seemed to add in the film. I say seemed: perhaps when reading the book I was just being naive and missed that, but I never read Barbara's obsession with Sheba like that. It was a new element, and I'm not sure whether it was unnecessary or just added to the overall creepiness of the whole thing. I don't think I disliked it. Definitely worth a watch, though read the book first.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: You know my feelings about the book by now and the film didn't improve things. I was kind of enjoying it at first - Percy seemed less obnoxious, and I didn't want to turn Grover into delicious curry -, but then it just got stupid and I found myself sympathising with fans of the series despite not liking it myself. What they did with Hades just outright offended the mythology fangirl in me. Fuck you, stupid kids' movie.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Not as bad as the third movie but that's kind of like saying General Franco wasn't as bad as Hitler. Still sucked, ya know? Largely tedious and blatantly money-grabbing (eight-fucking-quid by yours stupid), I did quite like the bit with the mermaids - though the subsequent romance was stupid and pointless and what that end? I saw a review in the Metro saying that Jack Sparrow is less Keith Richards and more Russell Brand these days, and that sums it up for me. He's lost his charm and jumped the shark, and I wish he'd just go away and snog Katy Perry's herp-derp face now kay thanks.
I also watched some terrible made-for-tv films, but my reviews for them are staying on my Twitter, to entertain or perhaps merely irritate my tiny handful of readers. I love you guys!