BOOKS 2011: August
1. Lost Souls - Poppy Z. Brite
(368 pages)
I never read Brite as a teenager, and he is one of those authors I see bandied around as one of those adolescents adore, but then suddenly found themselves grown out of and embarrassed by. Reading this I can understand why. What a laughably adolescent book this is. Seriously, laughable. I laughed a whole chunk. Brite clearly thinks that goths are the pinnacle of human evolution, and not just goths either but gorgeous pouting whiteboy goths. For a book based largely in New Orleans there are disturbingly few POC in this. You'd think there'd be a few black vampires hanging around Louisiana but the only specifically non-white person I can recall in the book is an Indian lady who never speaks and gets eaten. The chicks do that a lot in this book, actually: get eaten; and that's only the ones that don't get raped, pregnant and, er, well, eaten from the inside by the foetus. Brite is not interested in women. The one "main" female character is an afterthought, some pathetic attempt at levelling the playing field or something, the Smurfette if you will, who gets hardly any scenes and whose entire purpose is to worship vampire cock and serve as an incubator. And get blamed for her own rape. You want victims getting their own back or rapists getting their comeuppance, this is not the book for you. It doesn't happen. She just ends up punished for being an awful human because she has a vagina or something. The second most important girl, who is dead by the first few pages of the book, serves the exact same purpose, but without the rape. (Unless you count the underage sex with her dad. It kinda counts, yeah?) Oh, and they're both absolutely fucking stupid as well. It seems unfair to single them out as stupid given that pretty much everyone in this book is stupid, but when there are only two women of any relevance in a story and they are both vampire-cock-worshipping foetus-factories entirely lacking in a personality that doesn't revolve around pleasing (or trying to please) their vampires then I'm going to fucking single them out, okay? So, while the women are being punished for their sexual transgressions through, er, internal cannibalism, the men are pretty much allowed to get away with what they want. They rape, they eat kids, they kill their best friends without even a twinge of conscience - and they pretty much get away with it without being blamed because whatever, they're gorgeous and they have dicks and that makes them worthwhile people. The characters are adolescent even when they're not actually teenagers and they're painful to read. I know smoking clove cigarettes, shooting smack and listening to terrible whiny music is the coolest according to Brite, but to me at my ripe old age of twenty-something it is hilarious. Grow up, dicks. Also cool: incest. Brite clearly thinks that he's being very edgy by broaching this topic, but it's boring the first time it happens, nevermind the third. I just don't get that hot off parents fucking their kids, you know? And the language... self-indulgent to the point of ridicule, Brite would much rather give you six pages of description than a story. There is no story. Not a sausage. So, pretty much par for the course in vampire fiction, then.
2. The Ask and the Answer - Patrick Ness
(536 pages)
Trilogies frequently go a bit limp in the middle but I didn't find that with this book. Thinking about it after the fact, I think I liked this one less than I liked The Knife of Never Letting Go, but while reading I was never aware of it, I never actually thought to myself "this is Less Good". Because even if that is the case it is still fucking brilliant, and thrilling, and gut-wrenchingly brutal. Horrible, awful things happen in this book. Genocide happens in this book. There are Nazi parallels and murders and torture and it's all pretty grim and never ever lets go, you never get a rest it just churns on and on. I'm so impressed by these books. The language is wonderful; stylised but accessible, I love how these sci-fi characters have a transatlantic sound to their voices, some sounding more British, others Irish or American. What is particularly impressive is that not a single word in this book or its predecessor is wasted. Everything tells you something. For any book that is a feat - for a 500+ page book written for young adults it's astounding. I also never mentioned before how much I love the animal voices in these books. What could so easily become really irritating is carried with such aplomb that you cannot help but be charmed. The thoughts of the animals are simple, repetitive but profound: birds asking "Where's my safety?", Todd's insecure mare Angharrad repeating his name and "Boy colt" over and over so that she feels she is in a herd. The use of names as a power is a constant theme in these books - you'll never find yourself forgetting either of the narrator's names -, coming to its climax in this one, and there's something lovely and sad about that and I want to see where it's going. Love this, can't wait to read the finale.
3. Someone Like You - Roald Dahl
(272 pages)
An awful, hilarious collection of stories about awful, hilarious people once again from Dahl. Good, lazy stuff.
4. The Magic Toyshop - Angela Carter
(220 pages)
This novel is a prime example of a book resounding in gorgeous, sleek, sensuous writing and interesting concepts that is then entirely overshadowed by a rushed, silly ending. Such a shame because I was loving it until then. A beautifully realised coming-of-age story with a twist of weird magic, this reads like a fairytale: the beautiful girl in the garden wearing her mother's wedding dress, the orphans sent to London with their evil uncle, a love story. But it is more twisted than that, harsher; the main character is in fact hardly interested in her supposed love interest, finding him repulsive while fascinating. The toy shop is less magical than it is sinister, and the bit with the swan is disturbing. There is also rather more sex than one might expect from a fairytale: not the act itself, but a constant theme infused within the very fabric of the plot - from the protagonist's obsession with her own virginity to her revolted fascination with Finn. What could so easily be twee is much more interesting and queasy than that... right until the ending which ruins, for me, what came before it. The ending is perhaps not twee but it is entirely out of left field, not even remotely hinted at and as far as I can tell having absolutely no point other than perhaps Carter didn't know how to end it. If Carter were not such an impressive author I would accuse her of trying to sex things up with the ending, some pathetic attempt at shocking the reader. As it is she's a terrific writer and clearly capable of much better, so the ending remains both baffling and frustrating to me. Such a shame.
5. Un Lun Dun - China Miéville
(528 pages)
Another stab at Miéville here but I'm not sure if I liked it any better. I think I did? I preferred the characters, certainly: some were weaker than I'd like, I found them more likable, I even felt a little bit sad when one of them “died” (my universal indicator of fictional characters.) There was something more charming about this story than there was with Kraken, perhaps due to the fact it was written for children, though written for children in the way that Lewis Carrol wrote for children: ostensibly fucked up. Though perhaps not as fucked up as Kraken. That isn't to say this book isn't a impressively fantastical - it is, and oh, how I loved the UnGun and the Black Window (in spite of its silly punnish name) and you'll never look at umbrellas the same way again - but it doesn't have that... urbanness of Kraken. Kraken was so bizarre and so rooted to its home city that I could not look away, even when the plot wasn't particularly interesting to me and I was being frustrated by my continuing disinterest in the characters. I think one of the main reasons was that Kraken was written for adults and Un Lun Dun for children, and it was the sheer brutality of the former's fantasy in places that impressed me. (A man gets folded to death. Someone else is bitten in half by a specimen jar. I love that shit!) So yes. A solid three-star-er I'd say, because I can't bloody elucidate my bloody thoughts.
6. More Tales of the Unexpected - Roald Dahl
(128 pages)
The last of the Roald Dahl books I have been reading, which I'm glad of not because I've not enjoyed them (except that one I didn't) but because they're impossible to review (for me.) I liked this, the characters were nicer people and got to win the day occasionally so that was a nicer upper for finishing on. I particularly liked Mr Botibol; it was sweet and just made me smile. Don't know why.
7. The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British Isles - Benedict Gummer
(528 pages)
This is a prime example of a good book that I was thoroughly bored by. Had I not spent money on the thing it would have remained unfinished. As it was, I clumped through it like a shire horse on the knacker's clay. It's a decent book, exquisitely, painfully detailed, but it could not grab my interest. I love disease, what I struggle with is history non-fiction. In theory I love history but the reality is I find the majority of books on the subject completely dry. Something about the form writing makes it difficult for me to focus on it. It's like I want a good story but reality is formless and complex and ridiculous and my head won't quite wrap around it. There were points in the book that I liked, but they were sparse and it took until the epilogue for any science to be introduced, which genuinely piqued my interest (the discussion on bubonic plague and the controversy surrounding that explanation.) So all in all, a frustrating situation I cannot really blame on the book, merely my inadequate brain and specific interests.
8. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
(448 pages)
This is the first of three YA trilogy finalies I am to read, and my least favourite. Everyone seems to love The Hunger Games except me. I've liked them well enough, enough to seek them out at the library but not enough that I'll stoop to debit card brandishing. A lot of people complained about this finale but I can't say it dipped below the other two; I actually preferred it in some ways. Possibly because I didn't give a damn about the romance, which I was totally disinterested in right until the end when I thought "oh, that was handled better than expected" but again, found myself not really caring which ultimately is my main problem with this grim little series. I like Katniss and I like Haymitch and I like Finnick, but I don't really care much. Moreover I had, as with the previous two books of the series, the aggravating feeling that Collins just doesn't have the intelligence or subtlety to deal with this world that she has created. This impression has been exacerbated since reading the first two books of the Chaos Walking trilogy which, similar to The Hunger Games presents a dystopian world torn apart by war, a grim and awful place. What is dissimilar is that in Chaos Walking there is a real appreciation for the complexity of this world, its politics and its people, whereas with The Hunger Games I feel the approach is more cackhanded, an almost dismissal of the complexity in preference for gore and misery. Because it is a miserable book. There is very little humour in this series, few moments to breathe and take a break from the constant hammering horror. I've finished it, but I cannot love this series.
9. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales - Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
(224 pages)
Boring, pointless nonsense. A library book that I'd have not bothered finishing had it not been short and therefore an easy 94th for the list.
10. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them - J.K. Rowling
(128 pages)
Speaking of easy reads... heh. I've not read either of the Comic Relief companion books in a long time, and had forgotten just how enjoyable they are. I love the sly humour of this: how both the Antipodean Opaleye (native to New Zealand) and the Welsh Green have a preference for sheep, and that the latter has a "melodious roar", for instance. Were I a better artist I'd be illustrating the various species of dragon as we speak.
11. Quidditch Through the Ages - J.K. Rowling
(128 pages)
The second of the charity companion books, and just as enjoyable, funny and surprisingly detailed as its partner. I think these two books, for what they are, show very well just how good Rowling's world-building is, valued as perhaps her greatest skill. The parallels with modern football are particularly good, including the reference to America's resistance to the sport. Ha.
12. The Sweet Far Thing - Libba Bray
(819 pages)
I've had a sort of guilty relationship with this trilogy. I've read them knowing full well the writing isn't great, the plot lacking and the world-building poor, yet I've still managed to enjoy them. However, it now seems that here, at the finale, the honeymoon is finally over. Perhaps it is because the book exceeds 800 pages (I don't know where Amazon gets its page count by the way; I've got the book here in front of me and it is definitely NOT 560 pages long), most of which are totally superfluous and unnecessary to further what is ultimately a very flimsy plot. It's like in this final book Bray has realised she's got to get on with the actual story and not the tub-thumping she's been up to in the previous two, but by this point it is too late. We've had two books in which she's had time to create this magical other-world, two books in which to establish the characters of this other-world and its politics and its purpose, and she has largely discarded that in favour of farting on with her "issues". Don't get me wrong, I liked the issues. As I said in the review for Rebel Angels, yes, she's preachy and the concepts are rather too modern to perhaps be realistic, but at least they're there. At least she is introducing feminism in her books aimed at young women, who might otherwise find it difficult to find other YA fiction in which these topics are broached. (Because if my experience of the supernatural YA I've read recent is anything to go by, it is very hit and miss, with decidedly more misses.) The problem is is that this soapboxing has taken over the actual story, so when in this final cumbersome tome the (weak) story is forced back upon this and we're expected to care we just... don't. There were points I was thinking "this is supposed to be heart-wrenching" but I just didn't feel it. I was a little surprised at that because I'd rather liked a few of these characters until then, but eh. I think 800 pages of disorganised boredom kicks it out of you. Also characters who are supposed to be intelligent acting decidedly not. I mean, I was agreeing with the antagonists when they were telling Our Main Character that she is too immature to hold this power. They're right! She knows she's got to make alliances with the forest folk, but instead she farts on and on for six or seven hundred pages, putting off and choosing to dance around in the meadows with her undead friend instead, all while feeling a bit guilty. That guilt means you should be doing your job, you silly little girl. It is difficult to continue liking a character when she is being so pathetic. At least Hamlet had the good grace to die because of his indecisiveness, and he did it in far fewer than 800 pages, too. So I was disappointed by this, and disappointed that I am disappointed, but then I always knew these weren't good books, enjoy them as I might. Oh, and one last thing: Bray needs to never ever write accents again. Ever. Some authors do it and do it well, but Bray? I was reading Brigid as some shaky sort of West Country for ages and then I'm told she's Irish...! Even after the fact I continued reading her as awkward-West-Country because there was absolutely nothing in her speech to allow me to read it as even remotely Irish. And those vowels? Those are not Cockney vowels. Short squashed vowels are a marker of northern accents, and to have those interspersed with obvious London markers (and some not so obvious markers picked up from god-knows-where) makes it extremely difficult for any reader with any familiarity with British accents to develop a character voice. And why do all the poor people have to be so thick anyway? Fucking annoying. Look at that, it was almost a proper review and then I ruined it by latching on to one of my bugbears like a terrier on a rat and shaking it.
13. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
(544 pages)
I'd heard good things about this book but my own opinion can be summarised as "it's a bit patchy." Excellent in parts (it's a masterclass in character voice), the problem is that these six tenuously-linked stories are in themselves very hit and miss. I liked some a lot more than I liked others, and I felt ambivalent about more than a couple, finding some even tedious. The layout of the book might be considered gimmicky by some and I'm not convinced I don't feel that way myself. There are good ideas in this and some terrific writing, but I am left feeling blasé about the whole thing.
Total books so far: 98
Total pages so far: 33,674
The Devil's Backbone: This was no Pan's Labyrinth (and not nearly so scary), but still a good little film with some genuinely creepy moments. There were one or two things that bothered me. Atrocious subtitles that came along too late or too early, and sometimes scurried so quickly onto the screen I barely had time to read them before they had scurried, ratlike, back off again. Also one or two baffling moments, where the horror got to the point that it was ridiculous and I wanted to laugh - that random stock sound effect of a woman's scream when there is no woman in the room for instance??? Other than that, good stuff, and less scary than Pan's Labyrinth for those still traumitised by the surprising horror of that film.
Alpha & Omega: I rented this because I couldn't believe how bad it looked on the posters, so I can't really criticise it for being bad. But holy hell, it outdid my expectations. This was atrocious. I'm used to kids' films being mediocre and generic but I am not used to them being so badly animated. In a world with the likes of Pixar, it was truly a shock to see CGI so hamfistedly wielded. There is literally no reason to watch this film other than to laugh at it. Even the most easily-pleased child won't be impressed by this sloppy dreck.
Tangled: This was also a little mediocre, but unlike the above film managed to be likable. The plot is decent, the songs are a bit meh, the animation is lovely in parts (the lanterns on the lake), and I shan't be watching this again but I came away feeling a bit warm and fuzzy, so that's all right.
The Inbetweeners Movie: I enjoyed this because yes, I am childish as hell and this made me laugh like a goon for a couple of hours. Not exactly intellectually stimulating but a good date movie, especially if watching a group of sixty year old Geordie women laugh hysterically at young lads pushing a poo round a bidet is the sort of thing that makes your day.
Crash: An okayish film if not the revelation the Oscars would have us believe. Rather preachy and heavy-handed, the lesson of this is actually a very basic one, at least for those of us who have even a cursory interest in race relations. Still, I suppose you can't knock its effort.