Book reviews
With all that's been going on work-wise, I haven't really had much time for reading. So here's the few I did manage to finish:
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman, p. 289
I quite liked Gaiman's latest, which is strange, as I didn't really like any of the components. Bod was too blank a main character, the set-up too familiar, and it read like a film novelisation rather than a book in its own right. I suspect that this is the next on the list to be turned into a cinematic experience.
That said, put all the flaws above together and somehow the story works. It's a relatively straight-forward story of a boy growing up in strange circumstances, orphaned by a sinister and shadowy figure, taught by strange people including (possibly) vampires and werewolves, making friends with 'normal' children... but enough about Harry Potter. Which is possibly why the story works, and it has Gaiman's usual deft style.
*
Let the Right One In
John Ajvide Lindqvist, p. 519
I liked the film because it was a tender and touching love story. I understand that some people were all about the vampire death mutilation etc, and if that makes them happy, all power to them. For me, I wanted Oskar and Eli to be friends.
The book is... not about that. Or, rather, their friendship/love story is one of several stories in the book, and it isn't really the main one. There are several secondary characters, and some peripheral characters we only glimpse in the film are fully fleshed out and realised in the book. So there are those aspects that are really quite positive. The bullies are also humanised in a way, as is the bully's elder brother, and his motivation for the final assault - much clearer, much more sympathetic, although no less brutal in execution.
The other story - gulp - is between Eli and her human 'friend', Hakan. Who is, in no uncertain terms, a child molester. Now, I was vaguely aware of this going in, so it didn't shock me as much as it would someone who didn't know it was coming. But what was shocking was just how graphic some of it was. Needlessly so, I'd argue. One sequence in particular was stomach-churning. In the film, Eli bites Hakan and he falls to his death. In the book, he falls to his death... and wakes up in the morgue. Vampirism is defined in a pseudo-scientific way as a tumour, a secondary organism that drives the body forward even if it is considered 'dead'. So Eli can die through conventional means... but the vampire-thing inside her can only be killed with fire. So when Hakan dies, the urge to assault Eli governs what little is left of his brain, and he sets off to find her. It is at that point that the book becomes a monster-coming-to-get-you story, only the monster is an immortal, indestructible child molester hunting a child. So, there's that. Then the actual assault scene is entirely from Eli's POV (because there really isn't enough thought left in Hakan), which is also incredibly traumatic.
Did I mention that in the book Eli isn't a girl but a castrated boy, and you get to read that through present tense second-person narrative? Lovely.
The book is an interesting experience as a horror book, muddled though it sometimes is in some places. Ultimately, though, I think the film makes a better story.
*
The Night Watch
Sarah Waters, p. 503
I didn't hate every book I read! The Night Watch is lovely, interesting and it keeps you hooked until the last page... when you throw the book across the room in a fury because you don't get to find out what happened to everyone! But I suppose that's the point, and certainly the books structure makes no promises at answers, starting after the end of WWII and working backwards to reveal more about the characters' pasts, but not, of course, their futures. So, there it is - you can have one or the other, but not both, never both. The fascinating thing about it is how it changes your opinions of each character with each successive jump backwards. Recommended.
*
The Virgin in the Garden
A.S. Byatt, p.566
I read through over 500 pages of this book, and maybe got interested in it a couple of times, at best. By the end I was skipping through the pages, desperately trying to finish, hoping that there was something amazing at the end.
There wasn't.
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman, p. 289
I quite liked Gaiman's latest, which is strange, as I didn't really like any of the components. Bod was too blank a main character, the set-up too familiar, and it read like a film novelisation rather than a book in its own right. I suspect that this is the next on the list to be turned into a cinematic experience.
That said, put all the flaws above together and somehow the story works. It's a relatively straight-forward story of a boy growing up in strange circumstances, orphaned by a sinister and shadowy figure, taught by strange people including (possibly) vampires and werewolves, making friends with 'normal' children... but enough about Harry Potter. Which is possibly why the story works, and it has Gaiman's usual deft style.
*
Let the Right One In
John Ajvide Lindqvist, p. 519
I liked the film because it was a tender and touching love story. I understand that some people were all about the vampire death mutilation etc, and if that makes them happy, all power to them. For me, I wanted Oskar and Eli to be friends.
The book is... not about that. Or, rather, their friendship/love story is one of several stories in the book, and it isn't really the main one. There are several secondary characters, and some peripheral characters we only glimpse in the film are fully fleshed out and realised in the book. So there are those aspects that are really quite positive. The bullies are also humanised in a way, as is the bully's elder brother, and his motivation for the final assault - much clearer, much more sympathetic, although no less brutal in execution.
The other story - gulp - is between Eli and her human 'friend', Hakan. Who is, in no uncertain terms, a child molester. Now, I was vaguely aware of this going in, so it didn't shock me as much as it would someone who didn't know it was coming. But what was shocking was just how graphic some of it was. Needlessly so, I'd argue. One sequence in particular was stomach-churning. In the film, Eli bites Hakan and he falls to his death. In the book, he falls to his death... and wakes up in the morgue. Vampirism is defined in a pseudo-scientific way as a tumour, a secondary organism that drives the body forward even if it is considered 'dead'. So Eli can die through conventional means... but the vampire-thing inside her can only be killed with fire. So when Hakan dies, the urge to assault Eli governs what little is left of his brain, and he sets off to find her. It is at that point that the book becomes a monster-coming-to-get-you story, only the monster is an immortal, indestructible child molester hunting a child. So, there's that. Then the actual assault scene is entirely from Eli's POV (because there really isn't enough thought left in Hakan), which is also incredibly traumatic.
Did I mention that in the book Eli isn't a girl but a castrated boy, and you get to read that through present tense second-person narrative? Lovely.
The book is an interesting experience as a horror book, muddled though it sometimes is in some places. Ultimately, though, I think the film makes a better story.
*
The Night Watch
Sarah Waters, p. 503
I didn't hate every book I read! The Night Watch is lovely, interesting and it keeps you hooked until the last page... when you throw the book across the room in a fury because you don't get to find out what happened to everyone! But I suppose that's the point, and certainly the books structure makes no promises at answers, starting after the end of WWII and working backwards to reveal more about the characters' pasts, but not, of course, their futures. So, there it is - you can have one or the other, but not both, never both. The fascinating thing about it is how it changes your opinions of each character with each successive jump backwards. Recommended.
*
The Virgin in the Garden
A.S. Byatt, p.566
I read through over 500 pages of this book, and maybe got interested in it a couple of times, at best. By the end I was skipping through the pages, desperately trying to finish, hoping that there was something amazing at the end.
There wasn't.