Soulwind

This is a series of 5 graphic novels, and they’re pretty short. These are not great, but not a complete waste of time. There are enough good ideas to justify the time I spent reading them, but that’s really the only good thing I can say about them.

Coraline by the great Neil Gaiman

We have eyes and we have nervses
We have tails we have teeth
You’ll all get what you deservses
When we rise from underneath

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Any list of the greatest minds of the 20th century would have to include, along with people like Einstein and Hawking, Dr. Seuss and I am officially declaring Neil Gaiman to be his successor. You can see parts of Seuss, Clive Barker, E E Cummings, Lewis Carrol and Kafka in Gaiman’s work, but it is not at all derivative. His vision is fresh and full of imagination. And it’s a tightrope Gaiman walks, painting genuinely frightening images that are still suitable for children. Coraline is made from the same stuff as nightmares and beautiful fantasies alike. Yes, it’s a kids book, but suck it up and read it anyway because, like The Cat and the Hat, it is also a work of art.

Baltimore: or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

Based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Baltimore: or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire maintains the charm and wonder of Anderson at his best while giving us a very affecting thriller. One of the tests of any genre piece (although squeezing this book to make it fit into some niche would be a mistake) is whether or not the story could stand on its own even if you removed the elements from it puts it into a genre and guarantees some kind of audience. And while the content of this book is not really appropriate for anyone under a certain age, it reads like a children’s book. (And yes, that is a compliment.) It follows the logic of a fairy tale. (Also a compliment.)

We start out following Captain Henry Baltimore, leading an assault against the Hessians and losing every single man in his company. As he regains consciousness, he sees the bodies of his soldiers all around, over and under him and then, to his horror, bat like creatures swoop down and start to feast. He manages to wound one of the little monsters, inadvertently starting a war between vampire and man. Most of the characters in this story are fueled by loss and revenge. The wounded bat avenges himself against Baltimore and Baltimore in turn devotes his life to hunting down the monster that destroyed everything he loved. He hammers a nail into his wooded leg for every vampire killed until it is so heavy that he has to drag it along.

The bulk of the story centers around three men who knew Baltimore and obey his summons to meet in a small city, overrun by the Red Plague. The three of them sit and swap stories about Baltimore and other implausible experiences they’ve each had. Much of the book reads almost like a collection of shorts, but they are skillfully woven together into one story arc. After following each of these men, along with Baltimore back into their bizarre past encounters with profound evil, I felt the weight of the fear and imminent loss during the final climax when everything comes together.

The only complain I had with this book (and it’s a minor one) is that the anti-war message felt a little preachy at times. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t overbearing. Mignola and Golden don’t beat you over the head, but it is there. I didn’t really mind it too much since I’m very sanctimonious and further to the left than like anyone I know. The only reason I mention this is that it came right at the climax of the book and was just a bit distracting. The message could’ve been a bit more subtle. It moves it from a 9.9 out of 10 to a 9.85 out of 10. At any rate, this is a minor complaint. Fucking read this book.

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

“Your blood is our gold.”

It seems that most writers (at least the ones I read) try their hand at channeling Shirley Jackson at some point and Diary by Chuck Palahniuk is certainly right up there with The Long Walk by Stephen King as one of the best. But Palahniuk is inventive enough to inject a copious amount of ideas of his own so it doesn’t feel borrowed at all.

Where The Lottery is a commentary on conformity, Diary is an indictment, not merely on greed, but the nature of wealth itself. Apart from the thematic elements, which I could go on and on about, this is a very funny book.

Highly recommended.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, sat in my ‘to-read’ pile for like a year. First, before Evil Darien starts calling for my head, let me say that I loved this book.

It’s now on the very short list of book I’m likely to read more than three times before I die.

I had the thought when I read Coraline, with its many elements of The Thief of Always that Clive Barker had to be a huge influence on Gaiman, which is odd since they’re contemporaries, give or take a decade or so.

Reading American Gods, with so many ideas lifted straight out of The Great and Secret Show, (easily one of my ten favorite novels of all time) cemented the notion.

Ever since I first read Imajica, I’ve insisted that Barker is much more than a genre writer and I’m confident that I’ll be proven correct when he’s still being read after most of his peers are forgotten.

So, here’s the deal. Gaiman is brilliant. But so many aspects of his universe have been explored/created by Barker that I wonder just how good he really is.

I plan to read more Sandman to figure that out.

1984 by George Orwell

A few months ago, I listened to 1984 by George Orwell on one of those books on CD thingies. And by ‘books on CD thingies,’ of course, I mean audiobook. I just listened to an audiobook for the first time ever last year. It’s staggering to think just how much influence this novel has had on our collective consciousness. Apart from the art that it’s inspired, from V for Vendetta to American Psycho to I haven’t read this since the ‘90s and while I found it unsettling then, it’s just bone-chilling ball-fuck terrifying now. I’m sorry, but if they ever make another film out of this, Bill O’Reilly has to play O’Brien.

It’s just too perfect. I also think Fox News needs to change their slogan from ‘Fair and Balanced’ to ‘Your source for your two-minute hate.'

Exterminator! by William H. Burroughs

If Naked Lunch is 1984 on acid, then Exterminator! is Animal Farm on PCP & crack. Seriously, Burroughs & Dr. Seuss were the premiere existentialists of the 20th century. And yes, it’s an apt comparison.

I know Burroughs is usually associated with the whole junkie culture, but that is a simple assessment at best. Yes, drugs are prevalent in all his works, but they are incidental. Junk is purely the means by which Burroughs distorts the reality of his different characters/narrators.

It’s not that dissimilar from how Dostoyevsky used religion and conscience to present the different points of view in The Brothers Karamazov. And yes, that comparison is also apt.

But aside from the snooty, philosophical, boring, pretentious, etc. reasons I could give for reasons why you should read something by Burroughs before you die, seemingly random, flung together cusses like MOTHER-LOVING STUPID-ASS BIBLE-BELT CUNTSUCKERS are just goddamn poetic

Gluttony by various

I know that usually, I put the pictures of the book covers here to give you a point of reference, but I found this bad-ass picture instead and the cover of this book is really nothing special. So, enjoy.

Gluttony, is a collection of shorts, poems and essays about well, Gluttony. Hence the title. I picked it up like a couple of years ago because it was on a clearance rack (actually, it might have actually been at Deal$.) or something and one of the stories was written by Woody Allen so I figured, “Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?” Well, I’ll tell you. The worst that can happen is you can have to read a lot of tedious shit. There were a couple of pieces that were pretty entertaining, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and Notes from the Overfed by Woody Allen were pretty damn funny. And Feast by Diane Mason was surprisingly creepy. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to represent what gluttons have to look forward in Hell. On the whole, though this collection really didn’t amount to much. But if you’re in Deal$ and have a dollar, these three pieces are probably entertaining enough to justify paying 33 & ½ cents apiece for.

Hiroshima by John Hersey

Hiroshima by John Hersey follows the stories of six survivors from about an hour before the bombing until a year after. As an aside, I’d recommend Isao Takahata’s film Grave of the Fireflies as a companion piece. It goes without saying that the accounts of what happened that day are horrific. The scale of the devastation was so great and survivors unarmed enough to help were so few that they had no choice but to ignore the countless cries for help from people who were buried alive, being slowly crushed or suffocating because they simply couldn’t get to them all. There were so many devastating moments in the story, like how after a few days, the Reverend Tanimoto became so used to the carnage and trying to move living bodies from one place to another that he had to keep repeating aloud, “these are human beings” just so he could keep going. There is another moment when Reverend Tanimoto had helped drag dozens of the injured to lie by the side of the river only to find when he had come back that the waters had risen and the wounded were so weak that they couldn’t crawl even a few feet to safety, so they had all drowned, helpless. And while the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were appalling acts, what struck me when reading this was how Hersey refuses to make any overt moral judgments or political statements. He simply lets the narrative do its work. This is a very important book. It should be read by everybody, no matter what you think about whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do or not. Even if action must be taken, no matter how justified one is in using deadly force, we should always be reminding ourselves, like Reverend Tanimoto that “these are human beings.”

Bad Blood by various writers & artists

This is actually an anthology of three different graphic novels, Sweetmeats by Steve Tanner & Pete Venters, Sugar Virus by Warren Ellis, Martin Chaplin & Garry Marshall and Night Vision: Intermezzo Bette Noir by David Quinn & Hannibal King. Then, there’s some naked vampire artwork by John Bolton thrown in at the end and you know, you just can’t go wrong with that. Sweetmeats, the first in the anthology is by far the best of the bunch. We follow a young vampire from her days as a child prostitute (don’t worry, the would-be sexual predators ended up getting more than they bargained for) through her adolescence in an asylum to her liberation by a young doctor. The characters are very complicated and interesting and the story has several effective surprises.

Sugar Virus leaves a lot to be desired, from a storytelling standpoint. It’s more than a little muddied, but the artwork really makes it worth checking out. At one point, we get to see what happens when somebody tries to see just how far he can go in torturing a vampire while keeping her alive. (Okay, since we’re talking about vampires, alive really isn’t the right word. Animated probably fits better.) At any rate, the pictures of that poor, tortured vampire are the stuff that nightmares are made of. Very chilling, disturbing imagery.

The third story, Night Vision just isn’t very good at all. But, Bolton’s naked vampire art at the end is definitely worth looking at.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Reading the description, I was expecting kind of a gothic horror novel, maybe with a little mystery thrown in. And I did get some of that. It’s a story of a forensic scientist tracking down a child killer. Now, I have to say that this book was involving, if not entirely engrossing and there were a couple of chilling moments. However, it seemed to suffer from schizophrenia. At times, it was a mystery, at other times, historical fiction, at times, chick-lit. And I’m sorry, but the romance that Franklin tacks on is unnecessary, not believable and just downright annoying. It was a bit chicky for my taste but again, when it was concentrating on the basic plot of our protagonist trying to catch the killer, it was a very good read. Since most of you are women, I’m sure any of you would enjoy it even more than I did. So, to sum up, no, this was not a good book.

Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

I’ve only seen the movie once, but I don’t remember it standing out quite this much. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, or maybe it loses something in its translation to film. (Still, since Michael Curtiz is who he is, I should give him the benefit of the doubt and give this film another chance.) Veda drips with an uncommon venom, Mildred is a sap, Bert is a tool and Monty is just aching to be killed in his sleep by Veda (you know it’s gonna happen.) What’s so fun about this book is the language and the tone. Words like ‘swell’ and ‘flop‘ in exchange for fuck, ‘stinking’ in place of drunk and of course, referencing tits as ‘the dairy’ punctuate the narrative and it’s just so goddamn (another word used effectively, and as frequent as a comma) fun. You can actually see the black and white photography and the dames driving taxis, wanting to fuck Humphrey Bogart in the background. The atmosphere is that thick.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

If you’ve never read anything of his, the best way I can describe his work is to tell you that I can’t imagine anyone but David Lynch translating one of his novels into film. (Okay, maybe Jodorowsky or Bunuel.) Murakami, like Lynch has a way of creating a universe that is completely contrary to everything we know, but entirely believable. This is a universe that we are drawn to on the one hand but on the other hand, wouldn’t want to come within a thousand miles of. His characters’ most mesmerizing trait is that they are just so goddamn ordinary. Like Hitchcock, Murakami paints an everyman and then throws him into the unexplainable just to see how an ordinary person would react to it. Murakami gets this pitch perfect. Their reactions are believable and the secrets about them that are slowly revealed are blasé and beguiling at the same time. I’m not sure that he’s ever going to top Noboru Wataya from The Wind Up Bird Chronicles as far as excellent villains go, but here, he comes damn close. Again, our primary villain, Shirakawa, is just so common and his motivation so simple, (he had to do it) that we’re left scratching our heads which may not sound like a compliment, but it is. So, for the uninitiated, please read something, anything of Murakami’s. For those of you who love chick stuff, Sputnik Sweetheart or Norwegian Wood may be a good introduction of his world. For those who are more bold, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles is one of those books that just might change the way you look at literature forever.

Grimm's Grimmest

Grimm’s Grimmest is a collection of some of the Brothers’ Grimm’s stories with an introduction by Maria Tatar and illustrated by Tracy Arah Dockray. Evidently, these fairy tales, as originally told were hardly suitable for children. I have to say, it’s been quite a while since I’ve laughed out loud this hard at a book. The scenarios are horrifying, grotesque and simply hilarious. It’s awesome how casually they are with the brutality. You’ll just be reading a nice little fairy tale and then, all of a sudden, you’re reading something like, “After this, he caught a cat and gouged his eyes out.” How can you not like that? My favorites were The Juniper Tree and The Goose Maid. Fucking hysterical.

The Books of the Abarat

Books #1 & #2 of the Abarat by Clive Barker are a kind of odd mixture in tone between The Thief of Always and Imajica. Much like Thief, it has a very innocent and childlike quality, making it three books total that I can have Ethan read (Ethan is my 14 year old son, for those of you who don't know me.) but Barker also develops a rich, fascinating world like he did with Imajica.. Also, the Books of the Abarat feature some of his greatest villains and monsters to date. Christopher Carrion, who wears his nightmares, translucent eel-like creatures, around his face in a tank, breathing them in and out is both frightening and pitiful. He's kind of a mix between The Jaff & Kissoon from The Great and Secret Show, only without the shit & cum worms. (If you've read Show, you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, don't ask.)

And then there's Mater Mosley, Carrion's grandmother with her army of stitchlings, creatures sewn together, filled with mud and brought to life. When Carrion was a child, she sewed his mouth shut because he said the word 'love.' Now that's a fucking grandma.

Gimmie an 'S!'

Okay, I read The Comics Go To Hell: A Visual History of the Devil in Comics, which I’m not really sure how to categorize. It goes through the evolution of our perception of Satan as portrayed in comic form. He has chapters exploring several facets of Satan and how he is presented including how he comes into play in the superhero genre, how he is used humorously, how he is used to represent the evil in ourselves and how and why he is used to frighten. He even has a chapter devoted to the endless adaptations of the story of Dr. Faustus. While this is hardly a comprehensive analysis of how our civilization has come to think of the Devil and evil in general, it is a fascinating read and Stromberg even surprised me a few times at just how deep he was willing to go. One of the things that amused me so as I read this was how I was constantly reminded of how intimately I know this subject matter in comparison to the public at large. Anytime he would explain the context of something as far as how it references the Bible or just Christian popular culture, I found myself thinking, “well, duh.” Then I’d remember that most people probably weren’t aware of whatever he pointed out. I was very pleasantly surprised that Stromberg referenced the Chick gospel tracts. These comics scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. The images of Satan in these tracts are far more unsettling than any horror movie I have seen. The Satan that terrorized me the most when I was young, the one that gave me endless nightmares and caused me to accept Jesus into my heart over and over and over just in case I hadn’t done it right the first time was Satan as drawn in the last panel of Somebody Goofed. I still see this as an absolutely paralyzing image.

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

After reading The Time Traveller's Wife, which is essentially Slaughterhouse 5 for chicks, I thought that next, I should reread the actual Slaughterhouse 5. I've read it four or five times, but you really can't read this book too much. There really isn't much I can say about this book that hasn't already been said except that it's one of those rare acclaimed books that really as good as you've always heard it was. One of the things that makes Vonnegut so unique is that he may be the only fatalist I can think of who is just so damn cheerful.

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Joia made me read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. When she described it to me, it sounded like Slaughterhouse 5 for chicks. And that's pretty much what it was, but I'm not just going to discount this book so easily. I have to admit, I was totally drawn in by Henry and Clare. It's not very common for an author to get me to care this deeply for their characters, but I was very moved by this book.