Whiner In The Rye

From the beginning of this book I think in my mind it was doomed. The tale of Holden Claulfied is one of extreme teenage angst. Holden having found himself being kicked out of another expensive boys college for once again failing all subjects but English leaves to spend a couple of days in New York instead of going straight to his parents. During this mini adventure of self-recovery we learn vaguely of Holden’s past, the people he knows and of his seeming mental instability. Starting with his last day at Pency we meet a couple of his ex- fellow students and we slowly begin to see his disgust and lack of appreciation for practically anyone. As he narrates to us the next few days culminating in his return to his parents bosom Holden meets a number of people new and old and casts cynical judgement over all save two nuns. He has a fair deal of money available to him and seems to be from a high class. He does several things all of little consequence and doesn’t finish all his back story telling us how he doesn’t want to talk about it.

My problems with this book began stacking up from page one, I have to admit I am not a big fan of the style of narration, on top of this although I can appreciate in some areas the poor writing is more a reflection of the language of the time in the majority of places the writing is simple poor. More importantly the story is boring and due to the way it is written it is also at time disjointed skipping bits Holden decides he doesn’t actually want to tell us. One fine example of this is at the end where Holden’s stay at hospital and his interaction with the staff and his psychoanalyst is simply cut out, just because. On top of these major things where numerous other problems I had, mainly with the plot. The biggest problem however was the main character, a self-obsessed teen with virtually no care for anyone else and a boxful of poor excuses when it comes to himself. He comes across as stuck up and nauseating and I found it impossible to care for him at all even when he is getting beaten up by a pimp. The constant criticism of others and the world and the annoying pessimism grates, many say that this book is a great reflection of adolescence however I find it a rather extreme, unfair and damning reflection. One issue that comes across and is immensely ironic is despite Holden’s accusations of everyone but him being a phony his character and the book seems to be just that; phoney.

In conclusion this appears to be a man writing about adolescence long forgotten, the writing style is poor and the characters are unlikable. Though I don’t like to be overdramatic I think this book is the worst book I have ever read, if you want to know the truth.

Titus Finished

Praise be to Gormenghast for i have finally finished the Titus series by Mervyn Peak. It is strangly difficult for me now to look back and evaluate those three monoliths. It is suffice I beleive to give only a small review despite the time that they have taken from me. The story follows to being with life within the castle city of Gormenghast, home to the newly born Titus Groan, seventy seventh Earl. From then on it follows his life, the life of the castle, and the lives of those with whom he meets and interacts. The characters and well defined and have numerous dimensions, their consturction is antastic and some of the secondary characters really stand out as amazingly well developed. The settings are fantastically described and built in a way that forces manifestation in the readers mind to minute detail. The stroy in itself is long and full of twists and turns, it perfectly embodies the concepts of a boy growing into a man and offers a number of satirical perspectives of society and life in general. In many ways these are fantastic books, so why am I so hapy to be finished with them? The truth is that they are too much. This my sound silly but at times the description was too much, sometimes the focus on other characters where unnecessary, sometimes the story took very odd turns that made little to no sense, sometimes the satire wasn't spot on or just not amusing.

This series could be done in one book, In fact the third book barely seems to be connected with the first two and could be read seperately as a concept of insanity and would be an amazing stand alone book. For all it's good points this series gets lost in itself and a mire of words, metaphors and hyperbole.

Just A Little Bit Racist

King Solomon's Mines is a work by H. Rider Haggard in which an old elephant hunter leads an expedition in search of a mans brother, and on this quest they discover the great kings diamond mines. The story is a fairly straight forward adventure story, there is an epic journey, lessons of morality, a finale battle and a little twist. The story to a modern audience is nothing necessarily fantastic but in it's day it was the first to look at adventure in exotic africa, bringing to the common person and glimpse of a strange foriegn land full of dangerous natives. Allan Quartermain is the narrator, main character, man of great wisdom, a keen hunter and a self confessed coward. He is met by two men who task him with being their guide as they seach for George Curtis, Sir Henry Curtis' lost borther. They cross a searing desert and scale the snowy peaks of the mountains called Sheba's Breasts. They find the body of a legendary adventure and face moments where when moments near to death they are saved by seeming miracles and occasionally the wisdom of Quartermain or the knowledge of the natives in their employ. Upon reaching the green and fertile land beyond the mountian, without a sing of the lost brother they are spurned on by hope of finding him, and the riches of diamonds. But first they must dabble in the polotics of the nation they discovered where the strange white wizards from the stars are viewed with awe and fear.

Reading this book it was evident to see how the man twists, turns, and near misses make H. Rider Haggard a fantastic adventure rider with many points driving you forward to read on just to be sure the well structured characters survive. At times the story has one to many coincidences to be taken entirely seriously but part of it's unbelievable nature is part of its charm. The language was at time difficult for me being in an old fashioned formale style, there was also an issue in that a lot of the ideas where "of that time". What I mean by this is that there is open racism, condoning of animal hunting on large, large scales and themes not present in todays society. But still this book had me reading on, it had a quality many books lack in it's pure sense of adventure and discovery.

Overall this is a well written book and a fantastic read. Some of the characters could have had further developement, and some events seemed unnecessary. But a good old book many modern story tellers could learn from.

I Dreamed Of Them

Blade Runner is a title that I imagine many in the western world know whether they have seen Ridley Scott's repeatedly released with extras masterpeice. However the number of people who would recognise the title Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is undoubtedly smaller, which is in my mind a great disappointment. At first when I began reading it was difficult to not make comparisons between the two works however I soon stopped as I found that they were undoubtedly two DIFFERENT peices of work. I will at no point say one is better than the other, nor will I deny that the movie is made from the book but they are deffinitely different beasts.

The book looks at a post appocalyptic world where the dust from the fall out has killed most animals and made the majority humans infertile, deformed, and mentally retarded (though I hate having to I would like to stress I use this term in it's full and literal sense, characters find their mental abilities become retarded due to exposure) and the only chance is to escape to the moon. Within this world people are encouraged to own animals though they are of great cost, a real animal is a status symbol, though if out of your price range you can obtain an electric one. In this world as well, or more importantly off this world on mars, there are also electric humans of a sort; androids. Andys as they are known are not known to the general public and are not permited on earth, highly intelligent though decidedly inhuman with their lack of empathy they are slaves on the colonies of mars and other planets. But they have sentience and on occasion rebel, and when they rebel and come to what's left of San Fransisco Rick Deckard is not usually the man they call. But the latest Nexus-6 units have outwitted and near fataly injured his supperior so it falls on him to "retire" the remaining six of one violently rebellious group. Despite the best efforts of the Rosen organization to stop his investigation Rick powers on outsmarting them and the first Nexus-6 chasing the $1000 bounty on their heads and hoping he might be able at the end of it all to replace his electric sheep. Outside of this there is a world where moods can be inflicted by machines, where empathy boxes connect you with Mercer, the conept of empathy that guides the unity of mankind, and through out the book Buster Friendly and hif Friendly Friends build up to a big announcement. The story goes beyond Rick's gruff monologue on his investigation and we are introduced to some of the androids as well as a "chicken head" a special as they are known. The story is therefore given three dimensions and we follow many moral struggles as the characters go through a rough 24 hours. There are tense moments and action right next to philosophical musings and science fiction marvels.

This book is amazing, it reads well and easily switching between characters fluidly and giving a real indepth view of a world far disconnected from ours. There are twists and turns, and the sory is full of intigue, at moments you are left just as confused as that characters and at others we are left to lament for the ignorances. The story is not unbeleivable and with few mistakes or plot holes, questions are brought up about humanity, the roles we lead, the power of corporations and the rights of people dependant on status. Philip K. Dick shows an amazing talent at creating a world with out getting dragged into over written description. More over and most importantly we are given characters who have a real quality to them, with whom we can relate, and who we end up careing for even if some of them we only know briefly. The end is in a way a little disappointing as after a number of revelations we a left to guess as Rick goes to bed. Overall I find it hard to find fault but at times a little more description would have been nice, and there are moments where double bluffs and questions as to who is human and who is an Andy becomes confusing. These are little problems though in a world of wonder.

Spike Millgan Could Write? Well Who Would a Thunk it

Of those whom claim to thoroughly love Spike Milligan there is a portion who, to a certain degree, I hate. They will say about his infamous appearance on the magical box but know nothing else of him. He was a comic genius whose strange insanity and quick quips has, does and will always amuse. One of his great forgotten talents is that of writing, odd to me that it should be forgot as most that hope to entertain find it necessary to write something at some point. And of the several works of Milligan’s that I have read one stands above the other. Not only does it contain humour far beyond that of his other work it also carries a grave amount of depth.

Adolf Hitler and my Part in his Downfall is a strange a worrying title to start with but as Spike Milligan draws upon his very real experiences as a member of the army stationed at home the book that follows is a master piece. With parts being lifted from his own experience exactly and others tweaked for the greatest amusement there are moments where I found myself in tears of laughter. The characters of his friends and colleagues as well as his superiors and the odd civilian with which he interacts are characters that hold truth and also a vivid image within the mind. As he spins his tale as a member of the home guard who plays in a band, of his incidents upsetting those above and of getting into mess with those bellow a fondness grows for his character. He gives brief but good descriptions of the places he is in and how they are run as well as good command of language to perfectly describe the sometimes-peculiar situations he ends in. hilarity ensures from the everyday activities often being shirked to incidents unimagined. One of the funniest moments in the book is where on practice firing an artillery unit they forget to put blocks at the wheels and it rolls off a cliff. But funny moments are also found in the simple tasks of getting from A to B and ending confusingly in C.

At this point this book has already outstripped most in its genuine comedy, solid background, characters and odd occurrences. Something makes it better. The fact often returns that this is a book written based on the experiences that he had, there is a great sense of realism. This realism is no more felt when in jarring juxtaposition to great comedy he reflects on the unimaginable tragedy of war and the ugly things he knew. He talks of seeing fires far in the distance, of knowing many old friends have died, and of knowing the papers he read lied or brushed over such incidents, off his fears he might be involved in them. Occasionally he reflects on how he has met characters later in life past the events to which he primarily relates, and of how many are missing. It is rare to find a book that at points is so sombre and truthful. There are facts mentioned that many with rose tinted glasses would rather ignore. And on top of this we are still returned to a smile by his comedy.

Books with Pictures

I have come to an interesting blip in the road, and that’s how to review comics and graphic novels. Evidently they are for the larger part pictures, but often carry with them an in depth story. So here it goes under Nom Nom Words, for though I greatly appreciate the art and will discuss it I buy graphic novels and comics for their story. And it dawns on me how unfairly the literary world will often look down judgementally upon these things. I am not a massive comic book reader, I don’t have a basement storeroom for every back issue of every comic ever. However there are a number that tickle my tastes. Of these they have good in depth story, strong characters with great backgrounds, suspense, comedy, intrigue. In fact they have everything that makes a book good. The only thing I can find that’s lacking in them is descriptive passage but then that is covered by the art. What of the art? Much to the chagrin of many you will find the art is variable covering numerous styles and forms.

Let us look at some examples:

Lucifer

This comic/ graphic novel covers the story of the infamous fallen angel when he decides to leave hell and resign as its ruler. He then goes and opens a bar in L.A. and get back to what he does best. Thwarting that meddling God. His answer is to make a new creation, and after making it refusing to be a God to it or to allow any ruler, merely that the people be there and live their lives with out worship and therefore in his eyes in total freedom.

I have not yet finished this but am only waiting on the money to buy the last couple of issues. But of what I have seen it uses a few writers and a plethora of artists to create a gallery of talent. The story has a number of main characters with great back stories but also those characters not central to the story also have their part told rather than being there simply out of need as a plot device. The are multiple references to old myths and beliefs as well as several nods to it’s father comic Sandman. Now there are issues, many religious folk will be quick to remind Lucifer does not rule hell he is another of the punished. At times the extra side stories seem unnecessary and distracting for characters that may very well disappear shortly after introduction no matter how integral they are to plot movement. Yet I am extraordinarily hooked to find out the ending and I find myself rereading these graphic novels for the story as well as to admire the art.

Strangers in Paradise

Now this review poses difficulty as I have read few of the issues to Strangers in Paradise but I use merely as an argument against the view that graphic novels may only dwell in the sci-fi or supernatural. You see these works follow the lives of relatively ordinary people through their ordinary troubles of life, love, economic difficulty, work and friendships. Of what I have read, and that is a reasonable amount, the story is well developed with amazingly three-dimensional characters who have very realistic personalities. The art is a stylised black and white pen drawn look and at times surprisingly realistic. As far as I know no one gains super powers, no one is a god, it’s just life and it is covered as well as any book. One advantage to comics as highlighted by this case is that long conversations are easy to follow. In books long conversations can become confused or have tedious reminders as to who’s saying what.

I’m not attacking books here, nor am I saying either medium is better. I just wish that people would respect both as amazing forms of literary art, one happens to have more literary the other more art.

Nom Nom Words

I am a keen reader and writer. And so it is in this blog that I hope to divulge my love of all things wordy. From books to blogs, to poetry and lyrics. All so delectable and delicious. I shall write reviews as well as commentaries and post some of my own mediocre work.

There are also some little challenges I intend to take including reading all the Harry Potter books so I can better express my disappointment in them. I may also try and post a weekly/ monthly chapter update of an ongoing story though I have yet to work out what. I also will happily take any suggestions. Not the fastest reader but should you advise a book I will do my best to read it and reply.