maanantai 22. kesäkuuta 2009

Lux the Poet

Title: Lux the Poet
Author: Martin Millar
Published: 2009 by Soft Skull Press
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 198


There's a riot going on in Brixton, but Lux, poet extraordinaire, pathological liar, terribly vain and a kleptomaniac, barely notices since the love of his life, Pearl, is lost somewhere in the mess and he, high as a kite, saving the world from trash metal musicians, his hair set with KY and sugar, has to go out and find her, with the help of an angel who has to do 1 000 000 good deeds before she can go back to Heaven. Pearl, however, is more concerned with her film, which she must keep safe after her house burned down, and with Nicky, who she also has to keep safe since Nicky's more or less walking around comatose after killing her computer. There's also an accountant hunting for headhunters, heaven's devils, computer police and somewhat mad scientists running around, not to mention all the rioters and cops and ambulances and whatnot.

I can't decide whether I like Lux or Alby Starvation better. Alby's been my favourite for years and years, but Lux is... irresistable in his vanity. And Millar can sure write these stories with about a dozen or two characters running around, yet he's got all the strings in hand. The 'chapters' are deliciously short, so that you always want to read one more before turning off the light and going to sleep.

I pity the fool who doesn't give Lux (and Millar!) a chance.


"Lux has no idea what the riot is about. It just sort of started while he was walking along the street. When he first saw a gang of youths running towards him he thought perhaps it was some fans come to hear some poetry and was disappointed when they ran past without paying him any attention.

"This feeling persists, however, and the whole night Lux has a subconscious suspicion that possibly the riot is in his honour."

sunnuntai 21. kesäkuuta 2009

Suzy, Led Zeppelin and me

Title: Suzy, Led Zeppelin and me
Author: Martin Millar
Published: 2008 by Soft Skull Press
Genre: Biography & gig review
Pages: 222


Another Martin Millar book! Actually, the third I've read lately, but I didn't have time to write about Lux the Poet when I had it on me, and now it's not on me. Maybe tomorrow, but tomorrow I won't have this one on me so here goes.

It's 1972, and Led Zeppelin have just announced their upcoming concert in Glasgow, where nerdy, young Martin and his equally nerdy friend Greg are dreaming about Suzy, dragons, and Led Zeppelin. There's also Zed, the coolest kid in school who Suzy loves and the boys admire, and Cherry, a younger, also very nerdy girl who wants to join Martin and Greg's dragon army.

It is also modern day in London, where Martin is telling about that gig and what went on before, during and after it to his friend Manx, while judging in a literary competition and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Like with books about Alby and Lux, this one comes separated into short chapters, and both timelines move on towards the big gig (and the judging). But unlike the other two books, there are only a small handful of people in this one. Still, Millar is as good as ever, and doesn't leave out even the embarrassing things from his teenage years. At least those that are involved with the subject of the book.

The 1972 Led Zeppelin gig is told in far more detail than I can remember any gigs I've gone to, and because of that (and mention of all the songs in the order they were played, which is nice, because the reader can listen to them as well) it feels like the gig is happening as it's been read about. And I'm pretty sure that anyone who's been on a really good gig knows how Mr. Millar felt on 4th December 1972.


"Now I've come to the start of the gig. So the next fifteen chapters or so are pretty much just me dancing around in Green's Playhouse, listening to Led Zeppelin and having a fabulous time. But read on. For one thing, I get my first proper kiss. For another, the gig will be over before you know it and then you'll be back in the real world, and how much fun is that?

"When Led Zeppelin walk onstage I get a very strange feeling in my chest before I'm carried off to a place where I am not troubled by worldly cares."


Aww, I wanna go to a concert now...

lauantai 13. kesäkuuta 2009

Porno

Title: Porno
Author: Irvine Welsh
Published: 2003 by Vintage
Genre: Fiction with porn, scams and drugs
Pages: 484


Sequels don't always work, but this, the sequel to Welsh's successful book (made into movie in 1996) Trainspotting certainly does not disappoint. Longer, but with less characters running around, Porno brings out the people most familiar through the movie.

Some ten years have passed since the end of Trainspotting, and Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson is back in Edinburgh with a head full of scams. His old home may have changed, but some things, like Spud and Begbie, really haven't. Still, Simon is determined not to fall back too hard on old habits, and starts several scams to make a lot of money off fools, as soon as possible and with as little effort as possible. The big scheme is to direct and produce a porn movie. Running into Mark Renton, the one who fucked his old friends over in London all those years ago, is definitely a plus.

Porno is told in first person point of view by several characters: Sick Boy, Renton, Begbie, Spud and Nikki, with Sick Boy getting a bit more airtime than the others. Like with Filth, Welsh manages to make his lead man quite the arse, someone you'd (well, I can only speak for myself, but...) like to see fall. I'm glad to report that, like with Filth again, Welsh does not disappoint.


"The hangover's pure kickin in n ah'm takin a walk intae toon tae clear the nut. Up past St Andrew's, whir thir buildin a new bus station. The auld one wis a dump, n the last time ah wis in it wis ages ago. In fact, it wis whin me, Rents, Sick Boy, Franco n Second Prize wir gaun doon tae London, wi aw that smack oan us. Pure paranoia, man, pure paranoia. Healthy stretch fir that yin if collared, too right!"

Fun Home

Title: Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic
Pictures and words: Alison Bechdel
Published: 2006 by Mariner Books
Genre: Biographical comic
Pages: 232


Another comic by Alison Bechdel, one that I've been wanting to re-read for a while, and did so after finishing The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For. Fun Home is a more compact book, a memoir of Bechdel's, from early childhood to college years. This books' won several international awards, not to mention the three pages worth of praise included. And it's all well-earned.

Bechdel's family used to run a funeral home, or fun home, as they called it themselves. Her father was the funeral director, as well as an English teacher. Fun home is as much about him as it is about Alison herself; two very different people living under the same roof, and not realising how similar they were after all until it was too late.

Bechdel's art is at its best, and the subtle colouring brings yet more life to the pictures. The story jumps constantly from one time and place to another, but she carries the story so well that the reader doesn't get lost.


"I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture. My own decided preference for the unadorned and purely functional emerged early. I was Spartan to my father's Athenian. Modern to his Victorian. Butch to his nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete. I developed a contempt for useless ornament. What function was served by the scrolls, tassels, and bric-a-brac that infested our house? If anything, they obscured function. They were embellishments in the worst sense. They were lies."


Alison Bechdel's blog, her comics and a lot of stuff on them can be found on http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/

There's also a lot more on Fun Home, said better than I could.

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

Title: The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
Pictures and words: Alison Bechdel
Published: 2008 by Houghton Mifflin
Genre: Love & Politics and everything in between
Pages: 392, plus introduction


I've been reading quite a lot lately but have been lazy in writing them up, so here goes!

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For collects 392 one page strips of Alison Bechdel's comic that has been running in about 50 magazines and translated to several languages over the last 25 years. It tells the stories of several people, most of them women and lesbians, living in America and interacting with its recent history. So, at least for a European not really interested in politics and current affairs like me, it's also a quick course in the history of the nation.

But Bechdel's stars are first and foremost the women whose lives we get to follow: their thoughts, love, tragedies and everything else life tends to throw at people. All this might sound a bit boring, but it's not: the book is quite hard to put down. There's a lot of humour as well, and it's hard not to get involved with the people we're reading about. They're just normal people, going on about their lives. Just like your next door neighbours.

I'm finding it quite hard to sum up 25 years worth of comics here... but it's wonderful to see how the people change, how their kids grow, and how Bechdel's art has evolved over the years. I'd been looking forward to buying this as soon as I heard it's coming out, and finally picked it up at a comic shop I went to for a job interview. (Got the job, btw.) Well worth the 25 euros. Or dollars, if that's your thing.


"I'll be your lawyer if you'll be my accountant."

keskiviikko 3. kesäkuuta 2009

Reading memememe

Directions: Create a new blog post. Write an introduction. Copy and paste the meme below into your blog, changing the comments to your own. Use the title of this meme in your subject line or create your own. Feel free to tag your friends or not. A link back to this lens would be appreciated.

What have you just read?
I just finished re-reading Kouta Hirano's Hellsing. The last book I read was Chuck Palahniuk's Snuff. Neither is really the type you might want to recommend to your mother.

What are you reading now?
Nearly halfway through with Irvine Welsh's Porno. I've read Trainspotting (and seen the movie) many times, so it was high time to check out the sequel. And it's great.

Do you have any idea what you'll read when you're done with that?
I'd like to re-read Sarah Waters' Night watch, and I should be getting her The Little Stranger soon. Then there's also The Good Fairies of New York and Lux the Poet by Martin Millar, and Perfume by Patrick Süskind. Already started a little on Sepulchre by Kate Mosse, so should get on with that as well. And a few comic series I'd like to read/re-read...

What's the worst thing you were ever forced to read?
It's pretty much a rule that if I'm forced to read something, I won't like it. But the last time I had to read something or cry and read it was in high school. And I didn't read it, just a few essays and short versions.

What's one book you always recommend to just about anyone?
Hmm... Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby, or Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The latter might be less traumatising.

Admit it, sadly the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don't they?
...some of them greet me on the street... I don't think it's sad, though.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don't like it at all?
I'm kind of hung on Chuck Palahniuk at the moment, so I might say his books. They're excellent, but by no means are they everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I can't put them down.

Do you read books while you eat?
Books or comics, to distract myself from the fact that I cannot cook. Not in company, though.

While you bathe?
Oh yes. The bath is one of the best places in the world to read, as long as you're very careful with the books. They're precious.

While you watch movies or tv?
Never during movies, and since I don't really watch TV (only a few series, and those usually from DVD's, so they get my full attention), not during it either. Too hard to concentrate.

While you listen to music?
I don't read while I listen to music, but I do listen to music while I read. It's good for covering the annoying, distracting noises from outside and possibly from the apartment.

While you're on the computer?
Book-books, no, unless I'm at the computer to listen to music from it while I read, but I do read a lot of stories and comics on the 'net.

When you were little did other children tease you about your reading habits?
Not that I can remember. Sometimes when I would go and buy X-men or Young Indina Jones comics. Apparently, comics aren't for girls.

What's the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn't put it down?
Hellsing last night, but that was also because I couldn't sleep. Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Read it in April, and already want to re-read it.

Have any books made you cry?
Most of them, yes. I can be a real crybaby.


Nowkku, I tag thee. :)

Hellsing

Title: Hellsing
Creators: Kouta Hirano
Published: 1998 =>
Genre: Humour/Horror/Vampires, yay!/War
Pages: So far, in English, 9 albums of ~210 pages (already finished in Japan)


One of my Top 5 favourite manga's, maybe in the Top 3. It's absolutely insane. You've got Protestant vampire killers, Catholic vampire killers, vampires killing vampires, Nazi vampires, Schrödinger's cat, French mercenaries, big boobs and a lot of people wearing glasses...

It bugs me that I can't remember which came first for me: the first Hellsing anime, or the manga. I do remember that when I bought the first two comics, and read the first one for the first time, I didn't crack one smile. I was seriously wondering whether it was supposed to be scary or funny, because I didn't think it was either. But since I'd bought the second manga as well, I gave it another chance. And like I said, Top 3. For the last four years or so.

The art in the first few volumes is a bit sketchy, but it's wonderful to follow how Hirano develops during the years and with the story. In the end he has one of the most original styles in not only manga's but other comics as well. I wish I could draw like that.

The story is both serious and crack. Very bloody, violent and cruel, but with a lot of humour. And I love the characters. I was actually quite obsessed with one of them for a looooong time, and that cute little face can still make my knees all... ahem, yes. The characters are original and have their individual styles, with simplistic and expressive faces as is common in Japanese comics, but man do they stretch and bend to show just how completely crazy they can get.

A word or two about the animes. The first one, simply named Hellsing, was made when the manga was still fairly fresh, and therefore follows only the first few volumes, and then goes in a direction completely its own. Quite an inferior one, in my opinion, when compared to the manga. I mean, Incognito? Seriously? What were the makers smoking? LOOK at him! (GIS Incognito Hellsing if you've not seen him.)

But the music is excellent. The music is enough reason to watch the 13 episodes (I think it was 13; I could be wrong, though, it has been years since I watched it). The animation is quite basic, with none of Hirano's wacky distortions.

The second one, Hellsing OVA (or OAV) is still in production: episode VI should come out sometime next month in Japan, unless it's pushed back. This one follows the comic more religiously, including Hirano's art style. It's well done, approximately one episode per manga, with 45-50 minute episodes. Once I'm rich, I'm collecting the whole series, but right now it's still a bit too expensive for my limited budget as they're sold one episode at a time. Makes sense, since there's a long wait between the episodes. Kinda like with the manga's. Heh.

But. Yes. If you like vampires, comics, BIG guns and a lot of blood, this is the manga for you.


"What a great night. Makes me want to suck some blood. Such a nice, quiet night."

Yeah, for the next five minutes. After that...