The Wasp Factory

Title: The Wasp Factory
Author: Iain Banks
Published: 1985
Genre: Mommy I'm scared disturbed...
Pages: 244



There's this guy, Frank, 16 years old, who lives with his rather odd father on a small island in Scotland. His older brother Eric is in a looney bin, and his younger brother Paul is dead. Because Frank killed him. Him and two other kids, but that was just a phase he was going through. Eric likes to set dogs on fire, and guess what, he just broke out of the bin and is coming home!

Queasy book. Really queasy. I almost gave up when there was just cruel, pointless violence towards animals, but even though it disturbed me more than many things I've ever read, Mr. Banks' (Banks's? I never remember/know...) writing keeps you going. There's dark humour to all of it, and I can honestly say I had no idea what would come next. There are a few pages of critic's comments from newspapers and such in the beginning. Can't say critic's praise, since most of them say Don't read this book. No, really, don't. I, for myself, might add, that it is a very bad idea, I repeat, VERY. Bad. Idea. To eat while reading the chapter What Happened to Eric. Oh. My. Good. Giggly. Googly-eyed. Gollum. I couldn't even read all of it.  I had to peer at it through my fingers, taking in a few words at a time, trying hard to keep dinner down. And that visual will haunt me.

But still. All that, and I couldn't put the book down. I read half of it in one sitting, all of it within three days or so.

Damn. I need a children's book or something next...


"All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people's, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is part of life and - even more so - part of death. Like life it is complicated, so all the components are there. The reason it can answer questions is because every question is a start looking for an end and the Factory is about the End - death, no less. Keep your entrails and sticks and dice and books and birds and voices and pendants and all the rest of that crap; I have the Factory, and it's about now and the future, not the past."

Death of a Chimney Sweep

Title: Death of a Chimney Sweep
Author: M.C. Beaton
Published: 2011
Genre: Murder mystery
Pages: 228


One more of the Hamish Macbeth -books! Wohoo! One of the newest ones, becaaause I read the list the wrong way. D'oh.

The book opens with an English Captain Davenport found stuffed into the chimney of his house. Not very much alive. The obvious suspect is the chimney sweep, working in the house that day. And then the bodycount starts to go up faster and higher than I've rarely seen outside of war or disaster movies. I honestly lost count. Deaths per page ratio is very high with this one.

Hamish, again, has to try and solve the murders before there are more, and to do it so that he won't get a promotion out of his beloved Lochdubh. And it's not easy, not with such a ruthless and inventive murderer.

These books are so fast and fun to read! And they're pretty cheap, even in the local book shops. And I've still got over 20 more to read! Lovely.


   "He swept the horizon with his binoculars, first towards Western Fearn Point on the Kyle of Sutherland and across the kyle to Creich Mains and then focussed them on the burnt-out wreck of a car far down one of the braes below, just before he was preparing to put the binoculars away.
   His eyes sharpened as he adjusted the focus. He could see a black mass inside the wreckage which looked like a body; a little way away on the heather was one shoe."

The Catcher in the Rye

Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
Published: 1951, this edition is pretty new but has the original cover which is pret-ty!
Genre: Alienated angst
Pages: 214



Holden Caulfield is sixteen, and he's just been kicked out of yet another school for not applying himself. Such a phony phrase. He has a row with his roommate and decides to leave on Christmas break a few days ahead. There's no way he's going to go home and listen to his parents rant and rave over his latest failure, so he checks in at a cheap hotel in New York City, and narrates his way through the next few days and all the people he meets. 

As happened with Slaughterhouse 5, I only intended to take a peek at the first few pages and see about this classic, and then realised I'd read the first 30 or so pages. I mean, I was reading four other books as well at the time (down to three, now). But yeah. It wasn't as earth-shattering as I had expected. I feel like I might've gotten more out of it if I'd read it when I was younger, but I could still identify with Holden's feelings of alienation from most of the human race. Insert the smiley which is poking its tongue out in a way that you can't really tell whether the user is trying to be funny or... not.

I just read that Salinger wrote the book for adults originally, but over the years it has become popular with teenagers, and also 'challenged' over ... what? Really? Swearing? Saying goddam a lot? And sexual content? Right. The alienation and Holden going slightly off his rocker were far more important and bigger issues.


"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 1902. That's one hundred and eleventy years ago.
Genre: Detective fiction
Pages: 359 according to Wikipedia. Didn't seem that long on the Kindle app.


Aah, help, I've been starting new books left, right and center all willy-nilly and without finishing any of the ones I'm already reading! But there are so many I want to read...

Okay. The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the few (four?) novel-length Sherlock Holmes -stories Sir ACD wrote, and instead of London, a fairly usual setting for the Holmes-stories, it's set in Dartmoor, in England's West Country. Sir Charles Baskerville has died under mysterious circumstances, leaving his house to his only living relative, nephew Henry Baskerville, who has been living across the sea since he was a kid. I can't remember whether it was in Canada or the United States, or both. Anyway, a family friend, doctor Mortimer, comes to Holmes and Watson, to ask the great detective to figure out what the hell happened to the late Sir, and why there was a huge paw print next to his body.

I think I've mentioned my obsession interest for the BBC series Sherlock. One of the episodes/movies is a modern-day version of this, and even though the names are same, people and places, with some updated changes, the story is different enough that I really had no idea who was the bad guy while reading the book. Which was nice.And now I want to continue with the short Holmes-stories again...


"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

Janitsaaripuu, lukukerta 2

...eli toista kertaa luvussa tämä: Janitsaaripuu

Vietin Pääsiäistä vanhempien sohvalla maaten, pashaa syöden ja tätä lukien, koska, no, teki mieli, enkä saanut American Psychoa enää mahtumaan matkakassiin. Janitsaaripuu löytyi mukavasti hyllystä, ja oli leppoista ja myös jännittävää seuraa. Ajoittainen outo latominen ja aaaika monet kirjoitusvihreet häiritsivät edelleen, mutta ne on vaan kosmeettisia virheitä. Tarina itse ei niistä kärsinyt.

Viime kerrasta ollaan edistytty sen verran, että sarjan kakkososa, The Snake Stone, löytyy edellisen Lontoon matkan jäljiltä kirjahyllystä. (Sarjasta on tosin tähän mennessä ilmestyneet myös osat Kolme ja Neljä.) Se on nyt helppo napata lukuun kun on maailmanaika ja hahmot muistissa. Ei kovin hyvässä muistissa, mutta kai tuonne päähän jotain jäi kiinni... vyötärölle jäi ainakin muistot pashasta. Perhele.

Olin muuten KOKO maaliskuun kirjanostolakossa, kokonaisen kuukauden(!) koska tammi-helmikuussa tuli raahattua parikin kassillista kirjoja lähidivareista. Lukulista sen kun kasvaa... kirjahylly taas tuntuu kutistuneen.

Skagboys

Title: Skagboys
Author: Irvine Welsh
Published: 2013 by Vintage, originally in 2012.
Genre: Drug drug druggy fiction
Pages: 548


The amazing time-traveling paperback! According to Amazon, this puppy don't come out till April 11th, but here we are. All read. Honestly, I didn't even know Welsh was writing a prequel to Trainspotting until I saw this sitting on the bookshop shelves. Christmas came early this year!

Prequel to Trainspotting? Really?! Fuck the hell yes! It's the early 1980's, and the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Alison are just discovering heroin. Some friends of theirs, like the already psychotic Begbie and sporty Tommy don't care for the drugs, but they have their own worries in a time when unemployment numbers are rising to record heights. With nothing else to do, it's easy to turn to drugs. Or violence. Or both.

I could go on and on about how barry it was to read about some of my favourite characters again, even though the thick Scottish accent gave me trouble in the beginning, but I think I'll just quote one of the comments from Mr. Welsh's Facebook page... "Skagboys is ace as tits" - Barry

Going to have to put Trainspotting and Porno on top of the Want To Read Again -pile. 


   Renton appears tae consider this for a bit. He's daein the junky pose wi his airms wrapped around himself even though it isnae cauld. Skaggy fucker will draw mair polis heat than Nicksy, rattling away like that in public, and in front ay a copper. - Does it? Get easier, I mean, he asks urgently.
   The cop shakes his heid. - Does it fuck; it gets bleedin worse. All that happens is that the expectations you have of life fall. You just get used to all the shit.
   Renton looks as perturbed as ah feel, and we gaze at each other and realise that the cop isnae fucking joking. Ah think about poor Spud. Renton looks starkly at Bacon boy. - What if ye don't get used to it, what it ye can't get used to it?
   The copper looks back up tae the flats, shrugs his shoulders and curls his bottom lip doon. - Well, that window's still gonna be there. 

Everything

Title: Everything (a book about Manic Street Preachers)
Author: Simon Price
Published: Umm... good question. Doesn't really say... 1999!
Genre: Music biography
Pages: 265, + discography, list of websites, and index.


I'm still stuck in the Manics-groove (I quite like it here...), and bought and read this as well. Everything (a boastful, yet quite accurate title) tells the story of the Welsh band Manic Street Preachers, all the way from their bored childhoods to the publication of their 1998 album This is my truth tell me yours. There's your basic history, some interviews (snips and whole ones), plenty of photographs and even analytical essays on all of the members, the fans and other important aspects. Like hoovering. There's also a lot of commentary and backgound on the albums and songs, which is always interesting to read.

For most of it, Mr. Price was there for the ride, and the rest of the info comes from other sources. It's not the whole truth, it's not the complete truth, but it is his truth. And it's written so that, whenever I thought to put the book down, I was always tempted (unless I had to get off a bus or go back to work) to read juuust one more paragraph. Chapter? Five more minutes!

An interesting book on one of the most interesting bands out there.


(From interview with Steve Lamacq)
RE: 'Because when you're at school, you're led to believe that music is going to change your life, you hope a band's gonna reflect the way you feel, and they don't. All they do is just reduce you to a shit second gear.'
NW: 'You do get this feeling of total depression. And there's nothing you can do to control it, to smash your walls. And that's what we're trying to articulate.'
SL: 'You couldn't find that in any music, any album?'
JDB: 'In each other. It sounds a bit soppy, but...'
NW: 'We really do love each other.'
SL: 'So what would you say your chief motivation is?'
RE: 'To write music, obviously, and to make people address issues that are really important.'
NW: 'But James wants to write brilliant songs anyway. He's a talented person.'
JDB: 'I just want to create the greatest record ever... boring old tepid muso, aren't I?'
RE: 'It's really hard for us to convince you... that we're for real.'

(RE = Richey Edwards, NW = Nicky Wire, JDB = James Dean Bradfield)