Milk, sulphate and Alby Starvation

Title: Milk, sulphate and Alby Starvation
Author: Martin Millar
Published: 1987 by Fourth Estate (this edition from 1994)
Genre: Humorous fiction
Pages: 152


Apparently it's Millar season for me! Was visiting the parental units while reading Suzy, Led Zeppelin and me, and since it was there, I picked up Alby after finishing Suzy. 

So, second time reading one of my all-time facourites in English, and I'm still loving it. (Here's my last report: linky!) Alby's paranoid towards everything and everyone, except for his hamster Happy, sure that people are after him for his invaluable comic book collection. Not to mention that they are literally ready to kill him because he gave milk a bad name. Really, there's an assassin after him!

Having read Alby straight after one of Millar's later works, it does have bit of a first novel -feel to it, but it still makes me happy, still makes me giggle, and even though I do pretty much remember everything by now, well, obviously I still want to go back to it. Again and agaaaaaaaain!


All this talk of hired killers worries me a bit at the time, though when I think about it rationally my fears diminish a little, I mean, surely the Milk Marketing Board isn't really going to hire someone to kill me? How could they hide the expense on their tax returns? 
   Maybe they wouldn't have to hide it. It might be a legitimate business practice under the Conservatices. They might even offer incentives.

The Cartier Project

Title: The Cartier Project
Author: Miha Mazzini
Published: 1987, English translation in 2004 by Scala House Press
Genre: Man on a mission.
Pages: 216


The SO and I went on a trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia this August, and I bought this puppy from a cool little mostly English book shop called the Behemot. Worth checking out if you're in town! And Ljubljana itself is really worth checking out, so while you're in the neighbourhood anyway...

The Cartier Project is set in times when Slovenia was still a part of Yugoslavia. Egon writes trashy novels and bums his friends and acquaintances for beer and other bare necessities of life. His one extravagance is his Cartier perfume, and guess what, that just ran out. Perfume costs money, though, but Egon is ready to fo whatever it takes to get some. Including stealing Playboys, blackmailing friends by threatening their, ahem, vegetable patches with the police, and publishing books.

Apparently this book's very Bukowskian: I can't say since I haven't popped my Bukowski-cherry yet. But it was fun and quick, even though Millar and Led Zeppelin distracted me, and Egon was a delightfully decadent narrator.


   "Are you coming?" I shouted. Ibro was bent over looking for something on the ground.
   "Fucking hell, I lost the dice!" he shouted and went on rummaging around like a chicken in the weak light of the streetlights.
   Through my drunken brain a flash of recognition. History is a circle, not of people, but of events which are repeated over and over. What once Caesar did was now repeated by Ibro.
   "Found them," reported Ibro, out of breath. We jumped on the bus. Sat on the front seats. The driver drove off. A fresh breeze pleasantly ruffled our hair. I was sitting next to Selim, squashed against the side of the bus. His shoulders took up a seat and a half. 
   Selim lifted the beer and me through the window of the dormitory.

Suzy, Led Zeppelin and me (again!)

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


I actually gave away my last copy of this book, to a friend. Gosh, hope he liked it! Got an urge to read it again -and to have my Millar-collection whole again- so I bought a used library copy from the big book-store on the internets.

Here's what I wrote last time: link! The plot is still the same, big surprise, but this time 'round I knew more about the band, and caught the reference to The Good Fairies of New York (this one). I still really liked the book, and am again wishing for a good gig to come my way. Ahem, favourite bands of mine who are currently touring but are not coming to Finland and why not?


   It might be Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, or Public Enemy. Maybe the night you heard Kemistry and Storm DJ was the best night you ever had. The Manic Street Preachers, the Smiths, the Sex Pistols, Todd Terry, Marilyn Manson, or any number of people. The band who made life bearable when you were skulking in your bedroom with the rest of the world against you. At least one time in your life everything was perfect.
   Led Zeppelin in Glasgow. Before it I was frustrated and after it I was disappointed. But when the band played, everything was right.

Trainspotting

Title: Trainspotting
Author: Irvine Welsh
Published: 1993, this Vintage edition is from 2004.
Genre: Scotland takes drugs in psychic defence
Pages: 344


I know, I know, I know... sooo many other books to read, for the first time! But sometimes the urge to read Trainspotting gets too strong, and you gotta give in. I need to, anyway. It really got me through one of the most stressful weeks at work I've had in ages.

As many times as I've read this, one of my absolute favourites, this might well be the first time I've read it in the original lingo. At least it was the first time I've read this particular copy of mine. The Scottish dialect bits, I had to read those 'out loud' in my mind sometimes, before I understood what was being said, what was happening. Although I did already remember most bits by now...

Trainspotting! Update from last time, I did manage to convince my brother to watch the movie. He liked it.It's -both the book and movie- about heroin addicts in Leith, Scotland, and their messed-up lives. And it's just so fucking good. It's also ugly and parts make you cringe and gag, but Welsh has a way with his words, humour sharp as a needle, and you just keep coming back for one more hit. Luckily, once you've bought the book, and/or the movie, you don't have to pay: it's only the first hit that costs you. I'm sorry, I'm trying to be witty, but ah'm just a wee bit pished.


   Ah hate cunts like that. Cunts like Begbie. Cunts that are intae baseball-batting every fucker that's different; pakis, poofs, n what huv ye. Fuckin failures in a country ay failures. It's nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the fuckin low, the scum of the earth. The most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don't hate the English. They just git oan wi the shite thuv goat. Ah hate the Scots. 

Valentine Grey

Title: Valentine Grey
Author: Sandi Toksvig
Published: 2012
Genre: War and Victorian London.
Pages: 334 plus bibliography and such




I always love it when Sandi Toksvig is a guest on QI, she's just great and funny, so when I found this lovely thing at the bookshop -on the same trip when I found Maxie Mainwaring: that was a good, good day- I was just tickled pink! The book's about the Boer war, and life of gay people in the Victorian times, so I wasn't expecting a giggle a minute, but I have to say, I also didn't expect to have my heart torn to pieces! Wahh!!!


Valentine Grey, our heroine, spent her first ~15 years in India, as the apple of her father's eye. Things change drastically when she gets sent to her uncle's house in London, where she has to wear skirts and shoes and act the proper lady. Lucky for her, she gets along famously with her cousin Reggie, who takes her out into the city, and to meet his lover, the lovely Frank.


Then on comes the second Boer war against the Dutch, in South Africa. But instead of the dandy Reggie, it's Valentine who puts on the uniform and heads out for adventure! Cross-dressing fun and jolly war adventures, right? Nooo! Toksvig thankfully doesn't romanticize war and has tossed cliches aside. So, even though yes, my heart is still bleeding, I loved this book and its characters. Plus, there was the history lesson, which I always like. Even if it's on such an ugly thing as a war.




   Now Reggie was cross. 'Why must you be so adventurous, Valentine? Honestly, you scared me half to death. It's so unnecessary. Why can't we all just sit? Read a book or something? Do what English people are supposed to do and spend an hour on the weather?'

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Title: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Author: Fannie Flagg
Published: 1987, this Vintage edition is from 1992
Genre: Historical aww
Pages: 395 plus some recipes!


Oh, this poor little book! Its previous owners have treated it so poorly, it has even been burned in places! Poor thing... you're safe now. Anyway! When I was a kid, I saw this movie with lots of women, Julia Roberts one of them, and for years I kept confusing that movie with Fried Green Tomatoes. But because of the first movie kind of made me go Ecch as I grew up, I never watched this one, not until last year/early this year when I realised what a mistake I'd made. And that's a damn shame!

The story is set in two times: we've got 1986, where, at the Rose Terrace Nursing Home, 86-year old Ninny Threadgoode starts telling about life in the thirties to Evelyn Couch, who just happened to sit beside her in the visitor's lounge. Evelyn and her husband visit his mother there every week, and since she doesn't get along with her mother-in-law, Evelyn soon befriends Ninny, who keeps telling her stories, happy to have someone to talk to.

And then there's the past, in a small railway town called Whistle Stop. Now, they've changed some things for the movie, but the book, guys, gals, it's got bees! And lesbians! In 1930's Alabama, no less! Two women, living together, raising a kid, and no-one bats an eye. And there's the great depression and the KKK and things are pretty bad for you in general unless you're a white man, but the book is still so full of hope and joy. It was just a pleasure to read.


   Ruth leaned down and whispered in her ear, "You're an old bee charmer, Idgie Threadgoode, that's what you are..."
   Idgie smiled back at her and looked up into the clear blue sky that reflected in her eyes, and she was as happy as anybody who is in love in the summertime can be.

Mysterious Skin

Title: Mysterious Skin
Author: Scott Heim
Published: 1996 originally: this was a Kindle-edit.
Genre: Drama
Pages: 4198 little mobile phone-size pages


This one's pretty hard to write about without spoiling plot points. And although the reader figures things out sooner than most of the main characters, I don't wanna spoil anything. Because y'all need to check this out.

So. Umm. Two kids, Neil and Brian, are in the same baseball little league one summer, that changes both of their lives for good. Yeah, that's good. The rest is spoilers.

I first saw the movie sometime last year. It was pretty good, darn good actually, and had Joseph Gordon-Levitt sexing up lots of men. So there is that, too. Then I found the book, for cheap, for the Kindle app, and bought it.

If this really non-descriptive babbling didn't make you want to read the book, at least check out the movie. Then you'll maybe want to read the book, too! Be prepared to come across some adult themes, though. In addition to Joseph Gordon-Levitt sexing guys up.