Title: Night Film
Author: Marisha Pessl
Pub Date: 2013
Genre: Fiction, Suspense
Nutshell: A fast-paced mystery in the vein of House of Leaves but easier reading
This book was on my radar for a while, one of the things that came up when I was doing one of my periodic "books like House of Leaves" searches. There are definitely similarities between the two, but overall this was much easier to read and follow. It's a large book, but there are quite a few pictures and other things scattered throughout and the narrative is fast enough that it's a quick read.
I don't want to spoil any plot (as usual), so let's just say that the main character, Scott, is a disgraced reporter who becomes a bit too fascinated with a reclusive horror movie director and that director's relationship with his daughter. You're constantly questioning which is the true narrative, what exactly is happening and what's just being interpreted... The characters are well-written and Pessl keeps the story going throughout. It veered into a biiiiit too unbelievable at a certain point, but it then righted itself without my even having to ask. It was not particularly frightening, but it was intriguing and suspenseful and you care enough about the people in the story that you want to find out what happens.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Grimscribe
Title: Grimscribe: His Lives and Works
Author: Thomas Ligotti
Pub Date: 1991
Genre: Lovecraftian Fiction, Short Stories
Nutshell: 13 unsettling short stories by an author revered as a true successor to H.P. Lovecraft
So I'm a big Lovecraft nerd. My favorites of his aren't even really the mythos stuff -- the Cthulu cults and Nyarlathotep and all that. I was always more of a fan of his one-offs. Stories like The Thing on the Doorstep or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward -- tales where just super weird stuff happens to people for no really definable reason. Dabbling in what you shouldn't is usually enough, and sometimes it's just a matter of being in the very wrong place at the worst time. There may be something bigger animating all this awfulness, but maybe it's just the awful circumstance of being.
Thomas Ligotti really captures that sense of general unease that you get with a lot of Lovecraft's stuff. There's no real overarching theme here, just bizarre things that happen to people that give you the idea of a sinister undertone to daily life that most people don't necessarily grasp. There is nothing schlocky here, nothing grotesque. No guts or gore or anything like that. Just a profound sense of something not being right. Like if you go to the wrong part of town at the wrong time of night you might find something you wish you hadn't, and that something is going to be much worse for you spiritually than a simple mugging. It all feels very much like a nightmare. Well, the kind that I have, anyway, which don't feature much in the way of skeletons or anything obviously scary. I have the kind of nightmares where everything just feels weirdly off and I feel trapped and like I might be in a dream but I can't seem to wake up. That's what drew me to Lovecraft in the first place, is we seemed to have similar nightmares.
That being said, some of this goes a bit long without much in the way of finalization. The thing about Lovecraft, you always knew when it was over. Usually because your narrator had fainted in the face of some sanity-blasting terror. There's none of that here, either. These stories seem to be much more into evoking and sustaining the mood than telling much of a story with a narrative arc, and a little of that goes a long way.
However, there were a few standouts that I enjoyed, mainly the first story and the last. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" is dedicated to Lovecraft and his influence is all over it. It has a definite story and certainly holds to a couple of the main Lovecraftian hallmarks (fans will know what I mean and I don't want to give any hints as to the plot). "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" also has a clearer narrative, and elicits a great deal of uneasiness without losing the thread of the story within. The rest of the stories are an excellent study in setting up a narrative tone that is surely Lovecraftian, but they definitely lack the, well, pulpiness that was usually present in H.P.'s works. They're all threatening atmosphere without much actual threat. I actually missed the fainting Lovecraftian hero. He provided a catharsis that Ligotti never gives you, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the idea is that the feeling doesn't ever leave, and once you're aware of it it's with you forever. But I think I prefer the fainting.
Author: Thomas Ligotti
Pub Date: 1991
Genre: Lovecraftian Fiction, Short Stories
Nutshell: 13 unsettling short stories by an author revered as a true successor to H.P. Lovecraft
So I'm a big Lovecraft nerd. My favorites of his aren't even really the mythos stuff -- the Cthulu cults and Nyarlathotep and all that. I was always more of a fan of his one-offs. Stories like The Thing on the Doorstep or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward -- tales where just super weird stuff happens to people for no really definable reason. Dabbling in what you shouldn't is usually enough, and sometimes it's just a matter of being in the very wrong place at the worst time. There may be something bigger animating all this awfulness, but maybe it's just the awful circumstance of being.
Thomas Ligotti really captures that sense of general unease that you get with a lot of Lovecraft's stuff. There's no real overarching theme here, just bizarre things that happen to people that give you the idea of a sinister undertone to daily life that most people don't necessarily grasp. There is nothing schlocky here, nothing grotesque. No guts or gore or anything like that. Just a profound sense of something not being right. Like if you go to the wrong part of town at the wrong time of night you might find something you wish you hadn't, and that something is going to be much worse for you spiritually than a simple mugging. It all feels very much like a nightmare. Well, the kind that I have, anyway, which don't feature much in the way of skeletons or anything obviously scary. I have the kind of nightmares where everything just feels weirdly off and I feel trapped and like I might be in a dream but I can't seem to wake up. That's what drew me to Lovecraft in the first place, is we seemed to have similar nightmares.
That being said, some of this goes a bit long without much in the way of finalization. The thing about Lovecraft, you always knew when it was over. Usually because your narrator had fainted in the face of some sanity-blasting terror. There's none of that here, either. These stories seem to be much more into evoking and sustaining the mood than telling much of a story with a narrative arc, and a little of that goes a long way.
However, there were a few standouts that I enjoyed, mainly the first story and the last. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" is dedicated to Lovecraft and his influence is all over it. It has a definite story and certainly holds to a couple of the main Lovecraftian hallmarks (fans will know what I mean and I don't want to give any hints as to the plot). "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" also has a clearer narrative, and elicits a great deal of uneasiness without losing the thread of the story within. The rest of the stories are an excellent study in setting up a narrative tone that is surely Lovecraftian, but they definitely lack the, well, pulpiness that was usually present in H.P.'s works. They're all threatening atmosphere without much actual threat. I actually missed the fainting Lovecraftian hero. He provided a catharsis that Ligotti never gives you, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the idea is that the feeling doesn't ever leave, and once you're aware of it it's with you forever. But I think I prefer the fainting.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Hearts West
Title: Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier
Author: Chris Enss
Pub Date: 2005
Genre: History
Nutshell: A collection of stories of women and men who advertised (successfully or otherwise) for mates in the Western US during the late 1800s.
This was kind of a gimme. I got the ebook for 99 cents from Amazon and it's quite short. But I was behind for the month and I needed something quick.
I read this in a morning. It's a short book and a quick read. It's 17 small chapters (not including forward and afterward) that each tell a story or two about a couple that met through matrimonial advertisements or the history of some of the various schemes to bring eligible ladies out West during the settlement of that area. Definitely the precursor to online dating, although in general people tended to be much more honest about themselves in the earlier era and usually sent accurate photos when requested. A fair number of the correspondents ended up getting married and staying married, and more than a few of those marriages seemed to actually be happy. Given the conditions in the West and the rather unorthodox method of meeting, that's either highly surprising or an argument for being slightly less picky in a life partner.
The book also reprints several advertisements from the period, many from women in the early to mid-20s who were seeking husbands. Some of the women were in their 30s and were either spinsters (awful word) or widows. The ads from older widows are generally hilarious, and you get an idea they had full knowledge of what they were looking for in a husband. Ads from men are mostly straightforward. I find it difficult to get into the mindset that these women, many of whom had jobs and some of whom stood to inherit substantial sums, just had to get married, but I'm a thoroughly modern girl in that respect I guess. Given the dearth of eligible young men in that time period (the Civil War more or less wiped out a generation), ladies had to take their chances where they could if they didn't want to be alone.
Some of the stories are quite charming, and most of them end happily. Overall, a nice little book. There are a few typos and small problems, but for 99 cents I'm not going to complain. It was something easily read with historical insight into the lives of women 150 years ago.
Author: Chris Enss
Pub Date: 2005
Genre: History
Nutshell: A collection of stories of women and men who advertised (successfully or otherwise) for mates in the Western US during the late 1800s.
This was kind of a gimme. I got the ebook for 99 cents from Amazon and it's quite short. But I was behind for the month and I needed something quick.
I read this in a morning. It's a short book and a quick read. It's 17 small chapters (not including forward and afterward) that each tell a story or two about a couple that met through matrimonial advertisements or the history of some of the various schemes to bring eligible ladies out West during the settlement of that area. Definitely the precursor to online dating, although in general people tended to be much more honest about themselves in the earlier era and usually sent accurate photos when requested. A fair number of the correspondents ended up getting married and staying married, and more than a few of those marriages seemed to actually be happy. Given the conditions in the West and the rather unorthodox method of meeting, that's either highly surprising or an argument for being slightly less picky in a life partner.
The book also reprints several advertisements from the period, many from women in the early to mid-20s who were seeking husbands. Some of the women were in their 30s and were either spinsters (awful word) or widows. The ads from older widows are generally hilarious, and you get an idea they had full knowledge of what they were looking for in a husband. Ads from men are mostly straightforward. I find it difficult to get into the mindset that these women, many of whom had jobs and some of whom stood to inherit substantial sums, just had to get married, but I'm a thoroughly modern girl in that respect I guess. Given the dearth of eligible young men in that time period (the Civil War more or less wiped out a generation), ladies had to take their chances where they could if they didn't want to be alone.
Some of the stories are quite charming, and most of them end happily. Overall, a nice little book. There are a few typos and small problems, but for 99 cents I'm not going to complain. It was something easily read with historical insight into the lives of women 150 years ago.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
This Book Is Full of Spiders
Title: This Book Is Full of Spiders
Author: David Wong
Pub Date: 2012
Genre: Horror Fiction
Nutshell: Really messed-up things happen. Again.
To get some housekeeping out of the way, I'm about 2/3 through Faulkner's Light in August. But the weather turned cold again and I cannot read Faulkner without it being warm. Plus it was getting to be a slog. So I'm still working on it, but in the meantime, I read this because I had it at work and I figured it would be fairly quick.
If you read John Dies at the End, then you'll have a flavor for what this book is like. I started it, but had to return it to the library and didn't ever get too far in. So this was more or less new for me. And overall, I liked it. It was very quick and I had a hard time putting it down. Oh, and it's gross, but it's also funny. It reminds me a lot of Shaun of the Dead that way, in that it's horrifying and gross but also funny and kind of sweet.
Basic plot, there's two guys, John and Dave, who see things they shouldn't. Then these insecty things (some are spiderish, but some have lots of more legs than that) show up and all hell breaks loose. More or less. There are lots of guts and brains and explosions and violence and some that is funny and one part just honestly broke my heart because of who I am and what I love. I was not happy with that part, but I understand the reasoning behind it.
If you like Lovecraft and don't mind irreverence, I'd suggest this. It's amusing but manages to tap into that world that Lovecraft kind of pioneered.
Author: David Wong
Pub Date: 2012
Genre: Horror Fiction
Nutshell: Really messed-up things happen. Again.
To get some housekeeping out of the way, I'm about 2/3 through Faulkner's Light in August. But the weather turned cold again and I cannot read Faulkner without it being warm. Plus it was getting to be a slog. So I'm still working on it, but in the meantime, I read this because I had it at work and I figured it would be fairly quick.
If you read John Dies at the End, then you'll have a flavor for what this book is like. I started it, but had to return it to the library and didn't ever get too far in. So this was more or less new for me. And overall, I liked it. It was very quick and I had a hard time putting it down. Oh, and it's gross, but it's also funny. It reminds me a lot of Shaun of the Dead that way, in that it's horrifying and gross but also funny and kind of sweet.
Basic plot, there's two guys, John and Dave, who see things they shouldn't. Then these insecty things (some are spiderish, but some have lots of more legs than that) show up and all hell breaks loose. More or less. There are lots of guts and brains and explosions and violence and some that is funny and one part just honestly broke my heart because of who I am and what I love. I was not happy with that part, but I understand the reasoning behind it.
If you like Lovecraft and don't mind irreverence, I'd suggest this. It's amusing but manages to tap into that world that Lovecraft kind of pioneered.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Confederates in the Attic
Title: Confederates in the Attic
Author: Tony Horwitz
Pub Date: 1998
Genre: Narrative History, Travelogue
Nutshell: A writer explores the still-present attitudes about the Civil War in the southern states
I have a weird relationship with the south, overall. I think lots of Kentuckians do, especially those of us raised to be upwardly mobile and more citified than our more rural cousins. I come from a long, long line of Kentucky stock--as near as I can tell, we were some of the first into the area back when it was still part of Virginia. But Kentucky is a strange place, and Louisville even stranger--we are perhaps the northernmost city of the south or the southernmost city of the north. We have southern customs and habits with Yankee politics, godless heathen liberals in a republican state (we used to be blue, before the Christian Coalition turned all the unionized democratic coal miners into people who voted their religion).
My family also, up until my parents' generation, were farmers. The oldest relative that I can absolutely prove served in any kind of war at all was my mother's grandfather, who trained to be a school teacher and became instead a career Marine who saw service with the Army in World War I. His two sons fought in Korea. And that is the beginning and end of my family's experience with the military, on either side.
So my views on the Civil War and my overall identification with the south as a region is conflicted. My family was certainly in Kentucky by the time of the war, but was never rich enough to own anybody--I doubt they completely owned themselves most of the time. And we are of the more traditional WASP-ish makeup, being thoroughly English and quite probably colonial on at least one side. And in history class, I always (and still) identify with the Yanks, because I could never wrap my head around slavery and from an early age I was always more of a Federalist in terms of governmental preference.
So this book was interesting for me, coming as it did from an author who has much of the same ambivalence as I do about the whole thing. Well, being a true Yankee he was slightly more interested in the Rebel cause than I ever was, living in the middle of it as I did. My middle school mascot was a rebel, and there was a large Confederate flag painted on the football bleachers from when it was a high school (with the same mascot). One year while I was still there they painted over it--a decision I was completely fine with but which incensed a lot of locals for many of the reasons that are documented in this book. I thought it was sheer lunacy to be that enamored with a history that was on the losing side of the moral and historical arguments. I'm still not a fan of the Confederacy and I still have a deep (probably deeper) suspicion of states' rights agitators, but I can at least now understand the underlying romance and mythos that draws people to the idea of supporting "The Cause."
Basically, the plot is this: Tony Horwitz stumbles into a circle of hardcore Civil War reenactors who are obsessed with getting the historical detail absolutely correct and are highly contemptuous of the kind of dilettantes who don't get their costumes right or insist on sleeping in hotels during reenactments. "The only thing left for these people is real ammunition and Civil War diseases," one person says during his travels. "I hope it doesn't come to that." Between reenactments, Tony travels around southern battlefields and other areas that seem to be obsessed with "The Cause," having a singularly depressing experience in Kentucky. He learns that some people still have very strong feelings about the war, and others barely remember what it was about. It's an interesting journey, filled with the sort of unique types you really only get down here. There is ugliness, but there's also acceptance and reconciliation. There's forgetfulness and remembrance, and you wonder which, if either, is the better option.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I wish he'd go back and do a re-tour--I imagine in the last nearly 20 years, attitudes are quite a bit different now than they were then. Of course, it might just be depressing. A lot of people my age don't care so much about history anymore, even our own, and what we are teaching our children is probably highly suspect at this point. But taken in the context of the next civil rights struggle, it's certainly an interesting look at what people still feel about a cause that was lost nearly 150 years ago, and wonder what the next 150 years will bring.
Author: Tony Horwitz
Pub Date: 1998
Genre: Narrative History, Travelogue
Nutshell: A writer explores the still-present attitudes about the Civil War in the southern states
I have a weird relationship with the south, overall. I think lots of Kentuckians do, especially those of us raised to be upwardly mobile and more citified than our more rural cousins. I come from a long, long line of Kentucky stock--as near as I can tell, we were some of the first into the area back when it was still part of Virginia. But Kentucky is a strange place, and Louisville even stranger--we are perhaps the northernmost city of the south or the southernmost city of the north. We have southern customs and habits with Yankee politics, godless heathen liberals in a republican state (we used to be blue, before the Christian Coalition turned all the unionized democratic coal miners into people who voted their religion).
My family also, up until my parents' generation, were farmers. The oldest relative that I can absolutely prove served in any kind of war at all was my mother's grandfather, who trained to be a school teacher and became instead a career Marine who saw service with the Army in World War I. His two sons fought in Korea. And that is the beginning and end of my family's experience with the military, on either side.
So my views on the Civil War and my overall identification with the south as a region is conflicted. My family was certainly in Kentucky by the time of the war, but was never rich enough to own anybody--I doubt they completely owned themselves most of the time. And we are of the more traditional WASP-ish makeup, being thoroughly English and quite probably colonial on at least one side. And in history class, I always (and still) identify with the Yanks, because I could never wrap my head around slavery and from an early age I was always more of a Federalist in terms of governmental preference.
So this book was interesting for me, coming as it did from an author who has much of the same ambivalence as I do about the whole thing. Well, being a true Yankee he was slightly more interested in the Rebel cause than I ever was, living in the middle of it as I did. My middle school mascot was a rebel, and there was a large Confederate flag painted on the football bleachers from when it was a high school (with the same mascot). One year while I was still there they painted over it--a decision I was completely fine with but which incensed a lot of locals for many of the reasons that are documented in this book. I thought it was sheer lunacy to be that enamored with a history that was on the losing side of the moral and historical arguments. I'm still not a fan of the Confederacy and I still have a deep (probably deeper) suspicion of states' rights agitators, but I can at least now understand the underlying romance and mythos that draws people to the idea of supporting "The Cause."
Basically, the plot is this: Tony Horwitz stumbles into a circle of hardcore Civil War reenactors who are obsessed with getting the historical detail absolutely correct and are highly contemptuous of the kind of dilettantes who don't get their costumes right or insist on sleeping in hotels during reenactments. "The only thing left for these people is real ammunition and Civil War diseases," one person says during his travels. "I hope it doesn't come to that." Between reenactments, Tony travels around southern battlefields and other areas that seem to be obsessed with "The Cause," having a singularly depressing experience in Kentucky. He learns that some people still have very strong feelings about the war, and others barely remember what it was about. It's an interesting journey, filled with the sort of unique types you really only get down here. There is ugliness, but there's also acceptance and reconciliation. There's forgetfulness and remembrance, and you wonder which, if either, is the better option.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I wish he'd go back and do a re-tour--I imagine in the last nearly 20 years, attitudes are quite a bit different now than they were then. Of course, it might just be depressing. A lot of people my age don't care so much about history anymore, even our own, and what we are teaching our children is probably highly suspect at this point. But taken in the context of the next civil rights struggle, it's certainly an interesting look at what people still feel about a cause that was lost nearly 150 years ago, and wonder what the next 150 years will bring.
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