Books - January
I should get around to writing up the books that I finished in January before it's too far into February. Unfortunately, there aren't many of them.
Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
Secretly, this is only a quarter of a book - it was originally published as a gigantic single volume, then released in the US as a four-book series. It's presented as a modern translation / adaptation of writings on the life of Ash, a female mercenary captain in the late 15th century, whose brief career spans the fall of the duchy of Burgundy. The manuscript is being pitched by a modern historian to his prospective publisher, who is leafing through it at the same pace as the reader, and emails between them are interspersed with the historical action.
The first bit of the book covers Ash's youth, and then jumps to her as a young woman established as the commander of her own company. Her command staff is excellent as distinct individuals each bearing their own seeds of trouble, and I like watching them work together. Very few of her problems originate on the battlefield for most of the book: there's politics, dealing with employers, personal crises, and the perennial problem of convincing her men and women that they can eat better under her than on
their own.
I enjoyed Glen Cook's Black Company series, and Ash compares favorably. Ash starts in a recognizable Europe with low weirdshit, except a plausibly normal interlude with a lion and Ash's hearing the voice of a tactitian saint/demon/unknown entity in her head. When it notably diverges into a stranger world, first the moderns scramble for explanations, and later things go entirely pear-shaped for the medieval characters as well. We know from the beginning that things go badly for the moderns, as nearly all existing copies of the book are declared to be pulped. Though it looks obvious why now, I don't expect the obvious answer to be right three books later.
Also, I am glad that I didn't read the back-cover blurb on book 2 before having finished book 1. It is made of spoiler.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (English)
I enjoyed reading this book. Marquez has an easy, flowing style that makes it very easy to sink into the prose. Beyond that -- well, it's odd.
The book covers the lives of Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza, and Juvenal Urbino in a South American port city. Short version: Fermina Daza and Juvenal Urbino are married. Florentino Ariza has had a crush on Fermina Daza since forever. Hilarious backstory ensues.
I can't call it a romance novel, in the normal sense. There's very little dialogue, so most of the book consists of descriptions of discrete episodes like Fermina having her picture taken in antique costume, or continual events remarked on once or twice like Florentino's writing love letters for hire. The passage of time is problematic -- it goes on, people age, but it takes forever for Florentino to notice it. Mostly, it's about secret lives. Florentino, who is a disturbed kid, could tell his story of devotion and debauchery, but nobody else but the omniscient narrator knows a thing of it. Fermina Daza has her childhood romance, her family secrets, and the divide between her and Urbino's actual marriage and their public face.
I'm trying to think of why I liked this, because it wouldn't normally be my cup of tea. The definition of a romance novel, afaik, is that the main plot is there's these people and at least one of them loves the other, or would if they knew what was good for them, and I'm not interested in those. Maybe this is more an obsession and delusion and secrets and lies novel.
Books-with-pictures:
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vol. 5 by Eiji Otsuka (writer) and Housui Yamazaki (artist)
Ok. Basic premise: Five students at a Buddhist university realize that their job prospects after graduation are roughly nil. Luckily, they aren't your average students: one can talk with dead people, one can douse for corpses, one has esoteric Western knowledge (embalming), one may channel aliens through a hand puppet or may be an annoying guy with a hand puppet, and one who can organize the other four. So naturally, they start their own business finding dead people with unresolved issues and helping them out. Sometimes, they can actually find dead people who can pay them.
It's horror, and sounds kind of goofy. But it's well-written, and they haven't run out of interesting stories by book 5. There's often foul play (often bizarre), historical events, and ghost stories. There's a lot about the Japanese way of death, historical and modern, from treatment of elderly relatives to professional mourners to less common modern funeral practices.
Largely, it's episodic. There are ~five stories per volume that are mostly self-contained. However, they do accumulate a few allies who hand them jobs and occasionally help out, and a recurring enemy or two, and the medium's arc is getting progressively creepier. I'm also curious how taken aback I should be for a manga aimed at Japanese teenagers to sneak in unfavorable history, with characters surprised to learn about the rape of Nanking and Unit 731 from their elders. Anyway, it's a quick fun grisly read.
Scott Pilgrim, vol. 1-3 by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott's this guy. Scott's a slacker. He lives in Toronto with his gay roommate, who owns nearly everything in their apartment and pays the rent. He's in a band with kids he's known since high school. They aren't bad as they could be. He starts out dating a seventeen-year-old named Knives Chao, but quickly moves up to dating the mysterious American delivery girl who's been skating through his dreams. Literally. Or rather, he would be dating her, except he has to contend with her league of seven ex-boyfriends first.
And then the kung fu wire-fights in public buildings start.
Interspersed with all of this we have encounters with Scott's other ex-girlfriends, vegan recipes, and more of Toronto attempting to convince me it is some bizarre magical realist land, the way London has convinced me that it is full of aliens and explosions and burnt-out spies and dystopia and curry. I'm pretty sure about the curry. Toronto has a long way to go, and isn't helped by the fact that I've been there. Which tells me it's clean except for industrial haze and has sausage carts and transit strikes.
Where was I? Scott Pilgrim. The best part of the art is the little white-on-black fact boxes that appear every so often to inform you of characters' names, ages, vital statistics, or other amusing attributes. Particularly ones we see once at a party and probably never will again.
Also, there is no such place as Demonhead, and the Clash never played there. I know this now.
Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
Secretly, this is only a quarter of a book - it was originally published as a gigantic single volume, then released in the US as a four-book series. It's presented as a modern translation / adaptation of writings on the life of Ash, a female mercenary captain in the late 15th century, whose brief career spans the fall of the duchy of Burgundy. The manuscript is being pitched by a modern historian to his prospective publisher, who is leafing through it at the same pace as the reader, and emails between them are interspersed with the historical action.
The first bit of the book covers Ash's youth, and then jumps to her as a young woman established as the commander of her own company. Her command staff is excellent as distinct individuals each bearing their own seeds of trouble, and I like watching them work together. Very few of her problems originate on the battlefield for most of the book: there's politics, dealing with employers, personal crises, and the perennial problem of convincing her men and women that they can eat better under her than on
their own.
I enjoyed Glen Cook's Black Company series, and Ash compares favorably. Ash starts in a recognizable Europe with low weirdshit, except a plausibly normal interlude with a lion and Ash's hearing the voice of a tactitian saint/demon/unknown entity in her head. When it notably diverges into a stranger world, first the moderns scramble for explanations, and later things go entirely pear-shaped for the medieval characters as well. We know from the beginning that things go badly for the moderns, as nearly all existing copies of the book are declared to be pulped. Though it looks obvious why now, I don't expect the obvious answer to be right three books later.
Also, I am glad that I didn't read the back-cover blurb on book 2 before having finished book 1. It is made of spoiler.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (English)
I enjoyed reading this book. Marquez has an easy, flowing style that makes it very easy to sink into the prose. Beyond that -- well, it's odd.
The book covers the lives of Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza, and Juvenal Urbino in a South American port city. Short version: Fermina Daza and Juvenal Urbino are married. Florentino Ariza has had a crush on Fermina Daza since forever. Hilarious backstory ensues.
I can't call it a romance novel, in the normal sense. There's very little dialogue, so most of the book consists of descriptions of discrete episodes like Fermina having her picture taken in antique costume, or continual events remarked on once or twice like Florentino's writing love letters for hire. The passage of time is problematic -- it goes on, people age, but it takes forever for Florentino to notice it. Mostly, it's about secret lives. Florentino, who is a disturbed kid, could tell his story of devotion and debauchery, but nobody else but the omniscient narrator knows a thing of it. Fermina Daza has her childhood romance, her family secrets, and the divide between her and Urbino's actual marriage and their public face.
I'm trying to think of why I liked this, because it wouldn't normally be my cup of tea. The definition of a romance novel, afaik, is that the main plot is there's these people and at least one of them loves the other, or would if they knew what was good for them, and I'm not interested in those. Maybe this is more an obsession and delusion and secrets and lies novel.
Books-with-pictures:
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vol. 5 by Eiji Otsuka (writer) and Housui Yamazaki (artist)
Ok. Basic premise: Five students at a Buddhist university realize that their job prospects after graduation are roughly nil. Luckily, they aren't your average students: one can talk with dead people, one can douse for corpses, one has esoteric Western knowledge (embalming), one may channel aliens through a hand puppet or may be an annoying guy with a hand puppet, and one who can organize the other four. So naturally, they start their own business finding dead people with unresolved issues and helping them out. Sometimes, they can actually find dead people who can pay them.
It's horror, and sounds kind of goofy. But it's well-written, and they haven't run out of interesting stories by book 5. There's often foul play (often bizarre), historical events, and ghost stories. There's a lot about the Japanese way of death, historical and modern, from treatment of elderly relatives to professional mourners to less common modern funeral practices.
Largely, it's episodic. There are ~five stories per volume that are mostly self-contained. However, they do accumulate a few allies who hand them jobs and occasionally help out, and a recurring enemy or two, and the medium's arc is getting progressively creepier. I'm also curious how taken aback I should be for a manga aimed at Japanese teenagers to sneak in unfavorable history, with characters surprised to learn about the rape of Nanking and Unit 731 from their elders. Anyway, it's a quick fun grisly read.
Scott Pilgrim, vol. 1-3 by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott's this guy. Scott's a slacker. He lives in Toronto with his gay roommate, who owns nearly everything in their apartment and pays the rent. He's in a band with kids he's known since high school. They aren't bad as they could be. He starts out dating a seventeen-year-old named Knives Chao, but quickly moves up to dating the mysterious American delivery girl who's been skating through his dreams. Literally. Or rather, he would be dating her, except he has to contend with her league of seven ex-boyfriends first.
And then the kung fu wire-fights in public buildings start.
Interspersed with all of this we have encounters with Scott's other ex-girlfriends, vegan recipes, and more of Toronto attempting to convince me it is some bizarre magical realist land, the way London has convinced me that it is full of aliens and explosions and burnt-out spies and dystopia and curry. I'm pretty sure about the curry. Toronto has a long way to go, and isn't helped by the fact that I've been there. Which tells me it's clean except for industrial haze and has sausage carts and transit strikes.
Where was I? Scott Pilgrim. The best part of the art is the little white-on-black fact boxes that appear every so often to inform you of characters' names, ages, vital statistics, or other amusing attributes. Particularly ones we see once at a party and probably never will again.
Also, there is no such place as Demonhead, and the Clash never played there. I know this now.