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May. 21st, 2006 01:17 amDelayed, as usual, but here are my books for April...
The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman - Still on the modern Gothic kick. A good suspense thriller, but Goodman's endings tend to be a bit too tidy. One of the things I like about Goodman is that she seems to pick a subject she wants to research more about and then writes a novel around it. Her first book was Latin Classics, the second fairy tales, and this one is about Pre-Raphaelite style artists and stained glass making. This made the latter seem really interesting.
Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand -(reread)Dual storylines about muses (or one Muse, in particular) and the artists they inspire to the point of madness. More (actual) Pre-Raphaelite artists. Gorgeous, decadent prose.
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd - I feel strangely ambivalent about this one, although I'm not sure why. I really liked the movie version, which is fairly faithful to the book. Part of it is because of Moore's dense writing style, I think. Everything's so crammed with meaning, it's really the type of book meant for a close reading rather than a casual read for enjoyment. Like how V speaks in iambic pentameter, for example, I would never have known that if I hadn't read about it in Wiki. For some reason, this makes me feel kind of shallow for enjoying the movie more. Things go boom, me happy, arrr.
Lily Dale: the True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead by Christine Wicker - Hey, a nonfiction book for once. Lily Dale is a small town in a upstate New York that began (and continues) as a spiritualist commune. Spiritualism (mediums, seances, and so forth) was a pretty popular fad during the 19th century, and Lily Dale was a major center for the movement. Wicker, a religion journalist, travelled to the town to explore the beliefs of the people there. It's not really an investigative account. Wicker's not trying to debunk anybody or prove anyone a fraud. Actually, she seems to go out of her way to give the spiritualists the opportunity to prove life after death to her. Wicker is somewhat skeptical, but obviously more than willing to believe. It's an effective approach. The important thing about Lily Dale isn't about whether the paranormal experiences are real or not , but rather people's faith in it. Very interesting.
The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler - A teen drama (or a send up of one) by the guy who writes the Lemony Snicket books. To be expected, it's a morbid, blackly humourous book. The most exaggeratedly pretentious teenagers ever written get accused of a ghastly, Satanic cult murder. It's funny. There's a strange bit in there where they get crazy drunk off hallucinogenic absinthe and then later one of the characters tricks her lecherous bio teacher into an absinthe-induced coma. Shit like that never went down the one time I tried absinthe; maybe we just didn't get the good stuff. Okay, back to the book: the ending was lame, which was a disappointment since the rest of the book was nicely satirical.
The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman - Still on the modern Gothic kick. A good suspense thriller, but Goodman's endings tend to be a bit too tidy. One of the things I like about Goodman is that she seems to pick a subject she wants to research more about and then writes a novel around it. Her first book was Latin Classics, the second fairy tales, and this one is about Pre-Raphaelite style artists and stained glass making. This made the latter seem really interesting.
Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand -(reread)Dual storylines about muses (or one Muse, in particular) and the artists they inspire to the point of madness. More (actual) Pre-Raphaelite artists. Gorgeous, decadent prose.
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd - I feel strangely ambivalent about this one, although I'm not sure why. I really liked the movie version, which is fairly faithful to the book. Part of it is because of Moore's dense writing style, I think. Everything's so crammed with meaning, it's really the type of book meant for a close reading rather than a casual read for enjoyment. Like how V speaks in iambic pentameter, for example, I would never have known that if I hadn't read about it in Wiki. For some reason, this makes me feel kind of shallow for enjoying the movie more. Things go boom, me happy, arrr.
Lily Dale: the True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead by Christine Wicker - Hey, a nonfiction book for once. Lily Dale is a small town in a upstate New York that began (and continues) as a spiritualist commune. Spiritualism (mediums, seances, and so forth) was a pretty popular fad during the 19th century, and Lily Dale was a major center for the movement. Wicker, a religion journalist, travelled to the town to explore the beliefs of the people there. It's not really an investigative account. Wicker's not trying to debunk anybody or prove anyone a fraud. Actually, she seems to go out of her way to give the spiritualists the opportunity to prove life after death to her. Wicker is somewhat skeptical, but obviously more than willing to believe. It's an effective approach. The important thing about Lily Dale isn't about whether the paranormal experiences are real or not , but rather people's faith in it. Very interesting.
The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler - A teen drama (or a send up of one) by the guy who writes the Lemony Snicket books. To be expected, it's a morbid, blackly humourous book. The most exaggeratedly pretentious teenagers ever written get accused of a ghastly, Satanic cult murder. It's funny. There's a strange bit in there where they get crazy drunk off hallucinogenic absinthe and then later one of the characters tricks her lecherous bio teacher into an absinthe-induced coma. Shit like that never went down the one time I tried absinthe; maybe we just didn't get the good stuff. Okay, back to the book: the ending was lame, which was a disappointment since the rest of the book was nicely satirical.
