Deserter

I am in the middle of too many books.   There are so many that I am reading for my profession, but then there are so many that I am reading for entertainment. And soon it will be October and I rather enjoyed the past years wherein I would read a few horror-genre items.  So, of course, at the library last week I saw they had a copy of Deserter by Junji Ito and borrowed it. The obvious thing to do when the book stacks are avalanching – very much like a horror scene.

Deserter ( 脱走兵のいる家) is a collection of twelve short stories by Japanese creator Junji Ito. This edition is the English edition published by Viz Media in 2021.  I had been considering buying this so it is not exactly ridiculous that when I saw it at the library I left with it.  I still might purchase it – because I have really grown in appreciation for Junji Ito’s works.  I still have Remina that I own and that I need to read, but I will keep an eye out for Deserter on sale.

I do not love horror – a thing that I keep stating. It bothers me and I do not really enjoy it.  However, I do like challenging myself to read other genres and I really do like this artist’s art and storytelling.  If Junji Ito were to ever write a science fiction story, I can promise you that I would be all over that book!  I do know other readers who do not enjoy horror – and I think this is a good collection for readers who might be courageous enough to read some horror.  The contents being short stories help mitigate the overwhelming feel that might happen with reading a larger work in the horror genre. Smaller bites can help digestion.

I struggle with having an effective way to review manga.  So, I felt that for this collection, I would rate each story in four categories. But the ratings are purely what I would call “like/dislike,” in some cases this could be a rating of degree. So, I decided to rate the stories for:  interesting/entertaining story, gore-level, artwork-engagement, and horror-level.  Obviously, this is entirely subjective and relative and just embarrassingly without any uniform measuring stick besides my silly opinion.

Bio House – story 2, gore 5, art 4, horror 4
Face Thief – story 3, gore 3, art 3, horror 2
Where the Sandman Lives – story 4, gore 4, art 5, horror 3
The Devil’s Logic – story 1, gore 3, art 3, horror 2
The Long Hair in the Attic – story 3, gore 3, art 4, horror 3
Scripted Love – story 5, gore 3, art 5, horror 3
The Reanimator’s Sword – story 2, gore 4, art 3, horror 2
A Father’s Love – story 3, gore 3, art 3, horror 3
Unendurable Labyrinth – story 4, gore 3, art 4, horror 4
Village of the Siren – story 4, gore 5, art 3, horror 4
Bullied – story 2, gore 2, art 3, horror —
Deserter – story 4, gore 2, art 4, horror 4

I am not going to go in-depth with each story. I would prefer to point out the highlights or the key items that seem to be most important.  I will start with what I think are the lowest tier:  Bullied and The Devil’s Logic are the worst of the collection.  The former is too horrible (not necessarily horrific) for me to talk about; it was actually difficult for me to read through. I do not like it. The Devil’s Logic gets a low rating from me because I feel like it does not develop at all and while short stories in the horror genre can leave some work to the reader, this one just felt weak and rather flat. It was unconvincing and maybe felt unpolished.

The second tier stories would be Face Thief, Where the Sandman Lives, The Long Hair in the Attic, and The Reanimator’s Sword.  All four of these stories have a sort of classic horror story trope behind them.  I felt they all were takes on what would be familiar to most horror fans.  Though they may have hints of known story elements, that does not mean they were bad.  Face Thief is titled appropriately, let us say.  My favorite of the bunch was probably Where the Sandman Lives.  Where the Sandman Lives causes me a bit of grief because I cannot match the story with the title no matter what. I keep reading the title and have to sit for a minute and recall which story this was. I have to type quickly; chances are I will forget again. The story does not wow me, but I think the artwork in this story was amazing. I like when the stories allow Junji Ito to showcase the frames of hands, eyes, simple drawings that contain movement and panic or, what is best, the sudden realization a character might have.  The other stories are vaguely entertaining in their own way. I think the story itself in The Reanimator’s Sword kind of slips away from Junji Ito a bit and gets a bit messy.

A Father’s Love is a longer story than the rest.  It has a lot of emotion from all of the characters.  I do not know that I liked it, really, but I think it is well-done, regardless. It is an entirely average story across the board – meaning, I feel it hits all the checkpoints to be included in any consideration of horror. It is too emotion-driven/character-driven for my tastes, but it includes a lot of the more common horror elements. Headaches, suicides, sudden violence, chases at night…. The ending is unhappy, but expected. Maybe the story would have rated higher if it was shorter and trimmed a bit.  There is a hero, at the end, and it seems like the author tried to drum up a little reader sympathy. I am not sure any of this worked to a huge extent, but it did feel a little different than the other stories for it.

Bio House is hands down the goriest of the group. It is nasty and the artwork is utterly depictive of exactly how horrific things are.  There is not a lot by way of backstory, maybe a few extra frames would have helped this aspect.  I would have liked a little more introduction to the main character and her role in the backstory. I mean, readers can figure something out via context, but its maybe not enough when the gore and the pandemonium start escalating.  Its a bit outrageous to say, but the art is so good:  for example the slaves on their knees lapping up blood were drawn perfectly. The final frame of the story is structured perfectly as well – the main character exits, seemingly with all the poise in the world while one of the slaves looks off-screen.   The fact that this is the opening story in this collection is quite a guidepost for the reader – if they make it through this one, they should be forewarned that anything could be possible and Junji Ito is not pulling punches. And, honestly, since it is the most gory, it probably sets the bar a little high for the readers in that respect. The rest of the stories do not really come close to this one, I think.

Scripted Love, Unendurable Labyrinth, Village of the Siren, and Deserter are all top-tier stories and my favorites of the entire collection. I would say they are not to be missed.  These are the higher rated stories in the collection, I gave them four stars each. I liked how they seemed to have just the right amount of world-building and background.  Again, they do have some of the classical elements of horror. One story has mummies, one has flying demons, one has revenge and suicide.  My favorite, if pressed, is probably Unendurable Labyrinth, but if you know me it is not a surprise that that is the one I find most interesting and engaging.  Deserter is good, after all, it is the flagship of the collection.  However, the motivations of the characters seem pushed too far; if any of these are psychological horror, I would say this one is solidly in that category.  I say this, but people can be extreme and wild and unpredictable, so maybe that is just my own perspective on this.    I like that Deserter has a lot to consider and question and wonder about after the story (and the book) ends.  There is something to chew on here even after the story is over.

I got a big kick out of Scripted Love because I feel it is the only story in this collection that has a storyline with a real plot twist surprise.  Its clever and weird and satisfyingly creepy, if that is a thing.  Readers who like a little snark will enjoy this, I think. My favorite section is the last page – the violence is off-stage and you cannot see who is talking, but you know. Very nicely written story.

Overall, based on story rating alone, I think this collection averages out to a three star rating. However, I know that that is low. Simply put, I think the four top-tier stories alone make this collection worth reading and I rated all of those four+ stars.  At this point, I am very comfortable with Junji Ito’s art, meaning I can recognize it and I am noticing subtleties in it.  I am glad that I read this collection and I can recommend it to horror fans and readers who might like to read some horror, but maybe need an alternate delivery method. This manga works really well for the genre.

Brother Odd

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz is the third novel in the Odd Thomas series. I have read the first two novels in the series as well; I think there are seven in total.  The first novel was jarring and it was darker, in many aspects, than I liked. The second novel was really quite bizarre and wild. I feel like for this third novel, Koontz dialed-back the totally crazy and pared down the setting quite a bit. In a way, it is almost the opposite of the pandemonium in the second novel, Forever Odd.

I am not going to lie – I utterly enjoyed this novel. I want to give it five stars, but if I do, I am honestly “afraid” that people will think that I have gone soft  or that such a rating will discredit my ratings generally.  The thing is, I said I enjoyed this novel, not that this novel is a great work of high literary worth. I could be bashful and not give it the rating I want to give it, but that does not suit. So, if readers of this blog think that I have lost my mind because of it, well, so be it.

Some of the reasons why I think this is a five-star novel include the setting. I really enjoy suspense novels that have “locked down” settings. The characters being stranded, trapped, isolated always seems to make a tightly-wound thriller. Not every such story is guaranteed to be a success. Often it happens that such stories start becoming repetitive or treading water, so to speak. However, I like the resourcefulness and courage that it makes the characters have (or not have, as the case may be) to stuff them into one location. Sometimes being stranded becomes boring – authors get stranded right along side those characters.   They have to keep our interest with a lot more limited space.  As a reader, I tend to enjoy seeing what authors can do with tight settings.

After the previous two novels, I think that the more subtle and reduced approach with the storytelling in this novel worked well. I was apprehensive that since the second novel had been so off-the-rails, this third would have to be completely outrageous. So, it was really good that Koontz pulled his foot off of the gas. In this novel, Odd Thomas is at a monastery in Sierra California. St. Bartholomew’s Abbey also has a school of sorts, which is really a home for severely disabled and unwanted children. The school is run by nuns. Odd Thomas breaks open the story sharing that he has been a guest in their guesthouse for about seven months.

Straightaway, the reader’s suspicions are built among the cast of characters – and obviously, it is a sense of something-or-other because in this location, these people have an added curtain of morals to their existence. Yes, the story taking place in a monastery gave me a little pause at first – I admit I was expecting Koontz to make a mocking and a very, let us say, agenda-ized story.  Truthfully, I cannot say that he did not – but it is 180° from what I was worrying about.

There is more faith in this story than in 90% of the things I have read in the last decade. Yeah, color me surprised.

Oh, the novel is also 30% suspense and 70% sentimentality.

I am not one that usually enjoys any emotional content in my novels. Usually, the emotional content in novels is so poorly-written it makes me grumpy. Somehow, for whatever reasons, this novel did not make me grumpy. When I say emotional, in this novel that usually means misery and pain. There is so much misery and pain that the characters in this novel seem to have around them – but the terrible, terrible, awful terrible part is that I know all the other parts of the novel are fiction. The pain parts…. the miseries and sufferings of the characters? Those parts are not fiction.  Humans can be a rotten lot.  Oh, I do not mean the specifics, naturally. Do not act like you do not know what I am talking about.  Anyway, my heart was sort of broken for some of the miserable characters in the book – but no, not them. I was unhappy because I know these characters represent real world situations/people. That bothers me.

Chapter 45 is particularly gut-wrenching in all respects. All respects. Its a multi-faceted viewpoint wherein the scenes depicted just swirl the emotional content every which way. And this includes the reveal of the true status of a specific shady character – yeah, the Russian character, of course. Its a scene, where time is of the essence, but the characters have to communicate information and backstory. Imagine standing in a hallway with a nun, Odd Thomas, and a big Russian dude – and they are talking about the horrific backstory to a poor child in nearby room. This chapter is a very heavy chapter. Mainly, I think, the point is to have the reveal about the Russian character and also show the fortitude and backstory relevance of Odd Thomas himself. It actually accomplishes a lot more than that.

This novel is not really anything other than a superficial, kind-of entertaining pulp fiction. I mean, you likely would not include it in your permanent collection and I do not think it is going to set Koontz up for any prized awards. The villain is kind of obvious and the pseudo-science is incredibly ridiculous. Is it very creative and horrific? Yes, I would say so. The horror is suspenseful, just like the incredible blizzard that arrives, wouldntchaknowit, right on time for the climax of the action!

I am telling you – its an eye-rolling story. It is a story so full of silly and goofy and ridiculous. Like the poltergeist who rings the bells or the dog, Boo, there are so many things that all the seasoned and skeptical readers will just be utterly disgusted by. All these silly comments by Odd all the time combined with the villain cut from a James Bond movie just make all the cool kid readers scoff and snort derision.  The problem is:  this is a story that you have to look at obliquely. Its true all the saccharine elements will make most readers feel like they ate too much candy and the whole story is just so contrived! These are true criticisms and I agree – but the contents that we have to look at obliquely are upsetting. I think most readers will rather focus on knocking around all the sentimentality rather than writhing in sorrow over the elements that do not go away after you close the book cover.

I know that there are a whole pile of readers out there that will not like this book whatsoever. They probably dislike it for a few differing reasons, as well. This book is really not for everyone. The author told me a good story that had elements in it that I could access and that also I could be entertained by. I know I cannot recommend this book to nearly anyone. That is okay, because even though I lamented above that there is all this crime and evil – I’m going to continue right along with my crime/noir reading like nothing ever happened. I think. Maigret is on deck. He is never cheery.

4.7 stars (bring it.)

The Poor Musician

I mentioned recently that I am working in 19th C. German thought lately, and one of the peripheral items that I read was The Poor Musician by Franz Grillparzer (1791 – 1872).  This little novella is Der arme Spielmann and maybe I prefer the translation The Poor Minstrel better. It was first published in 1848.

Grillparzer is one of, if not the most, significant Austrian writers. I imagine arguments could be made in favor of Rilke and Zweig, but I think Grillparzer is far more influential and meaningful to that country’s literary identity. Grillparzer was familiar with Schiller, Shakespeare, and Mozart’s works. He also met and/or corresponded with Goethe and Josef Schreyvogel. I think Grillparzer is more known for his dramatic works like Spartacus, Sappho, The Golden Fleece, and King Ottokar, but I am not as comfortable reading plays, so I tend to avoid reading these works. Based on the titles, though, I can see that even here the Ancient Greeks held sway over central 19th C. Europe.

The fact that it was published in 1848, but honestly closer to 1847 than not, makes sense of that fact that it is not political like what I would expect was being published at that time. So, it just predates the German Revolutions of 1848-1849, which started in April of ’48. I am not being very clear. I just feel like its a stroke of luck here that this little novel was not lost among the upheavals. Grillparzer does seem to have that dark, foreboding one would expect of living in these times; i.e. being able to feel the unrest in Europe and taking a negative, almost aloof, posture.  I think he was rather ambivalent toward Metternich.

Anyway, the story itself is allegedly based on some events in the life of Ferdinand Kauer (1751 – 1831).  Kauer was a musician, composer, Kapellmeister working in Vienna.  The Danube flooded in March of 1830 and Kauer’s works were largely lost in the waters. Apparently, this flooding was frequent enough, to varying degrees, for it to be a major concern of the government, but as expected, bureaucracy thwarted any solutions to the flooding. I think that efforts to increase survivability were not actually in place until as late as the 1980s. However, these fixes are apparently superior feats of engineering and terraforming. Too bad for Kauer and all those Viennese who suffered in some way before these flood-fixes were installed.

The story is not about floods or revolutions, though! So enough talk about historical context, which I do not excel at, in any case. The unnamed narrator of the story discovers a street-musician while attending a kermis in Brigittenau in July. Honestly, I had to look up “kermis” and the Great Internet tells me it is a carnival/fair event.  The whole novella is maybe fifty pages (depending on your edition, naturally). This means, to me, that every page and paragraph have more weight and significance than in an epic tome.  There has to be less wastage overall and the story has to be worked as a tighter environment. If I was not a strong reader, I confess, I would not have gotten very far into this story because the opening is so irrelevant and dull, and written in such a strangely unnecessarily esoteric way.  I feel like Grillparzer wanted to contextualize and give a good societal-based setting, but I do not know that there is a need and I certainly do not think he succeeded. I really did not enjoy these pages. Why is this man telling me about a narrow bridge and hedges!

We meet the star of the story, an old, impoverished minstrel who is eccentric and odd and captures the curiosity of the narrator. The minstrel is interesting because his behavior is incongruous and he is utterly different than all the expected buskers at the kermis. The narrator gets the minstrel to agree to meet with him in the future so the two can sit down and chat. To a contemporary perspective, this feels odd as heck. This just does not play out in today’s world. No one is going to toss coins at a street busker and then expect that they will be invited over to their living space.

After some delay, the narrator remembers his idea to meet with this minstrel and he navigates the somewhat tangled country houses and locates the minstrel. Ever since we meet the minstrel, every impression the reader gets is that this character is somewhere on a scale between eccentric and crazy.  Nevertheless this pest of a narrator gets the old man to tell him his life’s story.  Over the course of an morning, then, the story-in-a-story is presented. I do not want to ruin the novella, so it is enough to say that the minstrel’s story is unfortunate and tragic.  He is very much a pathetic creature. It is a story with three main elements:  love, music, and finances.

The minstrel, through his own storytelling, is quite unlikeable. He is passive, weak, gullible, and very basic.  Maybe, in some way, he is a simpleton. He deserves a lot of the misery he has.  However, there is a thread about this character that might encourage the reader’s sympathy.  Maybe he is so salt-of-the-earth that society just is not for him, but where else can he exist? He does not seem to learn from his mistakes, nor does he seem to have an ounce of common sense. However, he has a basic goodness, I suppose. This is a frustrating character – a character that surely disgusts the complex and highly functional person.  His patheticness is constant and repellant. Yet, by the end of the novella, the reader feels a sort of ache for him because it is difficult to comprehend how such creatures have to exist.  It is challenging to meet a character who does not do anything wrong, per se, but also fails to do anything correctly!

The other main character of the story is Barbara.  Barbara is exceedingly well-written and she is a perfect representation of how others who know James the Minstrel might feel. Barbara is a mighty character with a very strong soul.  She does not capitulate, she does not veer off-course, and she definitely keeps her own counsel.  Barbara owns the end of the story, too, which is very hard-hitting and smacks the reader in the heart like a cudgel.

I really like this story because unlike so many stories, this one feels very realistic. I do not mean it does not contain dragons and trollocs and magical potions. I mean, this is the story of our lives. This is the reality of the human condition. There is one conceit, though. It might be that every character has at least one heroic deed in him. And maybe the truly awful never get to complete that deed. But this is my reading of the story – my bringing to the pages all of my experience and reading and ideas. The truth is, psychologically-speaking, James might act just exactly and consistently as his character and behavior have always suggested he would act. What might seem to the insensitive, disconnected outsider as being a “heroic act,” might just be, for James, a nearly-predestined obvious action.

I feel any of the comments and ideas that Grillparzer makes or alludes to regarding music are incoherent. It feels like he wants to say something significant or to make a strong assertion regarding music, but I cannot figure out what he is trying to tell me. At best I got some vague ideas that may or may not be supported by what the text actually says. It really seems like Grillparzer wants to make his minstrel have some unique insights or understanding regarding music, but its hazy and I cannot follow the thread very well at all. Any further wrangling with it on my part might just result in my forcing a build when there is nothing really to build with.

Now, the ending is hard-hitting, as I mentioned. I think one of the reasons is that it is very realistic/relatable and incredibly possible. It does not feel like fiction or even a snazzy trope. It just feels straightforward and realistic and it is a real gut-punch. By the ending I do mean the last two sentences – not just the overall wrap-up of the novella.  This is going to stick with me for a good long time.

Barbara is the truly interesting character of the novella, I think. Grillparzer has James narrating the story and it is all about James’ experiences, but Barbara is the heart of the story. I suspect this is trademark Grillparzer – finding a supporting character, usually female, who carries the entire story. Its quite a developed skill Grillparzer has here if the reader considers the actual architecture of this novella. That being said, I also think the opposite is true:  it is probably very easy to detest certain characters of Grillparzer’s due to their weakness and miseries. I do not even know that I would have cared much for Grillparzer himself – since it seems this passive aloofness is part of his own personhood.

4 stars

[Also, I haven’t yet figured out if “Mr. Dynamite” read this or not….]

Night Film

I just finished Night Film by Marisha Pessl. I received this novel in paperback for Christmas in 2014, and so I was really keen on getting it read by Christmas 2015. I totally succeeded….  Anyway, I read Pessl’s first novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and decided then that I would read whatever she wrote next. Granted, I read that novel in 2011 and it was originally released in 2006.  So, Night Film‘s release in 2013 was a hefty pause for any Pessl fans.

This novel, like her first, is a weighty thing. Nearly 600 pages, it suffers from the flaw of just dang not knowing when to end. In my review of her first work I wrote that she needed a more stringent editor.  I almost want to say the same thing for this novel. However, I think that a lot less could be edited out of this one. Say, only 100 pages or so. That is a bit of an improvement, then.

Also, Pessl’s use of the metaphor is reduced in this novel, thank heavens. In the first novel, everything was like something and then like something again and then every sentence was a metaphor and that was like….. well, you know. So, if it took seven years for Pessl to write and publish this, I think that she definitely improved. That, my fellow readers, is a very key point not to be overlooked or dismissed. I am usually slightly more lenient with a new author’s first novel. However, for their second, I demand improvement. Pessl meets the measuring stick.

I did not expect a good novel. I am not artsy-fartsy (please, no one get their feathers ruffled with that expression) enough to understand and appreciate film theory. No matter the quality of the first novel, I think Pessl demonstrated she is hardly a bonehead ready to join the ranks pumping out pulpy drivel. In other words, she is a smart one. I like smart people. Still, the topic of this novel was not something that I would read if it was not written by Pessl. I am really leery of film-novels. I really make the effort to avoid gory things, depraved things, suicide-stories, etc. And, well, let’s face it, Pessl was in the NY Times Bestseller’s List. Not a bonus for my preferences of vintage, obscure, and classic choices.  Pessl was starting in the red for me with this one, not her fault, but factually true.

Ultimately, this is a novel about investigative journalist Scott McGrath and his investigations into the suicide of Ashley Cordova, the daughter of very famous cult-filmmaker Stanislaus Cordova. That is the main thread, but just slightly below that line is the work Pessl does to blur, shake, and disrupt the line between reality/fantasy, real/fiction.  It is this subplot that makes the novel fit the category of noir as opposed to some John Grisham-like thriller.

But those are not the only two threads. There are several other lines running constantly throughout the whole novel. For example:  McGrath and Cordova’s lives have plenty of similarities. Also, there is a heap of film theory and understanding of film work here.  Pessl deserves an “A” for her effort here. She literally created a detailed and vibrant body of work for a fictional filmmaker.

Not only did Pessl create this detailed body of work for a fictional filmmaker, but she remains consistent with it – and, amazingly, builds it into a whole society:  actors and actresses, fans and film critics, etc. Serious “world-building.” This was no easy thing and I can appreciate the effort, though, again, film and I are not really cozy. (I’m about as appreciative of Michael Bay’s work as Alfred Hitchcock’s. I’m a bad person. LOL)

The main thing about Stanislaus Cordova is that he is aloof, mysterious, and his films are completely captivating and disturbing. They are known for having a long-lasting, life-changing effect on his audience.  One of the many characteristics of Cordova’s works is that he manages to constantly upend the viewers by truly twisting reality/fantasy around and seemingly constantly forcing his audiences to seek the “really real.”

Now, some may scoff at Pessl’s use of “background” media. But this is 2013 – and her inclusion of internet items and media makes this a contemporary force.  This is, perhaps, where novels will go futuristically. So, readers who consider these items as “gimmicks,” might want to think again. The novel begins with a series of these faux-news articles and online snippets. These give a nontraditional feel to the novel, as well as providing a lot of background for the reader – without another 250 pages of droll background history. This is an innovative and interesting method.

McGrath is a little aggravating after awhile. Pessl clearly sees this and buffers his narrative presence with two other characters; young folk who “join” his investigation into Ashely’s death.  These characters develop throughout the novel and are not just stagnant place-holders for McGrath to bounce off of. Like I said, Pessl is not a bad writer.

The novel had me up late into the night reading along. The middle chunk is definitely suspenseful and mysterious and creepy. Yes, it is sometimes a little bit scary.  I love that Pessl was able to develop this slow-building terror. She does not heavy-hand scare the reader, which I appreciate. I do not know exactly how she did it, but Pessl definitely steadily increases the suspense until the reader is swept along with McGrath down whatever rabbit trail he heads – with a pounding heart. Who would have thought film theory and a suicide investigation would be this gripping?

Still, there are a couple elements that Pessl does take too far. She probably does overwork them a little more than necessary, to be honest. And some readers, the very critical, will suggest that she went over-the-top with some of the Voodoo/fantasy elements. I am undecided; an argument could be made either way on this point. But be advised:  the settings and suspense do build into quite a dark and depraved possible picture.

This is a good novel. It is one of those, however, that readers will love to pick apart and sink their claws into. Well, and Pessl knows that they will. But for the majority of things published, this is a very developed novel with a lot going on in it. And, further, separately, each ingredient of the novel (setting, pacing, characters, etc.) can be praised. Maybe the overall is not five-stars, but at its base this is a solid bestselling novel. I would recommend it to people who enjoyed The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and also Pessl’s first novel.

A hundred pages less and this would be a five star novel, I think. Its not a storyline I love, but the pages kept turning and I must praise the effort. I guess I just hope her next novel is sooner than another seven years………

4 stars