“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded by a sleep”--Prospero, The Tempest
This is a terrific Reread completed 1/10/21
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded by a sleep”--Prospero, The Tempest
This is a terrific finish to an impressive epic series that has its place as among the great works without question of comics history, one of comics's contribution to literature and the literature of fantasy, story, and horror.
Gaiman says simply, "The ten volumes of The Sandman, of which this is the last, comprise a story of stories."
So if what happens in the ninth volume, The Kindly Ones is (spoiler alert) the death of Dream, and what happens in the tenth is a funeral and a wake, attended by the rest of The Endless family, and as wakes can be, is often moving.
There's also some happy surprises, given how predictable a volume would be named The Wake. We get a chapter on Hob, the guy who never dies, who learns of Dream's death, and learns it from Dream's sister, Death. Given the choice to join his old friend from several centuries, the (now) cynical drunken Hob chooses life, which is sort of a surprise. We get a Chinese tale in "Exiles" that brings us back in some ways to volume one, in a desert, and maybe most importantly, we get to see that in some sense Dream never dies, as he/it becomes reconstituted for future generations with perhaps a more human face.
To complete the whole thing we get "The Tempest," which is also the second play Dream contracted to be made by Will Shakespeare, a work of play and imagination and story and color, Shakespeare's last play. That the whole epic ends with Shakespeare makes it clear he intends this to be a tribute to him and to creativity and fantasies like The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream and calling to attention his own Dream-like contributions to that specific fantasy tradition. Some people doubt a working class actor like Shakespeare could have written these plays; he couldn't have been that sophisticated! What Faustian deal did he make with the Devil. . . or with Dream? (Some people feel the same thing about Gaiman, that a kid who grew up in relatively modest surroundings could have written this epic tale! How?!)
Gaiman's own stamp on this tradition is both a traditional one and a postmodern one, in the very variety of the tales and ways of telling, and artistic depictions, a celebration of variety, and also how he includes one of his personal hobbyhorses, horror, as part of the fantasy story mix. He tacks back and forth between High Fantasy, the world of the Endless, the World of Imagination and Ideas, with its epic canonical language, across western and eastern traditions, and the everyday lives of people who need stories and dreams to more than survive, but to thrive. You may not like all of this, but you have to admire Gaiman's ambition, his reach, and the amazing team of artists he assembles to help him envision for us his tales. I love the art from Michale Zulli and Charles Vess in this one, even better than the art of The Kindly Ones.
Death asks Shakespeare, of The Tempest, "So tell me, do you see yourself reflected in your tale?” And Shakespeare responds, "I would be a fool to deny it." By implication, one can see Gaiman's own life and struggles and screw-ups and triumphs in The Sandman.
Shakespeare asks what might have happened if he had not been given the extraordinary power to Dream that Lord Shaper/Morpheus/Dream gives him to become the greatest playwright of all time, and Dream says he might have been a teacher, and gone back after some modest success in London to live a more quiet life with his family in Stratford. Then Will asks Dream if, in the bargain for literary greatness, was it worth it to lose his family as he did for much of his life?
“And Hamnet, my boy, might he have lived?" But Will takes back the question; finally, it's not knowable, and Will finds it too painful to know, finally.
So, executive summary: You want to know what the basic theme of The Sandman is, the moral, over all? That Life is Change, but some things remain that you can count on. (!?!) Do you need ten volumes to learn that?! I say yes, you do! Great works often have simple central themes. Anyway, I finally did it, read it all, and loved it! A masterpiece, for sure!...more
I like this deadpan team, I like the simple,understated, funny story, and I like Jon Klaasen's art. It's not as edgy as other Klaasen stuff, but it isI like this deadpan team, I like the simple,understated, funny story, and I like Jon Klaasen's art. It's not as edgy as other Klaasen stuff, but it is still really good and fun and the little things involving the dog, and cat, are the really great things to look for in it. GR nominated for best of year, 2014. Deserving....more
This is a collection of most of DeForge's Lose comics. These are decidedly alternative comics, weird, sometimes puzzling, as one would expect from altThis is a collection of most of DeForge's Lose comics. These are decidedly alternative comics, weird, sometimes puzzling, as one would expect from alt-comics, but they are rarely disturbing. There's real warmth and humor that run through most of these short stories. I had read one of these volumes before, and I liked his work in it but hadn't completely figured out what I thought of the guy. That's sort of the nature of alt-comics, I think. You have to see if you can "get" the work on some level, and sometimes it takes time. Alt comics {and/or art comics} create a completely different world, sometimes surreal. Odd. Much of this is coming of age and always surprising, and I guess I would say usually surreal.
In this beautifully done collection, you get to see patterns, though as he says himself, they are individual volumes that don't really connect with each other in any obvious ways. I found myself increasingly liking this work, and am now completely a fan. Great stuff in the tradition of Jim Woodring, Crumb, so many doing alternative and art comics, but he is really interesting.
Read first in November 2014 and again in April 2015....more
Of the children's picture books nominated for the Goodreads awards this year, this is my favorite so far. It's a wordless book simply illustrated, witOf the children's picture books nominated for the Goodreads awards this year, this is my favorite so far. It's a wordless book simply illustrated, with heart. The drawing is obviously hand drawn and doesn't have the wit and sophistication of some of the others, but this one has the most heart. It has some Chaplin and Gift of the Magi sweetness in it, for sure, and similar moves. A girl wants a bicycle. How will she get it? Sweet, even a little moving. I liked it very much....more
Journey, part II. Wordless kid book, illustrated beautifully, not that much of an advance over Journey, but I loved that book, so was eager to get intJourney, part II. Wordless kid book, illustrated beautifully, not that much of an advance over Journey, but I loved that book, so was eager to get into the world again with Becker. What world? A world of sort of medieval, anything goes fantasy, with beauty, wonder, creativity… fostering creativity in kids as the two main kid characters problem-solve themselves out of scrapes with (ala Harold and the Purple Crayon) special colored crayons. Cool stuff, gorgeously done. You have kids? Gotta look at these two books, for sure....more
7/21/17 Reread for my summer YA Graphic Novels class with a focus on girls and women, a memoir for tomboys of all ages (and those that make fun of the7/21/17 Reread for my summer YA Graphic Novels class with a focus on girls and women, a memoir for tomboys of all ages (and those that make fun of them, too, I guess). I liked it even more this time around.
10/17/14 Liz Prince writes this memoir from her younger self's point of view, with her Jeffery Brownish artwork to match, which I like so much. I'm here to tell ya that this book is really good, and useful in the world to all those who have issues with their bodies, their gender identities, who maybe don't feel entirely comfortable being the gender they were born into, or a range of related issues covered by this concept of "Tomboy".
So this book is both funny (self-deprecating) and painful (re: all the bullying) and through it, we get to like and understand Liz in all her honesty as we see her struggles as important and something lots of people probably go through. She draws in such a way to simply and quietly "draw" us in to the story. The point is that the style makes her and her story more relatable, and though this book seems to be mainly addressed to girls, women who went through similar journeys also will appreciate it. Great discussion starter. It's in part about finding the right clothes for you. . . and crushes and being mistaken for the opposite gender just because of the way you look. . . and sometimes taking that for a compliment.
This is a book that is making a difference in the lives of a lot of girls. My sister was a tomboy, and so was my wife, my neighbor, and so on. This story can help those who are not tomboys understand the way tomboys might feel....more
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Great War, the "war to end all wars," ha. And who of us knows much about it? Jane Addams, once the most famoThis year is the 100th anniversary of the Great War, the "war to end all wars," ha. And who of us knows much about it? Jane Addams, once the most famous woman in America, was vilified for taking a position that the war could have been avoided, of course she was right, and she was later hollowly vindicated, in a way, by being award the Nobel Peace Prize. If you are a student of literature, maybe especially British literature, you are aware of the trench poets of that war, those who wrote poems literally out of the trenches. Who are may favorites in this collection? What I think are the "usual suspects," Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon, but there are others that are terrific: Rupert Brooke, Thomas Hardy, Kipling, Edith Sitwell. I was lukewarm about this collection at first, thinking that collections are almost always uneven, and seeing some of the creaky, stuffy turn of that century language of some of the early poems in the collection. And then I thought that some of the early art revealed a little disconnect with the poems. I thought: we are a 100 years from this war, and some young artists seem to be an odd fit with the poems and the formal language for the horrors of that war. How do we bridge that gap?
But it was the art that time and again won me over, wedded thoughtfully and creatively with the words and horror. Some of my favorite artists shape this, editor Chris Duffy's, collection: Luke Pearson, Kevin Huizenga, Eddie Campbell, Peter Kuper, Isabel Greenberg, George Pratt, Lilli Carre, Danica Novgorodoff, Anders Nilsen. And the artists, finally, do not disappoint. In case you doubt this, based on the evidence of the art/poem collaborations themselves, look to the notes where the artists briefly discuss the process they went through with their work, all of them reading and re-reading the poems, doing research on the poets and the war and the poems. I hesitate to mention my faves, because as the momentum of the book gained steam for me, I had a long list including but not limited to Campbell's adaptation of excerpts from The Great Push (not a poem!) but Patrick MacGill, Nilsen's rendering of Hardy's "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'", Lloyd's tribute to Sassoon's "Repression of War Experience (which seems also a tribute to Will Eisner's artistic vision), The End by Owen and Novgodoroff, Greenberg's adaptation of Sassoon's lovely "Everyone Sang" and Carre's equally heartbreaking "The Dancers" which includes the line that titles the collection
And some of this art work is an homage to the time, capturing what might have been comics styles of the time, and some helps us bridge the gap to wars of today, and wars almost inevitably to come. I went from an unfair "meh" to "moving," at last, profoundly touched and saddened by these visceral accounts in poetry and art. And fell in love with some of my have WWI poets again, and found some new ones I appreciated.
Eddie Campbell says, self-deprecatingly: ""it's a bit preposterous us thinking we can illustrate the stuff that we know nothing of--sitting here in our air-conditioned rooms trying to imagine the horror of being knee deep in mud with your feet rotting off," and I wasn't there either, nor ever served in the military, but it's important for them and for all of us to imagine the horrors of war before we so easily commit to yet another and another again and again. That's the value of art, and imagination, and being human. I think they pull it off beautifully so we can use this in our own necessary anti-war efforts....more
I am only vaguely familiar with the poetry and poetry-championing of Edward Hirsch. I've read some of his poetry in little magazines and anthologies, I am only vaguely familiar with the poetry and poetry-championing of Edward Hirsch. I've read some of his poetry in little magazines and anthologies, none of which I can recall at this moment. But this poem I will remember. It's an elegy, a eulogy, a keening rage of a poem about the death of his 22 year old son Gabriel, told in tercets, ten per page, 78 pages, which I began reading, aware of the subject, and then completed in one sitting. Then I read it again, a bit more slowly.
The tercets seesaw as they go, unbalanced, as is Gabriel, with several disabilities, including Tourette's Syndrome, ADHD, and what all else, also unbalancing most people he encounters. As is Hirsch, unbalanced by Gabriel's life, unbalanced by his loss. Most people failed to reach him, help him and he didn't seem to reach out to people very well, either. He was too complicated, too loud, too annoying, too crazy.
But Hirsch was Gabriel's father and he stuck with him through it all, the flow of consultants, the failed schools, the crash after burn after crash. Hirsch loved his son the way most parents love their kids, for all his faults, and grieves him for what he was and was not in this poem. One of the most powerful dimensions of this text is Hirsch citing other poets and writers who lost their children and revealing how they dealt or failed to deal with those losses. A lover of poetry, Hirsch knows the poetry of death, so he cites it in his own work that joins with the others. He knows what poetry can and cannot do as testimony to pain. His is an inquiry into the poetry of death and at once a kind of celebration of the balm it can offer.
The long, book-length poem hardly feels like a poem at all in its first third; it's prosaic, a memoir, helping us meet and understand his son in all his outrageousness. He's talking with us. And he doesn't try to prettify this boy. No one could deal with him with much success, including Hirsch and Gabriel's mother; no therapist, psychiatrist, teacher, though some had a little success along the way. Almost no one, Hirsch makes clear, could see their way into Gabriel's essential sweetness.
Being with Hirsch at the funeral is like all funerals for children, too raw, a kaddish for something cosmically unacceptable, as it would be for any of us, and Hirsch rails in the accumulating pages against a God he doesn't believe exists. Those children dead in that school at Sandy Hook, or everywhere, every day now? In each household, this rage and despair. Hirsch is a poet and speaks as (once) poet laureate of his and perhaps others's hearts.
This is Hirsch's story, about his son. But if you, like me, had two sons with serious disabilities, one at eighteen with severe autism, the other at fifteen with "psychotic episodes," you would know that a poem like this can only be read through your own life. I fear for their futures. To some extent, I already grieve for what it is they have lost or never had. When I am gone, what will happen to them? Who will care to care for them? Will the street ever be their home, as it very nearly could have been had Hirsch not been there for his kid?
Yet Hirsch also comforts me in what he shares, in certain places. The last third of his poem is rhapsodic, wildly imagistic in the way the first third was not. He shows us the power of poetry, and language, to attempt to reach the meaning of a child's death. To bring Gabriel to life through words! But though poetry may be the closest language to grief, it also falls short, and has its power in part because it falls short, gets at the unspeakable in the world, as Hirsch makes clear. In the end, and forever, Hirsch seems to say, the loss of a child is mainly a howling abyss of loss, and you take what comfort you can, if any, from memory and the power that the memory of love and language can bring. But even that's achingly painful, of course....more
This follows Marble Season, which focused on the pre-teen growing up period, and it seems sort of exuberant: it's about youth! Bumperhead focuses on aThis follows Marble Season, which focused on the pre-teen growing up period, and it seems sort of exuberant: it's about youth! Bumperhead focuses on a teen growing up in the seventies, a kind of slacker, into punk, pretty cynical, but (to me) real, but likable. That's key, seems to me, if you are gonna like this; can you relate to or understand the kid? I was pre-punk, and never really that disaffected or that same kind of angry (though I was politically active and angry about Vietnam and civil rights and education during this time, true), but I like this kid and am interested in his world. Maybe in part because I HAVE a kind of special needs, disaffected kid, maybe because I have always gravitated as a teacher to such kids. Also, I am a Beto fan; I read everything he does and mostly like it all.
I saw, at a glance that one reviewer said, "this is literally the worst book I have ever read," and I laughed aloud. What I was thinking was that this visceral reaction (which I loved, as a reaction, though I clearly disagree with it) may be a response to just being annoyed with this slacker punk kid and his family and friends and array of girlfriends and drugs and alcohol and the whole boy stoner culture. . . I dunno. I get it. And this kid doesn't care what you think of him. Screw you! He doesn't need you as a friend!
For me, this comic captures a period and an attitude and to my mind looks back on it with a kind of affection. I mean, we don'e know why he is angry; it's not political, it's not particularly focused, all this grumpy teen angst. But Bumperhead captures some of the anger and alienation and the checking out of society of some young people, and Hernandez looks back on it with bemusement and love. I liked this a lot. Pretty memorable for me. ...more
The sixth of seven volumes of what is for me a favorite series from Ed Brubaker and illustrator Sean Phillips. Another free-standing volume that is loThe sixth of seven volumes of what is for me a favorite series from Ed Brubaker and illustrator Sean Phillips. Another free-standing volume that is loosely linked to the other volumes, with mentions of characters and images that appear in the other volumes. One theme I like is that there is this meta-level tribute to crime comics in the series. The criminals read crime comics! And later on, when it is appropriate to have them do so, a horror comic. And, in this one, the artwork from time to time turns the tale into an Archie and Veronica comic. Riverdale noir!
In this story Riley Richards, who married the town witch, the Betty, the most popular and hated and richest girl in school, Felix, whose father-in-law hates him and hires him, is unhappy. His Dad dies, and he sees his Veronica, Lizzie Gordon, whiom we all KNOW he shoulda married. Riley on some level doesn’t even care that Felix is sleeping with jerk Teddy, he's so out of it. At the time of the funeral he gets together with Lizzie and Freakout, his best bud from high school, and they have SO much fun, but too much fun, so that on-the-wagon Freakout is now off it, heading quickly back through booze to smack. Some friend, Riley. And then Riley, in the process of seeing Lizzie and thinking of the simpler, Riverdale-ish past, and in spite of the fact that he seemingly has everything, suddenly realizes: He has to do something to change his life. Something big.
And then things turn really dark in Riverdale, the end of the innocence.
So: What was once the last volume is now the penultimate volume, though I kind of have the feeling they could continue to add more stories. What links all the volumes is a sense of corrupted innocence, or maybe it was never really deeply innocence, maybe it was naïvete, or youthful vulnerability, or stupid decision-making, but nevertheless the young people of Criminal such as Riley or Tracy Lawless slidie into darkness.
Okay, okay, I decided: The very title of this volume is a lie. NO ONE is innocent in this Calvinist noir world. Ever. Never. So even the author is a liar about the liars. But delightfully so.
This is another great volume of this noir/pulp/potboiler series. Really good page turner, linked thematically to create a sense of a dark world. I like the way Brubaker makes it personal here, too, reflecting on his own life in a way after his own father had died, a kind of twisted tribute, I guess, but one his comic-book-loving Daddy would have appreciated, I bet....more
SO good! I am a little older than Mimi and lived through the seventies that turned from hippie to punk, but this is a great story, mostly autobiographSO good! I am a little older than Mimi and lived through the seventies that turned from hippie to punk, but this is a great story, mostly autobiographical, I understand, the tale of an art school dropout become waitress in a west coast restaurant. If you have worked in an interesting restaurant, if you have lived with/worked with wild and fun and witty friends, if you lived in those times, any of that, I think this will work for you. Sex, drugs, funny anecdotes, with warmth.
Nothing much happens in this tale; that's not the point. The point is the re-creation of a world and a time with great heartwarming love and hilarity, and she does it. It's really simple but compelling visually. The visual style and color and lines match the story very well. One of my faves of the year, no question. A must read; maybe especially for people of a certain age, but you know, I can't think of any friend who wouldn't enjoy this! Great stuff!...more
I really liked this a lot. I'm not even sure at this point how much is true and how much fiction. Doesn't matter. But this is a pretty self-deprecatinI really liked this a lot. I'm not even sure at this point how much is true and how much fiction. Doesn't matter. But this is a pretty self-deprecating little story about Pascal's meeting and getting involved with a girl who is a book thief, when he is particularly vulnerable, going through a break up. He actually sees her stealing books from a bookstore he wants to support. And it's not a huge deal (this "petty"), she slips a book in her bag before check out. He knows like him no one has a lot of money. Then, looking at her, he is attracted to her, maybe finds her similarly vulnerable.
Why is this interesting? I don't know, it just works, because it feel so honest and funny. Pascal always apologizes for his feelings and actions, he mystifies his friends by not doing art when he is so good at it, and for doing dangerous sheet metal work when he is physically or psychically ill-equipped and injuring himself all the time.
Petty Theft is very sweet and funny and at the same time sort of pathetic and sad that he likes this kleptomaniac. But he has his own issues, of course. Feels real, nobody's perfect. I don't know, it just works!...more
If you haven't read this last volume, don't read this review. Finished all ten volumes (only one of them reread), in like two weeks, and I think my ovIf you haven't read this last volume, don't read this review. Finished all ten volumes (only one of them reread), in like two weeks, and I think my overall average and maybe my view of the whole series is something like a 4, though these last two volumes were terrific, and the ending, well, I agree with most reviewers whose reviews of this volume I read or skimmed, and think this was a surprising ending, even disturbing, but not implausible. He tells us what he thinks about typical happy comic book endings, and we have sort of been used to darker finishes and unhappy endings since the mid eighties (Watchmen, Dark Knight, etc), and we have seen evidence of 100's political ambitions. I get why some readers were in a rage, and thinking it was inconsistent with the character of ALL of the major characters in the end, but I was not surprised or disappointed in the turns it takes…. Great story, well told, beautifully drawn, a great team effort. I may feel not quite as satisfying as Y: The Last Man, but it still showcases an amazing talent (or talents, to be fair). He knows how to write, this Vaughn, for sure. On a par with Joss Whedon....more
My favorite, I think, of the nine so far. I liked a lot of this one, and maybe especially (spoiler alert!) the "meta" idea of Mayor Hundred hiring BriMy favorite, I think, of the nine so far. I liked a lot of this one, and maybe especially (spoiler alert!) the "meta" idea of Mayor Hundred hiring Brian Vaughn and Tony Harris to do his biography…. the comics refs throughout the series are fun, as the Mayor is a comics nerd…. But this second to last book is terrific and helps to set up the epic finish......more
Alessandro Sanna is the award-winning painter and illustrator of more than 40 books, and this is the first one produced in English. There's only four Alessandro Sanna is the award-winning painter and illustrator of more than 40 books, and this is the first one produced in English. There's only four poems, one for each season, and is otherwise wordless, with many watercolor paintings for each season. Gorgeous paintings, lovingly reproduced. It's not really a children's book, it's really an "all ages" book, but gets put in the children's section because it's a picture book.
Sanna's watercolors depict the area where he lives near the Po River in the lowlands of northeastern Italy. As he says in his afterword, "I paint like a blind man, not wasting time with details but rather searching for the living impulse. To paint the river I had to become the river."
And: "I have devoted years to this journey, cultivating shreds of what I have seen, searching endlessly through time for buried marvels and artifacts. Four seasons and four delicate stories run slowly along the banks of the river. This is my vision of life on the Po."
Gorgeous, affecting book. The threads of the stories of which he speaks may not be that obvious to younger readers, but as he says, it's about the living impulse of what we see....more
Lovely 18 page chapbook I have had for twenty years that I just reread earl this morning. Everyone should own multiple spare chapbooks lovingly printeLovely 18 page chapbook I have had for twenty years that I just reread earl this morning. Everyone should own multiple spare chapbooks lovingly printed on beautiful paper with such wonderful poems....more
This book feels personal to me in a few ways. Full disclosure: I bought it from the author, a new friend. He’s also a colleague at UIC in the English This book feels personal to me in a few ways. Full disclosure: I bought it from the author, a new friend. He’s also a colleague at UIC in the English department, where I teach. But more than that sort of personal connection, this feels like it depicts a life I am pretty familiar with, say, mine, at some point in my life, not know, hell no, everything is fine! (Seriously, when I was like 26-34…). The novel, which appears to be fleshed out separate stories that evolved into a longer piece, focuses on a guy, Philip Palliard, in crisis, though if you trust him (and I had been led to), nope, no crisis at all, everything is fine, just a slow spot, I love my wife and like being a stay at home Daddy. He’s also, we learn, a playwright but he hasn’t written anything in a long time. But I like the guy, he’s not a jerk, he wants to hang with his friend, Adam, who as a kind of foil is what Philip describes as an asshole, but his “favorite” asshole. Everything’s okay with Phil, everything’s fine, he’s not critical of anything or anyone. Forget it, let’s have a beer or two.. but not TOO many, don’t get crazy, now!
Some reviews at a glance should trouble the author, as they claim they disliked the narrator, Phil, from the first, and were always on to him as ALSO (besides Adam) an asshole, one with him. But I didn’t feel that way, maybe because of that uncomfortable familiarity, we’re both nice guy liberal dudes, not aggressive or testosteroney; I’d have a beer with him anytime, while his wife is finishing a PhD in epidemiological nutrition, doing a research project about weight gain among disabled vets (duh, but we still like her). He has a baby he seems sort of affectionate and ambivalent about. He’s lost but doesn’t know it, and his affable and humorous ways of meeting the world barely mask that lostness. But over time you begin to see that we are to see him somewhat gently, somewhat humorously, as a kind of Caspar Milquetoast. He’s unable to commit, to take a stand, about anything. When Phil sits in for his wife doing shifts with the disabled guys, interviewing them for her study (which an IRB probably wouldn’t allow, actually, but okay), we see their physical paralysis mirrors his psychic one, though they are more optimistic about the future than he is. They are going for it. He is stuck. He’s lukewarm and he knows it, but.. he just can’t snap out of this paralysis. When he sort of has a sort of affair for a minute with Melanie, he only half heartedly has sex, he’s distracted by his baby in the room, he knows it is wrong for him and his wife, but he can neither stop nor go forward. No passion, no commitment, flat, flaccid, either way.
When Adam also had the dopplegangerish affair with Maribel-“the machine,” Adam calls her, meaning this admiringly, she is passionate--Philip notes that in listening to them have sex through the vent in the apartment across the hall (which is a key image in this book, the listener, the watcher, good ol’ Philly), he thinks of Adam as sort of machine-like, going through the motions, and Maribel as a kind of wild animal. Both Adam and Phil lose two great women they were in love with but this sort of passive philandering, but the women they were married to also were in love with them, and they both seem to be complacent about it, not fighting to get their women back. Oh, well. No worries. Everything will be fine, have a beer.
Phil, at his wife Shelley’s urging, tries to write a little bit about his having gotten $500 bucks and Adam’s car stolen from him, a kind of big deal, right? but he can’t pull it off, he doesn’t really have the reflective capacity at this point in his life and again, he knows it, but he can’t do anything about it. The writing sucks and… so does he. He screws something up in his wife’s research project, too. You get the increasing feeling that this guy who you kinda have liked (okay, maybe it’s just me!) (but this is not MY therapy session folks!) he’s just a kind of fuck up., just like Adam, an asshole. And almost EVERYONE in the story is more active and passionate than Phil and Adam, everyone he meets! So why are we still listening to this story!!?? But remember, Philip is narrating this tale… and is more sadsack than evil, I think, so…
There’s other motifs beside paralysis that enrich this story: his sister reminds him of The Beast that sometimes takes over in their lives. The notion of magnetism figures in as a corollary to this Beast-ness, getting drawn into Beastly behavior and lostness. Beth calls him “mister half way” and this is another way of looking at his actions throughout the novel, of allowing The Beast to keep him from acting. Though there is a turning point, where he can turn it all around; will he go to Alaska, or wherever, with Adam, into a future without commitments, on The Road, or maybe like the two guys on another kind of road, In Cold Blood? Dream versus reality figures in. He has startling, revelatory dreams at times, but does Phil “face reality” like his friend Victor, or like all the disabled guys, with the help of his dreams? Can he try to get Shelly and the baby (he calls the baby “The Monarch” which at first seems cute, but then we see that Phil thinks of him as ruling his life rather than being his son, a part of a loving family). The question of being “marked” by what you do, for good or ill, is at the heart of this tale. You get to choose, you are not just a victim of circumstances. Or are you? Maybe you can forget everything in the past and NOT be marked; “here’s to forgetting,” Victor toasts him, though this is not what Victor himself does or believes. War (the one the vets came back from) is important here, too; Philip is at war with himself and losing the fight. War marks you, and the disabled guys are clearly physically marked by it, but will Phillip’s war permanently scar him?
The play Phillip had produced shows us he was almost always mostly a player, playing at trying to be “edgy” and provocative and hip, but he really fails at this; he’s mainly been a watcher of the dangerous urban scene, the vet across the street and his Mom, or listening to Adam and Maribel, he’s not a doer.. or could he be, finally? What I’m missing in this review is a tone that for me marks this tale and its telling as special, the dark and whimsical humor Shearer brings to this tale; he does care about Philip, but he also sees that there is something pretty darkly funny in all that happens to him. Underneath that madcap absurdity, though, are Five Hundred Sirens, seriously screaming to him to change his life, get Shelly and the kid back! Will he? Does he have three stones to do it? Is there anything in what we have seen to make us believe he can? You gotta read it to find out. I would, if I were you, this book has and will stay with me. And maybe warns me to get it together when I am getting (again) too passive, being a fuckup, forgetting what is important and true. ...more
I think this is a fine conclusion to this three volume work, beginning with X'Ed out, continuing with The Hive, and ending here with The Skull. It's aI think this is a fine conclusion to this three volume work, beginning with X'Ed out, continuing with The Hive, and ending here with The Skull. It's a terrific and carefully done story, the specifics of which I won't reveal as they would give away too much. I initially gave the first volume, X'ed Out, three stars, as I found it seemingly deliberately confusing and disturbing, but I came to see how it all worked to tell a pretty coherent, if bizarre, tale of a pretty ordinary loser named Doug. There's the tone of an almost confessional element of the story, too, in spite of all the sci-fi aliens.
I think, too, this trilogy is in some ways formally a tribute to William Burroughs and the kind of storytelling surrealism Burroughs did. Burns shows us a single, clearly and (maybe) lovingly rendered portrait of William Burroughs in this volume as a clue to the considered madness of his method. What's the feeling of it? Dream, but often nightmare, that really infuses his work, or seems to. A resolution to Doug's relationship with Sarah takes place, we get to learn what all the recurring fetus/egg images may mean (or not). Time expands, we move into the future, other men, other women, work their ways into the narrative.
Much is still unexplained, in my opinion, which would be consistent with Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch, Junkie, The Soft Machine, Queer, The Book of Dreams. Burroughs creates a heroin- and dream-infused series of stories, which is often a wild beat commentary on the American scene and presumptions we have about the nature of "reality" and romantic expectations about relationships. Burns cares about that stuff here, too. Burns also has corporate types depicted in this story that are worthy of Burroughs skewering authority, but the feel of this is not so much political or social, an indictment of the American Dream, but personal, a sad reflection on Doug's life, I think. Much of Burroughs's work is known to be semi-autobiographical; is this? I have no idea, but I am curious. What matters is that the story works on the human level, and is both sort of alienating and humane at the same time.
So, he's (maybe) not just screwing with our heads, fellow readers (including me) who may have wanted to give up after the first book! This is a bizarre tale, but there also may be a fairly straightforward core to the story, wrapped in layers of fear and wonder and purple haze. I am coming to better understand horror as a genre. This is, as others have noted, work that is both horror and also somewhat surprisingly influenced by the deep warmth and charm of TinTin, seemingly simple kid comic stories (that seem less simple in some ways the more you look at them), the comics Burns loved as a kid, now twisted by alienation, rage, yet retaining some humor. There's an innocence and sharply drawn, boldly colored starkness about it all that is technically impressive, of course.
Very much worth reading. I found it, finally, very challenging and ultimately satisfying.
I read this in conjunction with Gary Schmidt's wonderful younger YA novel, Okay for Now, in which the main character learns to draw (and see) through I read this in conjunction with Gary Schmidt's wonderful younger YA novel, Okay for Now, in which the main character learns to draw (and see) through copying Audobon's wonderful depiction of various birds. This collection features several of the birds Schmidt makes use of, one per chapter, each linked to something going on in the chapter. Schmidt's idea seems to be that Audobon wasn't just making pictures of birds, he was imbuing them with certain characteristics, certain ideas and dispositions and psychological stances, and he was telling us stories through them, stories that we require our perception, our insights, to engage with. The birds also have to do with us; we read them through our lives, our experiences, our stories, as the kid in Okay for Now is helped to do through close reading. And this book is in various ways about reading: books, images, our lives. So this book, with it's accompanying analysis of Audobon's work, gives us more background for understanding the birds, and art, and Audobon, and the world. If I had been a kid, I would never have picked up this book, but the pictures are gorgeous, of course, and in this large format they help you see what Schmidt saw when he took some of his kids to a library and found this (or an even bigger, hardcover) picture of this book, was thrilled to see them, and got the idea for his novel. If you google Audobon's Birds for America you get Okay for Now fairly early on, so it looks like others are also looking at this book as I did, and we have Schmidt to thank for bringing us to this masterwork....more
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