3 books this week:
THE MOVIEGOER, Walker Percy
BLACKOUT (DARK ICELAND #3), Ragnar Jonasson
GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James
I came close to finishing a fourth, but I lost time forcing myself to finish THE MOVIEGOER, a book which is routinely lauded as one of the greatest American novels of all time, but which I found to be just a complete piece of shit. Never have I been so disinterested in the banal activities of characters I loathed so entirely. Maybe it’s something I’ll return to later in life and find it’s actually brilliant, but since I’m currently brilliant (and REALLY strong) I have my doubts that the problem was me.
Really enjoyed BLACKOUT, as I have all of the Dark Iceland mysteries. They take place in the furthest north town in Iceland called Siglufjörður (which is fun to say). The weird thing is that for reasons that I’m sure are in no way stupid the english language publishers opted not to release the novels in their original publication order. While this doesn’t impact the individual mysteries in each novel it DOES mean that the characters relationships and current living arrangements are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Characters who break up at the end of the first book are married with a child in book two. Characters who are dead in book 2 are alive again in book 3 and so on. Despite this, they are very engaging mysteries.
I also read the first 4 issues of N.K. Jemisin and Aaron Campbell’s new DC comics series FAR SECTOR. I was VERY skeptical going in despite thinking Jemisin is a brilliant writer (she won 3 consecutive Hugos) and that the art appeared to be the best of Campbell’s career. My skepticism was based mostly on my own revulsion towards modern superhero comics and especially the publishers who release them, however this series has blown me away.
Right off the bat one of the best things about it is that it is barely a DC comic. Sure, it is technically a Green Lantern comic, but it’s all new characters and there have been only the briefest passing references to DC comics properties. It just takes the established premise of the Green Lantern corps (space cops) and uses that to fill in some background before launching into a really good sci-fi police procedural. This is not to say that it’s a by-the-numbers police story at all, it’s using the tropes and standard story-telling beats of the police procedural (and to a lesser extent, the superhero) to tell a much more interesting and unique story about power, corruption, society, peace-keeping and reckoning with messy, complicated history between races.
Plus, the main character appears to be visually based on Janelle Monae. BIG RECOMMEND.
Currently Playing: Phish – “Baker’s Dozen Mega Mix”
Currently Reading: THE WIDE CARNIVOROUS SKY & OTHER MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHIES, John Langan
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