August 28, 2005

Review: Brooklyn Noir 2: Manly, yes, but I like it too.

What the viewer cannot see here is the small tattoo of the Brooklyn Bridge on the young woman's hip. Which makes it all alright. Yes, I just finished reading Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics edited by Tim McLoughlin from Akashic Books, indie publishers whose motto is, "reverse-gentrification of the literary world." Akashic would appear to be on a roll: there is, as the title of this collection implies, an original Brooklyn Noir, as well as Chicago Noir and San Francisco Noir. D.C. Noir and Dublin Noir are forthcoming, with others planned. Why mess with success? And indeed, this is a readable, well chosen collection of previously published stories set around Brooklyn, a companion to the original collection of purpose-written pieces.

Editor McLoughlin has divided the stories into "Old School Brooklyn," "New School Brooklyn," "Cops & Robbers," and "Wartime Brooklyn." H.P. Lovecraft opens the collection with "The Horror at Red Hook" (1927) . Now, you either like Lovecraft or you don't. I don't, really, and rapidly tired of his pantheon-of-everything-evil-ever meets Gangs of New York. Lovecraft doesn't write noir: he writes deepest midnight with shots of vertiginous vermilion, obscured by sulphurous, nauseous smoke the colour of the back rooms of hell, shot through with the bilious green of the vomit of venomous toads. That being said, a few stories in, I appreciated the story for the way it sets the tone and provides some historical context. Thomas Wolfe's "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" (1935) is next, an oddly unfinished paean to the borough marred by an irritatingly obtrusive transcription of dialect. Irving Shaw rounds off the first section with "Borough of Cemeteries" (1938), an effective story, in an interestingly staccato narrative voice, of working people during the depression remembering times of plenty gone by, and their spectacularly feckless rebellion.

It is in the second section, "New Brooklyn," that the collection really takes off. Jonathan Lethem's "Tugboat Syndrome," about an orphan with Tourette's syndrome drawn into the orbit of a two-bit goodfella, is brilliant. Here is the young narrator:

My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. In this diminished form the words rush out of the cornucopia of my brain to course over the surface of the world, tickling reality like fingers on piano keys. Caressing, nudging. They're an invisible army on a peacekeeping mission, a peaceable horde. They mean no harm. They placate, interpret, massage. Everywhere they're smoothing down imperfections, putting hairs in place, putting ducks in a row, replacing divots. Counting and polishing the silver. (67)

Colson Whitehead's "The All-Night Bodega of Souls" (2001) is also excellent; he writes in waves, like a wall of overlapping graffiti. Next up are the only two women represented in the collection. Carolyn Wheat's "The Only Good Judge" (2001) demonstrates hard-boiled sensibility, from the distaff side, in this story of a judge, "cut down in what would be considered the prime of her life if she were a man and her tits didn't sag" (116). Maggie Estep's "Luck Be a Lady" (membership required; 2004) has hints of urban fantasy and a likable B&E artist, Harry Sparrow, as the protagonist.

All the stories in the "Cops & Robbers" section have the proverbial twist, sometimes subtle, sometimes formulaic. Lawrence Block's effective "By the Dawn's Early Light" (1984) features a blacker-than-Marlowe ex-cop-cum-P.I. protagonist who creates his own complication, and the twisty ending of Donald E. Westlake's "The Best-Friend Murder" (1959) is made palatable by the curmudgeonly angst of the investigating detective. NYC legend Pete Hamill's "The Men in Black Raincoats" (1977) manages to make betrayal maudlin. Stanley Ellin's nostalgic "The Day of the Bullet" (1959) is a classic coming of age tale, with the twist that the vulnerable young boy is a future criminal.

The last section, "Wartime Brooklyn," contains some of the most disturbing entries in the collection. Hubert Selby Jr.'s "Tralala" (1957), from his Last Exit to Brooklyn, is brutal, both the protagonist herself, and what happens to her. This story will stay with you, so approach with caution. Salvatore La Puma's "The Boys of Bensonhurst" (1987), from his The Boys of Bensonhurst, is almost sweet, coming as it does after Selby's text. Though it's not that sweet, really. Gilbert Sorrentino's "Steelwork" (excerpt; 1970) rounds out the collection with its concise depiction of spiralling decline and societal abandonment (themes shared by Selby and Whitehead).

I'm not sure I like the sections; they don't always make sense. The first two are chronological by publication date, the last is chronological by date of setting, and "Cops & Robbers" is thematic (and really, in a sense, most of the stories are about cops and robbers in one way or another). Of course, if the collection had been strictly chronological it would have ended with Estep's whimsical story, and that would have provided a very different feel from Sorrentino's bleak piece.

This collection moves between the popular and the literary, with stories originally published in venues ranging from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Weird Tales, to the New Yorker and the Paris Review. It shifts from the spare lingo of the classic detective genre to the lush, overflowing language of Lovecraft, Lethem, and Whitehead. It is at times uneven, though in the aggregate it presents a compelling, at times lurid, portrait of a range of Brooklyn neighbourhoods over the past eighty years, neighbourhoods that are now, ironically, in various stages of gentrification. There is some excellent writing here, and some disturbing and affecting depictions of back alley's and vacant lots. Again, in the aggregate, these stories are bleak, brutal, and oddly beautiful.

I am left with one question, though, and at the risk of sounding foolish, is Brooklyn a masculine borough? Not literally, of course, but in the sense of Brooklyn as a literary landscape. Or is it simply the genre itself, with its femmes fatales and its brooding, antisocial hardboiled dicks? We were just down at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (I will try to post on that separately), and the bookstore there is a treat. But the contemporary section — the table of gritty NYC writers like Hamill and Selby — seemed a pretty masculine space. The stories by the two women offered in this collection are among the lightest and the most humorous of a generally unforgiving bunch. Though there is certainly a tradition of urban women's writing — Pat Califa comes to mind — so maybe there are overlooked texts and writers out there. If popular noir writing is anything like popular sf, there likely have been women writing and publishing from the beginning.

Perhaps that should be the next offering in this series: Noir: Dames' Stories.

And then, he walked in ...

August 27, 2005

We're here,

we're near, but we've forgotten our powercord.

Sigh.

August 21, 2005

Hope for us all

Demi Moore; Jean Claude Van Damme

(link from Exclamation Mark. Be sure to check out Tom Cruise).

From my temporary office

at Starbucks somewhere in NYC. It's damn hot outside. But you know what they say: it's not the heat that will get you, it's the humidity.

Of course, it's humid too.

Joe and I have a Catch-22: I get migraines from the heat, and he gets headaches if he sleeps with the air conditioner on. The Jinker Boy has tipped the balance: it seems that he is prone to nighttime accidents when the room is cold.

Working on a review of Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics edited by Tim McLoughlin. Watch this space.

August 17, 2005

Quite the gadfly

Me, I mean; we're off to NYC for two weeks, as of Thursday. Will try to post whenever I manage to sneak off to a Starbucks, but I won't be able to — post, or sneak off — as regularly as usual. Though Joe is planning to indoctrinate the Jinker Boy with a Mets game, so that should give me a nice chunk of coffee-swilling time. Anyone in the Baked Apple who wants to get together, drop me a line.

(I bet that "Baked Apple" joke has been made before, hasn't it? You can be honest.)

August 16, 2005

For the girl who has everything

You know you want it: Action Jane (not to be confused with G.I. Jane. Action Jane could whip her butt and then give her a lecture on appropriate choices in the marriage market as she lay bleeding). "This 5-1/4" tall, hard vinyl action figure comes with a book (Pride & Prejudice) and a writing desk with removable quill pen!" Link from Catalogue Annie.

Then there is this site, Gothic Martha Stewart. Full of good, black things (link from BoingBoing).

August 15, 2005

Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi and Yoshitaka Amano

I watched the anime film (IMDB) some time ago, and when I saw the novel in our local bookshop and read that it was the first volume of the series on which the anime was based, translated from the Japanese for the first time, I wanted to read it: I hadn't realized that the anime was based on a novel; I had assumed that it was produced from either an original script or a comics series.

Reading it is certainly an odd experience. Of course it is a translation, but that can hardly account from its utter lack of novelistic sensibility. It seems to have been written with anime conventions fully in mind, from the irritatingly coy adversarial relationship between the two leads, to the strange, stilted dialogue, particularly the "rustic" accent of the heroine, a gentle country maiden with a bullwhip who talks like Elly May Clampett with a wicked hangover. I don't know anything about Japanese horror and its conventions, but if this novel is indicative then it would seem to be more of a trans-media than a strictly literary phenomenon. Or I could be talking through my hat; let me know please.

It's a nicely produced book, with attractive illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, best known for his work on Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and the Final Fantasy games.

The second novel in the series of thirteen is due out very soon. I'm not sure if I will buy it, but I probably will. Call me curious.

August 14, 2005

Book art

Kurt Stübers Online Library - A collection of historic and modern biology books: wonderful illustrations (from Bibi).

The Karl Bodmer Aquatint Collection: American Plains Indians in the 19thc, as seen by a German naturalist (via Plep).

Women illustrators of children's books (also via Plep).

Piles of great links to every fairy tale you ever read, heard of, or even thought of, at The Daily Pick (heads up, again, from Bibi).

Hans Christian Andersen at the British Library (via Shopiere).

Children's Literature of the Early Soviet Era: online exhibition from McGill (also via Shopiere).

Giovanni Battista Bracelli’s fascinating Bizzarie di Varie Figure at Giornale Nuovo, of course.

Vintage hobby books at Flickr (via I like [07/08/05]).

August 13, 2005

And at the other end of the spectrum

in more ways than one, Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark.

Read this book. READ THIS BOOK. This is the most involving novel I have read for some time. Barely sf, as Moon admits herself, it is set in the near-future. The protagonist is an autist, Lou Arrendale, who works with computer pattern recognition for a pharmaceutical company. His life is disrupted when he and his colleagues are threatened with job loss if they do not participate in an experimental project to "cure" their autism. Lou is faced with the choice of becoming "normal," but perhaps at the cost of himself.

Moon sets up some obvious questions here about the relative value of different ways of being and perceiving, and her resolution of these issues — or rather, Lou's resolution — whichever way it had gone, could not fail to disappoint at least some of the people. Moon is to be commended for entering the lion's den, and while the resolution she offers is not entirely happy, how could it be? Each choice involves loss, and it is Moon's triumph that she makes so very clear to us what it is that Lou is being asked to give up. His character is completely engrossing, his oblique worldview refreshing, and his way of being with his autistic colleagues so sane and economical (when they visit his apartment he does not offer refreshments. Instead, they let him know if they are hungry or thirsty. He finds this so much clearer than plying guests with snacks and drinks, as happens to him when he visits his "normal" friends, and before too long, so does the reader).

Some time ago I mentioned Mark Haddon's Curious Incident, which is one obvious comparison. But Moon's novel is so much more satisfying. Like that novel, this one is the subject of various reader's guides and book club recommendations, but don't be deterred by that. It will inhabit you while you are reading it; it is fluidly written, moving without pathos, sentiment or romanticizing, and very, very smart.

August 12, 2005

Light by M. John Harrison

Just finished reading Light. I had not read anything by Harrison before; I picked this up because some of my favourite writers wrote effusive blurbs.¹ And they were right: it is a fascinating, memorable novel. I can't say much — okay, I can't say anything — about the way Harrison writes about quantum physics, but I am here to say to the rest of you who never took a science course after Grade 9 biology, there is lots here for us as well (everything I know about science, I've learnt from sf. Which makes life interesting sometimes). It is beautifully written and the visual images are bright, even blinding, despite, as I said, my not understanding the science. It is an odd novel, in that one of the three main characters is as bad as a person can be and a second is little better, yet the ending manages to be uplifting. I mean that in a good way. Usually "uplifting" is right there along with "heartwarming" on my list of code words for AVOID THIS NOVEL! But Harrison's is not your usual schmaltzy, thoughtless uplift, by a long shot. In fact, it's a quite bleak and unpleasant sort of uplift. (Did I mention that quantum physics features prominently?)

I was originally planning to write that Light didn't fully track for me. You know, that feeling of slight dissonance you can get from a text: something is preventing your complete immersion; something is making you reread because you aren't holding it all in your head; something is being assumed of the reader that oughtn't to be. Then I humbly considered that perhaps I was not the ideal reader for this novel. Well, not for all of it, anyway (see above). Then I thought (hear me roar!), I am an adept and enthusiastic reader of the genre so if it is not for me, who is it for? And if it is not for me, whose problem is that, anyway? At least, unlike Matthew Cheney's naughty readers, I certainly didn't find it boring. But I have always felt that in order to be really stellar, a text needs to work for readers who engage with it in different ways. I imagine that idea would make Harrison impatient, though.

At any rate, read this novel for its bravado reworking of various sf données, its technical accomplishment, and the plethora of dizzying views. The hype is all deserved, even if some of the criticism is, as well.

Two thumbs up, across fourteen dimensions.

Reviews from
Emerald City
Iain Banks for The Guardian
Adam Roberts for infinity plus: "If this book doesn't win next year's Clarke then I'll be a Dutchman" (oops). What Roberts writes about Harrison's use of and response to literary and sf convention is particularly good.
Paul Di Filippo for scifi.com
Matthew Cheney
Rod MacDonald for SFCrowsnest.com: "Normally I would reject this type of book out of hand but the fact that it's so well-written gives it more than enough validity for me to recommend it to everyone except children."
Jeff VanderMeer for SFSite: "Harrison has jettisoned all banality, dead spots, padding, and come up with a novel that moves without sacrificing depth."
The Complete Review (includes links to other reviews and interviews. Gives Light an A-.)
Bookslut: "It’s a study in how removed your characters can be from events that they are the cause of, like everyone in the book is caught in a maelstrom while taking heavy anti-psychotics with Xanax chasers."
Toby Litt for cultchoice
Paul Green at Culture Court: "the Kefahuchi Tract, a stellar vortex of radiation and dark matter ... eventually draws everything together, a node of psychic gravitation, like Rick's Bar in Casablanca."
Rick Kleffel for Agony Column
John C. Snider for scifidimensions: "The exciting finale is a psychedelic rollercoaster, leaving the reader stimulated but slightly confused."
Steven Wu offers a rebuttal

Excerpts from interview in Locus: big dumb objects and space opera
Interview with David Mathew for infinity plus: "I doubt I'll be judged as anything after I'm dead: my stuff doesn't have the human reach to live on."
Interview with Gabriel Chouinard for SF Site: "Expect some fairly off-the-wall characters, doing what they call 'the Kefahuchi Boogie' which is, like, surfing it. Expect plenty of sex, and some whole-body dysmorphia. Oh, also rocket ships."
Email interview of M. John Harrison by Patrick Hudson for The Zone
Interview with Cheryl Morgan at Strange Horizons: "Once you have understood escapist fiction and the culture of escape you begin to go further back and ask what it is they're based on. What they're based on is desire."
Interview in a pub at Hispacon
Harrison's official home page
M. John Harrison's Guardian top 10. Good lord, I've only read one.
The M. John Harrison looks just like Sauron Fanclub (okay, I made that one up. But this link does go to a story by Harrison, "Tourism," featuring one Jack Serotonin, set in the same universe as Light. What's not to love?)

¹ Neil Gaiman writes, "It's way out beyond astonishing. Lots of over-the-top blurbs from authors that turn out to be understatements when you get to the end."

August 11, 2005

More stuff

A fisherman sleeps while fish swim past his nets

So we had a barbecue on the weekend for our friends who are leaving for Ontario next week. Food was eaten, drinks were drunken, and speeches were made. But most importantly, we are now ahead five bottles of wine (red, alas, which gives me headaches), one pale green plastic tray, one attractive serving dish with a fish motif,¹ one glass bowl shaped like a bunch of grapes, a few nondescript plates, and probably some Tupperware. Owners of the same may reclaim these items; otherwise, they will go into the giant maw that is the M&J party machine.

I am thinking of having a "Come and look for your stuff" party, and sending invites to everyone who has ever set foot in the house. Then we might finally have some room in the cupboards.

¹ One of our friends, a marine biologist, seems to think that she might better hang on to her stuff if it is covered with fish. She is wrong.

NEASECS 2005

Mentioned awhile ago my projected attendance at the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 2005 Conference. The preliminary schedule is now posted; it looks to be an interesting lot of papers. I just wish it were not so difficult to choose between competing sessions. I am to present at 9:30 in the morning. God help the audience.

August 10, 2005

Anarchy in the Delta Quadrant

Just had an interesting, link-filled email from one Luke Krafft. Politically progressive sff aficionados might do well to point their browsers toward Anarchism and science fiction: An annotated reading list. If that inspires, then go ahead and join the Anarchysf listserv, an "anarchist discussion of science fiction and fantasy."

I'm guessing there's a lot more out there than The Dispossessed.

August 9, 2005

Pride SJ

It's pride week here in Saint John. Check it out. Screening of Why Thee Wed? tonight on campus. Screenings of Trevor and It's in the Water on Aug. 11. And don't miss the parade at 1pm on Saturday, beginning at Queen's Square South.

Blogging in the classroom

I once set up a group blog for my students, but for the most part I set up central course blogs from which I link to the individual blogs the students are required to maintain. Admittedly this does not always work for every student: some take to it like ducks to water while others barely get their toes wet. Just ran across an interesting post at decorabilia about blogging in the classroom. Not sure I will go back to group blogs, but I do think I will follow the advice about structured assignments. I usually post optional discussion questions, but that does not always work for the students who have stalled. One year I gave them interim blog marks, with comments, so that they could adjust their blogging for the duration. Breaking up the mark is more work for me but I think I will go back to it since blogging is so new for most of them.

As you may have discerned, I am in the middle of assigning marks for the blogs my summer students made.

August 8, 2005

From the mailbag: query about Zelazny story

Long-time reader, first-time correspondent Paula Petrik writes:

As one of your blog readers, I'm hoping that you can answer a question or poll your readership for the answer. I am trying to remember the title of an sf story that I think is by Roger Zelazny. The storyline is this: an alien lives in a guy's head. Just before the world blows up, the alien asks the guy what he would save from Earth. The answer: a jazz album, the hardware store on the corner, and one other item that I've forgotten. I've got an idea for a wacky history assignment that would depend on this short story. I've emailed the guy who runs the Zelazny site months ago but have heard nothing. Any insights?

I have no insights, though I do wonder if all the writers who finger jazz as one of the pinnacles of human accomplishment (yes, ST writers, I am talking about you) actually listen to it much. (For that matter, do they read or watch Shakespeare?)

(Yes, I'm back, obviously, and will post soon about the trip to Rainbow Valley, as I'm sure you are all dying to hear.)