Book Arts

Lovely drawings from a 17th Century book about perspective illusions and an excellent little article on BibliOdyssey.
Fantastic illustrations by proto-scifi author Albert Robida from his 19th Century trilogy, La Vie Electrique. Courtesy of Retronaut.
Hip 50's infographics from an Anatomy textbook, via Brainpickings.

Growth & Decay

Murakami's Norwegian Wood is a delicate reminiscence of the life and loves of a young man, Toro, in late Sixties Tokyo and, despite not being autobiographical, is devoid of the author's trademark peculiarity. While at University after Toro's friend commits suicide a tentative romance blossoms with his girlfriend Naoko but events and their fledgling adulthood causes much confusion. As you'd expect from Murakami it's beautifully written but the two main characters are so fragile and melancholic I struggled to relate to them and without the usual fantastical elements the whole thing seemed a little insubstantial. It seems harsh to criticise such a wonderfully written novel and it is an achingly poignant vista of the pressures of maturation but I think I prefer Murakami's wilder side.

No Blade of Grass is a quirky slice of British post apocalyptic cinema and I was lucky enough to be lent a copy of the original novel The Death of Grass by a friend. Written in 1956 there's a grass chomping virus spreading across the globe and gaggle of suburbanites take the initiative and head for the hills, just not quick enough to avoid the expected social disintegration; roaming rapey gangs, looters and lunatics. It's a nicely drawn examination of middle class sensibility and it's weak points as the journey takes it's psychological as well as physical toll and although the plot seems hackneyed it's worth keeping in mind it's over 50 years old. John Christopher went on to write scifi mainly for adolescents, most memorably The Tripods, but I might dig around and see if I can find something as bleak and kitchen sink as this.

Glorious Gothics

Iris Murdoch's faux gothic fable The Unicorn is a intriguing, tense read about a woman seemingly house-bound in the wilds of west Ireland after a love affair gone wrong. The airless status quo is disrupted with the arrival of a young tutor, who's intrigued by the mysterious characters and circumstances behind the curious living arrangements and it's not long before she's tempted to resolve the situation once and for all. It's beautifully written and Murdoch builds a disturbing, atmosphere pregnant with actions and words unsaid and it builds nicely until it's inevitable crescendo. It's a wonderful read but I'm beginning to suspect that I'm missing some of the symbolism or subtext that lurk beneath the surface of Murdoch's novels.

Rudyard Kipling's Strange Tales is a compendium of peculiar little stories, set mostly in colonial era India. There's ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, pits of death and a miasma of weirdness all written with a direct, sparse prose, though old fashioned and a little stilted, somehow manages to imbue the events with an extra chill. Few books have ever actually frightened me and Kipling's is no exception but his strength lies in the descriptions of the psychologies of the disturbed and perturbed characters as they face unsettling, incomprehensible scenarios. Maybe a little patchy but definitely worth a look.

Tea Leaf & Magic Bean

For All the Tea in China is a novelisation of the adventures of the Victorian botanist/plant hunter, and my ancestor, Robert Fortune. Covering his second, illegal trip into the Chinese hinterland this time he's is trying to steal the secrets of the coveted Green & Black Teas of China which are still highly prized and, at the time, a cornerstone of the Chinese economy. Fortune's search of seeds, saplings and Tea expertise was at the behest and expense of the East India Company, the very model of a ravenous, brutal corporate monster. The book pads out his dramatic and tense encounters with locals, pirates and warlords with plenty of social and historical background. Fortune comes across as a determined, passionate man who had no shortage of gumption but as much as he seems to admire the Chinese themselves he doesn't appear to understand or acknowledge much awareness (or maybe sympathy) for China's people and their cultural/political situation. There is one moment however, during his trip into the Wu Yi mountains, bowed over by the beauty of the landscape and the generosity of the monks that helped him, that he shows a more humane side. The writing is good, if a little unremarkable, and it's certainly a much easier read than Fortune's own memoirs of the time but it's the events & escapades of the main character that drive this book. I'm obviously a little bias but I really enjoyed it, a nice, interesting slice of history.

The Anatomist is another enjoyable tale of scientific discovery this time set in Renaissance Italy and about a man with a quite different passion. Mateo Colombo was a highly regarded physician of the era and after becoming smitten with a prestigious whore sets about finding a way to codify and manipulate female passions and during the process, stumbles onto a patient that reveals the existence of "Amor Veneris" aka the clitoris. There's less social/cultural scene setting than in For All... and the narrative is considerably more involved, reading almost like a novel but author Frederico Andahazi's light prose dances through the colourful story of Colombo's discovery, imprisonment & subsequent trial. There's a lots of laughs and a little tragedy along the way as well as the expected sex, death and politics and it's a fascinating & thoroughly entertaining read.

Paper Crafters

25 famous author's last words including HG Wells' above. Reddit.

Virtual monkeys have almost completed the works of Shakespeare. BBC

Some crazy Elder Scrolls nut has printed & bound all the in-game books into one single volume. Reddit.

Book thief and bipolar sufferer returns stolen fictions. Guardian

Stunning illustrations from an 1896 tome. BibliO

Conan Doyle's first novel is finally published. BBC

The Smithsonian has nice list of lost books. Reddit.

Beautiful book sculptures found in Edinburgh libraries. BoingBoing

Nice, via DailyWhat.

Sov-Sci-Fi & Fowles' Meta Musing Fun

Heart of a Dog is a blistering attack of the Communist view of man written by Mikhail Bulgakov, author of the majestic The Master and the Margarita. Written originally in 1925 this wasn't published in Russia till the 80's and given it's relentless poking, mocking and chiding of the Soviet ideology I'm really not surprised. Sharikov, a local stray dog, after undergoing experimental surgery implanting some proles pituitary gland & knackers develops into alarmingly human like creature and a stubborn, highly amusing thorn in his Mad Professor's side. It's not long before things get out of control however and the grubby State officials start to take an interest. A brilliant, occasionally poignant book that strikes deep into the mythos of the soul crushing idiocy that is the Communist creed and somehow Bulgakov's spin on Moreau's nutty tinkering adds to it's power. Whoever suggests science fiction is hamstrung & toothless daydreaming should give this a read.

John Fowles' novella Mantissa is whimsical, meta-fiction that spins like a whirly gig from the interaction of handful of characters, or rather, from just one. The protagonist wakes in a hospital bed, seemingly suffering from amnesia, and is almost immediately subjected to a bold form of psycho-sexual therapy, apparently with the full consent of his Mrs. What follows is a dizzying exploration of authorship and the written word, the sexual act and gender politics that folds in Greek mythology, contemporary literary theories, historical references and a bucket load of jokes whilst being oh so meta, referencing itself as a novel and a work in progress. Though it's slight, terribly self indulgent and it's gender mores dated it's stills a highly amusing firework that burns brighty with wit and erudition.

Paperback Perusalings

A Maggot by John Fowles is a stunning mystery novel set in the 17th century concerning the travails of a wayward son and his companions while on a peculiar Exmoor journey. The story is told through a series of Q & A's, real time narratives and newspaper clippings and for the first half of the novel the plot doesn't really develop much as the events are retold by each richly drawn traveller, it's beautifully written though it did take me a while to get used to the period vernacular. Around the halfway mark Fowles teasingly reveals a much greater ambition however and what appeared to be a simple historical mystery becomes an interesting examination of religiosity and our ever changing social mores spun from a superbly crafted reminiscence of an ambiguous, fortean, experience. It surpasses The Magus to become my new favourite Fowles novel I think but I won't say anymore in case I spoil someone else's pleasure as it's baffling central events are best discovered as the author intended. A fine example of literary speculative fiction.

Banvard's Folly is a nicely written collection of brief biographies of some unusual, failed geniuses that have slipped from history's focus. It's a nice selection of fascinating oddbods, fraudsters and barmy thinkers including Symmes and his search for his Hollow Earth entrance, Rene Blondlot's imaginary N-Rays, Ephraim Bull's Concord grape variety and of course John Banvard himself, a painter of truly ginormous canvasses. Paul Collins' sympathetic portraits of these 13 characters gives each tale an added poignancy and it's a lovely read for anyone interested in the forgotten and the foolish. If you do read n enjoy it you should give Mike Jay's Air Loom Gang or Foden's Mimi and Toutou Go Forth a go.

Candles & Caterpillars for the Dead

David Peace has fast become one of my favourite authors, the Red Riding quartet was a difficult, harrowing tale of murder & corruption in 70's Yorkshire that was beautifully complex and written with an intense, burrowing subjectivity, anyways I've seen reviews comparing his prose to James Ellroy's frenetic, declarative style but his latest series of books, set in post war Japan, show he's a far greater talent than the self styled Demon Dog. The first of this new series, Tokyo Year Zero, was based on the real case of serial killer Yoshio Kodaira and it painted a horrifying picture of the chaos and tragedy of life in the devastated country. The second called Occupied City is even more disturbing, again based on a true crime, the Sadamachi Bank poisoning, and uses a vast cast of characters to further probe the terrible realities in Japan at that time including the hypocrisy of the Allied victors, the horrifying Japanese biological experiments in mainland China and the everyday anger & despair of the ordinary citizens as the country struggles to rise from the ashes of defeat. While TYZ was feverish & frantic Occupied City stretches well beyond - a full tilt descent into a dizzying array of Rashamon narratives with disparate styles for each voice, ranging from police notes to poesis via hopelessness & madness. Be warned reveals Peace's roots as a poet so some of the sections are (quite successfully imo) experimental oh and it's definitely not going to cheer you up but don't let me put you off - it blew me away and I wish everything I read was as well written.

Handling the Undead is written by John Ajvide Lindqvist the author of Let The Right One In. No vamps this time instead we've got a strange re-imagining of a Zombie outbreak, not Romero flesh eaters however, instead these undead clods are a bit more placid neither chomping flesh nor craving brains. The story follows three families as they try to deal with return of the recently deceased who still seem to have consciousness within their decomposed bodies and the strange telepathic effect they seem to engender. Lindqvist isn't the greatest writer, don't get me wrong he's no Dan Brown but the prose style is functional and the characters flat. Twin that with a muddled mythos and a dribbling, pseudo religious grub-based finale and you've got a disappointing read that will still no doubt get optioned for the big screen.

Tome Time

2011 so far feels bookish to me and a bounty awaits - I certainly can't remember the last time there were 8 new books from some of my favourite authors to look forward to. First up is Gene Wolfe's return to scifi with Home Fires (due Feb), Io9 have a recent interview with him and it does sound a bit Forever Waresque but you never can tell with Wolfe. In April Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen returns with a swinging 60's London adventure and Robert Irwin publishes Memoirs of a Dervish a seemingly autobiographical recollection of life as a 60's spiritual seeker, presumably a counterpart to his excellent Satan Wants Me. China Mieville stretches to the edge of the universe in May with his new sci-fi Embassytown. Jon Ronson's new book The Psychopath Test will be out in June and I'm sure it'll be a typically idiosyncratic take on the business of madness. 1Q84 is the title of Haruki Murakami's September dated new novel and will probably be more of the same strange but beautiful Japanese mysterium, Christopher Priest's The Islanders is due in October and finally Umberto Eco's The Cemetery of Prague in November with a no-doubt intricate tale of 19th Century espionage. Thanks to Robert Llewellyn's Carpool and his amusing Ronson interview for bringing the new book to my attention. If you haven't seen soon-to-be-Kryten-again's show before it's a charming, light interviewy thing filmed in his car and is quite enjoyable, he seems an amiable chap and has got good taste in car sharers with David Mitchell, Stephen Fry and Ben Goldacre all cadging a lift and chewing the fat amongst others.

Slurping down the Paperbacks

Robert Silverberg's Tower of Glass is a pulpy scifi tale of hubris with a super rich industrialist dementedly building a ginormous tachyon transmitter to respond to a recently received alien signal unfortunately his slave workforce are growing restless. It's not bad but there's little that raises it above the neverending pile of scifi potboilers and little things started irritating me like the stupid names, shallow characters and the irksome misuse of the word android - I dunno bout you but android means a human styled robot to me but Silverberg uses it to describe the cloned humans that build the tower maybe the word had different connotations in 1970 or I'm just a pedant. It's ok but his Book of Skulls is much better.

The Collector is the debut novel from John Fowles first published in 1963. I've only ever read his The Magus before which was both brilliant and frustrating so I wasn't sure what to expect from this earlier psychothriller. A much simpler and disturbing tale unfolds here with the narrative split, diary style between a disturbed entomologist and his recently imprisoned female captive. Beautifully written it's a dark, twisted depiction of madness and loneliness that reminded me of Highsmith's Ripley novels. Might look into some of Fowles' other books - avoiding French Lieutenant's Woman obviously.

Bound to Books

Gonna try a little harder in 2011 to post about the fiction I read so first up this year is Smiley's People the third in Le Carre's trilogy about the quiet bespectacled spy master. People finds George's enforced retirement disturbed by the death of an old emigre at the hands of some Ruskies and he's called in to smooth things over, after a little digging it appears the tangled web starts with Smiley's old nemesis Karla. It's a nice end to the trilogy but feels a little lightweight both in length and substance in comparison to the previous labyrinthine plots of Tinker and Schoolboy.

Frederik Pohl's Gateway is a decent read, well one half is decent. The main premise is brilliant - humanity discovers an abandoned, hollowed asteroid filled with alien spaceships with preset courses and an industry develops around the risky flights taken in search of more fancy alien technology but the novel is split between the protagonist Robinette's therapy sessions and flashbacks to his traumatic Space adventuring. Sadly the interesting setup is hamstrung by the interspersion of tedious, badly dated therapeutic guff Broadhead goes through with his robotic counsellor called Sigfrid. Despite all this I did enjoy it and I'll have a look for more Pohl stuff.

High & Low Brow Sci-Fi

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is a beautifully written novel, a quite profound, emotional dystopia. Think Atwood's Oryx and Crake but with heart. Anyways it's just been regurgitated onto celluloid and it's a solid, if workman-like transliteration but then again my opinion is suspect as I only finished reading the book a few weeks ago. A sedate film it's a well acted & nicely shot meditation of our humanity and childhood but lacks the revelatory experience of the book and the emotional depth is nothing compared to the book's tragic expanse. I've deliberately not described the plot as it's a marvellous example of literate scifi and one I think best read. Sadly I fear the film version of Under The Skin will turn out to be a similarly pale imitation.

Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County is a found-footage pseudo-doc type nonsense about a rural family pestered by a bunch of Schwas over the course of one night. Despite the shit acting it's not a bad effort but the work building tension is squandered by the frequent popping back to in-studio talking heads and the laughably dim choices the characters appear to make. Can't say I'd recommend watching unless you're short of options.