As a reminder of a great writer's genius and obsessions, for its historical value, for its fragments of beautiful prose, and as a objet d'art, this book is a ten. As an actual work of literature, it's no more than a four.
Here, at last, is Laura. The most eagerly awaited literary novel of this fledgling century is the posthumous and fragmentary work of the greatest writer of the second half of the last century, Vladimir Nabokov, who specified that it be burned if left uncompleted at his death. Nonetheless, though it's as unfinished as any book that calls itself a "book" could possibly be -- and after considerable controversy and quarrel about whether to give greater…]]>Supergirl's summer costume change -- which included concealing shorts under her skirt as she flew about, kicking butt -- reveals a lot about our changing superheroes.
Last summer artist Jamal Igle caused a stir by making an addendum to Supergirl’s costume, adding compression, or bicycling, shorts underneath the traditional skirt. The debate over this choice has ranged from discussions of canon (“Have we ever actually seen Supergirl’s panties?”) to fashion (shorts and skirts are a faux pas) to the larger implications of the choice (namely, that the classic costume simply does not make sense for a teen-aged girl who flies). The…]]>Perhaps more so than any other artists, Kazuo Umezu and Hideshi Hino defined the genre of horror comics in Japan, an influence that extends to the West, and also to the world of J-horror films.
A family of goblins rejects the newborn child of one of its own, a "nekomata" or cat-goblin, because the boy looks too much like a human. They set out to kill it immediately, but the boy is saved by a human who eventually goes insane (driven mad by the knowledge that his wife and child were also demons). The infant cat-demon eventually lands on the doorstep of a young woman longing to become a mother,…]]>Pericoli's sketchbook captures the pictures, moments, methodologies, and musings that occur at every second in every spot of the city every single day. It is a macro microcosm.
In his introduction to City Out My Window, architect Paul Goldberger observes, "You would think that anyone who would try to draw all of Manhattan Island on a 70-foot-long scroll ... would be someone who preferred the big picture. It is not quite true, however. The key to Manhattan Unfurled isn't the vastness of its scope, but the intimacy of its vision." He is referring to an earlier book by artist Matteo Pericoli that unfolds…]]>A far-ranging and fascinating treatment of American Football and its cultural associations; there's far more to the game than a pigskin and beer.
You don’t have to be a football fanatic to enjoy Edward J. Rielly’s Football: An Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Quite the opposite: as the title suggests, Rielly’s interest is not so much in football per se as in football as a force in American culture. There are lots of books about football on the market already -- general histories, statistical compendia, books about famous players and teams -- but this volume offers something different: short…]]>One bad novel, gallons of cheap red wine, and spring-fed creeks of sweat.
“Rodger! It’s Mac again. I don’t know why you won’t return my calls,” the voice mail message began. “I mean, Jesus Christ, we grew up together. Look, here’s the deal: I’m starting a new art project. Don’t try to stop me. Ha! And, yeah, well, I need something from you. Okay? So just call me back. Alright? Fine. Bye.” Mac’s tone, as usual, is manic and tinged with a hint of malice. I try to…]]>Azzarello paints a world rapidly out-evolving its legendary pulp heroes, giving way to the newer form of costumed vigilante.
It is the Batman we had come to believe we should never want to see. Young and brash and cocky, ominously self-assured and unjustified in the confidence he shows in his own, still-unseasoned abilities. A Batman at his most raw. This is in every sense of it, the wrong Batman. A Batman who is unable to plan, unable to predict the moves and mentalities of his enemies. This is a Batman wholly unconnected to the…]]>The destruction of Bosch's neat, tight little world by the concussive heat of soul-ripping anguish gives this novel its ferocious energy, its mighty push.
Chicago Tribune (MCT) -- No dash, no flash, no flair, no flights of rhetorical fancy. No extra words. No wasted motion. A Michael Connelly novel is a thing of cool beauty, meticulously plotted, rigorously controlled. Its angles are tight and sure. Nothing flops or wobbles. It always keeps its tie straight and its shirttail tucked in. Nine Dragons is the latest Connelly novel to feature the author's most famous creation, the stoic Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch, a…]]>Where Kazuo Umezu is somewhat more traditional, Hideshi Hino strives to find beauty or at least to nuture a sort of awestruck fascination with horrific images and narrative elements.
Perpetually smiling and jokey, Kazuo Umezu seems to have cornered the market on "Where's Waldo"-style red and white jerseys. He looks like a jovial dude, a little goofy, and more likely to tell a fart joke and giggle inapproprately than to plumb the macabre depths of emotions through haunting tales (unless fart jokes do that for you). By contrast, Hideshi Hino looks like manga's ichiban badass motherfucker. Since the 1970s, these two mangaka have shaped…]]>Kelly's study provides access to some fascinating theories of, and experiments in, the "wrong" uses of technology as explored by some important sound artists of the phonographic era.
One of the consistently interesting things about technology is the way that its users find ways to go beyond its prescribed uses. That such prescribed usage is a forgetting of the fact that technology evolves as a result of human needs (rather than arriving out of the blue) does not detract from the sense of unease that its misuse and abuse summons. Those users of recording technology who have been drawn to explore its limitations…]]>Part of what makes Hajdu such a good music critic and clever pop culture observer is his ability to see beyond the obvious.
David Hajdu is the music critic for The New Republic and the author of three well received books: Lush Life, (1997) a book about the great jazz composer Billy Strayhorn, Positively 4th Street, (2002) which examines the rise of folk music at the end of the 50s by focusing on the artistic lives, loves, and music of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, her sister Mimi, and Robert Farina. Hajudu’s most recent book before this essay collection…]]>Patricia O'Connor's timeless grammar book, Woe Is I, is as important for the highly literate as it for those who ain't got a clue.
As a professional writer and English major, I had always wanted to believe that Woe Is I was a book miles below my reading level. I am not, after all, a grammarphobe. I like words. I always answer "I'm well," instead of "I'm good." I know the difference between you're and your. And best of all, I almost always have a professional editor on call to catch whatever mistakes I might make. But when I…]]>Butler's book illustrates the fact that Amelia Earhart became the embodiment of adventurous spirit because she was such a formidable force.
Originally published in 1997, author Susan Butler's East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart gets a new edition from De Capo Press to coincide with the release of Mira Nair's film, Amelia, starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, and Ewan McGregor. Butler's extensively researched and engagingly detailed book is one of two upon which the biographical film is based. It's easy to see why this particular book, among so many other works about Earhart's…]]>New Batgirl does not rise to iconic status.
There's no reason to forgive Alan Moore, even 20 years on. After all it was Moore, in his brilliance for reconstituting archetypal characters, who took the Batman comic in its most brutal direction with his one-shot The Killing Joke. For anyone with affection for Barbara Gordon, the first Batgirl, it would come as a shocking, almost visceral blow. In the groundbreaking book, Moore depicted the Joker shooting and paralyzing Gordon in her home. The photos…]]>This collection makes it clear that sometimes word-slashing editors have a writer's best interests at heart, and aren't so evil, after all.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT) -- By definition, editors may be coldhearted blackguards bent on reducing the word counts and crushing the spirits of writers whose only noble intention is to follow their muse. But even by those standards, Gordon Lish, in his dealings with revered short-story writer Raymond Carver, seems to have been a particularly evil genius. As Carver made his name in the '70s by using everyday language to depict the often self-destructive lives of hard-drinking working-class characters, Lish…]]>Toussaint dives deep into how we stretch ourselves thin between places in our attempt to be with one another.
In the spirit of Camus and Beckett, Jean-Philippe Toussaint has provided a slice of a character's life so uncanny and deep that to try to boil it down to its essence is nearly impossible: it already has been boiled down. Running Away shaves off just a few days from the unnamed narrator's life, yet it cuts to the root of him, and what is peeled away is pressed to the window where dirty light filters…]]>The popularity of the “pet memoir” can be traced to a lot of factors, ranging from honest sentiment to rank anthropomorphism. But our pets, and our books about them, reflect spirit of our age, as well.
Canine Crisis The current popularity of the “pet memoir” – John Grogan’s Marley and Me being the most well-known and successful example – can be traced to a lot of factors, ranging from honest sentiment to rank anthropomorphism. But I think our pets, and the books we read and write about them, reflect something of the spirit of our age, as well. Hemmed in on all sides by cultural proscriptions – the fear of giving…]]>This anthology is a lot like the city it aims to depict: occasionally impressive, at times insincere, and very proud of its quirks and foibles.
Boston is a city that long reveled in its underdog status; its citizens wore their disappointment like a badge, and now struggle with the embarrassment and guilt of being spoiled with prosperity and comfort. In the place of ugly, oppressive elevated freeways, they find lush greenways. Where once stood abandoned, burned out buildings now sit luxury condominiums and haute eateries. Sports teams who dashed hopes time and time again are now laden with trophies, their…]]>Author Declan Kiberd gives Ulysses new life, new vitality, and proves that it contains a deeper wisdom that is available to everyone.
"Who ever anywhere will read these written words?" is a question Stephen Dedalus asks himself early in the action of Ulysses. Coming as it does from the thoughts of James Joyce's literary proxy, Dedalus' question may well be an expression of the author's own insecurity. If Stephen could have looked into the future from the beach on Sandymount strand, to see just what the legacy of Ulysses would be, he might have been less than…]]>How does the narrator survive after losing her beloved brother? Petterson offers no easy answers.
In To Siberia, Petterson’s dark vision reasserts itself in a haunting story about a Danish woman and her beloved brother. The narrator, whose name we never learn, relates her story from the present moment: early on, we learn she is 60 and hasn’t seen her brother, Jesper, for half her life. She then shifts to the past, into their frightening, unhappy childhood. Their father, Magnus, is a carpenter, barely scraping by; their mother, also unnamed,…]]>A touching, heartfelt meditation on identity and isolation in a small town, Jeff Lemire is able to redress an H.G. Wells classic and make it as timely and disturbing as ever.
“…Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” -- Stephen King “That man wears his skin like a dancer wears her veils. That man stalks his victims like a cancer stalks a cell. That man’s soul has left him, his heart’s as deadly as a rusty nail. That man sheds his skin like a veil.” -- Cowboy Junkies, “This Street, That Man, This Life” In Jim Jarmusch’s…]]>Charles Fetherolf's graphic novel offers a visual beauty when recounting evolutionary history.
It's hard to lose the initial sense of darkness. Four black horizontal panels, then another four on the facing page. Then two black rectangles of equal size, then a full black splash. Five entire pages into Charles Fetherolf's Giants in the Earth, and readers are yet to see a single drawing. Then, the act of turning the page, brings readers face to face with a double-spread explosion -- a chaotic spray of white against the…]]>A preponderance of headless corpses and eccentric scientists means that this is certainly a macabre book, but the silliness of the pseudo-sciences it debunks makes it more entertaining than unnerving.
Cranioklepty is a new word for a pastime that has fallen from fashion. Colin Dickey’s book is about the practice of stealing skulls from the graves of the renowned, in order to possess the site of their genius. The eminence of these victims of post-mortem theft is important, because the events that Dickey recounts took place during the Enlightenment, when great knowledge was very much in vogue. So these acts of grave robbery were motivated…]]>The Beatles managed to spend the morning of the next day, Feb. 8th, in relative quiet. On Sunday, they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and it was the night Beatlemania exploded.
Editor's note: This text is excerpted from the 2008 book, We're Going to See the Beatles: An Oral History of Beatlemania as Told by the Fans Who Were There by Garry Berman. The Beatles managed to spend the morning of the next day, Feb. 8th, in relative quiet. John, Paul, and Ringo avoided the mobs of fans awaiting them in front of the Plaza by using a side door, and took a stroll through Central…]]>This will be held up as a primer for grasping the modern-day Middle East — mainly in Iraq but Iran, too.
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) -- When hundreds of thousands of black-clad Shiite pilgrims set out on foot early this year, they risked their lives on bomb-rife roads as they walked hundreds of miles to the holy destination of Karbala. To outsiders, these Iraqis may have harbored a death wish. To them, of course, they were fulfilling a religious duty. They were off to commemorate Ashura, the ten-day mourning period for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Scores of Shiite pilgrims died…]]>Edwards' inside scoop on the story of the making of the classic Madness debut disc is, much like the album itself; a little unusual, a bit nutty, and quite brilliant.
The 33 1/3 series of short, pocket-sized books about specific albums has, over its nearly seven year run, put out an increasingly impressive line of titles by a variety of authors, from Exile on Main Street as told by Bill Janovitz to the Replacements' Let it Be as experienced by the Decemberists' Colin Meloy. Now comes Terry Edwards' inside scoop on the story of the making of the classic Madness debut disc One Step Beyond...,…]]>Comics have often used characters from Greek and Norse mythology to populate their books. What we see with the following examples is that the Beatles had, at the time, become the new mythology.
The 1960s were good for both the Beatles and comic books. The Beatles broke onto the scene in that decade, became an international sensation and left a path of screaming teenage girls in their wake. It was also the decade when comic books came back from the brink of annihilation and experienced a renewed popularity which insured its survival for decades to come. It is only natural that there would be a crossover between the…]]>Starr writes lucid and stylish prose, and the sheer size and power of this true-life tale open the eyes wide.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT) -- To know how the United States got to be the way it is today, diamonds and garbage, sooner or later you need to track the history of California — especially the critical, glittering years from the postwar era into the mid-'60s. Those years midwived the contemporary era, the mega-wealth that drove it, and even the politics that has convulsed the country ever since. Much of it, particularly the divisive politics and the explosion in alternative…]]>A review of Linda Medley's ongoing challenge to the fantasy comics genre.
Forget Conan the Barbarian. Yes, Robert E. Howard's classic stories essentially created the fantasy genre, and certainly the sword-and-sorcery variety, but that is part of the problem. Theoretically, fantasy allows writers to create their own universes, governed by the laws of magic rather than of physics, and using folklore as its foundation rather than history. The genre should allow for a broad tent, one underneath which talking mythological creatures, regular humans, and alchemy spells can…]]>Simon Axler, a stage and screen actor of near legendary stature, has earned the “reputation as the last of the best of the classical American stage actors.” The novel begins: “He’d lost his magic.”
Philip Roth has never been afraid to write about anything, particularly when it comes to sex. Portnoy’s Complaint was only the beginning. Portnoy’s dalliance with a cold steak was nothing compared to the narrator’s onanistic grief at the graveside of his dead lover in Sabbath’s Theater 26 years later. He's also taken his lumps from women critics and feminists, who regularly -- and cluelessly -- complain that he’s never drawn a compelling female character, not…]]>President Obama probably rattled and hummed in disbelief when he got his Nobel Prize. Ask Bono.
Is there anything Bono can’t do? He fronts the biggest and most enduring rock band in history, but has also established himself as a credible crusader against poverty and global warming. So long, Sting. As James Traub wrote in a 2005 New York Times Magazine profile, Bono is simply “the most politically effective figure in the recent history of popular culture.” Now the New York Times has made Bono one of their own. At this…]]>PopMatters talks with Ed Falco and his niece, actor Edie Falco, about their life in the arts and Ed's gritty new novel, Saint John of the Five Boroughs.
Remember that cool uncle you idolized when you were growing up? You know, the one with the long hair, the motorcycle and enigmatic lifestyle? Well, Edie Falco has one of those uncles. In fact, the onetime Carmela Soprano, current Nurse Jackie, and three-time Emmy winner has an uncle who’s still cool, even if he is a little older. His name’s Ed, and he’s an award-winner in his own right, having won honors for his work…]]>The creator of the universally-beloved Calvin and Hobbes was a perfectionist and a true believer in his art form, yet he hated the fame that his creations brought him.
We’re by now all familiar with unauthorized biographies of rock stars and sleazy politicians, but it’s a bit strange to come across one about an intelligent and apparently mild-mannered cartoonist whose most famous act of rebellion was to fight Universal Press Syndicate over the way his panels were laid out in the Sunday section. Bill Watterson, creator of the universally-beloved Calvin and Hobbes, was a perfectionist and a true believer in his art form, yet…]]>Schriever seems to have given Sheehan more of a good story than a good portrait.
The Dallas Morning News (MCT) -- On a hot July afternoon four years ago, nine of the 10 four-star generals of the U.S. Air Force marched up a hill at Arlington National Cemetery. Ahead of them was a caisson carrying the remains of a 94-year-old Texan who oversaw the creation of a missile that threatened to annihilate much of humanity while enabling the United States to stare down the Soviet Union. The man was Gen. Bernhard A. Schriever, a German immigrant…]]>Moving back and forth through memory and time, these essays act like a vehicle moving through historical, mental and natural landscapes.
Andrzei Stasiuk is an award-wining Polish writer, poet, and journalist who over the past ten years has achieved an international reputation for his writing outside of his native Poland, particularly in Germany. His first book, published in 1992 by Wydawnictwo Czarne, a small press run by him and his wife, was a collection of short stories called The Walls of Hebron and based on the year and half he spent in prison for refusing to…]]>Alas this is a meandering and fairly plotless book, one that is as bewildering as it is baffling.
There was a time, in the '90s, when it seemed as though Jonathan Lethem was poised to become a writer of the 21st century. From 1994’s Gun, With Occasional Music to 1999’s Motherless Brooklyn, Lethem did things with literature that few others had attempted before: infusing his books with blended and spliced genres that had a raw, almost punk-like vitality to them. Not all of the books were perfect – As She Climbed Across the…]]>Ayn Rand set out to remake reality as if it were an ill-fitting dress: by sheer will, she tried to fashion a Balenciaga gown from a housedress.
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters Born in St. Petersburg in 1905, Alyssa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, later Ayn Rand, belonged to a family of medical Jews: pharmacists, dentists, doctors. But Judaism in turn-of-the-century Russia was a great misfortune, one author Anne C. Heller builds on in her excellent biography, Ayn Rand and the World She Made. Heller, amazingly, didn’t come to Rand’s work until her 40s, while working at a business magazine. Suze Orman, of all…]]>Tanenhaus elegantly argues that the American conservatism might be at low ebb, but that should not be expected to last. Nor should liberals (as prone to premature gloating as their rivals) even want it to happen.
The Death of Conservatism.. For Now would have been a more apt title for Sam Tanenhaus' book, but any editor worth their salt would have lopped that dangling ellipse of prevarication right off. It has the zing and jab of the political potboilers that increasingly crowd the bestseller lists and display tables at airport newsstands. But the boldly declarative title doesn't do justice to the nuanced argument that lies behind. This is a book that…]]>Those who suffer from epilepsy, their families and friends, can only throw light at this neuro-spectre, as Fiennes does, showing us Richard in all his damaged Richardness, a man who truly haunted a castle.
On New Year’s Day 1987, my brother had a grand mal seizure. He was 16-years-old and no history of prior illness. In the emergency room, the doctor on call took one look at my unconscious brother’s long hair and announced the seizure drug-induced. My sister and I managed to disabuse him of this notion, and then the real fear set in. When an otherwise healthy teenager suddenly has a grand mal seizure, the worst assumptions…]]>Marvel's recent republication of The Clone Saga lights a way in this economic downturn: that old gems can be mined once more. Why not republish the hidden treasure that was Slingers?
With the economy in as bad a shape as it is, it is nearly impossible to look around and find something that is not affected in some way, even comic books. It seems like series are getting relaunched to boost sales, or worse yet, cancelled more frequently now than ever. There are lots of new series on the stands, but only as limited series, and if these limited series sell well enough, then maybe they…]]>Sabatini’s book exudes an authenticity and warmth that can’t come from an author’s imagination alone, but from a lifetime of listening and observing.
The Boy Next Door is an exceedingly pleasant book. It is so accommodating, so good-natured, so eager to please -- winsome, really -- that, although your interest may wax and wane, you will read all 416 pages to the very end. Irene Sabatini’s prose is straight-forward and uncomplicated; her sentences have an airiness that lifts them right off the page. What you read is what you get. And what you get is two endearing love…]]>Using Ben in Leaving Las Vegas as a gauge to measure myself against, my life wasn’t anywhere close to as bad as it could be, but people who thought they had better control of their drinking than me still fuck their lives right up, so....
In May of 2001, I was 21, I’d dropped out of college a couple months earlier, and I was spending all my time and money on whiskey. I was a fuckin' mess: I’d broken up with a wonderful girlfriend; tried and failed to get her back; was still wrapped up with another ex who served as the enabler from hell; was powerfully infatuated with yet another woman; and because of my self-involved, self-centered, and self-propagated…]]>A brooding, melancholy variation on the theme of Mary Shelley's classic novel.
The Seattle Times (MCT) -- British author Peter Ackroyd, a one-man encyclopedia of British history, language and culture, has written 31 books of fiction, biography, cultural criticism and poetry, many of them prizewinners. I suspect Ackroyd of writing books in his sleep — or maybe he doesn't sleep. His latest, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, is a brooding, melancholy variation on the theme of Mary Shelley's classic novel. It will enhance your knowledge of the original version, and it may…]]>