“American Gods”, by Neil Gaiman

 

750 pages, William Morrow, ISBN-13: 978-0062472106

Ostensibly, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is a blend of Americana, fantasy and strands of ancient and modern mythology in which one Mr. Wednesday (note that name, will you?), aided and abetted by Shadow, a recently released convict, attempt to recruit others like him – that is, Old Gods – in order to fight in the war that is coming against the New Gods – the American Gods of the title. The book was first published in 2001 and won the 2002 Hugo and Nebula awards; my copy is the Tenth Anniversary Edition that contains the Author’s Preferred Text – kinda like the Director’s Cut of a movie, if you like, so this is the tale that Gaiman really wanted to tell. As to what it’s really about…well, why don’t I let Neil tell you himself:

It’s about the soul of America, really. What people brought to America; what found them when they came; and the things that lie sleeping beneath it all. That was the goal. That was the destination… [that he set his story] in a country where the message on the Statue of Liberty was something you could take seriously was as uncontroversial as making sure people of all races and skin colors were represented in a book about America… [where the decision to make Shadow a] mixed-race hero feels so apolitical as to be obvious…I had wanted it to be a number of things. I wanted to write a book that was big and odd and meandering, and I did and it was.

So…yeah. This book is more than just fantasy or philosophy or what have you. It is a take on America from the viewpoint of a transplanted English author – again, in Neil’s words:

I moved to America in 1992. Something started, in the back of my head. There were unrelated ideas that I knew were important and yet seemed unconnected: two men meeting on a plane; a car on the ice of a frozen lake; the significance of coin tricks, and more than anything, America: this place I now found myself living in that I knew I didn’t understand. But I wanted to understand it. I was an immigrant, although a reluctant one, and I was living in a huge strange country that resembled the America I’d encountered in books and in films so much less than I had expected. The place was filled with oddness and, it seemed to me, with the kind of hubris that gets authors into trouble, that I thought I ought to point out to Americans how very odd it actually was.

Thanks, Neil, for pointing out our oddness from a country in which blood pudding is a thing, everyone is emotionally repressed and drive on the wrong side of the road…but I digress. Because American Gods is not what it seems, as misdirection is the name of the game, something that Shadow knows about and is displayed while teaching a young boy a coin trick: “After several attempts the boy mastered the move. ‘Now you know half of it,’ said Shadow. ‘Because the moves are only half of it. The other half is this: put your attention on the place where the coin ought to be. Look at the place it’s meant to be. Follow it with your eyes. If you act like it’s in your right hand, no one will even look at your left hand, no matter how clumsy you are.’”

That’s American Gods for ya: a con game in which misdirection is as important to the story as the plot and the prose. Throughout most of the book Gaiman has us looking in one direction when we should be looking elsewhere – has us looking at his right hand when we should be looking at his left – until the big reveal at the end. And when you understand just what has been going on in the story and why, you want to kick yourself for not seeing it sooner, after all of the hints and clues that Gaiman scattered throughout. It’s enough to make one think that it is Neil Gaiman who is the natural-born son of Mr. Wednesday, the master trickster and father of the con. But it’s a believable con that validates the story and makes you glad you read it.

But why? Why did we keep looking in the wrong place at the wrong time? In a word: Faith. Too many people are susceptible to the siren call of faith – whether religious or secular, mind you – and, thus, easy marks for the Mr. Wednesdays of the world. Gods Old and New are sustained by faith, but people only worship gods they believe in, and so all of these gods have become consummate grifters, forever trying to get ever-more believers to sacrifice and sustain them. Most people, I think, would argue that faith is a positive virtue, but in Gaiman’s telling, it is currency to be accumulated, invested and then spent – whether said currency is positive or negative (or both?) Gaiman doesn’t say (although it’s probably both).

American Gods, then, is many things, but it is first and foremost clever, especially in the way it breathes life into Old Gods – and New – and makes one believe that they live still.

“Vicious”, by V. E. Schwab

 

400 pages, Tor Books, ISBN-13: 978-1250160263

Vicious by V. E. Schwab is yet another book I assigned to the Books on Tap book club sponsored by the Fraser Public Library. The first in the Villains series (which I didn’t know at the time), the book focuses on Victor Vale and Eliot Cardale (later known as Eli Ever), collegiate colleagues who discover that an after-death trauma, under the right conditions, can create an “EO” (short for ExtraOrdinary), a person with superhuman abilities. The reason (I think) that Schwab called this her Villains series is because most of the characters, while thinking themselves as heroes, are nothing like. Eli’s power allows him to heal at an extraordinary rate and, evidently, granted him immortality, as the parts set ten years after he gains his abilities make it clear that he hasn’t aged a day. Victor gains the power to inflict pain with a thought or, just as useful, to remove it. Other EO’s appear, as well – Serena, a modern-day siren who can make anyone do her bidding; her little sister Sydney who can resurrect the dead; among others – but the story revolves around Eli and Victor and their feud.

The story basically flips back and forth between past and present, the past being ten years before the current tale (along with several side-treks, from a few years to a few hours). During that time we see what Eli and Victor have been up to, which boils down to Victor cooling his heels in prison where he tests and perfects his power before finally escaping with super-hacker (and behemoth) Mitch in tow, to Eli launching his God-inspired crusade in which he seeks out and murders every fellow EO he can find (secretly aided and abetted by the police), seeing as he has come to the conclusion that they are unnatural and must be returned to their proper, dead state. With the story bouncing back and forth between past and present, we watch as Victor and Eli – both thinking themselves heroes; both in fact villains with contrary motives – pursue their goals and one another, all of it cannonballing to a final (for now) confrontation at the end. Who will triumph? Who do we want to? Do either of these self-righteous egoists deserve to “win”? Wouldn’t the world be better off without all of them?

Vicious keeps you interested and involved in the lives of its characters, even the supporting ones. The fact that Victor and Eli are so disreputable and unlikable make them all the more intriguing; it put me in mind of the tagline for the Mel Gibson vehicle Payback: “Get Ready To Root For The Bad Guy”. For make no mistake: both Victor and Eli are villains, pursuing their respective goals at the expense of everyone and everything around them. Just when you find yourself sympathizing with the one, the other pops up and makes you see the world from their perspective. The supporting characters are just as noteworthy: Serena makes every girl who ever manipulated you seem like a saint; Sydney is the little sister you always wanted; Mitch the big bro you need in your corner. It takes real skill to invent fictional people to care about, and Schwab does it again and again over the course of the book. And in spite of the fact that she is dealing with EO’s and all that, the world she has written is as real as our own, an aspect that adds to the realism of the subject and makes the story that much more intriguing.

I think I’ll read the rest of the series, but not yet; I need to take a break from EO’s for a while. But I will look forward to more viciousness in the future as all of these superpowered egomaniacs make life harder for the rest of us.

“Before Watchmen”, by various artists and writers

 

“Minutemen/Silk Spectre”, written and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke, illustrated by Amanda Conner (collects Minutemen #1-6 & Silk Spectre #1-4)
288 pages, DC Comics, ISBN-13: 978-1401238926

“Comedian/Rorschach”, written by Brian Azzarello, illustrated by J.G. Jones and Lee Bermejo (collects Comedian #1-6 & Rorschach #1-4)
256 pages, DC Comics, ISBN-13: 978-1401245139

“Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan”, written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Adam Hughes and Joe Kubert (collects Nite Owl #1-4, Dr. Manhattan #1-4 & Moloch #1-2)
288 pages, DC Comics, ISBN-13: 978-1401245146

“Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair”, written by Len Wein, illustrated by Jae Lee and John Higgins (collects Ozymandias #1-6, Dollar Bill #1 & Crimson Corsair #1)
256 pages, DC Comics, ISBN-13: 978-1401245153

The Before Watchmen limited comic series was first published in 2012; the books I am reviewing here are a set of four omnibus editions that were published the following year. Each series (there were 10 such) act as a prequal to the 1986 Watchmen limited series by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons (the omnibus of which was reviewed way back on June 25^th, 2012). For the most part, Before Watchmen was an excellent addition to the Watchmen mythos, seeing as it added to the characterizations of each series’ respective subject (except for Minutemen, which sucked); the artwork was also fantastic (except for Minutemen, which sucked). Mind you, not all of that addition works, but overall there was a deal of depth added to each character.

Minutemen is without question the weakest of the series, with subpar artwork and a story that rewrites characters without adding anything to the lore. We learn that not all of our heroes were heroic and that they were not what they seemed to be – all written for “modern audiences” that favor identity politics over good-storytelling or deeper themes. All I knew about Silk Spectre was that she was more-or-less forced to become a superhero by her mother and that she had a thing for the color blue. But her own comic expands on the character and gives her a chance to prove that she is more than just a pretty face. A coming-of-age story that proves that the groovy 60s counterculture wasn’t all it has been romanticized as being.

I’m glad that The Comedian, Eddie Blake, got his own miniseries, as the uber-cynic needed a vehicle in which his bleak worldview could be explored. From the Minutemen to Vietnam to the Watchmen – and Robert F. Kennedy? – we find that good ole’ Eddie had depths we knew nothing about (kinda) and wish he could have been a better man and superhero. If you’re like me then Rorschach was your favorite Watchman, messed-up weirdo that he was, and the series dedicated to him really does the character justice (he appears in other series, too, much as he should be written). It is as gritty and bleak as a Rorschach comic should be, and Lee Bermejo’s art captures our beloved mental-case in all his dystopian glory.

Nite Owl – the second one, Dan Dreiberg – is a straight-up superhero story that explores (because we have to nowadays) the sexual repression hinted at in the original graphic novels along with the fetishism linked to men and women who play dress-up and pummel bad guys. While not really adding much to the topic, the story is solid and gives a glimpse into the character’s past exploits. Dr. Manhattan, a true superhero with godlike powers, is expanded on here, if you can believe that, seeing as he was already given so much depth in the original series. This comic should be used to teach how to craft a proper prequel as Straczynski builds on what came before without detracting from the original. Really, we learn more about the Doc and what makes him tick. I really don’t see the point of a series – granted, made up of only two comics – dedicated to the villain Moloch. I’m all for fleshing out characters and giving them depth and motivation, but this guy’s only purpose was to give Rorschach some background facts he needed to pursue his investigations – which I guess accounts for his two-and-done series.

Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt, the heavy of the original graphic novels) is explored here, especially his desire to copy Alexander the Great…in which case, why name himself after an Egyptian pharaoh? Whatever, just read the story and marvel at the artistry of Jae Lee who looks to be a modern-day comic book legend whose work will outlast whatever story he is illustrating. Remember Dollar Bill? Y’know, the original Minuteman who died ‘cause his cape got caught in a revolving door while he was trying to foil a robber? Well, he gets a one-and-done comic of his own – and, well, so what? We learn that he wasn’t meant to be a hero, just a corporate shill for a bank, an idea that could have been explored further but wasn’t. Then we have Crimson Corsair, another bleak pirate-themed tale that was meant for Tales of The Black Freighter, the comic-within-the-comic series from Watchmen – and while Higgins’ art is excellent, this tale is also rather a waste as it adds nothing at all to the series. Really, the one-off feels like it’s nothing but filler, maybe as a way to get the series to an even number.

So I liked Before Watchmen, surprisingly as I was prepared for the original series to be up-ended and ruined by modern politics. But it wasn’t for the most part (except for Minutemen, which sucked) and I think any fan of the original Watchmen miniseries will welcome this addition to their library of geekdom.

“’Salem’s Lot”, by Stephen King

 

405 pages, Doubleday & Co., Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0965772419

I first became aware of Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot when I saw the 1979 miniseries starring the recently deceased David Soul, the recently deceased Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia (mmmmm…Bonnie Bedelia), James Mason and, can’t forget, Reggie Nalder as Barlow, the scariest vampire there ever was. I thought the series rocked and it scared the bejesus out of me – of course, it was made at a time when vampires were still thought as being evil, undead things that wanted to suck your blood and kill in order to survive, not as a bunch of pussified emos who whined about everything and were as scary as a hamster. No, these were real vampires, and so while in the midst of my high school Stephen King kick I read ’Salem’s Lot in order to compare it with what I already knew.

Mostly, the book is as good as the series, although there are numerous differences between the two – especially the character of Barlow (or Kurt Barlow, if you really want to know). In the series he’s scary AF, with grey skin, evil red eyes and incisor fangs (rather than canines) which were weird and scary and…well, just damn. Kurt Barlow from the book, however, is rather more mundane, a prototypical vampire who dresses well, is urbane and well-spoken and not nearly as frightening – or interesting, truth be told. I guess it just shows what an impact the series made on me that I can find a vampire to be so pedestrian; if I had read the book first then maybe my disappointment would be reversed and I’d be let down by a monstrous Barlow.

The rest of the characters in the book are fleshed out and given personalities so that, when they are turned, their loss actually feels real (those instances when they speak as vampires are surreal). For ’Salem’s Lot is vintage early King, one of the books that cemented his reputation as a master of modern horror. There are chills and frights and gore and blood aplenty, but it is the characterizations that set him apart in that he invests the time needed to make his characters real people so that, if and when something awful happens to them, it hits you the reader that much harder. My experience with King petered out sometime in the 90s, so I don’t know if he kept this up, but its there for all to see here in ’Salem’s Lot.

And, damnit, ’Salem’s Lot is a horror book about vampires as they’re meant to be, as I said in my screed above. While once human, they are something else now and just don’t continue on living – er, make that “living” – as if nothing happened, or as if their new vampirism is just a lifestyle choice. The idea that we would want to become one of them should be absurd, if not downright evil. All of which is obvious as one reads this book, for the one thing that is made clear is not only are vampires a mockery of the living, they also no longer have any free agency, seeing as they are now pawns of Barlow and must follow his dictates. This, then, is perhaps the evil at the heart of ’Salem’s Lot: the reduction of people to drones.

I haven’t picked up a Stephen King book in an age, but after having read ’Salem’s Lot that’s all I need to know as to how good a writer he is (or at least, was).

“The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat”, by Eric Jager

 

242 pages, Crown, ISBN-13: 978-0593240885

I saw the movie The Last Duel before reading the book that it was based on, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat by Eric Jager (that’s Jodie Comer on the cover, by the by). The movie bombed, which was a damn shame, as it was an excellent retelling of a little-known event that illustrated just how different the people of the Middle Ages were from us – and, after having read the book, I appreciate the movie all the more so for staying true to the facts; or at least, the facts as are known to us (well, except for the third act, which is mostly modern-day fiction dressed up as historical interpretation).

So, what’s it about? In a nutshell, French knight Jean de Carrouges challenges his former friend, Squire Jacques Le Gris, to a judicial duel – trial by combat – after Jean’s wife, Marguerite, accuses Jacques of raping her on January 18^th, 1386. What follows is a detailed retelling of the lives of the participants, the events leading up to the alleged assault, the trial at the Parlement de Paris and thence the actual duel itself, with all of the other players and events surrounding these events brought in to flesh out the tale. And all in a slim 242 pages, no less (but there’s a reason for that, as you’ll see below).

Many historians have issues when it comes to writing in that they often write for one another and not the public at large, making their work very much inside-baseball and inaccessible to others outside of the club. But Jager’s work reads almost like a medieval romance in which a brave knight rights a heinous wrong done to his lady fair. Except that it actually happened. The difference being that the knight in question, Jean de Carrouges, is as difficult as person as one could imagine, while his antagonist, Jacques Le Gris, is as charming a noble as a nobleman should be. Switch their personalities and you have the perfect story (Marguerite is mostly a cypher).

Jager tells a spirited tale, laying out all the details while stating that, where history is silent, he provides his own invention while always listening to the voices of the past. Indeed, he contradicts a great number of them, which suppose that the whole event was a false accusation since there is no real evidence of the crime other than later recountings of the tale which varied more and more as the years went by – in fact, he presents relevant arguments as to why he believes such tales are false, arguments that are quite detailed and compelling. The number of latter-day historians with an opinion should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read history.

As to why all of this information could be imparted in such a thin book, well, it’s because Crown, for some ungodly reason, decided to use the smallest font ever when printing this thing. Seriously, there were times when I had to utilize my iPhone’s camera in order to zoom in and decipher the print, it’s so damn small. I guess tiny type means smaller book which means fewer costs which means greater profits. And only at the cost of a comfortable reading experience – I mean, I’m just the guy reading your book; why should my needs matter to Crown? The Last Duel was enlightening and entertaining, a rare twofer for a work of series history – but find a copy that has larger type.

“The Crimson Petal and the White”, by Michel Faber

 

 

838 pages, Canongate Books, ISBN-13: 978-1841953236

I miss Borders and their overstock aisles; I mean, Barnes & Noble has their own overstocks, as well, and the old location in Rochester, Michigan, once had a whole mess of used books – but, I dunno, Borders seemed to have more variety or something; maybe I’m remembering through rose-tinted glasses, but it was from Borders that I picked up The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber, one of the few novels I read in my earlier days, seeing as I was all about history and biography for so long. In a nutshell: The Crimson Petal and the White is set in Victorian London and revolves around Sugar, a peculiar prostitute (and wannabe novelist whose work is “a tale that throws back the sheets from acts never shown and voices never heard”); Agnes Rackham, the ideal Victorian wife who is of naïve and delicate femininity; and the man they share, William Rackham, the unwilling and bumbling owner of a perfumer who is married to Agnes and cavorts with Sugar.

To say that this is the novel that Dickens wanted to write had he been unrestrained by Victorian propriety (and the need to make a quid) may be stretching things. But as much as ole’ Chuck stretched what he could in his writings, he couldn’t go as far as Faber and his freedom in our culture of shock and awe (and utter lack of any standards). London life during Victoria’s reign is shown in all of its glory and gore as high and low collide and interact in ways neither party could have expected. And all told in the manner of one of those omniscient, self-righteous Victorian narrators who tells the reader exactly what they should be thinking and/or feeling as he (it’s probably a “he”) spells out the depravity of the situation. Indeed, if not for all of the sex and shit one could very well imagine it was Dickens himself describing the scenes within, such is Faber’s skill at recreating the cant of respectable Victorian boilerplate.

There are other characters to be found as well, Dear Reader: there’s Henry Rackham, William’s brother and the middle-class answer to Gladstone in his quest to reform prostitutes while suffering “nightmares of erotic disgrace”; Emmeline Fox, Henry’s compadre in the Rescue Society (those trying to reform prostitutes) whose unrequited love for Henry is both obvious and touching; the madam Mrs. Castaway and the loathsome Colonel Leek; William’s companions Bodley and Ashwell, the kinds of friends you know will get you into trouble…which is why they’re your friends. In short, the characters are fleshed out and not just representatives in some morality play as their decisions have real world consequences they didn’t necessarily see coming – just like us. Likewise, the setting of Victorian London is familiar and yet shown in a new, darker light, and made all the more dramatic for being so.

The Crimson Petal and the White is one of those honest books that will stay with you long after you have put it down for the last time – perhaps Sugar says it best, when describing her own magnum opus: “You fancy this book will amuse you, thrill you, rescue you from the horror of boredom, and that having consumed it, you will be left at liberty to resume your life as before. But this book is different. This book is a knife”. And brother, does it ever cut.

“Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million”, by Martin Amis

320 pages, Miramax, ISBN-13: 978-0786868766

I have read several books concerning the Soviet Holocaust – Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore (reviewed on May 30^th, 2013); The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire by Brian Crozier (reviewed on January 10^th, 2018); A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes (reviewed on August 31^st, 2018); amongst many others – and can only come to the conclusion that Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili – Stalin – was a demon in human form. As if anything else was needed to add to this judgment, I read Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million by Martin Amis, a book that will keep you spellbound and horrified as he acts as one’s guide through the labyrinth of Soviet madness. If Amis had not personalized the narrative and also attempted to make it a literary effort, it could have been a deadly dull recitation of a period of horror. Fortunately, he writes not just about the historical facts, but also about what it is for a modern person to learn about these events, comparing the large-scale tragedy to relevant events in his own life.

He also draws many perceptive conclusions. For example, he suggests that while it’s socially acceptable to laugh at Stalinism, one cannot say the same about Nazism. The reason for this, he argues, is not the mere gap between propaganda and reality (a problem for any government, it seems), but the perfect opposition of Stalinist propaganda and Soviet reality. The Nazis were, to a large extent, candid about the evil they were trying to commit; Stalin, meanwhile, was claiming the triumph of a workers’ paradise, always the high-minded ideal of Communism, as he was quite intentionally doing everything possible to destroy human solidarity in order to maintain and increase his own power, the triumphant apex of the reactionary low-brow. Amis refers to this phenomenon as “Negative Perfection”, and it is hard indeed not to have an ironic guffaw with citizens who are told that utopia has finally arrived while their children are starving to death. The horror makes all the cheerleading instantly risible or too absurd perhaps to deserve even a jeer, though you cannot tell that to today’s cheerleaders of Communism, a system that has always, always, led to oppression, penury and mass death.

Amis doesn’t add any new material to what we already know about Stalin and his Twenty Million victims, but then that is not the point of Koba the Dread, which is to tell the tale of this malevolent Georgian runt better than anyone before against the background of the small clan of psychopaths and morons that formed Stalin’s inner circle. Amis’ prose is passionate and sardonic in equal measure, with moments of pure brilliance dotted throughout the book. All the important facts are there, related in a way at once compassionate and hilarious which compels you to read on, often laughing through the tears. Yes, laughter – the unwanted presence that won’t depart – is here the laughter of forgetting, the forgetting of the twenty million crushed during Stalin’s reign. It’s also the laughter of real people gathered to hear Christopher Hitchens speak, laughing at an affectionate reference he made to “many an old comrade”. For while Nazism and (by extension) Hitler cannot be laughed about, Communism and (again, by extension) Stalin can be.

Koba the Dread does two very necessary and needful things: it pulls Stalin out of the dark forgetfulness into which he has escaped and puts his psychotic wickedness under the hot light of examination; and then it asks why, as an historical figure, Stalin is forgiven his sins by having had them forgotten. The answer to the latter resides in the inherent tragedy that invariably emerges from an irresistible desire: the golden image of the Just City in the flawed world we know. If the cosmic joke has a smooth groove, Stalin seems to have found it.