240919: this is not book I would usually pick up but very glad I did. I have read horror (198), but I am not horror aficionado- I do not read graphics240919: this is not book I would usually pick up but very glad I did. I have read horror (198), but I am not horror aficionado- I do not read graphics, watch movies, tv series, plays. on the other, I have read American Psycho, which is major reference point. this is 'splatterpunk': visceral, immediate, extreme in characters, in plots in action- this makes It, indeed all of Stephen King seem bland, middlebrow and not remotely scary....
I had known this from previous disappointing readings, where the town of It, is basically giant haunted house, where The Shining is same with paranormal, where other works are similarly riffs on traditional themes- vampires 'Salem's Lot, telekenesis Firestarter, then is of course my favourite Carrie... this last all you need ever read of King...
this book is... different. feminist horror. body horror (she really likes him... but this is too much for her). ghosts, ultraviolence, blood and guts and gore, fun......more
240320: great art. great story. great comedy/action. energetic, manic, crazy as harif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240320: great art. great story. great comedy/action. energetic, manic, crazy as harley is. never much read superhero comics but art comics/graphics......more
231203: read in one day. powerful, prescient, poignant. this is exactly what is needed to unravel the madness of anthropogenic climate/habitat disaste231203: read in one day. powerful, prescient, poignant. this is exactly what is needed to unravel the madness of anthropogenic climate/habitat disaster. this is gently different world presented, which allows the reader to concentrate on what is of most metaphorical importance (Atlantis as precursor to collapse of proud human culture, 'ghost ore' that generates disturbances in time as we studiously ignore real world)...
this is also written in gently Pomo way. with letters, diaries, stream of conscious, poetry... this is work which engages the reader in putting it together, not linear, not simple, with characters truly rounded and complex and seen from various perspectives in time and space, with ineradicable contingency, with frustrated 'coherence' in all plot lines. I am of the opinion the openness, the gaps, the unsaid, is what always makes work...
poetry is music: infinitely analysable but finally only 'understood' as heard. this is poetry......more
231002: fascinating, fantastic, flamboyant. do not know why had not previously readif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
231002: fascinating, fantastic, flamboyant. do not know why had not previously read this. as critique of history, politics, colonialism, all presented in slightly-other historical world, this is the sort of idea- dense book for me like The Name of the Rose or Foucault's Pendulum. it is necessarily long. it is not difficult to read. assertions of pacing problems reveal more of reader than work. it has long passages about language, etymology, empire. it has characters who think themselves entirely rational in their colonial designs, who only reveal themselves through thought, speech, act, to be simply educated racists...
as far as translation goes (1 542 read) believe to me theory has always been apparent. any translation is indeed new book, new rendering, new understanding, of disparate languages. as I read almost exclusively English, I am very glad there are so many who are willing to translate, to 'betray' themselves. this book interrogates language and power through magic 'silver work' that threads through the british empire until completely integrated, unwittingly vulnerable. this book reflects on mechanisms of information/language and power. this book reflects on history of forgotten failed revolutions and why this might be different this time. this book even reflects on itself as characters struggling against martyrdom, against dominant narrative, against how Empire will try to deny their personhood, agency, values...
there will be arguments against abstract nature embodied in schematic plot with too few 'real' characters, not enough 'action'. there will be arguments decrying that the european characters are all villains, not rounded, but this is imposing several centuries of enlightening history anachronistically, in asking for contemporary sense. this is simply that the reader might find apparent angle of thought not to be 'natural' as eurocentric narratives. there will be arguments against political, ideological, reference to colonialism of this our world and language-dominance. not enough 'emotion'. no 'love story'. but if you have grown up fascinated by language, in everything from A Wizard of Earthsea to Babel-17 to Embassytown, this is an excellent book......more
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