Number 57 - The Death of Francis Bacon - Max Porter

 

I genuinely have no idea what I just read. Do I need to be an expert on Francis Bacon to make sense of this book? 

Randomness and broken language fill this book. 

The blurb says "A great painter lies on his deathbed. Max Porter translates into seven extraordinary written pictures the explosive final workings of the artist's mind"

I'm afraid I didn't get any particular mind pictures from this. I couldn't get any type of story. As a portrait of a broken mind, I suppose it works. 

it's very very short. if it had been any longer I'm not sure I could gave persisted with it. 

After the amazing book that was Lanny, to read this is a bitter disappointment.  Maybe it is my ignorance on display here.  there were a couple of flashes of narrative but they were all too quickly buried in the utter randomness of word choice. 

Not for me this time. I can honestly say, if this was the first Max Porter I read, I would never read another.

One good thing that's come about from this is that I did look up Francis Bacon's artwork and some of it is rather extraordinary. I am tempted to buy a print of one of his pictures for my living room.

I suppose it does marry up to Bacon's art style - the visceral and jusp plain weird mixed in together.

  However as a reading experience, nope.  

Number 56 - Dying is Easy - Joe Hill/Martin Simmonds

 And more Joe Hill related graphic novel goodness. 

This time it's a murder mystery set in the world of stand up comedy.  Syd Homes is an ex-cop turned stand up comedian. Carl  Dixon is another comic from the same comedy club.  He's about to get his big break with a guest slot on Leno. 

However, he's doing it with stolen material and he's found dead in the alley behind the club. Syd is prime suspect for the killing and needs to use all his cop skills to clear his name.

The artwork is to die for.  Martin Simmonds and Gabriel Rodriguez take turns on art duty, doing alternate chapters.  

Joe Hill's script is equally good.  the detective story flows well and twists and turns rather brilliantly.  I didn't see the ending coming at all, but it still made logical sense and was foreshadowed quite effectively amidst all the red herrings.

As ways to kill an hour go, this is an excellent choice.  Syd is a funny creation, wisecracking his way through the story.  Check the aliases he uses throughout - there are some real laugh out loud examples. 

I have no problem in saying - go out and buy this. You won't regret it. 

Number 55 - Barcelona dreaming - Rupert Thomson

Having just finished this, Rupert Thomson's latest book, I've now once again read every word that Thomson has had published. He's one of my absolute favourite authors and has been for over a decade.  His previous twelve novels are almost uniformly excellent.  

This feels slight in comparison to his last few books. I'm not entirely certain why. It's possibly because this is three very loosely interconnected novellas rather than a continuous narrative. 

There really isn't any structural link between any of the three stories.  Once character appears as a best friend to the lead character of the first, ex wife of the second narrator, and publisher of the third narrator. Other than that and the stories being set in Barcelona, there's no real connection. There are a couple of Easter eggs but nothing truly substantial.

The first story is narrated by Amy, a small shopkeeper in Barcelona who meets a young immigrant man soon after he's been attacked and starts on a life changing affair with him.  This story starts well but descends into an unconvincing final act.  Trying not to leave spoilers, I understand how the solution given to her problem in the last third of the story works dramatically to increase tension, but that's not how these things work in real life.  It was a frustrating end to the story. 

The second story features an alcoholic ex-musician. He runs into Ronaldinho (the Barca football player) in the street, then later in the bar he frequents and starts a friendship. This story takes some reading between the lines, although it becomes more transparent as time goes on what exactly is happening.  

My problem with this story is my own personal prejudice against football, football players, and fans who think football players are some type of freaking gods. It makes my eyes glaze over, especially at a time like this with a major contest on, when you can't turn on the tv or social media without boring twats whittering on about the game. I probably did miss some early important aspects of this section because of the internal eyerolling due to the behaviour of this particular narrator.  It's something I want to avoid and not read about.

It turns very dark by the end of the story which makes up in part for the worship for football players on display.

The third story is narrated by a translator of foreign books who befriends/is befriended by a charismatic but maybe not entirely trustworthy new neighbour from the penthouse of the apartment block he lives in. This story is full of oddities and at times seems like it might be supernatural. It's very ambiguous and feels almost unresolved.

The location is very well realised. Thomson clearly has his finger on the pulse of life in Barcelona. His prose is just as good as usual. The characters are  well drawn (even the Ronaldinho worshipper). The issue is that none of the stories feel really satisfying.  They all cut off just as they're getting really interesting. 

If he was aiming for this to be his own New York Tapestry, it's not quite hit the mark.  I've had a great time reading it. It's a genuinely good book, and better than a lot of the books I've written about in the last few years. But I judge Thomson on his own standards and this doesn't reach the pinnacles that the Insult or Five Gates of Hell or Dreams of  Leaving reached.

A qualified hit rather than anything resembling a miss.  I know if I'd read it when I wasn't suffering from the fatigue of an overload of football from all media, I could probably have given the second story a better chance. I may have to read it again sometime. 

Number 54 - the Creatures that Time Forgot - Ray Bradbury

 I thought I had nearly everything that Bradbury had written, so when I saw a new title on Amazon that I'd never seen before, I had to buy it.

It turns out that this is a version of his story Frost and Fire from the R is For Rocket collection.  Somehow this slipped through when copyright was supposed to be renewed in the 70s and this particular text of the story is open for anyone to publish if they want to.

(Thanks to the Bradbury fans in the Ray Bradbury Fan Club facebook page for clueing me into that.  I would have spent forever trying to work out where I'd read it before)

The people who've put this edition out have done a decent job.  That's pretty good artwork that goes well with the story.

The story is one of Bradbury's more fantastic ones. On a world where spaceships crash landed an unknown time in the past, the radiation from the atmosphere means that people age from birth to death in just 8 days. During those 8 days, they can only leave their caves for about 2 hours a day.  The rest of the time, they will either freeze in the sub zero temperatures at night, or literally fry on the rocks in the sun in the afternoon. Only the couple of hours just before noon are habitable. 

There is an old spaceship at the top of a hill, just too far away to get to in the scant time available. Can Sim and his potential lover Lyte work out a way to get there without dying, and save themselves?

As usual with Bradbury, the prose is poetic and freewheeling, never using one metaphor where he can squeeze in ten. But as usual, it works and it works brilliantly. If you think about the science of the story, it's not going to work.  But Bradbury didn't write science fiction (except for F451), he wrote fantasy and this is a brilliant short fantasy tale.

This was a good cheat read but unusually, I'm recommending that you don't buy this particular edition. Bradbury isn't even named on the Copyright page. This smells of someone taking advantage of an out of copyright story and making easy money out of it.  Even that rather nice cover art is from a stock photo website.

If you want the Bradbury estate to get the money from your purchase, you might want to buy a new copy of The Stories of Ray Bradbury. You'll get a lot more stories for your money too.

Number 53 - the Monarch of the Glen - Neil Gaiman

 This is a gorgeously illustrated novella featuring Shadow Moon, lead character from American Gods. 

He's travelling the world after the events of that novel.  After two years he's found himself in a small town in the arse end of nowhere in the Scottish highlands.

When he's offered a substantial sum of money to work as a bouncer at an exclusive party for the rich and powerful at the local manor house, he doesn't hesitate. However, when he gets there he realises that the security teams in place are more than capable of doing the job and starts to question the real reason for luring him up there.

Shadow is a fascinating character and the supporting cast are equally good. 

Gaiman's prose is up to the usual high standards and the plotline weaves the apparently mundane into the supernatural with consummate ease.

The illustrations are surreal and really rather beautiful in an odd way.  They set the story off brilliantly, adding a whole new dimension to the experience.

Only being a novella it's very short and it's difficult to say much more without leaving spoilers. There's definitely an element of social commentary about the relationship between the rich and the not so lucky. It's incorporated into the story neatly though so it feels entirely natural and doesn't get in the way of the story.

Available in all the usual online outlets. I highly recommend it.

Number 52 - Outcast volume 4 - Kirkman & Azaceta

 The saga continues

The conspiracy widens at the same time that it tightens its net around Kyle and his family.

The resolution to the cliffhanger we were left with at the end of volume 3 was resolved slowly and violently, which was good.  There are no "And with one bound he was free" in this storytelling.

This series is shaping up to be more satisfying than The walking Dead was. the Walking Dead, for all its greatness treaded very familiar ground. This started in the realms of a standard exorcist tale but has expanded to something much more far reaching. 

These aren't normal demons (if they even are demons) and all the Power-of-Christ-compels-yous in the world won't have any real effect.

Volumes 5 and 6 are on my shopping list for the weekend.

Number 51 - The Concrete Grove - Gary McMahon

 

This book is the first book I ever finished reading at a heavy rock festival... On Thursday night  I was left with only 50 pages to go when my friend (and passenger to the festival) arrived so I needed to be a little bit sociable. So I stuck it in my bag and finished it on Saturday morning sitting in my tent after waking up early.

I had virtually no signal so, two heavy metal filled days and much mental and physical exhaustion later, here's what I thought of it.

Those who follow this blog will know that i am very keen on McMahon's miserabilist musings. His novels are written from the point of view of those at the bottom of the heap. So much horror seems to be written about the comfortably middle class and fairly well to do section of society. The very real urban nightmare settings for McMahon's books really make him stand out.

This book, part one of a trilogy, is set in the Concrete grove of the title - a sink estate where people land after they've missed every safety net and crashed through every crack to hit the bottom.

 Hailey and her mother landed there after a family "incident" left them with nothing. One day Hailey visits The Needle- an abandoned tower block in the centre of the estate around which all the streets are arranged in concentric circles - and encounters... something. It's only the first chapter so normally I would regard that as fine for giving spoilers, but in this case, certainly not.  The imagery in that first chapter is so fresh and startling that to even hint at it would do the book a massive disservice.

The power that exists in the Grove has noticed Hailey and from that point on, things get decidedly weird for everyone around Hailey, including Tom, the helpful jogger who takes her home after finding her collapsed in the street. It can see a person's deepest hidden fears and make them face up to their own demons. Some people, like local loan shark Monty Bright, have welcomed them in. 

This is filled with bizarre, surreal and goddamned scary set pieces. Even the mundane is frightening in the Grove. To have a twisted supernatural force  at work at the same time helps remove almost every glimmer of hope from these character's lives.  However, because of the skill in the storytelling, that light is always there at the end of the tunnel.  Whether that's daylight, or a freight train coming down the tracks to crush everyone in its path is another matter.

This is the first part of a trilogy, whether the characters who almost/sort of survived this book will make a reappearance is something I'm excited to find out. 

Side note. according to the author's note at the end of the book, The Needle is based on a tower block in Dunston in the north east of England. The first address I can recall living in was on a street almost opposite that tower block.  There was a great urban legend about it (which isn't used in this book) which I may need to try to use in a story of my own.

I'm not sure if this book is still in print, but it is available online from most of the usual suspects.

Go out and buy it if you enjoy existential horror set in grim and all too recognisable urban settings.  I know I do. 

In fact, just go out and buy it if you like well written horror that'll creep the bejeezus out of you. You won't be disappointed.

Number 50 - Outcast Vol 3 - Kirkman & Co

 

The thick plottens...

More layers are added to the storyline, some more predictable than others.

The story is more complex than TWD ever was which is a good thing. Will Kyle ever discover the source of his powers?  Will he ever find out how to control them?

What are the demons and what is the big merge? Is he a key to making it happen or is he the only hope of stopping it? If his touch hurts them so much, why do they need him?

These questions and more are raised, but not answered because it's only volume three and there's quite a few more before the story can finish.

 This volume finished on quite a good cliffhanger.  Unfortunately for me, my copy of volume 4 is still in the shop because I haven't bought it yet.

I'm still really enjoying these.  the writing is good and the colour artwork is impressive. 

Number 49 - Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake

 I'm what could charitably called late to the game on reading this, considering it was first published shortly after WWII. However even the best read people have their gaps.  Mervyn Peake happened to be one of mine.

This is the first book in the Gormenghast trilogy. The next two being Gormenghast and Titus Alone (although I did see a fourth book about Titus on Amazon with a co-writer's name - I need to check what the deal is with that) 

Gormenghast is a huge castle/kingdom mired in ritual and tradition since time immemorial.  The book opens with Flay, the lead servant to lord Sepulchrave Groan, 76th earl of Gormenghast, rushing up to the Hall of Bright Carvings to tell the splendidly named RottCodd about the birth of Titus Groan, new heir to the earldom. We then follow Flay through the winding corridors of the castle and encounter most of the rest of the cast of this sprawling epic, starting with the corpulent chef Swelter and runaway kitchenhand with pretensions to grandeur Steerpike and finishing with the Groans themselves.

It's a marvelous way to introduce us to the characters and the castle. The location is a character all of it's own, slowly rotting away on the inside, much like Lord Sepulchrave. Other memorable characters include Fuschia, the Lord's daughter, the twins Cora and Clarice, his sisters, Nannie Slagg, Fuschia's and Titus' nurse, and the castle doctor Prunesquallor.

As you might be able to tell from those names, the whole thing has a positively Dickensian feel to it, as if old Charlie had decided to write a comic politic thriller in a fantastic setting. The prose takes a fair bit of getting used to. By today's fashions in literary styles, this is padded and over-descriptive. By my personal standards, it's a highly stylised, poetic and an absorbing read (even if there were a couple of moments where I found myself thinking he does go on a bit at times)

Steerpike is a fabulous villain, stalking the corridors of Gormenghast, ingratiating himself into the inner circles of power, manipulating everyone he meets. It's a bit strange that he's 17 at the start of the book and at the end of the book, after 15 months or so have passed, he's still 17, but that's a minor niggle.

Considering that the book is called Titus Groan, Titus barely features. His birth is the trigger for most of the happenings in the book since Steerpike is able to escape the kitchen because Swelter gets so drunk while celebrating the birth. But at the end of the book, he's still only a baby, barely able to stand, and has done very little for himself. It feels like the titles of the first two volumes in the series are the wrong way round to me.  Gormenghast would be a better title for this, and I know the opening line of book 2 is "Titus is six", indicating that he's going to take an active role in that book.

Again, that's a minor quibble, as is the fact that Peake calls spiders insects repeatedly in the narrative.

This well and truly deserves its classic status.  It's laugh out loud funny in many places. The prose is easy to read if you remove the modern filter from your brain and actually concentrate.  Once the story really gets going in the second half of the book, it's almost compulsive.

I will be finishing the series later in the year. This was too good to leave it too long to find out what happens next.