Heart Transplant **

By Andrew Vachss (writer) and Frank Caruso (illustrator)
Copy right 2010 by Andrew Vachss  and Frank Caruso.
Published 2010 by Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Miwaukie, Oregon.
98 pages.

This book was a quick read so I'll attempt to make quick work of it.  This is a story of a boy who is bullied by everyone in his life including his step father and his negligent mother.  He is left an orphan but the father of the boy's stepfather comes by and adopts him.  This old man is hard nosed but tender at the same time.  It is this old man who finally teaches the boy to stick up for himself.

I think one of the weaknesses of the story is that in the beginning of the book, the writer makes a big ado about how the leads character life is NOT like the movies because the nerd doesn't really get the beautiful girl in the end, but then it has the standard generic pap ending where the kid does learn not to be bullied. Sure the  lesson in how he learns to stick up for him self and the ones he loves does have a slight twist, but it still ends with a happy ever after.

The illustrations I really like.  They have that modern expressionistic quality that is found in so many of today's comics.  Especially those of Dark Horse. There are lots of strong high contrast blacks and whites with washes of color to brighten the palette a bit.  Faces are almost blurred and merely suggested in a sinister way.  Beautiful really if not a bit de la mode.

Warm Bodies **1/2

By Isaac Marion.
Copy right 2011 by Isaac Marion.
Published by Atria Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, New York.

239 pages.

I'm not normally a reader of Science Fiction or Post Apocalyptic literature, and I am certainly not a reader of Zombie books.  Though I am a sucker for these genres in film, if the film makers do a half way decent job and and the movie's not too stupid.  I chose to read this  because it was an interesting title on Barnes & Noble Discovery Book series where I discovered it.

So yes, this is a book about Zombies.  But there is a twist.  it's from the point of view of one of the lesser deteriorated zombies.  I don't think this idea has ever been done before.  And it's funny because the lead zombie character has a particularly weird out look on life, such as you might call it.  It is a really funny book.  Apparently zombies have a fairly sceptical, fatalistic view on life. I would recommend this book on that basis alone. Simply that's it's really funny and a very quick read.

So I've already introduced our romantic lead, and yes it does have a romantic element.  His name is R ( he can't remember the rest of his name - just the initial sound - but that's more than most of his zombie comrades can do).  So he is intellectually superior to the majority of other zombies in his community at the deserted airport. 

One day, on a hunt, he kills and eats the brains of a boyfriend of a girl who later becomes his love interest.  Instead of killing her too, he saves her from another zombie for some reason, perhaps some glimmer of humanity that still exists inside of him.  He takes her back to his zombie bachelor pad (a deserted airplane)and convinces her in a series of one syllable words, gestures and grunts (he can think at a fairly high level but can't communicate very well - he IS a zombie after all!) that he won't hurt her and a strange sort of friendship begins.  He learns about her through his dreams and visions that he has as a result of eating her boyfriends brains and reliving the boyfriend's memories of his girl.  Apparently when a zombie eats the brains, they get visions of their victims memories and life.  His friend Zombie, M, likes to eat the brains of young women and states that it is like porno.  This is a little too disturbing even for our more sensitive, flesh-eating hero. He slowly starts to have actual feelings of empathy and sympathy.  He is starting to have human feelings.  Maybe he can change!  You think!?!?!?

The beginning of the book is probably the best part and most original part of the book.  Of course it's rather silly, which makes it the perfect beach read (did I just say that !?!?!)  And it does get hokey and into some rather unoriginal ideas as the story continues.  But it still good clean fun.  For example there are these "boneys" who seem to run the zombie community.  It's hinted that their evil is of a more ancient and sinister evil than that of the zombies who ignorantly stumble through their pseudo lives.  These boneys must be the reason for the "curse" that caused or is symptomatic of the Apocalypse.  There's a battle at the end against these boneys because the zombie , R, and his girl, Julie, are a symbol of hope to society of hopefully curing this disease or plague which has overcome earth.  It's a symbol of the change that the future could bring.  Of course there is the overdone, paint-by-numbers theme of the sins humanity has causing this mess in the first place.   But in my opinion those lofty philosophies about mankind are all throw away elements that should give way to the funny, original and silly narrative.

Here's a trailer for the book. They do them for books now!



And someone elses opinions and descriptions. Carefull - some language here.

Parrot & Olivier in America ***

By Peter Carey.
copy right 2009 by Peter Carey.
Published 2011 by Vintage International.  In New York.  A first edition.

Originally published 2009 in Australia by Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Group.
381 pages.

I have heard much about the reputation of John Carey.  About 10 years ago I read his Booker Prize Winner The True Story of the Kelly Gang.  It was historical fiction as is this one here and the subject matter (of both books) is something that interests me strongly.  But I struggled with it.  The cause was partly the language of the characters (they were Australian rough necks form the late 19th century) and his elliptical manner of writing in which he spells out very little for the reader and the reader has to work out what exactly it is that is happening.  This difficullty prevented me from tackling his other books until now, though I really did enjoy the Kelly Gang in spite of the difficulties.

This book is similiar.  It's language is thick and dense.  But for some reason I was able to follow it better.  Perhaps after all these years I'm simply a better reader.

Parrot and Olivier in America is historical fiction based loosely on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville. That character is Olivier.  Olivier is a French Aristocrat in the early to mid 19th century - during the time of the French Revolution, which of course is not a good time to be a French aristocrat.

Parrot is a poor Englishman who becomes the servant of a roguish yet aristocratic soldier - the Marquis.  The Marquis saves Parrot as a boy when he is found wandering the roads and they end up sailing to an Australian penal colony where the boy is left until he is an adult. For some reason the Marquis comes back and takes him to France.  It should be also said that Parrot has a talent for mimicking people, hence the name Parrot, and for drawing.

The over protective mother, who is friends with the Marquis, wants to send Olivier, fearing for his life, away from France.  The Marquis offers his servant Parrot as a companion/servant.  Being from completely different stratas of society, the two do not get along, yet Parrot sticks around as he is honor bound, plus he is being paid.   Eventually the two come to an understanding and a sort of weird friendship.  It's an odd couple story.

I really admired the gritty descriptions of the infant U.S.A.  It was not romanticized and touched on all sorts of debauchery and corruption.  It's not a very romantic description but probably closer to the reality of the situation.

It is also a funny book.  Parrot made much fun of Olivier's snobby attitude with some pretty bawdy language.

And finally, I liked some of the ideas presented about just what is America.  Olivier discourses on much of this of in his monologues about the nature of America.   Surprisingly, some of it still rings true today.  He believed that America was crass and concerned only with commercailism.  He didn't believe true art and fine culture could flourish in the country with out a noble class that has the time to appreciate and study art.  If one compares this to our modern society, one can see the similarities. Our culture and art is driven by tastes of the uneducated and undereducated common man.  There are a few lone wolves out there trying to make a difference but its a steep upward road. Though Parrot argues with him over this idea.  After all Parrot and his wife were artists and Parrot believed that it was possible to have great art in America.  Though his argument loses strength when his group of artists have to sell their art though theatric and circus like tricks.  This and the commercialism of America is a major theme of the book.

Carey's books are not easy reading, so I would not choose to read him when I need a quick read between obligatory reads, but if I have time, he's definitely worth returning to.

Here's a pretty succinct interview about the boook with Carey. I'm glad to see that I'm not that far off for once.



And some more thoughts...



And something a little silly...



And one longer interview for good measure...

Elizabeth Costello **

By J.M. Coetzee.
Published 2003 by Viking a Penguin Group,
New York.
230 pages.

Coetzee is one of my favorite authors.  His book Disgrace is one of my favorite books and won the Booker Prize deservedly so I think. While his books always have multiple layers and things to think about, a reader could always count on a riveting narrative.  So I am always recommending his books.  In fact i recommended this book to someone before I had ever read it.  They said they didn't like it.  I was astonished!

So finally this Spring I started to read it.  I immediately started to see the reason my friend did not like the book. Basically its a book of essays.  The book is a novel, but the narrative is basically that of an elderly woman writer who gives 8 speeches.  Each speech is a chapter and supposedly reveals something of the narrative.  And there is a narrative string but it is a really a loose one.  For the most part it is a book of essays with bits of narrative to tie together the essays in a thematic way.  If I had read this as a book of essays my opinion of the book might be different.  The essays/speeches can be very intellectually demanding, yet I was able to comprehend and stay with the strands of thought being presented.  If this book were presented as a book of essays, perhaps the rating would be much higher.

I also see that Coetzee has several books of essays so he might be someone to check out deeper for those who like to read essays.  I guess an interesting idea to pursue here is why he chose to make these essays into a narrative.  He already has published books of essays and some of these "chapters"/ essays had been published in different forms in various magazines.  I'm guessing there was less narrative in those published pieces and those narrative pieces were added when he decided to turn it into a narrative.  Maybe it was an experiment.  Maybe it was a chance for him to try some different ideas for his essays and therefore enable him to distance him self from some of these ideas since the ideas are not really his, but the ideas of his characters.  Maybe it allows him to try on different ideas that normally he wouldn't call his own and that perhaps he disagrees with.  Maybe he's playing devil's advocate here.  Some of the ideas the character has are controversial with in the context of the book and she gets into discussions with people who disagree with her about her speeches.  Maybe its a chance for the author to show both sides of an argument.

The last chapter is interesting and might be the closest to a narrative that there is in this book.  In this chapter, the author is in purgatory and she can't get into heaven because she refuses to commit herself to a "belief".  So she spends her time in Purgatory, a small,  cliched, early 20th century European town, trying to edit her statement about her beliefs.

I enjoyed this book, but i would refrain from recommending it to most people unless I knew that this person really likes to read intellectual and philosophical texts.

Stitches**1/2

By David Small.
Published by 2009
by W.W. Norton & Company, New York.
330 pages,

The illustrations are nice if not a bit dreary.  It's done in gray washes and for the most part simple lines.  Some of the better, more detailed illustrations have some nice variations in gray, but most of the shading is simple in that there are only 2 or 3 varieties of gray.  The dreariness does fit the story though.

This is the memoir of the author/artist.  Being a memoir, it's episodic in nature, though the main narrative revolves around his non communicative parents and the cancer he obtains in his pre and early teens.
It takes place in the fifties when every one was ultra conservative and conformist.

Mom's a housewife, but she's very bitter.  She comes off as the heavy in this book.  She rarely smiles.  She also turns out to be gay.  The conclusion one draws is that she's bitter because she stuck in the marriage.  In those days there were not many alternative to leading the typical " married and 2.5 kids" lifestyle.  At one point she censors his reading selections (including Lolita) and tosses them n the garbage.

Dad's  a typical 50's dad.  Jolly when around, but never home.

So they discover a bump on David's neck and they go to the hospital to have an operation,.  They don't tell their son he has cancer.  He later discovers that fact while sneaking around in his mother's stuff and finds a letter that tells him the truth. He is understandably angry with his non communicative family.  Obviously, he survived to write this book so the rest of the story has to do with his feelings toward his parents.

Also there are many of dream sequences, which I think graphic novelists use too much.  I know it's an opportunity to have fun with their illustrations, but to me they are quite often a distraction and don't lend, or lend very many, important elements of the plot.  He uses approximately three in a book that tends to be dominated by illustrations already.  So there is not too much text to begin with and he uses facial expressions to tell the emotions of the people.  I like the art work but I do have a hard time concentrating on it when the art alone is trying to tell a story.  It's like silent movies (one critic in the back of the book compared it to a silent movie) and I/we are not accustomed pictures telling stories anymore.  My daughters have a hard time sitting through a silent movie.  I think they have an aesthetic of their own, but they are dated and old fashioned.  People today prefer more language (written or spoken) oriented narratives. I suppose I am that way to a degree also.   So maybe it's my fault for not being more patient with the illustrations and giving them more time and attention that they really do deserve.  But his illustrations are so simple, it's easy to fly past them.

As a narrative , it's dark and disturbing and I think the story needs to be told.  David Small is an older author - born 1945 - that makes him in his 70's.  I am not aware of his other work, but I think he's worth checking into some more.  I just would like to see more detailed and lengthier narratives.

Apparently the book was nominated for the National Book Awards. Apparently I don't know what I am talking about - but that's not anything new.



And some excerpts from the book.