Auteur's library

Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Saga
Volume One (#1-6).

2012

You’ll get a kick out of this one, rubbing your hands expectantly while preparing to start what seems like a real cool fantasy-space opera extravaganza…and it will prove to be exactly that.
Teenage ghosts suddenly appear, so do weird-disgusting spider-women, romance lit’, robot guys, rocket trees…(you get the gist…), often without a hint of connection to each other. Rather, the weirder and more creative they get, the more they feel almost randomly splashed across the pages. It’s a good thing Brian K. Vaughan’s ideas are that “kitschly” charming and original because structure isn’t his strongest point. So much happens, in fact, that you’ll find yourself quickly breathless, yet frantically looking for any piece of backstory that might work as a clue to details of the past and the future within the narrative, fervently wanting to devour even more than you’ve actually been given to chew. Saga Volume 1 works as a hook, offering an array of storylines, mysteries and emotions, never dwelling too deep into them, letting them linger with you until the next volume, instead.
Fiona Staples’ artwork is amazingly realistic, its rendering of facial expressions and body movements making almost ludicrous characters credible, even close to us. The tone is right, though at its best with colour ranges diffusing an atmosphere of nighttime fantasy-sci-fi nightmare than when the action is in broad daylight.
Hazel and The Will are definitely the most stand-out characters, but, unfortunately, they’re not the main meal. The rest of the cast appear varyingly interesting but rather pale in comparison; though they prove enough to lead the story, they’re not the ones whom we wish would lead it. However, not complaining…This may actually work to the book’s advantage because it keeps you on your toes for appearances from the real stars of the show.
As for Alana, Marko and the lot, there’s a lot of wit and personality showing off in their one-liners, yet somehow it all feels a little rushed, a little too easy. Having spent the whole issue with the parenting couple, I’m still not quite sure I actually care for anything coming their way. They are said to have personality, they sound like they have personality, they are drawn beautifully, perhaps even a little too beautifully for the first-degree writing; still, they feel like actors losing their strong acting skills in witty but mild dialogues_ dialogues from which the main core is missing. What is it that Vaughan is actually trying to say?
So, yes, it’s luxuriously laden with stuff, a lot of elements catch your eye in Saga_ as they are designed to do_ but the real question is: will they prove more than mere baits to take the reader on a fan-generating trip through a vaguely moralist fantasy tale?
Having dropped all those nasty hooks with characters appearing more evil than doing evil (save from one very awful, vomit-inducing nightmarish scene), you half expect the narration to get deeper into the whole of it_ either in the Song of Ice and Fire style, showing how nasty the mind can be, or via a more mature outlook: diving into character motives, complex emotional network, backstory, or anything that should lie on the other side of the hook.
For that was the one thing that annoyed me persistently, though it didn’t prevent me from enjoying the read, at all: nothing really happens for nothing is really developed. A lot of things are said, shown or hinted at, but it almost feels, at times, as if the writer did not know while writing where his story would in fact lead him to. And that he’s making it up as he goes along is one thing, that we notice it is another. It’s possible that I’m utterly wrong on this but the fact remains that reading book 1 felt like reading the first tentative chapters of a longer piece: we haven’t even been given the middle, yet, and the comic book closes on a big ‘so what?’ All the while I’m enjoying this, a little voice within me is still wondering why I should actually care, and it becomes increasingly harder to shove it aside.
Now, I’m not one for going through authors’ interviews or anything where they express their intentions and opinions on their books as I firmly think a review works best when based on the material actually present in the book; hence, simply based on its content, Saga effectively comes across as a nice, light, attractive, entertaining, sometimes harsh, comic book that fully and unashamedly lives up to its name: it’s a saga, a darkly clever soap opera, and I’m not sure its first installment aims at more beyond that. It will draw you in, whether you’re half interested to start with or not, and you’ll remained hooked during the reading. However, you’ll notice you close that last page a little too soon, having witnessed a lot, having absorbed much less.
It’s fan-generating material, all right, and I can say I’m in to the extent I acquired the second book, but did so hoping it’ll do better than its first installment which presented more than it actually gave. Volume 1 won’t be a breakthrough or the revelation of the year (not if you’re honest with yourself), having you redoing scenes in your head while waiting impatiently for the next installment or anything like that (and if it does, perhaps you need to start reading better books). But it will please you, that’s undeniable.

P.S. I found Hazel’s comments not always well enough synchronized with the images they commented to really give you that witty, startling effect they intended.

Tags: planets, robots and space ships, flirting with metaphysical and pseudo-philosophical questions, interracial war and a mix of interplanetary political alliances thrown in-between, often funny "voiceover" interrupting clichéd romance fiction moments, big big jungle fever seeing how they're supposed to be war ennemies and all, sometimes a little too lighthearted to really let you get into it, magical horn-people vs. gun-crazy wing-soldiers, and their robots allies added to the mix or fantasy vs. sci.fi, a whole lore of indistinct, rather ephemeral creatures (seeing how they all quickly, and conveniently, die), ghosts, yes...ghosts, war, war, war...and love war,  a crazy world, full of stuff...you won't get bored!, a lot of naughty drawings, a fast-paced story made of quests and adventures, tendency to favourise an evil turn of events... so definitely not a happiness-inducing type of reading (beware, evocation of paedophilia!), and the whole of it organised around a not-so-familial saga

Auteur's library

Booth Tarkington
 

The Magnificent Ambersons

1918

The Magnificent Ambersons will take through a nostalgic journey to Midwestern America in the later part of the 19^th century. Written with certainty and fluidity, it recreates an epoch vividly, almost making you wish you were part of it, strolling along with them, with their false sense of glory but without the sunshade. If the story, centred on the social changes a family must confront in a growing town, is small and seems, at first, uninteresting, Tarkington’s astute style of storytelling will make you care effortlessly. It’s a book that is enjoyable to read, clever, honest and often illuminating.   
As you close the last page, you leave the early 20^th century with a feeling of not having read enough (for it is a small read), of wanting to know more, all the while knowing that some things are best left unsaid. You’re free to let your imagination wander now, and, surprisingly, you do. While you weren’t watching, you let yourself get attached to the seemingly distant and arrogant characters and you honestly wish them the best.
The only flaw in The Magnificent Ambersons, however, is a significant one: if never hurtful or unkind, Tarkington’s whole attitude towards Blacks still makes it very difficult for a 21^st-century reader to fully go past it. Of course, he probably didn’t mean for a black person to read it but the fact is we do, and for a book on society’s changes it is ironic that its author wasn’t able to envision such change in his readership. While providing some social and linguistic credibility to the story, his terminology (‘darkie’) and characterization of black characters (or lack thereof) lack the decency and effort he put in his white characters. In a book that otherwise excels as a comedy of manners and characters, Blacks are one-dimensional: either proud, lively or slavish, they seem cheerful all the time, so busy they are with humour, women, food and gin. As impersonal and unfeeling images stuck in time, they don’t seem to take part in the industrial world changes going around them, but remain immutable, a ready-made repertoire providing a good-natured background against which other characters move as they please.
That’s a real shame for this holds back your feelings uncomfortably, keeps you on ‘liking’ terms with the book when you could have loved it.

Tags: rapid growth and industrialization, sympathetic comedy of manners, late 19th century-early 20^th century, centred on one family in one town with several dramas, the idea of getting your comeuppance really explored here, money vs. land, doing. vs.being, when George confuses filial overprotectiveness with filial ‘overpossessiveness’, social changes in the busy US, courtship dance, yes, no, ye…maybe, but…no, well…, lack of proper characterization of black characters, town and characters across the years, the know-it-all young white man or when George teaches us all what it is to 'be', still shaping America

Auteur's library

Ursula Le Guin

The Earthsea Quartet:

A Wizard of Earthsea I.
The Tombs of Atuan II.
The Farthest Shore III.
Tehanu IV.

1968/1971/1972/1990

Ursula Le Guin is a writer, first of all; in this series, the fantasy feels like occupational hazard. There's magic but it is so integrantly part of the tale that you don't have to buy it; there are dragons but their effect is told rather than shown; there is a king but he's as straightforward as they come. Every aspect of fantasy lore is subdued, painted into the background image, the ambiance of the books. This allows Le Guin to tell her real story, that is, to bring the everyday out of fantasy and the fantasy into the everyday. Don't expect to get close to the characters; it's not so much about them and what happens to them, as it is about how what happens to them can tell us about what happens to us. You find instances of everyday situations that no one has a name for, yet that feel so familiar, looked into with an uncanny eye. You find philosophy, social theory, ethics, and honest wisdom all woven together as part of the tapestry of Earthsea.
With a shrewd perception of the human mind, Le Guin weaves a moral tale like the tales of old, but leaves you slightly fantasy-hungry.

Tags: magic, dragons, feminist thought, philo & wisdom, ship & sea, héros malmené, race

Auteur's library

Robert Louis Stevenson

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

1886

While we all know the expression “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, we don’t necessarily know the book to actually be good. This short narration delivers, effortlessly capturing the reader’s attention in its very first few lines. Tension is well suffused; you want to know, it gets you so close to the narrative, confined within this misty nighttime London and its back alleys lined with sombre doors…and leaves you on the borders, never really plunging in those foggy London Streets, never really fearing as the characters fear. You’re told what occurs, the suspense lingers, but the story is not lived for it’s first and foremost a narration. For a book on evil you see very little manifestation of it and, though the attraction and freedom of a split nature is well-developed, it’s fair to say it could have gone further, dared more in exploring Hyde’s evilness and Jekyll’s falling over the edge. Utterson is your guide and, being kept pure till the very end, his meeting with evil will be something of an anti-climax. Whispering at so many close doors, this captivating read only brushes when you want to dig in.

Tags: 19th-century backstreet London, gothic science fiction or nighttime London thriller, and man made Hyde and Hyde destroyed man, story of the parasite within and the parasite without or the unleashing of the id,  from science to schizo to magic, limits of man, science vs. nature or the theory of chaos

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde- ""Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it""

""Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir, I used to like it. I sometimes think if we new all, we should be more glad to get away."" (31)

"I have been made to learn that the doom and burden of our life is bound forever on man's shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure." (59)

Auteur's library

Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day

1989

In order to do it justice, The Remains of the Day ought to be judged on two different grounds: as the work of an author and as fiction. My opinions on both vary widely.
The first turned out to be very positive and it is in fact Kazuo Ishiguro’s talent which renders the fiction actually deceptive and, eventually, a deception. Way before the end, I found myself liking the book, yet disliking its story. Be sure of this: nothing happens for the story centers chiefly on the butler Stevens as he recalls life at Darlington Hall during the 30s. Nostalgia, melancholy and bittersweet memories, a lot of denial, too, will make this flawless study essentially a ‘feeling’ book. With a great sense of structure, Ishiguro makes memories seem as if they sprang up spontaneously from Stevens’ own memory, when this recalling is actually organized along a shrewd line. But it is through a thoroughly mastered and precise use of language that Ishiguro best delivers his character, without ever betraying him with his own authoritative voice. You really are left in Stevens’ thoughts to judge for yourself. Beware spoilers!
As past events unveil and Stevens’ thoughts unravel, the horror surfaces from behind the façade of good old English sentiments. Little by little you come to understand that this is a systematic tale of a failed human mind and heart, best summarized by a critique addressed to Stevens: ““You just let all this go on before you and you never think to look at it for what it is.”” (234)
Indeed, Stevens is so obsessed with the little matters of his life that he avoids any personal and moral engagement when important ones come his way. This is what his great moments are made of: random and often absurd trivia. He talks a great deal about righteousness and dignity, yet fails to show any when most needed (his father’s illness, the Jewish maids, relationship with Nazi Germany,…) and it seems he busies himself so as to avoid growing up and confronting the tasks ahead of him as an independent human rather than as a submissive butler. This is a rather amoral man who lives in demanding times and refuses to meet them. Does he believe in anything beyond the excellent quality of silver polish?
He has managed to become quite the spitting image of his dear Lord Darlington, himself a coward devoid of values of his own who sheepishly follows any conduct of his friends_ wasn’t this one of Stevens’ chief ambitions: reflect in his own way the “great men” of his time…? Well, Lord Darlington is one ugly character and Stevens becomes another for refusing during 99% percent of the book to see it_ for admitting that much would put into question the importance he gives to his own life.
With his obsession of wanting everything just so, he remains nice without ever being kind. He is too concerned with his best course of action to show empathy and sympathy and eventually remains clueless. His recalling is hardly composed of the mature thoughts of an old man but is rather that of a teenager who’s skin deep in character and refuses to shake it off when the moment most requires it. Having constantly changed his views so as to feel more comfortable with his increasingly haunting reminiscences, epiphany comes in late and the real question is: will he keep it going and face the ‘new’ world without repeating old wrongs?
The Remains of the Day felt like a writing masterpiece which credibly delivered a difficult story to read through without banging the book against the wall. I will always dislike Stevens, but now I really love Ishiguro. 

Tags: cross-country tour, Darlington Hall as the only scene of life worthy of Stevens' opinion, pre-Second World War era, generational change and old English estates, political tensions in Europe in the interwar period, butlers and lords, dealing with antisemitism, shrewd analysis of the human mind, the complex do's and don'ts of class hierarchy in old English aristocratic society, total denial of the importance of the "what the hell are we doing here?" question for the sake of niceness, 'servants'' courtship dance