Skip to main content

London Revenant

By Conrad Williams. An intriguing alternate London story. Is it just London, or is it just that my husband and I are drawn to London writers? Neil Gaiman visits this area repeatedly, as does his friend China Mievielle. Is it the age of the city--the Roman architecture beneath it all, the vast tunnels of sewer and tube? Are there equally stories of Paris that I do not know of, because I don't read in French?

It's a frustrating story--the protagonist is unaware that he is slipping between worlds, and so it takes a bit for us to catch up. It also has the most intriguing discovery of beauty in the grotesque that I've seen since Clive Barker was good. It was hard to eat and read. (Of course, according to my husband I shouldn't have been reading and eating anyway because it's a limited edition, signed copy.)

Strangest of all is the ending--there seems to be an extra chapter of another story after the end, and try as I might, I can't resolve the last chapter with the story. Is this just an error?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Adapting a book--The Prestige

I was completely blown away by the movie of The Prestige , and I thought then about reading the novel, but it seemed too soon. So I carried the author's name around with me for over a year (Christopher Priest) and then, finally remembered to buy it through an odd sequence of events. We watched The Painted Veil based on the novel by Maugham starring Edward Norton, and while I decided I didn't want to read The Painted Veil because of it's differences from the film (which was more romantic and tragic) it reminded me that I had wanted to read Fight Club (the movie version of which starred Edward Norton) and that reminded me that I had wanted to read The Prestige (which did not star Edward Norton, but was up against The Illusionist which did). Whew...so it's all Edward Norton's fault. The Prestige is a very good novel, and yet, the movie differs from it considerably. And I am still trying to figure out what exactly that means. The central premise is the same, AND HE...

Putting my money (read time) where my mouth is

Some Duran Duran with some songs that I believe prove their musical merit. eSnips gives me the power and I'm going to use it. ( Bwahaha ) Get this widget Share Track details This is one of my all time favorite songs. I have it on a B-Side Collection, although I can't find any mention of what it was B-Side of, just that it came out in 1988. The words are quite haunting, as is the melody. But, I can hear you say, this is not at all a standard D2 song. Well, no, but what is a standard song by any band? How do you average that? Thomas Dolby's singles were always abnormal compared to the rest of their respective albums. Same with Barenaked Ladies. I think the B-Sides are often truer to what the band wants to be without the pressure of the labels for commercial success. Get this widget Share Track details This is probably more like Duran Duran you're thinking of, right? It's from Pop Trash , released 2000. The words are based on the true story of a boy who was building ...

Yay! Dystopia!

So, I've been having a dystopia fest (this is not rare for me--I am fascinated by dystopian literature). I read Margaret Atwood's "Madadam," another book in the series that began with "Oryx & Crake." If you haven't read "Oryx & Crake," I can't recommend it highly enough. It just blew my mind when I read it several years ago. It is both dystopian--pre-apocolyptic, and post-apocalyptic. And watched "Metropolis," and "Things to Come." Then I consumed "The Hunger Games"--all three books--in three days. I had never read "The Hunger Games" before, and I found the writing hard to slog through. I understand that it was supposed to capture the simple, plain speech of Katniss, along with the present tense, but 1st person, present tense is a hard sell for a long book, let alone three. That said, the story was intriguing. I will be curious to see how they handle the horrifying violence of the l...