Books read in June and July
Aug. 5th, 2009 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellNote that I review a couple of academic collections on themes in Shakespeare lit and film in my "Books read in June," whic follows this entry.
1. Icarus: The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction edited by Steve Berman (Issue 1, Summer 2009) [etext available upon request]
I'm really excited about this new journal, since genre fiction seems to have such a strong intersection with queer fiction. My favorite piece was a nonfiction article, “Watching Dark Shadows” by Jeff Mann, which seems like a particularly timely piece as I hear that Johnny Depp just agreed to play the role of Barnabas Collins in the film remake of the series. The issue also contained short stories, interviews, and a brief section at the back which mentions new and soon-to-be-released gay genre fiction.
Here's the blurb about the journal:
"a periodical dedicated to gay fantasy, horror, science fiction, as well as weird stories that fall through the cracks-between" Lethe Press
2. Dead Reckonings Issue 5 Spring 2009 edited by (2009) [scanned myself]
In my opinion this is the best literary horror journal around and one of the few periodicals that I await with impatience. It points me to the good stuff, helps me avoid the tedious stuff, and often prompts me to reread the classics. In addition, it offers the occasional wtf? surprise such as this issues list of best horror muisc, written by Ramsey Campbells (and just in time to update my gothy classical music selections for Halloween).
3. Locke and Key by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (200) [read aloud by LJ user alexx_kay]
Continuing the creepy chronicles of what happens when the Locke siblings move to the old family home located in Lovecraft, a small town in New England. Hill is writing a fast-paced yet intricate story, and Rodriguez is providing some wonderful illustrations.
4. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum (2006) [scanned myself]
This is a fascinating book written by a science writer who follows the development of the spiritualism movement in America and Britain during the lifetime of William James and a dozen or so other famous scholars and scientists, many of them Nobel Prize winners. I'm not so much interested in spiritualism specifically but as a general case study in how individuals used it as a means for resisting the despiritualization of the world after Darwinism became widely accepted. I'm intrigued with how people who were for the most part integrated into the scientific and academic communities provided theories which resisted scientific declaration that there is no such thing as god with either an upper or lowercase g, no such things as spirits, or anything other than what can be perceived materially through the senses. As pointed out by the historian Ronald Hutton _The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft_ (1999), spiritualism was just one of an ongoing series of counterculture movements against materialism which had been occurring since the Enlightenment and, as in the case of Romanticism in Germany and Britain, these resistances were expressed in art and literature as well as in nonfiction writings. The people creating modern paganism were also reading the scholarly writings in the fields of not only science but of folklore and archeology, and what got published became adopted and integrated into what participants and practitioners of these counterculture movements insisted were older unbroken traditions dating from prehistory, thus not so much denying the theories of the sciences as finding ways to reinterpret them.
5. Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, illustrated by Steve BissetteJohn and Totleben (early 1980s) [read aloud by LJ user alexx_kay]
6. Eight Tales by Walter de la Mare With an Introduction by Edward Wagenknecht (1971) [scanned myself]
Edited by August Derleth and published by Arkham House, these eight stories were written by de la Mare early in his career, while he was still writing under the pen name of Walter Ramal. I would say that this book would mostly be of interest only to the de la Mare completist since de la Mare had not quite fully developed the style which would make his more mature works compelling, although there are odd lines which hint at how de la Mare's distinct prose style would develop. However, "A Mote" is a strangely compelling surreal story which begins with the irresitible line "I awoke from a dream of a gruesome fight with a giant geranium," while the story "A:B:O" is notable for its creepy and uncanny atmosphere, notable as de la Mare's most Lovecraftian story, and the introduction by Edward Wagenknecht, a notable de la Mare scholar, makes it a worthwhile read for those interested in de la Mare's life and literary career.
7. The Story of the Apple
8. The Knights of the Cornerstone by James P. Blaylock (2008) [validated for Bookshare.org]
9. Agents of Light and Darkness: A Novel of the Nightside by Simon R. Green (2003) [Bookshare.org]
Amusing dark fantasy fluff, although the big reveal was pretty much apparent from the first chapter. I don't regret spending the time reading it, but I'm unlikely to read more unless I have the flu or some other reason for needing some brainless reading.
10. Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lee Child (2007) [Bookshare.org]
11. Cemetary Dance by Douglas Preston and Lee Child (2009) [Bookshare.org]
Okay, reading this pseudo-gothic series makes me feel the same way I feel after watching a Frank Miller film: somewhat entertained but dirty. The first book in the series was probably the best, but then the authors started really turning the series, literally, into a freak show, with both the hero and the villains being epitomized by their unusual bodies and their unusual appetites. While int eh first book a wheelchair user was one of the heroes, after that he and many fo the villains who followed would be people with disabilities, though sometimes they are from other minority groups. I also refer to these books as "pseudo-gothics" because they appropriate a number of the tropes of gothic literature without including any of the psychological complexity or uncanny occurrences which make gothic literature so appealing. I had sworn off this series for the past two years but before my surgery I needed something brainless to read and this is what I ended up with.
Books read in June
I managed to read quite a bit of theory books during June--two on Shakespeare and one on horror films--but, due to feeling under the weather for the last part of it, I also spent a lot of June just rereading the Meg Langslow mysteries by Donna Andrews (mysteries are my comfort reading).
1. Horror by Brigid Cherry (2009) [scanned myself]
Nice concise (approx. 200 pages) introduction to horror film and its related theories
suitable for an undergraduate-level course and accessible to the serious general reader.
Cherry addresses four basic topics, each given its own chapter:
1. How do we define or classify horror as a genre? Serems simple, but this is one of the most fascinating questions in regard to horror, as fans themselves fragment over which films are horror (notable apples of discord are Aliens and The Silence of the Lambs), while many mainstream viewers and critics are reuluctant to qualify anything they would watch as "horror," unless its the flitery-out term "psychological horror."
2. What is the horror aesthetic and what is its intended affect?
3. Why do horror fans enjoy horror films?
4. How do horror films reflect a specific cultural moment?
In addition, because Cherry keeps this book to an introductory-level which focuses on providing a wide general scope rather than doing an in-depth discussion of any one aspect of horror films, the filmography and bibliography provided also serve to point to solid basic resources.
All in all, I would say that this book should serve perfectly as a text for any course which aims to provide an introduction to horror films.
2. Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Chaos and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations edited by Melissa Croteau and Carolyn Jess-Cooke (2009) [scanned myself]
I am hardcore addicted to the McFarland & Co. books of media criticism, so when this book came up for review on Green Man Review, I jumped on it. Shakespeare and film--two great tastes that go great together. I'll link to the full review when it goes online
edited later: http://greenmanreview.com/book/book_ve_apocalypticshakespeare.html
but for now, I will say that this book is worth reading, but probably only for the dedicated fan willing to plough through the academic jargon and the muddle of references to postmodern theory. On the plus side, the twenty-plus page introduction by co-editor Melissa Croteau does a solid job of trying to explain the various approaches to both postmodern theory and apocalyptic texts. I was surprised and intrigued by essays which explored apocalyptic imagery and themes in works which I had not previously thought of as particularly dark, such as plague images in "Romeo and Juliet" and "Twelfth Night." I also discovered a number of Shakespeare films which had completely passed beneath my radar, such as "She's the Man" (2006). This would make a great text for anyone looking to explore the subject of canon texts in contemporary media, transmedia, apocalyptic themes, or hey, modern adaptations of Shakespeare.
3. Gothic Shakespeares edited by John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (2008) [scanned myself]
Part of the Accents on Shakespeare Series (Terence Hawkes, general editor), this collection of essays explores the links between Shakespeare's works and gothic texts. Again, the collection is for the most part heavy on academic jargon, although a couple of texts stood out for their clarity. The essay on how night is used as a transgressive time in "Romeo and Juliet" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" made me want to go off and reread both of those plays, while the essay which discussed Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in relation to "Romeo and Juliet" was one of the most enlightening writings I have read on the subject. Peter Hutchings's essay titled "Theatres of Blood: Shakespeare and the Horror Film" was also highly enjoyable and provided useful commentary on how new media inherits the traditional stories of old media while simultaneously framing older modes of storytelling as passe and even slightly ridiculous (while Hutchings does not get into this, I started thinking of all the horror films which feature an aging actress or forgotten director who goes over the edge who set out to avenge themselves upon those who have done in their careers; maybe there aren't as many of these films as I think, but the trope feels very familiar). "Gothspeare and the Origins of Cultural Studies" by Fred Botting and Scott Wilson is a somewhat muddled but intriguing postmodern essay which tries to keep too many balls in the air; in part it is a reimagining of Shakespeare as an exiled Arabic sheik who, after losing everything, ends up stranded in Elizabethan England rewriting his own biography as fiction, while ont he other hand Botting and Wilson want to make a commentary on postmodernism's reuse and reimagining of old media in new media bottles.
4. The Throat by Peter Straub (1993) [Bookshare.org]
After reading _The Skylark_, I felt a craving for more Straub, and this was a novel which I had not read before, something of a sequel to, I believe, _Mystery_. Really, nobody can beat Straub for using the horror genre to highlight the violence in our everyday modern culture or the potential monstrousness in human nature.
5. Endless Night by Agatha Christie (1967) [Bookshare.org]
One of Christitie's attempts to write a psychological crime novel; she uses some interesting ideas but overall the tone is kind of flat and tired, not as witty as her earlier novels.
1. Icarus: The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction edited by Steve Berman (Issue 1, Summer 2009) [etext available upon request]
I'm really excited about this new journal, since genre fiction seems to have such a strong intersection with queer fiction. My favorite piece was a nonfiction article, “Watching Dark Shadows” by Jeff Mann, which seems like a particularly timely piece as I hear that Johnny Depp just agreed to play the role of Barnabas Collins in the film remake of the series. The issue also contained short stories, interviews, and a brief section at the back which mentions new and soon-to-be-released gay genre fiction.
Here's the blurb about the journal:
"a periodical dedicated to gay fantasy, horror, science fiction, as well as weird stories that fall through the cracks-between" Lethe Press
2. Dead Reckonings Issue 5 Spring 2009 edited by (2009) [scanned myself]
In my opinion this is the best literary horror journal around and one of the few periodicals that I await with impatience. It points me to the good stuff, helps me avoid the tedious stuff, and often prompts me to reread the classics. In addition, it offers the occasional wtf? surprise such as this issues list of best horror muisc, written by Ramsey Campbells (and just in time to update my gothy classical music selections for Halloween).
3. Locke and Key by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (200) [read aloud by LJ user alexx_kay]
Continuing the creepy chronicles of what happens when the Locke siblings move to the old family home located in Lovecraft, a small town in New England. Hill is writing a fast-paced yet intricate story, and Rodriguez is providing some wonderful illustrations.
4. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum (2006) [scanned myself]
This is a fascinating book written by a science writer who follows the development of the spiritualism movement in America and Britain during the lifetime of William James and a dozen or so other famous scholars and scientists, many of them Nobel Prize winners. I'm not so much interested in spiritualism specifically but as a general case study in how individuals used it as a means for resisting the despiritualization of the world after Darwinism became widely accepted. I'm intrigued with how people who were for the most part integrated into the scientific and academic communities provided theories which resisted scientific declaration that there is no such thing as god with either an upper or lowercase g, no such things as spirits, or anything other than what can be perceived materially through the senses. As pointed out by the historian Ronald Hutton _The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft_ (1999), spiritualism was just one of an ongoing series of counterculture movements against materialism which had been occurring since the Enlightenment and, as in the case of Romanticism in Germany and Britain, these resistances were expressed in art and literature as well as in nonfiction writings. The people creating modern paganism were also reading the scholarly writings in the fields of not only science but of folklore and archeology, and what got published became adopted and integrated into what participants and practitioners of these counterculture movements insisted were older unbroken traditions dating from prehistory, thus not so much denying the theories of the sciences as finding ways to reinterpret them.
5. Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, illustrated by Steve BissetteJohn and Totleben (early 1980s) [read aloud by LJ user alexx_kay]
6. Eight Tales by Walter de la Mare With an Introduction by Edward Wagenknecht (1971) [scanned myself]
Edited by August Derleth and published by Arkham House, these eight stories were written by de la Mare early in his career, while he was still writing under the pen name of Walter Ramal. I would say that this book would mostly be of interest only to the de la Mare completist since de la Mare had not quite fully developed the style which would make his more mature works compelling, although there are odd lines which hint at how de la Mare's distinct prose style would develop. However, "A Mote" is a strangely compelling surreal story which begins with the irresitible line "I awoke from a dream of a gruesome fight with a giant geranium," while the story "A:B:O" is notable for its creepy and uncanny atmosphere, notable as de la Mare's most Lovecraftian story, and the introduction by Edward Wagenknecht, a notable de la Mare scholar, makes it a worthwhile read for those interested in de la Mare's life and literary career.
7. The Story of the Apple
8. The Knights of the Cornerstone by James P. Blaylock (2008) [validated for Bookshare.org]
9. Agents of Light and Darkness: A Novel of the Nightside by Simon R. Green (2003) [Bookshare.org]
Amusing dark fantasy fluff, although the big reveal was pretty much apparent from the first chapter. I don't regret spending the time reading it, but I'm unlikely to read more unless I have the flu or some other reason for needing some brainless reading.
10. Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lee Child (2007) [Bookshare.org]
11. Cemetary Dance by Douglas Preston and Lee Child (2009) [Bookshare.org]
Okay, reading this pseudo-gothic series makes me feel the same way I feel after watching a Frank Miller film: somewhat entertained but dirty. The first book in the series was probably the best, but then the authors started really turning the series, literally, into a freak show, with both the hero and the villains being epitomized by their unusual bodies and their unusual appetites. While int eh first book a wheelchair user was one of the heroes, after that he and many fo the villains who followed would be people with disabilities, though sometimes they are from other minority groups. I also refer to these books as "pseudo-gothics" because they appropriate a number of the tropes of gothic literature without including any of the psychological complexity or uncanny occurrences which make gothic literature so appealing. I had sworn off this series for the past two years but before my surgery I needed something brainless to read and this is what I ended up with.
Books read in June
I managed to read quite a bit of theory books during June--two on Shakespeare and one on horror films--but, due to feeling under the weather for the last part of it, I also spent a lot of June just rereading the Meg Langslow mysteries by Donna Andrews (mysteries are my comfort reading).
1. Horror by Brigid Cherry (2009) [scanned myself]
Nice concise (approx. 200 pages) introduction to horror film and its related theories
suitable for an undergraduate-level course and accessible to the serious general reader.
Cherry addresses four basic topics, each given its own chapter:
1. How do we define or classify horror as a genre? Serems simple, but this is one of the most fascinating questions in regard to horror, as fans themselves fragment over which films are horror (notable apples of discord are Aliens and The Silence of the Lambs), while many mainstream viewers and critics are reuluctant to qualify anything they would watch as "horror," unless its the flitery-out term "psychological horror."
2. What is the horror aesthetic and what is its intended affect?
3. Why do horror fans enjoy horror films?
4. How do horror films reflect a specific cultural moment?
In addition, because Cherry keeps this book to an introductory-level which focuses on providing a wide general scope rather than doing an in-depth discussion of any one aspect of horror films, the filmography and bibliography provided also serve to point to solid basic resources.
All in all, I would say that this book should serve perfectly as a text for any course which aims to provide an introduction to horror films.
2. Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Chaos and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations edited by Melissa Croteau and Carolyn Jess-Cooke (2009) [scanned myself]
I am hardcore addicted to the McFarland & Co. books of media criticism, so when this book came up for review on Green Man Review, I jumped on it. Shakespeare and film--two great tastes that go great together. I'll link to the full review when it goes online
edited later: http://greenmanreview.com/book/book_ve_apocalypticshakespeare.html
but for now, I will say that this book is worth reading, but probably only for the dedicated fan willing to plough through the academic jargon and the muddle of references to postmodern theory. On the plus side, the twenty-plus page introduction by co-editor Melissa Croteau does a solid job of trying to explain the various approaches to both postmodern theory and apocalyptic texts. I was surprised and intrigued by essays which explored apocalyptic imagery and themes in works which I had not previously thought of as particularly dark, such as plague images in "Romeo and Juliet" and "Twelfth Night." I also discovered a number of Shakespeare films which had completely passed beneath my radar, such as "She's the Man" (2006). This would make a great text for anyone looking to explore the subject of canon texts in contemporary media, transmedia, apocalyptic themes, or hey, modern adaptations of Shakespeare.
3. Gothic Shakespeares edited by John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (2008) [scanned myself]
Part of the Accents on Shakespeare Series (Terence Hawkes, general editor), this collection of essays explores the links between Shakespeare's works and gothic texts. Again, the collection is for the most part heavy on academic jargon, although a couple of texts stood out for their clarity. The essay on how night is used as a transgressive time in "Romeo and Juliet" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" made me want to go off and reread both of those plays, while the essay which discussed Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in relation to "Romeo and Juliet" was one of the most enlightening writings I have read on the subject. Peter Hutchings's essay titled "Theatres of Blood: Shakespeare and the Horror Film" was also highly enjoyable and provided useful commentary on how new media inherits the traditional stories of old media while simultaneously framing older modes of storytelling as passe and even slightly ridiculous (while Hutchings does not get into this, I started thinking of all the horror films which feature an aging actress or forgotten director who goes over the edge who set out to avenge themselves upon those who have done in their careers; maybe there aren't as many of these films as I think, but the trope feels very familiar). "Gothspeare and the Origins of Cultural Studies" by Fred Botting and Scott Wilson is a somewhat muddled but intriguing postmodern essay which tries to keep too many balls in the air; in part it is a reimagining of Shakespeare as an exiled Arabic sheik who, after losing everything, ends up stranded in Elizabethan England rewriting his own biography as fiction, while ont he other hand Botting and Wilson want to make a commentary on postmodernism's reuse and reimagining of old media in new media bottles.
4. The Throat by Peter Straub (1993) [Bookshare.org]
After reading _The Skylark_, I felt a craving for more Straub, and this was a novel which I had not read before, something of a sequel to, I believe, _Mystery_. Really, nobody can beat Straub for using the horror genre to highlight the violence in our everyday modern culture or the potential monstrousness in human nature.
5. Endless Night by Agatha Christie (1967) [Bookshare.org]
One of Christitie's attempts to write a psychological crime novel; she uses some interesting ideas but overall the tone is kind of flat and tired, not as witty as her earlier novels.
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Date: 2009-08-05 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 02:24 pm (UTC)