Halloween Round-Up

Ah, October . . . 

When there's a chill in the air and a pumpkin on every doorstep and Halloween is just around the corner. And what better way to celebrate that last fact than by reading something . . . spirited? Spooky? Spine-tingling? 

Scary?

But if you're like me, you're probably sick and tired of reading the same ol' same ol' each and every/.,km year. "If I have to re-read Dracula one more time," you say. Or, "What? Another Edgar Allen Poe story? Again?!"

And that's where I come in, dear reader. Because I am here to help you find something new and sufficiently spook--or, at the very least, help you avoid anything outright lame. What follows is my list of picks and pans for creative Halloween-themed reading. Enjoy them . . . if you dare! Buwahahahaha!

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Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.

I know, I know. "Fairy tales?" you say. "I'm asking for scary stories and you're recommending fairy tales?!" Well . . . yes. But not just any fairy tales! The Brothers Grimm's fairy tales. And that makes all the difference. Because these are not the sugary-sweet stories you knew and loved as a child.

Case-in-point: 

My childhood Cinderella was a kind, sweet, forgiving girl, a girl who most definitely did not have her stepsisters' eyeballs plucked out by birds at her story's end. 

"Soon, my pretties. Soon."

And my childhood Snow White? Most definitely did not make her stepmother dance to death in red-hot iron shoes, not matter how wicked she may have been.

"Wait. What kind of shoes did you say are in here?

And you want me to do what with them?"

And that is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Because these 200-plus stories contain enough violence, death, and all-around depravity to make the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" look sweet by comparison--and she wanted to eat everybody!

You don't even want to know what is happening
in this illustration. Seriously. 

All of which makes these tales of magic and mayhem, witches and wolves, ghosts and goblins, perfect for reading on Halloween. Just make sure to leave the lights on when you do!

My rating: pick!

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The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft:

A collection of short stories from one of the horror genre's most celebrated authors. And why is Lovecraft so celebrated? Because he was the first to discard gothic constructs--ghosts and witches and whatnot--and instead envision mankind as a tiny outpost of sanity in an otherwise chaotic and malevolent universe. More specifically, he envisioned his protagonists losing said sanity upon encountering a race of ancient and alien fish-people. That's right--fish-people. Dum dum dum!

"I will destroy everything you know and love!"

Although, to be fair, they're more like octopus/dragon/human hybrids, as demonstrated by the oh-so-lovely Cthulhu below:

"You like?"

Yes, it seems Cthulhu and the rest of his sexy brethren are lying in wait deep beneath the sea, dreaming of the day when they will once again rise to lay waste to the world above--and humanity with it.


Honestly? I know a lot of famous author--Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Neil Gaiman included--looooooove Lovecraft, but I just don’t get his stuff. It doesn’t seem scary to me. Just . . . weird. Really weird. Really he-obviously-should-have-sought-counseling-for-how-much-he-clearly-feared-seafood weird. But that's just me. 

My rating: pan!

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Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill:

A horror novel written by Stephen King's son. I know, sounds like nepotism run amok, doesn't it? But Hill totally brings it in this page-turner of a ghost story centered on one Judas Coyne, former heavy metal rocker and current retiree/collection enthusiast.

I don't have a picture for this entry. So look! A ghostie!

So what's Coyne collecing? Some pretty icky stuff: a cookbook for cannibals; a used hangman's noose; a snuff film; and, most recently, a ghost he found for sale on the Internet, gift-wrapped and delivered to his door in a shiny heart-shaped box. 

Big mistake.


Because this ghost is real. Very real. And it's out for revenge . . .


Not the best description, but trust me, it's a great Halloween read. Fun, frightening--and addictive, too! Exactly the sort of thing you want to stay up late into the night reading. 


But, again, be sure to leave those lights on when you do . . .


My rating: pick!

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From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury:

Looking for something more chilling than thrilling? Then look no further than this creepy collection of short stories about "the Family," a close-knit clan of vampires, ghosts, ghouls, and other stranger things still: A Thousand Times Great Grandmere, a walking mummy who roamed the Nile's shores over 4,000 years ago; Uncle Einar, who flies through the night sky on giant bat wings; strange Cecy, whose mind can go anywhere and see anything without her body ever stirring; and young Timothy, a foundling child raised by the Family though he is not--and can never be--one of them. Because he and he alone among them is mortal, so he and he alone must age and wither and die . . .


Sound familiar? Sound like The Addams Family redux? Trust me, it's not. Because this Family is more dark and dangerous than the comedic Addams could ever be. They are the things that go bump in the night, and they do mean you harm.

Not the Family. 

Still, Bradbury manages to make them sympathetic--almost likable--without ever being too malicious. Their trials and tribulations are oddly affecting, and their place in the world, in Bradbury’s skilled hands, oddly thought-provoking. The result? A collection that’s at once eerie and understated--the perfect thing to curl up with on All Hallows’ Eve. 

My rating: pick!

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Button, Button: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson:

A collection of short stories from the author of I Am Legend. Not horrors stories, per se, so much as tales that examine the darker side of human nature. In the title story, for example, a couple is given a push-button unit and told that if they hit it they will receive 50,000 dollars. Also, someone, somewhere, will die. To hit the button or not? That is the question. 

Ever see the movie version of "Button, Button," aka The Box?
No? Lucky you. 

Most of the other stories pose similar ethical quandaries, almost always ending with an all-too-predictable "twist." My opinion of Matheson? Interesting, but overrated.   

My rating: pan!

And last but certainly not least . . .

* * * * *

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman:

Is there a more versatile fantasy writer alive today than Neil Gaiman? If so, I certainly haven’t come across him or her. Because Gaiman can slip from fantasy to horror to comedy and back again as easily as the rest of us can pick up our pens. 

"I'm a genius!"

Luckily for us, he uses that talent to full effect in this short story collection that both frightens and amuses. Heck, he even pays homage to some of the other authors on this list with his Lovecraftian “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” and Bradbury-esque “Don’t Ask Jack.” And he honors the Grimms with not one but two fairy tale retellings (see? told you fairytales are scary!) in “Troll Bridge,” an updated version of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff*,” and “Snow, Glass, Apples,” an extremely excellent retelling of “Snow White” with a vampiric twist.

Turns out the Queen was right:
Snow White's just a bitch.

My own personal favorite, however, has got to be "The Price," which is about a black cat, the devil, and the unfortunate family caught in between. Spooooooooky stuff!

My rating: pick!




*And, yes, I know the Grimms didn't actually include "The Billy Goats Gruff" in their infamous collection. But a fairy tale is a fairy tale. Get over it, picky. 

Me And My Books

Hey guys, I realize I've been quite un-generous with personal detail (ah, the world wide stalk-o-sphere), so I'm doing this so that you can get to know a little bit about me and my reading taste (and probably make fun of me, but oh well).

1. What author do you own the most books by?
For reasons having to do with frequent out-of-town tennis tournaments when I was younger, it's probably Robin Cook.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
For some reason, I have three copies each of The Fountainhead and of Mrs. Dalloway. The Fountainhead because I love it, and have been frequently seized with a necessity to read it while living in different countries. Mrs. Dalloway, on the other hand, I keep picking up in charity shops because I forget I already have a copy (it took me years to finish this book, cause I kept picking it up and then forgetting about it!)

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Should it worry me that I didn't notice or care?

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
In my extreme youth I was in love with Frank Hardy (Hardy Boys), then when older, I was in love with Marius (Les Miserables), until I graduated to my true love, Bran, the man with the facial tattoo from Juliet Marillier's Son of the Shadows, Book II of the Sevenwaters Trilogy (I don't really read much fantasy, but I LOVED that series).

5. What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
Hmmm…lots of children's books certainly. I have read Goblet of Fire many times, but probably not as much as particular Nancy Drew books, or Les Miserables. I particularly reread the one where Nancy hooks up with Frank Hardy a million times.

6. What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
That would definitely be The Secret Garden.

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
I hate to admit it, but it might be 2666, by Robert Bolano. I love his short stories, but this one was boring and pretentious (and I didn't finish it, though I might still try)

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Easy. We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
We Need to Talk About Kevin, it's just so disturbing and wonderful, and goes places you'd never expect.

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Me.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I want to see a proper, big budget adaptation of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. I LOVED them when I was young, and the Disney version of The Black Cauldron was dire (so dire, in fact, that Michael Eisner almost shut down their animation division afterwards).

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Oh, there are so many options here. I am very worried about the We Need To Talk About Kevin movie, but they've cast Tilda Swinton so there's still hope.

13. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing. Extremely difficult bits to get through, but I'm so glad I did.

14. Roth or Updike?
As David Foster Wallace describes them, 'The Great White American Narcissists.' (I'm surprised how often I've been able to use that quote of late). I vote for Richard Yates. Go read Easter Parade if you haven't.

David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Eggers wins this one by default, I've never read Sedaris (nor do I have any particular desire to!)

Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Chaucer.

Austen or Eliot?
Again, this is Austen by default. I really should read Middlemarch at some point. But I somehow doubt that Eliot can transplant Austen in my heart.

Short Story Book Club: "A Tiny Feast"

Hello hello hello, welcome to the inaugural edition of Short Story Book Club!

This week's tall tale (short tale?) is of Titania and Oberon, caught in a moment of crisis. The New Yorker originally published it, which is surprising, but to be fair they have slowly moved into more and more 'genre' fiction. (I think about 10 stories last year were pure science fiction/fantasy).

But without further ado, the story is here: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/04/20/090420fi_fiction_adrian

Come back here and tell me your favorite lines, least favorite lines, what worked and what didn't, and then I'll publish a roundup post before next week's Short Story Club. Any recommendations for future stories are also welcome!

Salute Your Shorts! "Pumpkinhead" by Joyce Carol Oates

The story can be read in its entirety here: "Pumpkinhead" by Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is one of those authors, where you go in expecting something sick and/or twisted to happen, even if everything is puppies and flowers until the last page. Part of the joy of reading her short stories is hunting for every possible clue as to what the final horror might be.

But this time, strangeness struck on page one, when our widow answers a knock to find a man with a pumpkin in place of his head. Lonely after the death of her husband, she invites him in for a drink, and we find out that he is not a stranger; she knows him as one knows a foreigner, cataloguing his attributes in terms of misprononciations and failures to assimilate. You have to believe that he can sense her disdain; as open as she is to us, these thoughts can not be far from her every action.

In that sense, it functions as a metaphor for hegemonic power - and the dangerous lengths that the powerless might go to obtain some semblance of control.

There is one lingering mystery though - a throwaway line almost: "She was a widow who had caused her husband to be burnt to ashes and was unrepentant, unpunished." The story offers no explanation for this, but I welcome the interpretation of others.

Salute Your Shorts! "The Harvest," by Amy Hempel

While Amy Hempel is considered a quintessential minimalist writer (she came out from the umbrella of Gordon Lish and Raymond Carver), this short story, probably her most famous, is more of a post-modern reflection on the nature of stories and story-telling. (Go ahead and read it here, then come back).


I can't remember how I came across her, but it seems a lot of people discover her thanks to Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote this loving essay in praise of Ms. Hempel. While I am not quite as inclined to gush as Mr. Palahniuk, I did enjoy the story. It's one of very few short stories that made me want to reread it immediately after the first run through.


"The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me."


This is the first and last true statement in the story, as far as we can tell. It's a hell of an introductory sentence, conveying tons of descriptive detail about the narrator without stating it outright. What happens in the short story is that the narrator tells one story, full of embellishment, and then tells the second, 'real' story.


From the start, Hempel draws attention to the subterfuge that all storytellers use, not just writers:


"What happened to one of my legs required four hundred stitches, which, when I told it, became five hundred stitches, because nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

The five days they didn’t know if they could save my leg or not I stretched to ten."


I know that everything I've stated so far might give you the impression that it's quite a gimmicky little tale. But it isn't. Even though she's stated upfront that the story is not entirely true, the strength of detail draws you in anyway; we, the reader, are complicit in Hempel's deception. Every line is loaded with meaning and genuine depth of feeling. Even if the details are wrong, the emotions are real.

And that's what's important.

Fantasy Friday:Hope Mirrlees: "Lud in the Mist"

My copy of Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees, sits on my dressing table. I can’t bear to put it away, but every time I see it fills me with envy for others who will embark on that journey, one that I can never take again.

And what a journey it was.

Written in the 1920s, 30 years or so before Tolkien transformed speculative fiction with Lord of the Rings, and rarely in print since, Lud-in-the-Mist is a fantasy written before fantasy became a genre. To give you an idea of its pedigree, it has blurbs written by both Virginia Woolf and Neil Gaiman, one attesting to the quality of the language, and one to the depth of imagination involved.

Genre-wise, Lud-in-the-Mist hops between fantasy, mystery, political drama and social drama. In today’s publishing world, this sort of thing would be edited out before publishing, and made to fit in one clean category.

The book is remarkable for its post-modern elements, especially in the characterization. Nathan Chanticleer is Our Hero, to use the phrase quite loosely. The fact that he’s laughable, boorish, and largely unlikeable elevates the plot from being about ‘a hero doing heroic things’ into the more realistic ‘man with neither wit nor charm nor strength nor magic is fighting for his family, and really makes quite a hash of it.’

All the characters are treading the soft line between dark and light; you can never be quite sure of your own footing within this treacherous world of music and madness. And that’s where the book really succeeds. Atmosphere. The beauty of not being an all-out fantasy. Very little of the book is set in the realm of the fairies, most of it is firmly set in a familiar Northern English town, where strangeness and uncertainty invade slowly and then more forcefully.

Lud-in-the-Mist is that extremely rare find, a highly literate novel, witty and warm, full of social commentary on educational practices for young women at the time, and the pedantic, back-biting nature of small-town politics. It reflects some of the common courtroom practices of the time, never sacrificing on language or imagery. It also happens to include magical fairies.

But when you feel a need to chase your Tesco-value copy of Dan Brown with something a bit more top-shelf, reach for Lud-in-the-Mist.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The third and final installment of Stieg Larsson’s mega-selling Millennium Trilogy opens with Lisbeth Salander, hacker extraordinaire, lying in critical condition in a Swedish hospital, a bullet buried deep within her brain. And if—if—she survives emergency surgery, she’ll still have to stand trial against a slew of trumped up charges covering everything from possession of an illegal can of Mace to attempted murder.

Salander, portrayed by Noomi Rapace, in the Swedish films.

Luckily, Mikael Blomkvist (former lover/investigative reporter/patron saint of lost causes) is determined to prove Salander’s innocence—or die trying. Literally. Dum dum dum!

Blomkvist, portrayed by Michael Nyqvist, in the Swedish films.

It's a good story, but also a surprisingly slow starter. The first 100 or so pages feature nothing but characters rehashing plot points already hashed quite thoroughly in the previous novel, which is, in a word, omgsoeffingirritating! (Okay, that’s not actually one word, but I stand by my statement.) Still, once the story gets going, it really gets going, and the trial sequence at the end is pure perfection. And while a few improbable things do happen in the characters’ personal lives—Blomkvist in love?—I suppose Larsson did have to wrap up the trilogy somehow.

All-in-all, a very satisfying conclusion to a very satisfying series. Or maybe not. Because, apparently, there is an as-yet-unpublished fourth novel that will only see print if the deceased Larsson’s family members can ever stop squabbling over royalties. Seems unlikely, but still . . .

Bring on more Salander?

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The second installment of Stieg Larsson’s phenomenally popular Millennium Trilogy finds everyone’s favorite hacker, Lisbeth Salander, accused of killing two journalists about to publish an exposé on Sweden’s sex trafficking industry in none other than Millennium, the magazine owned and operated by Salander’s ex-colleague and -lover, Mikael Blomkvist. Now it’s up to him and him alone to prove her innocence before the police—or the real killers—track her down. Can Blomkvist save Salander in time? And, more importantly, does Salander even need saving?

Finally, Larsson puts the spotlight where it belongs—Salander!

Salander (aka Noomi Rapace) from the Swedish films.
Who wouldn't trust that sweet little face? 

And that—coupled with the cliffhanger ending—makes this a much more entertaining read than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Because who the heck cares about boring old Blomkvist? Not me.

Bring on more Salander!

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" or "How America Spent Its Summer"

Unless you were living under a rock this past summer, you’ve probably encountered Stieg Larsson’s mega-selling Millennium Trilogy—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest—in some form or fashion: heard it, seen it, bumped into one of the half-million copies seemingly required by law in every American bookstore.

This is all Americans read this summer.

The trilogy, already a hit in its native Sweden where it came out in 2005, didn’t conclude in its American format until this past June, making it the must-read event of the summer. Its final installment, Hornet’s Nest, 

debuted at number one on The New York Times hardcover fiction list and remains strong at number three 18 weeks later. Impressive, but nothing next to the 66 weeks of best-sellerdom the paperback version of book one, Dragon Tattoo, can currently claim. 

But enough with the pedigree.

Dragon Tattoo's sexy UK cover.

So what the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, all about? Well, in a nutshell:

When disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is offered a private job investigating the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger, member of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, it seems like just what he needs—a chance to flex his PI muscles while taking a much needed break from the suddenly hostile world of publishing. And besides, Vanger disappeared over 40 years ago, so it’s not as if Blomkvist will be in any danger. Or will he? Because soon Blomkvist is hot on the trail of a serial killer who will stop at nothing—nothing!—to keep him from uncovering the shocking—shocking!—truth . . .

Honestly? It’s a pretty standard murder mystery. Except, of course, for one thing—Blomkvist’s sidekick, the pierced and tattooed cyber punk prodigy known as Lisbeth Salander.

Salander, portrayed by Noomi Rapace, in the Swedish movie version.

Because Salander steals each and every scene in which she appears. Heck, she even steals the title—it's not called Blomkvist’s Book of Boring, after all—making the only real mystery in this novel why Larsson ever thought relegating her to mere sidekick status was a good idea. Because it's not. At all.

Bring on more Salander!

Review: Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

“We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone one and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled.”

So begins Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris's poignant yet amusing tale of an ad agency in decline. There is a large cast of characters, slipping in and out of the main story, but we get to know them well enough that we're sad when they're gone.

Ferris employed a 1st person collective point of view (probably not the grammatical term), a Greek chorus to add insight into daily disappointments, emotional explosions, coworker relations and other hilarities. We are one of them, always sensitive to the absurdities inherent in office life but powerless to do anything about it, except engage in petty games such as chair swapping and pranks that are effective only in ruining productivity.

We have all been in this situation: the endless tug-of-war between people whose life begins at 8:00 Monday morning, and people whose life begins at 5:00 PM Friday.

Then, halfway through the book, once we think we've established our relationship with this book - something to read in your off periods, not requiring much concentration, with little impetus to get through to the end - Ferris finds its heart. The second half of the novel is no less funny or insightful, but these characters become more than ciphers, they come alive, with their own contradictions, motivations.

And with that shift, we are exposed to surprises and unexpected twists; this is not a 'literary' novel; the plotting is strong. Best of all, Ferris shows how the most offhand sliver of information can alter our entire view of someone we think we know, that we've 'typed' into a comfortable box.

Ferris has said that he was trying to probe the nature of 'groupthink.' Instead, he has created an engaging portrait of the seismic shifts caused by the most minute changes.