dust
this is the sort of book that more authors should have the freedom to write - to just kinda riff on their own personal interests and obsessions, where through their enthusiasm for the subject (theoretically) engaging writing would be produced. as a casual t-shirt collector and as someone who's read most of Murakami's books, this was a Venn intersection that i don't get to experience very often, so i had to see what this was about. i had anticipated this was going to have some ‘truly vintage threads' and i was surprised by not only how recent many of these shirts were made, but especially by how pedestrian most of them are, as most of the ones featured here are basic brand/logo advertisement shirts. second most common are Hawaii-related surf brands, followed by beer and whiskey brands, with animal-related designs probably fourth. most barely look like they've been worn and a fair number were surely promo swag given out for free in the first place, haha. the real reason for this book is for the essays. Murakami's style in here is droll and goofy, and is the most light-hearted writing collection he's ever released.
all that said, no way would i pay the listed MSRP for this ($24.99 - that's crazy). it is very short - it's mostly, or all, previously published in a Japansese fashion magazine series - and i had to restrain myself from cruising through it in one sitting.
i was interested because this is, as far as i know, the first published ‘remix' of The Great Gatsby since it went public domain last year. (it's also published under Tor, but the Tor name and logo is missing from the book jacket - to try to gain some mainstream market share, i guess?) after reading the publisher blurb, i was like ‘this really could go either way, and nowhere in between...‘
of course most of the book is essentially a crib of the original, but the author's additions are either superfluous or another story entirely. (and needless to say, the new writing is no Fitzgerald.) the ‘magical elements' seemed to be there for textual ornamentation and author's personal interest - they were randomly inserted, randomly referred to and mostly had no real bearing on the plot. but when they did, they could do literally anything at all as the plot devices required, deus ex magica. this seems to be a constant issue with young fantasy-leaning writers - i felt Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus had the same problem.
the whole purpose of this ‘reimagining' seemed somewhat unfocused and very inconsistent, other than to ‘reimagine' the main character as a stand-in for the modern day version of the author - for someone living in the 1920s, her viewpoints are quite 2020s and almost fourth-wall breaking. it was continually distracting and i just wanted this book to be over, practically from the first few pages.
so why two stars instead of one? as mentioned above, there was another raw dough of a story bulging and bubbling out here and there around the gilded cast-iron original text. this seemed to be the one that the author actually wanted to write, and some of those bits showed potential. perhaps some embroidery scissors/pinking shears/tin snips could be taken to this manuscript and a newly-animated plot inspiration could jump to life.
this short story collection was truly a curate's egg and my feelings during reading ranged from irritable impatience to bowled-over astonishment - within are some leaden clunkers, a few wooden plodders, a selection of dated conceits and a scattering of outright ludicrous eye-rollers, mixed with many amusing anecdotes, clusters of clever writing, a talent for setting the scene and mood, a number of genuinely haunting pieces, occasional elegiac meditations on mortality, a tragic tale on the human cost of racism and one hypnagogic stunner that has deservedly secured its place in the history of all-time greatest American short story writing.
Bierce is at his best when relating abnormal mental/psychological states - he seems to have truly lived it. the introduction to this collection is highly critical of Bierce (and both his talents and his character are fair piñata for the stick) and might well be the most unflattering author intro i've ever read, but it helps to construct a portrait of a complex and quite possibly tortured individual.
as this collection originally came out in the 1960s, i would like to see an updated compilation with the dross picked out and perhaps updated with unfairly overlooked stories, if there are any.
One of the absolute best ‘intro to programming' books I have gone through. I read it cover to cover (all 637 pages including the PDF chapters not included in the physical book itself) which is quite a feat for a coding text... Appealing presentation and thorough explanations of key concepts. Because it is published through Microsoft Press, there is sort of a weird Windows-centric POV for a Python book, but that's easy to overlook.
if this had been instead released as a theoretical ‘how to survive on Mars?' reader without the cardboard characters, stilted dialog, easily surmountable situations, lame attempts at humor and general lack of literary merit, i could understand that. F++++, never reading NASA fanfic by OCD programmers ever again
i read somewhere that Stoker was doped up on laudanum for terminal-stage syphilis when he wrote this.
R.L. Stevenson's take (and subtle twists) on the ‘Victorian gothic' was immensely touching (and it's not often a short story renders me teary-eyed more than once)
“Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat” has the same meter as Lightnin' Rod's “Hustler's Convention” lol
it's pretty clear the cancel order for this series was given as the entire tone is altered and everything rush-rushed to wrap everything up in the last few issues. after the measured, slow pace of the previous 50 chapters, here clarity, structure and atmosphere are shanghaied and ‘disappeared' as multiple main characters (of which there weren't that many to begin with) are killed off in rapid succession with barely a comment, fights that would take up half a chapter previously are now not even depicted, with just a one-panel aftermath scene or someone summarizing the result in a single sentence, and The Final Showdown occurring in the span of a few pages and then The End right after... it's jarring, cheap, amateurish and disappointing for a storyline i was mostly enjoying - until this happened. : /
i don't add any of the graphic novels/comics/manga i've read to my goodreads account (because i go through so much of it and i just want to track the literature i've read), but i am making an exception here. beautiful art, wonderfully written, honestly low-key and quite funny at times ... i didn't want it to end.
