Rob
Marvelous.
Gaiman is hit or miss for me; this was a hit, and provoked a stronger and more varied emotional response from me than I expected. I have no idea how to describe it; it's brief, but to even begin to explain the plot would require more exposition than belongs in a review like this. (And would, frankly, ruin the experience of reading it, so go in blind.) You will need an appreciation for the fantastic; those who read only nonfiction or who avoid speculative fiction entirely need not apply. A rare treat for the rest of us.
Everything Fever Pitch wasn't to me.
The 2012-13 English football season has recently wrapped up. This is a brief musing on the season before that. It was an important season to me in many ways; I'd been nominally a West Ham supporter for a few years prior, but this was the first year I really made an effort, watching any matches I could – not many, for reasons I'll get to in a moment – reading soccer news, discussing it seriously with other fans, and so on. Ironically, my increased interest in the English game was spurred by my decision to start seriously following Major League Soccer (MLS), the current top flight of American soccer. I pay attention to a couple others as well, including the Scottish leagues.
So the 2011-12 season is, unlike the 1991 Fever Pitch, not ancient history to me. It's also the year after my West Ham were relegated to the Championship, the level of the English system below the Premiership and also the level where people not invested in a team there tend to stop paying attention. Sam Allardyce brought my side back to the Premiership in a playoff final, having played quite well relative to the standards of the league but not well enough to qualify for automatic promotion after stellar seasons from Reading (who are back down again after this year) and Southampton (who are still up). I attended a viewing of the match at one of my city's downtown soccer bars, at 10am, with about four other Hammers fans and my friend and former roommate, for whom this was the introduction to the game. As you can imagine, I paid quite a lot of attention to soccer that year. And even when your side isn't in the Premier League, it's a big deal and you don't not follow it if you're invested in the English game at all.
Pray, while certainly written through the eyes of an Arsenal supporter, doesn't have the self-pity of Hornby's earlier book, and captures a lot of what, to me, was really on everyone's mind last season. Fabrice Muamba, the increasingly powerful effect of wealthy owners, and more. Fever Pitch was a history lesson that overstayed its welcome; at a slender 41 pages (and correspondingly lower price, don't worry), Pray is a great, quick romp through recent memories. If you're a fan of English football, this is definitely worth your time. If you aren't, probably there's less here for you than in Fever Pitch, since that was a better look at what it means to be obsessed. For my part, I'd pay my $3 for a Nick Hornby writeup of every season, going forward.
I could have done without his dig at American sports fans' love of playoffs, but I have to concede that many of my countrymen do feel exactly that way. But please, a bit less broad a brush next time, Nick.
I came to Fever Pitch in a slightly roundabout way. I'm seeing someone with a couple of Nick Hornby books on her shelf, and feeling I had read some rather poor books recently – and that few of my ways to book recommendations were leading me to books I enjoyed of late – I had been thinking of giving Hornby a go. I still procrastinated it for a while, but I was thinking fondly, recently, of my experience with Jonathan Tropper and I happened to see something online comparing the two.
So I looked up Hornby on Amazon's Kindle store, and resolved to sort by highest customer rating and read whatever bubbled to the top. I didn't expect it to be Fever Pitch, at least not once I understood that it wasn't a novel and was therefore not quite what I was hoping for. But, I decided, what the hell. My own judgment wasn't leading me to good choices lately anyway.
The result was mixed. Fever Pitch isn't a complete autobiography of any sort. It's a memoir about being a soccer obsessive, and specifically an Arsenal obsessive. (If you're mentally upbraiding me for calling it “soccer” and not “football,” please don't bother. The English coined the term “soccer” in the first place, and sneering at it is an ugly, particularly tribal sort of anti-American derision. I use it here where I might use “football” elsewhere because it permits no confusion and because the bulk of my Goodreads friends are American.)
Hornby is not a soccer fan in the same way you might imagine if you aren't well acquainted with the game. He is a die-hard, the sort for whom soccer results are deadly serious and apt to overshadow any other news, good or bad. He comments early on that the book is therefore primarily for either obsessives like him or people on the outside who want to know what it's like to live with such an obsession. I am neither, really. I count myself a soccer fan, and support a couple of teams in different leagues. I appreciate a beautiful play as much as anyone, and a victory for my side does put me in a better mood. But I don't live and die by results and I don't have or want the sort of recall necessary to remember the squad from a decade ago or the particulars of a match from someone else's Cup final. I lack both the proximity and the distance he describes.
So here is where the trouble begins for me. The book is not long, some 270 pages or so, but it's consumed, as I now know Hornby to be as well, with details. It makes it a bit of a slog at times, lacking the obsession (particularly with Arsenal, who are not my team) to really care about minor details. Hornby has an essentially simple thesis – “I am a diehard Arsenal supporter and here is evidence of my obsession” – and he runs into a fundamental contradiction. I don't care enough to want to read all of these match details, but did he not feel compelled to include all of them it would undermine his own thesis. The result is that I enjoyed myself a fair bit for perhaps 50% of the book, and then I was ready to be done.
Another recurring issue for me, and I will have a caveat about this in a moment, is that Hornby is an unrelenting homer. He has to be for the book to make any sense, but it's aggravating nonetheless. Here comes the caveat: if I remember correctly, this book was written around 1991, long before I paid any attention to professional soccer. Hornby is convinced that Arsenal are universally hated and perennially cursed with terrible fortune. Perhaps it was true then; I really don't know, but I doubt it. But Arsenal have finished very near the top of the league for years now, manager Arsène Wenger is famous for doing very well with a more limited budget than his peers, and among the people I know they draw far less hatred than Manchester United, say, or Chelsea. Hornby endured years of failure and Arsenal have won the league only three times in his life. Cry me a fucking river. To this West Ham supporter, whose team has never, ever won the league despite its storied history and famous academy system, this seems like an awful lot of whining. Hornby names West Ham as a much-loved club even among fans of other teams; in my time supporting them we have been among the most universally-reviled sides in the English system. Perhaps my own homerism is clouding my judgment, but having seen them written up alongside a lot of generally neutral descriptions by thoroughly unaffiliated writers as “a bunch of cheating Cockney bastards nobody likes,” I really don't think so. Again, of course, a lot can and has changed since 1991. But the persecution complex wears a bit thin.
On a technical level, the book is executed well enough. Hornby strings together a sentence just fine, and he is candid about the many ways in which his behavior and thought processes are thoroughly ridiculous.
I feel okay about Fever Pitch, but I don't know that I can recommend it to a general audience. If you have an interest in soccer it's an interesting look at a true obsessive, and makes me feel better about my own interest in the game. It also tells me very little about whether I ought to read Hornby's other work, which comprises mainly novels. A mixed bag.
Competent YA entry. Departs from the norm in some ways, to its credit, but is otherwise more formulaic than I'd like. Begins to explain its magic system, which I always like, but stops trying almost as soon as it starts.
Negatives: “Darkling” is a dumb name. Ostensibly strong female protagonist is nonetheless defined by what the men in her life think of her.
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Changing my review a bit after chewing it over a bit more, and lowering the rating slightly.
It's a YA book and standards tend to get lowered, but they shouldn't be, really. This one does a lot of things I want to like, but then it goes and messes them up. Here's a list, spoilered because it contains major plot points:
- "Darkling" is a dumb name. It also predisposes the reader to think he's a villain. As a result,- The reversal sort of got me. I assumed from the beginning that the Darkling was bad news, but after taking so long to reveal himself, I eventually started to assume I was wrong, and was consequently surprised by the reveal. But it shouldn't have been telegraphed like that in the first place.- I like it when fantasy books explain their magic systems, and it started to do that and it was great. Then it stopped explaining almost immediately after it started. Boo.- When Alexei died in the beginning, I thought, "Huh, a YA book that isn't afraid to kill people, cool." Then it failed to do the same with any major characters. I won't say I wanted Mal to die in the Fold near the end, but his salvation was awfully deus ex machina and ultimately unsatisfying. It feels a lot less brave when everyone who "matters" is safe.- Similarly, in the very beginning, I was ecstatic to see that the orphan girl of unknown parentage hadn't turned out to be a super powerful sorceress or whatever. Then it turned out she was. I know YA books don't often subvert tropes, but it looked like maybe this one was gonna be special.- It's nice to see a strong female protagonist. It's less nice to see her value still defined wholly by what the men in her life think of her, and that was a constant. First Mal, then the Darkling, then Mal again.
I often say that David Sedaris is hit-or-miss for me, and it's true, though anytime someone says that about anything they generally mean that it's mostly miss, and I'm no exception. I liked this one, though. Though Sedaris is often described as a humorist, I frequently find him depressing. There's a bit of that on display here too, but it was light as Sedaris goes and I laughed a fair bit while reading. If you ever like reading Sedaris, this is a good one.
I didn't like this at all. It starts with an interesting premise – a psychologist, treating a patient who believes he can control the weather, believes his wife has been replaced by a pretender and begins investigating – but never does much with it that's interesting. The book is short, but feels like a slog; the prose is stultifying, the characters' dialogue and actions unnatural.
It took me a while to get through this, although at ~486 pages it's not all that long, but I did enjoy it. Set in postwar Spain, it's about Daniel Sempere, a young boy who discovers an obscure book of which few copies remain – because an unknown figure has been seeking out and destroying all copies of it. Sempere's investigation covers years and entails danger to both his person and his personal relationships.
Sempere is likeable, well-meaning if not always sensible; the supporting cast has plenty of charm, especially friend and confidant Fermín Romero de Torres. I am often wary of translated titles, only because I have seen too many translations that butchered the author's voice; I thought Lucia Graves' work here was exemplary. Recommended.
Mostly what I've learned from reading this one is that I don't like Charles Bukowski. The man himself, not his books, though if this one is anything to go by that's true too. I've rarely seen such a disagreeable protagonist. No idea what people saw in this book. I thought Henry Chinaski was unlikable, but I also didn't think he was believable.
Okay but ultimately unfulfilling. This was recommended to me because I said I wanted some Batman stuff that showcased some of the cool villains. That's exactly what this is, but I should have been clearer about what I want – this is a showcase and nothing more. What I guess I really wanted was something that explored one of the villains in-depth. But that doesn't really happen here.
Decent story for what it is but it feels like Batman: Dilletante Edition.
As advertised, pretty much. Batman gets his start – not an origin story, or about his training, but his start on the streets – as told by Frank Miller.
Just fine for what it is. It's well done. The most interesting part of Batman stories other than Wayne's personal demons has always been the larger-than-life villains, though – especially the Joker – and we don't have that here, really. The name is dropped late, but this is mostly about Batman's introduction, and reception by the city and a mostly corrupt police department. In fact, this is as much or more about Jim Gordon as Batman.
Not that Year One isn't well-made or worth reading, but it may or may not be what you're interested in when you decide “Hey, I want to read a Batman story.”
Fun, although I saw the reveal coming from pretty far away. If you liked volume 1 this should be up your alley.
Issue #10 seems to get all the love, but as someone who mostly doesn't give a shit about old school superhero comics, it did basically nothing for me. It isn't bad or anything, but it gets a lot of praise that frankly I don't think it deserves. Top marks in this volume for issue #8 from me instead.
Short and sweet. Just a superhero book, basicsally, but a pretty good one. You'll enjoy it if you like the Joker and crazy people, otherwise give it a miss.
Kind of bizarrely priced at $10, short as it is. It's got Alan Moore's name on it, sure, and he does a good job, but it isn't his best work.
For my money, the highlight is the illustrations. Not of everything, really, though it's all perfectly fine – just of the Joker. Some really good work there.
Still on this comics kick. This is a Warren Ellis joint, which puts it in the company of Transmetropolitan and The Authority.
Let me put this upfront: I liked this one a lot. I'm going to continue the series.
I think Planetary is a bit tricky to define, at least so far. Is it a superhero series? It's hard to say, although I've heard it described as a modern update of one. It isn't your customary superheroes-in-spandex-fight-crime deal. It isn't a black-and-white, 1950s good-versus-evil series either. The primary character – so far, anyway – seems to be basically an all right guy, but he isn't very friendly or charismatic, and neither are his colleagues. They all definitely have extrahuman abilities and are larger than life.
That primary character is Elijah Snow, who can do some temperature-related things as far as I've seen – that's one thing about at least this volume, there isn't actually all that much superpowering through things. His colleagues are Jakita Wagner, who does I don't know what apart from packing a punch and being very hard to hurt, and a guy known as “The Drummer,” who has some kind of weird electrical... thing going on. I don't know exactly what his deal is but it does seem to be percussion-based. All three are members of an organization called Planetary, who do a sort of clandestine traveling around the world keeping the stuff on the borders of human awareness on the right side of those borders. Motivations are as yet unclear, other than getting paid a bunch of money.
Speaking of Jakita, one gripe, and I know this is kind of a cliché complaint at this point. Elijah Snow typically wears all white: suit, shirt, tie, hair, you get the idea. The Drummer wears casualwear of some description. Jakita wears... close-fitting vinyl. The book doesn't generally feel like T&A, but come on, guys. You're continuing to perpetuate the reputation of the genre and of the community.
Issue #3 was my favorite section writing-wise. A lot of this volume is monster-of-the-week type stuff, but you can see the foundations for bigger stories being laid.
Reading others' reviews, it's clear that a lot of what's going on in Planetary is an examination of the history and tropes of past comics. For someone like me, with only a passing familiarity with the medium, the experience will necessarily be different than for a long-time comics reader who's better equipped to know what themes and references Ellis is playing on.
This was... fine? I'm not 100% sure I get the fuss.
It definitely isn't quite what I expected. Batman retired years ago, and Gotham has fallen into decay. His work is being systematically undone. So Batman suits up again, even at his age.
Didn't much care for the art. Writing was fine but not amazing, which surprised me because this is supposed to be one of Frank Miller's great contributions to the medium.
Released as a seven-issue, self-contained comic book series, about a teenage girl in the modern day who claims to kill giants. Difficult to expand much on that without spoilers. This book will upset you.
Nothing about this is well-done on a technical level, but I still found it effective. The writing is... okay, but there's very little payoff until the end. The art is not great and sometimes make it hard to tell what's going on.
The creators have pre- and post-issue comic book conversations between each other. These are terrible in both their art and prose and will make you hate them both.
The fifth and final volume in the “main” Wool series.
Howey gives himself the room to stretch himself again, narratively, in a way he hasn't since the first volume. The result feels like a complete work, as volumes 2 through 4 didn't. You'd still need to read the earlier entries, of course, as with a traditional series.
Generally: satisfying. The ending leaves a lot unanswered, presumably to be addressed in further entries. I spent a fair bit of this volume worried, waiting to see what was coming next.
As an experiment in format, I think Wool is a solid success. The first and fifth volumes are easily my favorites; it's probably best enjoyed in omnibus format with no regard for the different volumes; volume 1 can truly stand on its own, but not the others. I'm looking forward to seeing what else Howey releases.