Review: Igor Stravinsky: Works of Igor Stravinsky

Fairly frequently I have reason to consider the relative importance of tradition and innovation in the performance of music, usually coming to the conclusion that both have value, and that a successful performer will find a balance point between moribund traditionalism and wild-eyed radicalism.

Of course, historically one of the problems with traditions were that they were so easily lost: not every great performer has had disciples willing to continue his/her traditions. Fortunately, the advent of sound recording has removed most of those problems, so that we now know how Gershwin thought Rhapsody in Blue should sound, and can experience Rachmaninoff’s thinking on his own piano concertos. And we now, thanks to Sony BMG, have a very clear idea of how Igor Stravinsky thought his own works should be performed.

Works of Igor Stravinsky is a massive set: 22 CDs of performances of Rite of Spring, Symphony in E-Flat, The Rake’s Progress and more under the direction of the composer, with additional performances by his disciple Robert Craft under Stravnisky’s supervision, and a disc (the Sympony in E-Flat disc, actually) that includes recordings of rehearsals and Stravinsky discussing his own music.

It’s hard to overstate Stravinsky’s influence on twentieth-century music. It is so pervasive that, for example, while listening to Petrouschka, I was reminded of the soundtrack for every busy urban scene in every film practically since sound became part of movies. No less a figure than Claude Debussy wrote to Stravinsky: “It is a special satisfaction to tell you how much you have enlarged the boundaries of the permissible in the empire of sound.” And this was in 1913, when Stravinsky was still only in his thirties.

Of course, I’m not one to think that the creator necessarily has the final word on his creations. Others may see things that he is too close to discern, or facets that he didn’t think important may take on new weight as times change. In this regard, I found Stravinsky’s interpretations often fairly dry – not quite academic, but without the elements of romance that other interpreters have found in the works. This is not an overwhelming objection, mind you, but after hearing something like the as interpreted by Seiji Ozawa, Stravinsky’s version is relatively tame.

I would also have preferred a different organization for the set, which is set up by type of work – ballets, symphonies, oratorios, sacred music, etc. I think it would have been more illuminating to have set this up in chronological order. Stravinsky, like most artists, when through various stages in his career, from the radical avant-gardism of his youth, through a period, much like Bartok, Kodaly, Enescu, and Vaughan Williams, of incorporating folk and traditional materials into his work, and from there into a strict neoclassicism and a modernist synthesis. This is a progression that I think could have been very well illustrated – and led to a deeper understanding of Stravinsky’s music -- by organizing the collection to take account of it.

However, I’m not going to say pass this up. It’s a tremendous collection, the music of Stravinsky straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. But shop around: since I bought my set, as might be expected, the price has skyrocketed, if you can find it at all.

If you’d like to hear the way one of the twentieth century’s most important composers thought about his own music, go for it.

(Sony / BMG Int’l, 2007)

Review: Steven Brust: Brokedown Palace

Another Epinions orphan; another review of this book is at Green Man Review:

Brokedown Palace is another one of Steven Brust’s romps – I have to admit, the man astonishes me: from the highly individual noir detective cast of the Vlad Taltos novels to the delightful and affectionate take-off on Dumas in The Phoenix Guard and Five Hundred Years After, he has an amazing range and an astonishing amount of creativity. In this one, he’s done it with the traditional folk tale – not that this story owes much to any any particular tale, but Brust has taken the idea of folklore and the means and methods of folklore to make an engaging and fabulous – in the strict sense – novel

The universe is the same as that of the Vlad Taltos novels, in a different time and with a very different tone. Structurally, the story follows a more-or-less traditional narrative form, broken by interludes that may describe events that are important but of which the characters are unaware, or may simply be folktales (of the “tall tales” variety) within the larger folktale. The story is quite simple: it is the story of László, King of Fenario, who is not particularly sane, and his brothers, Andor, who is shallow and perhaps overly religious – at least sometimes; Vilmos, who is the archetypal giant, large, strong, gentle, and perhaps with a little more on the ball than others realize; and Miklós, the youngest, who is a little – well, more than a little stubborn, and more than a little outspoken. It is tempting to say that the Palace is another major character, but it’s not; it is, however a potent symbol that Brust uses to great effect. László has a tendency to try to beat Miklós to death, or nearly so, and is extremely sensitive about the condition of the Palace, which is tottering on its foundations – in this case, it’s called denial. After one nearly-fatal beating, Miklós exiles himself to the land of Faerie – in the Taltos cycle, Dragaera – where he learns Dragaeran sorcery (pre-Empire, needless to say) before his return to Fenario. We meet the táltos horse Bölk, a magical steed who is much more than he seems and always answers questions with more questions; the Countess Mariska, destined to wed László – or perhaps one should say resigned to the fact – and Brigitta, László’s mistress. There is a hidden villain, and a magical tree, and the Demon Goddess Varra, who has her own agenda.

And the whole thing is permeated by magic – not only the fantasy-world magic of spells and incantations, but the fairy-tale magic that says the unbelievable is real and is walking right next to you. In this novel, Brust displays a remarkable gift in combining irony, wit, and the innocence of childhood, in which the Palace, the River, a horse, a tree, all have their own purposes and their own ways of effecting their goals. As in folklore, the characters are broadly drawn, but this is a novel, and they accumulate the telling details that belong to real people as the story progresses – they are well-developed, but always hover in the realm of the archetype.

A word about the narrator, who encapsulates Brust’s various gifts in a highly entertaining way. The narrator is indeed a storyteller, who digresses (another of Brust’s many talents) to fill in the story, bring us details about the history of Fenario, the people and the land, and who provides a commentary that is sometime wry, sometimes matter-of-fact, but always lively and good-humored. But make no mistake – there are dark and terrible events in this story, as is necessarily the case if we are to be engaged at all, and as is very much the basis of folklore as it is of literature. Whether Brust’s stance makes them more terrible or more distanced is something that each reader, I think, will have to decide.

A final note: those who are more familiar with Eastern European folklore than I may derive an additional layer of enjoyment from this book. The vocabulary and I suspect the general tenor of the narrative seem solidly based in Hungarian language and Hungarian traditions (alright, Fenarian is Hungarian, or damned close), which brings an element of the exotic to the tale that just adds to the fun.

(Orb Books, 2006)

Review: Bill Willingham: Fables: March of the Wooden Soldiers

I found Bill Willingham's Fables series to be more engaging as I worked my way through it. March of the Wooden Soldiers offers an even richer story with layers of deception and intrigue -- not to mention angst and guilt -- and a couple of side stories that continue to fill out the major characters.

We start off with a little history on Boy Blue, Snow White's assistant. Every year, Blue and a group of friends gather for an evening of hard drinking. They were the last to escape the Homelands, but the evening is not marked by celebration: there's a lot of guilt that they escaped while others perished. Blue's story is particularly poignant: the last refugee to reach their final stronghold was Red Riding Hood, and she and Blue fell in love. When the final battle came, he sent her to the ship that was carrying the refugees to safety, while he went back to the battle. Unknown to him, she left the boat and went back to fight at his side, while he, through the gift of his commander's magic cloak, was able to transport himself to the ship after it had left.

And now Red Riding Hood has made it to the Earth. But there's something a little off -- her reaction to meeting Blue again is extreme, and not at all friendly. Bigby, as usual, is suspicious. And then a group of men appear, wanting to buy guns. Lots of guns. And, as it turns out, they're not exactly men.

In the meantime, Snow is pregnant, the result of that little camping trip with Bigby, aided and abetted by Bluebeard's hypnosis. She's not really very happy about it. And Prince Charming, having finished off Bluebeard, is searching his apartment for whatever gold, jewels, silver, or anything else of value hasn't gone to fill the coffers of Fabletown. (Bluebeard died intestate, so his fortune reverted to the government. But Prince Charming isn't really interested in full disclosure.) He has a brilliant idea: he's going to run for Mayor.

Things develop, and Fabletown is under attack by the wooden soldiers of the title. Since Bigby is away on his investigation, Snow takes command of the town's defenses, even enlisting the witches to work in Fabletown's defense -- for free, which doesn't make them happy at all, but their options are limited.

This one is a lot of fun, and I think my favorite in the series so far. The story is multi-layered, there's a lot of intrigue, but nothing you can't figure out if you want to. It's so well done, though, that you don't bother. Willingham's script sucks you right in, and it's really easy to just go with the flow of the story.

Mark Buckingham, Craig Hamilton, and P. Craig Russell penciled this volume, and the visuals are just as appealing as the previous collections. The battle scenes are exceptionally effective, but the whole thing is worth looking at. My one objection to this one, and looking back, to the series as a whole so far, is that Willingham scripts fairly heavily -- there's not a lot of room for the visuals to carry the narrative, and it never gets past the idiom of illustrated story and into true graphic literature, with that particular synergy between the elements.

Collects Fables: The Last Castle, and Fables #19-21 and #2-27.

(Vertigo, 2004)

Review: Bill Willingham: Fables, The Deluxe Edition, Book One

I reviewed most of this series at the late lamented Epinions, although for some reason I never reviewed the first three trade paper backs. Maybe this is why.

Imagine all your favorite (and not-so-favorite) characters from fairy tales, folk tales, and children's literature living in Manhattan right now. (Except for the not-so-human characters, who are living on an extensive farm/estate in upstate New York.) Refugees from their own scattered kingdoms and realms, all conquered by a creature known as the "Adversary," they live in a particular section of town, which they have named "Fabletown." They have their own government and spend a fair amount of effort keeping the "mundys" unaware of their existence. King Cole is the Mayor of Fabletown, and Snow White is his deputy, who manages the day-to-day affairs of the Fables -- the real power behind the throne, so to speak. The Big Bad Wolf, now known as Bigby, is the sheriff. (He has taken on human form for the past few hundred years.)
\
The first half of this volume, "Legends in Exile," fills in the background a bit and gives us the first adventure: Jack (of Beanstalk fame) comes huffing into Bigby's office to report a terrible crime: He has been keeping company with Rose Red, Snow's estranged sister, and went over to her place only to discover the apartment a blood-spattered shambles. It's Rose's blood, alright, but there's no trace of her at all. Bigby, being a naturally suspicious sort, immediately comes up with a list of suspects, starting with Jack. The list soon expands to include Snow White and Bluebeard -- one of the few who escaped the Homelands with his fortunes intact.

The second installment, "Animal Farm," finds Snow and Rose (no, she wasn't dead, and no one ever really thought she was) on their way to the Farm on Snow's annual visit. They read the farm to find Weyland Smith, the Administrator, AWOL, and the farm being run by the Three Little Pigs. It soon turns out that there's a revolution brewing, led by Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I had read this volume of the series as background for a ficlet at Green Man Review, but with the backlog I'd built up of material for review, never went back to it until recently. It's worth following, I think: these are fairy tales for adults, and in many respects probably closer to the originals transcribed by the Brothers Grimm and other collectors than the versions eventually published for children. The characterizations aren't what we might expect -- Snow White is a little rigid, not very sympathetic, and more than a little arrogant (and you'd best not mention the Dwarves in her hearing, if you know what's good for you) -- but the cast is highly entertaining, from the Frog Prince, now in human form, who keeps getting sentenced to community service for eating flies in public, to Beauty and the Beast, whose main marital problem is that the glamor that keeps Beast looking human works more or less, depending on how mad at him Beauty is at any given moment. Reynard the Fox, in "Animal Farm," lives up to his reputation as a trickster, and Goldilocks' relationship with Baby Bear is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

The art is a group effort by Lan Medina, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, and Craig Hamilton. There's good stylistic consistency throughout, and while layouts tend to hew closely to the standard frame-follows-frame of Western comics, there's a nice openness to the renderings that keeps it from getting monotonous or claustrophobic, even in the crowd scenes.

Collects Fables #1-10.

(Vertigo, 2009)

Review: Wim Wenders: Once

Another Epinions orphan. Another review of this book appears at Green Man Review.

To be quite honest, I’m not familiar with Wim Wenders’ films. After leafing through Once, I have a feeling I’d like them. Characterized on the jacket flap as “autobiographical sketches,” they seem to me to be more on the order of Ned Rorem’s “high gossip” – familiar, diaristic, a little gossipy, dropping names like crazy – Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, Harry Dean Stanton – the names one might expect. There are also encounters with the anonymous – a little girl in Russia, an unknown actor in Hollywood – that are illuminating of the richness found in the mundane.

Most of the sketches come with photographs, which are usually spare, lean, uninflected – the kind of casual, “dumb” imagery that comes out of Pop Art, the photography of Gary Winogrand, and deconstructionist semantics. I happen to find them quite wonderful, almost magical in many cases – in spite of (or maybe because of) their leanness, they are often tremendously evocative, and to me offer insight into Wenders’ aesthetic stance – some of the series are almost like film, a slow pan through a desolate landscape with surprising and sometimes surreal details. As Wenders says in his introduction,

A photograph is always a double image,
Showing, at first glance, its subject,
But at a second glance – more or less visible,
“hidden behind it,” so to speak,
the “reverse angle”:
the picture of the photographer
in action.

This is a good book to just wander through, touching ground here and there, backtracking, taking another look at a certain view, absorbing the stories (the prose is cast as verse, even though it’s not, really), and finding little treasures here and there (the “Mighty Mouse” sketch is delightful, even though regrettably lacking photographs). It’s a world-wide ramble, with stops in Australia, Russia, Germany, the US, India, Algiers, and some surprizing places as well – Butte, Montana, for example. There are reproductions of unfixed Polaroids that Wenders found in a drawer, which are some of the most haunting images in the book.

How much do I like this book? I bought it. I don’t usually buy art books, because they are an addiction that I finally broke (after learning the hard way that it’s very easy to run out of space and money), but this one is too rare and wonderful to pass up. Be warned, however – liking this book depends on a certain degree of openness and sophistication in both visual art and literature, and, to be quite honest, if you can’t stand photographers like Lewis Baltz or Robert Frank, you will have trouble with this book. On the other hand, if you are one of those who is constantly looking for ideas and images, places to jump off from and go wandering through your own imagination, I think you’ll like it just fine. I know it’s going to have some impact on my own work – I’m looking forward to it.

(Distributed Art Publishers (orig. Shirmer-Mosel, 1993), n.d.)

Culture Break: Terry Riley: Lisbon Concert

This got reviewed a couple of places. This particular review originally appeared at Epinions:

Perhaps one of the most awesome things that can happen to a fan of “new music” is the chance to hear Terry Riley in concert. There is nothing like it. And, for those who cannot travel around the world to where he might be performing, the Lisbon Concert recording brings you a taste of what an experience that is. (Yes, I've heard Riley live. It was amazing.)

The Lisbon Concert was recorded in 1995 at the Teatro Sào Luís in Lisbon at the final concert in the composer’s sixtieth-birthday tour of Europe. The recording quality is excellent. It is an amazing, shimmering fabric of virtuosity that draws on Riley’s compositions spanning several decades. Although the piano was tuned in equal temperament, as opposed to Riley’s preferred just intonation tuning, he draws from it colors and shadings that are ineffably Riley.

A few general observations before I mention some of the specifics: take it as a given that Riley is a virtuoso on the piano. It has always been his favored instrument, and he certainly can put it through its paces. This album does indeed shimmer – it shimmers, it ripples, and then Riley throws in a sweetly reflective passage or a phrase of high drama. He moves effortlessly between jazz and repetitive Minimalism, while throwing in elements that are almost, but not quite, Latin, Chinese, or movie soundtrack, that might hark back to the richness of Mozart or the earthy romanticism of Vaughan Williams, and yet are truly and only Terry Riley. Throughout, there are echoes of things that have gone before, and foreshadowings of things yet to come. The whole is seamless.

“Arica,” which opens the album, has an understated beginning that recalls, in mood if not actual sound, some of Debussy’s preludes. (In fact, while I am typing this, my trusty CD player has finished with Riley and moved on to Debussy, with never a blip – except that the Debussy is leaner and not quite so richly textured.) Riley builds to cascades of notes over a quiet, reflective base, that somehow moves into a high-brow honky-tonk. It fades into “Negro Hall,” which opens with another quiet passage that could be an extension of the opening of “Arica” (one knows this because one went back and forth between the beginnings of these two pieces several times, with no jar, no discontinuity, in spite of all that went on in between), then immediately takes on a jazzy air, a sort of boogy-woogie style. “15/16” has a Latin feel to it, but not quite, while “Havana Man” – well, if Schumann had done jazz, you might be getting close. And that’s an indication of the way the whole concert moves back and forth, almost reprising earlier pieces, but never quite, while building new contexts as it goes along, moving from style to style but never quite leaving the central theme. There is a unity of vision in control of this music that is quite formidable.

One wants to build analogies with Wagner, the Baroque, even Beethoven and perhaps Rachmaninoff, but why push the envelope that far? The experience is of a master at play, and it’s something. This is not drop-dead music – “high drama” for Riley has an order of subtley to it that’s hard to explain – but this is music that leaves you with a very quiet “wow!” and makes you want to go out and start piano lessons.

(New Albion Records, 2009)

Review: Steven Brust: Brokedown Palace

Another Epinions orphan; I also reviewed this one at Green Man Review.

Brokedown Palace is another one of Steven Brust’s romps – I have to admit, the man astonishes me: from the highly individual noir detective cast of the Vlad Taltos novels to the delightful and affectionate take-off on Dumas in The Phoenix Guard and Five Hundred Years After, he has an amazing range and an astonishing amount of creativity. In this one, he’s done it with the traditional folk tale – not that this story owes much to any particular tale, but Brust has taken the idea of folklore and the means and methods of folklore to make an engaging and fabulous – in the strict sense – novel

The universe is the same as that of the Vlad Taltos novels, in a different time and with a very different tone. Structurally, the story follows a more-or-less traditional narrative form, broken by interludes that may describe events that are important but of which the characters are unaware, or may simply be folktales (of the “tall tales” variety) within the larger folktale. The story is quite simple: it is the story of László, King of Fenario, who is not particularly sane, and his brothers, Andor, who is shallow and perhaps overly religious – at least sometimes; Vilmos, who is the archetypal giant, large, strong, gentle, and perhaps with a little more on the ball than others realize; and Miklós, the youngest, who is a little – well, more than a little stubborn, and more than a little outspoken. It is tempting to say that the Palace is another major character, but it’s not; it is, however a potent symbol that Brust uses to great effect. László has a tendency to try to beat Miklós to death, or nearly so, and is extremely sensitive about the condition of the Palace, which is tottering on its foundations – in this case, it’s called denial. After one nearly-fatal beating, Miklós exiles himself to the land of Faerie – in the Taltos cycle, Dragaera – where he learns Dragaeran sorcery (pre-Empire, needless to say) before his return to Fenario. We meet the táltos horse Bölk, a magical steed who is much more than he seems and always answers questions with more questions; the Countess Mariska, destined to wed László – or perhaps one should say resigned to the fact – and Brigitta, László’s mistress. There is a hidden villain, and a magical tree, and the Demon Goddess Varra, who has her own agenda.

And the whole thing is permeated by magic – not only the fantasy-world magic of spells and incantations, but the fairy-tale magic that says the unbelievable is real and is walking right next to you. In this novel, Brust displays a remarkable gift in combining irony, wit, and the innocence of childhood, in which the Palace, the River, a horse, a tree, all have their own purposes and their own ways of effecting their goals. As in folklore, the characters are broadly drawn, but this is a novel, and they accumulate the telling details that belong to real people as the story progresses – they are well-developed, but always hover in the realm of the archetype.

A word about the narrator, who encapsulates Brust’s various gifts in a highly entertaining way. The narrator is indeed a storyteller, who digresses (another of Brust’s many talents) to fill in the story, bring us details about the history of Fenario, the people and the land, and who provides a commentary that is sometime wry, sometimes matter-of-fact, but always lively and good-humored. But make no mistake – there are dark and terrible events in this story, as is necessarily the case if we are to be engaged at all, and as is very much the basis of folklore as it is of literature. Whether Brust’s stance makes them more terrible or more distanced is something that each reader, I think, will have to decide.

A final note: those who are more familiar with Eastern European folklore than I may derive an additional layer of enjoyment from this book. The vocabulary and I suspect the general tenor of the narrative seem solidly based in Hungarian language and Hungarian traditions (alright, Fenarian is Hungarian, or damned close), which brings an element of the exotic to the tale that just adds to the fun.

Recommended? Absolutely.

(Ace Books, 1986)

Review: Steven Brust: To Reign in Hell

Another Epinions orphan. There is another version at Green Man Review.

Fantasy literature as a genre seldom strays into the consideration of such literary criteria as "style." This is not to say that fantasy writers are generic – one can easily differentiate someone like C. J. Cherryh, with her lush, dense, highly colored prose and gift for dialogue from, for example, Charles de Lint, whose writing is equally lush, often equally dense, and just as captivating, but very different. But there are vanishingly few writers of fantasy who play with style the way Steven Brust does, and in Brust's hands, this means not only the quality and focus of his abilities as a wordsmith, but the assumption of style as a formal consideration that involves structure and theme. In Brokedown Palace, for example, he took the basic form and feel of a folktale and built a captivating novel of fantasy. The Taltos Cycle, a series of stories about a combination Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin (Vlad Taltos does a lot of the legwork and most of the thinking – he loves good food, but does not grow orchids) has a decidedly noir cast that brings it firmly into the camp of the classic American detective novel. His newest series, the Viscount of Adrilankha, began as an affectionate spoof of Alexandre Dumas in The Phoenix Guard and Five Hundred Years After. Throughout, Brust has displayed an ease and confidence that are truly awe-inspiring.

To Reign In Hell definitely fits the parameters. Brust's own idiosyncratic retelling of the War in Heaven and the casting down of Satan, it is in many ways a tribute to Roger Zelazny, with Dumas one of Brust's literary heroes. Zelazny wrote a glowing introduction to this book, and within a couple of paragraphs it is easy to see why he identified with it so strongly. Brust has used an episodic structure that is almost cinematic, borrowing devices that Zelazny made his own: the particular combinations of exposition and inference, direct narrative and ellipsis, become the literary equivalent of cuts and slow fades, moving the story along as though we were seeing it on the big screen. (If one has read such classic Zelazny as Creatures of Light and Darkness or his penultimate novel, Donnerjack, one can easily see the likeness.)

Brust also has a gift for characterization. His people are deftly and subtly drawn. Yaweh, in particular, moves from primus inter pares to omnipotent creator in a series of small, inevitable steps; far from being the all-knowing and all-powerful deity of Judaeo-Christian tradition, he is all too human, sometimes doubting his own rightness but ultimately acquiescing to what, he is told and comes to believe, is "necessary." This same subtlety and poignancy comes into play with most of the characters, and, while there is indeed a villain in the book, he is not the one the reader would expect – and even then, he can’t really be characterized as “evil,” merely ambitious and given to temporizing. In fact, there are really only a couple of characters who are not in some way sympathetic – the majority are all too human.

Perhaps not strangely in Brust's hands, this is not a story about "good" and "evil" – at least, not in our usual understanding of black/white, either/or, right/wrong – but is really a study of means and ends and the way that letting decisions make themselves is really a way of making decisions without the responsibility for their consequences. And, in this shades-of-gray viewpoint, integrity is not a marketable commodity. And so Satan, while trying to decide if he can wholeheartedly support Yaweh’s plan to create a completely safe realm for the inhabitants of Heaven (which is subject to periodic Waves from the surrounding flux, from which angels are created and by which they are destroyed while they battle to push the flux back outside their boundaries) in spite of its costs, is able to say to Yaweh: “I have never lied about who I was, what I was doing, or why I was doing it. You have done all of these.” Brust very neatly turns the traditional story and the traditional take on who are the heroes and villains on their heads. Both Yaweh and Satan are isolated, subject to counsel that is not necessarily bad in itself, but one-sided, leaving them vulnerable to the expectations generated by rumor on the one hand and the need for leadership on the other; the machinations of someone whose only guide is his own ambition provide the telling blow.

This is a book that can be read many ways, and there are many themes that reside in what is really a very concise, almost terse presentation of a age-old story: the ease with which we are corrupted by power, the easy perversion of sanctity by authority, the disease of fanaticism and its stomach for atrocities in the service of a "higher law,” the vulnerability of good will and tolerance. To Reign In Hell has that protean quality that is characteristic of all significant works of art – and I have no reservations about calling it just that.

Another point of comparison with Zelazny is that, while dealing with serious matters, both are known for the expert and almost surgically precise application of irony and a light touch. One senses the distance that each maintains from the heavy freight they are conveying, a stance that lets them set the issues out very clearly without ever letting them become ponderous.

The only complaint I have about To Reign In Hell seems to be built in: it's a known story, with a known outcome (although in Brust's hands, the means are something of a surprise), and even in this rendering, this known outcome is the logical outgrowth of character and events. The result from the reader's standpoint is that the climax is more than a little anticlimactic. Even with all the givens, I really had hoped for something a little grander, even while realizing that would have subverted and cheapened the book.

I don't mean, by all these comparisons with other writers, to imply that Brust is in any way lacking. Indeed, as I have read more of his work, I have come to realize that he is undoubtedly one of the finest writers in fantasy today. Even a relatively early novel such as this one (it was originally published in 1984) has a maturity and depth that many writers never achieve. I think it's axiomatic that an author can only be successful at parody if he is operating from a strong base of his own, and Brust seems to prove my point.

(Tom Doherty Associates; originally published by SteelDragon Press, 1984)

Review: Emma Bull: Bone Dance

Another foundling from the late, great Epinions.

A good argument can be made for calling Emma Bull’s Bone Dance an urban fantasy. There is a great deal to do with the spirit world, events that are only explainable in terms of magic of some sort, and there are visitations from supernatural beings. However, the fact that it is set in a post-Apocalyptic dystopia, technology plays a pivotal role (although that is more because of its scarcity than because of its reliability), and the magic comes from “hoodoo” (Voudou is part of modern reality, for some of us at least) make me place it firmly in science fiction (which does, after all, leave room for beings with advanced mental powers).

Sparrow is the narrator, leading us through the maze of the City (which is only the City, no other name; it could, perhaps, be Minneapolis, Bull’s hometown, although a couple of references seem to place it south of The Border) a few decades after someone pushed the Button. The history is unclear, which doesn’t really matter – the damage was done, and what we must deal with is now. Life in Sparrow’s City runs on the Deal – money is hard or soft, favors are owed one way or the other, and that is the basis of trade. Sparrow is an electronics expert (although the explanation for this comes not until midway through the story) who runs a black market in old videotapes and sound recordings – black market because most of the information from before the Bang is subject to seizure and destruction by whatever authority there may be. In this case, the authority is A. A. Albrecht, who holds a monopoly on energy in the City proper. He is also one of Sparrow’s best customers for old movies, especially originals (as opposed to dupes), which bring very high prices. One of Sparrow’s haunts is the Night Market, where goods of all sorts are available from dusk until dawn; another is the Underbridge, a dance and video club of which Sparrow is one of the operators. Sparrow also has blackouts – periods of varying length that leave no memories, although Sparrow’s absence is apparently not obvious. Into this mix comes Frances, who, as it turns out, is one of the legendary and hated Horsemen, secret military weapons who could take over the bodies of others. It was the Horsemen who pushed the Button; Frances is on her way to kill Tom Worecski, who put together the plot to rain nuclear death on the Western Hemisphere and duped Frances and other of the Horsemen into participating. Mick Skinner is another who comes into Sparrow’s ken, seemingly briefly, since we discover that he has been dead since before they met. Events conspire to draw Sparrow into Frances’ search for Tom, and the interlocking relationships – Sherrea, perhaps Sparrow’s closest friend, who is a talented card reader; Theo, one of the other operators of Underbridge, who has a surprising relationship to Albrecht; Cassidy, who is setting himself up to be a victim; and Dana, who has connections – provide a fair measure of suspense.

I don’t really know what to compare this book to in order to give you some touchstones – perhaps Dhalgren meets The Maltese Falcon. The environment is near-hallucinatory, the more so because the main lighting seems to be neon (the Night Market is, after all, the Night Market). The context is very rich and detailed. Sparrow’s blackouts begin to intercut with hallucinations, involving stick figures who pass on cryptic messages; one of them is definitely Kokopelli, the trickster-hero of the ancient American Southwest, who speaks in lines from movies; another is, perhaps, Oya Iansa, who governs wind and the lightning and brings change.

Sparrow is a true anti-hero. Many of the surprises in the book come from the fact that Sparrow has an obsession about privacy, and is consequently not terribly perceptive of the details of others’ lives, even when those details are available. The reason for Sparrow’s privacy fetish is unveiled halfway through the book, along with revelations about the Horsemen: Sparrow, it turns out . . . no, I don’t think I’ll tell.

Bull is one of those writers who can pull you into a context with no effort. As hallucinatory and distasteful as this world is, you are there, and you go willingly. Her prose is tight and lucid, particularly when she is writing about the supernormal, which only makes it more real. Voudou and the Tarot form a major part of the foundation for this story, along with the key plot issue, which is energy as the operative force of the universe. Bull’s treatment of this reminds me of the philosophy of the creators of the original Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of my touchstones during the 1970s – if energy keeps the universe turning, anything that has the potential to block the flow – like money, or too much power in too few hands (which seems to have become the same thing) – needs to be dealt with very carefully, and sometimes very forcefully.

“Coming of age” has a multitude of meanings, and it’s a type of story that I seem to have been running into a lot lately. Maybe that’s because every work of fiction is about coming of age in some sense. We move from childhood to adolescence to adulthood to maturity, and not all parts of us make the progression at the same rate. Bone Dance is a coming-of-age story as much as anything else; and Bull uses it to explore one other thing that I want to note: how our perceptions of what others’ perceptions are or might be color our reactions – often before there is anything to react to. It’s also an object lesson in how opening ourselves to the wider world – the next stage of our lives – is often costly and hurtful, but necessary unless we are to give up our responsibility as human beings to be human beings.

This is a terrific book.

(Ace Books, 1991)

Review: Joss Whedon: Marvel's The Avengers

I saw Joss Whedon's The Avengers when it opened in Chicago, and immediately went home and pre-ordered the DVD. It arrived on a Thursday; by Sunday I had watched it three times.

S.H.I.E.L.D., under the direction of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), is investigating the Tesseract, an alien artifact discovered when the search was on for Captain America (Chris Evans). Progress is being made -- it's potentially a source of unlimited clean energy -- when there appears a disruption, in the form of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who, after wreaking suitable havoc on the research facility, absconds with the Tesseract, as well as Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), lead researcher -- he's managed to subvert them by using a scepter that draws on the Tesseract's power to control their minds. Fury, however, has a back-up, a resource he's held in reserve, even though it -- the "Avengers Initiative" -- has been officially shelved. He starts putting together a team: Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans); Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who in turn is enlisted to recruit Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo); Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), recruited by Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) in a very funny scene. Things are going well -- the Avengers manage to capture Loki and are transporting him back to the carrier when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) decides to insert himself into the situation -- he thinks Loki should be returned to Asgard. He's persuaded otherwise.

Meanwhile, Dr. Selvig has set up the Tesseract to act as a bridge for the invasion force. It works. And then the fun starts.

Where to start?

The actors, even though working with comic-book characters, manage to deliver some real people -- they have histories, strengths, vulnerabilities, and hang-ups, and we see them, as opposed to being told about them. Johansson turned out to be my favorite, I think -- she's a superb actress, and did a lot of the physical action herself. (Reportedly, she trained for months for this role -- it shows.) The dialogue is sharp and energetic -- it crackles -- and often very, very funny -- the film is littered with throw-aways that always have me snickering, not to mention some of the physical business that hits you out of the blue. (Hulk is really good for that.) And the best part is watching these spiky personalities make themselves into a team. Very well done.

The effects are spectacular (the S.H.I.E.L.D. carrier is worth watching the film itself) and beautifully done. And the amount of destruction is awesome. (I admit it -- hiding not very far under my surface is this kid who likes to watch things blow up.)

The script itself is good and tight, with a clear story line and enough room for the actors to move around. (Whedon wrote the script, too.) The pace is fast, but the story remains coherent -- cuts make sense and add to the momentum.

The DVD includes English, French and Spanish soundtracks, plus an "English Descriptive Service" that provides narration setting the scene and describing the action in those scenes without dialogue; subtitles in French and Spanish, plus English for the Hearing Impaired; the requisite "sneak previews"; a very interesting featurette of the actors discussing each other -- no dissing, but a good take on the strengths each brought to his or her role (these are obviously people who admire each other's work), with additional commentary by Whedon; and a Director's Commentary by Whedon on just where he was coming from on this one. (It starts off with the question "Why did they pick Whedon to direct this one?" Short answer -- he's one of the best for anything comics. He turns out to be a terrific film director, too.)

Just offhand, I'd say The Avengers deserves every accolade it's received: it's action-packed, it's funny, the characters are well-developed, the effects are terrific -- top marks on every score. (Even the music, although a little bombastic, fits perfectly.)

(Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, 2012) Running time: 143 min.

Review: Tite Kubo, Hideki Tachibana: Bleach Movie 1: Memories of Nobody

Tite Kubo's Bleach, an action-packed supernatural adventure, has been a phenomenally successful manga series (approaching 40 volumes in English) and anime TV series (275 episodes). (The irony here is that when Kubo first offered it to a publisher, it was rejected.) Four feature films have been developed from the series. Memories of Nobody is the first.

The basic situation for the series is that fifteen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki (his first name means "strawberry," for his red hair) has always been able to see ghosts. This has now made him a target for a kind of wandering spirit known as a "Hollow" -- souls that cannot enter the Soul Society and so wander the earth, feeding off the souls of the newly dead -- and the living. He encounters Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper whose job is to destroy Hollows and to send other souls on their way to the Soul Society. When a Hollow attacks Ichigo's home, Rukia is forced to try to give him some of her power to help fight it off; unfortunately, she winds up giving him all of her power, making him a Substitute Soul Reaper. After they defeat the Hollow, Rukia has to lay low until her power regenerates. But Ichigo is still a Soul Reaper -- and a very powerful one.

Memories of Nobody begins with a strange build-up of spiritual energy. Suddenly, Ichigo and Rukia are beset by "Blanks," souls with no memories. They are hard pressed until the advent of Senna, a Soul Reaper who manages to make short work of the Blanks. The only problem is, the Soul Society has never heard of Senna. And there's a crisis on the rise: the World of the Living and the Soul Society are being drawn together by a strange current generated in the Valley of Screams, which appears when Blanks reach, as it were, a critical mass. There's a plot involved, by a clan that was banished from the Soul Society a thousand years before, and Senna is a central part of it.

Where to start? The story is tight and engaging, with lots of action. The final battle between the Soul Reapers and the Dark Clan is great fun. I especially liked the way the Soul Reapers and their opponents aren't particularly bound by the laws of gravity -- there's something about a mid-air sword fight that's really appealing.

The animation is excellent. It's obvious the crew were able to take the time and care to create a fluent and seamless visual experience. Character designs are also wonderful -- the characterizations are strongly individual and fully realized, and faces and body language are very expressive. Settings and backgrounds are complete without being obtrusive, and beautifully rendered. From the standpoint of creative design, this one is top notch.

Which leads me to the character of Ichigo, on whom the whole story hinges. He's a remarkable young man, a saint with attitude, confrontational, idealistic, and with a streak of compassion a mile wide. Senna, likewise, is a very appealing character, a scatterbrained teenage girl whose memories are not all her own. In fact, the characters as a group are well-rounded personalities, including those Soul Reapers and Ichigo's school friends who make brief appearances. Even the villain, Ganryu, shows signs of humanity. They're all more than cartoons.

And I've got to mention Kon. Kon is a modified soul who takes over Ichigo's body when he is in Soul Reaper mode. (Remember, Soul Reapers are spiritual warriors and don't necessarily have physical bodies.) In between times, he occupies a stuffed bear. He's also one of the main sources of comedy -- he and Ichigo don't get along all that well, and their confrontations are pretty funny.

My one gripe is that this is a two-disc set, and the second disc is completely taken up with "special features," which are mostly storyboards and various trailers. The featurette on the making of the film, though, will be very helpful to those who are not familiar with the series. It contains commentaries by many of those involved in the production, including some of the actors from the English dub, explaining the background. (As always, I watched with Japanese dialogue and English subtitles. I just prefer it that way.) There is also a very helpful booklet that outlines the story and introduces the characters. I just wish they had put the featurette on the same disc as the movie and offered it at half the price.

This is an original story based on the characters and situations in the series. I have the advantage of having at least started the manga series, and I've watched the first few episodes of the TV anime, so I wasn't completely lost. I don't think I'd necessarily recommend coming into it cold, unless you're prepared to take a lot on faith. But you can always watch the featurette and read the booklet to get up to speed. I loved it -- I'll probably revisit it periodically.

(Viz Media, 2006)

Review: Mary Oiver: A Poetry Handbook

Mary Oliver, who won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection American Primitive, has died at 83. Somehow, I've managed to not read her poetry, although I did read this one, once upon a time. Another from the late, great Epinions.

Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook is one of those books on writing that I think will become a workbook for anyone interested in poetry.

Oliver is quite clear in her introduction that, like most people, she firmly believes that making poetry is not something that can be taught in school; like painting, music, and other forms of art, one can learn the craft, but the vision can’t be taught. This book is about the craft of poetry, pure and simple: types of verse, rhyme schemes, the line, meter. She also makes a point, very early in the book, about the value of reading poetry for those who would write it, and about imitating the masters (fine as a learning tool – don’t let it become a trap). Oliver builds the discussion as an organic whole, beginning with sound, which, after all, is one of the things that makes poetry poetry: the music of the spoken word. From there, it is a logical and natural progression to rhyming, the structure of the line, various forms (with a very intelligent and sensitive discussion of free verse, which is much more difficult than most people think), and a lot of common sense on diction and imagery.

The various sections are beautifully illustrated by examples by a wide range of poets, from Bashō, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, William Butler Yeats, and more, both household words and treasures known to few outside those who make poetry part of their regular diet. The illustrations are, for the most part, subject to incisive and intelligent analysis in the text that relates them firmly to the topic at hand – aside from being a joy to read in and of themselves.

Oliver also takes on those two bêtes noires of any writer, discipline and revision, with, again, remarks based firmly on common sense. (Make appointments with your Muse – and keep them.). She has words to say as well about the relative merits of writing groups, workshops, and solitude. (As one who values his solitude but thinks that enough is enough and is looking for a local writing group to join, I am taking her words to heart – they make a lot of sense: you need to be alone to write, but without input, you have nothing to write about that’s going to be worth reading.)

This is also a book that will be inestimably valuable to readers of poetry, simply because knowing what tools the poet has available, which ones he chose to use, and how she used them, can’t help but increase your understanding and enjoyment. In fact, Oliver stresses that, until the early years of this century, poetry was strongly metrical and rhymed; we are now unused to that, since free verse and blank verse have become the norm, and rhyme is for greeting cards. Consequently, many contemporary readers find the great poets of the English language difficult or incomprehensible, simply because of unfamiliarity, which is sad and unnecessary. (To be perfectly honest, rhymed verse makes me crazy, unless it’s Sir Thomas Wyatt or John Donne. OK – I suppose I can handle Yeats, too.)

Although I can’t claim to have perused every handbook on the craft of poetry, of those that I’ve looked at, Oliver’s stands out as a gem: clear, concise, intelligent, and sensible. What more can you ask? A definite must for any writer’s – or reader’s – library.

(A note: This one appears to undergo revision and expansion periodically – I’ve found copies in my local used bookstores, and, while there seem to be more examples in my edition, the meat of the text seems to be substantially intact. Happy browsing.)

(Mariner Books, 1994)

Review: Tanya Huff: A Confederation of Valor

Tanya Huff, who is one of the better (and wittier) writers of dark fantasy, also demonstrates that she is equally at home in military sf in A Confederation of Valor an omnibus edition of her first two Confederation novels, Valor’s Choice and The Better Part of Valor.

Both stories center on Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr, a Marine in the Confederation forces. In the first book, Torin is tapped to put together a platoon as escort and honor guard for a diplomatic mission to the Silsviss, an aggressive species who will be a valuable addition to the Confederation in its ongoing war against the Others. The Confederation, composed originally of species that had “evolved beyond” war, has accepted Humans, Taykan, and Krai as members because of their desperate need for species that hadn’t evolved quite as far as they had. The wrinkle here is that the commander of the Marines is a brand-new second lieutenant, a diTayken who just happens to be the other participant in Torin’s all-night encounter on the last night of her liberty. Torin wonders why a combat platoon is needed as an honor guard, but, as things turn out, as the mission is on its way to the final round of meetings, its airship is shot down over a reserve that is home to what can best be describe as several bands of hormonally hopped-up teenagers whose repertoire of social skills is pretty much limited to dares, challenges, and gang wars.

Needless to say, Kerr survives this and finds herself next tapped to lead a group of Marines to guard a scientific expedition to investigate a ship from an unknown alien species. To add to the pain, the troop is commanded by a Krai captain who is being fast-tracked for promotion for political reasons and whose ability at self-promotion is his major strength. As it turns out, the ship has also been discovered by the Others. And just to make things interesting, the ship seems to have its own agenda.

OK – these are good reads, witty, engaging, fast-paced adventures in which, just as everything gets under control, someone – or some thing – throws a monkey wrench into the works. Huff is playing to her strengths here: deft characterizations, sharp, prickly dialogue, clear story lines. Yes, there are clichés and stereotypes, but another of Huff’s strengths is that she can use things like that and make them fresh. Her use of the various species plays into this: the diTaykan are what Huff terms “enthusiastically indiscriminate” and the Krai can and will eat almost anything. The appetites of the diTaykan and the Krai provide ample opportunity for some snappy comments and faintly scandalous humor. And let’s not forget Huff’s rendering of commissioned officers, one of the favorite targets of any enlisted person (figuratively, of course). General Morris, who is the one who gets Torin into these situations, is the prototype of the politician in uniform, as much as Torin is the prototypical sergeant. Captain Carvag, the Krai captain of the Berganitan, the ship that winds up transporting Torin and her troop to both assignments, is the other side of command: the hard-bitten, no-nonsense ship’s captain who knows her people and how to handle them, including when to leave them alone and let them do their jobs.

There is another layer under this, if you care to look for it: Huff has set up a situation that has built into it some commentary on tolerance, acceptance, and knowing when it’s not your business. It’s not blatant, but it’s there.

(Penguin/Random House, 2015)

Review: Kerry Conran: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Formerly of the site known as Epinions.

Someone is abducting scientists. We learn this when the Hindenburg III docks in New York, and one of the passengers, Dr. Vargas (Julian Curry) urgently requests that a package be delivered for him. And then giant robots attack the city. Ace reporter Penny Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) is on it -- to the extent that she almost gets squashed. (When I say "giant robots," I mean "giant robots.") She calls Sky Captain (Jude Law), who happens to be an old flame and the leader of a squad of mercenary pilots. Together, with the invaluable help of Sky Captain's trusty sidekick, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi), they set out to discover what's what. "What," as it turns out, is nothing less than a plot to destroy the world, masterminded by one Dr. Totenkopf (in a posthumous cameo by Sir Lawrence Olivier). Along the way, they encounter more giant robots, a mysterious female assassin (Bai Ling), and Shangri La -- with a little help from another of Sky Captain's old flames, Franky (Angelina Jolie) and her squad of state-of-the-art fighter planes.

Full disclosure: I love this movie. I was totally captivated from the opening scenes. I think you have to have grown up on the pulps and the old "science fiction" serials from the Thirties -- Flash Gordon comes to mind -- and maybe even some of the Fifties potboilers like War of the Worlds. And it is pure pulp fiction, from the story to the characters.

First off, Paltrow as Perkins is superb -- it's the kind of role she seems to move into naturally: a little cheeky, a little stubborn, even sometimes a little vulnerable. It's pure Thirties, and she got it down cold. Jolie is also perfect as Franky, with just the right combination of humor and command. Law's characterization of Sky Captain fits the milieu: he's the Thirties hero, witty and distanced, who always knows more than he's telling. He's kind of low-key, but it does fit the character. I could wish that Law had more presence, though -- there's an intangible something that's not coming through.

The big plus for me is the visuals. This is a beautiful film, with the luminosity you find in the very best black-and-white movies of the Thirties, which is unheard of in color films. The color itself is beautiful: it's understated, not particularly naturalistic (as we've come to interpret that through Kodak's supersaturated hues), with a sort of sepia-pink undertone, and perfectly apt. It's like the whole move has been hand-colored, and it's gorgeous. And the effects are straight out of those Fifties potboilers, but smoother. (It turns out that the entire film, except for the live actors, was created on computer.)

A few random notes:

One glaring error in the script: Perkins refers to "World War I." This film takes place in about 1938 -- World War II hasn't happened.

I hadn't realized Jude Law was so pretty. With that one lock of hair falling over his eye, he's the perfect Thirties leading man.

I didn't realize it was Angelina Jolie as Franky until I looked at the credits.

Rated PG; running time: 106 min.

(Paramount Pictures, Brooklyn Films II, Riff Raff Film Productions, Blue Flower Productions, Filmauro, Natural Nylon Entertainment; 2004)

Review: Sam Raimi: Oz the Great and Powerful

Another that originally appeared on Epinions. There's also another version at Green Man Review.

I have to confess, I had some trepidations about seeing Oz the Great and Powerful: it's a (another?) prequel to a classic that I have loved forever, and I wondered how good it could be. I saw an interview with James Franco that persuaded me it might be worth it. (My collisions with popular culture are sort of random: I keep seeing headlines about and pictures of celebrities and wind up scratching my head, wondering "who are these people?" I am grateful for search engines.)

True to form, the movie starts in Kansas, in black and white. Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time "magician" and con artist who performs under the name of "Oz", runs into a little trouble with the circus strong man (Tim Holmes) -- it seems that Oz has been paying more than acceptable attention to the strong man's wife (Toni Wynne). (In fact, he's been paying a lot of attention to a lot of women -- it's sort of a hobby, I guess.) Oz finds the perfect means of escape -- a hot air balloon (the strong man is in no mood to parley), and off he goes -- right into the eye of a tornado. You can guess where he winds up -- and it's in full, living color.

The first person he meets is Theodora (Mila Kunis), who is convinced he is the prophesied savior: the old king is dead, murdered by the Wicked Witch, but before his death he predicted the arrival of a great wizard who would save the land of Oz and rule wisely and benevolently, etc. And then he rescues, in turn, a flying monkey, Finley (Zach Braff) and a china doll (Joey King) before arriving in the Emerald City, which is being ruled pro tem by Evanora (Rachel Weisz), another witch. They all decide he has to do away with the Wicked Witch, and plot to steal and destroy her wand. It's not until he's on the verge of success that he finds out who the Wicked Witch, Glinda (Michelle Williams) really is.

For a change, we've got a movie with lots of special effects in which the effects are not the stars -- thankfully, director Sam Raimi has resisted the urge to make the bells and whistles the central focus of the film. I think they work the better for it -- especially the means Oz comes up with to spook the witches, a good reprise of the original Oz in the throne room. And there are some marvelous effects, indeed: Glinda's favored mode of transport (transparent bubbles), the arrival of Theodora in a flash of fire, the flying baboons, the animated flowers, they're all right where they belong.

About the black-and-white/color thing: the black and white, strangely enough, is not particularly appealing -- it's rather flat, which may contribute to the feeling of a slow start. (And I can't help but wonder if that's an effect of the 3D, although that's somewhat counterintuitive.) The color is not garish -- there are a few vivid scenes, by they are merely vivid, not blinding. For the most part, it's normal. (The 3D is another meh -- I really don't like things flying out of the screen right at me, and it's more a shadow box effect than true 3D.)

And for the acting -- I've seen criticisms of Kunis' transformation to wicked witch, and I don't agree with them at all -- she does a perfect homage to Margaret Hamilton. Weisz, unfortunately, is not particularly believable, at least not before she reveals her true colors, and even then, she seems stuck in a stereotype The same sadly, holds true of Franco -- he's credible in those scenes where Oz is sincere, few though they are, but Oz the huckster seems to fit a little uneasily. Williams is perfect, both as Annie, another one of Oz' women in the Kansas sequence, and as Glinda. The supporting cast is by turns appealing, funny, spiky, and thoroughly delightful -- they seem to have caught the underlying good humor of the story, which comes through in spite of the dire events.

(Disney Studios, 2013; 130 minutes, rated PG)

Review: Neil Bartlett: Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall

Another from Epinions.

Every once in a long while, you read a book that you may have read before, or may not have read before, but in either case, it is as though you had read it only yesterday and have sat down to find it all new again, but known. Then you know you have myth in your hand. This is the case wiith Neal Bartlett’s Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall, which I first read about ten years ago, and have read a couple of times since.

Bartlett is a well-known British playwright, director, translator, and novelist. He has told a tale, in this work, that every gay man will look at and say “Yes! I have lived that – I know those people, I know those places.” It is, if not our creation myth, perhaps the myth of how we survived – are surviving -- to come into the Promised Land.

The tale takes place in a city – by inference, London, but it needn’t necessarily be London, it needn’t be any particular city at all – and is told by a narrator who remains nameless throughout, merely an observer, an observer who is either omniscient, or makes it up as he goes along. We will call him “the Auntie,” in keeping with the spirit of the book: the characters are the Boy; O (shortened from “the Older Man”); Mother, who begins as “Madame;” the cast of regulars at The Bar (we all know The Bar – we have all been there, whatever its name, and it has had many); there is even a Father, who appears mainly through letters.

To anyone caught firmly in the real world, in real time, the characters, and their behavior, border on the bizarre, when not completely beyond the line. Auntie explains the motivations, the rationales, sometimes, because, after all, he knows. So do we all, somehow. The Boy is nineteen when he first enters The Bar, and he is beautiful: white of skin, black of hair, slim, well-muscled, dark, dark eyes, every detail perfect for what he is: the Boy. O is the most handsome man in The Bar, perhaps in the city, also pale, dark-eyed, dark-haired, muscular, a face that could have graced a statue of any hero, any king, any god. Mother is the mover, the owner of The Bar, the one who precipitates “The Great Romance of Our Time,” as Auntie calls it. We see the first meeting, when the Boy has been coming to The Bar for eleven weeks, and has worked his way through the regulars, learning from each one, and never saying “No.” Auntie takes us through the courtship, the engagement, the wedding, all filled with detail, all rich in theater, encapsulating a century of gay history from a gay perspective: Bartlett’s note at the end of the book cites fragments and reworkings of Wilde, Baron Corvo, Genet, the blues, Hollywood, and more. The narration is rich, as only a story told by someone like the Auntie could be – sets, costumes, and cast are all examined fully. There is a kind of Lucy-Ricardo-meets-Harold-Pinter humor to the story.

It is theater, but it is also a war zone, given reality by small touches, small details: Mother installs a baptismal font in the bar, kept filled with condoms, and reminds “her boys” to use them. And, with a kind of sporadic, random regularity, Auntie reports another attack on a man, usually one of The Bar’s regulars – attacks with fists, with clubs, with knives.

It is very, very hard to explain the impact of this book, except that it is myth: Bartlett makes stereotypes into archetypes; there is a resonance to events, cast through Auntie’s eyes into scenes from movies – they are scenes from movies, whether anyone has filmed them or not; we have been these people, and we have seen them bigger than life. “Of course every year or so there is a new reigning couple, a new pair of heroes that the young men arriving look at and think, oh, I want it to be me, I want it to be me, I want it to be me; and that is why men like them are fabulous, in the true sense of the word. Because we need them to be. When people say, was it really like that? you want to say, yes, and you want to say, and it still is.” That’s the kind of reality that exists in this novel: not the humdrum, mass-produced, functional reality of daily life, but the bigger reality of real life, which is only real if we let it be, if we remember that we need more, we always need another dimension, we really need that.

Father, who is not the Boy’s real father, dies; the Boy brings him home to die, and the three of them – the Boy, O, the Father – all know that he is there to die. And at the funeral, another side of gay reality comes out: “O held onto him, but Boy said, don’t try to stop me from crying. Boy said, I am not crying because he’s dead. I am crying for the life he led. And it isn’t my fault and it wasn’t his fault but I wish there was somebody to blame, if he wasn’t to blame then who was to blame, who was it, oh I want to hurt them, I want to hurt them, I want to hurt them.”

To say that this novel is a tour de force is selling it short. I am very serious when I say that this is myth, with all the power and all the universality that implies. It is ceremony, it is ritual, it brings love, sex and death into the realm of the numinous, and it does it with the voice of an aging queen.

(Dutton, 1991 [orig. Serpent’s Tail, 1990])

Review: Camille Bacon-Smith: Eye of the Daemon

Camille Bacon-Smith is a folklorist and author who has written, in addition to her four novels, several books and articles about popular culture. Eye of the Daemon is the first book in the “Daemons, Inc.” series, about Kevin Bradley, known as Brad, a private investigator who is actually the demon Badad; Evan Davis, his half-human son; and Lily Ryan, their partner and Evan’s lover, who is the demon Lirion.

Bacon-Smith’s background for the daemons and their relationship to humans is set up as a series of forewords to each chapter, which explain the seven spheres of creation and read as though they were taken from the Qabbala; the Princes, each composed of a quorum of daemons, occupy the Second Sphere, in which only space exists; Badad and Lirion are lords of the Prince Ariton. Earth and humanity occupy the First Sphere, which contains both space and time – hence, mortality. We learn, in the course of the story, that Evan, as a daemon halfling, is a wild-card, a being of immense power who works in both time and space. By the mere fact of his existence, he could cause the destruction all seven spheres; other halflings have been insane, and either killed themselves or been killed early in their lives, and so have never posed the threat that Evan does. Evan has had his own bit of hell to live through, centered around a club in New York called the Black Masque, run by the demon Omage, which figures in the present tale. He was rescued by his father, who, given the choice of destroying Evan or taking responsibility for him and allowing him to live, chose the latter. He is at a loss to explain his motives, except perhaps that he has spent too much time in human form, and the “meat thinking” starts to take over. Badad and Lirion have also been, in essence, exiled to the material plane to keep Evan under control until his natural death as the price of his life. Kevin has taught his son to control his wanderings between the planes. The reader also begins to become aware of anomalies in the natural world that seem to be tied to Evan’s moods.

The firm of Bradley, Ryan and Davis specializes in cases requiring a great deal of discretion – recovery of stolen art, for example. They are distinctly high-end. The story begins when Marnie Simpson, a wealthy horse-breeder, comes to Bradley, Ryan and Davis about her missing brother. He has been kidnapped, and the ransom note – burned into the top of her dining-room table – leaves no doubt that the case is one for Kevin Bradley: the note demands the return of the “Eye of Omage,” or her brother will spend eternity wishing for death, and specifies the firm of Bradley, Ryan and Davis as the ones to handle the exchange. Omage is a lord of the Prince Azmod, a rival prince to Ariton – or, to the daemon way of thinking, Asmod never makes alliances with Ariton -- and an enemy especially to Badad, since Omage is the daemon who almost destroyed Evan. After Evan’s initial research turns up some surprising connections between Marnie Simpson, her husband Franklin, and the Black Masque, Kevin and Lily decide that they will handle the case; Evan is overdue for a vacation, so he will spend some time in Europe, relaxing.

Early on, it becomes apparent that this case is a trap, but who is the target? The Eye of Omage, it appears, is a large topaz that Lily had brought back from Venice with the stolen Picasso, and for which Evan feels a strange affinity. Evan, staying with his friends in London, Claudia and Jack Laurence, friends from the Black Masque days, runs into the client for whom they had recovered the Picasso, Charles St. George, in a small bookstore in which Claudia works, and the three have dinner together. The next day, Kevin is visited by another daemon lord of Azmod, Pathet, who burns Jack to a cinder and tries to implicate Evan in the murder. Within the hour, the bookstore in which Claudia works is firebombed and she is kidnapped.

This is a fair mystery story, with its share of plot twists and revelations – no one is telling the truth, no one is who they seem to be. It is even more a story that explores the mysteries of relationships between sons and fathers, in the persons of Badad and Evan. Do generations ever really understand each other, even without the twist of a daemon father? Mature men are in authority, and there is always that tension between mature man and young man, who needs to move into his own power, his own independence. Even, as in this case, when father says, simply, “It’s up to you,” there is the question, “Will he save me this time?” in balance with the question “Can I do this alone?” Evan, after surviving the nightmares of his childhood and the nightmare of his early manhood, has a father who is a daemon, and is, at least in theory, as incapable of feeling love as he is of understanding death – and how many of us have felt that way about our fathers?

Evan is a damaged man – he had been well beyond the bounds of sanity when found by his father, and even with the healing he has managed, he still suffers from exaggerated feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Evan’s feeling of guilt sometimes come very close to getting in the way of the story; Kevin’s ruminations about his feeling for this son, on the other hand, are illuminating. (It would seem that the daemon Badad, having spent so long in human form, has fallen prey to the human propensity to wonder “Why?”). Lily, by contrast, is very direct, almost elemental; she never bothers to worry about her feelings for Evan, if any – she calls him “monster” and her “toy.”

About binding daemons: Bacon-Smith has set up a strong contrast between the bindings under which Pathet and Omage are held, based on greed and the desire for power, and the binding that Evan places on Badad and Lirion, proposed and agreed to purely as a means to protect them from whoever is controlling the lords of Azmod – they understand the danger to Badad and Lirion early on. This contrast opens up another, tangent question: the impossible tangle of human motivations, particularly our capacity for self-sacrifice, which is incomprehensible to daemon-kind – humans barely understand it themselves. The final confrontation is intense – Evan is held in check only by his humanity – and is actually two confrontations: Evan has to deal not only with the daemons Omage and Pathet and their human captors, but Count Alfredo da Costa – art thief and something more – whose duty at this point is to kill him. (Da Costa’s character, which comes into prominence only at the end of the book, never really gels – he has a duty, but manages to drag out the execution of it long enough to give Evan the chance to defy him.)

Bacon-Smith has made an absorbing story, although it suffers from a little bit too much self-examination on Evan’s part; its sequel, Eyes of the Empress is better in this regard. She is, however, a good writer, with a unique presentation of daemon’s in a modern urban fantasy.

(DAW Books, 1996)

Review: Suguro Chayamachi, Nitro+ CHiRAL: Togainu No Chi, Vol.1

This is another Epinions foundling. I did a lot of BL manga at Epinions; I imagine most of it will be showing up here.

The first volume of Togainu no Chi by Suguro Chayamachi and Nitro+ CHiRAL looks like the beginning to a very good action/adventure series with BL overtones, set in a near-future dystopia that provides an appropriate background to the story.

The apocalypse has come, and Japan is now divided into two nations, Nikkoren and the CFC. In between lies the city of Toshima, more ruins than anything else, home to the Igura, a battle game that's too real for comfort: you can lose everything in this one. Akira, an undefeated champion at another battle game, Bl@ster (in which you are not allowed to kill your opponent), is convicted of murder and given a choice: die in jail or try to survive the Igura. He also has a mission, but that's a secret.

Toshima is run by the underworld bosses and ruled by Arbitro, "Il Re." The winner of the Igura gets to fight the King and take his place -- if he wins. No one has yet. Arbitro has a side business that is the real reason for the Igura: line, a ferociously addictive drug that the crime cartel has now started marketing outside Toshima. That's the real goal: a lucrative business in drugs that doesn't depend on the denizens of Toshima.

We first meet Rin and Motomi, whom Rin calls "Old Man" (he must be all of 30) and who is a non-player -- he makes a living as an informer. Neither is reticent about his preferences in regard to romantic involvements, and it's Rin who first makes the acquaintance of Akira and Keisuke, Akira's friend who followed him into Toshima. In fact, Rin propositions Akira, whose main concern is getting Keisuke to safety, preferably out of the city -- Keisuke is not a fighter. There is also another fighter of whom we only catch glimpses at this point, Shiki, who is somewhat more than deadly and whose purposes are unknown.

The story line here is complex and multifaceted, and this could easily be the beginning of a lengthy series. The setting is rich and coherent and the characters are vividly drawn, both graphically and in their dialogue. Relationships are somewhat ambivalent, particularly that between Rin and Motomi. That between Akira and Keisuke also leaves much unsaid. To be honest, I was somewhat surprised to see the BL elements here -- Togainu no Chi is published by Tokyopop, which normally publishes BL manga under the BLU imprint. But those elements are undeniably there; whether they actually develop into anything is anyone's guess at this point.

Visually, this one is dense, almost tactile. Although the basic format follows shounen conventions, it's not all that strict. The settings are dark, in keeping with the mood of the story, and the visual contrasts are arresting. Characterizations are very well done, and follow a bishounen aesthetic -- men are slender and androgynous, although quite muscular; there are no women (well, one in a flashback). The characters display a lot of individuality.

My one complaint is that the drawing suffers from the format: it's a standard Tokyopop edition, slightly larger than an American mass-market paperback, and the compression of the images to fit the page sometimes leads to them being illegible, or nearly so, especially in action sequences, of which there are many. On the whole, though, the graphics are very strong and quite beautiful.

There's no sex, but a lot of death, little of it pretty. In spite of that, I think it's worth following, at least for adults -- it's gritty enough that I'd hesitate to recommend it for any but older teens. (The publisher rates it at 16+, but I don't know that I'm perfectly comfortable with that.)

(Tokyopop, 2008)

Review: Jean Cocteau/Philip Glass: La Belle et la Bête

I first saw Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête many years ago on the big screen and was completely enchanted. And recently a friend loaned me a copy of Philip Glass' opera of the same title, which Glass composed to be performed with the film, and which I enjoyed thoroughly. When I had an opportunity to get a DVD that included both, I pounced. (The joke is that I finally bought a DVD that wasn't in Japanese -- it's in French.)

La Belle et la Bête is Cocteau's adaptation of the fairy tale by Mme. Leprince de Beaumont, about a young woman, Belle, who goes to live with the Beast to save her father, who stumbled onto the Beast's domain on his way home from an unsuccessful trip to salvage his business. Remembering his youngest daughter's only request, he plucks a rose and his fate is sealed: he must die or send his daughter to live with the Beast in his place. (His two older daughters, mercenary monsters both, asked for jewels and brocades.) He returns home and tells his story, and Belle, filled with guilt that her modest request had endangered her father's life, sneaks away on the Beast's enchanted horse.

The film is, to put it quite simply, magical. There's an element of surreality here that, it occurs to me, is basic to fairy tales. The white stallion with his sparkly mane, the doors that magically open, those are pretty standard. The bare arms that serve dinner and that hold candelabra that light themselves, and the sculptured heads that come to life, those are a little out of the ordinary, as is the sort of fuzzy boundary between inside and outside in many of the sets, most particularly Belle's bedroom at the Beast's mansion.

Visually, this one's scrumptious. I've always been fond of black-and-white as a visual medium, and this is just beautiful, with rich shadows, finely detailed highlights, and beautifully modeled grays. It's also full of wonderful tableaux and solo shots that are masterfully composed. This is the restored version released in 2003 by Criterion Collection, and they did a bang-up job: it's clean, smooth, and a joy to look at.

Both Josette Day as Belle and and Jean Marais as the Beast bring the characters to life (although the acting style is, in some places, rather broader than we're used to these days, but it's a fairy tale, after all), and it's Belle's growing acceptance and finally love of the Beast that is the core of the story. It's very well done, subtle and circumspect.

I elected to watch with Philip Glass' opera as the soundtrack, rather than the original with Georges Auric's score (which, on sampling a few bits, has also been beautifully restored). I have to say, the experience is even more magical than I remember the original film. Although the synchronization is not perfect, it's pretty close, and the music itself reflects the fairy tale quality of the story. If you're expecting the Philip Glass of serial minimalism and driving, repetitive phrases that sound like Balinese gamelan, be reassured: this is not that. Yes, the rhythms are there, but not obtrusive, and Glass has tied them to the action of the film. This is Glass from the mid-1990s, much freer and more engaging than the Glass of the mid-1970s.

The set comes with a wealth of features and extras, including a booklet (which I think one must necessarily designate as "lavishly illustrated") with the full film credits, an essay by Cocteau, an excerpt from Francis Steegmuller's biography of Cocteau, the original story, and notes on the restoration. (Strangely enough, the booklet doesn't discuss Glass' opera at all.) The disc itself includes commentaries by Arthur Knight and Sir Christopher Frayling; interviews with Henri Alekan, director of photography, and Hagop Arakelian, the makeup artist; the original trailer and the restoration trailer; a documentary on the restoration, "Screening at the Majestic," the theater where Cocteau viewed the rushes, including reminiscences from Alekan, Marais, and Mila Parely ("Felicie") at the locations used for the film, with narration from Cocteau's diaries. You can view the film either with the original soundtrack or the opera, and depending on your decision, you have the option of the movie subtitles, the opera subtitles, or no subtitles. (It's sort of amazing how much you can pack into one DVD.)

Yes, this is absolutely highly recommended with no reservations whatsoever.

(Criterion Collection, 2003)

Review: Mizuna Kuwabara and Susumu Kodo: The World of Mirage of Blaze

Another Epinions foundling. I think I need to watch it again -- it sounds a lot more complex than I remember.

Mirage of Blaze is the anime developed from a series of boys' love light novels that have never been translated into English. I first watched it with German subtitles (nope, I'm no longer that fluent, and I need to work on that), and liked it enough that I decided to buy the DVD when I found it at a good price. Even though there is no real resolution, either to the conflict that forms the main plot or to the relationship between the protagonists, it's definitely worth seeing.

Takaya Ougi is, to all appearances, a normal high-school student whose best friend, Yuzuru Narita, has been "acting strange." Takaya is concerned, and becomes even more so when he encounters Nobutsuna Naoe, a strangely compelling older man with mysterious powers who tells Takaya that he, Takaya, is the reincarnation of a feudal noble, Kagetora Uesugi, who had been born a son of the Hojo clan and "adopted" (meaning turned over as a hostage) by the Uesugi. Naoe and Takaya are "Possessors" who have taken over host bodies to keep vengeful spirits under control, and work with Haruie Kakizaki, who has come back as a woman, and Nagahide Yasuda. And now the spirits of the dead samurai of the Takeda clan have begun to assemble to reconquer their ancestral holdings -- and quite a bit besides. Word is out that the Oda are also assembling. And the Hojo and their allies, the ninja clan Fuuma, have their own ideas about who should be in charge. There is a wild card in here, too -- Kousaka of the Takeda clan, who seems to be on no one's side but his own. If this all sounds complicated, that's only because it is -- and it gets a lot worse.

There is a huge helping of Japanese history and magic here, but that needn't be a deterrent: it reads well either as historical drama or fantasy. And I'm enough of a military sf buff to enjoy the strategy sessions. It's a fairly talky series, but the talkiness is all back story and development, so in spite of my insatiable appetite for movies where everything explodes, I wasn't put off by it -- and there are plenty of things exploding, anyway.

As far as the BL element, it's very understated and ultimately open-ended: the relationship between Takaya and Naoe is far from resolved. Takaya refuses to accept that he is Kagetora and has thoroughly repressed his memories of his previous incarnations, and it becomes plain that Naoe is a big part of the reason. Naoe finally confesses his feelings toward Takaya, but to say that Takaya is conflicted is a weak description: as we see from a couple of scenes, Takaya has strong feelings toward Naoe, but they are all tangled up with the few memories that come back to him of his previous life and his relationship with his older brother, what he perceives as an injury that Naoe inflicted on him in the past, and his unsureness as to whether Naoe's feelings are for him, Takaya, or Kagetora. (This relationship has been ongoing for four hundred years now, and apparently has always been this difficult.) "Love-hate" might be an accurate take on Takaya's feelings. This all contributes to some major psychological tension as the story progresses. The creators have managed to hit some real emotional depth here, and those scenes have a fair amount of power, in spite of the melodrama. (And I should point out that the melodrama is not on the order of the bosom-heaving film dramas of the 1950s, but only the product of some real intensity.)


This set also includes the OVA Rebels of the River Edge, which takes Takaya, Naoe, and Haruie in a further adventure involving an ancient mandala, woven with the hair of executed members of the Araki clan, and the reincarnation of their lord, who deserted them at a critical time. This is all complicated by the Haruie's belief that the lord, Murashige, is her dead lover, Shintaro, lost these two hundred years. And the relationship between Naoe and Takaya is as spiky and unresolved as ever. Takaya has changed, though -- there's an edge of sadism in his exchanges with Naoe, and you can feel Naoe's helplessness in the face of his strong love for Takaya. I had seen Rebels as a stand-alone, and strangely enough, it works better that way than as a sequel, perhaps because it undercuts what little resolution there was between Takaya and Naoe.

A word about the music. The opening title song for the main series falls into the category of "misfit" -- while the lyrics (in English, for some reason) do tie in, sort of, the music is an up-tempo rock/jazz combination that misses the core of the story by a mile. The incidental accompaniment, happily, is in general more on point, and the closing title song is a beautiful string quartet that captures the tenderness, pain and sorrow in the relationship almost perfectly.

This set includes production drawings, textless opening, trailers, and the option of English dialogue or Japanese dialogue with subtitles. I chose the latter, simply because I enjoy the sound of the Japanese.

As I said, I wasn't really prepared for the impact this one had on me -- there are some very strong scenes here, and the portrayal of the relationship between Takaya and Naoe is certainly a cut above most BL anime.

(Anime Works, 2008)