April Books, part 1
19 April 2010 18:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cog_nomenBooks Read so far for April
-Repo Men (reprint of Reposession Mambo)
-The Italian Secretary
-Dust and Shadow
-Murder at Baker St
-Maurice
-(The Valley of Fear) Audiobook
So that brings the official count to 19, since I think I overcounted my first month as 5, but I only read 4 books in January.
Repo Men:
This idea was executed more succinctly and poignantly in the movie. The book stumbled over itself a lot, though the extra information helped make some things make more sense in the movie. (I.E. He had been married five times instead of one, was super quick to fall in love, and made a lot of terrible decisions re:personal life). I think in part I enjoyed the movie so much because Jude Law was able to carry his character into something a little more believable, intelligent and like-able than Remy was originally concepted as. Overall, I just enjoyed the movie better, since the book was obviously trying so hard to be a screenplay anyway.
The Italian Secretary:
Caleb Carr's Holmes is not the least likeable I've ever read. However, the story was overlong for the simplicity of the case and seemed to try and explore some areas (such as belief in spirits and hauntings) that were somewhat unnecessary for the concept to succeed. I feel almost like this would have been a better short story, but overall it was decent to Watson and Holmes was not overly cruel or sharp. I'd rather, if not spot on, to tend a little more to the kinder side of his personality than the sharper. Worth the read.
Dust and Shadow:
A MUCH better take on the whole concept of Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper. This one had it's head on straight as far as the facts were concerned, and obviously the author had done her research. Holmes and Watson were pretty much dead on, and it handled the populace being suspicious of Holmes without having to turn to the same shock tactic that The Last Sherlock Holmes Story used to attempt to shock you. The explanation for why the culprit was never publicly brought to light is at least halfway decent, and Holmes, Lestrade, and Watson are all handled very well by the author. If you, like I, are interested in both Holmes and Jack the Ripper, so far this seems to be the take for people interested enough in both to have done some research. I have Castle Rouge on the way as well, which is another version but it apparently includes Irene Adler, who I hate to see in pastiches.
Murder at Baker Street:
More Holmes shorts, and most of these were quite readable. I especially liked A Handsome for Mr. Holmes, which took on an outsider's perspective on the whole hullabaloo and fuss that was generally kicked up by Holmes when he was in the midst of solving a case. This whole collection might have had the most solid entries of any collection of Holmes shorts I've read so far.
Maurice:
I've already said a lot about this book, but having finished it I must say in conclusion that I didn't much care for it. Victorian pieces on love, as a product of the era, are much stunted. It was presented to me as a book to demonstrate that same-sex couples were mostly ignored, but since it was in Edwardian times and after the Oscar Wilde case - in fact a couple of references were made to him throughout - I didn't get that impression. Overall it still seemed to me a great, overwhelming fear of discovery ran throughout as an undercurrent and the only reason it didn't necessarily seem too bad, or that it was ignored, was that Maurice himself was both not bright and uninvolved with most of the rest of the world. If Maurice was stupid, Clive was a downright douchenozzle, if I may borrow the most appropriate term from the Ghostfacers, and spent most of the book wishing he would drown in the nearest river. In the end, the whole point seemed to come down to class, when Maurice found a new lover, rather than an overall acceptance of himself for what he was or even that homosexual love could be okay or even right for some people. Class distinction was the main point of the terminal two chapters, and Maurices' second choice at happiness seemed as doomed to eventual failure as his first. Clive, the first love interest, simply seemed to decide to 'become normal' because it was the easier and more socially acceptable option, and simply repressed himself. I can see this as a decent picture of what often actually happened in those extremely emotionally quieted times, but it didn't make me want to throttle him any less. Portions of this story were infuriating from my current, extremely liberal standpoint, but I guess it's important to see where we've come from and how far we've come.
Too bad I can't mail it on. It was thought provoking, but also annotated, and PBS has fairly strict rules about that, even if it was sent to me originally through the service, the book stops here.
The Valley of Fear (audiobook):
I remembered, when I hit part two, why I prefer the Holmes short stories to the novels. The novels seem to be ACD writing entirely different genres of stories, then figuring out how to shoehorn Holmes onto the beginnings and ends of these whole massive expositions. At about two a.m, when I was still listening to the american adventures of MacMurdo and thinking 'why the fuck do I even care?', I wished I'd put together a playlist of His Last Bow instead of Valley of Fear. After finishing it, I switched immediately to Katie Forsythe's Hallowed Be Thy Name. I felt as if my love of Holmes had been somewhat exploited so that an entirely unrelated tale could be told to me. I've read the book before, but I was much younger. I've discovered that much as I don't care about Mormans, or Indian Prisoners, I really don't care about undercover American Pinkertons. Not that I wouldn't usually find those stories fascinating perhaps, if given a chance to have them in a seperate and unrelated context, but when I pick up a book that proclaims itself to be a Sherlock Holmes mystery, I am really looking to read about Sherlock Holmes. I think that isn't too much to ask.
-Repo Men (reprint of Reposession Mambo)
-The Italian Secretary
-Dust and Shadow
-Murder at Baker St
-Maurice
-(The Valley of Fear) Audiobook
So that brings the official count to 19, since I think I overcounted my first month as 5, but I only read 4 books in January.
Repo Men:
This idea was executed more succinctly and poignantly in the movie. The book stumbled over itself a lot, though the extra information helped make some things make more sense in the movie. (I.E. He had been married five times instead of one, was super quick to fall in love, and made a lot of terrible decisions re:personal life). I think in part I enjoyed the movie so much because Jude Law was able to carry his character into something a little more believable, intelligent and like-able than Remy was originally concepted as. Overall, I just enjoyed the movie better, since the book was obviously trying so hard to be a screenplay anyway.
The Italian Secretary:
Caleb Carr's Holmes is not the least likeable I've ever read. However, the story was overlong for the simplicity of the case and seemed to try and explore some areas (such as belief in spirits and hauntings) that were somewhat unnecessary for the concept to succeed. I feel almost like this would have been a better short story, but overall it was decent to Watson and Holmes was not overly cruel or sharp. I'd rather, if not spot on, to tend a little more to the kinder side of his personality than the sharper. Worth the read.
Dust and Shadow:
A MUCH better take on the whole concept of Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper. This one had it's head on straight as far as the facts were concerned, and obviously the author had done her research. Holmes and Watson were pretty much dead on, and it handled the populace being suspicious of Holmes without having to turn to the same shock tactic that The Last Sherlock Holmes Story used to attempt to shock you. The explanation for why the culprit was never publicly brought to light is at least halfway decent, and Holmes, Lestrade, and Watson are all handled very well by the author. If you, like I, are interested in both Holmes and Jack the Ripper, so far this seems to be the take for people interested enough in both to have done some research. I have Castle Rouge on the way as well, which is another version but it apparently includes Irene Adler, who I hate to see in pastiches.
Murder at Baker Street:
More Holmes shorts, and most of these were quite readable. I especially liked A Handsome for Mr. Holmes, which took on an outsider's perspective on the whole hullabaloo and fuss that was generally kicked up by Holmes when he was in the midst of solving a case. This whole collection might have had the most solid entries of any collection of Holmes shorts I've read so far.
Maurice:
I've already said a lot about this book, but having finished it I must say in conclusion that I didn't much care for it. Victorian pieces on love, as a product of the era, are much stunted. It was presented to me as a book to demonstrate that same-sex couples were mostly ignored, but since it was in Edwardian times and after the Oscar Wilde case - in fact a couple of references were made to him throughout - I didn't get that impression. Overall it still seemed to me a great, overwhelming fear of discovery ran throughout as an undercurrent and the only reason it didn't necessarily seem too bad, or that it was ignored, was that Maurice himself was both not bright and uninvolved with most of the rest of the world. If Maurice was stupid, Clive was a downright douchenozzle, if I may borrow the most appropriate term from the Ghostfacers, and spent most of the book wishing he would drown in the nearest river. In the end, the whole point seemed to come down to class, when Maurice found a new lover, rather than an overall acceptance of himself for what he was or even that homosexual love could be okay or even right for some people. Class distinction was the main point of the terminal two chapters, and Maurices' second choice at happiness seemed as doomed to eventual failure as his first. Clive, the first love interest, simply seemed to decide to 'become normal' because it was the easier and more socially acceptable option, and simply repressed himself. I can see this as a decent picture of what often actually happened in those extremely emotionally quieted times, but it didn't make me want to throttle him any less. Portions of this story were infuriating from my current, extremely liberal standpoint, but I guess it's important to see where we've come from and how far we've come.
Too bad I can't mail it on. It was thought provoking, but also annotated, and PBS has fairly strict rules about that, even if it was sent to me originally through the service, the book stops here.
The Valley of Fear (audiobook):
I remembered, when I hit part two, why I prefer the Holmes short stories to the novels. The novels seem to be ACD writing entirely different genres of stories, then figuring out how to shoehorn Holmes onto the beginnings and ends of these whole massive expositions. At about two a.m, when I was still listening to the american adventures of MacMurdo and thinking 'why the fuck do I even care?', I wished I'd put together a playlist of His Last Bow instead of Valley of Fear. After finishing it, I switched immediately to Katie Forsythe's Hallowed Be Thy Name. I felt as if my love of Holmes had been somewhat exploited so that an entirely unrelated tale could be told to me. I've read the book before, but I was much younger. I've discovered that much as I don't care about Mormans, or Indian Prisoners, I really don't care about undercover American Pinkertons. Not that I wouldn't usually find those stories fascinating perhaps, if given a chance to have them in a seperate and unrelated context, but when I pick up a book that proclaims itself to be a Sherlock Holmes mystery, I am really looking to read about Sherlock Holmes. I think that isn't too much to ask.