the cult and the awful..
I've decided this blog will be written two to three times weekly. There. I said it. I'm very busy trying to earn a living selling books and it takes me time to articulate & gather these thoughts of great profundity.
Some of my favourite books tend to be referred to as cult books. These books tend to be single books in the body of an authors work and are marked as being distinct from anything else the author has written. A one of a kind book that ticks all the boxes and is revered by smallish groups usually outside the mainstream audience of readers. For example. Terry Pratchett, Anna Kavan & Marian Keyes are cult authors. The body of their work appeals to the same audience and their books are easily recognisable as being part of their 'oeuvre'. I'll write more about them in a later post. Cult books are generally difficult to transpose into different mediums such as film, theatre, or godmercifulsaveus, the broadway musical because they isolate and highlight peculiarities of text and story that become their emblems. A few examples.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind: Brilliant book about evil incarnate that becomes a master of scent &the manipulation of the olfactory senses. You'll be fascinated by 18th century France and its surrounding atmosphere that faintly suggests parahuman conditions that can shape our lives and yet be invisible to us. The laboratories that Grenouille, the main character, uses are reminiscent of alchemy and they are, perhaps a little obviously, the means by which Grenouille transforms himself into a murderer. The translation is damn good. Writing which cuts clear and concise images and builds Grenouille from a freak into a figure worthy of lore. Made into a film in 2001 where the filmakers overcame the difficulty of showing scent by using colours. This was followed by the two novella's The Story of Mr Sommer, which is illustrated by Sempé & The Pigeon which wasn't so well received. Both gems in their own right but the subject matter is so dramatically redisguised in the slow-moving tales that they become almost parables and much more difficult to identify.
Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth: Released as a film twice. Once in '73 with Edward Fox in a decent faithful adaptation and once in '97 in a godawful modern adaptation with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis. The table of contents is divided into three parts;
1. Anatomy of a plot
2. Anatomy of a manhunt
3. Anatomy of a kill
which is exactly how the book unfolds. The narrative splits its time between the assassin's careful preparation for the kill & the mild-mannered detective who goes about his business of tracking down the Jackal and finding out more about him. The book is notable for the meticulous way in which it sets out the details of both men. The Jackal's manipulation of women and opportunists for a political cause is shown in relief to the background of an initially sympathetic cause. The former soldiers that make up the OAS are seeking recognition from a government who isolated them and left them in a conflict zone by granting Algeria's independence. The Jackal's journey to Paris takes on the form of a revenge killing set up by a extinct political structure. In the end there is none of the usual 'good guy, bad guy' routine. Just an ending. Don't bother even trying to read anything else by Forsyth. It's all rubbish that reveals him to be a right-wing idiot who just hapened to fall on a brilliant story that fitted his technique. This one though ticks all the boxes and will set the imagination afire.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: This one is credited with the popularisation of such terms we use every day on the internet such as 'avatar', 'meta-verse', and the idea of internet shopping malls and high streets. What differentiates this cyber-punk novels from, say, William Gibson, is the intensity of the satire and high level of intertextuality from ancient Japanese and Greek texts to the present. Think 1950's pulp paperback Western with a Japanese twist in a probable future. Basically the world has been screwed so badly that we prefer living our lives jacked in to the interactive meta-reality of the web. Our avatars are created by us in a superb inference of wish fulfillment worthy of Joseph Campbell. That universe is threatened by the appearance of a drug which you take in the meta-verse called Snow Crash which does the obvious. Again, the writing is fast-paced, concise and clear. There's are good guys who go after the bad guys and then there are the oblivious. Sound familiar? The reason this one is a cult classic though is because of the immediate recognisability of the satire that easily bridges the uncomfortable gap between straight fiction and sci-fi. The intertextuality doesn't interfere with the easy reading of the book either but rather doesn't simply stop at the textual. The main character's name is 'Hiro Protagonist'! I won't spell it out. It's a great little book and although it was Stephenson's third novel he hasn't yet written another one quite like it that damn good & all his other books just fade in comparison.
And there are, of course others. But I'll keep them for another time. I've got to keep something to stuff up my sleeve, otherwise what would be the point?
*
Some of my favourite books tend to be referred to as cult books. These books tend to be single books in the body of an authors work and are marked as being distinct from anything else the author has written. A one of a kind book that ticks all the boxes and is revered by smallish groups usually outside the mainstream audience of readers. For example. Terry Pratchett, Anna Kavan & Marian Keyes are cult authors. The body of their work appeals to the same audience and their books are easily recognisable as being part of their 'oeuvre'. I'll write more about them in a later post. Cult books are generally difficult to transpose into different mediums such as film, theatre, or godmercifulsaveus, the broadway musical because they isolate and highlight peculiarities of text and story that become their emblems. A few examples.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind: Brilliant book about evil incarnate that becomes a master of scent &the manipulation of the olfactory senses. You'll be fascinated by 18th century France and its surrounding atmosphere that faintly suggests parahuman conditions that can shape our lives and yet be invisible to us. The laboratories that Grenouille, the main character, uses are reminiscent of alchemy and they are, perhaps a little obviously, the means by which Grenouille transforms himself into a murderer. The translation is damn good. Writing which cuts clear and concise images and builds Grenouille from a freak into a figure worthy of lore. Made into a film in 2001 where the filmakers overcame the difficulty of showing scent by using colours. This was followed by the two novella's The Story of Mr Sommer, which is illustrated by Sempé & The Pigeon which wasn't so well received. Both gems in their own right but the subject matter is so dramatically redisguised in the slow-moving tales that they become almost parables and much more difficult to identify.
Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth: Released as a film twice. Once in '73 with Edward Fox in a decent faithful adaptation and once in '97 in a godawful modern adaptation with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis. The table of contents is divided into three parts;
1. Anatomy of a plot
2. Anatomy of a manhunt
3. Anatomy of a kill
which is exactly how the book unfolds. The narrative splits its time between the assassin's careful preparation for the kill & the mild-mannered detective who goes about his business of tracking down the Jackal and finding out more about him. The book is notable for the meticulous way in which it sets out the details of both men. The Jackal's manipulation of women and opportunists for a political cause is shown in relief to the background of an initially sympathetic cause. The former soldiers that make up the OAS are seeking recognition from a government who isolated them and left them in a conflict zone by granting Algeria's independence. The Jackal's journey to Paris takes on the form of a revenge killing set up by a extinct political structure. In the end there is none of the usual 'good guy, bad guy' routine. Just an ending. Don't bother even trying to read anything else by Forsyth. It's all rubbish that reveals him to be a right-wing idiot who just hapened to fall on a brilliant story that fitted his technique. This one though ticks all the boxes and will set the imagination afire.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: This one is credited with the popularisation of such terms we use every day on the internet such as 'avatar', 'meta-verse', and the idea of internet shopping malls and high streets. What differentiates this cyber-punk novels from, say, William Gibson, is the intensity of the satire and high level of intertextuality from ancient Japanese and Greek texts to the present. Think 1950's pulp paperback Western with a Japanese twist in a probable future. Basically the world has been screwed so badly that we prefer living our lives jacked in to the interactive meta-reality of the web. Our avatars are created by us in a superb inference of wish fulfillment worthy of Joseph Campbell. That universe is threatened by the appearance of a drug which you take in the meta-verse called Snow Crash which does the obvious. Again, the writing is fast-paced, concise and clear. There's are good guys who go after the bad guys and then there are the oblivious. Sound familiar? The reason this one is a cult classic though is because of the immediate recognisability of the satire that easily bridges the uncomfortable gap between straight fiction and sci-fi. The intertextuality doesn't interfere with the easy reading of the book either but rather doesn't simply stop at the textual. The main character's name is 'Hiro Protagonist'! I won't spell it out. It's a great little book and although it was Stephenson's third novel he hasn't yet written another one quite like it that damn good & all his other books just fade in comparison.
*
And there are, of course others. But I'll keep them for another time. I've got to keep something to stuff up my sleeve, otherwise what would be the point?
