Ben Peek's Blog, page 10
September 22, 2013
Dead Americans Pre-order
For those of you have have the interest, you can pre-order
Dead Americans
. It won't be published until February, so when the book arrives, no doubt you will have forgotten it, and thus, you will be pleasantly surprised.
September 15, 2013
Plot, plot, plot.
I don't know that I ever considered myself a plot based author before these current books.
Actually, I should clarify that. One of my pet hates is when an author says, 'Oh, such and such is so plot based,' as if, in any book, there is no plot. All novels have a plot, just not the same one, or the same kind. Narration dictated by action is one, but so is internal narration, symbolic ones, and so on and so forth. A non-linear novel that relies upon repetition to create a sense of opening and closure is engaging in plot. Plot is, at least in my mind, the exo-skeleton of the novel, by which actions and meanings and events and such hang off. So when people sit up and say that something has no plot, or has too much plot, I usually just sigh and, lets be honest, attempt to bring them to my way of thinking. It would be nice to say I sighed and let them have their opinion, and I try, but I think the world would be a better place if they had my tastes.
Either way you stand on this, I used to think I was mostly a structure kind of writer. I worried about form, perhaps more than anything else, though I often tried (and try) to be a nice stylist of my prose, as well. One of the strange things about the Children series is I came up with the form early on--an ensemble cast structured in a series of chapters building similarly to the way the new series form of television shows (Breaking Bad, Deadwood, etc) to climaxes and reveals--and that meant I largely had my structure down for three books. For a large scale project of three years, it has become a foundation from which everything else is built. What that has mostly meant is endless scheming on my part, as political machinations blend with personal ones, history mashes with current events, and a cast of main and minor characters find themselves spread out, each serving their own agenda. Whether or not it is successful and intricate or not people will have to decide for themselves when the book is released, but the more I write the books, the more and more I am surprised by how much of that dense event plotting occupies my headspace. Often, I go back to correct small sentences, to alter motivations, plant clues, give important plot swings more emphasis, and so on and so forth. Some people call that pantsing, but I've always thought that's an ugly word. I just call it editing.
I find it a strange experience as I sit here editing and writing. In hindsight, I think I started this shift with 'Below' in Above/Below. The structural conceit of that book was come up with very early (the flip book, alternate narrators bit) and I always thought the story was a touch out of character for me for that. It is a kind of political driven science fiction thriller and the base structure really just provides a platform for the rest. That book will really prefigure the Children series, I suspect, in the body of my work, and should it be a large enough body, a new strand will have begun there, though it will have very little in common with it content wise (except, possibly, a man with a metal leg--that appears in both).
Anyhow, back to work.
Actually, I should clarify that. One of my pet hates is when an author says, 'Oh, such and such is so plot based,' as if, in any book, there is no plot. All novels have a plot, just not the same one, or the same kind. Narration dictated by action is one, but so is internal narration, symbolic ones, and so on and so forth. A non-linear novel that relies upon repetition to create a sense of opening and closure is engaging in plot. Plot is, at least in my mind, the exo-skeleton of the novel, by which actions and meanings and events and such hang off. So when people sit up and say that something has no plot, or has too much plot, I usually just sigh and, lets be honest, attempt to bring them to my way of thinking. It would be nice to say I sighed and let them have their opinion, and I try, but I think the world would be a better place if they had my tastes.
Either way you stand on this, I used to think I was mostly a structure kind of writer. I worried about form, perhaps more than anything else, though I often tried (and try) to be a nice stylist of my prose, as well. One of the strange things about the Children series is I came up with the form early on--an ensemble cast structured in a series of chapters building similarly to the way the new series form of television shows (Breaking Bad, Deadwood, etc) to climaxes and reveals--and that meant I largely had my structure down for three books. For a large scale project of three years, it has become a foundation from which everything else is built. What that has mostly meant is endless scheming on my part, as political machinations blend with personal ones, history mashes with current events, and a cast of main and minor characters find themselves spread out, each serving their own agenda. Whether or not it is successful and intricate or not people will have to decide for themselves when the book is released, but the more I write the books, the more and more I am surprised by how much of that dense event plotting occupies my headspace. Often, I go back to correct small sentences, to alter motivations, plant clues, give important plot swings more emphasis, and so on and so forth. Some people call that pantsing, but I've always thought that's an ugly word. I just call it editing.
I find it a strange experience as I sit here editing and writing. In hindsight, I think I started this shift with 'Below' in Above/Below. The structural conceit of that book was come up with very early (the flip book, alternate narrators bit) and I always thought the story was a touch out of character for me for that. It is a kind of political driven science fiction thriller and the base structure really just provides a platform for the rest. That book will really prefigure the Children series, I suspect, in the body of my work, and should it be a large enough body, a new strand will have begun there, though it will have very little in common with it content wise (except, possibly, a man with a metal leg--that appears in both).
Anyhow, back to work.
September 8, 2013
So Long As You Don't Eat a Baby, You Can Be Prime Minister
A few years ago, I told my girlfriend, shortly after she moved to the country, that Tony Abbott would be the next Prime Minister. "So long as he doesn't eat a live baby on television, that is," I added.
Perhaps, if I had sent him a live baby.
In hindsight, I should have asked my friends for donations. A few of them have young, supple ones where the bones break easy.
At any rate, the inevitable happened, and on Saturday, Tony Abbott, surrounded by his daughters in virginal white, with his wife in a dark, worn out colour like she was the used husk of a middle aged wife from a dystopian film, became Prime Minister Abbott. Short after, I heard people discussing that it would be two to three terms (six to nine years) before the count against Abbott and his Coalition turned. I felt a moment of despair, and then reminded myself that Labor had not been a progressive government, and that frankly, Australia had been in the control of conservative social politics since the turn of the century. The rights of homosexuals and asylum seekers would still be denied; the divide between the rich and the poor would continue to grow (perhaps faster now); comprehensive environmental reform would struggle; and so on and so forth, with the voices that called for equality struggling to be heard.
It could be that this is the best thing for Labor, however. After playing centre right wing politics with the Liberals and losing, perhaps they will take a long hard look at things that drove people away, and drag themselves back to the centre left and unify.
It's a long shot, though. The party has shown a long streak of political weakness in its two terms in office, from the dumping of Kevin Rudd and the failure of the mining tax, to the dumping of Julia Gillard and the failure to get anything out of Kevin Rudd. That he still remains in the party is, honestly, the most mind boggling thing ever, and I can only imagine that the lack of rush to take his place as new leader is due to the fact that whoever replaces him knows they will have to deal with Kevin, and Kevin has, frankly, lost the plot. From moments on the campaign trail where he suddenly announced tax zones for the Northern Territory to fears over foreign investment, to living out his moment of acting like a TV President like Martin Sheen on the West Wing (the correct answer, in case you're wondering, to any religious figure who asks you why you're going against the Bible is to say, "The right for homosexual men and women to marry is an equal rights issue, not a religious one.") and that weird twenty minute concession speech where he announced his triumph over the Labor Party but the loss of the country, Kevin has gone off the ledge and sailed clear into crazy, crazy open space.
Still, no matter the future of Labor, there were some interesting things to come out of the election. The Greens' Adam Bandt won his seat in Melbourne despite preferences going against him, Palmer's United Party became the fuck you protest vote, and on a ballot sheet for the Senate so big you couldn't fit it flat in the booth gave a bunch of minor and micro parties a chance to go to Canberra. Including, from NSW, the Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, whose pro-gun, charge the asylum seekers stance should go down well--though it is worth noting that the party platform does support gay marriage and the right to die, though, um, you do have to ignore that opposition to affirmative action, smaller government, and other odd things they believe. Their seven percent jump in support is reportedly due to their number one spot on the senate ballot and confusion with the Liberal Party, but perhaps more people recognised Leyonhjelm's name from when he was part of the plain ol' Liberal Party and left in 1996 when Howard bought in gun control (or perhaps they recognised him from the Shooter's Party, or Outdoor Recreation Party, or the secret meetings he has with the NRA in quiet, empty back lots in a white hood, who knows). Perhaps eight percent of NSW just said, "Fuck it, this is as close to Howard before he went soft as we'll get," but probably not.
But there was Clive.
Clive to save us all, Clive 'I'm Rebuilding the Titanic' Palmer.
Billionaire Clive Palmer looks to have won a seat, much to the horror of conservative politicians everywhere, who say without a shred of irony, "The man bought his votes," as if they never took Palmer's money for decades to finance their own campaigns. In some, such as Barnaby Joyce, a conversation can be about Palmer using his wealth and connections in such horrible, horrible ways, while shortly after, he can talk about Gina Reinhart and her donation to Joyce's campaign, saying, "That money has to come from somewhere," and giving her a hug when she comes into his campaign rally. This is the billionaire Gina Rinehart, by the by, who is so crazy she initially proposed the tax zone in the Northern Territory while saying Australians are paid more than those from Africa--and this is why we don't do business in Australia--and recently suggested that rich, white collar criminals be able to buy their way out of prison. No doubt Palmer will eventually side with the Coalition on a number of issues, but it is rather amusing to watch the horror, and if his mere presence there causes all in the room to feel bad because somehow democracy and the sanctity of government is ruined, well, then at least they know how I feel when I see them.
Perhaps, if I had sent him a live baby.
In hindsight, I should have asked my friends for donations. A few of them have young, supple ones where the bones break easy.
At any rate, the inevitable happened, and on Saturday, Tony Abbott, surrounded by his daughters in virginal white, with his wife in a dark, worn out colour like she was the used husk of a middle aged wife from a dystopian film, became Prime Minister Abbott. Short after, I heard people discussing that it would be two to three terms (six to nine years) before the count against Abbott and his Coalition turned. I felt a moment of despair, and then reminded myself that Labor had not been a progressive government, and that frankly, Australia had been in the control of conservative social politics since the turn of the century. The rights of homosexuals and asylum seekers would still be denied; the divide between the rich and the poor would continue to grow (perhaps faster now); comprehensive environmental reform would struggle; and so on and so forth, with the voices that called for equality struggling to be heard.
It could be that this is the best thing for Labor, however. After playing centre right wing politics with the Liberals and losing, perhaps they will take a long hard look at things that drove people away, and drag themselves back to the centre left and unify.
It's a long shot, though. The party has shown a long streak of political weakness in its two terms in office, from the dumping of Kevin Rudd and the failure of the mining tax, to the dumping of Julia Gillard and the failure to get anything out of Kevin Rudd. That he still remains in the party is, honestly, the most mind boggling thing ever, and I can only imagine that the lack of rush to take his place as new leader is due to the fact that whoever replaces him knows they will have to deal with Kevin, and Kevin has, frankly, lost the plot. From moments on the campaign trail where he suddenly announced tax zones for the Northern Territory to fears over foreign investment, to living out his moment of acting like a TV President like Martin Sheen on the West Wing (the correct answer, in case you're wondering, to any religious figure who asks you why you're going against the Bible is to say, "The right for homosexual men and women to marry is an equal rights issue, not a religious one.") and that weird twenty minute concession speech where he announced his triumph over the Labor Party but the loss of the country, Kevin has gone off the ledge and sailed clear into crazy, crazy open space.
Still, no matter the future of Labor, there were some interesting things to come out of the election. The Greens' Adam Bandt won his seat in Melbourne despite preferences going against him, Palmer's United Party became the fuck you protest vote, and on a ballot sheet for the Senate so big you couldn't fit it flat in the booth gave a bunch of minor and micro parties a chance to go to Canberra. Including, from NSW, the Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, whose pro-gun, charge the asylum seekers stance should go down well--though it is worth noting that the party platform does support gay marriage and the right to die, though, um, you do have to ignore that opposition to affirmative action, smaller government, and other odd things they believe. Their seven percent jump in support is reportedly due to their number one spot on the senate ballot and confusion with the Liberal Party, but perhaps more people recognised Leyonhjelm's name from when he was part of the plain ol' Liberal Party and left in 1996 when Howard bought in gun control (or perhaps they recognised him from the Shooter's Party, or Outdoor Recreation Party, or the secret meetings he has with the NRA in quiet, empty back lots in a white hood, who knows). Perhaps eight percent of NSW just said, "Fuck it, this is as close to Howard before he went soft as we'll get," but probably not.
But there was Clive.
Clive to save us all, Clive 'I'm Rebuilding the Titanic' Palmer.
Billionaire Clive Palmer looks to have won a seat, much to the horror of conservative politicians everywhere, who say without a shred of irony, "The man bought his votes," as if they never took Palmer's money for decades to finance their own campaigns. In some, such as Barnaby Joyce, a conversation can be about Palmer using his wealth and connections in such horrible, horrible ways, while shortly after, he can talk about Gina Reinhart and her donation to Joyce's campaign, saying, "That money has to come from somewhere," and giving her a hug when she comes into his campaign rally. This is the billionaire Gina Rinehart, by the by, who is so crazy she initially proposed the tax zone in the Northern Territory while saying Australians are paid more than those from Africa--and this is why we don't do business in Australia--and recently suggested that rich, white collar criminals be able to buy their way out of prison. No doubt Palmer will eventually side with the Coalition on a number of issues, but it is rather amusing to watch the horror, and if his mere presence there causes all in the room to feel bad because somehow democracy and the sanctity of government is ruined, well, then at least they know how I feel when I see them.
September 4, 2013
'In the Broken City' to appear in Shimmer #18
Ann VanderMeer is guest editing issue eighteen of Shimmer, and my story, 'In the Broken City' will appear there.
For those of you who keep track of these things, 'In the Broken City' is a new Red Sun story. For those of you who don't, it is a story about doctors, a man who doesn't like his leg, the woman he meets, and the man with wooden hands he meets after, all of it beneath the red sun. Around the time that Shimmer is published, Dead Americans will follow with the previous Red Sun stories, and maybe, who knows, there'll be another (I have one I wrote at the start of the year I've been sitting on, trying to decide what I think about it). Either way, for those of you who dig the stories will have a nice little set of them early next year.
In the meantime, it is back to work on Innocence, after a week in which I went back and tweaked characterisation, dialogue, and narrative to properly fit into the events taking place. I have a new appreciation for the time it takes authors to write two hundred and fifty, three hundred thousand word novels. Those huge things must take forever to bring into line.
Link.
Just over a year ago, Shimmer turned pro. Why? Because the new owners of Weird Tales made a series of missteps, and we felt that the best way to respond was to become even better ourselves. We believed that Shimmer had always been excellent; and now it was time to raise the bar for ourselves. With the generous support of Mary Robinette Kowal, we were able to do that, and now provide a strong professional home for the kind of intelligent, innovative speculative fiction that we loved at Weird Tales.
Amazing things happened after that. The speculative fiction community was incredibly supportive. Our sales soared, as did submissions.
And a guy named Patrick Rothfuss offered to contribute some more money. We knew exactly what we wanted to do with the money: hire Ann VanderMeer to guest edit our 18th issue. What better way for us to honor Ann for her excellent work?
Check out the table of contents:
In the Broken City, by Ben Peek
Atomic Age by Rachel Marsten
Psychopomp, by Ramsey Shehadeh
The Story of Anna Walden, by Christine Schirr
Anuta Fragment’s Private Eyes, by Ben Godby
Unclaimed, by Annalee Newitz
Fragments from the Notes of a Dead Mycologist, by Jeff VanderMeer
The Street of the Green Elephant, by Dustin Monk
This issue will be available in early 2014.
For those of you who keep track of these things, 'In the Broken City' is a new Red Sun story. For those of you who don't, it is a story about doctors, a man who doesn't like his leg, the woman he meets, and the man with wooden hands he meets after, all of it beneath the red sun. Around the time that Shimmer is published, Dead Americans will follow with the previous Red Sun stories, and maybe, who knows, there'll be another (I have one I wrote at the start of the year I've been sitting on, trying to decide what I think about it). Either way, for those of you who dig the stories will have a nice little set of them early next year.
In the meantime, it is back to work on Innocence, after a week in which I went back and tweaked characterisation, dialogue, and narrative to properly fit into the events taking place. I have a new appreciation for the time it takes authors to write two hundred and fifty, three hundred thousand word novels. Those huge things must take forever to bring into line.
Link.
September 1, 2013
Dead Americans
Here is the cover for my upcoming collection of short fiction, Dead Americans, published by ChiZine Publications. It has been done by Erik Mohr and is, I believe, very excellent. Table of contents is below.
'There Is Something So Quiet And Empty Inside You It Must Be Precious'
'The Dreaming City'
'Johnny Cash'
'Possession'
'The Souls Of Dead Soldiers Are For Blackbirds, Not Little Boys'
'The Funeral, Ruined'
'Under The Red Sun'
'John Wayne'
'Octavia E. Butler'
'theleeharveyoswaldband'
'Octavia E. Butler' is a novella, and three of the other pieces--'The Dreaming City', 'Under the Red Sun', and 'The Souls of Dead Soldiers'--are novelettes, so a number of the stories are quite large. Something could change between here and there with what appears in the volume, but I doubt they will, and I'm pretty happy with the way it looks and reads, as a whole. The book will be released in February, so it's a while away yet, and six months after it is released, Immolation will follow, thus allowing for me to have releases at both ends of 2014, which will, lets face it, be strange.
Still, I am looking forward to it. It's been real quiet from me for the last few years, just working on stuff, getting things right, following opportunities. I suspect, for a while at least, it will feel as if it isn't quite real.
August 19, 2013
North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud
Nathan Ballingrud's first collection, North American Lake Monsters, is a slim, mediative volume of dark fiction.
I first became aware of Ballingrud's fiction in a piece entitled 'You Go Where It Takes You,' the story of a single mother dealing with the difficulty of direction and success in life and job, and the man she meets, while on shift in a diner. I always remembered it for its pathos, its elegance, its very wise understanding on the people within it, and the understated, very real horror that fills the final passages of it. It was about serial killers, about shape changing, about the struggle of being a parent, an adult. I was pleased when I read it again, some nine years after it was published, and found that it was as good as I remembered.
It opens the collection of nine stories that is North American Lake Monsters and is an example of Ballingrud's fiction at its best. Ballingrud's work builds itself from the genre of horror as an act of symbolism for the story, one that resonates through its characters and provides meaning to what you read. It takes the simple premise of Wild Acre and makes it a powerful study of one man's response to an act of terrible violence. It turns the tragedy of an abducted child in 'The Monsters of Heaven' into an even deeper, disturbing study of the need of the parents. It paints the unflinching portrait of a recently released man from jail in 'North American Lake Monsters'. To my mind the four stories I've mentioned are the strongest in the collection, each powered by that use of symbolism, by the deft understanding of the meaning within the horror genre that Ballingrud has taken--for the three, werewolves, angels and monsters--and each are intelligent, powerful pieces of work that are worth the price of the book itself.
In 'Sunbleached' and 'The Good Husband' Ballingrud approaches vampires and zombies similarly, but for my tastes, they didn't work as well as the others. With the latter, I thought it a touch heavy, the usual delicacy of Ballingrud's work slipping, and with the former, I wanted a little more, but it was a near thing. Likewise, I quite enjoyed the ghost story spin of 'Waystation' but ended it feeling as if there was more to be told. 'S.S.', a story about a young fascist, started out very strongly, but fell flat in the final parts--it was about the mother/son relationship that came out so strong in Robert Bloch's (and subsequently, Hitchcock's film) Psycho--and 'The Crevasse', written with Dale Bailey, was the Cthulu entry of the collection. While fine, it lacked the distinctiveness of Ballingrud's voice, and this showed in sharp contrast to the other pieces in the collection.
Still, regardless of my personal likes and dislikes, all the stories were fine pieces of craft, and the truth is, you mileage on which ones you enjoy more will be based on your personal tastes. For others, I know that 'Sunbleached' is a favourite, and others still 'Waystation' and 'the Crevasse'.
Whatever your personal favourites are, Ballingrud's collection is one I recommend. North American Lake Monsters is an intelligent, powerful study of the horror genre that reveals, at its core, what it can be in the hands of a fine writer.
I first became aware of Ballingrud's fiction in a piece entitled 'You Go Where It Takes You,' the story of a single mother dealing with the difficulty of direction and success in life and job, and the man she meets, while on shift in a diner. I always remembered it for its pathos, its elegance, its very wise understanding on the people within it, and the understated, very real horror that fills the final passages of it. It was about serial killers, about shape changing, about the struggle of being a parent, an adult. I was pleased when I read it again, some nine years after it was published, and found that it was as good as I remembered.
It opens the collection of nine stories that is North American Lake Monsters and is an example of Ballingrud's fiction at its best. Ballingrud's work builds itself from the genre of horror as an act of symbolism for the story, one that resonates through its characters and provides meaning to what you read. It takes the simple premise of Wild Acre and makes it a powerful study of one man's response to an act of terrible violence. It turns the tragedy of an abducted child in 'The Monsters of Heaven' into an even deeper, disturbing study of the need of the parents. It paints the unflinching portrait of a recently released man from jail in 'North American Lake Monsters'. To my mind the four stories I've mentioned are the strongest in the collection, each powered by that use of symbolism, by the deft understanding of the meaning within the horror genre that Ballingrud has taken--for the three, werewolves, angels and monsters--and each are intelligent, powerful pieces of work that are worth the price of the book itself.
In 'Sunbleached' and 'The Good Husband' Ballingrud approaches vampires and zombies similarly, but for my tastes, they didn't work as well as the others. With the latter, I thought it a touch heavy, the usual delicacy of Ballingrud's work slipping, and with the former, I wanted a little more, but it was a near thing. Likewise, I quite enjoyed the ghost story spin of 'Waystation' but ended it feeling as if there was more to be told. 'S.S.', a story about a young fascist, started out very strongly, but fell flat in the final parts--it was about the mother/son relationship that came out so strong in Robert Bloch's (and subsequently, Hitchcock's film) Psycho--and 'The Crevasse', written with Dale Bailey, was the Cthulu entry of the collection. While fine, it lacked the distinctiveness of Ballingrud's voice, and this showed in sharp contrast to the other pieces in the collection.
Still, regardless of my personal likes and dislikes, all the stories were fine pieces of craft, and the truth is, you mileage on which ones you enjoy more will be based on your personal tastes. For others, I know that 'Sunbleached' is a favourite, and others still 'Waystation' and 'the Crevasse'.
Whatever your personal favourites are, Ballingrud's collection is one I recommend. North American Lake Monsters is an intelligent, powerful study of the horror genre that reveals, at its core, what it can be in the hands of a fine writer.
August 18, 2013
Vaguely Making Sense on a Monday
I have a student who tells me she is surprised that I know anything. "You live in your little bubble," she says, and indicates around me. "You have all your books and you write a book. Why do you know all this stuff?"
We'd been talking about K-Pop.
The wind is blowing, and it is starting to warm up around here, thankfully, and I've been reading and writing. A lot of vague notes I made in my head about the world of Children I am building on and fleshing out, and trying to make sure I'm not too repetitive. In Immolation, I had a relatively small scale, with most of the story isolated to one city. Now, I have countries, and a third will be bleed in at the end, which expands the scale of it. The trick, I am finding, is doing that without exploding the word count by twice what the first book is. Fantasy, in general, has a bad habit of being fat on the bone, with a lot of that fat put in through extra characters, subplots, etc. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as your work and your deadline can sustain it, but a lot of fantasy that I've read could've been cut down by a quarter without a huge loss to the central narrative. It's a lot more of a balancing act than I ever thought it would be, to be honest, but I have to admit that it's quite fun. No one will ever see the things I cut, the ideas that simply didn't get enough motivation behind them, and the ideas that came out of nowhere, but I'll know it, and it'll be interesting from point of view to see what I am left with by the end.
The centre of a trilogy is a strange beast, though. Traditionally, it's the darkest chapter, both informed by the concerns and failings of the first chapter, and setting up for the cost of success in the third. There's a lot to manage in it, and I hope I'm hitting the right balance to make it work and enjoyable, but I imagine I won't even know for years if I got it right.
We'd been talking about K-Pop.
The wind is blowing, and it is starting to warm up around here, thankfully, and I've been reading and writing. A lot of vague notes I made in my head about the world of Children I am building on and fleshing out, and trying to make sure I'm not too repetitive. In Immolation, I had a relatively small scale, with most of the story isolated to one city. Now, I have countries, and a third will be bleed in at the end, which expands the scale of it. The trick, I am finding, is doing that without exploding the word count by twice what the first book is. Fantasy, in general, has a bad habit of being fat on the bone, with a lot of that fat put in through extra characters, subplots, etc. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as your work and your deadline can sustain it, but a lot of fantasy that I've read could've been cut down by a quarter without a huge loss to the central narrative. It's a lot more of a balancing act than I ever thought it would be, to be honest, but I have to admit that it's quite fun. No one will ever see the things I cut, the ideas that simply didn't get enough motivation behind them, and the ideas that came out of nowhere, but I'll know it, and it'll be interesting from point of view to see what I am left with by the end.
The centre of a trilogy is a strange beast, though. Traditionally, it's the darkest chapter, both informed by the concerns and failings of the first chapter, and setting up for the cost of success in the third. There's a lot to manage in it, and I hope I'm hitting the right balance to make it work and enjoyable, but I imagine I won't even know for years if I got it right.
August 5, 2013
Divisadero
Finished Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero this morning, and I liked it greatly.
I have been reading in the mornings lately, before I begin writing. A new habit, and I'll see if it'll last, but I am enjoying the regular reading. In the past, I have found it a bit of a struggle to read after writing for the day (or teaching, lecturing, etc). So, I like this: I sit in the back room in the sun, or the rain, with a breeze, and I read for an hour or so in the morning. I even call it work related. It is strange what a chunk of cash for a book will do for you and the legitimacy of how you spend your time. Before, I'd write in time I put aside around making money, lecturing, teaching, and just in general trying to get by. I had many ideas to make money to allow me to keep writing. After I'd finished the book this morning I felt somewhat guilty about my ability to read a book I greatly liked in the morning and write the rest of the day, even if I still teach three days of the week. In the end I reminded myself that it may not last and I should enjoy it.
One of my favourite books is Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter. I like it so much that I have bought all of Ondaatje's work since, though I have not yet read all of it. He is not prolific by any means (there are five, seven year gaps between novels) and I keep them like treasures, to be read over time.
I have been reading in the mornings lately, before I begin writing. A new habit, and I'll see if it'll last, but I am enjoying the regular reading. In the past, I have found it a bit of a struggle to read after writing for the day (or teaching, lecturing, etc). So, I like this: I sit in the back room in the sun, or the rain, with a breeze, and I read for an hour or so in the morning. I even call it work related. It is strange what a chunk of cash for a book will do for you and the legitimacy of how you spend your time. Before, I'd write in time I put aside around making money, lecturing, teaching, and just in general trying to get by. I had many ideas to make money to allow me to keep writing. After I'd finished the book this morning I felt somewhat guilty about my ability to read a book I greatly liked in the morning and write the rest of the day, even if I still teach three days of the week. In the end I reminded myself that it may not last and I should enjoy it.
One of my favourite books is Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter. I like it so much that I have bought all of Ondaatje's work since, though I have not yet read all of it. He is not prolific by any means (there are five, seven year gaps between novels) and I keep them like treasures, to be read over time.
August 1, 2013
The Wolverine
I saw the Wolverine last week. It was filmed near where I live and a block from where I once worked as a projectionist.
As a film, it's not bad. Set after the awful X-Men 3, the film offers an image of a bearded, drunken Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) living in the mountains, somewhere. After a fight in a bar, a young Japanese woman shows up, tells him the Japanese soldier who had kept him in a PoW Camp and who Wolverine helped survive an Atomic Bomb, is looking for him. He is dying and wants to say goodbye. Without much else to do, Logan agrees, and he is taken to Tokyo, and by Tokyo, I mean the Western Suburbs of Sydney, specifically the CBD of Parramatta. As news outlets in Australia have long suggested, it's really the home of a large, international Asian Gang. Shockingly, it's Japanese. That would have been at least seventh on their list.
As you might imagine, the best thing about the film, for me, was seeing my local neighbourhood in the film. I know the streets much to well to believe that they hold even a vague resemblance to Tokyo, so much so, in fact, that when Wolverine leads his romantic co-star into the bad part of town, I leaned over to my girlfriend and said, "Hey, that's where that cool Thai place is." There is also a nice Vietnamese place there, but that's across the road the two do not cross, and about a block up. For the Thai place, all you need to do is go back the way the two characters came from. There's no love hotel there, but I suppose that's not too surprising, since, across the road a five story shopping mall is there. It spreads across two blocks, incidentally, and there is a cinema to the actor's right. You can walk up a pair of escalators to get there and, presumably, should any of the film's stars done so, they would have been outraged by how much local cinemas pay to watch a film.
Well, maybe not. I mean, Hugh Jackman wouldn't have been, and I don't know how much of the rest of the cast live in Australia.
There's more! Smith Street features strongly, as does Parramatta's train station, and I suspect a number of the local people appear as extras in the film, and the roof tops of buildings have a man with a bow jumping over them, leading me to wonder if such buildings exist in Tokyo--in fact, that was my over riding question for much of the location shots in the film, and if anyone has been to Tokyo, or lives there, and has seen the film, I'd be curious to know if you thought it was at all plausible.
But what about the film?
Well, like I said, it wasn't bad. In the hands of a more stylish director, the film would have actually been quite good, I suspect. There is nothing particularly bad about James Mangold, but as with Cop Land, a lot of its potential is simply squandered by him. He should have taken a knife to the last quarter of the script, as well, cutting out the ridiculous scene with the Silver Samurai, and paid homage instead to the great samurai fights of a number of films, and had Wolverine and the black clad ninjas go at it through the snow filled town. That would have allowed him to jettison the old man's villainy, which never fits quite right with the narrative of the film, and the less said about the Atomic Bomb at the start, the better. Well, okay, a small thing: if you have your character survive that, it's robbing your narrative of its edge, because, hey, y'know, only things more devastating than Nukes can kill Wolverine. I mean, we know Wolverine isn't going to die--the franchise must continue--but honestly, it's just silly to have him survive the nuke at the start of the film. Simply tone it down to an air strike.
Anyhow! The majority of the films moves along reasonably, the cast is pretty decent, and it is to the film's credit that they present a largely Asian cast in a Hollywood film made in Parramatta.
As a film, it's not bad. Set after the awful X-Men 3, the film offers an image of a bearded, drunken Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) living in the mountains, somewhere. After a fight in a bar, a young Japanese woman shows up, tells him the Japanese soldier who had kept him in a PoW Camp and who Wolverine helped survive an Atomic Bomb, is looking for him. He is dying and wants to say goodbye. Without much else to do, Logan agrees, and he is taken to Tokyo, and by Tokyo, I mean the Western Suburbs of Sydney, specifically the CBD of Parramatta. As news outlets in Australia have long suggested, it's really the home of a large, international Asian Gang. Shockingly, it's Japanese. That would have been at least seventh on their list.
As you might imagine, the best thing about the film, for me, was seeing my local neighbourhood in the film. I know the streets much to well to believe that they hold even a vague resemblance to Tokyo, so much so, in fact, that when Wolverine leads his romantic co-star into the bad part of town, I leaned over to my girlfriend and said, "Hey, that's where that cool Thai place is." There is also a nice Vietnamese place there, but that's across the road the two do not cross, and about a block up. For the Thai place, all you need to do is go back the way the two characters came from. There's no love hotel there, but I suppose that's not too surprising, since, across the road a five story shopping mall is there. It spreads across two blocks, incidentally, and there is a cinema to the actor's right. You can walk up a pair of escalators to get there and, presumably, should any of the film's stars done so, they would have been outraged by how much local cinemas pay to watch a film.
Well, maybe not. I mean, Hugh Jackman wouldn't have been, and I don't know how much of the rest of the cast live in Australia.
There's more! Smith Street features strongly, as does Parramatta's train station, and I suspect a number of the local people appear as extras in the film, and the roof tops of buildings have a man with a bow jumping over them, leading me to wonder if such buildings exist in Tokyo--in fact, that was my over riding question for much of the location shots in the film, and if anyone has been to Tokyo, or lives there, and has seen the film, I'd be curious to know if you thought it was at all plausible.
But what about the film?
Well, like I said, it wasn't bad. In the hands of a more stylish director, the film would have actually been quite good, I suspect. There is nothing particularly bad about James Mangold, but as with Cop Land, a lot of its potential is simply squandered by him. He should have taken a knife to the last quarter of the script, as well, cutting out the ridiculous scene with the Silver Samurai, and paid homage instead to the great samurai fights of a number of films, and had Wolverine and the black clad ninjas go at it through the snow filled town. That would have allowed him to jettison the old man's villainy, which never fits quite right with the narrative of the film, and the less said about the Atomic Bomb at the start, the better. Well, okay, a small thing: if you have your character survive that, it's robbing your narrative of its edge, because, hey, y'know, only things more devastating than Nukes can kill Wolverine. I mean, we know Wolverine isn't going to die--the franchise must continue--but honestly, it's just silly to have him survive the nuke at the start of the film. Simply tone it down to an air strike.
Anyhow! The majority of the films moves along reasonably, the cast is pretty decent, and it is to the film's credit that they present a largely Asian cast in a Hollywood film made in Parramatta.
