Ned Hayes's Blog, page 42
July 30, 2015
REVIEW -- The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt
Review: 3.5/5
The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt
book
THE SISTERS BROTHERS is a novel written like a bottle of whiskey.
It uses a precise and refined set of ingredients to create something that is incendiary in purpose, violent in intent, and will make you drunk on words.
SISTERS BROTHERS is a beautiful book, although it is not one of my all-time favorites.
It is the story of two brothers in the 1800s who have the singular employment of killing people for hire. They are the protoypical bad guys in a Western novel, and would be at home in any Cormac
McCarthy novel, most notably Blood Meridian.
The book is a startling expose of the need of the human heart for connection and purpose even in the midst of blood, violence and destruction. Although the book is, at times, simply hilarious, it
becomes, by the end, a very sad story that tears at you and will not let you sleep.
It is not, for me at least, a particularly memorable book, although it is extremely well written. But I think that’s mostly because I’ve already nearly memorized portions of Cormac McCarthy’s oeuvre
and Pete Dexter’s DEADWOOD is like a Bible to me. I find Dexter’s work more inventive and more powerful that deWitt.
I profoundly enjoyed the vocabulary of Sisters Brothers, but by the end of the book it felt wearing and artificial. No one, least of all layabouts and murderers in the Old West, ever spoke in this
refined manner in public. It is an interesting choice to have his characters talk in exactly the same vocabularly he uses in his descriptions and narrative summaries. William Faulkner and Pete Dexter
make quite different choices in their books, and I think their books are ultimately more successful for that choice.
Original post: post
Original post: post
July 28, 2015
BOOK QUOTE: “Stars steam away as a pale sun rises, hot...
BOOK QUOTE:
“Stars steam away as a pale sun rises, hot coal dropped in a watery sky. Light seeps across the forest as the reedy shrieks of wood fowl echo in the trees. The path from our village to the King’s Highway is no road at all. To the east, that faint track leads up through the forest until it reaches, finally, the open country and paths that lead to other places. Hob is taking us beyond the bounds of the known world.”
July 27, 2015
Review -- The Ritual
THE RITUAL by Adam Nevill is an astonishingly well-written contemporary horror novel. It is my new favorite horror novel.
The story is so solidly grounded in the reality of four friends lost in a Boreal forest, that by the time weird things start happening, you are utterly entranced and fully bought into their precarious situation, their small bits of in-fighting and their utter terror at being lost.
Nevill writes with a convincing contemporary verisimilitude, and a sense of care for his characters that is sadly all too often lacking in contemporary horror, and that makes you feel their every shudder, grieve their every loss, and strive for their every triumph.
In the small careful nuances of his story, Nevill makes you believe, and believe utterly what is happening to his characters — both in their inner lives, and the extreme conditions they are suffering.
The story begins when a group of old friends take a wrong turn in a deep, dark Scandinavian forest. Not so bad at first, but it’s rainy, foggy, dank, and hard. The bonds that tie them together are gradually fraying as the physical conditions harden and lock around them, and they have few options to get out of the forest safe and sound.
Then, just as things look dark, it appears they are being stalked, but by what? (I should point out that because Nevill writes in such a convincing fashion, this never feels hackneyed or overwrought, just matter of fact, like a bear in Alaska).
However, the story keeps the adrenaline moving, as first one and then another is injured, and then their leader is…. You know what, I’m not going to give away this critical plot point here.
Suffice it to say that I thought the story was a “chase in the forest” story, and then — startlingly — I turned the page to PART 2, where the story takes a hard right turn into a different kind of tale, yet just as entrancing, just as terrifying, and even more strange.
Brilliant work, Nevill, and hard to carry off — yet he makes it look so, so easy, and fluid.
A great new horror writer, and tops on my list!
Highly, highly recommended!
Review — The Ritual was originally published on NedNote
July 26, 2015
BOOKS! I’ve almost fully organised one of the bookshelves in the...
BOOKS! I’ve almost fully organised one of the bookshelves in the library. I am now sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by books…
July 25, 2015
BOOK QUOTE: “On most nights under the winter moon when we have...
BOOK QUOTE: “On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our camp, around us echo faint sounds of that other hidden world—the one of meadow and forest in the night. The melody of whip-poor-will, the cry of hunting owl, the scurrying rush of vole and chasing fox. It is as if some great razor scraped the life from this sheet of white-edged vellum, leaving only blank.”
July 24, 2015
stydialovin:
Rest in peace to Sandra Bland, a beautiful,...
Rest in peace to Sandra Bland, a beautiful, powerful and strong woman who’s life was ended too quickly due to the arrogance and stupidity of people who are supposed to protect us. Sad, sad world we live in. You will always be remembered and loved.
