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juushikaTitle: Wyrd and Other Derelictions
Author: Adam Nevill
Narrator: Dennis Kleinman
Published: JournalStone, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 105
Total Page Count: 499,015
Text Number: 1778
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A collection of experimental short stories, each investigating a dereliction: a landscape left after disaster, and the environmental storytelling which reveals what happened there. Like most experimental works, it's constrained by its concept; it also grounds its sparse storytelling in a skimmable mundanity, destroyed glimpses of frequently suburban middle class life, presented for their contrast to the destruction but still, well, boring. But what a premise! "Environmental storytelling" is a video game phenomenon, but it's the right fit here: narratives through which the reader, like spectator, like camera, is positioned, surveying the destruction and picking out clues. The restrained, distant prose is pensive, and balances some sometimes-silly horror tableaus.
Title: The Beetle
Author: Richard Marsh
Published: 1897
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 499,305
Text Number: 1779
Read Because: mentioned in danforth's Plain Bad Heroines, ebook free from Gutenberg via Global Grey ebooks (because they do a better job with colors/pagination)
Review: A motley cast is drawn together by their shared involvement with the workings of a dangerous, uncanny entity, an "Oriental" man with the ability to transform into a beetle. Which, yes, deserves the scare quotes and is frequently as silly as it sounds: vast swathes of this are ridiculous and have aged poorly. It's also surprisingly readable, a classic text with dated racist depictions but an incredibly accessible voice.
And it shares numerous similarities with Dracula: the release date, the horror of Orientalism (particularly as it dangerous respectable British society, particularity white women of a certain class), and many more superficial similarities in style and plot which feel remarkable when viewed in the context of Dracula. It's a fascinating coincidence that made me think of twin films and the fact that similar works released at the same time point more to contemporary cultural anxieties than they do to each other.
I don't know that I "liked" this, but it's so dang readable and it's a fascinating reading experience - particularly the (obviously super problematic~ but perpetually interesting) handling of gender.
Title: The Steppenwolf
Author: Hermann Hesse
Translator: Kurt Beals
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023 (1927)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 255
Total Page Count: 499,560
Text Number: 1780
Read Because: a (different translation, obvs.) of this has been on my shelf for years on years; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The journals slash fantastical experiences of one Harry Haller a.k.a. the Steppenwolf, whose divided human/wolf nature renders him disaffected and perpetually unsatisfied until a sex worker pulls him into her world of love and jazz. Parts of this I adore, parts of this are indescribably tedious, and those parts often sit side by side. Of the various novels of men navel-gazing the existential crises of their times, this one lands square in "not bad." It evokes the anxieties of the rapidly changing culture of the 1920s and the complex human/animal duality is an effective conceit. But the parts that probably felt revolutionary and shocking at the time, namely the extended allegorical drug trip, now feel like a tired trope; it's always interesting to see early examples of a trope rendered less satisfying in view of the trope's evolution. The more subtle uncanny elements, particularly the provenance of the Treatise on the Steppenwolf and the central friendship/relationship dynamic, now feel more nuanced and engaging.
(Sidenote: Apparently German has different rules re: comma splices, but the abundance of them in the Beals translation sure does feel jarring in English.)
Author: Adam Nevill
Narrator: Dennis Kleinman
Published: JournalStone, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 105
Total Page Count: 499,015
Text Number: 1778
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A collection of experimental short stories, each investigating a dereliction: a landscape left after disaster, and the environmental storytelling which reveals what happened there. Like most experimental works, it's constrained by its concept; it also grounds its sparse storytelling in a skimmable mundanity, destroyed glimpses of frequently suburban middle class life, presented for their contrast to the destruction but still, well, boring. But what a premise! "Environmental storytelling" is a video game phenomenon, but it's the right fit here: narratives through which the reader, like spectator, like camera, is positioned, surveying the destruction and picking out clues. The restrained, distant prose is pensive, and balances some sometimes-silly horror tableaus.
Title: The Beetle
Author: Richard Marsh
Published: 1897
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 499,305
Text Number: 1779
Read Because: mentioned in danforth's Plain Bad Heroines, ebook free from Gutenberg via Global Grey ebooks (because they do a better job with colors/pagination)
Review: A motley cast is drawn together by their shared involvement with the workings of a dangerous, uncanny entity, an "Oriental" man with the ability to transform into a beetle. Which, yes, deserves the scare quotes and is frequently as silly as it sounds: vast swathes of this are ridiculous and have aged poorly. It's also surprisingly readable, a classic text with dated racist depictions but an incredibly accessible voice.
And it shares numerous similarities with Dracula: the release date, the horror of Orientalism (particularly as it dangerous respectable British society, particularity white women of a certain class), and many more superficial similarities in style and plot which feel remarkable when viewed in the context of Dracula. It's a fascinating coincidence that made me think of twin films and the fact that similar works released at the same time point more to contemporary cultural anxieties than they do to each other.
I don't know that I "liked" this, but it's so dang readable and it's a fascinating reading experience - particularly the (obviously super problematic~ but perpetually interesting) handling of gender.
Title: The Steppenwolf
Author: Hermann Hesse
Translator: Kurt Beals
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023 (1927)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 255
Total Page Count: 499,560
Text Number: 1780
Read Because: a (different translation, obvs.) of this has been on my shelf for years on years; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The journals slash fantastical experiences of one Harry Haller a.k.a. the Steppenwolf, whose divided human/wolf nature renders him disaffected and perpetually unsatisfied until a sex worker pulls him into her world of love and jazz. Parts of this I adore, parts of this are indescribably tedious, and those parts often sit side by side. Of the various novels of men navel-gazing the existential crises of their times, this one lands square in "not bad." It evokes the anxieties of the rapidly changing culture of the 1920s and the complex human/animal duality is an effective conceit. But the parts that probably felt revolutionary and shocking at the time, namely the extended allegorical drug trip, now feel like a tired trope; it's always interesting to see early examples of a trope rendered less satisfying in view of the trope's evolution. The more subtle uncanny elements, particularly the provenance of the Treatise on the Steppenwolf and the central friendship/relationship dynamic, now feel more nuanced and engaging.
(Sidenote: Apparently German has different rules re: comma splices, but the abundance of them in the Beals translation sure does feel jarring in English.)
