juushika

Title: All the Living and the Dead
Author: Hayley Campbell
Narrator: Hayley Campbell
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2022
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 524,300
Text Number: 1906
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I'm of two minds on this one. I read a lot about death work, as one does. Campbell's pool of subjects is broad, but the category is broader; some of her picks feel chosen for novelty more than representation, but some (specifically bereavement midwives) were genuinely new to me and captivating. Campbell structures the book chronologically in order to explore her own changing relationship with death through the course of her research; and she turns an open mind to a diversity of experiences and, fundamentally, coping mechanisms. All good. And all flawed, as the personal anecdotes are overbearing but sympathetic, and the human interest focus is unreliably applied, hypercritical one moment, complacent the next (the section on the Mayo Clinic filled me with concern and then rage, as Campbell blithely agrees, yes, fatphobia is probably a good and necessary training tool for medical professionals!). I read about death work for much the same reason Campbell was compelled to write about it, so of course I enjoyed this: many morbid curiosities answered, complicated relationships with death given compassionate room, good stuff, my jam; but, occasionally, frustrating.


( Memorable quote, CW cancer, death, dead dad talk. )

The genesis of finally doing a deep (ish) (I am reading what Open Library has on offer, skipping Christmas books, but including multiple editions) Margaret Wise Brown was that she popped up in Hannah McGregor's A Sentimental Education, particularly in the context of queer picture authors/illustrators edited by Ursula Nordstrom, herself a lesbian. McGregor mentions that Nordstrom edited Arnold Lobel, James Marshal, Tomie dePaola, Maurice Sendak, and MWB, among others.*

This - the overlap between queer creators and children's fiction - is something I had noticed when delving into picture books a few years ago; it's an overlap probably not limited to Nordstrom, although her role is absolutely pivotal. But it's also so ... natural. McGregor comments that many beloved queer picture book authors (she mentions MWB, Edward Gorey, and Maurice Sendak IIRC) famously did not have, like, and/or indicate that they were writing for children, necessarily. Instead picture books, as exploratory, creative, often dreamlike works asking questions about self-identity and learning one's place in the world, are naturally spaces for queer exploration and self-expression. I'm paraphrasing from a text I read on audio and augmenting with my own reading*, but the TL;DR of this was:

Hey, go read more MWB. And thus I am!

And the thing about MWB as opposed to other picture book deep dives: MWB was not herself an illustrator; she has been enduringly popular; she left behind many unpublished manuscripts after an early death. As a result, there's rarely one true set of illustrations, and many of her books have been re-illustrated/re-released/re-edited, even, over the years, with some even more complicated origin stories (that'll come up in another set of reviews). Fascinating! Messy! And valuable insight into the relationship that art has on picture books, as I'll talk about below, in exceedingly long reviews for 30 page volumes.

As usual, my very very favorites are outside of the cut; but The Diggers, while not good, is fascinating.

* read: if I've mixed up any details, it's because oops, and because audio retention is for losers & I already returned the book.


( Home for a Bunny )


Title: The Dead Bird
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Remy Charlip (1958), Christian Robinson (2016)
Published: Harper & Row, 1965; Harper, 2016
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 40, 30
Total Page Count: 506,990
Text Number: 1807-8
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Don't touch dead birds; k cool glad we got that out of the way.

This is phenomenal. The illustrations are kind of whatever for me - Charlip uses a limited (personally unappealing) (I hate blue-greens) color palette and soft, rounded shapes; Robinson's work is more vibrant and the children more diverse. Of the two, I prefer Charlip, in part because the more subdued palette reflects the somber tone, but mostly for the use of negative space: illustrations and text are on alternating spreads, which gives the text an incredible amount of contemplative space. And so in Carlip this is a spread:

"The children were very sorry that the bird was dead and could never fly again. But they were glad they had found it, because now they could dig a grave in the woods and bury it. They could have a funeral and sing to it the way grown-up people did when someone died.

So they took it out to the woods.

And in Robinson, this is three pages of low contrast text over vibrant images.

And the text should have that weight. This is a quiet, honest book about the profound imperfection of grief - grief as celebratory, performative, experimental, as a preparation for later life experiences; grief as profound, communal, healing; grief as material act; grief as "And every day, until they forgot, they went and sang to their little dead bird and put fresh flowers on his grave." It's not didactic but rather reflective, and the space it gives to imperfection really struck me.

When I feel compelled to write more about a picture book than there are words in the picture book, I know I'm going to remember it.


( Little Fur Family )


( The Diggers (two editions) )


Title: Two Little Trains
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Jean Charlot (1949), Leon and Diane Dillon (2001)
Published: William R. Scott, 1949; HarperCollins, 2001
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 30, 30
Total Page Count: 507,210
Text Number: 1814-5
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: The picture book deep dives I've done in the past (Gorey, Sendak, among others) have largely been by author/illustrators, so rarely have I encountered alternate versions of the same text. Reading MWB has taught me how illustrations change a picture book, not just the aesthetic but the tone, emphasis, even interpretation.

Two trains puff puff puff, chug chug chug, to the west. The Dillon frames one as real train and one as a toy, which is a classic real/play parallel that invites the child reader to imagine a stair rail as a mountain. And, as it's Dillon, the art is unsurprisingly solid.

But the (original 1949) Charlot is a different beast entire, a dreamscape of two trains rendered in flat pale colors and loose, fluid lines, the child-conductors napping under a gilded moon and amidst animal cargo on a long, surreal journey west, west, west. Rather than parallelism, repetition, but the use of negative space and direct address in the text ("Look down, look down that long steel track / Where you and I must go") invite the reader aboard.

The Charlot is less concrete and more open, impressionistic, fantastical even, and I'm crazy about it; and, also, by the juxtaposition, because while the Charlot is objectively better, the text taken in two such different directions is insightful and thought-provoking. And there's yet a third (Pizzoli) that I haven't read, and who know how it alters the text.

Title: Mystery of the Witches' Bridge aka The Witch's Bridge
Author: Barbee Oliver Carleton
Published: Scholastic, 1967
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 498,360
Text Number: 1775
Read Because: reviewed by rachelmanija, borrowed from Open Library
Review: An orphaned boy is taken in by his closest living relative, his reclusive uncle, who carries the burden of a local feud that began with a witch trial. This is a fascinating little book. The actual plot is an adequate if unremarkable classic MG adventure story: family secrets, local feuds, a hammy antagonist, and a wealth of tortured miscommunication made bearable by a quiet internal focus which centers the protagonist's frustrated need for friendship and family.

But, line by line, the writing is phenomenal. The setting is ridiculously evocative -

With each step the island, solid and safe, fell behind. The salt marsh gradually became the whole world, half land, half sea, wide and bright and windswept, and threatening.

- and that tone often touches the character work, especially in the darker, moodier sections:

Dan's mind rocked. His uncle believed! In spite of what he had said about superstition, his uncle believed in the witch's curse! The floor beneath Dan's feet became suddenly like the marsh, unsure, tremulous.

It's a pleasure to read, and elevates an otherwise-okay book to something special. The bulk of the reviews of this are from readers who imprinted on this as children, and I can see why it left that mark.


Title: The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Published: Redhook, 2019
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 498,755
Text Number: 1776
Read Because: reviewed by mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The ward of a wealthy collector opens an improbable doorway and begins a journey of discovery into her own past and into portal worlds. I found this mildly annoying and justifying that feels like nitpicking, and probably is, because my prior exposure to Harrow was "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies," which I kind of hated, so I was predisposed to be a grump. But there's legitimate things to be grumpy about!

Same-voice plagues the inset narratives. The writing and themes are twee, and I say this as someone who loves both books-within-books and meta portal fantasy: it's a lot of self-congratulatory rhapsodizing on the power of stories, doctored up with language that tries hard to be poetic but mostly lands on forced. The handling of race, privilege, and social change has a similar vibe: patently well-intended but very talky and not especially nuanced. The antagonist and romances combined overshadow the exploration of portals. It's not bad. It's fine. But I'm a sucker for what this is trying to do, I should have loved it, but mostly I see missed potential.


Title: Goddess of Filth
Author: V. Castro
Narrator: Stacy Gonzalez
Published: Tantor Audio, 2022 (2021)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 155
Total Page Count: 498,910
Text Number: 1777
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Inverting the usual possession narrative, a group of high school grads summon an indigenous female spirit who brings violent transformation to one of their number. The audio narration of this is bad, injecting an overacted quality that amplifies the clumsy elements of the writing. I would have liked this more in print. Irreverent, honest, on-the-nose but still doing interesting things particularly in the intersections of race/colonialism with pop feminism. It's not subtle, and the revenge fantasy elements and antagonist veer towards hot mess. But it's fun, and the dirtier moments of female sexual empowerment and the more restrained elements in the evolving dynamic between possessor/possessed are engaging.

Title: The Hollow Places
Author: T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon)
Published: Gallery / Saga Press, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 373,725
Text Number: 1375
Read Because: fan of the previous book in the "series," ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: While working at her uncle's bizarre local museum, a woman finds something even stranger: a hole in the wall which opens to a bunker which opens to a river dotted by doors and surrounded by willows. This has the DNA of and the lessons learned from The Twisted Ones, to which it's an indirect sequel: an irreverent, relatable protagonist stumbles into a horror plot, but where the previous book has a delightfully terrifying concept which is derailed by an action-heavy plot, this is a slower burn and a longer one. Its hook is fine, but the real pleasure is the sustained, multifaceted exploration of the world and its implications—a little like a thriller, a little like a mystery, surprisingly speculative, but wisely offering hypotheses rather than concrete answers; it's less scary than The Twisted Ones, but has that good weird fiction vibe. The ending sequence still gets a little silly, and there's irreverent-relatable-protagonist moments that don't land well (the references to fandom shipping wars already feel dated)—so, not a perfect book. But I wanted highly engaging horror & I sure did read some highly engaging horror.


Title: Animal Land: Where there are no People
Author: Sybil Corbet
Illustrator: Katherine Corbet
Published: J.M. Dent & Co., 1897
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 373,825
Text Number: 1377
Read Because: saw it come up on Tumblr, read via George A. Smathers Libraries (University of Florida)
Review: Animals conceived by a little girl as illustrated by her mother, and if the premise of wiggly monsters with weird names and abrupt nonsense captions seems like it might be delightful then, good news!, this is. It's whimsical in the sense of pure and sincere childhood nonsense; the art is delightfully bizarre and the captions are even better; there's an extensive but equally nonsense/sincere introduction by Andrew Lang.

And eminently relatable: "The Burkan: A nasty biting Thing. Theres none more about it"


Title: Knights of Sidonia vols 1-8
Author: Tsutomu Nihei
Published: Vertical, 2013-2014 (2009-2012)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 1500 (192+192+184+184+184+184+176+200)
Total Page Count: 375,325
Text Number: 1378-85
Read Because: fan of the anime, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: In the distant future, a savant mech pilot is pulled from obscurity to save a generation ship in its war against a massive, consuming alien force. DNF at volume 8 of 15, which I did not expect. I love the anime! But it's a pretty faithful adaptation with the added benefit of significantly more legible action sequences (Nihei is good at sense of scale and abysmal at action), and the slapstick and fanservice feel more obnoxious in the manga. I'm not sure if this is because they're given more space or just that I'm overlooking them in my memories of the anime; but, however thematically appropriate they are for the specific wish-fulfilment/butt-monkey role of the protagonist, it doesn't suit the tone and doesn't make them less annoying. So I'll stick with my fond memories of the anime, but I can't be bothered to finish the manga despite that I was hoping to gain insight from details which were changed/omitted in adaptation.

Title: Tamsin
Author: Peter S. Beagle
Published: ROC, 1999
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 370,105
Text Number: 1359
Read Because: fan of the author, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: When her mother remarries, a 13-year-old girl moves from Manhattan to a derelict English farm haunted by a young woman from the Bloody Assizes. This is a hidden gem from Beagle and it reminds me a lot of Dianna Wynne Jones. The protagonist writes as a young adult reflecting back on her adolescence, cringing at herself but so honest about the fundamental unfairness of being a teenage girl; it's a ridiculously immersive and authentic PoV. The setting is rich in domestic detail, and the depiction of a cultural Jew in a mixed-faith family gave me such fellow-feeling.* And then it grows exuberant with British history and folklore, the protagonist madly in love with her flickering, striking young ghost, the Wild Hunt screaming through the sky.

It's not a perfect book, and there are moments when the craft is too transparent, particularly in the tension-building but more unfortunately in the emotional resolution; occasionally it tries to force a lucent emotional resonance more suited for The Last Unicorn rather than being content with the humble, sympathetic emotions of its native scope. But it's incredible fun, likeable and magical and gleefully open to queer readings. This book has been on my TBR for an age, and I love how it feels to finally get to a book and find it totally worth the wait.


* Here's the bit that made me cry twice, first when reading it late at night, again when reading it aloud to my partner.

( Julian wanted to know how the menorah worked... )

Well yes, I am catching up on spooky-season reviews, however did you notice.


Title: Goth
Author: Otsuichi
Illustrator: Kenji Oiwa
Published: TokyoPop, 2000 (2003)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 220
Total Page Count: 347,520
Text Number: 1256
Read Because: reread ad infinitum
Review: Two strange high school students meet over their shared fascination with a local murderer. This is a successful adaptation of one of my most favorite narratives, and an effective introduction to same (once upon a time, it was mine). The manga trims supporting elements and condenses some of the plots to focus on the protagonist's feelings towards Morino (and the art doubles down, making the viewer participate in the view of Morino as potential victim). It simplifies and exaggerates but, as a result, intensifies, a focused study of one of the most engaging elements. The art is clean, almost cold, affect-less portraits set against natural details and moments of stunning, detailed gore.


Title: The Werewolf of Paris
Author: Guy Endore
Published: 1933
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 265
Total Page Count: 347,785
Text Number: 1257
Read Because: werewolves!
Review: Homo homini lupus, indeed. This begins as a black humor buildingsroman following a boy whose fevered dreams may mean he is in fact becoming a murderous wolf, then expands into something larger and more bitter, a contemplation of humanity's persistent awfulness in the form of war. The werewolf is simultaneously emblematic and inconsequential: man is a wolf to man, and against that can one wolfman's dozen murders truly matter? It's a great thesis--which doesn't really improve the text's weaker elements, like the concept of inherited evil/nature vs. nurture, a touchy subject unsatisfactorily explored, or the fact that the intricacies of the Franco-Prussian war don't make for great reading; but these flaws are balanced by unexpectedly powerful, id-grabbing elements, particularly insights into the werewolf's self-concept and his intense, violent romance. A fascinating read, especially for werewolf fanatics, although its takeaways on the trope now feel a little on the nose.

There was something compelling in his eyes. Something of that strange compulsion of an abyss. That invitation of the void, of great heights: Come, cast yourself down. Just let yourself go. How do you know it isn't sweeter than anything you have ever imagined or experienced in life? Why do you fear? Why do you fear what you do not know as yet? Come! Come!

Oh! the opium-sweet attraction of death!

(Guy Endore was Jewish! Which is a fact I not-infrequently stumble upon now that I'm tracking more author demographics.)


Title: Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire
Editor: Amber Dawn
Published: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 347,975
Text Number: 1258
Read Because: appears on numerous spooky queer recommendations lists, ebook borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Erotic horror by, for, and focusing on queer women is a phenomenal concept. It inspires/collects pieces which are carnal and strange--like the opening story, Milks' "Slug," which commits entirely to its title; like the editor's penultimate "Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver," with a rich queer history and remarkable central tableau. (Other particular favorites: Evans' "In Circles" has a dynamic which speaks directly to my id; Barnes's "Shark" has a convincing sense of place and home. Also Lamm's "Conspiracy of Fuckers" and Bach's "All You Can Be.") Boundaries like erotic/terrifying, fetish/fear, and consent are fluid and broken. The existence of the anthology in itself is invigorating, captivating, and bumps up my rating. But as in all anthologies, quality varies, and this particular theme and selection of indie authors exacerbates that. The tone can err didactic and bingo-y; all the poetry was a miss for me, and some pieces are on-theme but in hammy or unremarkable ways.

These bind-ups still aren't as ideal a reading experience as individually printed books, and I'm sad that some of my favorites—particularly The Nursery Frieze—have never been reprinted as standalone volumes, because I'd love to own them.

But that Gorey self-published these slight little books & thus afforded himself room for creativity and experimentation and his distinctive niche grim humor, and that we nonetheless retain easy access to them despite the rarity/cost of first editions, and that reading his work in collection encourages a deep-dive into his work, his themes, how books interact with one another—all of these things are gifts. I wish that the collections were strictly chronological because it would help build that knowledge of his body of work, but honestly the arrangements are fine.

As usual, my most favorites/the most remarkable are outside the cut.


Title: The Beastly Baby
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1962)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 341,710
Text Number: 1213
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: This opens the Amphigorey Too collection, and it's the best way to dive back into Gorey. Gorey sometimes punches down, and he certainly leans into ableist tropes here; but this is so wholeheartedly off-color that it can't but be delightful. The thwarted baby-imperilments are fantastic, and have a well-rounded, giddy spite.


Title: The Nursery Frieze
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1964)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 341,740
Text Number: 1214
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: almost wish this were in alphabetical order, to better sell the conceit and because it if were it would perfectly mimic the "list unusual or tasty words" game that I play to soothe myself to sleep. But I'm still giving this five stars, as it's one of those Goreys I'd like to own and reread ad infinitum. The words selected are often so peculiar as to feel invented; the vaguely-unsettled beasts blob along in deceptive repetition; it throws a banal premise delightfully off-kilter, and I adore it.

1) This blurb/writeup from Dan Koster is so good, particularly "By putting the words in speech bubbles, Gorey encourages the reader to pronounce the words aloud or silently too themselves, savoring their strange syllables."

2) Comments here suggest the beast are capybara; I enjoy and agree.

3) The words are so good, so—as above—fun to say, and I legit thought half of them were invented. Words preserved below, although it's only half-realized without the illustrations. This post contains definitions.

( Archipelago, cardamon, oblouiquy... )

4) Some words are capitalized, for reasons I can't figure (although a few are proper nouns)—probably because they're more pleasing that way.(There's no hidden code in the capitalization and/or letters in the landscape, near as I can find, because I did look.)


( The Pious Infant )


Title: The Evil Garden
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1966)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 341,770
Text Number: 1215
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The art here is sparser than Gorey's usual, with thin illustrations on white progressing to inky black panels. The structure and tone is familiar, a vaguely-period banality meeting the bizarre and morbid. It's not-unpleasantly samey—samey, that is, within in the context of Gorey, who is a reliable delight. And sometimes what makes a particular Gorey work is just that it appeals to one's personal aesthetic, and I sure am a sucker for an overgrown and weirdly malicious garden.


( The Inanimate Tragedy )


( The Gilded Bat )


Title: The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1969)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 341,950
Text Number: 1220
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The exaggerated horizontal panels lean into the atmosphere of stretching, inexorable loneliness; Gorey's uniquely pointless titles (titles which, in such a short piece, carry a lot of weight) create an appropriate sense of anticlimax. It's an effective, atmospheric little package: lonely, wintery, absurd, quaint—very Gorey, but the particular setting and stylistic experiments, like the inset circular vignettes, make it stand out within his work.


( The Chinese Obelisks )


Title: The Deranged Cousins
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1971)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 342,860
Text Number: 1225
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I'm trash for a The Secret History-esque "insular group of ne'er-do-wells destroyed from within by their own bombastic flaws" premise and Gorey's take on it a delight: the off-kilter, detailed inkwork sells the decrepit atmosphere; the indulgent melancholy is balanced by Gorey's ever-ready wry humor; it's theatric and critical, romantic and tragic, and profoundly silly. Insofar as Gorey's consistent, distinctive style means that specific works stand out just because their gimmicks appeal to the individual reader, this one could have been written just for me & I appreciate the gift.


Title: The Eleventh Episode
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1971)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 342,860
Text Number: 1225
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review:I prefer it when Gorey's series of unfortunate events have a tight focus, as this does—it grounds, or at least contains, the nonsense elements and nails the tragic:comic balance. This has a lovely gothic atmosphere, pleasantly melancholic and sometimes dreamlike, and one of my favorite endings: "'Life is distracting and uncertain,' she said and went to draw the curtain"—pointless and profound.


( The Untitled Book )


( The Lavender Leotard; or, Going a Lot to the New York City Ballet )


Title: The Disrespectful Summons
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1971)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 15
Total Page Count: 342,920
Text Number: 1228
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Gorey does Lolly Willowes: a sudden dance with the devil means a woman has no choice but to curdle milk and read from Ninety-two Entirely Evil Things to Do before she's swept away to hell. The period-appropriate caricature of feminine respectability applied to witch clichés falls squarely within Gorey's stylistic wheelhouse and has an understated feminist vibe—without the autonomy of, again, Lolly Willowes, but Gorey's take on "well, I suppose I have to be evil now" is deceptively bland and enviously fun. Delightful; I want to read Ninety-two Entirely Evil Things to Do; this isn't perfect, but it's one of my favorite Goreys.


( The Abandoned Sock )


( The Lost Lions )


Title: Story for Sara: What Happened to a Little Girl
Author: Edward Gorey, Alphone Allais
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1971)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30 [I'm guessing, can't find details on original publication & have since returned by reprint and can't count panels]
Total Page Count: 343,010
Text Number: 1231
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Apparently a translation and illustration of a poem by Alphonse Allais, who I've never read. But it's a natural fit for Gorey, who does great work both with apparently-imperiled-but-actually-evil children and with series of unfortunate event narratives, and this combines both to fun effect. Delightfully vicious, with a sweet zinger.


Title: Salt Herring
Author: Edward Gorey, Charles Cros, Alphonse Allais
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1971)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 343,060
Text Number: 1232
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Credited to Charlos Cros and Alphonse Allais, this piece has a storied history. Regardless, it's a natural fit to Gorey. Some of his work is so simple as to feel slight; this takes that and points it, a nonsense work for the sake of nonsense, with appropriately off-kilter panels that rotate orientation halfway through. Delightful!


Title: Leaves from a Mislaid Album
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Perigree, 1975 (1972)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: ~20, guessing again
Total Page Count: 343,080
Text Number: 1233
Read Because: reading the author, paperback bind-up borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Like The West Wing, this is a wordless work given context only by the title. The West Wing is better—its mysterious interiors invite investigation, so their haunting atmosphere really lingers. These are portraits, and perforce more explicable; the atmosphere is instead tropey and ominous, with shadow-faced figures and eyelines leading out of frame. But the overall effect is successful, especially in collection with other Gorey—his works are short, so every word matters; and in their absence, every detail of the inkwork is precious. (Also, the Doubtful Guest is there!)


( A Limerick )

Title: The Crime of the Century: The Leopold and Loeb Case (aka Leopold and Loeb: The Crime of the Century)
Author: Hal Higdon
Published: Putnam, 1975
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 321,085
Text Number: 1128
Read Because: reviewed by truepenny, borrowed from Open Library
Review: This has a slow start and a sometimes-tedious level of detail, but more importantly it fails to establish why, in the sea of crime of 1920s Chicago, this case caught public attention before perpetrators or motive were established, and also who Loeb and Leopold were—their similar backgrounds and names, combined with their close relationships and co-conspiracy, made them a single unit within their social circle and in the press, and they're similarly hard to distinguish until the second half of the book.

But this confusion is almost a benefit, and it may even be inevitable. The case is notable for numerous reasons (including the defense's criticism of capital punishment as punitive, rather than transformative, justice), but it's interesting for its lack of motive, and for the extensive psychiatric testimony that tried to answer why two gifted young men would murder without motive. Those psychological profiles (by professionals and the press) are overreaching and biased by bankrolls or even by patient/psychologist rapport, they elide or confuse the perpetrators. The question emerges: can a person be synopsized and known in this way? can their mind be picked out from the morass of affect and infamy? And to some degree, the answer still is yes: throughout the case, and in Leopold's autobiography written decades later, a codependency emerges. The book quotes Dr. Hulbert's testimony:

"Each boy felt inadequate to carry out the life he most desired unless he had someone else in his life to complement him, to complete him. Unless these two boys had the same constitution, which they had, unless those boys had their own individual experiences in life, the present crime could never have been committed. The psychiatric cause for this is not to be found in either boy alone, but in the interplay or interweaving of their two personalities, their two desires caused by their two constitutions and experiences. This friendship between the two boys was not altogether a pleasant one for either of them. The ideas that each proposed to the other were repulsive. Their friendship was not based so much on desire as on need, they being what they were. Loeb did not crave the companionship of Leopold, nor did he respect him thoroughly. But he did feel the need of someone else in his life. Leopold did not like the faults, the criminalism of Loeb, but he did need someone in his life to carry out this king-slave compulsion. Their judgement in both cases was not mature enough to show them the importance of trying to live their own lives."

So if the book is sometimes graceless, it's also thorough, thoughtful, and balanced. It has a well-rounded view of the central figures, and the nuanced conclusions it makes about the question of motive (and identity, personality, and relationship) are fascinating.


Title: We Who Are About To...
Author: Joanna Russ
Published: Open Road, 2018 (1976)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 155
Total Page Count: 321,240
Text Number: 1129
Read Because: reading the author, borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A small group finds themselves stranded on an alien planet after an emergency landing, and the protagonist sees no outcome but death. This barren, lonely premise subverts the golden age SF trope of impossibly populated/accommodating alien planets—a premise which is now outdated, so the subversion has become less notable. But it's still comparably unalleviated: the protagonist's relationship with death and her long struggle to die hang over the work from its first line; it lengthens a short novel and alters the narrative voice in creative ways. The rest of this is less remarkable, with a near-future which, ironically, now feels outdated in golden age SF ways, and with social devolution to sexualized violence which isn't a caricature but does have a familiar, depressing predictability.


Title: Hexarchate Stories
Author: Yoon Ha Lee
Published: Solaris, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 321,575
Text Number: 1130
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is the first collection I've read that contains flash fiction, and it just doesn't work for me: despite interesting premises or worldbuilding tidbits, they can't but be insubstantial they're so brief that attempts at meaningful endings often wind up hackneyed. The saving grace is of course the longer pieces, all of which I like—particularly "Gloves" (not necessarily for being better, but for appealing to my id), "Battle of Candle Arc" (which doesn't, in retrospect, add a lot to the book series; but as something that was published first, it's intriguing and satisfying), and most notably Glass Cannon, a novella that follows up the book series. Like the flash fiction, the novella's ending makes a clumsy attempt to do much and be too profound, but it's fascinating how the character dynamics and particularly the speculative elements of the worldbuilding are distilled and intensified in short form—it's a compelling follow-up.

( Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 1 )


( Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 2 )


( Moominland Midwinter (The Moomins Book 6) )


( Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 3 )

And reader, I did then give up on the comics.


Title: Tales from Moominvalley (The Moomins Book 7)
Author: Tove Jansson
Translator: Thomas Warburton
Published: Square Fish, 2010 (1962)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 333,915
Text Number: 1212
Read Because: reading the series, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Nine stories. Short fiction provides an opportunity to view lesser-seen aspects of characters (Snufkin's hidden depths are always a delight, particularly the view into his relationship with Moomintroll in "The Spring Tune") and build one-off arcs and characters. Most stories have distinct lessons, but the moralizing is lampshaded (as in "Cedric") and has new and mollifying tone: a cynicism that caveats the hopeful endings but also makes them more valuable. The Moomin cast are frequently at odds with social expectation, they're awkward or yearning; but this sense of discontent is different and feels more mature. It makes for stories like "The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters," raw and cathartic and bitter and joyful, which I loved. And while short fiction collections always vary in quality, the bits of tone that don't work for me are contained to a single story rather than compromising an otherwise-strong work, which is an issue I've had in the novels. This is probably my favorite of the Moomin books thus far, which I wouldn't've expected of a short story collection, but I guess it's no surprise that I prefer my whimsy with a side of bitterness/sadness.


( Moominpapa at Sea (The Moomins Book 8) )


Title: Moominvalley in November (The Moomins Book 9)
Author: Tove Jansson
Translator: Kingsley Hart
Published: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003 (1970)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 180
Total Page Count: 315,305
Text Number: 1088
Read Because: reading the series, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The last two books in this series are functionally a duo. The friends who were notably absent in Moominpappa at Sea now come to visit the abandoned Moomin home. This book is more satisfying, both because it benefits from its relation to the previous book and because it has a better balanced tone: the plot moves faster, the book is shorter, and so the subdued and melancholy atmosphere is balanced against the character arcs; it feels like the fantastic short story collection. But it's also a weird place to end the series, and I wish the last two books could have somehow been combined into a single volume or arc.

Insofar as a review of the final book is a review of the series entire: The Moomin series was never quite what I wanted it to be. Often too silly, sometimes weirdly sad, there was always something in the way of my ability to fully enjoy the quirky, bumbling cast and the evocative/fantastic elements. I think that could have been remedied had I encountered the series as a child, when I would have been more receptive to the humor and more likely to latch on to the magic. But even if my adult reading experience was flawed, the cumulative effect is memorable, often because of things I've seen as flaws. The shifting tone, the kitchen sink approach to plot structure, all are distinctive; it's playful and childlike and kind, but has an adult's insight that I imagine ages remarkably well. I can see why these are beloved of so many, and wish I'd been a better audience, but it was still time well spent.

I reread some of my favorite stories in the world and, defying every expectation, actually wrote reviews of them this time. Bad things are easy to talk about, good things are challenging to talk about, best-beloved things are all but impossible to talk about—because those elements which make them superlative tend to be something other-than-technical, like web of relationships in Fate/Zero, like the piercing grief in The Crow, it's a narrative/thematic element unique to the work, difficult to describe without the work ... or, apparently, without three paragraphs. But I'm trying not to worry about editing myself down when I have that much to say, mostly for time/sanity, but also because my experience with these works I love best is larger & has its own internal narrative.


Title: Fate/Zero
Author: Gen Urobuchi
Illustrator: Takashi Takeuchi
Published: 2006-2007
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 1620
Total Page Count: 334,950
Text Number: 1214-1217
Read Because: personal enjoyment
Review: A war for possession of the wish-granting grail draws seven competing teams to Japan. This is my second time reading the books and my fourth-and-a-half time with the story, and that certainly says something about me but I hope it also says something about Fate/Zero. This is a story where, against all the odds, the serial killer self-actualizing with the help of his monsterbuddy isn't my favorite bit; my favorite is the complex, fractal web of motives and relationships that grows around the dichotomy between the central characters—it reaches deep into the plot and as distant as minor supporting characters, it's complicated and provoking and offers me more with each revisit.

The joy of the books in particular is that this medium allows for interior glimpses which aren't possible in the anime. I love Ryuunosuke's final scene, but even more distinctive is that Kirei is framed more as protagonist than antagonist, despite that Kiritsugu ostensibly occupies that role. His early characterization is surprising vulnerable, his relationship with Gilgamesh more intimate, his moments of revelation dynamic and central both to the climax and the setup for Fate/stay night.

All this despite that I'm so familiar now with the narrative that the amount of space given to worldbuilding and game rules is oppressive and slows the first half of the story, and despite that there's no official translation and the existing English fan translation is incredibly clunky. This isn't a perfect story and for non-Japanese readers this isn't the perfect way to access it, but I love it anyway—I love it profoundly.


Title: Fate/Zero: Heart of Freaks
Author: Gen Urobuchi
Published: 2008
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 334,565
Text Number: 1218
Read Because: personal enjoyment
Review: Kiritsugu and Natalia track down a rogue mage. This is interesting as a glimpse into their relationship, which appears only briefly in the series—it's a complicated relationship and this refuses to resolve that, instead indicating longterm distrust/differing motives that speak to their characters and Kiritsugu's larger arc. The villain has great body horror, but the general plot and pacing is unremarkable; if it weren't tied to Fate/Zero, this would be largely forgettable.


Title: The Crow
Author: James O'Barr
Published: Kitchen Sink Press, 1993 (1989)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 335,425
Text Number: 1220
Read Because: rewatched the film on Halloween, paperback from my personal library
Review: After he and his girlfriend are murdered, a man returns to exact revenge. Approaching the original comic when familiar with the film adaptation can feel like a disappointment: there's less narrative here and the structure is more disjointed. Mostly this is a sign of a strong adaptation, because the film manages to take a slew of elements and build them into a more coherent structure—sometimes seen slantwise, sometimes a direct page-to-screen translation—while including a dozen easter eggs that reference scenes in the comic which aren't included in the film.

But the comic isn't just the same story, unrefined. The comic and film share an aesthetic but the comic is messier, more chaotic, unrelenting in harsh black and white. The tone is crazed, littered with non sequiturs and quotations, rich with introspective moments that explore Eric's unresolved grief. The lack of structure is a thematic echo: the Crow's violence is perpetuating and destructive—like the film it has catharsis, but it offers so little resolution. These two versions are for me inextricable. O'Barr said in an interview:

Basically, when I was 18, my fiancé was killed by a drunk driver. I was really hurt, frustrated, and angry. I thought that by putting some of this anger and hate down on paper that I could purge it from my system. But, in fact, all I was doing was intensifying it—I was focusing on all this negativity. As I worked on it, things just got worse and worse, darker and darker. So, it really didn't have the desired effect—I was probably more fucked up afterwards than before I started. It was only after becoming friends with Brandon, experiencing his death, and seeing the film—perhaps 17 times now—that I finally reached what is currently called "closure" while visiting his grave in Seattle.

and the comic and film reflect this. The comic is painful and unfulfilling; it's less successful as a stand-alone work, but the film couldn't exist—or say so much—without its predecessor and without the cumulative interplay between the versions, and the metaknowledge of O'Barr and of Brandon Lee. I love both versions; the comic is less fun to revisit, but it always gives me a deeper appreciation of the work entire.