Book Reviews In Brief: Palahniuk; Murakami; Dr. Strange

Rant, Chuck Palahniuk.

Palahniuk definitely has a penchant for some graphic and graphically disturbing writing– not unlike a Paul Verhoeven of print. Rant is no exception. It explores familiar themes (for this author) of megalomania, urban distrust and unrest, and the dual beauty and grotesqueness of the life as a human, through spider bites, car wrecks and a touch of the fantastic. As you read this book, you will learn new things, about disease, about psychology, about cars, and about the nature of time itself.

They say magic happens at borders– at bayshores, in doorways, in the twilight hours…

Rant was an enjoyable read for me, more engrossing than his last full novel, Diary, and just ultimately an interesting story.

After Dark, Haruki Murakami

A solid and swift entry by a great writer, who often uses shades of fantasy to color his deeply introspective novels. One might liken a Murakami work such as Hard-Boiled Wonderland to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in that respect. Nothing quite so grand here in After Dark, but it is a modest, thoughtful, and interesting read.

Dr. Strange: The Oath

I don’t get down to the comic store as often as I used to, but when I was younger, the character of Dr. Strange always allured me. “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” on the Wii? Yeah, that’s Doc on my team.(Northwest Avengers Assemble!) I almost picked up these comics individually, but I was glad to see that they put the story in one graphic novel, because the they didn’t have issue #1.

The Oath is just awesome. It is just clichéd enough to be the Dr. Strange you love, even to the verge of self-mockery at parts, but the story is novel and engrossing, with characterization built off of more than repeated one-liners. If you were ever a fan, pick this one up.

2 comments June 7th, 2007

Rogue Is Interesting Again

Between the unflattering picture of Anna Paquin I ran across earlier today and the latest issue of X-Men (#199), I’ve had Rogue on the mind today.

Now, I have probably done a lot more reading about comics in the last couple of years than I have actually reading comics, mostly via the highly entertaining dave’s long box and, recently this obsessively long multi-part Hobgoblin essay. But in that time, I’ve mostly kept current on X-Men and Uncanny, which have generally been good, but not, perhaps, interesting.

Rogue, in particular, started out as this very interesting, mysterious character. A thief and a villain who robbed people of their powers, if they had any– an evil Peter Petrelli, if you will– and who came over to help the X-Men. This only added to the misfit element of the X-Men, and that was all well and good, but then Gambit happened, and Rogue turned into a boring character good for the occassional ongoing angst and hitting people with telephone poles, but really nothing more.

Now, however, Gambit is gone for whatever convenient reason, Rogue is defying the government watchdog groups monitoring the X-Men, and she’s leading a proper team of misfits, with a robot, some criminals, Iceman, Cable, Cannonball, and her mom. That’s what I call a good start!

One of the things that I really like seeing in comics is people exploring their powers and using them in novel ways. So when, in this latest issue, Rogue gets psychically urged back from the brink of death, her absorption power amplified, and the absorbs the minds of billions of people and turns into a mind-sucking mutant vampire, a modern-day illithid, well, that is very interesting to me. A really good issue, and of course I totally dig Chris Bachalo’s artwork, even when his art feels a bit rushed it always looks amazing.

Add comment May 25th, 2007