Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine
The title of this collection of stories by New Yorker artist Adrian Tomine is a reference to the last entry of the anthology in which an awkward teenage girl takes a stab at stand-up comedy (in comedian parlance 'killing' refers to the jokes that hit their mark, and 'dying' to the ones that don't). Tomine stretches the definition of a graphic novel here by experimenting with story length to essay his way through the lives of the mediocre and not-quite-marginalised, presenting the reader with six separate tales of unfulfilled dreams and painful pathos. The result is something profound and almost undefinable; with finely observed illustration adding depth where dialogue simply cannot.
Southern Bastards Volumes 1-3 by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour
I don't claim to be an aficionado of the admittedly obscure genre of 'rural noir' but what I know of it (Winter's Bone, No Country for Old Men, Deliverance, Frailty) I like. Southern Bastards is a relatively new series from Image comics that continues Image's incredible track record for pushing the envelope in the medium in terms of genre and narrative. Spanning two generations of small-town life, Southern Bastards revolves around Euless Boss, a very successful high school football coach who rules the southern town of Craw County, Alabama, with a BBQ-rib-sauce-stained fist. A perfect example of a story where setting is key, Southern Bastards seems deep-fried in all the worst that southern Americana has to offer. Absolutely mesmerising.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
I can't think of the last time I read a book so self-aware, so accusatory yet confident, and so relentlessly sharp. The Sellout is a modern satire on race relations in America that deftly explores the following scenario: if segregation has been outlawed in America then why does it still exist in all but name? From the central conceit of a young black man bringing black slavery back, to the carefully-constructed setting and hilariously droll and exaggerated characters that simultaneously manage to both exploit and subvert a whole slew of ripe stereotypes, The Sellout is (so far) the book of the century. A must-read.
Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut
As you may or may not have noticed from the name of this blog, Kurt Vonnegut is my favourite author. Bagombo Snuff Box was the last short story collection published by Vonnegut while he was still alive, and collects together the majority of his remaining unpublished work (mostly short stories from the 1950s that were published in a variety of magazines and newspapers). If this were a lesser author then you would say that this was the 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' volume but as it's Vonnegut even his worst is still better than most. Highlights include: '2 B R 0 2 B' (a vision of the future in which ageing has been cured) and 'A Present for Big Saint Nick' (a darkly hilarious mash-up of Chicago gangsters and Santa Claus-wannabes).
People's China by Craig Dietrich
You're going to see a few Chinese history titles here as I went on a bit of China-binge during the recent summer break. This particular title gives a great overview of the Cultural Revolution and the events leading into and out of it, and I would recommend it as a strong entry point for anyone wanting to know more about these events - especially considering that People's China was written in 1986, making it an invaluable pre-Tiananmen Square Incident text.
Deng Xiaoping by Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine
This recent biography of Deng Xiaoping promises to present the most objective depiction of Chairman Mao's most influential successor, eschewing both right wing and left wing interpretations of the 'great reformer' in order to present a more centrist and multi-faceted view. Most interestingly, the author asks the reader not to view Deng as the antithesis of Mao in any way. Deng did take a less despotic approach to leadership than his predecessor, however, there are also examples of Mao actually reigning in Deng's more murderous actions back in the 1950s - belying the idea that Deng Xiaoping was automatically the antidote to all the insanity that Mao had wreaked on China during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
China Without Mao by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu
Of all the books I read on China, China Without Mao was the only one written by a Chinese historian (albeit one who was an ex-patriot). Having been written less than 10 years after Mao's death, this history is one that defines itself somewhat immediately in terms of how communist-China has developed in Mao's absence - covering the fallout of the Cultural Revolution, the murmurings of democratic rebellion among intellectuals in the late 1970s, and conservative Deng Xiaoping's often contradictory drive to modernise China. The edition I read also has (a much-needed) postscript in which Hsu dissects the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident and what it means to China.
The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikotter
Frank Dikotter reconstructs China's most problematic area of history through the stories of the people who lived it, providing a balanced and up-to-date account of the chaotic politics that fueled an astonishing series of events. I found this particular history book quite invaluable in my researching of modern Chinese history, being as it zeroes in on Mao's revolution quite definitively whilst also providing some much needed context on the contributing factors and wide-reaching consequences.
Mao's China and After by Maurice Meisner
Meisner's history was written in 1977. This means, from a historian's perspective, it's a useful view of what people were thinking about the Cultural Revolution right as it had gasped its dying breath. Meisner has the view of a Westerner but nonetheless includes more than sufficient levels of detail and research to give his text the ring of authenticity.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
This book blew my mind. Gladwell launches a paradigm-shifting study of success and how we understand it (or, more accurately, don't understand it). Of most significance is Gladwell's belief that success is all about opportunity rather than inherent greatness, something that he exhaustively sets about proving with a wide-ranging study of everything from hockey teams and Asian mathematicians to game show winners and feuding hillbillies. Gladwell is so comprehensive and illuminating in his writing and research that I think just about anyone who read this would be hard-pressed to not believe in his vision of success. It also helps that Gladwell's thesis is supported by the essential idea that the key to success is simply hard work (he writes extensively on the
10 000 hour rule here), which eschews all the quick fixes and god-given perspectives of effectiveness that most people would prefer to believe in.
It's hard for me to offer a critique of Clementine Ford's feminist call-to-arms without feeling like I'm somehow slipping into a criticism that reflects the inherently patriarchal nature of our society. I know that, in light of the 2010s resurgence in feminism and anti-feminism, talk of patriarchal structures can come off as sounding satirical but, honestly, Ford does such a great job of exploring the language and inherent biases purveyed by Australian and online communities that it's hard not to feel convinced. And even if you're put off by the idea of someone angrily tearing apart misogynist ideologies, there's still a lot of other stuff in
Fight Like a Girl worth recommending. It's easy to latch onto the more controversial aspects of Ford's essays at the expense of recognising how genuinely funny she is, and how closely she shears to the bones of her own story in the most personal of ways.
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell
Nate Powell has grown in stature of late as one of
the pre-eminent names in graphic novel auteurship, and
Swallow Me Whole is worth checking out as one of his earlier standout pieces. Part coming-of-age, part exploration of serious mental illness; Powell's exploration of a young woman's descent into schizophrenia is symbolically unsettling and somewhat bittersweet. It's also a masterclass in the use of the unique nature of the graphic novel to convey a narrative, with Powell ditching the use of dialogue at key points to profoundly immerse the reader in his protagonist's world.
Paper Girls Volumes 1-2 by Brian K. Vaughan
Paper Girls does for comics what
Super 8 did for film and
Stranger Things did for TV: revisit the zeitgeist of Spielbergian pre-teen adventure in order to effectively mine the collective nostalgia of so many genre fans who grew up in the 1980s. Brian K. Vaughan is already known for two massive sci-fi comic hits -
Y The Last Man and
Saga - and with
Paper Girls he confidently goes three-for-three. It's probably safe to say that
Paper Girls somehow trumps the weirdness of those other two series whilst paradoxically remaining more grounded through the use of a specific time period. It also helps that the effortlessly engaging narrative and well-drawn characters are perfectly complimented by the luridly apt blue-and-pink colour palette.
East of West Volumes 1-2 by Jonathan Hickman
What have I been doing without this comic series? It took a little while for me to warm to the blatantly mythic elements that scream 'epic showdown' right from the opening panels but I learned that in order to come to grips with Hickman's ambitious alternative-history I just had to go with it. This fantasy/sci-fi dystopia is almost overwhelming in its inventiveness. Native American shape-shifters that stalk the wastelands of a westernpunk America would be enough to fuel an exciting and original series all on its own, however, when teamed up with a futuristic and blood-soaked Maoist San Francisco, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and numerous other bold additions to a version of America that never quite broke free of the 19th century, the result is startling and hard to shake from the imagination. A great title that shows what a gifted storyteller can do with the medium of the comic.
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville's bestselling historical novel is wonderfully evocative and carefully constructed, piecing together convict and settler histories of Sydney and the defiant remnants of an Indigenous culture that may never recover from the wrongs visited upon them in the last 220 years. The Secret River is the story of the Hawksbury River, and the uneasy meeting between emancipated convicts and the Dharug people that took place in the early years of Australia's settlement by the British. Grenville employs a a style of prose at once both immediate and distant, suggesting a certain sense of empathy but also reminding the reader that what they're 'witnessing' is a representation of actual history. I got a lot out of this book - it's incredibly well-written and rings true.
Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
This anecdotal collection of memoirs explores the sexual politics of being a woman in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, and is set 'within' the main narrative of Satrapi's more famous work
Persepolis. It's a rather brisk graphic novella that uses a traditional female-centric social gathering as a jumping off point for a range of interesting stories that subvert the way the West stereotypically sees Muslim women. Fans of
Persepolis will enjoy Satrapi's patented combination of the hidden history of Iran and irreverent humour.
Criminal: Coward by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Leo is a professional criminal who has made his name for two very specific reasons: he's an excellent thief, and his strict adherence to a code of 'cowardice' ensures that he always lives to steal another day. This excellent, stand-alone noir comic has all the familiar tropes and hallmarks of the crime genre without feeling tired or cliched. Brubaker and Philips deftly control their exploration of generic conventions in a way that allows Leo's story to feel simultaneously pulpish, hard-boiled, and authentic. I was hooked from beginning to end.
The Salty River by Jan Bauer
This graphic novel memoir tells the story of a German backpacker's journey of love and self-discovery in the Australian outback. The content feels a bit slim at times but Bauer's artwork is often beautiful and well-observed, and he does a good job of capturing the emptiness and yearning of Australia's often haunting environment.
DMZ Volumes 5-12 by Brian Wood
Brian Wood's dystopian opus of an imagined Second American Civil War was something I previously touched on
here. In the rest of the series, Wood explores his ideas with the kind of political depth usually reserved for academic journals and classics of literature, yet he manages to do it in the comic book form with almost casual aplomb. Essaying a complex cast of characters with a similarly deft quality that made TV's
The Wire such an endurable intellectual classic of corruption,
DMZ charts the journey of journalist Matty Roth as he lives, breathes, and kills his way through the disturbing no man's land of Manhattan that sits between the military complex of the United States of America and the insurgent Free States who have risen up as a domestic response to post-9/11 interference in the affairs of the rest of the world. A true 21st century literary classic.
There was something delightfully dotty and twisted that appealed to my sensibilities when I read the high concept blurb on the back of this J.G. Ballard novel. Concerning a modern-day Robinson Crusoe who finds himself stranded on the 'concrete island' between highways after a car accident, this novella mixes satire, the speculative nature of dystopian fiction, and survivalist adventure. In other terms, Concrete Island concerns itself with a high flying company executive who must come to terms with facing the rest of his life trapped in the worst corner one could ever hope to inhabit in the primordial urban sprawl of the increasingly emergent capitalist world of 1970s London. This is the second Ballard I've read but it's already clear to me that he has his whole own thing going on in speculative fiction, and I'll definitely be reading more of his stuff in the near future.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith is so prolific that, despite only being published in the last 20 years, he has already written 100 novels. It's safe to say that his most famous creation is Mme Precious Ramotswe, the owner of the one-woman Batswana detective agency of the title. This episodic novel eschews the kind of intricate and highly involved plot that one might expect from the crime genre in favour of focusing instead of Mme Ramotswe herself as she charmingly finger-wags her way through a series adventures amidst a variety of colourful characters in post-colonial Southern Africa. McCall Smith's transportation of Agatha Christie-like tropes into an exotic locale breeds a hybrid that stands so confidently on its own two African feet that it's very easy indeed to see how Mme Ramotswe went on to star in at least 16 more novels.
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro
Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro meticulously and miraculously constructs Elizabethan England in reference to the Bard's life, creating a tour de force of historical context behind perhaps the most significant year of Shakespeare's life. In the year of 1599, Shakespeare's creative talents exploded with four of his most famous plays - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet - and Shapiro does an astounding job of exploring the conditions that could have birthed such an unprecedented imaginative output. An absolute must for anyone teaching Hamlet, and a text that is grist as much for the History student's mill as it is for those who study English.
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
This was my first Philip K. Dick and I really did not enjoy it at all. I appreciate the concept of an alternate history where 1960s America has been divided up between the Nazis and the Japanese, and there are some interesting parallels between this alternate history with our own history and a third history posited by the book-within-a-book authored by the eponymous high castle guy. What I could not get past, however, was how mindnumbingly pedestrian the plot was, the way the book jumped between several characters who existed solely to show different aspects of Dick's vision (whilst fulfiling no actual function in terms of plot advancement), and the misguided suggestion that the Japanese Empire of WWII was inherently more humane than the Nazis. I know the Nazis were responsible for Some Very Bad Things, but Japan's own atrocity-laden history in the 1930s and 1940s is arguably just as horrific, and the way Dick positions a Japanese-American government as the last line of defence between peaceful co-existence and the insane plans of a 1960s Nazi regime is just offensive. I honestly do not get what all the fuss is about with this famed novel.
Talking to My Country by Stan Grant
This memoir examines the concepts of Aboriginality, cultural identity in a hybrid-society, and the inherent inequalities that continue to fuel the gap between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous in Australia. Stan Grant explores this confronting division in our country via his own personal experiences, and does so with astonishing frankness and unabashed emotion. The candid nature of his storytelling had me turning pages quite rapidly, and I was moved at several points by his anger, sadness, frustration, and dwindling sense of hope for a potentially brighter future.
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
I watched the film Ghost World back when it first came out, some 17 years ago, and I liked it a lot. It was funny and wistful and bittersweet, and had a quirky listless quality that exemplified the apotheosis of indie filmmaking in the early '00s. These days I'm firmly ensconced in exploring the canon of graphic novels and finally got around to reading Daniel Clowes' serialised exploration of post-school disaffection. I was surprised by how different the graphic novel was to the film. Although the essence and tone was basically the same, the plot and characters are vastly different - like, almost completely different texts. Anyway! Comparisons aside, Ghost World-the-graphic-novel is a darkly hilarious and sometimes disturbing look at the crossroads of life as experienced by two teenage girls after they finish high school. Enid and Rebecca are two of the great indie-comic creations of the 1990s, and exist in a pop culture bubble that represents a time and place as much as they do more universal themes of coming-of-age.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Ah, Hamlet. What can be said that hasn't been said before? This is my third time reading what is arguably the Bard's most famous play, and the first time I've read it in my 30s. The previous times were when I was about 27, and again before that when I was 17 and in Year 12. This year I'll be 37 so I guess that means I've read it approximately once every ten years. Maybe I'll make a habit of it. Anyway, reading Hamlet in my 30s was a completely different experience to my prior readings... I'm now convinced that there isn't a shred of madness to the Danish prince and that every decision he makes in his course of revenge is justifiably cautious. I guess my impression comes with the realisation that the Ghost may not be intended by Shakespeare to be Hamlet's dead father at all but an agent of the Devil. Maybe I'll change my mind again. I'll let you know in 2027.
Blake and Mortimer: The Yellow 'M' by Edgar P. Jacobs
Taking its cues from Tintin, the Blake and Mortimer series of the 1950s is a pulp comic title of the ligne claire style, depicting all the espionage and derring-do of Tintin's adventures without any of the inventiveness or finesse. I guess my disappointment stems from hoping that I would dip into this series and find a whole new serial of Tintin-like excitement but, eh... it was just really naff. I love the artwork, and I love the pulp tropes that power it along, but man, the dialogue is so lame and exposition-heavy, and the characterisation is ridiculously paper-thin. I'm not sure if I'll read any more of this series.
