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Preface: I like to read. These are old. There will be new ones soon.
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El patron: GEOCITIES
Art and LiesJeanette Winterson Jeanette Winterson writes with amazing, paranoic detail, like someone with too much time on her hands. And yet, her sentences flow freely in a complex focus about her subject, like a butterfly wooing a flower. She can capture an image with a dozen different phrases, as if there were a dozen different approaches to its essence and she was too shy to limit herself to just one. She has an obvious fondness for language, which she uses to great effect in her new book, Art and Lies, in putting words in the mouths of her three characters Handel, Picasso, and Sappho. This book does not claim to be a "novel" in the typical sense. The reader is forced to time travel along with the characters, more in an attempt to identify than to sympathize with them. It is difficult to fully comprehend, being part criticism, part philosophy and part history of the world. At times, it is like reading 10 years' worth of postcards send by a cosmopolitan, schizophrenic friend. One needs to be cold-sweating and ready for redemption to survive Winterson's stew of junkie pleading and scathing sermons. While Art and Lies fails in certain respects, it succeeds in its attempt to portray the Genius and the Everyman as one and the same when viewed from a certain perspective. That perspective is the one found in one's own mind, that of displacement from reality while moving through it. For the three artists portrayed, art is the lie and art is the truth, and they flicker back and forth between the two spheres, knowing that it is the only way they can live. They transgress their namesakes in the course of the book, teaching the reader to transgress labels and preconceptions and to pinpoint the identity within. Handel's story is concerned with the many varieties of passion, light and movement, God and science, and the question that ties these disparate worlds together: "How shall I live?" He is a surgeon who used to be a priest, disillusioned with both and struggling to find feeling without becoming "a brute." Picasso is still an artist, but Winterson reincarnates him as a woman who is discouraged from painting because it is a man's field. She is trapped in a family which ignores the incest within itself and which strives to make her as "dead" as they are. Her struggle is an attempt to keep the "life" from being extinguished without feeling so much that she would go mad. Sappho is the famed, tragic, lesbian poetess. She mingles her efforts to keep her sexuality and the truth of her words alive through the ages because they are one and the same. In a way, while she is a worshipper of the Word, Picasso is the mistress of Color, and Handel is a minister of the Body. Their stories rotate through the book as they encounter one another in seemingly chance meetings and come together on a mystical train, gravitating toward one another instinctively for protection from the "art and lies" the world presents them. Winterson is adept at treating sexuality with creativity and reverence, though she presents all of the forms it can take in the human spectrum in turn. Art and Lies is not about discovering one's true identity just by clearing up any sexual ambiguities. Winterson looks much farther back, into history and culture, for clues about why a person is who he or she is. In the end, the dialogue of the characters on the train is anticlimactic. They would not be there if they had not already escaped what they were looking for. The beauty of the book is the journey Winterson leads her characters and her readers on the the attempt to relinquish oneself to the magic of Art without artifice.
 
OK, so the premise sounds rather intellectually snooty: a professional philosopher who happens to be a bum, and an amateur one who happens to be a criminal, join forces to become the most aesthetic and culturally enriched bank robbers in modern and ancient history, stealing just enough money to prove that they can and doing a lot of hard drinkin' and thinkin' between heists. The narrator, one Eddie Coffin, also happens to have a proclivity for obscure words that begin with the letter 'z'-- fortunately for the reader, there is an extensive glossary of all of the 'z'-words in the back. Fischer's prose is extremely challenging, using academia and erudition as beacons to enlighten the sketchy and simple plot. He employed the same technique in his first novel, Under the Frog. If he has a chance to say something simply, he won't. The book jerks and stutters from bursts of action to long-winded discussions about sleep, drinking, and the nature of philosophy and crime. For example, this is the account of Eddie's first encounter with one-armed bandit Hubert, who was attempting to mug him: "Your money!" he demanded with admirable succinctness, a quality much lacking, I feel, in modern philosophy. Untutored as I am in firearms, I could see with the merest of visual licks that this was enough gun to kill me and three or four major philosophers. It has to be declared that moments like this are an excellent justification for decades of gross intemperance. Imagine how great my distress would have been in I had spent my mornings gasping around jogging, abstaining from wine and beer, shunning patisseries, dodging rotundity by one square meal a day, only to be plugged like a fairground bull's-eye in a cheap hotel. And so on. This is probably one of the least violent, grotesque, and sexual passages in the whole book. Fischer seems driven by the ghosts of Monty Python troupes, galactic hitchhikers, and Quentin Tarentino to create sheer voluminous blather. In the midst of all of the mayhem, there are lengthy philosophical time-outs to keep the reader up-to-date on ancient and modern philosophers, follies and trends. Or, perhaps this book is a treatise on philosophy with lots of sex and violence to liven up the discussion, I don't know. The obvious glee for language, English and otherwise, propels our dynamic duo into ludicrous situations as they travel through Europe, but it is this slippery wit that also saves them as they take on vengeful police inspectors and an assortment of brutes, thugs, and other members of the bank robbing community. The Thought Gang commit many minor heists as they plan the best, most unbelievable bank robbery of all time: to rob a bank successfully after telling the bank authorities and the police the exact time and date of the robbery. For me, the buildup is the fun part and the final robbery itself is almost an afterthought. Fischer takes his sweet time to tell his story, making frequent and lengthy detours at will, kind of like Uncle Bob does when he shows the slides from his latest vacation. The Thought Gang is the sort of road movie you want to dub from your friend and watch on a shaky 13-inch black and white TV in the wee hours of the morning as you eat undercooked, salty tater tots with lots of ketchup. It is the sort of thing you will either love or hate, due to the use and abuse of the English language. Poetic, beautiful, and moving it is not. Crass, funny, and annoying are better descriptions, but if you like your prose hard, fast and pretentious, you're in luck.
For a cyberfiction writer, Neal Stephenson seems to be inordinately delighted with the past. His breakthrough novel Snow Crash mixed equal doses of technology and antiquity, so that hackers and Sumerians roamed freely through the pages. Though this willful obscurity muddied the flow of the story at times, I thought Snow Crash eclipsed William Gibson's Virtual Light-- both authors tried to inject a sense of humor into the cold and heartless landscape they envisioned but only Stephenson succeeded. His conception of the new American subculture, made up of out-of-work hackers moonlighting as pizza deliverers, and messenger girls on smart skateboards, established him as the architect of a future world that was not solely inhabited by tough women in mirrored shades and rich, mysterious men dressed in shades of black. For The Diamond Age, Stephenson plunders that curious period of time known as the Victorian age and returns to us a futuristic tribe known as the neo-Victorians, or Vickys, who both exploit and ignore the technology that makes them wealthy. Thus, Vickys live in an age where windows in the homes of the poorest families are made of a single diamond because they are easy to manufacture, but their own mansions have windows made of real glass because it is more authentic. It's amusing to see that Stephenson's latest effort comes at our own fin de siecle, just as the original Victorian age did, and thus we can draw some uncanny comparisons not only from that era to the future Diamond era, but also to our own. In the 21st century, real estate is grown atom by atom rather than invaded and colonized, but propriety is still used as a safeguard against the negative influence of technological advances, which, after all, are beloved by the masses. As our century draws to a close, we can observe traces of the racial paranoia, love for formality and tradition, and upswing of conservatism and conformality of thought that run rampant in Stephenson's Diamond Age. We can treat this book, then, as a forecast of things to come; this is not just science fiction, it is social fiction, and must be read more deeply than Snow Crash. Stephenson has an easy hand for incorporating the imaginary with the real, creating a plausible and memorable universe, like Robert Heinlein could at his most inventive. Buckyballs and snuffboxes, gang terrorism and matter compilers all jostle elbows with ill grace in the area around Shanghai, which has been divided up into a modernized Coastal Republic, the ancient Celestial Kingdom, a neutral area called the Leased Territories, and the domains of several tribes that people choose to affiliate themselves with. John Percival Hackworth, a Vicky engineer who has been commisioned to build a sort of interactive book for a rich Lord's granddaughter, endeavors to create an illegal copy for his own daughter, so that she might benefit from the teachings of the Illustrated Primer. The grandfather wants the book because he thinks his granddaughter will grow up lacking some intangible quality of intelligence or personality which is slowly being obliterated in society. Finally, Hackworth's copy of the primer is stolen by a young thief who gives the book to his little sister Nell, so that she too might experience some hope to escape her probable life of drudgery. This is just the framework for the greater action in the story. The Feed is a sort of bastard of a telecommunication line and a magic gizmo that can turn atoms into matter of any form: mail messages, food, simulated wood, weapons. A radical organization wants to supplant the carefully controlled Feed lines with Seeds, with which any person can create any object at all. This battle of anarchic freedom versus moderated civilization is waged, unwittingly, by Hackworth and Nell, and by a group known as the Drummers, who operate on a collective consciousness and whose bodies act as parallel processors for the nanocomputers that float in their bloodstream. For the remainder of the book, a series of crimes are committed for the best intentions, while various government and private sector agencies perpetuate schemes that have nothing and everything to do with the Primer. Stephenson indulges in subthemes that readers of Snow Crash will recognize: technosocial diseases, brainwashing and other cult practices, refugees and rafts, and grand plans for world domination. He neatly mixes technological advances with religious hysteria so that the schemes of the characters seem wild but eminently possible at a time when one's morals are not as advanced as one's capabilities. The groups explored in depth in this novel are the Vickys and the Chinese, who still adhere to Confucian thought despite their various tribal affiliations. Their personal interactions are often funny, as both furiously think of the correct protocol for every sentence uttered. Both groups seemingly share ideologies; for instance, in a meeting between a Mandarin called Dr. X and Hackworth, Dr. X tries to explain the reason for the Celestials' struggle with modernization. "For centuries...we have struggled to absorb the yong of technology without importing the Western ti." If yong is the physicality of an object, and ti is the essence, then it seems that both the Chinese and the neo-Victorians are pursuing the same thing: to maintain integrity and self-respect. Stephenson does not pretend that racial and class discrimination have been extinguished; race and money and class are still the primary motivating factors for the characters' actions and more important than ever. However, secondary in importance seems to be the desire to escape the inevitability of one's situation. Destiny and free will are explored offhandedly, with the identities of the key players flopping from "good guy" to "bad guy" and back again, but it is an obvious concern of the author to tackle this enormous philosophical issue and present his own opinion on it. The Diamond Age is not as slick a production than Snow Crash, and the hip slang is reduced to a minimum as Stephenson focuses on a more sophisticated social group, but the schemes are just as outrageous and the images just as striking. There is still a lot of swordfighting and theatrics but most of it is done by women, who play center stage rather than periphery roles throughout the book. And, there are no puzzling subplots where a reader might get lost. The Diamond Age flows smoothly to a reasonable conclusion, which leaves an extra chapter to be desired, but does not truly damage the storyline. Stephenson ended his novel at the point where any of a dozen things could have happened next, and it is a compliment to him that the reader is left pleasantly unsatisfied.
I haven't read any travel narrative with real enthusiasm since Gulliver's Travels, choosing to remain clueless instead of wading through sleep-inducing material about tourist "must-sees" or rambling personal introspection, i.e. "I arrived in Town X, drank, smoked, argued about the deterioration of humanity and personal truth with the locals, discovered something new about myself, then passed out. The next day I arrived at Town Y, etc." But, upon cruising the new bookstore, I saw a book that I decided was worth a gamble. Falling Off the Map is one man's account of the cities or countries he has deemed a "Lonely Place" by virtue of mentality as well as geography. The residents are transformed somehow and develop bleak or convoluted psyches to adapt to their strange environment. Though some of the places are very bland and regimented, and others demand the quirkiest behavior and treat it as normal, Pico Iyer is able to make each Lonely Place glow by revealing it's unique personality. His personal reasons for visiting will not conform to everyone's notion of a vacation, but Iyer does an excellent job of relaying the moody, lonely feelings of the people as well as himself. Iyer's style is very appealing because it is so dryly humorous and very candid and gracious. Fans of Douglas Coupland's works (especially Shampoo Planet) will enjoy the visual detail and references to popular culture that make even the most mundane place seem alien. The chapters on Cuba and Iceland especially fascinated me with the thoughtful writing on the different manic atmospheres he has perceived in each country. For instance, in Cuba he notes that "Cubatur's most intriguing attraction os undoubtedly its four-hour excursion each day to a psychiatric hospital. But when I asked one day if I could sign up for the tour, the laughing-eyed girl at the desk looked at me as if I were the madman. 'It isn't happening,' she said. 'Does it ever happen?' 'No,' she replied, with a delighted smile." He also discovers that "Cuba is old ladies in rocking chairs on their verandas in the twiight, dabbing their eyes as their grandchildren explain their latest dreams of escape, and the azure sea flashing in the background; it is pretty, laughing kids dancing all night in the boisterous caberets and then confiding, matter-of-factly, 'Our lives here are like in Dante's Inferno.'" Even though this book has many funny moments, Iyer shines when he transmits the sadness and giddiness that seem to permeate many Lonely Places at the same time. Iyer has also written The Lady and the Monk and Video Night in Kathmandu. His lyricism is reason enough to read his book, but there is also the added bonus of traveling the world to places that many of us may never experience.
Summer, despite work and visits home, still seemed to last an endless length of time. However, it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on reading that hadn't been accomplished during the school year. My most memorable reads of the summer have been from Japanese fiction, translated into English. I am not referring to melodramatic tales about the death of the samurai class, however, nor about haiku poetry, which to me has many of the characteristics of fresh sorbet-- bright and intense but best appreciated in limited quantities. I'm talking about Japanese writing of the last 20 or 30 years, as searing and ultramodern as any created by contemporary writers in this country, and yet retaining a sweetness and charm not often found on the Times' bestsellers lists. This quirkiness exudes from these novels despite the fact that they, as translations, are susceptible to different readings by different translators. One essay I read by a travel writer about his visit to Japan painted an admirable, yet chilling portrait of a society whose collective thought basically boiled down to, "Everything in it's own time." While this may make Japan a model of efficiency, the author wrote, it also bred an atmosphere where one traded personality in to achieve a collective balance with one's community. It typified a land where sold-out stadiums at baseball games dutifully cheered for the home team on cue and remained perfectly silent the rest of the time. Current Japanese fiction seems to be battling this tendency to demand order and civility, even though it is the essence and cornerstone of Japanese culture. The fact that these books, which abound with magic and paradox and improbable situations, are extremely popular in Japan as well as abroad, perhaps indicates that Japanese society also hungers for change and unpredictability, even though the current system "works". One author I am exploring is Haruki Murakami. He has won the prestigious Tanizaki Prize in his home country for Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World in 1985, and has also written The Elephant Vanishes, available in translation through Vintage International, A Wild Sheep Chase and the two-volume Norwegian Wood. His newest book is entitled Dance, Dance, Dance and is a sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase. Murakami has taught at Princeton and, besides writing, has translated works by Chandler, Carver, Fitzgerald, and others into Japanese. His breakthrough in writing came while he was managing a jazz bar in Japan, and his various life experiences pop up in his characters. They reflect the fact that the author is a diverse and intelligent human being, and help disprove the money-driven, passionless stereotype that is unfortunately perpetuated in America. Murakami has been compared to authors such as Tom Robbins and Thomas Pynchon, Kafka and Borges. He indulges in fantasy by introducing dwarves that take over your body and a sort of cyberspace into his plots. He incorporates references to pop culture from America, like movies that feature Bing Crosby or Charles Bronson, and music by Ray Charles or John Coltrane. He blends these "cultural-bites" with the new culture from Japan such as riding bullet trains through cities, late-night noodle shops and karaoke. These details make for fascinating reading by themselves, but Murakami's books also function to dispel many myths about Japanese society in general. His characters stress about the same things we do, have idiosyncracies, odd sexual urges, the works. Because many people still think of Japan as a very traditional and staid land (which it is, to an extent), Hard-Boiled Wonderland and other works represent one kind of "import" that no one can complain about. Another author currently enjoying popularity is Banana Yoshimoto, a young woman whose short first novel Kitchen took the world by storm-- again, not with controversy, but with good old-fashioned storytelling. I have friends as far away as Iceland who have discovered and enjoyed this book. Kitchen is comprised of two stories, "Moonlight Shadow", and "Kitchen", which won a magazine prize for new writers when she was 23. She has followed it up with two other novels, Tugumi and NP, and a couple of collections of essays. Yoshimoto is a rare commodity in Japan, just as she would be here, as a respected female author. We see, by her popularity, that the position of women in Japanese society is slowly changing, and while she is not a feminist, her main character in "Kitchen" is an independent young woman who must decide what course her life will take when her only family, her grandmother, passes away. Yoshimoto writes more from reality than Murakami, and focuses on the concerns of the youth culture in Japan today-- the people who are attempting to fit work, entertainment, and relationships into a life already crowded with family and tradition. She is very good at delineating the dynamics of relationships between young adults, and at first glance can be pigeonholed as a "Generation X" writer. However, her characters resemble "real" people and lack the typical angst emotion and hip language and style that seem to typify writing about and by young people today. Finally, Dream Messenger by Masahiko Shimada shatters the rather sexless image imposed on Asian men in this and the last century by the media. The characters' talk and actions are frankly erotic at times, and yet Shimada does not degenerate into mindless sexuality; his novel also has themes of spirituality and unreality as he focuses on the portent of dreams and the workings of the unconscious mind, a little like Neil Gaiman's comic book series, The Sandman, but applied to the dazzling pace and excitement of modern-day Tokyo and New York. The story is told in some chapters by a young woman who is empowered to act as a private detective for a rich old woman, and in others by the woman's missing son, who apparently has a voice in his head called Mikainaito and lives equally in dreams and reality. In Dream Messenger are open references to drugs, homosexuality, and other topics considered somewhat shocking to even our society. What is even more interesting, though, is that one can glean from Shimada's book a Japanese viewpoint on Japan itself. While his observations may not be definitive for all of Japan, it is quite unusual to encounter in wirting a different opinion about the importance of power and money, and the importance of love and family, from a closed society that normally refrains from revealing anything about itself. The differences between Japanese society and others are also explored, generally in a matter-of-fact manner that can reveal both humor and sadness. In an anecdote about a rock star named Tetsuya Nishikaze who was into orgies and drugs: "According to this friend, Tetsuya wanted to do everything other big rock stars did; if he kept it up, he'd end up like Sid Vicious and kill his girlfriend and die of an overdose. Trouble was, this friend said, it'd never happen--rock stars, you see, don't OD in Japan." It is ironic that this friend thought Tetsuya had to die in order to be as famous as other rock stars, considering the unglorious deaths that have affected rock groups such as Nirvana, The Gits, and Hole in the recent past. A problem with modern Japanese fiction is that most people don't know it exists, and that its availability in bookstores is sporadic. All of the books mentioned above were available in Japanese for many years before they were translated and made available to other countries. Dream Messenger, for example, was published in Japan in 1989 but underwent translation and was published by Warner Books in the U.S. only this month. Fortunately, I have spotted most of these novels at the Earthling and other bookstores, and at the UCSB library. Slowly, we in the West are being allowed to see modern Japanese society from an insider's viewpoint; less uninformed and more intelligent speculation will hopefully result.
Those curious about modern Japanese culture are often told that there is a struggle between the old ways and the new, between formal, corporate "Japan, Inc." philosophy and the flashy and often criminal mindset that the under-30 set delight in. Paradoxically, these ultramodern youth are the ones whohave benefited most from the influx of money and technology their parents have brought about during Japan's halcyon days of the last decade. Now that those days seem to be over -- a quick glance at the business page reveals falling exports and foreign real estate investments-- Japanese citizens of all ages and social positions struggle to adjust. However, it seems that the younger generation, used to luxuries and privilege almost from birth, is being hit the hardest. That is the position of Karl Taro Greenfeld in his book, Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation. While the years between childhood and career positions may be a fast and glittering whirlwind, they also take their toll on those living the life and also on the families and communities that are never far away. Greenfeld, half Japanese, half American and no more than 30 years old, spent his teen years in America and returned to Japan to work as a journalist. He explains how he began covering dignitaries, financiers (almost exclusively old men) and their traditions, and "woke up" one day to discover the Japan of beauty and vitality, and also of violence and corruption. Devoting each chapter to a different facet of the 15-to-30 population, he writes the accounts of schoolgirls and small-time drug dealers, Yakuza middlemen and foreign-born hostesses, porn stars and rock stars, and of course, the members of speed tribes, or bosozoku, the stylish motorcycle gangs that terrorize the streets a la The Wild One and peddle drugs around the neighborhood. Japan, Greenfeld writes, holds the unique position of being able to desire without guilt, thanks to the idiosyncracies of Shintoism. Man is not distrustful of modernity or machinery, and instead is able to cherish inanimates as part of the self. Westerners, on the other hand, live under the shadow of strict codes of Judeo-Christian origins, which views machines and tools as soulless and, therefore, not to be trusted. Thus, the Japanese instigate cycle after cycle of booms for classic cars, interactive video games, or baseball statistics, relishing the accumulation of goods and information in a codified and professional manner that similar American big-spenders could not approach or even fathom. We are allowed voyeuristic peeks into the lives of underage motorcycle thieves being caught by the police, and a porn producer looking for the right virgin to star with his leading attraction, Choco Bon-Bon, named for the most distinctive part of his anatomy. We follow demure college students who put on neon and spandex to achieve the bodi-con look at Tokyo nightclubs, and young men attending expensive cram schools so they can attend Todai, the prestigious University of Tokyo, and slack off before being handed high-level jobs in government. This version of Japan, with love hotels and karaoke and hostess bars, is fascinating because it is so unlike the stern and silent, bonsai-tending version we usually hear about. Greenfeld leaves the chapter on the otaku, the computer generation, until the end, because unlike the kids dealing E or coveting foreign goods, the otaku represent something completely hew for Japan and for the world at large. This new generation has always interacted with computers and is interested in collecting information of any sort; this obsession eliminates any normal socialization and, instead of sex with humans, some otaku dream of a true interface with their machines. Greenfeld knows that the otaku represent real, irreversible change for Japan, but does not try to speculate whether this is a good or bad thing. Lack of prosetylizing makes Speed Tribes a fun, quasi-documentary read. Speed Tribes, because much of it sounds outlandish or unbelievable to the average person, nicely compliments a popular independent comic book, Kabuki. Kabuki concentrates more on the violent and fantastic aspects of the modern culture, but also dives deeper into Japanese history than Speed Tribes and thus helps fill in some of the gaps Greenfeld did not cover with his vignettes, which are written in first-person, interview style, or an omnipotent, but not very self-analytical third person. David Mack, creator of Kabuki, has done some careful research into Japanese culture and the new directions it is taking, and has a somewhat different version of the future to present. Mack draws upon people's preconceptions about the Japanese but also injects historical facts into his work, thus creating a comic book of unhuman fantasy and strange reality that blends well, precisely because the reader is left guessing what is real and what is an invention of the author. The backdrop is predominantly a future Tokyo and Kyoto, cities shaped by many forces at work in collusion and competition with each other. Wealth, political control, and intimidation all combine in the form of a woman known as Kabuki and her cohorts, assassins for the mysterious Noh agency who hide their identities behind traditional Noh masks. They are widely rumored to be fictitious characters, androids who appear on television to remind people that guns are illegal and that "Little Sister is Watching You". Otaku appear here, as do the bosozoku and many other elements of real, modern-day Japan; Mack acknowledges Greenfeld's book in one of the issues. He also sheds light on the treatment of the Ainu people and "comfort women" in the last war, making history a very integral part of his postmodern story. Kabuki, on the whole, only suffers due to a repetition of images from issue to issue. Even though Mack probably meant the repetition to emphasize the connectivity between characters and locales, too much of a good thing can simply seem tiresome or uncreative after a while. However, Mack excels in creating a pictorial story, free from the typical constraints of comic books dependent on dialog for text and a certain number of frames per page. Kabuki seems more like a storyboard for a sophisticated animated film, with one object morphing into another, often without any accompanying text at all. Also, while the women are intelligent and less exaggeratedly busty than other female comic book characters, they are all slender and attractive and wear skimpy and kinky outfits. This puts them on the border of being fetishized into ludicrosity. What redeems the stylized two-dimensional representation of the women, however, is the careful expansion of Kabuki's character. She has a confusing and traumatic past, and we wonder what her true intentions are as the storyline progresses. She has many reasons for wearing her mask, as the reader finds out with each installment of the comic. I think Mack has much to say about Japanese culture that will surprise and interest comics readers who might never be exposed to the Asian mindset. Mack still needs to work on filling his sophisticated plot withough repetition over his six-part story arc. "Kill the bad guys" is interesting for only so long before further development of the complex but sketchily laid-out plot is desired.
Throat SprocketsTim Lucas (Dell Publishing) What should I expect from a first novel by a film and home video critic? Rants about an unfeeling community stifling the artistic dreams of filmmakers, or perhaps a little T&A, judging from the none-too-subtle title and cover? Well, I got a little bit of both from Throat Sprockets, named for the almost mystical film that becomes a cult phenomenon. Actually, the books deals with the many shapes of madness associated with obsession, using the film medium and, yes, vampirism to take that emotion to higher levels.
Books have been written before (and films created) about losing oneself in one's work, and confusing fiction and reality to the point where one is a character in one's own fantasies. Tim Lucas presents his ideas about obsession in strange and jagged prose, as if he conducted some splicing and overdubbing on his own work. It is this mixture of banal subject matter (addiction to cigarettes, home shopping channels, cheap porn flicks) with an enthusiasm and belief in the magic in everyday events, and having the words to communicate that belief, that puts this book far above the average vampire/erotic thriller novel, just like Throat Sprockets the movie is above the average vampire/erotic thriller film.
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