Month: May 2007

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Willingham, Bill: (08) Fables: Wolves

The best thing I can say about Wolves, volume eight of Fables, is that it saved me a lot of money: it made me sufficiently cranky that I now have no desire to buy the series. (This volume, like prior volumes, I got from my local library.)

This contains a two-issue arc, “Wolves,” in which Bigby is found again; an extra-long single issue, “Happily Ever After” (#50); and a regular-length issue on a plot tangent to the prior two, “Big and Small.” As the first two titles suggest, this wraps up the Snow/Bigby arc. Unfortunately, I found everything Snow/Bigby in this volume offensively sexist—the more so because much of it felt out of character, as though the author were forcing the story to fit his own prejudices. (His comments in the script for issue 50, included in the trade paperback, doesn’t help. “This is the one panel at which the dream of every female reader of FABLES has come true,” my ass.)

Oh, and this volume also contains an explicit identification of Fabletown with Israel, which I could have done without (and which makes the stereotyped treatment of the Arabian Fables even more unpleasant).

I’ll keep reading, because I expect plotty things in the next volume, and the one after that (currently in progress) is about the Frog Prince; but Willingham will get no money from me.

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O’Brian, Patrick: (14) The Nutmeg of Consolation (audio)

Patrick O’Brian’s The Nutmeg of Consolation was remarkably exciting and enjoyable until the ending, which annoyed me so much that I put off logging it for quite a while. It does resolve the prior book’s staggering cliffhanger very satisfactorily, and has some great sea scenes, and some interesting new characters; but that ending vexes me extremely. (See the following spoiler post for details.)

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O’Brian, Patrick: (13) The Thirteen Gun Salute (audio)

The Thirteen Gun Salute, the thirteenth book in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, is not quite as stunning as The Letter of Marque, but its staggering cliffhanger of an ending will make up for quite a lot. You’ll want the next one on hand.

This book is divided into two parts, and events from the first part are of a type with other and more significant things that happen in the second (though the two sets are only connected by theme, and don’t necessarily have the same results). For whatever it’s worth, my mental picture of the structure is something like o O! (the exclamation mark is the cliffhanger). When I realized this, it helped me understand, in retrospect, the shift in plot that happens roughly a third of the way in.

The other non-spoilery thing of note is the remarkably sharp contrast between animal and human societies, for lack of a better word. I don’t think the book draws explicit conclusions or morals, but this is the first time I’ve noticed such a close juxtaposition, which makes me wonder if there is A Message.

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Wrede, Patricia C.: Enchanted Forest Chronicles, The (audio)

I listened to Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons) as full-cast audio productions. Unfortunately there were some casting choices I strongly disagreed with, so while I hope they won’t become my defaults for the characters. (The worst two were Kazul in Dealing, which of course is when she’s most present, and Telemain throughout, which made him sound about twelve.) And Shiara (of Talking) is incredibly annoying out loud. I also thought the pacing of the production was a little too fast in Dealing.

Listening also really underscores the very odd relationship of Talking to the rest of the series—Talking was published first, and the other three are prequels, but any way you read them, it’s weird. (However, I think this is one case where I would not recommend publication order over internal chronology.)

These are still a lot of fun, though, and those fond of revisionist fairy tales (subtype YA and gently humorous) should check them out.

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Pratchett, Terry: (24) The Fifth Elephant (audio)

The transformation of Carrot is complete in The Fifth Elephant, which is the fifth of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books to feature him and the rest of the City Watch. Not only is he possibly—but not certainly—unnaturally good, but he doesn’t do anything goofy or clearly incompetent, either. It’s quite the odd character arc, and I continue to wonder what Pratchett has in mind for him. (I can see a couple of possibilities for Granny Weatherwax, the other character that Pratchett seems to have maxed out, as it were; but neither of the obvious paths for Carrot feel right.)

Instead of Carrot, this is a book about the rest of the Watch: mostly Vimes, but Angua, Cheery, and Fred all have important sub-arcs. (Fred’s feels somewhat awkwardly over-the-top comic relief when compared to the others, but it’s hard to see what else could be done with that setup.) This trend in the Watch books could almost be plotted on a graph: as the proportion of Carrot in a book goes down, the proportion of Vimes goes up, reaching its culmination in the next book, Night Watch, which takes place almost entirely before Carrot was born. From the point of view of a re-read, I’m not sure how much new or different there is about Vimes in this book; but, on the other hand, that doesn’t seem to bother me in either the City Watch or the Lancre Witches books.

Two other things that struck me about this book. First, it’s very much a prequel to Thud!, as it starts the in-depth exploration of dwarf culture. Second, I have no idea why I remembered the three sisters when I’d forgotten everything else about the book but “werewolves,” because they have a really small role in the book. Perhaps it’s just that “the gloomy and purposeless trousers of Uncle Vanya” is such a wonderful phrase.

(Stephen Briggs does a good job reading the audiobook, as always, and his voice for Vimes sounds right to me (unlike Nigel Planer’s, which set my teeth on edge).)

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Carey, Mike: The Sandman Presents: The Furies

I picked up Mike Carey’s The Sandman Presents: The Furies not out of any strong desire to find out what happened to Lyta Hall after Sandman, but because I like to encourage our library system to get graphic novels and various people think highly of Carey’s other Sandman spinoff, Lucifer. (I read the first volume, liked it, and decided to wait on the rest until the trade paperbacks were all out. They are now, but I just haven’t got around to it.)

This is a very peculiar story. Lyta Hall, who went batshit crazy during Sandman, is still far from well. More Greek mythology is about to complicate her life in the form of Cronus, youngest of the Titans. And there aren’t any page numbers in the volume and I’m not about to count them, but it’s all wrapped up in a fairly slim volume.

As that might suggest, the story’s climax didn’t resonate with me emotionally. I felt Lyta’s emotional journey was given short shrift, which was compounded by my lack of interest in Cronus and, accordingly, the external plot. At any rate, a harmless enough volume, but nothing to seek out unless you’re a completist.

The art, by John Bolton, is in a style that the cover copy calls “groundbreaking” and “painterly”; to me it looks like photographs have been heavily airbrushed. I actually find it more distracting, in its not-quite realism, than more stylized work. But then, I’m apparently one of the few people on the planet who liked Marc Hempel’s art in The Kindly Ones, so take that for what it’s worth.

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Sfar, Joann: Rabbi’s Cat, The

Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat is an absolutely charming graphic novel that I suspect has wide appeal. In 1930s Algeria, a rabbi’s cat eats a parrot and gains the power of speech (out-loud speech; he already narrates the story). To his master’s distress, he only tells lies.

He tells me that I have to be a good Jew, and that a good Jew does not lie. I answer that I am only a cat.

I add that I don’t know if I’m a Jewish cat or not.

After an argument, the cat demands to be bar-mitzvahed if he’s a Jew, and so they go to the rabbi’s rabbi to see if it’s possible. Unfortunately the cat gets in another argument, this time with the rabbi’s rabbi:

The rabbi’s rabbi tells the rabbi that he doesn’t want to see me anymore and that I should be drowned.

The rabbi tells his rabbi that he won’t drown me because he loves me and I don’t like water.

And I tell the rabbi that I am God, who has taken the appearance of a cat in order to test him.

I tell him that I am not at all satisfied with his behavior.

I tell him that he was as dogmatic and obtuse with me as some Christians are with Jews.

He gets on his knees and begs my forgiveness.

I tell him that it was a joke, that I’m only a cat, and that he can get up.

The cat’s speech is part of what’s not so much a plot as a progression, a series of events in the lives of the rabbi, the rabbi’s daughter, and the cat. The cat is changed by the acquisition of speech; the rabbi has to take a spelling test so that the French will officially approve him as rabbi; the rabbi’s cousin Malka and his tame lion come to visit; the rabbi’s daughter falls in love and gets married; they all visit Paris. It’s very loose, but it’s held together by the characters and the quiet, central theme of what it means to be Jewish—in terms of belief, conduct, and ethnicity. It’s funny and thoughtful and open-ended and a bit bittersweet, and sits smack in the intersection of literary fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy—hence my comment about the wide appeal.

The lines of the art are scratchy but expressive, and the colors and occasionally non-literal backgrounds do a very nice job of establishing the mood. The page layout is always the same, two panels across and three down, and within the panels very little is done with the placement of speech ballons; somehow this creates a feeling of pacing and rhythm, not boredom. I don’t have a scanner, but was able to find images from the original French edition; a translation of page one and page two is behind the cut. (The book is translated by Alexis Siegel and Anjali Singh. Oh, and Joann is in this case a man’s name.)

I read a hardcover copy from the library, but the paperback will be out very soon, so go take a look. This edition collects what were originally published as three volumes (La Bar-Mitsva; Le Malka des Lions; L’Exode); the author’s since published another two, so I hope there will be another U.S. collection in the near future.

Edit: I should have thought to look at the U.S. publisher’s site, which has more sample pages (“spreads”) linked on the left of the page.

Continue reading “Sfar, Joann: Rabbi’s Cat, The“

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Willingham, Bill: (07.5) Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a prequel volume to the series, published after volume 7, Arabian Nights (and Days). An original hardcover, it contains ten stories of widely varying length, mostly about characters already met in the series. (The two exceptions are also the shortest, just three and two pages, and thus are unsatisfactory on two different levels.)

On the whole, I thought this was a solid prequel. My favorite backstories were of the Frog Prince and Frau Totenkinder, which illuminated new aspects of the characters. I felt the other stories were less revealing and thus less interesting, though I’ve no objection to reading about Snow White, Bigby, Reynard, and King Cole.

In the usual way of prequels, I think it’s more interesting if you already know the characters, though it may be easier to find in libraries and thus convenient even if you haven’t read the series.

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