Final post of the year, and what better way to round off 2010 than with a Top 10 Chart of the Best Books I Read This Year. As with almost all of these year-end posts I've been doing, however, and as the Bloody Great List of the books I read in 2010 – from whence this Top 10 is culled – demonstrated, few of the books I ploughed through over the past twelve months were particularly new. Consequently, this chart, which amongst its entries boasts just two books published in 2010, is utterly arbitrary and ultimately useless in gauging anything about the year just ended other than my reading habits. Then again, ain't that Existential Ennui all over?
Getting the list down to ten was a struggle. I initially assembled a Top 20, but while there were certainly some good books in the lower orders of that longer chart, they weren't quite as outstanding as the ones further up the list, and so made the whole thing seem slightly pedestrian. But once I'd determined to prune it, deciding what to keep and what to lose became increasingly difficult. I was stuck at thirteen for a while, then twelve, and then really dithered at eleven. Honourable mentions must therefore go to Belinda Bauer's Blacklands, to fine efforts by Gavin Lyall and Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos, to Dan Clowes's Wilson and Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Outfit, and to more than a few Richard Stark novels, including The Man with the Getaway Face, The Score and especially The Split.
Anyway, here's the Top 10. I've reviewed a lot of these books before, so in those cases I've kept further comments to a minimum and provided a link back to the original review, should you wish to read my ramblings. All that's left to do before we get stuck in is to wish you a merry new year, and see you in the alarmingly science fiction-sounding 2011.
10. Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake
This being a Top 10, I've had to limit my Westlake selections to one novel written under his real name and one written as Richard Stark. This own-brand excursion is the second in his comedic series starring luckless thief John Dortmunder; it's a charming, breezy affair that culminates in an increasingly ridiculous – in a good way – bit of business centring on efforts to hide a mobile bank. Go here for a longer review.
9. Ending Up by Kingsley Amis
A brilliant novel about the bitterness of old age which I had ruined for me when I happened to listen to part of a talk by Amis's most recent biographer Zachary Leader in which Leader divulges the ending of the book. Bastard. But I did discover that Amis made eight pages of notes for the novel, beginning with a list of forty-five ways of being annoying. Hopefully one of those simply states, "Zachary Leader". There's no plot to speak of, merely a sequence of short chapters detailing the minor slights, petty squabbles and general intolerance betwixt a cast of old folk living out their latter years in a country cottage. That ending, by the way, is a supreme act of character vandalism.
8. The ACME Novelty Library #20: Lint by Chris Ware
I think I said pretty much all I had to say about this one in this review. A remarkable graphic novel.
7. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Not much more to add to this one either.
6. Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
Or indeed this.
5. The Passage by Justin Cronin
Easily the most epic novel I read this year, The Passage is a brilliantly realised piece of horror fantasy. The descriptive passages may be a bit flowery in places, but the force of the narrative is undeniable, and Cronin's attempts to offer a scientific explanation for vampirism lends the story a certain plausibility. Partial review here.
4. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Review here.
3. Chinaman's Chance by Ross Thomas
Review here.
2. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
I'm still planning on posting something on le Carre's Karla Trilogy once I've read the third book, Smiley's People. But I'll be astonished if that novel manages to top this bruised, elegiac, reflective, mournful masterpiece.
1. Point Blank (The Hunter) by Richard Stark
Donald Westlake's first novel under the Stark moniker may not be as elegantly written or exquisitely layered as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, nor its characterization and dialogue as beautifully crafted as that of Chinaman's Chance. But in terms of its importance, both to my reading this year, and to fiction in general, it can't be beat. The blunt, stripped back prose style; the cunning formal complexity; the depiction of an illegal, underground, yet strangely professional America where men steal to finance their individual versions of the American Dream: these are just some of the things that make it special. And at its heart, the thief among thieves: Parker, that weird, taciturn, detached yet utterly compelling creation. Simply the best.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 5
Friday 31 December 2010
Wednesday 29 December 2010
2010: A Review of the Year in Books and Comics; 5. A Bloody Great List (Slight Return)
And we're back. Pleasant Christmas, everyone? Or tolerable at least? Jolly good. Well, we only have a few days left to us before the end of the year, so let's return to the Existential Ennui Review of the Year in Books and Comics, specifically that Bloody Great List of the books wot I done read this year, which, you'll recall, are listed in the order wot I done read 'em. And with just over two days of 2011 left to run, I can confidently state that the final list looks a little something like this:
The Green Man by Kingsley Amis
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
The Green Man by Kingsley Amis
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
The Hacienda: or How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
The Way Home by George Pelecanos
The Wrong Side of the Sky by Gavin Lyall
Point Blank by Richard Stark
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
Hellblazer: Pandemonium by Jamie Delano and Jock
The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark
Moonraker by Ian Fleming
Killy by Donald Westlake
The Outfit by Richard Stark
The Mourner by Richard Stark
The Score by Richard Stark
The Jugger by Richard Stark
The Split by Richard Stark
The Handle by Richard Stark
The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith
Weathercraft by Jim Woodring
The Most Dangerous Game by Gavin Lyall
The Damsel by Richard Stark
A God Somewhere by John Arcudi, Peter Snejbjerg and Bjarne Hansen
The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark
The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake
The Hot Rock by LAX
Dig My Grave Deep by Peter Rabe
Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell
Wilson by Dan Clowes
The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark
The Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith
The Passage by Justin Cronin
The Black Ice Score by Richard Stark
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
Concrete Island by J. G. Ballard
Bank Shot by Donald Westlake
Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay
The Sour Lemon Score by Richard Stark
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
The Secret Servant by Gavin Lyall
Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
The Dame by Richard Stark
Deadly Edge by Richard Stark
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer
Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke
Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
The Honourable Scoolboy by John le Carre
Spy in the Vodka/The Cold War Swap by Ross Thomas
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane
The Blackbird by Richard Stark
The ACME Novelty Library #20: Lint by Chris Ware
The Porkchoppers by Ross Thomas
Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas
Slayground by Richard Stark
The Playwright by Eddie Campbell and Darren White
Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas
What Became of Jane Austen? by Kingsley Amis
What Became of Jane Austen? by Kingsley Amis
The Naked Runner by Francis Clifford
Colonel Sun by Robert Markham
Plunder Squad by Richard Stark
The Out is Death by Peter Rabe
Ending Up by Kingsley Amis
That last one is still in progress, but I've only got a few pages left, so I'll definitely have it finished by midnight Friday. Not that I'll be spending New Year's Eve quietly reading a book or anything. Perish the thought. Ahem. So, altogether, that will make sixty-nine books read this year. (I'm not including Andrew Taylor's The Anatomy of Ghosts or Stuart Maconie's Adventures on the High Teas– both of which were on the previous version of the list – because I still haven't made enough headway on either for them to qualify.) Which means that, at seventy-one books (and probably more by now), Olman's got me beat. I concede defeat, sir.
Even so, sixty-nine books in a single year ain't too shabby. And by a strange act of happenstance, I both started the year with Kingsley Amis, and ended the year with him too. And as Ending Up is about a bunch of crotchety old codgers holed up in a crumbling country cottage at Christmas, passing the time by variously drinking too much, sniping at each other and losing their marbles, it also serves as an entirely fitting end to the year. In more ways than one.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 6
That last one is still in progress, but I've only got a few pages left, so I'll definitely have it finished by midnight Friday. Not that I'll be spending New Year's Eve quietly reading a book or anything. Perish the thought. Ahem. So, altogether, that will make sixty-nine books read this year. (I'm not including Andrew Taylor's The Anatomy of Ghosts or Stuart Maconie's Adventures on the High Teas– both of which were on the previous version of the list – because I still haven't made enough headway on either for them to qualify.) Which means that, at seventy-one books (and probably more by now), Olman's got me beat. I concede defeat, sir.
Even so, sixty-nine books in a single year ain't too shabby. And by a strange act of happenstance, I both started the year with Kingsley Amis, and ended the year with him too. And as Ending Up is about a bunch of crotchety old codgers holed up in a crumbling country cottage at Christmas, passing the time by variously drinking too much, sniping at each other and losing their marbles, it also serves as an entirely fitting end to the year. In more ways than one.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 6
Thursday 23 December 2010
2010: A Review of the Year in Books and Comics; 4. The Best or Most Noteworthy Posts Wot I Writ This Year
So apparently there's some weird pagan festival thing happening over the next few days, which I'm told involves the giving and receiving of gifts that are neither wanted nor indeed much of a surprise and the eating of copious amounts of farm-reared fowl. Christ knows what that's all about (ba-dum, tish!), but it does mean that Existential Ennui will be going on hiatus until sometime next week. However, I wouldn't want to leave you with naff-all to read over the 'festive' period, so I thought I'd collate my pick of what I reckon are the best posts – or at least the more interesting ones, whether in content or for what they represent for the wider blog – wot I wrote on 'ere this year. Some of you will probably have already read many of them, but you never know: the odd one might even bear re-reading. And anyway, there could be passing trade over Christmas who may not have had the pleasure – to whom I can only apologise and declare that it all made sense in my addled mind at the time.
Merry Christmas, and try not to throttle each other.
Your pal,
Louis
Looking for the Perfect James Bond (and Ripley too)
Kind of does what it says on the tin.
A brief note on Richard Stark's Point Blank, and another on The Man with the Getaway Face
The very first Parker Progress Report
An early entry in my unhinged Richard Stark collecting quest. Ah, so young (well, still a shade under 40 anyway), so innocent...
A Bookshop Tour of Lewes
Quite silly, but also reasonably useful if you should ever find yourself in Lewes, the East Sussex town in which blah blah snore...
Thoughts on the Stark Cutaways in the Parker novels
That rarest of things on Existential Ennui: a little critical insight. Just a little, mind. There's also a follow-up post on the Stark Stooges.
A Parker Progress Report on the Allison & Busby editions
Their value (at least as perceived by me back in April) and how many I'd managed to collect by this point. Fascinating stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.
Short reviews of The Score and The Jugger
I think we're beginning to see clearly the Stark-centric nature of Existential Ennui this year... By the way, I've since replaced the Allison & Busby paperback of The Sour Lemon Score seen in this post with a nicer copy. That's how weird and obsessive I am. There is a hint of method to my madness, though, as I'm planning a post soon on the later A&B Parker editions. That's my excuse, anyway.
The first of a number of posts on the UK Coronet paperback editions of the Parker novel
These bored readers of this blog to tears throughout the year. There's another one here, another here, and another here.
A snapshot of my comics habit in April
Do you really want to read a report of a trip to a bookshop in Arundel?
Well here's one anyway.
A post about Garth Ennis's Punisher Max which I retrieved from an earlier version of Existential Ennui because I was quite pleased with it. And I still am, so here it is again. I'm gonna get me a bumper sticker proclaiming my recycling credentials. Except a bumper sticker proclaiming recycling credentials would be slightly counterintuitive. Also, I don't have a car. Also, I can't drive.
Two cover galleries of Patricia Highsmith first editions: one and two. Unfortunately the formatting's a bit buggered in these and I can't seem to fix them now. Oh well.
Another round-up of Richard Stark 'Parker' novels
Now there's a shock. There are further reviews of the Parkers here, here, here, here, and here. Knock yourselves off. I mean out.
Reviews of three of the Richard Stark 'Alan Grofield' novels, here, here, and here.
An intriguing inscribed edition of Joe Gores's Dead Skip
Comparisons twixt The Hunter and The Hot Rock: the novels and the graphic novels
A little bit on Peter Rabe and his influence on Richard Stark
A couple of posts on Kingsley Amis, the first of which isn't bad, the second of which is a marked improvement, and one of the few things I've written this year that I'm relatively satisfied with.
A review of Paul Cornell's Action Comics
Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male, J. G. Ballard's Concrete Island, and William Boyd's Ordinary Thunderstorms
I was quite pleased with this post at the time, but on reflection – and as Olman rightly notes in the comments – it's a little woolly. Still, you may find some worth in it.
I'm just showing off here
This post is a bit pointless, but there's a half decent quip or two in it.
I quite like this post on science fiction author Michael Vyse because his son Owen commented on it.
A lengthy missive on cover artist Robert McGinnis and his covers for the Parker novels. It's not bad, but it's not as thorough as this post on the guy who created the initial Parker covers, Harry Bennett, which has the benefit of added comments from Harry's son and daughter.
A review of Gavin Lyall's The Secret Servant
The day I nearly died
And the day I won an award (kind of)
I'm not sure if this post on Donald Westlake signed editions is at all useful, but there are some pretty pictures of the books at least.
A review of Belinda Bauer's excellent crime novel Blacklands
Inexplicably, this post on the Jeff Lindsay Dexter novels versus the TV show is, believe it or not, the most popular post ever on Existential Ennui. At time of writing it's had over 700 hits (UPDATE 24/3/11: it's over 1600 now...), which may not sound a lot in the grand scheme of things, but isn't bad for a single post in under five months. I'm still not sure why, though. Something about it makes it pop up in Google searches for Dexter, especially image searches. Go on: try it. Type "Dexter" into an image search, and there that book cover will be, usually on the first or second page of images. I mean, that's the case with a lot of my posts – Westlake's Jimmy the Kid, for instance, or any number of the Parkers – but I've written about Westlake so much now and been linked to by Trent that that's not so surprising. But the Dexter thing? I'm stumped.
Next: a demonstration of hubris. I was soooo terribly chuffed with myself when I posted these two efforts on first editions versus book club editions, but actually I think I just come across as a complete twat. I mean, I may well be a complete twat, but calling attention to it on a blog is just stupid. And in any case, I suspect my assumption about dustjackets without prices on the front flaps signifying book club editions may in fact be complete balls: they could simply be export editions. And now I've gone and linked to the posts all over again. Sigh.
A review of the crime comic Stumptown
And a moan about comics in general. A recurring theme this year.
Ah, now these are quite good, if I do say so myself: these Notes from the Small Press posts have proved pretty popular, and are a good example of Existential Ennui being useful for a change. If you're at all interested in indie comics, go have a read of these posts on Fast Fiction, Chris Reynolds (which reprints perhaps my favourite comics story of all time), mid-2000s small pressers, Mardou, John Bagnall, and Ed Pinsent and Jeffrey Brown. And there'll be more of this sort of thing next year, fer sure.
This post on a couple of Max Allan Collins novels influenced by Richard Stark is worth a look for the comments on it from Max himself.
A pretty decent and pretty popular review of Darwyn Cooke's The Outfit
This one on John le Carre's worth reading for Roly's assessment of the novelist's later work.
A meditation on James Bond's perceived misogyny that's probably a bit flip, but might have some merit.
Another show-off post about books I bought
In this case a couple of John le Carre early editions, neither of which are as sought-after or as valuable as I believed at the time. Hubris, thy name is Louis XIV. Again.
Thanks to Book Glutton I ended up writing quite a few posts on Ross Thomas towards the back end of the year, the best of which are, I think, this one, this one, this one, and this one. That last one sheds a little light on publishing practices.
This post and this post turned into fairly lengthy meditations on book design, should you be interested in that sort of thing.
Dennis Lehane Week in November wasn't a roaring success creatively, but the first post does at least review one of the books – A Drink Before the War – and so it has slightly more substance than the others. This later post on the UK publishing plans for Moonlight Mile is also mildly interesting.
A review of Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library #20: Lint
This post is another very popular one. I don't know if I managed to get my review of Ware's magnificent graphic novella up early or something, but it's had over 450 hits since I published it in mid-November, and that total rises daily.
Ah, Beverley le Barrow
You did bring such pleasure this year. And you still are.
A handy cover gallery of early Donald Westlake UK first editions
A rant about genre fiction
Rargh.
There's nothing particularly extraordinary about this post on Alan Williams's Kim Philby novel Gentleman Traitor, but it does now have an absolutely first class comment on it from noted literary critic Michael Barber, who knew Williams and whose detailed and lengthy reply puts the post itself to shame. Go read it.
And last and by all means least, there are my various year-end round-ups. Including this very one. Whoah, temporal causality loop!
Always end on a Star Trek reference, I say.
Merry Christmas, and try not to throttle each other.
Your pal,
Louis
Looking for the Perfect James Bond (and Ripley too)
Kind of does what it says on the tin.
A brief note on Richard Stark's Point Blank, and another on The Man with the Getaway Face
The very first Parker Progress Report
An early entry in my unhinged Richard Stark collecting quest. Ah, so young (well, still a shade under 40 anyway), so innocent...
A Bookshop Tour of Lewes
Quite silly, but also reasonably useful if you should ever find yourself in Lewes, the East Sussex town in which blah blah snore...
Thoughts on the Stark Cutaways in the Parker novels
That rarest of things on Existential Ennui: a little critical insight. Just a little, mind. There's also a follow-up post on the Stark Stooges.
A Parker Progress Report on the Allison & Busby editions
Their value (at least as perceived by me back in April) and how many I'd managed to collect by this point. Fascinating stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.
Short reviews of The Score and The Jugger
I think we're beginning to see clearly the Stark-centric nature of Existential Ennui this year... By the way, I've since replaced the Allison & Busby paperback of The Sour Lemon Score seen in this post with a nicer copy. That's how weird and obsessive I am. There is a hint of method to my madness, though, as I'm planning a post soon on the later A&B Parker editions. That's my excuse, anyway.
The first of a number of posts on the UK Coronet paperback editions of the Parker novel
These bored readers of this blog to tears throughout the year. There's another one here, another here, and another here.
A snapshot of my comics habit in April
Do you really want to read a report of a trip to a bookshop in Arundel?
Well here's one anyway.
A post about Garth Ennis's Punisher Max which I retrieved from an earlier version of Existential Ennui because I was quite pleased with it. And I still am, so here it is again. I'm gonna get me a bumper sticker proclaiming my recycling credentials. Except a bumper sticker proclaiming recycling credentials would be slightly counterintuitive. Also, I don't have a car. Also, I can't drive.
Two cover galleries of Patricia Highsmith first editions: one and two. Unfortunately the formatting's a bit buggered in these and I can't seem to fix them now. Oh well.
Another round-up of Richard Stark 'Parker' novels
Now there's a shock. There are further reviews of the Parkers here, here, here, here, and here. Knock yourselves off. I mean out.
Reviews of three of the Richard Stark 'Alan Grofield' novels, here, here, and here.
An intriguing inscribed edition of Joe Gores's Dead Skip
Comparisons twixt The Hunter and The Hot Rock: the novels and the graphic novels
A little bit on Peter Rabe and his influence on Richard Stark
A couple of posts on Kingsley Amis, the first of which isn't bad, the second of which is a marked improvement, and one of the few things I've written this year that I'm relatively satisfied with.
A review of Paul Cornell's Action Comics
Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male, J. G. Ballard's Concrete Island, and William Boyd's Ordinary Thunderstorms
I was quite pleased with this post at the time, but on reflection – and as Olman rightly notes in the comments – it's a little woolly. Still, you may find some worth in it.
I'm just showing off here
This post is a bit pointless, but there's a half decent quip or two in it.
I quite like this post on science fiction author Michael Vyse because his son Owen commented on it.
A lengthy missive on cover artist Robert McGinnis and his covers for the Parker novels. It's not bad, but it's not as thorough as this post on the guy who created the initial Parker covers, Harry Bennett, which has the benefit of added comments from Harry's son and daughter.
A review of Gavin Lyall's The Secret Servant
The day I nearly died
And the day I won an award (kind of)
I'm not sure if this post on Donald Westlake signed editions is at all useful, but there are some pretty pictures of the books at least.
A review of Belinda Bauer's excellent crime novel Blacklands
Inexplicably, this post on the Jeff Lindsay Dexter novels versus the TV show is, believe it or not, the most popular post ever on Existential Ennui. At time of writing it's had over 700 hits (UPDATE 24/3/11: it's over 1600 now...), which may not sound a lot in the grand scheme of things, but isn't bad for a single post in under five months. I'm still not sure why, though. Something about it makes it pop up in Google searches for Dexter, especially image searches. Go on: try it. Type "Dexter" into an image search, and there that book cover will be, usually on the first or second page of images. I mean, that's the case with a lot of my posts – Westlake's Jimmy the Kid, for instance, or any number of the Parkers – but I've written about Westlake so much now and been linked to by Trent that that's not so surprising. But the Dexter thing? I'm stumped.
Next: a demonstration of hubris. I was soooo terribly chuffed with myself when I posted these two efforts on first editions versus book club editions, but actually I think I just come across as a complete twat. I mean, I may well be a complete twat, but calling attention to it on a blog is just stupid. And in any case, I suspect my assumption about dustjackets without prices on the front flaps signifying book club editions may in fact be complete balls: they could simply be export editions. And now I've gone and linked to the posts all over again. Sigh.
A review of the crime comic Stumptown
And a moan about comics in general. A recurring theme this year.
Ah, now these are quite good, if I do say so myself: these Notes from the Small Press posts have proved pretty popular, and are a good example of Existential Ennui being useful for a change. If you're at all interested in indie comics, go have a read of these posts on Fast Fiction, Chris Reynolds (which reprints perhaps my favourite comics story of all time), mid-2000s small pressers, Mardou, John Bagnall, and Ed Pinsent and Jeffrey Brown. And there'll be more of this sort of thing next year, fer sure.
This post on a couple of Max Allan Collins novels influenced by Richard Stark is worth a look for the comments on it from Max himself.
A pretty decent and pretty popular review of Darwyn Cooke's The Outfit
This one on John le Carre's worth reading for Roly's assessment of the novelist's later work.
A meditation on James Bond's perceived misogyny that's probably a bit flip, but might have some merit.
Another show-off post about books I bought
In this case a couple of John le Carre early editions, neither of which are as sought-after or as valuable as I believed at the time. Hubris, thy name is Louis XIV. Again.
Thanks to Book Glutton I ended up writing quite a few posts on Ross Thomas towards the back end of the year, the best of which are, I think, this one, this one, this one, and this one. That last one sheds a little light on publishing practices.
This post and this post turned into fairly lengthy meditations on book design, should you be interested in that sort of thing.
Dennis Lehane Week in November wasn't a roaring success creatively, but the first post does at least review one of the books – A Drink Before the War – and so it has slightly more substance than the others. This later post on the UK publishing plans for Moonlight Mile is also mildly interesting.
A review of Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library #20: Lint
This post is another very popular one. I don't know if I managed to get my review of Ware's magnificent graphic novella up early or something, but it's had over 450 hits since I published it in mid-November, and that total rises daily.
Ah, Beverley le Barrow
You did bring such pleasure this year. And you still are.
A handy cover gallery of early Donald Westlake UK first editions
A rant about genre fiction
Rargh.
There's nothing particularly extraordinary about this post on Alan Williams's Kim Philby novel Gentleman Traitor, but it does now have an absolutely first class comment on it from noted literary critic Michael Barber, who knew Williams and whose detailed and lengthy reply puts the post itself to shame. Go read it.
And last and by all means least, there are my various year-end round-ups. Including this very one. Whoah, temporal causality loop!
Always end on a Star Trek reference, I say.
Wednesday 22 December 2010
The Liquidator by John Gardner (Frederick Muller), Boysie Oakes, James Bond, Gordon Goode and the Stratford Shakespeare Connection
It surely can't have escaped the attention of regular readers (usual caveats about veracity of purported regularity – and indeed of readership full stop – apply) that I've been banging on about Donald McCormick's Who's Who in Spy Fiction – and latterly Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide – for a while now. That's because they have, as I suspected they would, proved useful references for a fair few posts. But they're also starting to provide inspiration for book purchases too. Such is the case with this latest eBay buy:
A UK hardback first edition of John Gardner's debut novel, The Liquidator, published by Frederick Muller in 1964. I've been aware of Gardner for a long time, but I've never got round to reading anything by him. But his entry in Who's Who in Spy Fiction intrigued me enough to track down a copy of The Liquidator, the first in a series of eight novels starring cowardly, bungling secret agent Boysie Oakes (it was turned into a film in 1965, directed by Jack Cardiff, of slightly later Girl on a Motorcycle fame).
"The idea came to me in a train," Gardner told McCormick in Who's Who. "Boysie Oakes was based on the idea of a government employing people to murder. The book was written as a joke, but behind it were some of the things I had always wanted to say about this kind of life." In Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide, Gardner added that The Liquidator "was written as a kind of placebo against the excesses of those who tried to hang onto the coat tails of Ian Fleming. Oakes, a cowardly, inept and lecherous idiot is recruited to intelligence by mistake, and appointed hired killer – a job he is forced to sub-contract, sometimes with disastrous results."
But it wasn't just the Fleming hangers-on who Gardner objected to: Boysie Oakes was intended as an antidote to James Bond himself. In Who's Who in Spy Fiction – published, it's worth noting, in 1977 – McCormick states that, like John le Carre, Gardner "despised" the character of 007. But in a surprising turn of events, just two years after Who's Who appeared, Gardner signed a contract with Ian Fleming's publishing estate Glidrose to write a new, updated series of Bond novels, beginning with License Renewed in 1981. He ended up writing fourteen original Bond novels and two movie novelizations between 1981 and 1996. In Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide – published in 1990 – Gardner himself notes, "There is some irony in the fact that, later, having moved on from the comedy of B Oakes to serious espionage fiction, I became the one chosen – in 1979 – to continue the work of Ian Fleming, which I combine with more serious novels of espionage."
The dustjacket of this first edition of The Liquidator was designed by Derrick Holmes, whose photo-based cover designs graced a good number of novels published by Muller, Andre Deutsch and Heinemann in the 1960s. The best-known of those – aside from The Liquidator – was Anthony Burgess' Inside Mr. Enderby, for which Holmes designed the jacket of the 1963 Heinemann first edition – originally published under the pseudonym Joseph Kell.
The author photo on the back of The Liquidator's jacket, meanwhile, was taken by Gordon Goode, a Stratford-upon-Avon-based photographer who died in 2008. Aside from freelance commissions, such as this photo of Gardner, Goode was a regular official photographer for the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking hundreds of pictures of actors on and off stage, among them Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Ian Holm. His widow, Margaret, recently unveiled an archive of the photographs, some of which can be seen in this BBC Coventry slideshow. John Gardner lived just outside Stratford, in Tiddington: from 1958 to 1965 Gardner worked as a drama critic for the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, and naturally would cover the RSC – hence the connection with Goode; Peter Hall, founder and director of the RSC from 1960–1968, would often give Gardner a lift to work. Small world, Stratford. And according to McCormick in Who's Who in Spy Fiction, Gardner "became such an authority on Shakespeare that he was asked to lecture on the Bard in the United States and Russia".
For more on John Gardner, a pretty thorough website dedicated to him can be found right here.
A UK hardback first edition of John Gardner's debut novel, The Liquidator, published by Frederick Muller in 1964. I've been aware of Gardner for a long time, but I've never got round to reading anything by him. But his entry in Who's Who in Spy Fiction intrigued me enough to track down a copy of The Liquidator, the first in a series of eight novels starring cowardly, bungling secret agent Boysie Oakes (it was turned into a film in 1965, directed by Jack Cardiff, of slightly later Girl on a Motorcycle fame).
"The idea came to me in a train," Gardner told McCormick in Who's Who. "Boysie Oakes was based on the idea of a government employing people to murder. The book was written as a joke, but behind it were some of the things I had always wanted to say about this kind of life." In Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide, Gardner added that The Liquidator "was written as a kind of placebo against the excesses of those who tried to hang onto the coat tails of Ian Fleming. Oakes, a cowardly, inept and lecherous idiot is recruited to intelligence by mistake, and appointed hired killer – a job he is forced to sub-contract, sometimes with disastrous results."
But it wasn't just the Fleming hangers-on who Gardner objected to: Boysie Oakes was intended as an antidote to James Bond himself. In Who's Who in Spy Fiction – published, it's worth noting, in 1977 – McCormick states that, like John le Carre, Gardner "despised" the character of 007. But in a surprising turn of events, just two years after Who's Who appeared, Gardner signed a contract with Ian Fleming's publishing estate Glidrose to write a new, updated series of Bond novels, beginning with License Renewed in 1981. He ended up writing fourteen original Bond novels and two movie novelizations between 1981 and 1996. In Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide – published in 1990 – Gardner himself notes, "There is some irony in the fact that, later, having moved on from the comedy of B Oakes to serious espionage fiction, I became the one chosen – in 1979 – to continue the work of Ian Fleming, which I combine with more serious novels of espionage."
The dustjacket of this first edition of The Liquidator was designed by Derrick Holmes, whose photo-based cover designs graced a good number of novels published by Muller, Andre Deutsch and Heinemann in the 1960s. The best-known of those – aside from The Liquidator – was Anthony Burgess' Inside Mr. Enderby, for which Holmes designed the jacket of the 1963 Heinemann first edition – originally published under the pseudonym Joseph Kell.
The author photo on the back of The Liquidator's jacket, meanwhile, was taken by Gordon Goode, a Stratford-upon-Avon-based photographer who died in 2008. Aside from freelance commissions, such as this photo of Gardner, Goode was a regular official photographer for the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking hundreds of pictures of actors on and off stage, among them Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Ian Holm. His widow, Margaret, recently unveiled an archive of the photographs, some of which can be seen in this BBC Coventry slideshow. John Gardner lived just outside Stratford, in Tiddington: from 1958 to 1965 Gardner worked as a drama critic for the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, and naturally would cover the RSC – hence the connection with Goode; Peter Hall, founder and director of the RSC from 1960–1968, would often give Gardner a lift to work. Small world, Stratford. And according to McCormick in Who's Who in Spy Fiction, Gardner "became such an authority on Shakespeare that he was asked to lecture on the Bard in the United States and Russia".
For more on John Gardner, a pretty thorough website dedicated to him can be found right here.
Tuesday 21 December 2010
The Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck (Hodder & Stoughton), plus Author Ross Thomas on Spy Fiction
Here's a book I picked up for a song online, the first in a short series of pseudonymous novels by Ross Thomas:
It's the UK first edition hardback of The Brass Go-Between, written by Thomas under the pen name Oliver Bleeck, and published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1970 (originally published in the States by William Morrow in 1969). The striking dustjacket is by Kaye Bellman, who also designed covers for J. J. Marric (a.k.a. John Creasey; Gideon's Fog, Hodder, 1975) and Nicholas Mosley (Impossible Object, Hodder, 1968). The back flap of the jacket tells us that "Oliver Bleeck is a pseudonym of an established and award-winning American suspense novelist. The Brass Go-Between is the first of several novels that will be published under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck."
Thomas in fact wrote five books as Bleeck: The Brass Go-Between, The Procane Chronicle (1971), Protocol for a Kidnapping (also 1971), The Highbinders (1974), and No Questions Asked (1976). All of them are (I think) first person affairs starring Philip St. Ives, an urbane, jet-setting go-between who mediates between the owners of stolen goods and the thieves responsible for stealing them in the first place. The third book in the series, The Procane Chronicle, was made into a movie – St. Ives (1976), helmed by Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear director J. Lee Thompson and starring Charles Bronson as the eponymous character (actually Raymond St. Ives in the film). As for The Brass Go-Between's plot, it centres on efforts to recover a tenth century brass shield stolen from a Washington, D.C. museum. There's a review of it over at the ever-handy Mystery File blog. (UPDATE: and indeed a review on Existential Ennui itself now.)
I mentioned in yesterday's post on Donald McCormick and Katy Fletcher's Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide that, unlike McCormick's previous spy fiction survey, 1977's Who's Who in Spy Fiction, the Connoissuer's Guide does have an entry on Ross Thomas. Information-wise there's nothing in it that isn't available elsewhere, but there is a lengthy quote from Thomas on espionage fiction that's worth republishing in full, I think:
"Spy fiction offers adventure, romance, intrigue and suspense, which are the essentials of most fiction. I write it because I enjoy reading it. I also write novels about crime, politics and scallawags, which also provide adventure, romance, intrigue, suspense and even mystery. Most spy novels provide neither an accurate nor realistic picture of the intelligence world because they are not written by espionage agents. This does not necessarily mean that they are not good novels. I have never wittingly had any formal association with any intelligence agency. But I have known some agents. Knowing them did not hinder my career as a novelist. Nor did it help any."
It's the UK first edition hardback of The Brass Go-Between, written by Thomas under the pen name Oliver Bleeck, and published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1970 (originally published in the States by William Morrow in 1969). The striking dustjacket is by Kaye Bellman, who also designed covers for J. J. Marric (a.k.a. John Creasey; Gideon's Fog, Hodder, 1975) and Nicholas Mosley (Impossible Object, Hodder, 1968). The back flap of the jacket tells us that "Oliver Bleeck is a pseudonym of an established and award-winning American suspense novelist. The Brass Go-Between is the first of several novels that will be published under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck."
Thomas in fact wrote five books as Bleeck: The Brass Go-Between, The Procane Chronicle (1971), Protocol for a Kidnapping (also 1971), The Highbinders (1974), and No Questions Asked (1976). All of them are (I think) first person affairs starring Philip St. Ives, an urbane, jet-setting go-between who mediates between the owners of stolen goods and the thieves responsible for stealing them in the first place. The third book in the series, The Procane Chronicle, was made into a movie – St. Ives (1976), helmed by Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear director J. Lee Thompson and starring Charles Bronson as the eponymous character (actually Raymond St. Ives in the film). As for The Brass Go-Between's plot, it centres on efforts to recover a tenth century brass shield stolen from a Washington, D.C. museum. There's a review of it over at the ever-handy Mystery File blog. (UPDATE: and indeed a review on Existential Ennui itself now.)
I mentioned in yesterday's post on Donald McCormick and Katy Fletcher's Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide that, unlike McCormick's previous spy fiction survey, 1977's Who's Who in Spy Fiction, the Connoissuer's Guide does have an entry on Ross Thomas. Information-wise there's nothing in it that isn't available elsewhere, but there is a lengthy quote from Thomas on espionage fiction that's worth republishing in full, I think:
"Spy fiction offers adventure, romance, intrigue and suspense, which are the essentials of most fiction. I write it because I enjoy reading it. I also write novels about crime, politics and scallawags, which also provide adventure, romance, intrigue, suspense and even mystery. Most spy novels provide neither an accurate nor realistic picture of the intelligence world because they are not written by espionage agents. This does not necessarily mean that they are not good novels. I have never wittingly had any formal association with any intelligence agency. But I have known some agents. Knowing them did not hinder my career as a novelist. Nor did it help any."
Monday 20 December 2010
Lewes Bookshop Bargain: Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide by Donald McCormick and Katy Fletcher (Facts on File)
This one's possibly slightly surplus to requirements, but when I plucked it from the shelves of second hand bookshop A & Y Cumming on Lewes (the currently snowbound East Sussex town in which I live and work) High Street and saw how cheap it was, I couldn't resist:
Published in 1990 by Facts on File, it's the hardback first edition of Donald McCormick and Katy Fletcher's Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide, with a dustjacket designed by Richard Garratt and a front cover illustration by Colin Robson. And if you're a regular (or more likely semi-regular, or even more likely, irregular) reader of Existential Ennui, you might recognise McCormick's name. That's because at the end of last month I blogged about another, somewhat similar survey of the spy fiction field I'd purchased, written by... you guessed it: Donald McCormick. Hence the "surplus to requirements" comment up top.
Ah, but Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide isn't merely an update of McCormick's earlier Who's Who in Spy Fiction. It's an entirely new, completely different book. For one thing, it's co-authored with an American lecturer on the subject (Fletcher), and consequently has more of an American bias. For another, although the approach is similar to Who's Who – alphabetical entries on espionage fiction authors – here each entry is broken down into a list of titles, a brief biography, and a critical analysis. And although McCormick clearly draws on the research he did for the earlier book, there are authors included in the Connoisseur's Guide who weren't in Who's Who – Ross Thomas, to name but one.
And if this post is beginning to read as if I'm attempting to justify the purchase of a book about spy fiction written (in part) by Donald McCormick when I only recently purchased a very similar book about spy fiction written (in toto) by Donald McCormick (...), let me just point out that there are also eight essays at the back of the Connoisseur's Guide which aren't in Who's Who, ranging from a history of American spy fiction to movie adaptations of spy novels. So, y'know. There's that.
But the major difference between Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide and Who's Who in Spy Fiction is the former is only twenty years out of date instead of thirty-three (Who's Who was published in 1977). So it might prove slightly more useful when blogging about slightly more recent spy novels. Although obviously still not for any novels published after 1990. Hmm. I wonder if Donald McCormick has written any more up-to-date spy fiction surveys...?
Published in 1990 by Facts on File, it's the hardback first edition of Donald McCormick and Katy Fletcher's Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide, with a dustjacket designed by Richard Garratt and a front cover illustration by Colin Robson. And if you're a regular (or more likely semi-regular, or even more likely, irregular) reader of Existential Ennui, you might recognise McCormick's name. That's because at the end of last month I blogged about another, somewhat similar survey of the spy fiction field I'd purchased, written by... you guessed it: Donald McCormick. Hence the "surplus to requirements" comment up top.
Ah, but Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide isn't merely an update of McCormick's earlier Who's Who in Spy Fiction. It's an entirely new, completely different book. For one thing, it's co-authored with an American lecturer on the subject (Fletcher), and consequently has more of an American bias. For another, although the approach is similar to Who's Who – alphabetical entries on espionage fiction authors – here each entry is broken down into a list of titles, a brief biography, and a critical analysis. And although McCormick clearly draws on the research he did for the earlier book, there are authors included in the Connoisseur's Guide who weren't in Who's Who – Ross Thomas, to name but one.
And if this post is beginning to read as if I'm attempting to justify the purchase of a book about spy fiction written (in part) by Donald McCormick when I only recently purchased a very similar book about spy fiction written (in toto) by Donald McCormick (...), let me just point out that there are also eight essays at the back of the Connoisseur's Guide which aren't in Who's Who, ranging from a history of American spy fiction to movie adaptations of spy novels. So, y'know. There's that.
But the major difference between Spy Fiction: A Connoisseur's Guide and Who's Who in Spy Fiction is the former is only twenty years out of date instead of thirty-three (Who's Who was published in 1977). So it might prove slightly more useful when blogging about slightly more recent spy novels. Although obviously still not for any novels published after 1990. Hmm. I wonder if Donald McCormick has written any more up-to-date spy fiction surveys...?
Sunday 19 December 2010
The James Bond Triad Panther Granada Box Set: From Russia, with Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy
Let's take a breather from the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics – fret not; there's plenty more to come yet – to catch up on a recent acquisition or two. And today I've got something rather fab which also acts as a coda to that post on the 1970s Triad/Panther/Granada paperback editions of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. You remember those: the ones with the terribly glamorous – or perhaps glamorously terrible – Beverley le Barrow covers. Well feast your eyes upon this obscure object of desire:
This magnificent box contains six Panther paperback Bond novels: From Russia, with Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy. It was published, I'm guessing by the dates in the books – which are all either 1978 first prints or 1979 reprints – in 1979. That's at odds with the information on Amazon, though, which reckons the box set was published in 1978. However, the box design on Amazon is different too: the Amazon box has the Beverley le Barrow photo from You Only Live Twice on its front (or possibly its back; depends on your perspective really), along with the titles of the books:
While mine has the photo from The Man with the Golden Gun cover on the front (and the one from Goldfinger on the back), and no mention of the books, although they are the same six novels listed as being inside the Amazon version:
Curious. Presumably there was more than one version of the box. And it's an odd selection of books inside, too; why no Casino Royale, or Dr. No? Mind you, I think the Panther editions were published out of sequence anyway, so perhaps the books in the box were the initial six that Panther issued.
I went into the creative process behind those glorious Beverley le Barrow photos in the previous Bond/Panther post, but I can add a tiny detail about the Goldfinger cover (duplicated on the box itself): the gold goblet the model is holding and the champagne bucket at her feet were supplied by luxury goods emporium Aspreys of Bond Street, London. So, what with the Terry de Havilland shoes and Hooper Bolton jewellery, this was one classy photo shoot.
I have no idea how sought-after or collectable this box set is, or how much it's worth. There aren't any for sale on Amazon or AbeBooks; I got this one for £4.50 from a seller on eBay who had simply called it "bond box set" or something, which wouldn't make it easy to find for any 007 collector (I just happened to stumble upon it). But it's a fun thing to own, nevertheless.
This magnificent box contains six Panther paperback Bond novels: From Russia, with Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy. It was published, I'm guessing by the dates in the books – which are all either 1978 first prints or 1979 reprints – in 1979. That's at odds with the information on Amazon, though, which reckons the box set was published in 1978. However, the box design on Amazon is different too: the Amazon box has the Beverley le Barrow photo from You Only Live Twice on its front (or possibly its back; depends on your perspective really), along with the titles of the books:
While mine has the photo from The Man with the Golden Gun cover on the front (and the one from Goldfinger on the back), and no mention of the books, although they are the same six novels listed as being inside the Amazon version:
Curious. Presumably there was more than one version of the box. And it's an odd selection of books inside, too; why no Casino Royale, or Dr. No? Mind you, I think the Panther editions were published out of sequence anyway, so perhaps the books in the box were the initial six that Panther issued.
I went into the creative process behind those glorious Beverley le Barrow photos in the previous Bond/Panther post, but I can add a tiny detail about the Goldfinger cover (duplicated on the box itself): the gold goblet the model is holding and the champagne bucket at her feet were supplied by luxury goods emporium Aspreys of Bond Street, London. So, what with the Terry de Havilland shoes and Hooper Bolton jewellery, this was one classy photo shoot.
I have no idea how sought-after or collectable this box set is, or how much it's worth. There aren't any for sale on Amazon or AbeBooks; I got this one for £4.50 from a seller on eBay who had simply called it "bond box set" or something, which wouldn't make it easy to find for any 007 collector (I just happened to stumble upon it). But it's a fun thing to own, nevertheless.
Friday 17 December 2010
2010: A Review of the Year in Books and Comics; 3. How I Didn't Really Understand Grant Morrison's Batman Comics But Still Thought They Were the Best Comics of the Year
And so we continue the 2010 Existential Ennui Navel-Gazing Review of the Year, except that this segment will have rather more relevance to 2010 than parts one and two did. Because alongside all the second hand books I was reading throughout 2010, I was also reading a fair number of new comics. And I don't just mean the graphic novels nestling in amongst the foxed and musty first editions in yesterday's Bloody Great List (in which I forgot to include one – Jason's rather good Werewolves of Montpellier, now added), among them Chris Ware's Lint and Darwyn Cooke's The Outfit. I mean yer proper pamphlet-like comic books, like wot they used to 'ave in the olden days, guv. Astonishing to think that actual, real comic books are still being published in this whizz bang digital delivery age, but they are, and it's a beautiful thing.
Unfortunately, while the floppy format of comic books was still a thing of wonder in 2010 (to me, anyway), the content left a lot to be desired, something that was reflected in declining sales of monthly American comic books. Increases in price played a part, but the bald truth is that the material was for the most part subpar. The big Marvel event kicking off 2010, Siege, was a damp squib, and the relaunched Avengers titles spinning out of it have been disappointing, only the main Brian Michael Bendis/John Romita Jr. Avengers showing a spark of life. Ed Brubaker's previously reliable Captain America lost the spring in its step, Matt Fraction's Iron Man went through the mechanical motions, and his Thor was noticeably under the weather. DC Comics became obsessed with the inherently dumb Green Lantern mythos, with the Blackest Night/Rainbow Lanterns farrago culminating in the fortnightly snoozefest known as Brightest Day. Meanwhile both Superman and Wonder Woman got J. Michael Straczynski-shaped relaunches, neither of which managed to hold anybody's attention.
There was some good stuff around. Ex Machina reached a satisfying if dark conclusion; The Walking Dead kept on keepin' on, enjoying a TV show-inspired sales boost; Rucka and Southworth's Stumptown was that rarest of things, a good crime comic; Mike Carey and Peter Gross' The Unwritten was worth sticking with; Paul Cornell's Action Comics got off to a promising start, though more recently it's faltered slightly; and although I lost track of it a year or two back, by all accounts John Arcudi and Guy Davis' B.P.R.D. continues to be a damn fine series. But despite these glimmers of hope, the number of comics series I'd stopped reading only increased as the year ran its course.
There was, however, one series of comic books – or rather, a series, a miniseries, a one-shot, a couple of issues of another series, and eventually a brand new ongoing series – which bucked the downward trend, but which, perversely, but not entirely coincidentally, were also the most confusing and perplexing comics of the year. The Batman comics written by Grant Morrison in 2010 – Batman and Robin, a few issues of the main Batman title, the Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, the Batman: The Return special, and latterly Batman Incorporated; an appropriately convoluted publishing strategy – were, for me, the year's most consistently enjoyable mainstream comics. That I had next to no idea what the hell was going on in them most of the time didn't really matter. In fact, it only added to their allure.
The overarching storyline that had been running across Morrison's Batcomics since he started writing them four years ago reached a climax with Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 and Batman and Robin #16, but I was still none the bloody wiser. I wasn't sure who Dr. Hurt really was, or how Bruce actually ended up in the past, or how he managed to find his way back again, or what those weird symbols were all about, or who the guy in the cave was, or how all of those things connected up, as I'm sure they do, at least in the minds of Morrison himself and those annoying smartarse comics fans on the internet who pedantically spell things out for us knuckledragging imbeciles as if it's all the easiest thing in the world to understand. You know the ones: those tiresome hairy boys who congregate on the fringes of Valiant Trooper drink-ups and haunt certain messageboards.
Anyway, as confounding as Morrison's Batman comics were, they were also never less than enthralling, stuffed with so many memorable moments and compelling characters that other superhero comics appeared positively pedestrian by comparison. Batman being shot in the head. The Joker disguising himself as a British masked detective. A confrontation with the Justice League of America at the end of time. Damian, the snottiest, most brilliant Robin ever. Gonzo villains aplenty. That every issue seemed to have a different artist – some good, some not so – only added to the unexpected nature of the enterprise. There was no telling what was coming next.
And that's exactly what American comic books lacked in 2010 – have lacked for a good many years: the notion that anything is possible. Where the majority of Marvel and DC's output was so overplanned it felt like you'd already read a comic before you'd even opened it, Morrison's Batstuff, even though it was no doubt meticulously charted, felt freewheeling. The difference being, Morrison's work is the work of one man's fevered mind, not the work of a committee, of an editorial conference or a writers' retreat. There are lessons to be learned in Morrison's Batman comics, but I doubt they will be. And frankly, I don't really care either. So long as Grant Morrison keeps writing Batman comics for a while yet – and with the launch of Batman Incorporated last month, it looks like he will – I'll be happy.
I've gone back over the MorriBatBooks (© 2010 Existential Ennui) a couple of times already trying to make sense of them, to little avail. I expect I'll have another go soon. But that they continue to bemuse and bewilder is both beside the point and also precisely the point: they're pretty much the only comics I have returned to and re-read this year, or last year, or the year before that. All the other comics I buy get boxed away and basically forgotten. Not these ones, though; not these beautiful, barmy Batbooks, these crazy caped crusades, these dizzy, deranged Dark Knight delights. I reckon I'll be digging these daft buggers out of the longbox for a long time to come.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 5
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 6
Unfortunately, while the floppy format of comic books was still a thing of wonder in 2010 (to me, anyway), the content left a lot to be desired, something that was reflected in declining sales of monthly American comic books. Increases in price played a part, but the bald truth is that the material was for the most part subpar. The big Marvel event kicking off 2010, Siege, was a damp squib, and the relaunched Avengers titles spinning out of it have been disappointing, only the main Brian Michael Bendis/John Romita Jr. Avengers showing a spark of life. Ed Brubaker's previously reliable Captain America lost the spring in its step, Matt Fraction's Iron Man went through the mechanical motions, and his Thor was noticeably under the weather. DC Comics became obsessed with the inherently dumb Green Lantern mythos, with the Blackest Night/Rainbow Lanterns farrago culminating in the fortnightly snoozefest known as Brightest Day. Meanwhile both Superman and Wonder Woman got J. Michael Straczynski-shaped relaunches, neither of which managed to hold anybody's attention.
There was some good stuff around. Ex Machina reached a satisfying if dark conclusion; The Walking Dead kept on keepin' on, enjoying a TV show-inspired sales boost; Rucka and Southworth's Stumptown was that rarest of things, a good crime comic; Mike Carey and Peter Gross' The Unwritten was worth sticking with; Paul Cornell's Action Comics got off to a promising start, though more recently it's faltered slightly; and although I lost track of it a year or two back, by all accounts John Arcudi and Guy Davis' B.P.R.D. continues to be a damn fine series. But despite these glimmers of hope, the number of comics series I'd stopped reading only increased as the year ran its course.
There was, however, one series of comic books – or rather, a series, a miniseries, a one-shot, a couple of issues of another series, and eventually a brand new ongoing series – which bucked the downward trend, but which, perversely, but not entirely coincidentally, were also the most confusing and perplexing comics of the year. The Batman comics written by Grant Morrison in 2010 – Batman and Robin, a few issues of the main Batman title, the Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, the Batman: The Return special, and latterly Batman Incorporated; an appropriately convoluted publishing strategy – were, for me, the year's most consistently enjoyable mainstream comics. That I had next to no idea what the hell was going on in them most of the time didn't really matter. In fact, it only added to their allure.
The overarching storyline that had been running across Morrison's Batcomics since he started writing them four years ago reached a climax with Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 and Batman and Robin #16, but I was still none the bloody wiser. I wasn't sure who Dr. Hurt really was, or how Bruce actually ended up in the past, or how he managed to find his way back again, or what those weird symbols were all about, or who the guy in the cave was, or how all of those things connected up, as I'm sure they do, at least in the minds of Morrison himself and those annoying smartarse comics fans on the internet who pedantically spell things out for us knuckledragging imbeciles as if it's all the easiest thing in the world to understand. You know the ones: those tiresome hairy boys who congregate on the fringes of Valiant Trooper drink-ups and haunt certain messageboards.
Anyway, as confounding as Morrison's Batman comics were, they were also never less than enthralling, stuffed with so many memorable moments and compelling characters that other superhero comics appeared positively pedestrian by comparison. Batman being shot in the head. The Joker disguising himself as a British masked detective. A confrontation with the Justice League of America at the end of time. Damian, the snottiest, most brilliant Robin ever. Gonzo villains aplenty. That every issue seemed to have a different artist – some good, some not so – only added to the unexpected nature of the enterprise. There was no telling what was coming next.
And that's exactly what American comic books lacked in 2010 – have lacked for a good many years: the notion that anything is possible. Where the majority of Marvel and DC's output was so overplanned it felt like you'd already read a comic before you'd even opened it, Morrison's Batstuff, even though it was no doubt meticulously charted, felt freewheeling. The difference being, Morrison's work is the work of one man's fevered mind, not the work of a committee, of an editorial conference or a writers' retreat. There are lessons to be learned in Morrison's Batman comics, but I doubt they will be. And frankly, I don't really care either. So long as Grant Morrison keeps writing Batman comics for a while yet – and with the launch of Batman Incorporated last month, it looks like he will – I'll be happy.
I've gone back over the MorriBatBooks (© 2010 Existential Ennui) a couple of times already trying to make sense of them, to little avail. I expect I'll have another go soon. But that they continue to bemuse and bewilder is both beside the point and also precisely the point: they're pretty much the only comics I have returned to and re-read this year, or last year, or the year before that. All the other comics I buy get boxed away and basically forgotten. Not these ones, though; not these beautiful, barmy Batbooks, these crazy caped crusades, these dizzy, deranged Dark Knight delights. I reckon I'll be digging these daft buggers out of the longbox for a long time to come.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 5
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 6
Wednesday 15 December 2010
2010: A Review of the Year in Books and Comics; 2. A Bloody Great List
Lists. Everybody loves lists. Checklists, playlists, shopping lists. A life without lists is a life without order. Or something. And around this time of year, magazines and websites and telly shows and radio shows are heaving with lists: lists of books, lists of albums, lists of singles, lists of hair, lists of mice... you name it. So why should Existential Ennui's weirdly outdated, hermetically sealed 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics be any different? Answer: it shouldn't. Here, then, is a bloody great list – as in a long list, but also, as it happens, a fairly great one, too – of the books wot I done read this year, in the order wot I done read them. I posted the first half of it back in July, by which point I was halfway through Justin Cronin's The Passage (as recommended to me by Book Glutton). But I'd actually forgotten to include the graphic novels I'd read too, an oversight I've now corrected. Let's have a look at the thing, and then reconvene afterwards for a chat, shall we?
The Green Man by Kingsley Amis
The Green Man by Kingsley Amis
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
The Hacienda: or How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
The Way Home by George Pelecanos
The Wrong Side of the Sky by Gavin Lyall
Point Blank by Richard Stark
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
Hellblazer: Pandemonium by Jamie Delano and Jock
The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark
Moonraker by Ian Fleming
Killy by Donald Westlake
The Outfit by Richard Stark
The Mourner by Richard Stark
The Score by Richard Stark
The Jugger by Richard Stark
The Split by Richard Stark
The Handle by Richard Stark
The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith
Weathercraft by Jim Woodring
The Most Dangerous Game by Gavin Lyall
The Damsel by Richard Stark
A God Somewhere by John Arcudi, Peter Snejbjerg and Bjarne Hansen
The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark
The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake
The Hot Rock by LAX
Dig My Grave Deep by Peter Rabe
Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell
Wilson by Dan Clowes
The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark
The Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith
The Passage by Justin Cronin
The Black Ice Score by Richard Stark
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
Concrete Island by J. G. Ballard
Bank Shot by Donald Westlake
Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay
The Sour Lemon Score by Richard Stark
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
The Secret Servant by Gavin Lyall
Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
The Dame by Richard Stark
Deadly Edge by Richard Stark
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer
Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke
Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
The Honourable Scoolboy by John le Carre
Spy in the Vodka/The Cold War Swap by Ross Thomas
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane
The Blackbird by Richard Stark
The ACME Novelty Library #20: Lint by Chris Ware
The Porkchoppers by Ross Thomas
Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas
Slayground by Richard Stark
The Playwright by Eddie Campbell and Darren Whitte
Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas
What Became of Jane Austen? by Kingsley Amis
What Became of Jane Austen? by Kingsley Amis
The Naked Runner by Francis Clifford
The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (still reading)
The Out is Death by Peter Rabe (still reading)
Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (still reading)
Adventures on the High Teas by Stuart Maconie (still reading)
I make that sixty-five done, dusted, read and shelved books and graphic novels, with a further four books still in progress. Hopefully I'll have a couple of those finished by the end of the year, and maybe a couple more besides. I suspect Olman – currently on his seventieth book of the year – will still beat me, but even so: not a bad effort.
Breaking the list down a bit, out of all those books, just sixteen could be classed as relatively 'new' – i.e. published in the last year or two – and out of those, nine are graphic novels, and three are non-fiction. Which means, if my maths is correct, I read just four relatively new novels this year – and indeed one of those I'm still reading. The remaining fifty-three books on the list – all but one of them novels – were all first published between five and seventy years ago. And out of those, over a third were written by Donald E. Westlake. I guess that shouldn't really come as a surprise, given the overwhelmingly Westlake-centric nature of Existential Ennui throughout the year, but even so: that's still an impressive percentage. No other author even approaches Westlake's mighty total of twenty books; I think Ross Thomas comes closest with four. It really was the Year of Westlake.
All being well I'll be revisiting this list in a subsequent 2010 Review of the Year post to see if I can work out which, in my estimation, was the best book I read all year. In fact, I wonder if another list might be appropriate... a top twenty, perhaps? One to ponder there. Either way, I'll update it before the year's out to see what the final tally is. Because I ain't done yet. Not by a long chalk. Watch out, Olman. I'm coming up fast from behind. Er, so to speak.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
I make that sixty-five done, dusted, read and shelved books and graphic novels, with a further four books still in progress. Hopefully I'll have a couple of those finished by the end of the year, and maybe a couple more besides. I suspect Olman – currently on his seventieth book of the year – will still beat me, but even so: not a bad effort.
Breaking the list down a bit, out of all those books, just sixteen could be classed as relatively 'new' – i.e. published in the last year or two – and out of those, nine are graphic novels, and three are non-fiction. Which means, if my maths is correct, I read just four relatively new novels this year – and indeed one of those I'm still reading. The remaining fifty-three books on the list – all but one of them novels – were all first published between five and seventy years ago. And out of those, over a third were written by Donald E. Westlake. I guess that shouldn't really come as a surprise, given the overwhelmingly Westlake-centric nature of Existential Ennui throughout the year, but even so: that's still an impressive percentage. No other author even approaches Westlake's mighty total of twenty books; I think Ross Thomas comes closest with four. It really was the Year of Westlake.
All being well I'll be revisiting this list in a subsequent 2010 Review of the Year post to see if I can work out which, in my estimation, was the best book I read all year. In fact, I wonder if another list might be appropriate... a top twenty, perhaps? One to ponder there. Either way, I'll update it before the year's out to see what the final tally is. Because I ain't done yet. Not by a long chalk. Watch out, Olman. I'm coming up fast from behind. Er, so to speak.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 1
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
2010: A Review of the Year in Books and Comics; 1. Sweeping Generalizations
Right then. A day or two later than planned, but it's time to begin the Existential Ennui Review of the Year! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this – note the exclamation mark ending the previous sentence – largely because I'm not in the slightest bit excited. But I can at least summon a smidgen of enthusiasm for what lies ahead in this series of festive posts looking back on the year that was.
A word of caution, however: while this will be, as the title of this post suggests, a review of the year in books and comics, they almost certainly won't be the same books and comics reviewed elsewhere – y'know, on those other, immensely more popular websites and in those immeasurably more widely read magazines. In those places you'll get lists of and commentary on the new books and comics – and movies and music and so on – that made an impact this year, which is always terribly useful if you've overlooked or missed anything (a service the year-end issue of Artrocker magazine is providing for me right now). Here, however, in what will no doubt prove to be an intermittent series of posts, I'll be writing about the books and comics I read this year. Which, considering most of them were published at least thirty years ago, will be a fat lot of use to all concerned.
Never mind. Perhaps I'll be able to offer some wit or insight to make up for the dated nature of my annual audit. On past evidence, probably not, but we live in hope. Over the next week or two you can look forward to (if that's the right phrase) a number of thrilling posts on the books and comics I bought and read in 2010. Admittedly, as of right now I'm not entirely certain what many of these posts will consist of – I know there'll be a list in there somewhere, and there might be a review or two – but they'll definitely be thrilling. Definitely.
As is traditional with these year-endy things, though, let's begin with some Sweeping Generalizations, wherein the trends and movements and themes of the year are identified and contextualized. And for me, the main trend this year, so far as my reading habits went, was the move away from comics and towards novels. This was prompted partly by a burgeoning – or rather re-burgeoning – interest in books (which actually began last year) and partly by comics being a bit, well... shit.
I've had many a lengthy discussion about the dearth of decent comics this year with famed Spandex creator Martin Eden, and the entirely scientific conclusion we've reached is: it's not us, it's them. As in, it's not so much been mine and Mart's lack of enthusiasm for comics – although I suspect that played a part – as it has been Marvel and DC's lacklustre output. The Big Two comics companies – who, let's be honest, together produce the vast majority of the comics we weekly (or, in my case, fortnightly these days) comic shop-goers buy – have had a pretty poor showing this year, so much so that, with the exception of Grant Morrison's Batman stuff, I've effectively stopped reading DC comics. Over at Marvel, meanwhile, Bendis and Brubaker have gone off the boil, and the younger crop of writers have proved to be not quite as good as their forebears.
In fact, things got so bad, and I got so bored, that I stopped doing my weekly Must Be Thursday blog posts. So at least some good came of a crap year for comics.
But while comics may have been a bit rubbish, there were plenty of musty old novels to take their place, in particular those written by one Donald E. Westlake. Yes, for me, 2010 was the Year of Stark, as a long-held ambition to read one or two of the Parker novels written by Westlake under his Richard Stark nom de plume turned into a frankly ridiculous hunt for first editions of not only the Parker books but the Alan Grofield ones too – not to mention other Westlake novels besides. It wasn't all about Westlake, though. It was also the Year of Ross Thomas, and of Dennis Lehane, and of Gavin Lyall, and of many more besides. Some of these minor obsessions were inspired by the writings of Book Glutton and Olman and Trent, as we all egged each other on; some were pure happenstance. But all have led to a revelatory year of reading pleasure.
It was also, it should be mentioned, the Year of Unwellness, as a festering ulcer deep inside me finally decided to burst, leading to the events of That Night and its aftermath. I'd like to report that the whole episode has enlightened me somehow, but I'm not sure it has, beyond eating a little better and not smoking or drinking (not that I did much of either anyway). It's just possible, however, that it resulted in a renewed intent as regards my final Generalization.
Because perhaps more pertinently than any of the above, 2010 was the year I got my blogging shit together. I've been blogging on and off now for about five years – not just here, but on a couple of predecessors too, one of which still survives – for the most part never with much point or purpose. But I started to gain some blogging momentum from January, and by April I was getting into a good groove, as I focused more on books and book collecting and began to realise that Existential Ennui might become a minor internet destination of sorts – or at least an entertaining sideshow. Over the rest of 2010 I think it really came into its own, so, in a hideously self-referential navel-gazing exercise (which will be different from everything else on this blog how, you might ask?), as part of the Review of the Year in Books and Comics, I'll be reviewing Existential Ennui itself, picking my favourite posts from throughout the year. Oh how very meta it will be. I bet you can't wait.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 5
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 6
A word of caution, however: while this will be, as the title of this post suggests, a review of the year in books and comics, they almost certainly won't be the same books and comics reviewed elsewhere – y'know, on those other, immensely more popular websites and in those immeasurably more widely read magazines. In those places you'll get lists of and commentary on the new books and comics – and movies and music and so on – that made an impact this year, which is always terribly useful if you've overlooked or missed anything (a service the year-end issue of Artrocker magazine is providing for me right now). Here, however, in what will no doubt prove to be an intermittent series of posts, I'll be writing about the books and comics I read this year. Which, considering most of them were published at least thirty years ago, will be a fat lot of use to all concerned.
Never mind. Perhaps I'll be able to offer some wit or insight to make up for the dated nature of my annual audit. On past evidence, probably not, but we live in hope. Over the next week or two you can look forward to (if that's the right phrase) a number of thrilling posts on the books and comics I bought and read in 2010. Admittedly, as of right now I'm not entirely certain what many of these posts will consist of – I know there'll be a list in there somewhere, and there might be a review or two – but they'll definitely be thrilling. Definitely.
As is traditional with these year-endy things, though, let's begin with some Sweeping Generalizations, wherein the trends and movements and themes of the year are identified and contextualized. And for me, the main trend this year, so far as my reading habits went, was the move away from comics and towards novels. This was prompted partly by a burgeoning – or rather re-burgeoning – interest in books (which actually began last year) and partly by comics being a bit, well... shit.
I've had many a lengthy discussion about the dearth of decent comics this year with famed Spandex creator Martin Eden, and the entirely scientific conclusion we've reached is: it's not us, it's them. As in, it's not so much been mine and Mart's lack of enthusiasm for comics – although I suspect that played a part – as it has been Marvel and DC's lacklustre output. The Big Two comics companies – who, let's be honest, together produce the vast majority of the comics we weekly (or, in my case, fortnightly these days) comic shop-goers buy – have had a pretty poor showing this year, so much so that, with the exception of Grant Morrison's Batman stuff, I've effectively stopped reading DC comics. Over at Marvel, meanwhile, Bendis and Brubaker have gone off the boil, and the younger crop of writers have proved to be not quite as good as their forebears.
In fact, things got so bad, and I got so bored, that I stopped doing my weekly Must Be Thursday blog posts. So at least some good came of a crap year for comics.
But while comics may have been a bit rubbish, there were plenty of musty old novels to take their place, in particular those written by one Donald E. Westlake. Yes, for me, 2010 was the Year of Stark, as a long-held ambition to read one or two of the Parker novels written by Westlake under his Richard Stark nom de plume turned into a frankly ridiculous hunt for first editions of not only the Parker books but the Alan Grofield ones too – not to mention other Westlake novels besides. It wasn't all about Westlake, though. It was also the Year of Ross Thomas, and of Dennis Lehane, and of Gavin Lyall, and of many more besides. Some of these minor obsessions were inspired by the writings of Book Glutton and Olman and Trent, as we all egged each other on; some were pure happenstance. But all have led to a revelatory year of reading pleasure.
It was also, it should be mentioned, the Year of Unwellness, as a festering ulcer deep inside me finally decided to burst, leading to the events of That Night and its aftermath. I'd like to report that the whole episode has enlightened me somehow, but I'm not sure it has, beyond eating a little better and not smoking or drinking (not that I did much of either anyway). It's just possible, however, that it resulted in a renewed intent as regards my final Generalization.
Because perhaps more pertinently than any of the above, 2010 was the year I got my blogging shit together. I've been blogging on and off now for about five years – not just here, but on a couple of predecessors too, one of which still survives – for the most part never with much point or purpose. But I started to gain some blogging momentum from January, and by April I was getting into a good groove, as I focused more on books and book collecting and began to realise that Existential Ennui might become a minor internet destination of sorts – or at least an entertaining sideshow. Over the rest of 2010 I think it really came into its own, so, in a hideously self-referential navel-gazing exercise (which will be different from everything else on this blog how, you might ask?), as part of the Review of the Year in Books and Comics, I'll be reviewing Existential Ennui itself, picking my favourite posts from throughout the year. Oh how very meta it will be. I bet you can't wait.
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Book and Comics, Part 2
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 3
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 4
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 5
Go here for the 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics, Part 6
Tuesday 14 December 2010
Westlake Score: Killing Time by Donald E. Westlake (T.V. Boardman First Edition)
So then, after yesterday's slight detour, back to the usual rubbish:
That there is the UK hardback first edition of Donald E. Westlake's Killing Time, published by T. V. Boardman in 1962 – originally published in the US by Random House in 1961. I've actually teased this cover before, when I posted that gallery of Westlake Boardman editions; I stole the original, slightly ropey, image of the cover for that post – which I've updated now – off an eBay listing... and then went and won the listed book anyway. So now here's a better quality version, photographed by my own fair hand. The dustjacket is, as you can see, in a dreadful old state, while the book is a bit grubby on the page edges, and there are a couple of stamps inside identifying it as belonging to "G. Welch & Son, Newsagents, Librarians, Tobacconists, Wellington St., Luton, Beds". But copies of this edition are very thin on the ground, and I paid a pittance for it, so it'll do till I find a nicer one.
Killing Time is Westlake's second novel under his own name, following The Mercenaries. I haven't read Killing Time yet, but there's a guy working his way through Westlake's oeuvre that Trent at Violent World of Parker sometimes links to; his review of the novel is right here. He also has an honest assessment of The Mercenaries on his blog, the press blurbs for which on the back flap of Killing Time's jacket are a little... reserved: the Times Literary Supplement called it a "competent New York Gangster thriller", while John o' London's Weekly (the whatnow?) reckoned it was "lively and amusing". Julian Symons in the Sunday Times was a bit more effusive, but then judging by the countless quotes from his reviews I've seen on the back covers of thrillers from the '50s to the '70s, he usually was, the tart.
The dustjacket of this edition of Killing Time was, of course, designed by Denis McLoughlin, who I covered extensively in that Boardman post (and others before it). It's perhaps the most comic book-y cover he created for the Westlake books published by Boardman – not surprising really, as he was a comics artist too – but there's an energy to the thing that I like, and a hint of McLoughlin's chiaroscuro style in that spotlit garage door and dark foreground. Good stuff.
Click here for a review of Killing Time.
That there is the UK hardback first edition of Donald E. Westlake's Killing Time, published by T. V. Boardman in 1962 – originally published in the US by Random House in 1961. I've actually teased this cover before, when I posted that gallery of Westlake Boardman editions; I stole the original, slightly ropey, image of the cover for that post – which I've updated now – off an eBay listing... and then went and won the listed book anyway. So now here's a better quality version, photographed by my own fair hand. The dustjacket is, as you can see, in a dreadful old state, while the book is a bit grubby on the page edges, and there are a couple of stamps inside identifying it as belonging to "G. Welch & Son, Newsagents, Librarians, Tobacconists, Wellington St., Luton, Beds". But copies of this edition are very thin on the ground, and I paid a pittance for it, so it'll do till I find a nicer one.
Killing Time is Westlake's second novel under his own name, following The Mercenaries. I haven't read Killing Time yet, but there's a guy working his way through Westlake's oeuvre that Trent at Violent World of Parker sometimes links to; his review of the novel is right here. He also has an honest assessment of The Mercenaries on his blog, the press blurbs for which on the back flap of Killing Time's jacket are a little... reserved: the Times Literary Supplement called it a "competent New York Gangster thriller", while John o' London's Weekly (the whatnow?) reckoned it was "lively and amusing". Julian Symons in the Sunday Times was a bit more effusive, but then judging by the countless quotes from his reviews I've seen on the back covers of thrillers from the '50s to the '70s, he usually was, the tart.
The dustjacket of this edition of Killing Time was, of course, designed by Denis McLoughlin, who I covered extensively in that Boardman post (and others before it). It's perhaps the most comic book-y cover he created for the Westlake books published by Boardman – not surprising really, as he was a comics artist too – but there's an energy to the thing that I like, and a hint of McLoughlin's chiaroscuro style in that spotlit garage door and dark foreground. Good stuff.
Click here for a review of Killing Time.
Monday 13 December 2010
A Response to the Observer Article by Edward Docx, "Are Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown a Match for Literary Fiction?"
I had intended to start the week either with a Westlake Score or to begin my no doubt eagerly awaited Review of the Year. But yesterday there was an article on genre fiction in the Observer newspaper that, while it doesn't deserve a response as such – it was too wrong-headed to deserve anything other than perhaps a derisory snort – it does at least warrant one, even if it is from a little-read blog like this.
When I write posts like this one on Kingsley Amis' appreciation of the thriller, or this one on James Bond (or, um, this other one on Amis again), the point that I'm usually getting at – that genre fiction is often unfairly sneered at by critics – sometimes strikes me as... well... pointless. Outdated. After all, we have for a long time lived in a world where Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith are feted, and for a shorter time in one where Stephen King is at last getting his due. Surely, then, the war is won. And then an article such as the one in Sunday's Observer New Review comes along and reminds me that not only do the old battles still need fighting, but a new generation of literary snobs have willingly donned the blinkers of their forebears and adopted even more intransigent positions.
Written by novelist Edward Docx (no, me either), the article is called "Are Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown a Match Literary Fiction?" Which, for a start, is a daft question. For one thing, it's a little unfair to pit Larsson and Brown alone against the massed legions of literary fiction – whichever spurious parameters Docx uses to define that elite gathering. For another, it leads to a fairly short answer: no, and don't be so bloody silly. Not even Larsson and Brown's most fervent fans would claim much for their idols beyond an ability to tell an exciting story (with perhaps some added political significance in Larsson's case). Neither are known as great stylists or mould-breaking originators; to hold them up as any kind of vanguard of genre fiction is just stupid.
And anyway, I'm not interested in defending Larsson or Brown – and I doubt either would care at this point, since the former's dead and the latter's so ridiculously rich he's probably moved to an alternate newspaperless reality – nor in extolling the virtues (or otherwise) of their books. What I take issue with is the tone of Docx's article, the blanket dismissal of all genre works, the sneery attitude towards genre, and the fundamental misunderstanding of not only what genre is, and more importantly, why it is, but, seemingly, of fiction in general.
The thrust of Docx's argument is essentially this:
"Even good genre (not Larsson or Brown) is by definition a constrained form of writing. There are conventions and these limit the material. That's the way writing works and lots of people who don't write novels don't seem to get this: if you need a detective, if you need your hero to shoot the badass CIA chief, if you need faux-feminist shopping jokes, then great; but the correlative of these decisions is a curtailment in other areas. If you are following conventions, then a significant percentage of the thinking and imagining has been taken out of the exercise. Lots of decisions are already made."
Now there's a man sure of his own brilliance. I think my favourite part of that statement is the bit where Docx claims people who don't write novels don't comprehend the constrained nature of genre fiction. Which would be an incredibly supercilious and self-regarding thing to suggest – how can we mere mortals comprehend the inner workings of the novel? – if it weren't that Docx himself doesn't seem to "get" that all fiction is constrained. Writing is about choices, and beyond that, it's about the road not taken. Every decision a writer makes about their story closes off a multitude of other possibilities. All fiction, genre or otherwise, entails curtailment.
But let's accept for the moment that there are genre tropes that dictate how, say, a crime novel will develop. Docx's ludicrously simplistic view of crime fiction aside – not every crime novel has "a body on the first page" – the inclusion of a detective as a main protagonist (not my favourite type of crime novel, but anyway) probably does move the narrative in a particular direction – but no more so than the inclusion of a poverty-stricken Russian in an otherwise achingly middle class situation moves the narrative there in a certain direction. In both cases there is curtailment; in both cases decisions are already made.
Docx goes on to grudgingly admit that "None of this is to say that writing good thrillers is easy. It is still incredibly difficult. But it is easier." Again, there may be some truth in this. An experienced thriller writer might well find it easier to write a thriller than, say, a novelist with two books under his belt and a name to make for himself might find writing 'literary' fiction. But an experienced literary novelist might find writing easier than a novice thriller writer. Writing is different for everyone: difficult, easy, hard work, a breeze, and sometimes all of those things in the course of a single page. It's a specious argument.
Skipping over Docx's facile comparison of genre writing to McDonald's (Really? Is that the best you can do? And this from a novelist), we reach a more familiar critique of genre: that genre writers are basically in it for the money. Docx doesn't so much claim this as sneakily insinuate it when he states, "They can take the money and the sales and all that goes with that. And we can sincerely admire them for doing so. But they should not be allowed to get away with suggesting that these things tell us anything about the intrinsic value or scope of their work." Quite right. "They" shouldn't. And the best never have, whether Docx "sincerely" admires them for their sales or not. As Kingsley Amis wrote in his 1968 essay "A New James Bond", "most people who have done much writing will probably agree on reflection that to write at length just for money... is a uniquely, odiously painful activity; not really worth the money, in fact."
Here we approach the crux of the matter. Docx's argument only stands if you accept his largely unspoken assumption – a supposition that all his ilk take for granted – that there is a truth to literary fiction that isn't there in genre fiction, and that therefore literary fiction is better than genre fiction. In support of this, Docx trots out the word "relativism". Now, relativism pisses me off in any shape or form, from politics to criticism. Relativism is a consequence of post-modernism, and any thinking person knows by now what a load of balls post-modernism was. The merits or otherwise of genre fiction is not a question of relativism. It's insulting to suggest it is. It's a question, as it is in non-genre fiction, of good writing – a critical judgement which is anathema to post-modernism and relativism.
The best genre writers – I mean the very best; the Stephen Kings, the Richard Starks, the John le Carres, the writers I take Docx to mean when he talks of "good genre (not Larsson or Brown)" – don't choose to be genre writers, as Docx appears to believe. They simply choose to write, as best they can. Genre is merely something they're labelled by other people. Patricia Highsmith is only a crime novelist to those who haven't read her books; to those who have, she's a meditator on the psychology of twentieth century urban America. It just so happens that occasionally entails the not-so-accidental death of a protagonist – much as it did in actual twentieth century urban America, and indeed still does in twenty-first century urban America.
The mistake Docx makes, I think, is to believe in literary fiction as something it's patently not: truth. Fundamentally, all fiction is dishonest. As wonderful as the best novels are, they're still a pack of lies. There may be some truth in the writing, some effort to understand the human condition, to comprehend universal truths; but the creating of characters, the placing of them in scenarios and situations, the moving of them around: this is make-believe. No matter how honestly conceived, no matter how much effort a writer puts into making a novel realistic, real life is always so much more unanticipated. And that's fine: that's the pact we make with fiction so that we can have stories that appeal, confound, befuddle, enrage, but that ultimately take us out of ourselves and carry us along and deposit us at the other end. But it's all a lie; a story; a fiction. I mean, the clue's kind of there in the name.
Good thrillers, good crime novels, good science fiction, are as unexpected and surprising as good non-genre novels. The only difference is, they involve a murder, or a robbery, or are set in the future. To return to Kingsley Amis and his 1968 essay, "It might well be agreed that the best of serious fiction, so to call it, is better than anything any genre can offer. But this best is horribly rare, and a clumsy dissection of the heart is so much worse than boring as to be painful, and most contemporary novels are like spy novels with no spies or crime novels with no crimes, and John D. MacDonald is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels?"
Anyway, that's my two-penneth. Go and read the article yourself, make your own mind up, and maybe write your own post on the matter. It looks as though we still need all the help we can get...
When I write posts like this one on Kingsley Amis' appreciation of the thriller, or this one on James Bond (or, um, this other one on Amis again), the point that I'm usually getting at – that genre fiction is often unfairly sneered at by critics – sometimes strikes me as... well... pointless. Outdated. After all, we have for a long time lived in a world where Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith are feted, and for a shorter time in one where Stephen King is at last getting his due. Surely, then, the war is won. And then an article such as the one in Sunday's Observer New Review comes along and reminds me that not only do the old battles still need fighting, but a new generation of literary snobs have willingly donned the blinkers of their forebears and adopted even more intransigent positions.
Written by novelist Edward Docx (no, me either), the article is called "Are Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown a Match Literary Fiction?" Which, for a start, is a daft question. For one thing, it's a little unfair to pit Larsson and Brown alone against the massed legions of literary fiction – whichever spurious parameters Docx uses to define that elite gathering. For another, it leads to a fairly short answer: no, and don't be so bloody silly. Not even Larsson and Brown's most fervent fans would claim much for their idols beyond an ability to tell an exciting story (with perhaps some added political significance in Larsson's case). Neither are known as great stylists or mould-breaking originators; to hold them up as any kind of vanguard of genre fiction is just stupid.
And anyway, I'm not interested in defending Larsson or Brown – and I doubt either would care at this point, since the former's dead and the latter's so ridiculously rich he's probably moved to an alternate newspaperless reality – nor in extolling the virtues (or otherwise) of their books. What I take issue with is the tone of Docx's article, the blanket dismissal of all genre works, the sneery attitude towards genre, and the fundamental misunderstanding of not only what genre is, and more importantly, why it is, but, seemingly, of fiction in general.
The thrust of Docx's argument is essentially this:
"Even good genre (not Larsson or Brown) is by definition a constrained form of writing. There are conventions and these limit the material. That's the way writing works and lots of people who don't write novels don't seem to get this: if you need a detective, if you need your hero to shoot the badass CIA chief, if you need faux-feminist shopping jokes, then great; but the correlative of these decisions is a curtailment in other areas. If you are following conventions, then a significant percentage of the thinking and imagining has been taken out of the exercise. Lots of decisions are already made."
Now there's a man sure of his own brilliance. I think my favourite part of that statement is the bit where Docx claims people who don't write novels don't comprehend the constrained nature of genre fiction. Which would be an incredibly supercilious and self-regarding thing to suggest – how can we mere mortals comprehend the inner workings of the novel? – if it weren't that Docx himself doesn't seem to "get" that all fiction is constrained. Writing is about choices, and beyond that, it's about the road not taken. Every decision a writer makes about their story closes off a multitude of other possibilities. All fiction, genre or otherwise, entails curtailment.
But let's accept for the moment that there are genre tropes that dictate how, say, a crime novel will develop. Docx's ludicrously simplistic view of crime fiction aside – not every crime novel has "a body on the first page" – the inclusion of a detective as a main protagonist (not my favourite type of crime novel, but anyway) probably does move the narrative in a particular direction – but no more so than the inclusion of a poverty-stricken Russian in an otherwise achingly middle class situation moves the narrative there in a certain direction. In both cases there is curtailment; in both cases decisions are already made.
Docx goes on to grudgingly admit that "None of this is to say that writing good thrillers is easy. It is still incredibly difficult. But it is easier." Again, there may be some truth in this. An experienced thriller writer might well find it easier to write a thriller than, say, a novelist with two books under his belt and a name to make for himself might find writing 'literary' fiction. But an experienced literary novelist might find writing easier than a novice thriller writer. Writing is different for everyone: difficult, easy, hard work, a breeze, and sometimes all of those things in the course of a single page. It's a specious argument.
Skipping over Docx's facile comparison of genre writing to McDonald's (Really? Is that the best you can do? And this from a novelist), we reach a more familiar critique of genre: that genre writers are basically in it for the money. Docx doesn't so much claim this as sneakily insinuate it when he states, "They can take the money and the sales and all that goes with that. And we can sincerely admire them for doing so. But they should not be allowed to get away with suggesting that these things tell us anything about the intrinsic value or scope of their work." Quite right. "They" shouldn't. And the best never have, whether Docx "sincerely" admires them for their sales or not. As Kingsley Amis wrote in his 1968 essay "A New James Bond", "most people who have done much writing will probably agree on reflection that to write at length just for money... is a uniquely, odiously painful activity; not really worth the money, in fact."
Here we approach the crux of the matter. Docx's argument only stands if you accept his largely unspoken assumption – a supposition that all his ilk take for granted – that there is a truth to literary fiction that isn't there in genre fiction, and that therefore literary fiction is better than genre fiction. In support of this, Docx trots out the word "relativism". Now, relativism pisses me off in any shape or form, from politics to criticism. Relativism is a consequence of post-modernism, and any thinking person knows by now what a load of balls post-modernism was. The merits or otherwise of genre fiction is not a question of relativism. It's insulting to suggest it is. It's a question, as it is in non-genre fiction, of good writing – a critical judgement which is anathema to post-modernism and relativism.
The best genre writers – I mean the very best; the Stephen Kings, the Richard Starks, the John le Carres, the writers I take Docx to mean when he talks of "good genre (not Larsson or Brown)" – don't choose to be genre writers, as Docx appears to believe. They simply choose to write, as best they can. Genre is merely something they're labelled by other people. Patricia Highsmith is only a crime novelist to those who haven't read her books; to those who have, she's a meditator on the psychology of twentieth century urban America. It just so happens that occasionally entails the not-so-accidental death of a protagonist – much as it did in actual twentieth century urban America, and indeed still does in twenty-first century urban America.
The mistake Docx makes, I think, is to believe in literary fiction as something it's patently not: truth. Fundamentally, all fiction is dishonest. As wonderful as the best novels are, they're still a pack of lies. There may be some truth in the writing, some effort to understand the human condition, to comprehend universal truths; but the creating of characters, the placing of them in scenarios and situations, the moving of them around: this is make-believe. No matter how honestly conceived, no matter how much effort a writer puts into making a novel realistic, real life is always so much more unanticipated. And that's fine: that's the pact we make with fiction so that we can have stories that appeal, confound, befuddle, enrage, but that ultimately take us out of ourselves and carry us along and deposit us at the other end. But it's all a lie; a story; a fiction. I mean, the clue's kind of there in the name.
Good thrillers, good crime novels, good science fiction, are as unexpected and surprising as good non-genre novels. The only difference is, they involve a murder, or a robbery, or are set in the future. To return to Kingsley Amis and his 1968 essay, "It might well be agreed that the best of serious fiction, so to call it, is better than anything any genre can offer. But this best is horribly rare, and a clumsy dissection of the heart is so much worse than boring as to be painful, and most contemporary novels are like spy novels with no spies or crime novels with no crimes, and John D. MacDonald is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels?"
Anyway, that's my two-penneth. Go and read the article yourself, make your own mind up, and maybe write your own post on the matter. It looks as though we still need all the help we can get...
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