tindrumfire.com

I had a rather foolish experience to this one - when recommended by someone that I read it, I said I’d read enough lately of the development of various number systems. I’d been thumbing through Meta Math (another take on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem), and I just really didn’t feel up to reading another popular science treatise on mathematics.

Of course, I looked the right fool when they told me the book was actually about Pi, an Indian kid raised in a zoo who ends up trapped on a boat with a Bengal Tiger after his transport ship sinks. So, out of wounded pride, I went out and bought it. And, I’m glad I did.

It’s a brilliant example of well constructed writing. Set as the documentation of someone else’s story, it makes the reader question their own perceptions and philosophy. And, even better, the entire novels clicks in a philosophical sense, but only in the last five pages. Like a good murder mystery, it’s probably possible to discern what the messages are before you get there, but there’s nothing lost if you just enjoy the ride and reflect afterwards.

I’m dying to write more, but I can’t for fear of spoiling the plot. Maybe that’s an opening for another post some other day. In any case, it’s well worth reading - it may not help you find religion, as per the back of the book, but it will remind you what makes a good story.

In-between more “serious” novels, I’m on a bit of a graphic novel trip - I just finished The Arrival, I’m waiting on a delivery of Bone, Watchmen, and From Hell, and the almost full set of Akira’s sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.  Which, ironically, was why The Invention of Hugo Cabret surprised me so much.

The book’s a fascinating cross between a traditional book, a graphic novel, and a movie.  It’s about three inches thick, and jam-packed with high quality art.  Interestingly, and quite uniquely though, the art has a strong storyboarding feel to it, selectively and deliberately highlighting specific points and temporal aspects of various scenes to emphasise the cinematic nature of the narrative.  Right down to the greasy hair of the protagonist, in fact.  Powerfully so, given the tale.  It’s not so much a book as a graphic movie, using text to support the story where appropriate.

The book follows the experiences of inventor, thief, and clockmaker, Hugo Cabret, after he’s left an orphan in a train station through an unfortunate chain of events.  Saying any more would spoil the story, so I won’t.

Whether or not I’d recommend it is a hard one.  As a story to read your kids, yes.  Wholeheartedly, in fact.  It’s a touching tale, told in a highly unique way.  And, it’s strong enough to appeal to both adults and children.  As an introduction to the graphic novel?  Probably not - it’s very enjoyable, but the art quality and story isn’t as complex or creative as other entry points such as Sandman or Watchmen.  On the balance, I’m coming down on the side of recommended, given I have kids.

Stephen King’s an old dog, and I doubt he’d disagree.  The thing with old dog though, apart from being inable to learn new tricks, is that they’re persistant.  They’re set in their ways.  And, if they’re well trained, they still know a thing or two that’ll impress you.

Bag of Bones is classic King.  I was never a fan of his mid-life work, always preferring his earlier work.  The Stand, The Dark Tower (bearing in mind that the majority of it was written later in his career), It, Tommyknockers - anything with ghastly, fantastical monsters.  Misery was borderline, just about everything after The Dark Half was too realistic for me.  “Realistic” in the sense of, “it could really happen”, anyway - I always found King at his best when he dealt with the things that really go bump in the night.

Bag of Bones is somewhat of a hybrid of the two - it deals with relationships and semi-”real” characters, but it also delves into the fantastical (and phantasmagorical).  Without getting too involved in it, I’d also add - there’s ghosts a plenty, but they don’t dominate the story.  The novel basically follows the experiences of a writer coming to terms with the sins of his forefathers - anyone reasonably read in King’s back catalogue already knows this character.  About the only change is that he doesn’t drink too much before things go wrong.

King’s real ability comes in his ability to distill a story into its rawest elements without losing any clarity, transparency, or accessiblity of language.  There may be too many words, but that probably has more to do with indulgence than sheer filler.  And, unlike Dan Brown, he doesn’t become facile in the process - he’s no James Joyce, but that’s also probably his biggest strength.  Almost without fail, King’s stories are good yarns - they’re not literature, but then again, they don’t aspire to be either.  And, he’s prolific enough that if you enjoy one, you’ll probably enjoy at least another five.

It’s a good book, but I can’t really recommend it.  Too many plot elements have been pulled from his previous books, and while I quite enjoyed it, it’s not exactly King at his absolute best.  The family trees become complex enough to become distracting, and with a relative dearth of plot (compared to other books he’s written), there’s far too many words.  Probably a quarter of the book could have been cut, but that’s not really anything new - it’s a rare book of King’s that couldn’t be condensed a little.

It’s enjoyable, but it’s light.  There’s better out there, but if you’re a King fan, you’ve probably already read it.  If you haven’t read King, there’s better places to start.