mars2k's Reviews (234)

Material, Vol. 1

2.5

dark fast-paced

I’m having a hard time reviewing Material because, while I can safely say I didn’t like it, it’s hardly egregious. I could talk about the sloppy artwork, the mediocre writing, the disjointed narrative threads. I could talk about the footnotes urging me to read this philosopher’s work or that Wikipedia article, shoehorned into the book instead of being organically incorporated into the fiction. I could talk about the unshakable feeling that I’m supposed to think this book is important because it gestures at heavy subject matter, even though it has nothing insightful to contribute. But these things don’t make the book worth hating. Did it irritate me? Absolutely. But I can’t hate it. I just don’t like it.

Content Warnings

An Entity Observes All Things

Box Brown

3.0

adventurous reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

It’s fine? The artwork isn’t to my taste but it’s easy on the eye and I like that each story has its own unique colour palette. The social commentary was pretty basic, consisting primarily of surface-level observations about modern life presented with surreal sci-fi flavour. People be online, am I right?

The first and last stories (“Memorexia” and “The Lizard” respectively) are definitely my favourites. They had a bit more substance to them, both tackling themes of grief and regret and being haunted by memories.

Content Warnings

Watchmen

Alan Moore

5.0

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

What can I say about Watchmen that hasn’t been said already? You don’t need me to tell you it’s good. Its reputation as a well-crafted masterpiece and an exemplary demonstration of the comic book medium/superhero genre precedes it. The characters are complex and compelling, the story has depth and pathos, the artwork has a good amount of detail and strikes a healthy balance between realism and stylisation. Each chapter is followed by an extract from an in-universe autobiography, magazine article, or other such document. Not only does that introduce some lore, it’s also a welcome break in format which prevents the regular panels becoming monotonous.

I don’t want to say too much about the story, partly for the sake of avoiding spoilers but also because I want to avoid underselling it. It’s hard-hitting and intricate. I knew it’d be good but even with my expectations set high it blew me away.

A must-read. If you’ve already read it, read it again.

Content Warnings

Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller

3.0

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Here’s the thing: stories written by American authors that challenge the myth of the American Dream often don’t resonate with me, at least not as much as I expect they’re intended to. There’s a cultural disconnect. That fairytale isn’t entrenched in my culture and we don’t really have an equivalent that inspires that same fanatic hope. I haven’t been fed this narrative since birth, I haven’t internalised its message, I have no attachment to it and what it represents. Refutation of a belief I do not hold doesn’t shock me, especially when I find that belief to be, frankly, obvious bullshit. To be fair, Death of a Salesman was written for theatre-going audiences in New York in the 1940s, not some anticapitalist Brit reading the script in book form more than seventy years later.

The titular salesman, Willy Loman, is painfully sympathetic and unsympathetic. He’s a deeply flawed individual who still has value simply by virtue of being human. That’s the idea, at least, but without an actor’s charisma to sell the character, to make me care about him, he’s a little too unpleasant for my liking. Shifting moral standards have no doubt shifted perspectives on Willy. For example, him threatening to beat his kids may have been seen as harsh back in the day but now most people would call that outright abusive. It makes it hard to root for him, though I understand it’s not supposed to be easy to.

Perhaps if I’d seen Death of a Salesman performed instead of reading the script I’d have had a more profound experience. As it stands, I can give a noncommittal shrug and confess it said what Miller wanted it to say but it didn’t speak to me.

Content Warnings

Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Franz Kafka

3.5

dark reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A lot of these stories didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, and I don’t know if that’s due to the writing style or poor translation. Maybe it’s just the summer humidity making my brain foggy. Interpreting Kafka’s writing feels like deciphering a riddle, and I mean that as both criticism and praise.

Contemplation (1913) – 4.5☆

A beautifully written series of vignettes romanticising the mundane. It’s more like a collection of poems than a sequence of chapters; there’s no narrative structure or throughline connecting each part. It serves as an enticing introduction to Kafka’s writing, like an instrumental opening track.

The Judgement: A Story for F (1913) – 3.5☆

This one felt incomplete, like a chapter from a longer story. I felt I was lacking context. I did a little research and it seems the German version contained some double meanings that got lost in translation, thereby obscuring the metaphor. Still, I didn’t dislike it, and I can appreciate what Kafka was going for.

The Stoker: A Fragment (1913) – 2.5☆

Ironically, this story actually was intended to be the first chapter in a novel, but it didn’t leave me wanting more like The Judgement did. If I had to sum up The Stoker in one word it would be “dull.” I just didn’t care.

Metamorphosis (1915) – 4.0☆

The main event, my reason for buying this book. I liked it and I can definitely see why it’s considered a classic, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something.

It strikes me as an allegory for disability. Gregor used to be the breadwinner of the household, and now that he can’t work he’s seen as a burden. His family is ashamed of him, and though they claim to “tolerate” his presence, they do everything they can to hide him away and they avoid him as much as possible. Further, he has become inhuman. He’s a monstrosity, and by the end of the story his mere existence is taken as evidence that he is a threat, and therefore as justification for fatal neglect.

Once again I did some research, and apparently there are many differing interpretations of Gregor’s sorry state. I even saw one theory that

the title actually refers to Grete’s maturation from a carefree girl to a responsible young woman. That would explain the odd shift in focus at the end of the story, but I’m not sure that’s the final piece of the puzzle I was looking for.

It’s a thought-provoking tale, I’ll say that much! There’s a lot to chew on. It’s a fascinating blend of realism and fantasy with a surprising amount of depth.

In the Penal Colony (1919) – 2.5☆

Another dull story.

The torture machine was convoluted and ridiculous so it didn’t have whatever horrifying and/or erotic effect Kafka was going for. I think he was trying to make a point about the criminal justice system, about how those in power are so perversely obsessed with punishment that it doesn’t matter to them whether or not their actions actually constitute any kind of “justice.”

I’d honestly recommend watching the 1985 Doctor Who serial Vengeance on Varos instead of reading this – it plays with a lot of the same ideas, plus more.

A Country Doctor: Short Prose for My Father (1920) – 3.5☆

More poetic vignettes à la Contemplation, with higher highs and lower lows. It’s difficult to rate these collectively. My favourites were definitely Jackals and Arabs, an intriguing story commenting on colonialism and the self-appointed messianic role of Europeans, and A Report to an Academy, which was really poignant in its frank discussion of assimilation as a survival strategy. Some of the other stories were forgettable, impenetrable, sometimes feeling stubbornly pointless (though perhaps that pointlessness was the point, I don’t know). Overall, I think there’s more good than bad in this collection of short prose.

The Hunger-Artist: Four Stories (1924) – 3.5☆

Though listed as “Four Stories” I will review them together because they were grouped together. First Sorrow was simple but effective. My only real complaint is that maybe it’s a little too short; it would have been nice to see more of the trapeze artist’s craft before introducing the problem of travel and the rest of the narrative after that. A Little Woman reminded me of an ex. A Hunger-Artist was an evocative and sympathetic look at performers relying on attention almost literally as a means of sustenance. Josefine, the Singer, or The Mouse People struggled to hold my attention.

Aeroplanes in Brescia (1909) – 3.0☆

A quaint historical snapshot. The romantic descriptions of the little planes in flight makes me think of Porco Rosso even though that’s set a couple of decades later.

Great Noise (1912) – 3.0☆

It doesn’t have much to say and I don’t have much to say about it. It’s only half a page long, though, so it’s not like it overstays its welcome.

The Coal-Scuttle Rider (1921) – 3.5☆

A simple but effective tale of class conflict, of the haves leaving the have-nots to die preventable deaths if they cannot pay for what they need.

Content Warnings

The Great Science Fiction: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Short Stories

H.G. Wells

3.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The Time Machine (1895) – 3.0☆

I found this story pretty boring for the most part. There were some really interesting ideas but they weren’t developed to their full potential. The idea, for example, that

the rift between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat becomes so vast that they diverge not only culturally but physically, to the extent that they eventually beget two distinct species.

What a compelling concept! It’s a pity, then, that this social commentary doesn’t really go anywhere.

I liked the scene where

the Time Traveller does a goofy little dance in the derelict remains of the Natural History Museum.

It’s brief, and it’s not an important moment, but it did make me smile. That image was the highlight of the story for me.

This book clearly had an impact on the development of science fiction as a genre, and on time travel stories in particular. I’m not sure that I liked The Time Machine but I can at least appreciate it.

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) – 4.0☆

Horror through and through. I thought it was much better written than The Time Machine – more enthralling, certainly. Unfortunately, however, the body horror does slip into some rather racist territory occasionally.

The Island of Doctor Moreau features some familiar sci-fi tropes, such as the perils of meddling with nature, unethical experiments, uplift, and religion as a tool for controlling the masses. I’m not sure it was as influential as The Time Machine or The War of the Worlds (it’s certainly not as famous) but it stands up as a classic work of science fiction.

The Invisible Man (1897) – 4.0☆

This one is relatively lighthearted to begin with, providing a bit of levity after the grim tale preceding it. The title character boops a man on the nose just to freak him out and some of his hijinks border on slapstick. That silliness gradually gives way to nasty manipulation and brutal violence, however, and the Invisible Man becomes a sinister figure indeed.

I wish the story had focused a little more on

Griffin’s feeling of immunity.

It was a theme throughout but it could have done with a bit more emphasis and exploration. Instead he recounts his backstory over the course of multiple chapters; not only does that grind the plot to a halt, it also kind of spoils the mystery surrounding him. Maybe that’s the point – to humanise him and prove he’s just as mortal as anyone else – but I feel like that could have been achieved more gracefully.

Still, I enjoyed The Invisible Man well enough. I’d recommend it.

The War of the Worlds (1897) – 3.5☆

Here’s another undeniably iconic and influential story that just didn’t resonate with me. Well, that’s not entirely true – seeing my own hometown mentioned in an apocalypse narrative was weirdly sobering – but tales of battles and widespread destruction aren’t really my thing. Like Wells’s other works, The War of the Worlds is very much plot-driven. Had it not followed any particular character, it might have opened up to encompass the grand, epic scale the writer clearly wanted to invoke. As it stands, there are characters but they lack substance; the narrator exists to narrate, that is all.

The ending is kind of weak, and the fact that I already knew how it was going to end might be part of why I found it hard to stay invested. It very much feels as though Wells didn’t know how to wrap things up and was, at any rate, far more interested in describing the horrifying spectacle of suburban armageddon than in constructing a satisfying narrative. Still, I think The War of the Worlds was much better written than The Time Machine.

Accompanying these four novels are eight short stories. I’ll review them each briefly:

The Door in the Wall (1906) – 2.5☆

More gothic than I’d expected. Dreamlike. Deals with themes of longing and escapism. A decent concept but I felt the execution was lacking.

The Chronic Argonauts (1888) – 2.5☆

A precursor to The Time Machine. It felt a little amateurish but I admire the ambition and the gall of teasing a sequel which “has been written, and will or will never be read”

The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes (1895) – 3.0☆

It’s alright. Not entirely sure what the point is though.

The Sea Raiders (1896) – 2.5☆

What if uhhh big squid?

The Stolen Bacillus (1895) – 2.0☆

An attempt at bioterrorism by an Anarchist (capital A) who dreams of martyrdom. Wack :/

The Country of the Blind (1904) – 3.0☆

Coloniser thinks it’s his birthright to rule this “lost” civilisation, and the natives mock him for it. Nice bit of I guess worldbuilding, considering accessibility issues and cultural differences and so on. Then there’s some Coraline shit towards the end.

The Crystal Egg (1897) – 3.0☆

Speaking of worldbuilding, this story offers a glimpse at life on Mars through extraterrestrial scrying. It’s an interesting mix of sci-fi and straight up magic. Nothing is explained and nothing really happens. Kind of pointless but idk maybe I’m expecting too much. Sometimes a weird egg is just a weird egg.

The Empire of the Ants (1905) – 2.0☆

What if uhhh big ants? (also racism)

All in all, a fairly middling assortment. Worthwhile if you’re interested in the history of science fiction, I suppose.

Content Warnings

Too Big to Walk: The New Science of Dinosaurs

Brian J. Ford

2.5

challenging slow-paced

I expected Too Big to Walk to be long-winded, and I was right. Even the padding is padded. The first half of the book recounts the history of palaeontology and, while I’d usually find that subject fascinating, I grew impatient and wished Ford would just cut the preamble and get on with it. It took him around two hundred and fifty pages to get to the point and even then he struggled to stay on topic.

It sometimes felt like he was being contrary for the sake of it. For example, he insists birds aren’t dinosaurs but his only reasoning as far as I can tell is that “no reptile has ever evolved endothermy” (so what does he think birds are, mammals?)

Much of Ford’s theory of dinosaur aquaticism seems to be based on misunderstandings. Yes, the mesozoic world was more watery than our own – there were no polar ice caps; sea levels were higher; we have evidence that Europe was an archipelago and North America was bisected by the Western Interior Seaway. That said, we must also consider the conditions necessary for fossilisation to occur. Dinosaur remains are often found in fluvial deposits not because the animals spent most of their time in the water, necessarily, but because those individuals were the ones that got preserved. The same is true of trace fossils – footprints in a sand dune are not going to fossilise but footprints in a riverbank might. It’s survivorship bias.

I don’t think his ideas are completely devoid of merit, however. Spinosaurus was semiaquatic, and that might be true of other spinosaurids to some extent. But we can’t generalise what we know about Spinosaurus and its kin to all dinosaurs, including distant relatives like Stegosaurus. I don’t know... That’s pretty much all I have to say about it. By all means investigate dinosaur aquaticism on a case-by-case basis, but I’m not convinced that all large dinosaurs lived in shallow seas. Ford demonstrates a real all-or-nothing mentality.

On that note, Ford thinks there’s a conspiracy afoot. Essentially, he believes “establishment academics” manufacture support for the field of palaeontology by making dinosaurs appear cool and exciting, thereby securing funding for research, but in order to keep up the ruse they have to crush dissent. Every slightly inaccurate dinosaur documentary is actually “pernicious propaganda” and every article which doesn’t replicate his own findings is “fake news” designed to perpetuate “terrestrial tyranny.” In the introduction to this book, he warns the reader “those palæontologists around the world are so very antagonistic to every word within, that you may have pebbles thrown at your windows if one of them spies this book in your room.” Hyperbole, no doubt, but there’s definitely some sincerity in his bitter paranoia.

I wouldn’t recommend Too Big to Walk ~~because I’m an agent of Big Palaeontology~~ because it’s absolutely riddled with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated conjecture presented as fact, not to mention petty grievances and the paranoia that accompanies an inflated ego. Ford presents himself as a bastion of truth bordering on martyrdom. I’d find it funny were I not genuinely concerned about the guy.

Content Warnings

Ecce Homo

Michael Tanner, Friedrich Nietzsche, R.J. Hollingdale

DID NOT FINISH: 9%

I’ve been meaning to read Nietzsche for a while. My original plan was to start with Ecce Homo then to go back and read his major works in chronological order. I feel like I’m not getting anything out of Ecce Homo without context and prior familiarity, though, so I am reconsidering my approach. When I attempt to tackle Nietzsche again, I think I might start with Thus Spoke Zarathustra instead.

Content Warnings

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

4.0

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I knew of Oscar Wilde, of course, but this was my first time actually reading his work. I found it difficult not to use the book as a means of analysing its writer. He was known for his wit but was he genuinely clever or just good at appearing clever? Maybe there’s no distinction. Maybe it’s foolish of me to try to judge the character of a man by the work he creates. Wilde himself rebuked the idea that art should be taken as autobiography, that works of fiction reveal something about the writer. Then again, he also wrote in a letter “[The Picture of Dorian Gray] contains much of me in it — Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry, what the world thinks of me; Dorian is what I would like to be — in other ages, perhaps.” It’s hard not to read the story as a reflection of its author to some extent.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is so much gayer than I expected. Like, it’s difficult to even describe it as subtext. It’s right there, unmistakable despite careful censorship, from chapter one onwards. I have to admit, this kind of pining, withholding, and hinting at queerness appeals to me far more than the uncomplicated “representation” we tend to see nowadays. I acknowledge literature like this comes from a society in which homosexuality was criminalised and deeply stigmatised – the ambiguity I adore wasn’t just a stylistic choice, it was a necessity – but it resonates with me in a way modern queer media just doesn’t.

The story is dominated by the theme of influence (and its inverse, impressionability). It’s handled well for the most part but I don’t really understand the significance of

the book Lord Henry recommends to Dorian. I know that some scholars identify it as an ode to either The Yellow Book or Huysmans’s Against Nature, and that the idea of a “poisonous book” was accentuated in later editions in response to the controversy surrounding this very novel upon its publication. In other words, I know that Wilde was playing with the idea of an immoral piece of literature corrupting (read: queering) young minds. That said, Dorian is already affected by the picture painted by Basil Hallward and the mirror given to him by Lord Henry, not to mention Lord Henry’s words; the addition of the corrupting book seemed to overcomplicate what was otherwise quite an elegant concept.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is good. I wasn’t blown away by it, but the premise is solid and I was pleasantly surprised by how audaciously queer it is. I can see why it’s considered a classic. Definitely worth a read.

Content Warnings

Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion

Ryan Conrad

4.0

challenging dark informative medium-paced

“We do not want the crumbs from this society’s table, and we are not fighting for a place at it. We want to overturn the fucking table.”

Against Equality is a collection of essays, articles, and blog posts by radical queer activists countering the mainstream gay rights movement’s mission for “equality” (read: assimilation) and agitating instead for liberation. The book is split into three parts: The first section, “Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage,” is fairly self-explanatory in its agenda. The second, “Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars,” argues against gay people serving in the military in the wake of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy being repealed. The third, “Prisons Will Not Protect You,” tackles matters of criminalisation, both of queerness (as in homosexuality being conflated with child sexual abuse) and of antiqueer bigotry (as in hate crime legislation). It’s very much centred on the United States and, to a lesser extent, Canada, and is a time capsule of late 90s/2000s/early 2010s queer politics.

The anthology features a variety of styles from academic formality to off-the-cuff ranting, but the quality is pretty consistent. My main complaint is the repetitiveness, which I suppose was unavoidable – with multiple writers covering the same topics, the same arguments are inevitably going to be put forward multiple times, and these pieces weren’t written with the knowledge that they’d be collected into one volume so there was no reason for the writers to coordinate with one another.

I’d definitely recommend Against Equality to anyone who considers themself progressive. It isn’t perfect, but it’s worth a read.

Content Warnings

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