robertrivasplata's reviews
617 reviews

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

adventurous emotional funny informative inspiring mysterious slow-paced

4.5

Like the title says, this is a history of the genesis of comic book superhero Wonder Woman, focusing mostly on the life, family, & times of her main creator William Moulton Marston. Marston created Wonder Woman towards the end of his life, & she was his major professional achievement, coming after years of attempts to make a name for himself as an academic, pop psychologist, & lie detection expert. I was almost impressed at Marston's relentless self promotion, & also his wife(s') relentless promotion of him, often in some pretty deceptive ways. I can tell Lepore was at least somewhat amused by Olive Byrne's ongoing bit where she interviews famous psychologist W.M. Marston, while never disclosing that she's known him for years, let alone kinda married to him. Not sure if this is a trick she learned from Marston himself, who was certainly not below having his students to represent a defendant in a murder trial for the purposes of calling him as an expert witness to promote his lie-detector. The Secret History of Wonder Woman ncludes a lot about the history & milieu of the feminist & suffragist movement of the early 20th century, tying Marston's philosophy (for which Wonder Woman was his vehicle) with that of those early feminists, especially Margaret Sanger & her sister Ethel Byrne, who just happened to be the aunt & mother of his mistress/2nd wife, Olive. If it sounds confusing, it's because I was sometimes confused. My main complaint with this book is that it should have included a family tree/dramatis personae chart. Some of the captions in the color plate section do a decent concise job of explaining some of these family relationships, so I was not completely without a paddle. Also includes a fair amount about the state of the field of psychiatry in the United States during the early 20th century. 

The old photos & comics featured as illustrations are amazing. As always, I'm struck by how odd the 1930s-40s comics' style is. It's hard to articulate, but I feel like the look is epitomized in the faces in the courtroom scene on pgs 76-77, & in the way Wonder Woman is running onto the daily comics page on pg 244. 

Not sure I buy the Marston family's claims that the bondage fantasies featured in the early Wonder Woman comics were not enacted in reality by William, Elizabeth, & Olive, or that Elizabeth & Olive didn't have a sexual relationship of their own after William's death. The lengths the family went to cover up the fact of William, Elizabeth, & Olive's throuple (sometimes tetruple) indicates that the kids are probably not reliable narrators in that regard. 

The endnotes are not completely vital to understanding this book, but they do illuminate the kinds of (& how much) research Lepore did. The amount of research that went into just reconstructing Marston's Harvard University career is amazing. & I'm kind of blown away that the Harvard University Archives contain students' class notes going back at to least 1911! The list of abbreviated names at the beginning of the notes is really helpful for keeping the various dramatis personae straight. 

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out for by Alison Bechdel

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Collection of Alison Bechdel's soap opera comic strips from 1987-2008. Features a large quirky cast of politically engaged Queer characters of diverse backgrounds. As such it's a chronicle of some pretty grim years during which political engagement & activism were seen as foolish & even self-indulgent. This is reflected back into the strip with the depictions of activism decreasing, while at the same time all the characters are being driven insane by the omnipresent news of the world consistently moving in the wrong direction. The tyranny of the news, & the 24 hour news cycle makes DTWOF is kind of like This Modern World, except with multiple interweaving storylines featuring a large cast of Lesbians instead of absurdist 50s kitsch humor. DTWOF also depicts the period during which the dream of making a difference in the world was replaced by the dream of just making a living. So, this collection is a good reminder to me that the 90s really were how I remember. 

In addition to the historical interest, it is interesting to see the evolution of Bechdel's art style over the course of the strip from a fun, cartoony style, to the more realistic style familiar to the fans of Fun Home. I really enjoy all of the humorous titles & headlines & brand names in the backgrounds. 

Pretty sure I first encountered DTWOF in the SF Chronicle sometime in the late 90s, sometime after the horniness content was diluted to levels suitable for late 90s mainstream newspapers. If I'd been able to read it regularly back then, I probably very much would have disapproved of Sydney's introduction. 

I would totally read The Exhaustive Dykes to Watch Out For. 

Why Read by Will Self

challenging funny informative medium-paced

3.75

Collection of Will Self Essays from between 2001-2021. The essays about books (reviews & introductions) are the best ones. The Chernobyl essay & Australia speech are pretty good too. A lot of Why Read interacts with Self's public persona & identity as some sort of public intellectual (?) & shit stirrer, a persona which I am almost entirely unfamiliar with. I liked Book of Dave & Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys, but I can't get over how wild it is that this guy is the sort of celebrity in the UK that gets recognized on the street. I hoped that the one titled “Being a Character” would be about Self's public persona, but no such luck (it was more of a humorous look at how & why readers invest real emotion & thus bring life to the characters that they are reading, which was interesting). I have to admit the fact of Self's celebrity makes me somewhat less interested in reading more of his work. The essays about the future & relevance of the written word in this era of the internet (or “bi-directional digital media”) are kind of repetitive, but “bi-directional digital media” is a decent collective name for “the suite of technologies comprising the wireless-connected computer, handheld or otherwise, the worldwide web, & the internet”. Not sure I buy that it spells the end of long-form literature as we know it, but also not sure that I care. I'll still be reading! Self's complete edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is on display throughout these essays, speeches, &c. The glimpses into Self's development as a writer, such as how he first read Catch-22 solely to analyze how its narrative & humor work for his own use. I also can't hate on his bragging about being close enough to J.G. Ballard that he inherited his typewriter. I'd brag too! 

Child Star by Box Brown

dark funny reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Box Brown's darkly loving homage to 80s-90s lowest forms of popular entertainment. Follows the life & career of a character combining aspects of every child star of the era. The details on the various fictitious publications & fake movie posters are great. Like many other Box Brown books, Child Star explores the meeting of celebrity, pop culture, & nostalgia. I look forward to seeing his thoughts on the subject in The He-Man Effect. I feel like Brown wanted us to suspect lil' Owen's parents were trying to make him small from the start, so that they could have a child star. Very reminiscent of Bojack Horseman, but without any promise of a redemptive arc. 

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Alien's eye view of Japanese society with a high WTF factor. All of the chuckling endorsements on the book jacket from the likes of Sally Rooney, Elif Batuman, & Ruth Ozeki do not prepare you for what lies in wait inside this book. Earthlings reminds me a lot of the movie Heavenly Creatures, in which two young teens invent a fantastical cult with two members. The house in Akishina & its place in the consciousness & memory of the protagonist reminds me of the village in The Beginning Place. The part where the characters are stranding themselves in the isolated community reminded me a bit of various J.G. Ballard novels & stories on that theme, such as the Drowned World, Memories of the Space Age, High Rise, etc. The doomed attempts to transcend society and even humanity also feel Ballardian, I guess equating Chiba society with Ballard's various dystopias. That element of a family-type unit attempting to collectively escape society, & even humanity also reminds me a bit of Pink Flamingos or Cecil B. Demented. The omnipresent trauma treated matter-of-factly (& mostly repressed by the characters) reminds me of Agota Kristof's Notebook Trilogy. The cucumber & eggplant with the chopstick legs representing the horse bringing the ancestors to our world, & the cow to take them back is really cool. Also intriguing is the “mobile grocery” that doesn't visit Akishina because it's too small. Can't help but think that these people need to be carried away by the Acid Mothers Temple. This book is surprisingly page-turning, & also rewards re-reading. Really makes me want to read Convenience Store Woman. 

Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story by Julia Wertz

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4.5

Julia Wertz's memoir of escaping alcoholism & growing the fuck up in general. For once, this is a book featuring a drinking problem that doesn't make the drinks sound incredibly appealing. Usually the depressing depictions of alcoholism that I read make me perversely interested in whatever the characters' (fictional or otherwise) drink of choice is. Impossible People has all the details about Wertz's Brooklyn basement studio with the amazing rent & dubious legality that Wertz hinted at in Tenements, Towers, and Trash. The street & roomscapes have the same detail & style of Tenements, Towers, & Trash, but now the streets of New York are populated with Wertz's quirky cartoon characters. The art kind of reminds me of the newspaper comics page April Fools Day antics where the characters would switch strips or drop in on other strips (e.g. Dick Tracy dropping by Blondie, Rat from Pearls Before Swine popping up in Mark Trail, Dagwood and Ted Forth switching places, etc). The backgrounds seem like they are from one (serious) strip, most of the characters are from another strip (humorous), Julia's cartoon avatar could be from another (humorous) strip, & finally her cat Jack comes from yet another (humorous/cute) strip in the funny pages. Wertz & Jack probably could have once made a bunch of money from a syndicated animal comic strip (& associated greeting cards & merchandise franchises that would eventually be better remembered than the strip, perhaps even entering the archaeological record in the form of plastic artifacts seeded across the worlds oceans via container ship accidents). Speaking of Jack the cat, was he right about “Jeff” the whole time??? The part with the Comics convention in France is a reminder that as much as I make fun of English speakers' mangling of foreign names, the French are still masters of the art. This is definitely the best thing I've read by Wertz. Impossible People kept reminding me of a Melvins song (featuring David Yow) that has a sample of someone saying “well, I have a new friend, his name is sobriety...” Kind of makes me want to read Drinking at the Movies, but I'm mostly looking forward to seeing whatever she comes out with next. 

My Wandering Warrior Existence by Nagata Kabi

dark emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced

4.0

Sequel to My Alcoholic Escape From Reality. Much more off the wall, & somehow even more emo, which I suppose is to be expected in a book about the author's romantic/gender/sexual angst, & her forays into the terrifying dating scene, & which also includes the disturbing account of the sexual assault she suffered as a young child. The part where her efforts to maximize the red flags in her dating profile elicit greater & greater (& creepier) interest is disturbing, if sort of predictable (maybe that's why it's disturbing). Gives her perspective on Japanese conceptions of gender. I like how the term “Hotel” seems to be used for the American term “third date”. Does not give much update on Nagata-san's drinking problem. I wonder if there is an Alcoholics Anonymous scene in Japan. Whatever AA's faults, they do have an interesting terminology for alcohol abuse. Finally, is the use of “Senpai” for someone at work talking about their dating experience meant to be a little humorous? I guess I'm not familiar enough with the term; would you consider the proverbial 90s friend's older brother who lived in the basement & smoked a lot of weed, & was really into ancient aliens (before they got big on cable) a sort of senpai? Or is the term just being used to indicate that this guy was an older classmate she worked with? 

Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin by Andrew Weiss

dark informative medium-paced

4.25

Graphical biography of Putin. Tries to explain where he came from, & his context Russian history & politics, & also tries to explain that he is not some sort of genius. Gives a view of such events as the overthrow of Milosevic in Serbia & the Orange & Maidan revolutions in Ukraine from Putins perspective in a way that illustrates Putin's belief (& frequent Russian media talking point) that democratic movements are primarily tools of U.S. Intelligence organizations. U.S. material & moral support for democratic movements are seen as indicators of those movements being generated & directed by the U.S. Putin & his intelligencers cannot conceive that a bunch of nobodies would take it upon themselves to challenge governmental authority without a powerful somebody to direct them. Weiss also makes the point that this perspective is at least in part projection. The biographies of a certain KGB Lt Col, an Austrian Corporal, etc show tha nobodies become somebodies commonly enough. Also gives a brief tour of Russia's efforts to cultivate right-wing parties & figures in Europe & America. Implies that the Right-wing obsession with George Soros is driven by his support for anti-authoritarian organizations & movements. Accidental Czar reminds me a bit of the Iran-Iraq War by Pierre Razoux, in which Razoux wrote how Saddam Hussein's early political success gave an appearance of having a strategic mind; an appearance that was exploded the moment he bumbled his way into the Iran-Iraq war, & then again with the invasion of Kuwait. The story of Putin's mother being “not dead yet!” is wild. 

Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Humorous & somehow upbeat graphic novel about being a minority in a racist & sexist society. Othering & fetishization are major themes. Has a children's story within-a-story. The humor and structure of Cyclopedia Exotica are pretty similar to Woman World, but the different characters' vignettes form more of a unified, romantic-comedical narrative than in Woman World. I like the appendix in the back explaining the mythic backgrounds of the various Cyclopean names. 

My Alcoholic Escape from Reality by Nagata Kabi

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

Graphic memoir of the author's experience after she almost drinks herself to death. Style-wise this book reminds me a bit of zine comics such as the Invincible Summer collection of Nicole Georges's. Not sure what that says about Manga's influence on the homemade zine comics of the late 90s. The way some of the actions & figures are labeled also kind of reminds me of American political comics. Not sure if this is a common to Manga, or to a certain style of autobiographical comics in general. I'm intrigued by various little things from Japanese life, such as Shochu being sold in cartons, Calpis (I had to look it up), the varieties of fish paste, & 3% chuhai. Nagata's experience reminds me of a couple people I know of who died the way she was going. In one case, the guy didn't even realize he was dying when he was in the hospital. So in that way, the ending feels like a bit of a cliffhanger, since she does not seem to have her drinking under control. I am a sucker for graphical memoirs, so I'll have to check out all of Nagata's other books.