Territory, by Emma Bull
Regardless of what I say about this book, the following sentence will either sell you or not. Ready? Here goes. Territory by Emma Bull is a fantasy novel, set in the wild West. No, seriously. It's set in Tombstone. The characters include Doc Holliday and his woman, most of the Earp clan, and pretty much everyone else who was involved in the shootout at the O.K. Corral. And guess what? Some of them are sorcerers.
Jesse Fox (the main characters are fictional) arrives in Tombstone in the midst of turmoil. There's been an attempted robbery of a stagecoach and consequent murder of two men, and one of the escaping would-be bandits has stolen his horse. He shoots the guy, who eventually dies, and retrieves his horse, but gets caught up in the subsequent mess before he can leave continue on his way.Turns out a friend of his, Chow Lung, a Chinese magician, is in town, and he wants Jesse to use his latent-but-denied powers to set things straight in Tombstone. Somebody's been using magic to control events (and people's lives), and Jesse and Lung have to figure out who. It's not really giving much away to say that the ultimate culprit is pretty obvious. What's interesting is that there are various other individuals in town who have the power but are unaware of it, or how to use it. One such is Mildred Benjamin, an attractive widow who works as a typesetter for The Nugget by day and as a writer of dime serial novels by night. She and Jesse strike up an uneasy friendship, and she uses her developing skills as a reporter to unravel the complex thread of events and murders that surround the attempted stagecoach robbery. The ultimate "showdown" is not one of guns, but one of power. Lines are drawn, and the stage is set, to some degree, for the events of the famous shootout.
The biggest problem with Territory comes from the author's attempts to make the thing a sort of mystery. For the first third of the novel, the reader is picking through information and learning along with the characters, and it's all very confusing. The second third irons itself out a bit and focuses on other things, so it's more comfortable, and then the final third gets all convoluted again. I hesitate to say that there are too many threads; I think it's more an issue of how those threads are handled. For instance: the plot is moving along, and we are satisfied with the identity of the main perpetrator of various deeds. Then, suddenly, for reasons that are never made entirely clear, we are thrown the curveball of learning that someone else who has been merely peripheral up to this point has these magical powers as well, and may actually have been responsible for one previous deed in particular. I'm not sure why Ms. Bull got so enthusiastic about making every other person in Tombstone a magician, but I didn't personally feel that it was necessary. It's hard for me to admit that the plot of a novel is too convoluted: one of my favorite books is The Count of Monte Christo, which is sort of famously tangled, and that's part of what I love about it. But here, for whatever reason, it just wasn't working for me.
What was working, and what I always enjoy about magic in novels, is the way in which an individual author chooses to manifest the magic. Is it related to light, animals, water, will, or what? In this case, it's sort of earth magic. Tombstone is a silver mining town, and so the "magicians" drawn there are brought, whether or not they know it, by the energies in the earth itself. The earth is used for important "spells," and the characters feel a strong connection to the land. It's not the most original manifestation, but it worked well within the framework of this story.
So yeah. Cowboys plus magic plus mystery. A little bit of a mess plot-wise, reasonably entertaining character-wise, and actually really interesting in terms of the use of the historical elements present. I would suggest that if you don't know much about Tombstone, Holliday, Earp, and the famous shootout (like me), you might want to hit up Wikipedia before reading Territory. Or watch Tombstone, or something. Speaking of which, I need to go put that on my Netflix queue. Pardon me.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
CBR Book 17: Furious Love
Furious Love, by Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger
In a book full of sad tales, the saddest comes from the acknowledgements section at the end. The writers, on telling a recently graduated theater major that they planned on writing a book about the world-famous Taylor-Burton relationship, received this response: "Oh, wow. I never know that Elizabeth Taylor and Tim Burton were married!" After being one-half of the most famous couple in the world, not to mention an acting giant, it's too bad that Richard Burton is somewhat forgotten in the realm of celebrity these days. I am forced to admit that I have not, as yet, even seen a movie in which Mr. Burton appears. I promise you that there are at least 5 currently on my Netflix queue, though, and I bumped a couple up after reading this fascinating story of Hollywood's royal couple.
Furious Love serves as sort of a dual biography, giving us a presumably abbreviated look at the lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton before and after tumultuous relationship, as well as the full account of their years together. Elizabeth Taylor had been a movie star from childhood, whereas Burton was the most promising of stage actors until he answered the siren call of Hollywood. She had lived a life of privilege, while he was the 12th of 13 children born to a poor Welsh miner. When they began their affair on the set of Cleopatra in 1963, they were both married to other people: Taylor to Eddie Fisher (her fourth marriage) and Burton to Sibyl, who had weathered countless affairs before. Their relationship caused a sensation; scandalizing and fascinating the world, and engendering the landscape of celebrity obsession that we see today. Throughout their affair and their subsequent marriages (the first lasting ten years, the second a matter of months) they were alternately beloved and vilified by the public. They functioned almost entirely in the public eye, allowing the world to live vicariously through their extreme decadence. They purchased fabulous jewels, paintings, yachts, planes; they ate and drank to excess; they rubbed shoulders with everyone who was anyone. Oh, and they made a whole bunch of movies, too. In the end, their life was too extreme to maintain, both in terms of their relationship, and their health. They both suffered from uncountable health problems, many brought on by alcoholism and drug abuse (mostly in Taylor's case), and Burton died in 1984 at the age of 58.
This biography encapsulates two different stories. The first is that of Taylor and Burton's film careers. The list of people they worked with and movies they made is truly incredible. More interesting is the way in which they commanded their world: at the height of their stardom, and even when their shine had faded somewhat, they were capable of asking nearly anything of the studios and getting away with it. Elizabeth Taylor usually had full veto rights over everything from costume design to screenwriters and directors. Despite being remembered for a certain amount of high drama and camp today, Taylor and Burton worked hard to bring challenging, literary pieces to the screen; often adaptations of plays written by friends like Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward, not to mention classics like Shakespeare and Marlowe. They were conversely the critics' darlings or the laughingstock of the press, but they almost always did things the way they wanted to do them. The rise and fall of their Hollywood reign is a fascinating story to follow, and will certainly swell your Netflix queue beyond all reason (if it's not there already).
Darker, and much sadder (to me) is the story of their relationship. What existed in the Taylor-Burton romance was a situation wherein two people loved each other very much, but were living in such a fantasy world of movies, parties, and riches that they were rendered incapable of dealing with reality. I often think that we, as a society, become brainwashed by the romance of media. We believe in things like meet-cutes, last-minute reconciliations in airports, and happily ever afters; and more importantly, we think that these things are all engineered by magic, rather than hard work and communication. And if the average Joe gets sucked in by all of those things, then the movie stars themselves are twice as susceptible. Taylor and Burton are a perfect example of this. They did whatever they wanted, often suffering the consequences but usually coming out ahead because they were so popular that they were guaranteed to make money for anyone they worked with or for. They lived a life of hedonism and never seemed to truly catch on that they were paying for it with their lives. Burton suffered a wide variety of health problems due to his (never acknowledged) alcoholism, but never truly got sober for more than a few months at a time. Elizabeth, and their entourage, were so busy having a good time that they never really supported his efforts. We would look with horror on a "regular" relationship in which one partner attempted to get sober while the other continued to booze it up, but this was simply par for the course where the Burtons were involved. Depicted in this book, that was their whole life. They got sucked in to the limelight, into their public personae, and they couldn't escape. It's not enough to say that they "weren't allowed" a normal life or relationship - it's more like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, wherein they knew their life was destroying them, but they loved the poison.
This is a depressing and fascinating story of two people who only sort of existed, and of two people who weren't allowed to truly exist. "Liz and Dick," as opposed to Elizabeth and Richard, played out their every move for reporters. The situations and stories are presented so well here that in the end, instead of being envious of the fabulous life they lived, all you can really feel for them is a certain amount of pity. Sure, we'd all like to have enough money to casually drop 2 million on a massive diamond, but what price would we really pay? There are numerous references throughout to Faust (a role Burton played, naturally), and it's an apt comparison. Furious Love is a book about movie stars, yes, but I think it gives us many greater things to think about. If nothing else, you'll stop and feel grateful, at least once, for your comparatively quiet and sane existence.
In a book full of sad tales, the saddest comes from the acknowledgements section at the end. The writers, on telling a recently graduated theater major that they planned on writing a book about the world-famous Taylor-Burton relationship, received this response: "Oh, wow. I never know that Elizabeth Taylor and Tim Burton were married!" After being one-half of the most famous couple in the world, not to mention an acting giant, it's too bad that Richard Burton is somewhat forgotten in the realm of celebrity these days. I am forced to admit that I have not, as yet, even seen a movie in which Mr. Burton appears. I promise you that there are at least 5 currently on my Netflix queue, though, and I bumped a couple up after reading this fascinating story of Hollywood's royal couple.
Furious Love serves as sort of a dual biography, giving us a presumably abbreviated look at the lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton before and after tumultuous relationship, as well as the full account of their years together. Elizabeth Taylor had been a movie star from childhood, whereas Burton was the most promising of stage actors until he answered the siren call of Hollywood. She had lived a life of privilege, while he was the 12th of 13 children born to a poor Welsh miner. When they began their affair on the set of Cleopatra in 1963, they were both married to other people: Taylor to Eddie Fisher (her fourth marriage) and Burton to Sibyl, who had weathered countless affairs before. Their relationship caused a sensation; scandalizing and fascinating the world, and engendering the landscape of celebrity obsession that we see today. Throughout their affair and their subsequent marriages (the first lasting ten years, the second a matter of months) they were alternately beloved and vilified by the public. They functioned almost entirely in the public eye, allowing the world to live vicariously through their extreme decadence. They purchased fabulous jewels, paintings, yachts, planes; they ate and drank to excess; they rubbed shoulders with everyone who was anyone. Oh, and they made a whole bunch of movies, too. In the end, their life was too extreme to maintain, both in terms of their relationship, and their health. They both suffered from uncountable health problems, many brought on by alcoholism and drug abuse (mostly in Taylor's case), and Burton died in 1984 at the age of 58.
This biography encapsulates two different stories. The first is that of Taylor and Burton's film careers. The list of people they worked with and movies they made is truly incredible. More interesting is the way in which they commanded their world: at the height of their stardom, and even when their shine had faded somewhat, they were capable of asking nearly anything of the studios and getting away with it. Elizabeth Taylor usually had full veto rights over everything from costume design to screenwriters and directors. Despite being remembered for a certain amount of high drama and camp today, Taylor and Burton worked hard to bring challenging, literary pieces to the screen; often adaptations of plays written by friends like Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward, not to mention classics like Shakespeare and Marlowe. They were conversely the critics' darlings or the laughingstock of the press, but they almost always did things the way they wanted to do them. The rise and fall of their Hollywood reign is a fascinating story to follow, and will certainly swell your Netflix queue beyond all reason (if it's not there already).
Darker, and much sadder (to me) is the story of their relationship. What existed in the Taylor-Burton romance was a situation wherein two people loved each other very much, but were living in such a fantasy world of movies, parties, and riches that they were rendered incapable of dealing with reality. I often think that we, as a society, become brainwashed by the romance of media. We believe in things like meet-cutes, last-minute reconciliations in airports, and happily ever afters; and more importantly, we think that these things are all engineered by magic, rather than hard work and communication. And if the average Joe gets sucked in by all of those things, then the movie stars themselves are twice as susceptible. Taylor and Burton are a perfect example of this. They did whatever they wanted, often suffering the consequences but usually coming out ahead because they were so popular that they were guaranteed to make money for anyone they worked with or for. They lived a life of hedonism and never seemed to truly catch on that they were paying for it with their lives. Burton suffered a wide variety of health problems due to his (never acknowledged) alcoholism, but never truly got sober for more than a few months at a time. Elizabeth, and their entourage, were so busy having a good time that they never really supported his efforts. We would look with horror on a "regular" relationship in which one partner attempted to get sober while the other continued to booze it up, but this was simply par for the course where the Burtons were involved. Depicted in this book, that was their whole life. They got sucked in to the limelight, into their public personae, and they couldn't escape. It's not enough to say that they "weren't allowed" a normal life or relationship - it's more like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, wherein they knew their life was destroying them, but they loved the poison.
This is a depressing and fascinating story of two people who only sort of existed, and of two people who weren't allowed to truly exist. "Liz and Dick," as opposed to Elizabeth and Richard, played out their every move for reporters. The situations and stories are presented so well here that in the end, instead of being envious of the fabulous life they lived, all you can really feel for them is a certain amount of pity. Sure, we'd all like to have enough money to casually drop 2 million on a massive diamond, but what price would we really pay? There are numerous references throughout to Faust (a role Burton played, naturally), and it's an apt comparison. Furious Love is a book about movie stars, yes, but I think it gives us many greater things to think about. If nothing else, you'll stop and feel grateful, at least once, for your comparatively quiet and sane existence.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
CBR Book 16: Last Voyage of the Valentina
Last Voyage of the Valentina, by Santa Montefiore
I decided to read this book because a friend of mine wrote a blog post dream-casting the movie adaptation, and it sounded like brain candy. Everyone needs brain candy sometimes, right? There are lots of problems with candy, though, and so too this novel. It's basically a dressed-up romance novel with all the schmoopy writing and dialogue, a fair amount of sex (though not particularly well-written) and not much in the way of interesting character development or even sympathetic characters. The "mystery" at the heart of the novel isn't much either; half of it is easily solved, and the other half offers no clues whatsoever. But, if you're looking for something relatively mindless with which to pass the time, you could probably do much worse than this.
Alba Arbuckle (oy) is a spoiled playgirl who doesn't work, spends all of her money on clothes, and is so beautiful as to have men at her feet wherever she goes. She's got a distant but doting father, an "evil stepmother," and a mysterious, Italian mother for whom the houseboat on which she lives is named. When Alba discovers a portrait of her mother, Valentina, drawn by her father, she decides it's high time she went in search of her roots. To do this, she disrupts and upsets her family, enlists the help of a poor sap literary agent named Fitz who is in love with her (apparently he finds her brattiness charming?), and eventually sets off for Italy to find out about her mother's life and death. Along the way, I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn, she finds herself.
Seriously, Alba is one of the worst heroines I've ever come across. Everything she does is for herself, and everything that doesn't go her way is clearly done with malice, to ruin her life. She's twenty-six going on fifteen. Her cast of supporting characters are painted in such broad strokes, perhaps to make her seem more interesting?, so as to be hardly worth mention. Montefiore is going for a sort of "English values" vs. "Italian passion" idea, but her stolid English types come off as stodgy and boring, and her passionate Italians just come off as annoying. While Alba learns to embrace both sides of her heritage, her transformation is so hurried and so rote that there's no journey to be witnessed, no soul-searching or realizations. One minute spoiled brat, the next, lovely human being.
The novel is two stories entwined: Alba's own story, and that of her parents, told in flashback. The structure of the novel works fine, and I do think that it could actually be made into a creditable movie (although I disagree with most of my friend's casting choices). As a novel, though, it's strictly treacle. The language is truly florid and ridiculous. Everyone either is (or was) devastatingly gorgeous or grotesquely unattractive. All of the plot points get neatly tied up with a bow at the end, except for the love story between Alba and Fitz, which gets built up for a while but then unceremoniously dumped. It turns out that even though Alba has "changed," she's still going to get her own way, and the truest love extant in the novel is that of Alba for herself. What a beautiful thing.
I decided to read this book because a friend of mine wrote a blog post dream-casting the movie adaptation, and it sounded like brain candy. Everyone needs brain candy sometimes, right? There are lots of problems with candy, though, and so too this novel. It's basically a dressed-up romance novel with all the schmoopy writing and dialogue, a fair amount of sex (though not particularly well-written) and not much in the way of interesting character development or even sympathetic characters. The "mystery" at the heart of the novel isn't much either; half of it is easily solved, and the other half offers no clues whatsoever. But, if you're looking for something relatively mindless with which to pass the time, you could probably do much worse than this.
Alba Arbuckle (oy) is a spoiled playgirl who doesn't work, spends all of her money on clothes, and is so beautiful as to have men at her feet wherever she goes. She's got a distant but doting father, an "evil stepmother," and a mysterious, Italian mother for whom the houseboat on which she lives is named. When Alba discovers a portrait of her mother, Valentina, drawn by her father, she decides it's high time she went in search of her roots. To do this, she disrupts and upsets her family, enlists the help of a poor sap literary agent named Fitz who is in love with her (apparently he finds her brattiness charming?), and eventually sets off for Italy to find out about her mother's life and death. Along the way, I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn, she finds herself.
Seriously, Alba is one of the worst heroines I've ever come across. Everything she does is for herself, and everything that doesn't go her way is clearly done with malice, to ruin her life. She's twenty-six going on fifteen. Her cast of supporting characters are painted in such broad strokes, perhaps to make her seem more interesting?, so as to be hardly worth mention. Montefiore is going for a sort of "English values" vs. "Italian passion" idea, but her stolid English types come off as stodgy and boring, and her passionate Italians just come off as annoying. While Alba learns to embrace both sides of her heritage, her transformation is so hurried and so rote that there's no journey to be witnessed, no soul-searching or realizations. One minute spoiled brat, the next, lovely human being.
The novel is two stories entwined: Alba's own story, and that of her parents, told in flashback. The structure of the novel works fine, and I do think that it could actually be made into a creditable movie (although I disagree with most of my friend's casting choices). As a novel, though, it's strictly treacle. The language is truly florid and ridiculous. Everyone either is (or was) devastatingly gorgeous or grotesquely unattractive. All of the plot points get neatly tied up with a bow at the end, except for the love story between Alba and Fitz, which gets built up for a while but then unceremoniously dumped. It turns out that even though Alba has "changed," she's still going to get her own way, and the truest love extant in the novel is that of Alba for herself. What a beautiful thing.
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