You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'literature' category.
I just saw “1408,” which I’d give 3 1/2 stars, a B+, a fresh tomato, or a thumbs up to (choose whichever rating system you’re comfortable with). It’s more fun if you don’t know that much about it before you see it, so I’ll just say 3 quick things:
- John Cusack’s performance was stellar. Samuel L. Jackson’s brief role was delicious.
- Had a few really scary/cool moments & great sound design. Middle part was boring.
- If you like supernatural thrillers, just go see it – it won’t knock your socks off, but it’s one of the better ones and I totally enjoyed it.
“1408” was based on Stephen King’s short story, which is available on his audio book, “Blood and Smoke.” One of the taglines for “1408″ is “Based on the terrifying story by Stephen King.” That tagline wouldn’t work if you put another best-selling novelist, say Dean Koontz, in its place. So I wanted to ramble about Stephen King for a bit…
Sure, King is prolific, but there have been myriad authors who wrote faster (Mary Faulker, a romance novelist @ 900+ books, John Creasey, an English thriller writer @ 500+ novels, Anthony Trollope and so on and so forth). King’s books aren’t of the “Great Expectations” or “Moby Dick” caliber, but they’re not meant to be. He certainly takes a lot of crap from literary snobs for his commercial success, but the sheer volume of King’s works which have been ingrained into popular culture is impressive, indeed.
I just like him. He seems to be a humble and down to earth guy. He’s quirky and kooky, he plays guitar in an all-writer’s band, he’s a dedicated father and husband (married to the same woman he married after college), he survived alcoholism, drug addiction and a serious accident…he’s just a really interesting dude. He’s not trying to be Edgar Allan Poe or Shakespeare. He simply has a ton of great ideas in his head, and he writes them down. The results more often than not entertain the hell out of us.
I highly recommend King’s “On Writing,” which is a wonderful, practical and unpretentious book for anyone interested in the craft of writing. There is no doubt in my mind that he’s a genius that is lucky enough to be appreciated in his own time.
So write on, Mr. King, and we’ll keep reading!
I don’t think I’ve officially reviewed a book since I wrote book reports in high school, but Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian was so wonderfully intriguing I’ve decided to write one.
Summary: A teenage girl discovers some old letters and an eerie blank medieval book hidden in her father’s library, which sends her on a quest to learn about her family’s mysterious past. Going back and forth in time and told through various narrators, The Historian takes us from London to Istanbul to Budapest, delving into vampire lore, revealing that Vlad the Impaler was not only the inspiration for Bram Stocker’s Dracula, but that he was in fact a real vampire and may still be the living dead.
Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel, ten years in the making (Bram Stoker spent 8 years researching vampire folklore to write “Dracula”), is a romance, travel journal, supernatural thriller, mystery, and an anthropological primer of Bulgaria, Romania, and Cold War Europe all in one.
The Historian is not for everyone. There’s not much action in it, and it’s not character or plot driven. It was equal parts an homage and a retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and written in similar fashion – mostly through letters in a rather slow pace. What made this book so appealing to me was the ambiance. I loved the unique and careful blending of vampire lore, Vlad the Impaler’s horrible true legacy, locations of dusty monasteries and libraries, and painstakingly researched anthropological details. The descriptions of the customs, cuisine, and scenery of Eastern European cities and villages are so tangible one can taste the food and smell the air. The slowly developing story told through letters and manuscripts allow the reader to go through the scholarly quest the characters do. At times it felt tedious, but mostly it was a compelling, albeit long, read.
Visit The Historian Fan Site for more info and reviews by clicking the banner below:
Some background on the real life Vlad the Impaler
The real life Prince of Darkness was infinitely more cruel and evil than any incarnation of the fictional Count Dracula. Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a. Vlad III, Dracula, Drakulya, or Tepes, was known as “Vlad Dracula” during his lifetime, which could be translated to “The Son of the Devil.”
He was born in 1431 in Transylvania, the son of Vlad II or Dracul, a military governor who was a member of the secret fraternity, the Order of the Dragon. Vlad II defied the Order of the Dragon and sided with the Turks. To prove his loyalty, he surrendered two of his sons, Vlad being one of them, to Sultan Mehmad II, where Vlad was thrown in a dungeon and tortured, where presumably his anger festered and grew to form a beast. Upon being freed, Vlad vowed revenge and eventually became the ruler of Wallachia. Then the craziness ensued.
He committed every single imaginable and unimaginable atrocity to inflict the maximum amount of pain and suffering on his victims. He impaled 30,000 merchants on St. Bartholomew’s Day. He had no qualms about torturing and killing women and children – even babies. He held dinner parties next to the freshly impaled and was rumored to eat their flesh and drink their blood. One famous story says that when Turkish ambassadors did not remove their Phyrgian caps in his presence explaining it was their custom, Vlad was so enraged he ordered their hats to be nailed to their heads (“So you von’t remove your hats, eh? How vould you like it if you wore your hats FOREVER! Mwah Ha Ha Ha!”). Oh yeah, and he still thought he was going to heaven.
He spent his life defending Wallachia against the mighty Ottoman Empire. It is not known how he died; whether it was in battle, via assassination, or by the hand of one of his own men in error. He was decapitated so his head could be put on a stake as proof, and his body was reportedly buried in a monastery somewhere near Bucharest, although his tomb was never actually found in excavation (hence the myths about his immortality).
Bran Castle, better known as Castle Dracula from its mythical link to Vlad (the only indisputable fact is that he was imprisoned there for two months), has been put up for sale for the bargain price of about $79 million (or 40 million pounds) . It’s located in the peaceful peasant village of Bran in Romania…the perfect weekend getaway!
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007
Time said, “Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer…a zany but moral mad scientist.”
We’ve lost one of our literary geniuses. Kurt Vonnegut passed away last night after being hospitalized from irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote 14 novels, his first being “Player Piano.” His moral vision in novels such as “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle,” and “Breakfast of Champions” made him a cult hero. His body of work made his countless readers think, ponder our existence and laugh, and usually at the same time. Mr. Vonnegut may be gone, but his alter ego Kilgore Trout will live on forever.
Vonnegut often wrote about god, religion, and the nature of humans. Here are two passages I had flagged in his last novel “Timequake” that always made me laugh:
“Satan,” he said, “couldn’t undo anything God had done. She could at least try to make existence for His little toys less painful. She could see what He couldn’t: To be alive was to be either bored or scared stiff. So she filled an apple with all sorts of ideas that might at least relieve the boredom, such as rules for games with cards and dice, and how to fuck, and recipes for beer and wine and whiskey, and pictures of different plants that were smokeable, and so on. And instructions on how to make music and sing and dance real crazy, real sexy. And how to spout blasphemy when they stubbed their toes.
– Timequake, p. 30, Berkley trade paperback edition, August 1998
I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz
– Timequake, p. 96, Berkley trade paperback edition, August 1998
Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American Literature and a brilliant satirist with incomparable talent, humor, and imagination. He died last night. So it goes.
————————————
Read the New York Times article for a full biography of his life and career, plus a photo gallery, and links about his work.
