'Watchmen' by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons (1987)

Thanks to Mal for this great birthday present.

Somehow I managed to miss out on a lot of graphic novels as I grew up. I used to avidly read 2000AD and I read a fair amount of Spiderman and Superman. I have tried to 'catch up' in recent years by reading Batman, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and a few others in adulthood, as well as watching a slew of stories turn into movies (often a poor transformation).

My friend Mal has often said that Watchmen marks the point at which comic books grew up. Having read it I agree with this. There is a postmodern 'knowingness' about it; it is reverential to super heroes whilst focussing more on them as people with human foibles and weaknesses.

To be fair only one of the characters is a true 'superhero'; the rest regard themselves, sometimes ironically, as 'costumed adventurers'. They are people with alter egos. The story takes place in the modern world during the Cold war, in fact on the brink of World War 3. The now retired heroes have hung up their costumes and have been replaced by a younger, less idealistic, set of crimefighters. There actions have been outlawed since 1977 and so they operate quielty, individually and without much cohesion. Someone is killing them off one by one and appears to be manipulating global tensions..but whom and to what end?

There was a great deal I enjoyed about this. I liked that the heroes were far from perfect; in fact they were fairly screwed up on the whole, which is probably why they do what they do. The sense of impending doom which predominates throughout the book is well portrayed. I like the idea that as superheroes are effectively real, the main stories in comic books are about pirates! I liked how prose text (police reports, news articles, memoirs) are interspersed with the graphic text. The graphic style is excellent; pictures are clear and loaded with meaning. Many of the images feel cinematic and cram in more information than could easily be portrayed in words alone (surely part of the point of graphic novels!). I particularly liked how the pictures and the text were sometimes telling different stories which relate to each other (usually bits of a pirate comic forming the captions to street scenes revealing humanity); analogy is not the right word but it is very skillfully handled here.

The only disappointment for me was that the ending felt mundane and unsatisfactory. It felt like really enjoying the journey to a holiday destination, but the destination itself being unimpressive. It also seemed somewhat predicatable (although admittedly not the whole ending!) and given the postmodernistic twists throughout the book I expected more. Maybe that is some sort of postmodern joke in itself!

I would recommend this book to virtually all grown ups! I think anyone would get something from it. If its the only graphic novel someone ever reads then it would be an excellent choice!

'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke (2004)

Thanks go to Steer for the loan.

This trilogy was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and The Guardian First Book Award and quite rightly so. As the back of the box says:

"The year is 1806, and centuries have passed since practical magic faded into England's past. But scholars of its glorious history discover that one magician remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose talent sends a thrill through the country. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. And so begins a dangerous and dazzling battle between these two great men that will lead them into wars, personal battles, and places they should not have dared to enter."

There is a great deal about this trilogy that I enjoyed. The most fluidly written parts concerned Strange's exploits under Wellington in the Napoloenic Wars. This really captured my imagination! The central relationship, that between Strange and Norrell, was consistently realistic and well portrayed and was quite touching at times. Yet the other characters were fairly well rounded and had depth. I liked the idea of England's early history being different and that boundaries with Faery exist but have become overgrown and forgotten; as if what you know is somehow not quite right. I liked the 'cosiness' of the parts set in York and the sense of difference around the parts set in Venice. The story moves along, although some momentum was lost towards the end of Volume 2, although the whole of Volume 3 moves along rapidly. The ending was fitting and handled well. Overall I liked how the fantasy and the history were mixed together.

On the downside the writing style could be a little irritating. It is written in a faux-Georgian style, with odd spellings thrown in. At times I found this a little tiresome; too many words being used to describe something. Similarly the mode of speech seemed far too formal much of the time. The books are littered with fictional academic-style footnotes referencing works on magic and faery. Some of these are pages long and ramble on. However, they do help provide a stronger context and frame of reference for events within the story which would be hard to do otherwise. (I suspect the story wouldn't suffer much if the footnotes were ignored). For some reason the experience of this reminded me of spending a day reading an old Victorian monograph about the building of York Minster back in my student days; it was a pleasant recollection and made me feel well inclined to this book. As I susoect may have been the case in Georgian England, women do not fair very well. One in particular I felt was owed some sort of revenge for what she had endured...but it does not happen.

I would recommend this to someone who doesn't mind reading lengthy trilogies, who likes hitorical fiction but is not put off by the fantasy element. It would not surprise me if this appears as a movie one day....

Introduction

In 'The Bookshelf' I intend to write brief synopses and comments about books I am reading. I will also include any thoughts or connections to other works that the books inspire! The intent is to form a sort of 'reading journal' to help me remember what I have read and what I think about it. My intentions may change over time.... I'll have to wait and see!