Or, The Shit I’ve Been reading Recently
I’ve mostly been reading comix lately, because that’s what’s been showing up around my house. But I’ve been reading real books too, I swear! For starters, I read selected episodes of
John Constantine: Hellblazer
Have you ever seen the movie Constantine? Because apparently it was kind of based on the main character in this series. It’s really convenient that they had Keanu Reeves playing Constantine in the movie, because the movie is to the book as Keanu is to, say, Clint Eastwood. The movie, if I remember correctly, is about some sad sap who killed himself, was revived, and fights demons because he’s headed to hell anyways or some shit.
The Comix, however, are about a bad ass wizard guy who’s from England and has spent his whole life cultivating his powers. He fights demons, yeah, but because he happens to be the only guy tough enough to do the job. Think DIrty Harry but with demons and two opposing cults, one called Damnation army and the other called Resurrection Crusade. It’s a lot better and has significantly less Keanu Reeves.
(Aside: I loved Mr. Reeves in the one role he ever truly excelled at, that of Ted Theodore Logan, and am seriously psyched about Bill and Ted 3. It will be a most triumphant film. Party on, Dudes!)
ANYWAYS
Then I read Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life.
That’s just the first book of the Scott Pilgrim Saga. Reading just the first book of anything serialized is a let down, especially when you know the story already. But I enjoyed the simplistic, video gamey art!
Then I read this comic book about a graveyard filled with monsters, and it was very cartooney and kind of uninteresting. I don’t remember the name of it. However, it was also the first book of a series, so I don’t know how much I can judge. There was weird foreshadowing in the end, but not enough to make me want to pick up the second one.
And finally, I’ve finished one real book…
Subterraneans By Jack Kerouac
Turns out, this copy of Subterraneans once belonged to the UGL here at the good ol’ U of I. So in ‘borrowing’ it from my parents I accidentally brought it back to its ancestral home.
Subterreneans is about Leo Percepied, AKA Jack Kerouac, and his romance with a black girl named (in the novel) Mardou Fox. The usual suspects are all there, with names I didn’t bother to decipher because I was too busy reading the book to look up who was who. This novel has a different tone than the others I’ve read, namely in that kerouac on several occasions announces that if he doesn’t stop drinking he’s going to die. He was right. I’d say the tone is a lot stormier in general than the other ones I’ve read, but I still loved it. Even with the spectre of death looming over his head and a busted up relationship as the main plot point, I could still get a sense of “childlike exuberance”. There’s also a great little bit where Percepied goes home with some dude instead of Mardou, which eventually leads to Mardou yelling in the middle of a bar, “IT’S EITHER ME OR HIM!”
Hilarious.
This is my friend J’s favorite novel by Kerouac. Makes sense to me, because he’s a lot like the novel. Stormy, drunk, occasionally desperate, downright depressed at times, but there’s still a bit of “childlike exuberance” in him somewhere. Also if he doesn’t stop drinking like he does he’s going to die. If I even for a moment thought that there was a chance of him seeing this, I’d apologize for that remark, but there isn’t so it doesn’t matter. I would also remind him that i dared him to write. But I guess I’ll have to do that in person sometime.
And now, I’m working on some Hemingway.
