Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Raincoast/Bloomsbury, 2003, 766 pages, C$43.00 hc, ISBN 1-55192-570-2

    Faithful readers of these reviews will remember my contrarian approach to the Harry Potter juggernaut: See the film in theatres, then read the book. It’s been an interesting experience so far: The movies provide the plot and the images, while the books expand upon the characters and the background. It’s an approach that allows the movies to stand on their own, sometimes for good, and sometimes not: after a few problems in instalment 3, the fifth entry in the series was the most incoherent film yet. Making sense of it required a consultation with two Potter experts (ie: my siblings) and a trip through the brick-sized book. As one of my Potter consultants remarked: The thickest book of the series yielded the shortest film so far.

    Fortunately, there’s a lot more to the book than simply explaining the film. The Harry Potter series has, for me, become critic-proof: Knowing that I have nothing new to bring to the discussion in some sense frees me from trying to rate the books. I’m left to relax and enjoy the book purely on entertainment terms.

    And despite this being “the thickest book of the series”, I had a lot of fun reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s obvious from the first hundred pages (which barely cover ten minutes of screen-time) that the book is going to be a far more leisurely, far more complete experience than the book itself. While the director couldn’t make up his mind between starting the plot or stopping the film for minutiae, Rowling simply goes ahead and writes another year at Hogwarts, complete with minor character, academic anxieties, quiddich and yet another house-elves subplot.

    At the book unfolded like a well-weathered comforter, a minor revelation occurred to me: I’m not reading the Harry Potter books as genre fantasy as much as I’m reading them as a novel of setting and characters. Yes, that’s the heresy of it: I’m enjoying Potter more as general literature than genre fiction. The richness of the series is in how Rowling develops her cast of characters, in how she develops her imaginary world (itself a character, one could argue) and the ramifications of her vision. It’s just as well: aside from Hermione, my favourite characters in this book (or even in the Potter series as a whole) are often the secondary or even tertiary players who just have to suffer through the whole return-of-Voldemort stuff: The Patil sisters, Angelina Johnson, Minerva McGonagall, and so on. Most of them end up on the chopping block of the movie adaptation. Here, they get a bit of space to breathe. New character such as Nymphodera Tonks and Luna Lovegood are much better-developed in the book, and the impact is far more profound than simply seeing magical light-shows on the screen.

    Notable subplots cut from the film also add tremendously to the depth of the story. The prefect subplot deepens Potter’s sense of alienation, especially at the beginning of the story. The quiddich subplot adds even more to Umbridge’s meanness and Harry’s isolation. Poor Firenze never made it on-screen, and neither does Dobby and the vast majority of his fellow house-elves. More significant is the near-evacuation of the growing unease in the wizard world. The simple “good-versus-evil” conflict of the movies is nuanced into something that looks a lot like a civil war, leaving families divided —including the Wesleys. St Mugon’s Hospital? Gone. A good chunk of the fascinating academic details are also lost to the film’s length, leaving aside some excellent character moments. (I was particularly fond of Harry’s Patronus spell during his OWL examination, and the final exit of the Wesley twins is far more satisfying in the book. McGonagall’s role is also much more interesting in the book.) In the film, several plot twists appear out of nowhere; the book has the luxury of developing them properly. Umbridge? She’s even more infuriating in the book, and that’s saying something: “Hem-hem”.

    Some plot-lines don’t work on the page and on paper: anything involving Hagrid just grates on my nerves (which, I think, is a good reflexion of the series having outgrown the the character), and Dumbledore’s double-dumb plans are inane regardless of how many special effects or chapter-long apologies you throw at them.

    But all told, I really enjoyed those few hours spent at Hogwarts. I liked spending time with the characters, and that’s pretty much all I need to say in terms of critical judgement. Once more, like after every book so far, I’m tempted to just rush out and finish the series. But it will pass, and I will just wait for the next movie to come out. (After all, I pretty much spoiled myself rotten about book 7: It’s not as if the series has any surprises left.)

  • Toy Story (1995)

    Toy Story (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Third viewing, On DVD, August 2007) The amazing thing about this film is how well it does most things, regardless of how it was the first computer-animated feature film in history. The boys at Pixar obviously knew what they were doing even there (despite their protests elsewhere on the disc) and the result is, even despite the advances in technology in twelve years, still a pleasure to watch. The lavish tenth-anniversary DVD takes its time to explain to jaded audience what was so revolutionary from Toy Story back in the prehistoric days of 1995, but the gem still remains the film itself. See it again!

  • The Station Agent (2003)

    The Station Agent (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2007) Forget special effects, forget laughs, forget even plot: The Station Agent is about character, mood, tone, emotion and even the absence of anything interesting happening. It end during what most people would see as a lull in the action, and that’s the point of the film: how unlikely friends can find comfort in not having anything happen to them. This, obviously, is an independent film, with all of the quirks and abrupt moments and lack of polish that it implies. It doesn’t really go anywhere, but that will either plays as a feature or a bug. Comedy or drama? A bit of both, and enough so that it doesn’t matter. Call it ninety minutes with people unlike you.

  • Stardust (2007)

    Stardust (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, August 2007) Now here’s a charming little film that will fly under most people’s radar. A hybrid of romance, fantasy and adventure (call it a fairy tale for grown-ups), Stardust takes a while to get going and isn’t without dumb plot contrivances regarding walls, distances and magic, but it keeps building as it goes on, and eventually starts hitting all of its targets. The dialogue is amusing, the actors generally go well (although Michelle Pfeiffer gets all of the attention with a rare alluring role for a woman on the verge of fifty), the special effects do their job and the entire film is powered on charm. The final act is where it all comes together, with enough swash-buckling and romance to satisfy everyone. It would have been better had it been shorter, but it’s decent enough and should reach its intended audience once it hits the DVD market. In the meantime, fantasy audiences and Neil Gaiman fans won’t regret seeing this adaptation.

  • Safe Area Gorazde, Joe Sacco

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Fantagraphics, 2000, 227 pages, C$29.95 tpb, ISBN 1-56097-470-2

    For all of our outrage at the Holocaust, at autocratic regimes, at genocides and massacres and civil wars and bloody uprisings, we’re not very good at actually caring about the ones that are currently going on. SCHINDLER’S LIST came out in 1992 and everyone vowed “never again” even as Rwanda and Yugoslavia went up in machetes and machines guns. We vowed “never again” anew as details of those conflicts made it in the mass media, and yet Darfur, Iraq, Palestine continue to make the evening news even as I type this. It’s enough to make anyone despair about whatever passes for humanity.

    And if you think that this is depressive thinking, well, you haven’t just finished reading Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde. An illustrated non-fiction account of the last days of the the Bosnian War, Sacco’s book defies convention and is different enough to still shock the reader. His unique brand of “comics journalism” appears harmless at first, but give it an inch and it will slip under your skin and remain there for a while.

    As the book open in fall 1995, Sacco is abroad the contingent of western journalists making their way to the “safe area” of Gorazde, a mostly-Muslim enclave deep inside Serbian Bosnia. Gorazde is unique in that it has held against Serb ethnic cleansing. In other words, not everyone has been killed. As the UN tries to impose a cease-fire and maintain the supply lines as they make their way through Serbian territory, Sacco interviews the people left in the bombed-out city. As the book advances, they open up and gradually tell the story of three years of war. Three years in which neighbours turned against each other, in which the city was destroyed by its former inhabitants, three years during which the West gesticulated uselessly as more and more people got killed.

    The Gorazde in this book is hollowed-out in many ways. It’s filled with craters, bullet holes, destroyed houses and burned-out cars. The bridge has a second ramshackle bridge underneath to protect pedestrians against snipers. And the people are in no better shape: having endured unimaginable horror, they are afraid of even believing that it’s over. Having seen their neighbours rise up against them once, they have no trouble imagining that it could happen again.

    The stories that Sacco tell in each chapter can range from history to absurdity to full horror. He explains the roots of the Bosnian war, but he also giggles with the “Stupid Girls” as they wish for American jeans and has problems of his own trying to make his way back outside the Serb perimeter. Gradually, the inhabitants of Gorazde tell him their own stories of survival and grief. The stories get much, much worse as the book advances. Two chapters in particular, “The First Attack” and “Total War”, are as gory as anything I’ve seen outside of Geoff Darrow: Don’t be surprised if your first impulse after reading them is to leave the book aside and go do something else for a while.

    That’s the genius of Sacco’s book; a single man at a drawing table making us see the terrible cost of a civil war in a way that is far more affecting than just a series of prose pages. Sacco doesn’t give himself a heroic role in the narrative. Indeed, he portrays himself as a short, round-faced man with prominent lips and eyes perpetually obscured by blank round glasses. Indeed, there are few pretty people in this book. But they are ordinary people, and when things go back to a new normal by the end of the book, we’re glad for them. Their friends and family may not have made it out alive, but they themselves get to sing, study and go back to a normal life. But as one of them says, “I don’t want any nice things. I don’t want a nice place or nice furniture. In the end, probably it will all be destroyed.” The Gorazde diaspora has learned the hard way and they will never forget; never forget that it has happened, and never forget that it can happen again.

    Safe Area Gorazde is not an easy book to read: not just because of the violence, but also because of the proximity of the events. This has happened less than fifteen years ago, less than a thousand kilometres away from Rome. And still we read the book and watch the movies and vow “never forget”… but we will.

  • Silent Hill (2006)

    Silent Hill (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2007) There are a lot of bad horror films out there, and a lot of bad videogame adaptations too, so I ask for forgiveness in thinking that a horror film adapted from a videogame wouldn’t be much better. But it is. While Silent Hill will not claim any top spots on any horror movie list, the result is a creepy and visually interesting film that a great deal more solid than it had any right to be. The visual polish of the three planes of Silent Hill does a lot to compensate for the silliness of the script, but there are other things that work in the film’s favour: The predominance of female characters, the way the film plays on creepiness a long time before the last-minute gore (for the record, when I thought “It looks as if someone’s going to be violated with barbed wire!”, I wasn’t actually thinking it would happen.) and the ambiguous ending may or may not please, but they certainly give to Silent Hill a polish that is quite unlike most other horror films. I’m really not so fond of the script (which relies on silliness to get to Silent Hill, betrays the gaming origins of the story by making the characters race for plot coupons and then loses its way in pseudo-religious claptrap shortly before the end), but with the dialogues turned down, Silent Hill is far better than you’d expect. The DVD includes a decent amount of behind-the-scene material, though it remains coys on the film’s ultimate interpretation.

  • Rush Hour 3 (2007)

    Rush Hour 3 (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, August 2007) Third time definitely isn’t the charm for this aggressively irritating comedy. From the very introduction of the Chris Tucker character, he starts grating on everyone’s nerves: his one-note shtick has seldom been as exasperating as in here. Who could actually believe that such a person would remain a gainfully employed policeman? But Tucker alone could be accommodated by a much-better film. Sadly, the rest of Rush Hour 3 seems to take its lead from him: the film is clunky, charmless and even Jackie Chan (now noticeably older) can’t do much to save it. Lousy jokes (including a hammered-in version of the old “Who’s on first” routine), blunt stereotypes and ghastly coincidences are enough to make us long for the breath of fresh air that had been the first Rush Hour. But there are serious problems here, and all of them can be explained either by stupidity or laziness. Even the blatant exploitation of women in this film doesn’t betray misogyny as much as it exposes the puerile minds writing or directing the film. Dumb script, lazy direction and irritating protagonist: After that, it’s a wonder if anything of note emerges from the film. Fortunately, Noémie Lenoir is captivating. Still, if a 5’10” ebony supermodel is the only reason why a movie isn’t a complete disaster, there may be something wrong with the rest of it.

  • The Last Legion (2007)

    The Last Legion (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, August 2007) There are at least two ways this film should have failed. On one hand, it tries really hard to pump up a myth-making link between ancient Rome and the Arthurian legend, with some of the pretentious twaddle that implies. On the other, it’s a decidedly low-brow affair with contrived situations, predictable plotting and by-the-numbers dialogue. The budget of the doesn’t quite reach its ambitions, and the mis-mash between said ambitions and the quasi-juvenile adventure that follows is in itself an issue. But despite all expectations, the film has an amiable disposition, and far better casting than it deserves: Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley give undeserved gravitas to the film, whereas Ashwarya Rai alone is worth ten thousand special effect shots. (No, seriously: with the help of a few good stunts-people, she kicks serious ass and even makes a play for the “dark and sultry Angelina Jolie” role. It’s a nice stretch from her usual romantic lead roles and I want more of it.) While the film keeps hearkening back to other better-made films and practically wallows in it own cheapness, it’s not unpleasant by itself and works a lot better than other more respectable movies. Certainly not worth a huge amount of trouble (except for Ashwarya Rai fans), but not a complete disaster. There’s even something oddly charming about it.

  • The Invasion (2007)

    The Invasion (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, August 2007) By now, “pod people” is such a well-known expression that any film attempting another treatment of the subject has to do better than just going through the motions in order to keep our attention. Alas, <strong class=”MovieTitle”>The Invasion</strong>, the fourth cinematic take on the Body Snatchers story since 1953 is as bland as its title: the first half hour is particularly annoying as the filmmakers seem happy to re-invent the wheel all over again, seemingly unaware that we’ve seen all of this before. Things improve slightly once the invasion properly gets underway: The film shows effective signs of post-production desperation (by inter-cutting a number of cause-and-effect scenes together, for instance), ending with a series of meaningless action scenes that work well at waking up the viewers in time for the end credits. Otherwise, well, it’s full generic mode as the film lurches from one plot point to another. Occasional projectile vomiting may be good for a laugh or two, but there’s little else to enjoy here. Even the actors seem determined to out-dull the emotionless aliens — both Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig are wasted here. Thematically, perhaps the most intriguing thing about this twenty-first century take on the basic premise is a muted wistfulness for the simplicity of the “being alien” solution. Yet that theme is better expressed in one late line (“For better of for worse, we’re human again”) than an entire scene around a dinner table. “You won’t feel a thing,” promise the aliens, “you’ll wake up as if nothing had happened.” For the viewers of <strong class=”MovieTitle”>The Invasion</strong>, that’s only too true.

  • Burden of Proof, John G. Hemry

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 2004, 293 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-01147-0

    I really enjoy being surprised by some books, and Burden of Proof is an unusual kind of surprise: A book that shouldn’t work, but does so far better than anyone could suspect. Who could expect such an enjoyable book from a surprise-free plot, a blandly heroic protagonist, superfluous SF elements and a exposition-heavy prose style?

    The lineage of the novel might have been a clue. John G. Hemry’s Burden of Proof is, after all, the second book in a series after the satisfying A Just Determination, which did similar wonders with just about the same elements. Together, the series charts the career of Paul Sinclair, junior commissioned officer in a 2100-era United States space navy. As Sinclair is tasked with shipboard judiciary duties, you can see how the series has the feel of a hybrid between legal drama, military procedural fiction and nuts-n-bolts science fiction. A number of on-line references to this series call it “JAG in space”, and while I’m not sure it’s the series’ official title, it certainly fits the plot.

    The first book succeeded despite a number of elements that should have worked against it. Its earnest prose style and likable characters did much to shore up the clumsiness of some passages and the predictable nature of the plot. Those flaws and qualities are also in Burden of Proof, where they’re joined by another growing problem: self-conscious repetition.

    Because structurally, A Just Determination and Burden of Proof are like twin brothers. Both see Sinclair as he progresses through the ranks, assists a captain’s mast session, witness an incident and volunteers for unpleasant court martial duties. The events are different (the accidental shooting of civilians in the first book; a shipboard accident in the second), but the formula stays the same. Even the characters comment that it’s just bad luck to be involved in two court martial procedures in such a short amount of time.

    And through it all, the tone also remains the same. Hemry is not interested in juiced-up Hollywood drama, daredevil characters or extraordinary threats. His series is about people doing their jobs, and doing their best to operate within the system. Paul Sinclair tries really hard to follow the rules; it’s just bad luck that people around him can’t seem to do the same. There is a basic verisimilitude to this series that is comforting no matter how pedestrian it seems: who needs alien invasions, doomsday weapons and vast space battles when a court martial for gross dereliction of duty can be so thrilling? I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: This series should reach far more than the usual military-SF crowd in how it portrays military personnel as real people faced with real problems. Even more so here than in A Just Determination, the enemy that most directly threatens Sinclair is not another country, but the incompetents on his own ship.

    Take away the almost-useless SF window-dressing, and you’ve got a tale that could be published as straight-up military fiction. The “space navy” is the sugar pill required to sell this book to SF audiences, but it holds together surprisingly well without it. Whether it’s an advantage or not is still unclear to me at this point, but I can certainly testify that the book as a whole is utterly pleasant to read regardless of genre. Despite the linear plot, the cheap twists (including an investigating officer with a huge conflict of interest) and the repeated overuse of Sinclair’s internal monologue, Burden of Proof is a smooth piece of fiction. Far smoother than anyone would expect given all of the elements running against it. And yet, despite my growing conviction that this series is going to run its concept into the ground, I’m on board for at least the next two volumes in the series.

    We’ll see if the trend continues, or even improves.

    [September 2007: I wasn’t so fond of Rule of Evidence, the third volume in the series, which really seemed to recycle everything all over again to little effect. Once again, the lack of basic monitoring equipment puts all characters in trouble, and good old Paul Sinclair has to rescue the situation. It’s still very readable, but the ritualized plot structure starts to grate.]

    [October 2007: Interestingly enough, the fourth volume, Against all Enemies, is a neat wrap-up to this first phase of Paul Sinclair’s career as he leaves the USS Michaelson at the end of his tour of duty. The plot isn’t necessarily less of a formula, but there’s a real sense of growth and evolution here, in addition to the series’ usual strengths. There may or may not be any further volumes in the series (sales will determine that), but any fifth volume will likely be very different from the first four. In the meantime, the series as a whole is an interesting hybrid of legal/military/SF thriller, and it’s worth a look even given the third-volume ennui.]

  • The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

    The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, August 2007) This third instalment in the relatively more realistic action/espionage Bourne series is, all things considered, both more exciting and more interesting that either of the previous instalments. Sure, it’s repetitive and shameless in how it allows Bourne to be an invulnerable superhero. Sure, Paul Greengrass’s constantly moving-and-cutting technique often leeches coherency out of his action sequences. Sure, the plot has more holes than it can comfortably sustain. But there’s a real relevance to the issues discussed here for the third time: We’re asked to face the extent at which we must pursue victory, and the means necessary to do so. What happens when an indifferent system allows bad apples to gain power? For all of its cynicism and “realism”, this trilogy concludes on an odd note of optimism, as it shows that individual people can take a stand and make a difference. But that’s really icing on the cake, because the most distinctive appeal of The Bourne Ultimatum is in its three big action sequences in London, Tangier and New York. The plot is really an excuse to get from one to the other, and all three of them are very different. The London sequence is a nightmare of surveillance technology used indiscriminately; Tangier takes us to the confusing chaos of the third world; while New York is Bourne smash-em-up in America’s front yard. Even the frustration of the constantly moving camera can’t shake the competent thrills of these three sequences. Even Matt Damon is not too bad. It may have taken a while, but I’ve finally seen a Bourne movie I could enjoy.

  • Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

    Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On DVD, August 2007) More action, more comedy, more snazzy visuals! This second helping of Axel Foley has the added bonus of Tony Scott at the helm, some fair action sequences and a number of intriguing visuals (though Scott would more than top himself later on), but the self-awareness of the cast and crew often gets annoying: Eddie Murphy’s fast-talking riffs can deaden the film fast, and the improvised dialogue between the actors has a loose quality that’s perceptibly less interesting than scripted dialogue would be. Though the plot still doesn’t make much sense twenty years later, the rest of the film is good enough to be seen again.

  • A Darkness More Than Night, Michael Connelly

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 2001, 470 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-66790-0

    At first glance, A Darkness More Than Night looks like a piece of stunt writing, the kind of concept that afflicts writers in mid-career as they consolidate their back list and purchase a beach house: A glorious novel facing off one protagonist against another! Harry Bosch vs Terry McCaleb! A detective extravaganza, a criminal spectacle, now available for C$10.99!

    Fortunately, there’s a lot more to it than simply a grand face-off between Connelly’s protagonists. A Darkness More Than Night ends up being one of the best examinations of Harry Bosch so far, as seen by a third party who also has our sympathies.

    Terry McCaleb is, of course, the star of Blood Work, a previous Connelly novel that has also become a well-known film miscasting Clint Eastwood in the title role. (The written McCaleb may be a fragile heart transplant recipient, but he’s in his mid-forties at best.) As A Darkness More Than Night begins, his retirement is interrupted by an odd request from an old ex-colleague: Could he take a look at a bizarre unsolved case? Just a look, he’s promised, just his initial impressions…

    Of course, it’s never so simple. McCaleb may be retired, but the instincts that made of him such a superb criminal profiler haven’t gone away, and tracking down the mysteries of the murder end up being one of his biggest thrills in years. Alas, all the clues soon point to a certain Harry Bosch, currently in the news as the star prosecution witness of a high-profile murder trial…

    Soon enough, McCaleb and Bosch trade chapters in this two-ring circus of a crime novel. Has Bosch finally flipped out and killed a particularly troublesome criminal? Will McCaleb defy his wife, the police hierarchy and even the reader’s wishes in getting to the end of the case? As with most Connelly stories, there are less coincidences here than it may appear at first glance, and the pleasure of the novel isn’t in figuring out if Bosch did it at much as seeing Connelly tell the real story.

    The big innovation here, of course, is seeing Bosch through the eyes of another character. McCaleb is more intelligent than Bosch, but not as smart. The two detectives have different styles, and using McCaleb’s power of intellectual detection against a street-savvy character like Bosch can provide illumination for both. Bosch, seen from the outside, is a far scarier man than we’re used to. We know enough about his past that the idea of him killing a suspect isn’t so far-fetched… and Connelly does his best to play on this ambiguity. McCaleb’s character also emerges from the novel as a stronger, more interesting character. Untied from the plot mechanics of Blood Work, he ends up being a formidable investigator on his own.

    But as it happens, A Darkness More Than Night is more than the union of Blood Works with the rest of the Bosch story line: it ends up tying together all of the Connelly oeuvre so far: Connelly faithfuls will be rewarded by a secondary role for The Poet‘s Jack McEvoy and by a repeated wink to Void Moon‘s Thelma Kibble. The Connollyverse is in full formation, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see all of those characters work together again at some point.

    As usual, all of the qualities of Connelly’s fiction are to be found here: limpid prose, sympathetic characters, exceptional details, an excellent sense of Los Angeles’ fun-house perceptions and a twisty accumulation of revelations and counter-revelations.

    After the slight side-step of Void Moon, it’s good to see Connelly tackle another full-blown police procedural with such style and panache. The idea of using a character to investigate another proves to be a very clever idea and a triumphant return to form for Connelly. Meanwhile, my Michael Connelly Reading project continues, and there’s still not a bad book in the series so far.

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Raincoast, 2007, 607 pages, C$45.00 hc, ISBN 978-1-551-92976-7

    I’m going to miss the little wizard.

    Oh, I’ve never been much of a Potterphile: I’ve been quite happy to read the books right after the movie adaptations come out, and if I have generally enjoyed the tales so far, I’ve left to my siblings the pleasure of obsessing about the series and going out to the midnight events celebrating the release of the series. I probably won’t read the last book until the release of the film sometimes in 2009-2010.

    But sometimes, you don’t need to read a book in order to review it. Regarding Harry Potter 7, I have gleefully spoiled myself rotten, starting by reading the leaked epilogue and going on to query people who have read the book as well as reading tons of spoilerrific discussions. I can tell you who dies, who married who and the reasons why the epilogue may or may not please readers. I may not have read the series so far, but I certainly know where it’s going, and it doesn’t take much more than that to bloviate about the series.

    So, first up: That seventh volume pretty much goes through the expected motions, doesn’t it? There’s little in here that’s genuinely shocking. The generally amiable tone of the series is darkened but preserved, and if a few minor characters die, well, it’s just to show that Rowling has raised the stakes a bit. Of the main characters, there’s little surprise in who dies and who ends up snogging who. Though I’m disappointed to learn that my long-awaited Harry/Draco fist-fight never happens, the rest is pretty much by the numbers, up to and including the not-really-murder of You-Know-Who by You-Know-Who-Else.

    As for the epilogue, well, I’m usually the last one to complain about heteronormativity, but using “they all got married” as a shorthand for “they lived happily ever after” has always struck me as a bit easy. It’s even worse considering that just about everyone marries people they met in high school: can you imagine being stuck in a universe where that was true? The English wizard world is a bit inbred, isn’t it? Goodness forbid Harry should find a hot non-British witch to woo if he is to maintain the purity of English wizardry. (And what’s up with Cho’s puff-like disappearance from the series? Oh, OK, never mind.)

    But generally speaking, it looks as if that seventh volume is what fans expected, so that’s that.

    It may be more fun to discuss the series’ lasting impact. The Potter series has been a publishing phenomenon beyond measure: It was an experience to go though Ottawa’s biggest bookstore on the eve of Volume Seven’s launch to find the store re-done in Potter regalia, along with a bunch of customers and employees dressed up for the occasion. “This feels like a science-fiction convention”, I said to the cashier who seemed to understand what I was talking about.

    Trying to explain why the series took off involves a conjunction of events and narrative hooks that may not be repeatable. The universality of the series’s premise is wonderful, and so was its ability to expand in a world that was much more complete than the first book suggested. (Though I’d love to study the changes made mid-way through the series.) The vast cast of characters meant that there was something for everyone, and the evolving maturity of the series also meant that the book could appeal to kids as they grew older.

    Ironically, I think that “for the kids” label of the series explained why it reached so many people. The clear prose presented no reading challenge, and the parents could hop along the series alongside the kids. More broadly speaking, I think that the “you know, for the kids” appeal of the Harry Potter universe freed parents to enjoy the fantasy trapping without self-consciousness. Beyond the habitual fantasy readers, adults could just show up on the bus or at the office with the latest Potter book and no one batted an eye. There’s probably a lesson in there for expanding the fantasy readership, but I don’t think anyone inside the SF&F community paid any attention to what it was.

    I’m also wondering if the Potter Craze was well-timed alongside the Lord of the Ring mania of 2001-2003, or the Star Wars Episodes craziness of 1999-2003. More than anything else, I keep hoping that something will manage to catch similar broad attention. Potter may have been the 800-pound gorilla in the fantasy field, but he’s been useful in decrazifying the image of the average fantasy reader. Yes, it’s “for the kids”, but you won’t find too many people saying that it was “just for kids”. As the wonderfully cool concept of people lining up at midnight to buy a fantasy book recedes in the rear-view mirror of 2007, I just realize again that I’ll miss the little wizard.

  • Crooked Little Vein, Warren Ellis

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Morrow, 2007, 280 pages, C$27.95 hc, ISBN 978-0-06-072393-4

    It’s been a long time since I’ve read Warren Ellis’ blog, but it had one feature that I remember clearly. Once every few days, a link called “Don’t click here!” would appear. These days, “Don’t click” is usually an invitation to see how jaded you can be. Thanks to the Internet, everyone now think that they’ve seen more of human perversion than the Marquis de Sade himself. Well, Warren Ellis meant it when he tells people not to click. Goatse is mere fluffy comfort compared to what he proposed under those links. Most people learned quickly that if Warren Ellis said not to click, you didn’t click.

    For more than a decade, Ellis has written almost exclusively for comic books, racking such hits as Transmetropolitan and becoming something of a net.personality thanks to his work and an active on-line presence. His prose fiction debut, Crooked Little Vein, was eagerly anticipated. Would the book live up to the hype?

    I can probably answer that question with two words: Godzilla Bukkake.

    • If you don’t know those words, Warren Ellis isn’t for you, and I’m not the one who’s going to explain what they mean. (Also: You’ll regret knowing. Don’t click!)
    • If you know those words and recoil at the thought that they could be combined, Warren Ellis and Crooked Little Vein aren’t for you. But at least you already know that.
    • If you know those words and wonder (maybe queasily) how they could follow one another, get Crooked Little Vein and turn to chapter 4. Your questions will be answered. In detail.
    • If you’re hollering and clapping “Godzilla Bukkake! Hell, yeah!”, you probably read the novel before I did. (Also; please stay at some distance until I get to know you better.)

    To see a pope of pop perversion like Ellis turn to novel-length fiction is fascinating on many levels: How will his sensibilities adapt to prose? How will he handle the structural demands of a novel relative to comics? Would be he able to sustain a narrative over hundreds of pages? (Albeit barely: I’d be surprised if the book goes much longer than 50,000 words.)

    The answer is surprising in its cleverness. First, Ellis takes on a standard boilerplate noir template to kick off the action: His narrator is a hard-boiled Private Investigator who’s asked to find an important national relic. Michael McGill is a protagonist living out of his time: He may be in 2006, but he truly belongs to the classical pulp era. His ability to attract the weirdest elements of contemporary society is a handy excuse for Ellis to trot out the worst of what he can find on the Internet, but it also sets up the novel’s examination of what’s weird. The stated assumption, at least at the beginning of the narrative, is that America has lost its way. That the ills of American society are caused by permissiveness and encouraged by the broad availability of amoral depictions.

    But from this hard-boiled premise, Ellis turns to the road novel as inspiration. Chapter by chapter, McGill heads west from New York to (inevitably) Los Angeles. Every step along the way, he meets richer and more amoral characters. From Godzilla Bukkake, we go to genital saline injections, naked animal wrestling, Jesus-themed sex toys and even worse. I would say that delicate natures should abstain, but that should be obvious by now. But it also minimizes the fact that the novel is very funny. McGill’s narration is impeccable, and his mixture of world-weariness and “you’ve got to be kidding me” bewilderment at what he sees is the perfect middle ground for the readers.

    What doesn’t work so well, as the book advances, is the false conflict between America’ “new perversion” and McGill’s so-called conservatism, as given voice by arguments between McGill and the female side-kick that follows him along his trip through darkest America. Ellis is too obviously fond of off-beat weirdness to be truly impartial in the matter, and the two or three plot beats that depend on McGill being an old-fashioned moral beacon in face of contrary evidence don’t really work. The conclusion is entirely expected: Much like Jerry Springer’s series is surprisingly moral under the freak show veneer, so is Crooked Little Vein once you accept the idea that unusual acts between consensual adults can be no one else’s business. It’s interesting to see, late in the book, where Ellis ends up drawing the line between good and bad behaviour. Morality is about people being hurt, not about people being vicariously shocked or offended.

    But if trying to fit Ellis’ novel in an analysis of contemporary morality may be fun for budding sociologists, it’s not where the true worth of the novel truly lies: Crooked Little Vein is the type of vibrant little novel made for the comic-book generation, a short trip through a fun-house world that first wants to entertain its target audience. I have already met people who couldn’t finish the novel, and that’s OK: Much like more of Ellis’ work so far, Crooked Little Vein is bound to offend (or disgust) just about every reader at some point. It’s hardly perfect as a sustained narrative (the episodic structure is transparent, and some passages feel forced into the story, such as the plane ride with Falconer in Chapter 42), but it’s a lightning-fast read and a delicious summer treat for jaded readers.

    Just make sure that you really want to “Click here”.

    Not a review