Reviews

  • 61 Hours, Lee Child

    61 Hours, Lee Child

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Delacorte, 2010, 383 pages, $34.00 hc, ISBN 978-0-385-34058-8

    Lee Child’s eminently capable hero Jack Reacher has been in a number of desperate situations before, but I don’t think he’s ever been as cold as in 61 Hours.  Taking place in wintry South Dakota, this fourteenth Reacher novel does for sub-zero temperatures what Echo Burning did for the Texan heat.

    The set-up is ingenious: A lawyer is instructed by his incarcerated client to set up a series of events that will end up shaking a small community.  But in his driving haste, the lawyer causes an accident that strands a busload of passengers in the nearby town of Bolton.  Among the passengers is Jack Reacher… and he quickly concludes that the local police force is no match for what’s about to happen.  Asked to protect a crucial witness, Reacher realizes that there’s a lot more going on in this community than anyone could expect… and that many of the answers lie underneath a mysterious military installation not too far away.

    As with previous Reacher thrillers, the chief attraction of 61 Hours is in seeing the hero react to his environment, understand the situation, call upon new friends, use his prodigious powers of deduction, and being slowly led to confront the real threat.  It takes a while for the true plot to reveal itself, and the masterful way in which it takes shape is one of the reasons why Child remains one of the best thriller writers currently in the business.  Lesser authors will envy the skill in which the first chapter is set up, with enough procedural detail, purposeful mystery, powerful narrative hooks and ticking clock.  It’s all there in the first few pages, and Reacher fans will just want to let themselves sink in a good chair and enjoy the rest of the book.

    Most of what follows is just as good as other novels in the series.  After the frantic urban frenzy of Gone Tomorrow, Child is back to heartland America with his depiction of a cold small Dakotan community.  The presence of a supermax prison not too far away sets up a few delightful complications, whereas the nearby abandoned military base is also a rich magnet for revelations.  It climaxes in a fight in which Reacher’s usual advantages are negated, further proof that Child is still interested in mining all sorts of possibilities from his series.

    Barely worth noting is a brief reference to Reacher being identified by the Army as an aggression child prodigy; that, like his freakish gift for numbers in Bad Luck and Trouble, probably won’t ever be referred to again.   Also worth forgetting is the revelation of a criminal informer within friendly ranks: Either Child is getting predictable or he tips his hands way too early, because the mole is far, far too easy to identify even as events are occurring.

    Stylistically, 61 Hours is notable for the dramatic countdown announced by its title: All chapters end up with a reminder of the current time, and how many hours/minutes are left before… something.  That something, alas, ends up being a cliff-hanger ending.  And if you don’t want to hear more about the biggest misstep in the Reacher series since the hypnosis nonsense in Running Blind, skip the next two paragraphs:

    It’s not entirely a cliff-hanging ending: The main plot is wrapped up, the antagonist is punished and the revelations are exhausted.  The only thing left hanging, in fact, is Reacher’s fate: The story concludes with him desperately racing toward an exit, whereas the epilogue describes in rich and meticulous detail why no one could have survived his predicament.  The novel ends without Reacher in sight, most surviving characters concluding that he’s definitely dead.

    But is he?  Peeking ahead to the next Reacher novel, Worth Dying For, reveals an infuriating answer: Reacher is alive (no surprise here), but the explanation of his survival is so vague as to be useless: the various obstacles described in 61 Hours’ epilogue are not acknowledged, and so we’re left with an unfulfilled mystery.  A latter book may fill in the blanks (there are indications that Reacher sets out to meet a character introduced in 61 Hours) but who knows?  Why conclude the book in this way if it’s not going to mean anything?

    If readers can stomach its meaningless cliff-hanger, 61 Hours is another decent entry in the Reacher canon, and further proof of Child’s ability to wring thrills out of small American towns.  The chills felt by readers won’t necessarily be caused by the novel’s glacial setting.

  • The Time that Remains [Le Temps qu’il Reste] (2009)

    The Time that Remains [Le Temps qu’il Reste] (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2010) What an odd, odd film.  It starts by tackling a subject from a perspective unfamiliar to most western viewers: The occupation of Palestine during the 1948 foundation of Israel, and the life of Palestinians ever since as seen by the Palestinians themselves.  Writer/director Elia Suleiman chooses to divide his film in four distinct periods (1948, 1970s, 1980s and 2000s), following a family in attempting to describe the impact of Israeli rule over Palestinian culture.  By the last period, the last links to the past are dying, people can’t get out of their houses without a tank tracking their every movement and criminals are leading the police around.  It’s fiercely political, but in a way that shies away from outright confrontation: The Time that Remains rather adopts a curiously comic tone that defies description.  There are enough stylistic choices here to fill a much lengthier review, but the two that stand out the most are the obstinately static camera and Suleiman’s absurdly one-note performance as a silent man constantly stuck in the same body language.  There is little here in terms of conventional movie-going enjoyment: The rhythm of the film is mortally slow (something that the fixed camera doesn’t soften), the comedy refers on cultural references that feel completely lost in translation, and the off-beat script means never having any idea how to react to the film.  But it does have a lot to say, even though you may need to trawl smarter people’s reviews of the film to figure them out.  It is, in other words, quite an experience: I don’t think there’s any film quite like it, and that’s already a divisive recommendation in itself.  The Region-2 French DVD features an equally-mystifying short film and an interview that gives a glimpse in Suleiman’s artistic process.  (Note that the film’s production origins are a hodgepodge of financing and production companies: I’m not sure what the real title or country of origin of the film actually is, and have tagged it as an English-titled film from Israel as an ironic convenience.)

  • Zatôichi [Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman] (2003)

    Zatôichi [Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman] (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2010) Even though it’s hard to mistake a film in which dozens of people get killed by a katana-wielding swordsman as anything but an action movie, Zatoichi is so off-beat in its approach to the genre that it escapes clear-cut designation.  This difference starts with the lead character, a blind masseur who is quickly revealed to be a supernaturally gifted swordsman, with other senses giving him all the edge he needs against his enemies.  Though the film does itself no favours with a deliberately slow first act, it eventually moves on to present an alliance between the blind swordsman and two orphans trying to find their parent’s killers.  The historical recreation of rural Japan is convincing, but it’s the film’s constantly unconventional nature that provides much of the entertainment in-between CGI-enhanced bloody deaths.  I’ve been meaning to see anything by writer/director Kitano “Beat” Takeshi for a while now, and this film is as good an introduction as I needed.  Eschewing traditional action movie pacing and tone, Zatoichi often whimsically stops its plot for a contemplative moment or two, going back and forth between high art and low comedy (and even lower violence) as it chooses.  Even fans of more traditional Asian action cinema will be caught off-guard by the film’s refusal to play by the usual genre conventions.  Still, there is a lot to like here, in-between striking images, a compelling title character and the charming out-of-nowhere final dance number that wraps up the film more effectively than any triumphant finale.

  • The Ramen Girl (2008)

    The Ramen Girl (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2010) Stop me if the story sounds familiar: A well-intentioned but generally clueless westerner goes to a foreign land they are forced, through various circumstances, to learn an exotic trade despite language problems and inner struggle.  The Ramen Girl is a film on auto-pilot, a slight trifle that has enough script problems to explain why it went straight-to-DVD and why I had never even heard of it before a friend loaned it to me.  Exasperating, conventional, awkwardly-staged and almost empty of content, this comedy still remains surprisingly charming.  While Brittany Murphy’s untimely 2009 death now lends an unfortunately gravitas to the entire film, The Ramen Girl allows her to play her usual airhead stereotype with a bit of energy… which is pretty much what the script needed.  But the best thing about the film is the luscious way is presents food, and the ever-fascinating portrait of Tokyo.  These glimpses at another culture more than sustain the film through a ridiculous setup, another annoying carnival of linguistic frustrations and behaviour that would have any rational person calling the police.  What’s unfortunate, though, is that despite a few quasi-fantastic scenes, The Ramen Girl never completely embraces the magic realism tone in which the story would have been far more satisfying.  Still, my attention was gripped… and I made it halfway through the film before the abrupt realization that I had some instant noodles just waiting for me in my cupboard.  This is a film made to be accompanied by its culinary equivalent.  Don’t watch it without a bowl of steaming ramen on hand.

  • Creation (2009)

    Creation (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2010) I’m far too cynical to label any film as a “public service”, but the nature of Creation in today’s hyper-politicized controversy over evolution is such that I can’t help but admire the contribution that a well-made drama can bring to the public understanding of the man behind one of the most fundamental ideas of all times.  A heavily dramatized account of the years Charles Darwin spend perfecting the manuscript for On the Origins of Species, Creation delivers a portrait of the icon as an immensely fallible man, tormented by visions of a dead daughter and debilitating convictions of heresy.  It is, in many ways, a depiction of Darwin influenced by his critics, and yet a revealing look at a time where people thought very differently.  The film wasn’t widely screened in theaters for reasons that soon become obvious to casual viewers: This is a film not of outer action, but inner struggles and the clash of new concepts.  Like many works of primary interest to intellectual audiences, it presents ideas as inherently interesting and studies how people are affected by them.  (Don’t tell anyone, but that’s as good a definition of Science Fiction as any).  It’s not really helpful to add that the film is slow, contemplative and occasionally grating from a contemporary perspective.  At times, overly-dramatic Creation seems to play more as a pre-emptive answer to Darwin’s critics rather than a celebration of the scientist himself.  But there are a few standout sequences in the mix (an accelerated view of how species interact in nature is particularly good), while both Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly are effective in their roles.  It all amounts to a film that will be presented in classrooms for a long time, and serve as a reminder that cinema can occasionally rise to the occasion and deliver a compelling celebration of human thought.

  • The Killer Inside Me (2010)

    The Killer Inside Me (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2010) Medium-budget films featuring a cast of known actors but popping up unexpectedly on DVD shelves always present a challenge for viewers: Is it possible to guess why the film wasn’t given a wide theatrical release?  In the case of The Killer Inside Me, the truth gradually dawns that in-between the period setting, awkward staging, rough sex and unconvincing script, the film would have been savaged by reviewers looking for a middle-of-the-road thriller.  And yet, the cast remains impressive, with a few standouts being Jessica Alba as a prostitute who gets the worst of a bad deal, whereas Kate Hudson is strangely credible as a white-trash woman and Casey Affleck becomes as repulsive as he can be as a deputy sheriff gradually revealed as a full-blown psychopath.  The period setting is a hint that the film is adapted from a classic noir novel by Jim Thompson, but a bigger clue is found in the strikingly clumsy staging and character motivations as portrayed on-screen: Novels allow for inner monologues that don’t always translate harmoniously to the big screen, and The Killer Inside Me often feels forced in its graphic violence against women, unexplainable character motivations and repellent protagonist.  A novel getting in the head of a criminal is something that a film simply portraying that violence can’t aspire to.  Numerous decisions, such as the graphic brutality directed at women, the loathsome protagonist and the slow pacing, end up grating more than they convince.  As such, the adaptation can’t aspire to much more than a curiosity for noir fans, even though the period detail is convincing (except for the anachronistic trailer-tanker that shows up during a chase sequence) and the acting talent does the best with the script it’s given.  By the end of the film, there’s no doubt that its proper place is on DVD shelves, and then on to oblivion for most viewers.

  • Zero History, William Gibson

    Zero History, William Gibson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Putnam, 2010, 404 pages, C$31.00 hc, ISBN 978-0-399-15682-3

    I can just imagine a conversation between myself and a time-traveling SF fan from the late eighties.

    Fan: Is William Gibson still writing?
    Me: He sure is.  In fact, he’s famous; people pay to go see interviews with him, and his latest novel Zero History just came out.
    Fan: Oh wow!  That sounds interesting!
    Me: Actually, it’s a novel set two years ago in which a recovering addict and an ex-rock star go investigate the makers of a mysterious brand of jeans.
    (Lengthy pause)
    Fan: You’ve got to be kidding me.
    Me: No, that’s actually the truth.
    Fan: Your future sucks; I’m off to play D&D with my buddies.
    (poof)
    Me: Aw, and I didn’t even have time to tell him about the iPad.

    The point being that Gibson, perhaps more clearly than any of his Hugo-winning mid-eighties contemporaries, isn’t writing the same kind of fiction than he did.  Why should he?  People grow old, change, become interested in different things and that’s perfectly fine.

    The problem may come when we insist on reading Gibson in the same way we did at first.  It’s not exactly a revelation to say that Gibson is still writing about the same things he did in Neuromancer, except that they are now all around us rather than in some unspecified future.  In many ways, his writing style hasn’t changed: It’s still heavy in visual descriptions, brand names, fashions and attitude.  Behold this sentence:

    After Clammy had decided to go back to the studio, her white plastic bottle of Cold-FX wedged precariously into a back pocket of his Hounds, departing the Golden Square Starbucks during an unexpected burst of weak but thoroughly welcome sunlight, Hollis had gone out to stand for a few moments amid the puddles in Golden Square, before walking (aimlessly, she’d pretended to herself) back up Upper James to Beak Street. [P.47, with reluctant thanks to the Russian hackers who put the entire text of Zero History on-line where it was indexed by Google, so that I could copy-and-paste the passage rather than re-type it in.]

    I went to a live Gibson interview at an Ottawa writer’s festival shortly after reading Zero History, and it’s clear that he hasn’t been interested in being perceived as a Science Fiction writer for a while.  Maybe it’s time to do both the author and the genre a favour and start distancing Gibson from SF: If he still sees the world through a prism shaped by SF, that makes him a genre-friendly mainstream author… but a mainstream author nonetheless.  Gibson would rather write the kind of fiction that Gibson finds interesting than being stuck in genre conventions.  If you squint, you can almost see Zero History as a thriller, but an unusually limp one: Like Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, this novel isn’t really interested in trifles such as narrative tension, plotting, suspense or action sequences.  It may have a laboriously set-up climax in which a hacked Festo floating penguin zaps a villain through a Taser activated by iPhone, but that duct-tape cyberpunk is all of the techno-excitement that Zero History has to offer.

    In fact, the “Bigend trilogy” he’s been working on since Pattern Recognition shows to what extent he is now recasting in fictional form what catches his attention as he surfs the web.  His novels have become inseparable from the Internet in that we’re practically asked to Google his references in describing the world of his novels.  That’s a particular form of reading pleasure, I suppose, but one that’s quite distinct from his eighties fiction.  Let’s appreciate it for what it is.

  • Buried (2010)

    Buried (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, October 2010) Anyone who admires a bit of cinematographic audacity should flock to see Buried, a minor tour-de-force in thriller moviemaking.  It has one rule, and it’s daring: The entire film features one character, stuck in a coffin.  There are a few refinements, including a high-tech smartphone, but that’s essentially it.  Not cutaways to outside shots, no flashbacks, no fantasy sequences.  At most, there are a few bright lights and cuts to the phone to show some video.  As a device, it’s remarkably effective at leashing us alongside the character as he attempts to understand what’s happening to him, and contact the outside world to help him get out of there.  Claustrophobic to the extreme, Buried has the luxury to fully explore its options, milk its premise for all it’s worth and create a deep sense of unease for its audience.  As the quasi-sole actor in the film, Ryan Reynolds is up to the mesmerizing nature of the premise, and easily holds the audience’s interest throughout the experience.  The film is more interesting for longer than anyone would expect, in no small part due to Chris Sparling’s clever script and Rodrigo Cortés’s inventive direction.  Low-budget but high-impact, Buried may falter a bit during an obvious and disappointing climax, but otherwise escapes judgement to become a pure cinema experience.

  • The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich

    The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Doubleday, 2009, 260 pages, C$29.95 hc, ISBN 978-0-385-52937-2

    I suppose that The Accidental Billionaires was inevitable: In his previous non-fiction work, Ben Mezrich has shown how much he loves to write about Boston-area young men who go on to make a lot of money, and so one could only count down the minutes until he turned to the Harvard-educated founders of Facebook.  As the book’s sub-title proudly announces, what’s not to like about “A tale of sex, money, genius and betrayal”?  That’s as good a shorthand as any to describe Mezrich’s chosen specialization.

    As usual, it’s best to approach Mezrich’s non-fiction novels without any expectations of journalistic rigor.  Even though The Accidental Billionaires may be better-documented than any of Mezrich’s non-fiction so far, it’s still largely told from the perspective of a single primary source, that is Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who was shut out of the company as it grew to become today’s behemoth.  Mezrich acknowledges this connection up-front, as well as the fact that the better-known Mark Zuckerberg “declined to speak with me for this book despite numerous requests.” [P.2] The Accidental Billionaires may rely on court documents, newspapers articles and public records, but it remains Saverin’s story –the truth, if ever it comes out, will no doubt be considerably less colourful than what’s presented here.

    If this story sounds very familiar, you may have seen David Fincher’s The Social Network, a 2010 movie reviewer’s darling partly due to a snappy screenplay penned by Aaron Sorkin.  While the film is officially adapted from the book, a number of clues suggest that Sorkin used Mezrich’s sources and storyline, then went in his own direction –indeed, even a cursory read of the book after seeing the film will reveal a number of differences: The film is tighter, uses a convenient framing device, and is filled with symbolism that reality (or even the book’s version thereof) would be hard-pressed to provide.  For instance, the book suggests that Saverin’s then-girlfriend did set one of his gifts on fire… although not quite in the way the film presents it: Saverin wasn’t there speaking on the phone as his room nearly went up in flames.

    If nothing else, The Accidental Billionaires is quite a bit more up-front than Mezrich’s other books in acknowledging its loose connection with reality, beginning with an author’s note that admits up-front that a portion of what we’re about to read is fantasy.  But questions of veracity eventually take a back seat to pure entertainment.  Anyone who has read Mezrich’s other works of docu-fiction can assume that he spiced things up in rewriting the story.  He recasts the events in the form of a quasi-novelistic narrative, providing us with scene-setting, dialogue, inner monologue and poignant scene endings.  The only question becomes… is the story interesting to read about?

    It does works well in building a compelling narrative: The Accidental Billionaires is readable in a blink.  Saverin’s betrayal as his former friend Zuckerberg allows him to be replaced at the core of Facebook is well-portrayed even though more sceptical readers will want to consider the source and Mezrich’s tendency to favour drama rather than reality.

    There’s a debate to be had, I suppose, about what standards of dramatization we’re ready to accept, and whether readers are complicit in accepting fanciful tales if they find their presentation enjoyable.  One of the biggest lies told by fiction is that there are such things as narrative arcs, momentous decisions, good or evil motivations, sharp dialogue and consistent personalities.  The Accidental Billionaires is enhanced reality, not a faithful portrait of history.

    Doubts about Mezrich’s work are complicated by a fog of legally binding settlements and greedy motivations: at this time, even solid journalistic work may be unable to reveal the real story.  Considering that Facebook isn’t even ten years old and that all of the principals are still alive, this is both troubling and temporary: Troubling in that we can’t even get a straight answer at this time; temporary because sooner or later, tempers will cool down and we may then finally understand the complex web of motivations behind Facebook’s foundation.  In the meantime, there’s at least an entertaining book to attempt making sense of it.

  • The Social Network (2010)

    The Social Network (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, October 2010) I will admit my scepticism regarding the idea of this film.  A drama about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s early days?  Why would David Fincher waste his time doing that?  Granted, I find Facebook more interesting as a socio-technological phenomenon than as the hub of my online life, but still:  Isn’t it a bit early to start making films about such a trivial subject?  What I should have figured out is that five years ago is forever in Internet time, that Fincher knew what he was doing and that there was an interesting story at the heart of it all.  Very loosely based on Ben Mezrich’s docu-fictive The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network does manage to tell a compelling drama in an entertaining way and even comment on a few contemporary issues along the way.  The heart of the piece is in the story of how intellectual arrogance and runaway success can ruin friendships, but the real delight of The Social Network is in the ever-compelling script penned by Aaron Sorkin, from a fast-paced first dialogue that sets the tone, to a structure that jumps back in forth in time (the latter chronology being nowhere in the book), to the clever weaving of themes between old-school social clubs and new-style social media.  As an acknowledged nerd, I was stuck at the picture’s fairly accurate portrait of how some very smart people behave, as well as the accuracy of some technical details early in the film.  Fincher’s direction may be less visually polished here than in his other film, but it’s effective and coherent: this is a solid drama, and it deserves a flat and grainy picture.  (The film’s most striking bit of visual polish, at a regatta, echoes the miniature-faking tilt-shift focus meme that briefly fascinated internet photographers a while back.)  The Social Network also benefits from a number of striking performances, from Jesse Eisenberg’s deliberately stunted portrait of Zuckerberg to Justin Timberlake’s magnetic Sean Parker to Armie Hammer’s Winklevii.  Part of the appeal is seeing high-powered people interacting (the script uses a “that’s the famous person” joke at least twice to good effect.) in ways that are at least plausibly based on reality.  It all amounts to a film that’s quite a bit better than the sum of its parts would suggest –true moviemaking alchemy that leaves viewers wondering how and why it all worked so well.

  • The Last Train from Hiroshima, Charles Pellegrino

    The Last Train from Hiroshima, Charles Pellegrino

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Henry Holt, 2010, 367 pages, C$33.00 hc, ISBN 978-0-8050-8796-3

    When I ordered The Last Train from Hiroshima from amazon.ca in February 2010, the media frenzy around the book had just started: Allegations about the book’s dubious veracity had started to flare up, with numerous experts identifying many mistakes in the narrative.  By the time the book arrived at my house, Pellegrino’s academic credentials had been debunked and the publisher had announced that it was pulling all copies of the book from shelves.  In some sense, my copy of the book had ridden its own Last Train from Amazon: Even today, Pellegrino’s latest remains unavailable from either amazon.com or amazon.ca, being sold by other vendors at premiums making my purchase look like a savvy investment.

    But I’m not the smart one in this story.  Frankly, I ordered the book not because of the controversy, but because I’ve been a Pellegrino fan ever since his 1998 Science Fiction novel Dust.  This had led me, through the years, to most of his bibliography, including a number of very enjoyable non-fiction books.  I won’t try to re-write my reviews: You can go explore my “Charles Pellegrino” tag to point and laugh at my credulity regarding Pellegrino’s so-called non-fiction.

    As I microwave a platter of crow for public delectation, I will at least acknowledge having had some doubts as to whether Pellegrino’s brand of emotionally-driven scientific non-fiction was entirely truthful.  There were so many uncanny anecdotes buried in the text, so many dramatic moments, so many convenient coincidences that I asked knowledgeable people at SF conventions whether Pellegrino was entirely legit, and wasn’t entirely reassured by the answers.

    When the Last Train from Hiroshima story exploded, a lot of people started scrutinizing Pellegrino’s grandiose claims.  Did he really provide inspiration to Michael Crichton’s dinosaur-cloning technique in Jurassic Park?  Is he really a renegade Ph.D. from New Zealand?  Tall tales are tall tales –but when they’re supposed to establish credibility for someone writing scientific non-fiction, they upset the presumption of expertise that readers tacitly bestow upon writers of works informing us about the world.  And once the first domino falls…

    I was frankly reluctant to read Last Train from Hiroshima for the same reasons I don’t usually read older scientific non-fiction: So many things have changed since then that I would be putting bad information in my head.  Would reading Last Train from Hiroshima skew what I thought I knew about the American nuclear bombardments of Japan?

    There’s no good way to read a book about nuclear holocaust when it comes with a constant mental warning saying “All of this may be made-up”.  True to his previous books, Pellegrino milks science and history to their most dramatic extent, putting as much feeling in the narrative as technical details.  Readers approaching the book without prior knowledge of the controversy may feel a twinge or two of pure empathy for those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to say nothing of the survivors fated to lives cut short by radioactive fallout.  For those who suspect that a good chunk of the book is made up, though, it’s a harder sell.

    Much of The Last Train from Hiroshima controversy surrounds the testimony of Joseph Fuoco, whose surprising claims about the delivery of the American bombs have been cast in doubt by just about every knowledgeable military expert.  Alas –and this really hurts—readers eventually notice that most of the American material in Pellegrino’s book is sole-sourced to Fuoco.  Cut that out and you may as well have half a book.  The scant sourcing of The Last Train from Hiroshima through a thin bibliography might as well douse the flames of doubt.  Add to the that the other questions regarding the content of the book (including Japanese testimony we might as well know nothing about), and the only thing to do is to wrap the book in heavy opaque “Memetic Hazard” tape and shelve it alongside other potentially harmful material as occult woo-woo.  It’s the only sane response.

    And if you think that the damage is limited to just Last Train from Hiroshima, you’re fooling yourself: the doubts extend retroactively to every other non-fiction book that Pellegrino has even touched.  The Jesus Family Tomb had already raked up its share of controversies along with the 9/11 section of Ghosts of Vesuvius, but the one that really rankles is Chariots for Apollo, which I had taken to be a pretty good history of the Apollo program; what’s the quotient of crap-to-fact in that one?

    And that’s the true price to pay for even a few mistakes in non-fiction books: It casts the entirety of Pellegrino’s work in question, no matter how meritorious it can otherwise be.  On the other hand, I’m still allowed to like Pellegrino’s Science Fiction.  Now there’s an irony here that I may savour for a while.

  • The Monster of Florence, Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

    The Monster of Florence, Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Grand Central, 2008, 322 pages, C$28.99 hc, ISBN 978-0-446-58119-6

    Douglas Preston is best known as an author of contemporary thrillers.  Either by himself (Tyrannosaur Canyon, Blasphemy) or collaborating with Lincoln Child (the Pendergast series), he has earned a sizable following as one of the most popular fiction writers.  In The Monster of Florence, however, he switches to non-fiction; first, with a historical description of the serial killer known as “The Monster of Florence” (“Between 1974 and 1985, seven couples –fourteen people in all—were murdered…” [P.5]) and then what happened to him when he got too close to the story (“I was accused of being an accessory to murder, planting false evidence, perjury and obstruction of justice, and threatened with arrest if I ever set foot on Italian soil again” [P.5]). It’s the story of a writer as character, and it’s as good as his novels.

    The Monster of Florence starts innocently enough in 2000, as Preston contemplates a major lifestyle change: having earned a comfortable living as an author, it’s now possible to him to envision living the life he has always imagined for himself.  Why not move to Italy’s bucolic countryside, not too far from Florence, and research a long-gestating murder mystery novel?

    But a chance encounter with a journalist and a mention of his current residence dredges up the sordid story of a serial killer preying on couples.  The first half of the book is a historical account of the crimes.  The second one is far more personal and tells of what happens when a visiting American inadvertently starts making local authorities look bad.  In-between, we get a good look at Florence, a city that has shaped Italy (Florentine upper-class dialect largely defined the Italian language after the unification of the country) and yet, even today, stands apart from the rest of the country due to its self-image as a cradle of fine culture.

    But first, the true-crime aspect: Essentially unknown to American audiences, the story of the Monster of Florence spans roughly sixteen years from 1968 to 1985.  During that time, eight couples were murdered in the hills around Florence where they had sought a bit of intimacy.  Three men have been arrested and convicted for those murders, but many still suspect that the real killer has not been caught; among them is Mario Spezi, a Florentine journalist who has covered much of the case for a local newspaper.  When Preston meets Spezi, he is quickly fascinated by the case, and the suggestion that justice has never been served upon the true killer.

    That’s when The Monster of Florence takes an unexpected turn: As Preston comes closer to the case and forms a team with Spezi, their investigative efforts start annoying the Florinese police forces, who eventually accuse Spezi and Preston with obstructing justice… and more.

    Worth keeping in mind throughout the narrative is Preston’s description of the Italian way of life, fregatura, littered with casual corruption: “doing something in a way that is not exactly legal, no exactly honest, but just this side of egregious.” [P.171]. When you’re a member of the community, fregatura works.  When you’re out, well… bad things happen.  Preston is grilled by the Florinese police forces, then told to get out of the country and stay out.  If you ever want to understand the experience of being intimidated by police authorities while visiting a foreign country, then this is the book for you.  What’s a bit of xenophobic colour compared to permanent exile?  Preston can leave (and does so), but Spezi is in a very different situation, and eventually Preston has to use every bit of influence he has in the media world to try to get his friend out of trouble.

    The first half of The Monster of Florence is ordinary: straight-ahead material, well-fleshed but dealing in criminal mysteries without a satisfactory answer.  It’s the second half of the book that raises it above the background din of similar true-crime stories.  We’re used to see thriller writers as bookish personalities in every way detached from what they write about… so it’s a bit of a shock to see a familiar author dragged into the madness of a criminal case, and the way authorities react to his efforts.  Numerous nods to other thriller figures (chief among them Thomas Harris, who was the first to write about the Monster of Florence in Hannibal) make this book of particular interest to genre readers despite its billing as non-fiction.  Ironically, it’s Preston’s personal story rather than Spezi’s descriptions of the murders that may put you off from visiting Florence.  But that’s what you can expect when a stranger-than-fiction story lands upon a novelist: a crackling good book.

  • The September Issue (2009)

    The September Issue (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2010) The September Issue does something very clever in its first minute: it confronts viewers who dismiss the world of fashion with sweeping statements that just betray their ignorance.  (“people are frightened about fashion. Because it scares them or make them feel insecure they just put it down”) Thus challenged, viewers can settle down to enjoy a behind-the-scene look at the making of “the bible of the fashion industry”: The deeply influential September issue of Vogue magazine, which has the power to set trends for an entire season.  This is one of those silent-narrator films (although the cameraman gets dragged into a photo-shoot late in the film, with hilarious results), leaving enough space for Vogue magazine’s staff.  The two dominating figures are quasi-legendary editor Anna Wintour and creative director Grace Coddington: both squabble over the magazine’s layout, Wintour seemingly dominating for much of the film but eventually accepting Coddington’s advice by the end.  (Given the contrast between the haughty Wintour and the earthier Coddington, this also stands as the viewers’ vindication.)  There aren’t any big revelations or apologies about taste-maker Wintour, but that’s almost OK given the need to keep such figures on a quasi-mythical level. (Those who come to The September Issue with her caricature in The Devil Wears Prada in mind won’t be surprised or disappointed.) Otherwise, it’s a peek at the prodigious style factory that is Vogue, where considerable time and effort goes into making stunning pictures that may be discarded on a whim.  Not enough time is spent on the actual graphic design of the magazine, but we get enough of models, photographers and editors trying to make sense of such a logistical undertaking.  The end result isn’t much of a critical exploration of Vogue or its industry, since The September Issue is unarguably sympathetic to the world of fashion: after seeing so many people working hard at putting out such a beautiful product, how could it be otherwise?

  • Get Him to the Greek (2010)

    Get Him to the Greek (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2010) This movie pushes a lot of my anti-humour buttons: I’m still sceptical about a good chunk of the latest British comics, and Russell Brand’s fame seems as unexplainable to me as that of Steve Coogan or Sacha Baron Cohen.  (To say nothing of Jonah Hill, who feels like a less-funny Seth Rogen… and I don’t think of Rogen as particularly funny.)  Raunchy comedies aren’t my favourite sub-genre either, and I’m getting too old to play the spot-the-pop-references game in which Get Him to the Greek often indulges.  Those biases exposed, I still had quite a good time watching the film, in part because of its go-for-broke willingness to throw just about everything at the screen and hope some of it will be amusing to viewers.  Much of the celebrity cameos were wasted on me, except for Paul Krugman’s deliciously unexpected appearance.  Who would have thought?  Brand’s grander-than-life portrait of a rock star living to the maximum is enough to make us pine for the decline of mass-marketed music, while Sean Combs turns in a equally-enjoyable performance as an overblown music executive.  The film’s R-rated language and themes creates an atmosphere in which nearly anything can happen (including some things that you hope wouldn’t) and that kind of dreamlike no-limits feeling is something that’s relatively rare in today’s PG-rated comic landscape. Get Him to the Greek is undisciplined and scattered, but there isn’t as much grossing-out as you may expect… and even some overdone sweetness by the end.  Too bad that the more responsible plot elements end up looking so dull and worn-out compared to the film’s excesses: a script polish may have been able to smooth out some of those edges.  What’s there, however, is at least funnier than most other comedies on the shelf.  It may even surprise those of you who don’t expect much.

  • Time Odyssey 2: Sunstorm, Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter

    Time Odyssey 2: Sunstorm, Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Del Rey, 2006 reprint of 2005 original, 356 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-345-45251-8

    Freakishly obsessive readers of these reviews have probably noticed a shift in my attitude toward Science Fiction over the past few years.  I read less of it (non-fiction seems more interesting to me these days), I don’t look at it so uncritically and I get less and less patient with its self-indulgences.  Anyone would be forgiven to conclude that I’m slowly moving away from the genre.

    But that’s not true: SF is still my favourite genre, and I’m going to use Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter’s Sunstorm as my proof.  Because the real test of a fan is whether they can still find something worthwhile in an otherwise average genre novel.  Sunstorm won’t go down as any kind of classic (in fact, barely five years after its publication, it has already faded away) and yet I was able to sink into it like a warm comforter.  It’s a book that I can read on auto-pilot, almost without any effort given how close the novel’s assumptions are to my own.  From the moment the dumb premise is explained and the real meat of the novel is exposed, it’s pure classic old-school SF, and it made me smile even though I can acknowledge that I have already forgotten/forgiven most of its dull or ridiculous parts.

    As the second entry in the as-of-yet-unfinished “Time’s Odyssey” series, Sunstorm is supposed to be a follow-up to Clarke/Baxter’s Time’s Eye (2004), but save for a very loose tying of both novels together by common antagonists and a viewpoint character, there’s little link between the two stories.  While Time’s Eye imagined a showdown between Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan on an Earth littered with slivers of its own past for no greater rationale than alien amusement (talk about a fanboy premise run amok), Sunstorm features the same plot-justifying aliens destabilizing the sun.  After an initial catastrophe early in the novel during while the sun pulses once with devastating results, scientists discover that within five years another building pulse of energy will essentially fry all of Earth.

    That’s when the fun begins.  Because while nearly every other non-genre writer would jump on an opportunity to write about a world coming to grip with its imminent destruction, both Clarke and Baxter hail from the old can-do school of SF as an hymn to human ingenuity.  Rather than roll over and wait for the ultimate sunburn, much of humanity unites behind a grandiose project to build a planet-sized shade that will deflect enough of the radiation.

    I have always been very susceptible to engineering-fiction, and so within pages of the project’s inception, Sunstorm was making me purr with details of how such a shield could be launched, built, assembled and steered.  Scientists come up with a series of solutions to bewildering technical problems, religious fundamentalists mount attacks on the project, hardy blue-collar workers assemble everything in orbit, governments mount last-ditch defenses to further alleviate the effect of the impending sun-storm and readers gets to enjoy a classic SF novel.  The prose is direct, the conflicts aren’t complex, the resourcefulness of the characters is considerable and the enemies are clearly identified (so are the fools, who deservedly burn after disregarding helpful scientific advice): Sunstorm can’t claim to sophistication, and that’s part of its charm.  As comfort reading for people having grown up on a certain type of Science Fiction, it’s hard to beat.

    As a follow-up to Time’s Eye, it’s too disconnected to be of much use: It solves no questions and just uses the alien threat as another plot driver.  But as a reminder of how much fun SF can be when it gets down to the essentials of why it exists as a genre, it’s a highly enjoyable read even though it’s not much of an elegant piece of fiction.  SF fans will love it, non-SF fans will dismiss it, and sometimes that’s exactly how genre novels should be.