Reviews

  • The Ladykillers (2004)

    The Ladykillers (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2004) There’s no denying that on the heels of Intolerable Cruelty, the Coen brothers have once again disappointed many with this lesser film. A remake that audaciously re-imagines the basic story of the London-based 1950s original in contemporary Southern Mississippi, The Ladykillers is a slight comedy that unfortunately loses interest as it winds up to its conclusion. The best two things about the film, as may be expected from the Coen Brothers, is the music and the secondary characters. While Tom Hanks gets all the flash and glory in the lead role of a cultured southern gentleman who decides to try his luck at crime, every character in the film speaks with their own cadence and idioms, a musicality of speech that meshes well with the musical background. (What O Brother, Where Art Thou? Did to folk music, this version of The Ladykillers does to gospel choirs, maybe even too much) Sadly, the relatively amusing first half of the film loses stem once the light crime comedy cedes its place to much darker and moralistic material. Suddenly, the film isn’t so much fun to watch. It doesn’t help that the lead character, a formidable black woman with a fearful sense of right and wrong, is such a dull character. While the film is supposed to revolve around her, her presence just isn’t as compelling as the dastardly villains she’s facing. Oh well; Quirky is the word, but then again quirky is what the Coen Brothers are all about, occasional misfires and all.

  • Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

    Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2004) I’m surprised: After condemning so many recent movies for being far too long, this bloated self-indulgent monstrosity of a second half drags on for more than two hours… and I didn’t want it to end. Yes, there are tons of useless scenes, loose dialogue, extended scenes and annoying pauses. But it’s handled with such a deft hand that by the time the “Last Chapter” title card is dropped, you can only go “Whaaa? Already?” Beautiful direction, inventive twists and turns, uplifting ending (unlike other recent revenge films, this one suggests a hint of personal redemption if not -for lack of a better word- progress) and excellent acting all contribute to a unique cinema experience. Interestingly enough, Kill Bill Volume 2 is quite different from Kill Bill Volume 1; more talkative, less spectacular, but as good in its own way: It’s going to be hard to wait until the inevitable combined edition of the film. Film geeks of all stripe will once again go nuts for this latest offering from Quentin Tarantino. More mundane viewers may not care as much, but that’s hardly relevant: the film isn’t for them anyway.

  • U.S.S. Seawolf, Patrick Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Torch, 2000, 482 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-103065-1

    Show me a critic without an author they love to hate and I will show you a reviewer without passion, without the killer instinct so necessary in this often-dreary job. While some will save their bile for Piers Anthony, Kevin J. Anderson or William Shatner, I’ve had three remarkably enjoyable occasions so far to slag the work of Patrick Robinson: His Nimitz Class, Kilo Class and H.M.S. Unseen remain some of the most pathetic attempts at the techno-thriller genre ever written.

    (Note for sensible readers: No, I don’t hate Patrick Robinson as a person. For all that I know, he’s probably a great human being who’s kind to humanity, fond of little animals and respectful of the biosphere. We could probably enjoy a fascinating conversation over a good meal and I’d feel ashamed of everything I’ve written about his books. Until then, however, his books don’t measure up to the accepted standard and you can read my reviews to understand why.)

    Given such past credentials, I was all ready and anxious to start reading U.S.S. Seawolf: Hurrah! Another occasion to make fun of Robinson’s right-wing raaah-America screw-international-relations politics! Another sorry attempt at “plotting”! Another set of unlikable cardboard characters! Another book packed with clunky exposition! Whee!

    Imagine my surprise when I started thinking that U.S.S. Seawolf wasn’t actually half-bad.

    Don’t make any mistake; it’s still not a very good techno-thriller. But as compared to his other three books, it actually holds up a lot better.

    For one thing, there is a plot of sorts that goes beyond the sort of sloppy “let’s destroy foreign submarines” excuse passed off in Kilo Class. This time around, an American submarine (the titular Seawolf) doing stupid things off China’s coastal waters is accidentally damaged by the Chinese navy, captured and dragged to a Chinese port. It’s an eerie scenario, especially given how, in early 2001, an American plane doing stupid things off China’s coastal waters was accidentally damaged by the Chinese Air Force, captured and dragged to a Chinese airport. (Ooooh.) From then on, the Americans implement a rescue mission, which is implemented with the usual thrilling amount of difficulty. It’s not Shakespeare, but it works rather well. For one thing, U.S.S. Seawolf avoids the lengthy useless stretches of, say, H.M.S. Unseen.

    One annoyance left intact from Robinson’s earlier novel is his casual disregard for the niceties of diplomatic intervention. As a true Republican believer in the Bush doctrine, Robinson’s novels are packed with preemptive (and excessive) strikes against foreign targets, usually resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths that are shrugged away with choice racial epithets. Here, it’s not a hydro-electrical dam in Iraq (U.S.S. Nimitz) or a number of Chinese submarines (Kilo Class) but the intentional meltdown of a nuclear reactor, leading to entire blocks of a Chinese city being showered with radioactive slag. Thoughtful. Given the number of offencive racial slurs used by Robinson’s so-called protagonists, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if his next novel features a warship manned by members of the Aryan Nation.

    Moving on… Robinson usually has some trouble ending his novel, but here again U.S.S. Seawolf manages to be only slightly better than the rest of his usual crap: After a triumphant rescue in which most members of the submarine are rescued, ugly politics intrude thanks to a no-good son-of-a-politician and a protagonist ends up killing himself. Whee, what fun! But have no fear, because series superhero Arnold Morgan, in between chewing cigars, spitting at presidents, planning genocide, insulting countries and boinking his sexy secretary (whose characterization seems taken from Playmate profiles), decides that he can’t have that and tenders in his resignation. Or something like that. Read the rest in the next thrilling instalment. I might have cared had it been even a mediocre book.

    Wait! Wait! Did I say that U.S.S. Seawolf was better than Robinson’s other novels? What was I thinking? Was it the deliciously ambiguous portrait of an incompetent military officer? The rather good SEAL-team operational details? Or momentary delusion brought about by disbelief? Goodness gracious! It is as bad as his other novels! Hurrah! Bring on the fifth one! Patrick Robinson; I love to hate your stuff! More, please!

  • Jersey Girl (2004)

    Jersey Girl (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2004) Ouch. While it’s not fair to begrudge writer/director Kevin Smith’s desire to grow up after five raucous comedies, it’s not poor efforts like Jersey Girl that will demonstrate anything. What’s nearly unbearable, though, is the dawning realization that the film’s problems stem from one source: The writing. The direction is surprisingly unremarkable for a Smith film (it looks like just about any cookie-cutter romance, which is a step up for Smith’s notoriously static style) and all of the actors do really good work, from Ben Affleck’s uneasy blue-collar worker to Elizabeth Castro’s adorable kid character. (Heck, even Liv Tyler has never looked hotter; it’s the glasses, I swear!) But the stuff that comes out of their mouth… eeew. Smith’s writing has always been the chief attraction of his films, but he completely (and repeatedly) misses the mark here: He brings to romantic drama the same sledge-hammer quality so obvious in his comedy and the result is a disaster. Characters spout off “on-the-nose” monologues to sleeping infants, react in broad and obvious ways that have no equivalent in the real world and engage in conversations that feel more like dramatic check-lists. Yikes. To add insult to injury, whatever comedy writing is in the film falls flat and feels forced. All in all, it’s not Smith’s new intentions that are at fault (despite everything, you can still sense the heart-felt bond between father and daughter) but his inept execution. Too bad.

  • Hellboy (2004)

    Hellboy (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2004) As an unconditional fan of director Guillermo del Toro, I may have been expecting a touch too much from this film, his logical follow-up to the exceptional Blade II. I’m not displeased by the end result, mind you: Anything which mixes Nazis, catholicism, demons, big guns and tentacular Lovecraftian creatures has my vote. But there’s something missing here. Maybe it’s the same-old shtick of making the first film of any superhero franchise an origin story. Maybe it’s the repetitive nature of the fights. Maybe it’s the unconvincing nature of the secret bureau described in the film, which sports a grand total of what seems to be five employees. Whatever it is stops Hellboy from vaulting on the top shelf… but don’t think that I don’t be in line to buy the DVD: From the good CGI to the great direction to Hellboy’s own blue-collar superhero shtick, there’s plenty to like anyway about this film. It’s just too bad that it can’t take the last step separating it from popcorn greatness.

  • Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

    Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2004) I have a bad, bad allergy to naturalistic film-making. But even that couldn’t keep me from appreciating this film, a cheerfully original piece of work that feels both fresh and gritty. The concept of memory erasure as a “solution” to heartbreak isn’t revolutionary (there are many Science Fiction stories dealing with that exact same theme), nor is the notion of Jim Carrey as a dramatic actor. But this film does wonders with both. A simple story (boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girls has boy erased, boy does same) told in an eclectic style, Charlie Kaufman’s script seamlessly delves into matters of memory and identity. As a Science Fiction story, it’s interestingly realistic, featuring ordinary people who often do stupid things and jury-rigged technology that can go really wrong. It’s also admirable how it avoids the circular pessimism that is inherent in its premise, suggesting that it’s only by learning from mistakes and painful moments that we can grow. Obvious stuff, sure, but somehow the way it’s all done makes it seem new. (Much in the same way that the muddy cinematography of the film often obscures top-notch special effects) I’m still not completely blown away by the film (among other annoyances, it sports far too many gratuitously-weird moments that don’t end up meaning much at the end) but it’s a rare piece of solid SF cinema-as-art, something that can be discussed and taken apart.

  • Dong fang san xia [The Heroic Trio] (1993)

    Dong fang san xia [The Heroic Trio] (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, April 2004) Fans of the usual wacky Hong Kong action cinema antics will find plenty to like here as three of the loveliest Hong Kong actresses are unleashed on a film that could best be described as… strange. Kidnapped babies are the MacGuffin here, but the real attraction is seeing Maggie Cheug, Anita Mui and (woo) Michelle Yeoh star in a series of action sequences. Strange stuff, well-directed with a tremendous amount of style. This isn’t for everyone, though: Even Hong Kong cinema connoisseurs are likely to wince at some of the casual violence inflicted on babies in this film, especially when it’s glossed over in favour of more heroic images (To quote: “…most of the babies were returned unharmed…” Eeek!) On the other hand, the film has an undeniable sexiness, especially when the lead trio is allowed to, er, stretch their legs. Don’t miss the “exoskeleton” finale. The bare-bones American DVD is another fine hatchet job by Miramax, which can’t even be bothered to include an original-language track.

  • Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Perennial, 1994, 272 pages, C$16.95 tpb, ISBN 0-06-097662-4

    After discovering the silliness of Christopher Buckley in Little Green Men, it didn’t take me a long time to bring back home other examples of his work. Alas, as if often the case when picking up authors in mid-career, going back to earlier works can be disappointing, as we regress to a more unpolished style and less-controlled plotting. No, I didn’t go nuts for Thank You For Smoking nearly as much as Little Green Men. But don’t let that stop you from reading the book.

    Christopher Buckley, novelist, is really a social satirist. Before tackling the world of UFO conspiracies in Little Green Men, his Thank You For Smoking took careful aim at the special-interest community. Our protagonist and narrator, Nick Taylor, is a spokesman for the tobacco industry. The job has its small annoyances (like being likened to Nazis and various creatures of the underworld) but it pays the bills, represents a constant challenge and allows Nick to travel around the country and attend public events where participants hiss at him. It’s, all things considered, a good life. That is, until Nick starts making too many waves and someone, somewhere wants him dead through an ironic execution.

    Suddenly, Nick doesn’t know who to trust. Even as he’s enjoying his highest media profile in years, even as the leaders of Big Tobacco start noticing his efforts, even as he sleeps with just about every available female character, his enemies start to accumulate. Are they anti-smokers or pro-smokers with twisted motives? What about Nick’s colleagues in the special-interest community? Are those NRA spokespersons jealous of Nick’s sudden celebrity? Unless… what if the Tumbleweed Man, ex-industry icon now living off oxygen bottles, has decided to take his final revenge?

    General points of comparison with Little Green Men abound. Both novels revolve around Washington, as Buckley demonstrates his inside knowledge of how the machinery of influence really works. Both novels feature a protagonist who comes to reconsider everything he believes in, even if it results in him losing everything he holds dear. Both novels do believable jobs of creating their own brand of reality slight off-kilter from our own, while remaining credible. Both can be read in a flash.

    The main difference is that Thank You For Smoking is somewhat less funny than Little Green Men. The latter novel had the good sense to go for the jugular and be hysterically silly when it needed to be. No so here, as things are carefully kept from going over the edge of reality. It’s off-beat but not zany. Whereas Little Green Men was funny, Thank You For Smoking is merely amusing.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with being merely amusing. In fact, some readers are more likely to prefer a novel that stays within the bounds of a certain recognizable reality. It’s not as if I disliked Thank You For Smoking (well, aside from the impression that the narrator was a slut for sleeping with every female he could lay his hands on) as much as I thought it was a let-down from Buckley’s later novel.

    Certainly, Thank You For Smoking is well-worth reading for light entertainment. (The progressive transformation of the protagonist in someone we can cheer for is remarkable in itself.) There’s plenty of satiric content for anyone even remotely familiar with special-interest groups, and even if the ending isn’t completely successful (what is with chapter 29, anyway?), it’s not as if the rest of the novel isn’t pure fun. As for me, well, I’m not done with Buckley’s other novels yet.

  • Le Dernier tunnel [The Last Tunnel] (2004)

    Le Dernier tunnel [The Last Tunnel] (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In theaters, April 2004) French-Canadian cinema is still at a stage where it’s amazed whenever it manages to deliver competent American-style entertainment. Every so often, though, it slips back into the kind of depressing introspective drama that used to pass for cinematic entertainment around here. And so Le Dernier Tunnel is a mix of both tendencies: After a long set-up describing how a master thief goes back in the crime business after a stint in the hole, the film holds its own when comes the time to build tension and suspense. While the first two acts are both sketchy (in plotting) and self indulgent (in repetitive “character-building”), the last twenty minutes are pure action cinema, complete with a CGI shot of an exploding mailboxes and a bullet-time effect. Whew! But just when you think that this is going to end American-style, the film grinds to a halt, jettisoning whatever good will it had managed to accumulate and going back to old-style defeatism. While there is a place for an ending in which not everyone gets what they want, the choice here is grating: The absence of a twist, the drawn-out finale that amounts to nothing, the lack of satisfaction after a conventional build-up all conspire to negate the film’s momentum. The credits roll, the lights go up, and the audience is cheated by a film that just lost its nerve.

  • The Alamo (2004)

    The Alamo (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2004) As a French-Canadian, I don’t really remember the Alamo given that I was never told about it in the first place. Things are unlikely to change with this film. Oh, the American jingoism is part of the film’s problems, but by no means the biggest one: Far more damaging is the chaotic storytelling, coupled with a lazy pacing that just makes one wish for a speedier massacre. Recent historical films such as The Last Samurai have proved that it’s feasible to create a historical tale that’s both clear and fast-paced. But The Alamo wastes so much time on trivialities that it struggles to keep our attention. Fortunately, a few things are worth staying awake for: Billy Bob Thornton’s excellent performance as Davy Crockett, the impressive historical re-creation of the fort and some of the final combat scenes. (Connoisseurs of camp may also appreciate Santa Anna’s over-the-top cruelty) Otherwise, well, it’s a long slog that actually gets worse near the end of the film: While a movie like The Alamo cries out for credits right after the death of the last American at the fort, this one (like Pearl Harbor) feels compelled to stretch the story even further to show ultimate American triumph. Er, no: It’s not okay to show Mexicans massacring Americans as bad and then Americans massacring Mexicans as good. Add to that the shameless hero-building (viz Crockett’s last scene), the bloodless combats, the overdone dialogues and the result is an Alamo likely to be forgotten.

  • Meltdown, James Powlik

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Dell, 2000, 445 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-23509-X

    I remember reading James Powlik’s first novel, Sea Change, with some interest but not much enthusiasm. It was a solid, competent thriller with good sequences featuring familiar elements. Some silliness here and there, but nothing bad enough to make anyone stop reading. In other words, a thoroughly adequate thriller.

    Meltdown doesn’t step too far off the mark set by Powlik’s first novel.

    At least it has (for this Canuck reviewer) the added interest of taking place in Canada. In Canada’s extreme North, mind you (somewhere at large of Baffin Island), but in Canada nonetheless. The prologue bashes Canada’s treatment of its Inuit population, there’s one amusing reference to Ottawa’s Sparks street and the Canadian Coast Guard gets to be mentioned a few times, but otherwise it doesn’t matter much: Meltdown is simply set in a cold and desolate location where something very bizarre is about to happen.

    In the first few pages of the novel, two divers are severely affected by a short dive in glacial waters. Suffering from an extreme form of radiation poisoning, they die within hours, prompting their colleagues to call for help. If you’ve read Sea Change, you may already expect a certain someone, and you won’t be disappointed: Brock Garner, renegade oceanographer extraordinaire, is more than willing to answer distress calls from a beautiful woman, especially if she just happens to be his very own ex-wife Dr. Carlon Harmon. (Yes, there’s still something between them.) Before long, he’s on a plane headed north, having packed both his long johns and his advanced oceanographic gadgets.

    What he discovers up there is alarming enough: massive radiation contamination, with drastic effects on everything it touches. Left unchecked, this terrible environmental disaster could heat up the Gulf Stream (or something like that) and usher in a new Ice Age. What is the source of the contamination? What can be done to stop it? And how is Brock going to escaped unharmed from everything that’s sure to happen to him in a thriller?

    To be fair, Meltdown starts with an intriguing mystery and milks a lot of interest out of the source of the radioactive spill. Is it natural or man-made? Accidental or intentional? Civilian or military? Water is the great unifier, and so Powlik’s novel is a grand excuse to learn a little bit about tons of subjects, from radioactivity to metal-eating bacteria to secret military catastrophes. Techno-thriller fans; welcome, please enjoy the book.

    Unfortunately, there’s a palpable lessening of tension once the source of the radiation is identified. Silly little side-plots mixing Chinese (or is it Indian?) spies and super-absorbing molecules start appearing suddenly with various degrees of effectiveness. I quite liked one unfortunate accident three-quarter of the way in, but the latter half of the novel was uneven, sometimes grabbing my interest and sometimes not. The ending is a bit too tidy: I happen to believe that eco-catastrophes can’t be solved with a magical silver bullet; unfortunately, that seems to be the case here. (Amusingly enough, while Sea Change had an ominous epilogue, it doesn’t appear to be the case with Meltdown. Another case of an author settling for easy answer in order to stretch a series of thrillers? We’ll see.)

    Still, the book is easy enough to read, and there’s plenty of fascinating asides to satisfy any beach reader. Some vivid action scenes stand out despite the uneven nature of the narrative. The characters may be unpolished, but they’re efficient at moving the action along and don’t torture themselves endlessly with moral dilemmas. It would be helpful if Powlik could sustain interest in both his plot and his characters, but Meltdown isn’t particularly worse than Sea Change. (Indeed, reviewing my notes on the previous novel, it looks as if Meltdown isn’t quite as silly as the first book, which is already something.) I may not be overly enthusiastic about Powlik’s oeuvre so far, but I’m not repelled either; if nothing else, I’m more than willing to try his next effort. After all, if nothing else, I’m a sucker for tons of techno-jargon.

  • Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age, Lin Sten

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Paragon House, 1999, 250 pages, C$37.00 hc, ISBN 1-55778-779-4

    As someone with, thanks to Science Fiction, a deep interest in technology and its impact on society, I’m part of the natural audience for an essay like Lin Sten’s Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age. This little-known book, found at a remainder sale, promised much: “Compared to the past gradual evolution of our natural and technological environments,” says the dust jacket blurb, “the rate of evolution in the next decade will be revolutionary. In the new environment, the mans of survival will be so different and the need for adaption so extreme, that few humans may survive.” Hot stuff! Could this be a book-length version of Bill Joy’s qualms in his landmark article “Why the future doesn’t need us?” A critique of nanotechnology by someone unconvinced by The Foresight Institute?

    As it happens, Sten’s book is almost exactly that. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to make it worthwhile.

    His main thesis is interesting and worth discussing. He fears that with the progress in nanotechnology (here gratuitously called “molecular nanotechnology”, or “molenotechnology” for short) and associated sciences, humanity is headed toward a dead-end of sorts; when people will be able to manufacture tactical nuclear bombs in their home-based Universal Assemblers, human nature will naturally lead to widespread death and destruction. Increasingly omnipotent power in increasingly unaccountable hands is not a recipe for social harmony, despite what most gun advocates will tell you.

    It’s an interesting thesis (I myself have referred to something like it as “the rabid wolf problem” in other venues) and so I’m doubly disappointed that Sten wasn’t able to it justice in this book. Sometimes, it’s his fault; sometimes, it’s mine.

    Mine first; I have read copiously on nanotech and associated issues. Decades of Science Fiction consumption, occasional scribblings on “Terror in Hard-SF” and outlines for stories yet to be written have, shall we say, made a nanodanger buff out of me. In this context, Sten’s speculations often read as introductions or basic thinking on a complex subject. I can’t reasonably fault him for not pushing the envelope when I know so much about the field, but I can be disappointed that I haven’t been able to find much new material in this book.

    But that’s just me; your mileage may vary on this particular subject. On the other hand, this book has other flaws that may run deeper.

    The writing and (lack of) organization is one: Despite a relatively uncomplicated vocabulary and a short length, Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age is not very pleasant to read. I suppose that a better editor may have been able to clarify some of the mess and straighten out some dull passages. But as it currently stands, this book is a singularly tepid take on a fascinating subject. That hurts, especially when the goal of the book is to send us in a tizzy of concern. Instead, readers are more likely to shrug.

    Then there the “Cabal” issue. As the book advances, more and more time is spent discussing shadowy interest groups, “cabals” of common interest that will some to enslave humanity through ever-more powerful molenotechnology. While I can recognize the inherent danger and historical precedents for such things, Sten’s use of the “cabal” concept is far closer to conspiracy theory than to careful social explanation. It throws a blanket of wacky unreality on a book that desperately wants to be taken seriously. It’s a small detail, but you know how things work: when you’re ambivalent about something, even trifles can have an impact one way or another.

    Ultimately, though, I didn’t get the impression of learning much from Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age. There are a few ideas here and there, but few of them haven’t already been mentioned elsewhere in contemporary Science Fiction or in Wired Magazine. No small wonder, then, if the book remains obscure even today.

  • Double Fold, Nicholson Baker

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Vintage, 2001, 370 pages, C$21.00 tpb, ISBN 0-375-72621-7

    For someone who spends so much time tinkering with computers and using the Internet, I have a decidedly classical relationship with paper. I love books, I print digital stuff for archiving, I think libraries are holy places, I like the feel of good paper and I can do wonders with cardstock, scissors and a fancy printer. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever made your own book. Uh-huh.) While ebooks are a wonderful thing and have undeniable data advantages over dead-tree versions of the same content, my dead-tree-parts collection is one of my favourite things in the whole world. No data storage backup concerns; no anxiety about the quality of the digital capture; no usability trouble in case of power failure or electromagnetical pulse. I just love paper.

    Double Fold is a book for people like me and Nicholson Baker is a guy I like.

    Anyone with a college-level education is probably familiar with microfiche. Those tiny black-and-white reproductions are often the only way to consult past issues of newspapers in university libraries. Even as the magical age of digital information advances, there is still plenty of content locked away on those tiny plastic sheets. Anyone who’s used them is also aware of their deficiencies: those muddy, often-unfocused black-and-white reproduction of the original content can often be a headache to read. It would be so much better to be able to consult the original… but where can you put all of those newspapers?

    The truth is that several large libraries, until the 1950s, actually did keep, bind and store paper archives of newspapers. Then microfiche came in and promised incredible space savings at very little cost for “the same amount of information”. And so went the bound newspaper paper archives: Sold to the highest bidders or thrown in the trash when they weren’t simply left to rot in damp basements. In several cases, there are no paper copies left of several important newspapers.

    That in itself is not a very pleasant thing. But as far as Double Fold goes, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg. Baker spends the rest of the book detailing how, for now more than fifty years, American libraries have vigorously pursued policies that led to the destruction of priceless documents, all in the name of ill-defined conservation, space savings and unfounded worries about the durability of even pulp paper. (The CIA is involved, believe it or not.) It’s a fantastic story, even more so when Baker puts his retirement funs on the line to preserve a few historically-important bound newspaper runs. And that’s not even mentioning Egyptian mummies and explosive de-acidification processes!

    Double Fold is as much a documentary as an essay against the incalculable damages brought by short-term thinking in libraries. Books destroyed to make imperfect, often incomplete microfiche copies. Perfectly adequate books discarded over ludicrous “double fold” testing results. The systematic elimination of priceless pieces of history. An all-out war on paper. Even sceptics are likely to be moved as Baker suggests, at the very least, a smoother gradient between the roles occupied by librarians and archivists.

    For bookish fellows such as myself, Double Fold is a significant book. Baker does a superb job at revealing the seedy underbelly of libraries, presents exquisitely-researched details (the “notes” section takes up nearly a fifth of the book) and manipulates his audience like a puppet master. It’s informative, frequently outrageous, packed with fascinating details and likely to inspire either tears, disbelieving moans and a fair bit of anger. It deservedly won a National Critic Board award for best non-fiction book of 2002 and it’s likely to inspire both debate and action everywhere it’s read.

    Infuriating, fascinating and shocking at times, Double Fold easily gets my recommendation as a must-read if you’re even slightly interested in books. I’d love to press a copy in the hands of every librarian on planet Earth, but in the meantime I’ll be content in shouting out its praise over my web site. If it can eventually save even one book from too-hasty destruction, then it’ll be a job well-done.

  • Web Design on a Shoestring, Carrie Bickner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    New Riders, 2004, 215 pages, C$37.99 tpb, ISBN 0-7357-1328-6

    Regular readers of this web site will scarcely be surprised by my librarian fetish (though it still creeps them out). As keepers of books, masters of reference information and holders of library keys, librarians secretly control the world and that just makes them unbelievably hot. (And this regardless of whether they hold their flowing locks of curly hair in a bun or not.) Certainly, Carrie Bickner of www.roguelibrarian.com fame does nothing to quell my fascination for book-indexing ladies. Heck, by embracing the information age and leading the way for web standards, Bickner is the pin-up girl for what modern librarians should be. Entire crowds of geeks mourned when she married master web designer Jeffrey Zeldman (of, yes, www.zeldman.com fame), but she’ll forever remain special to all of us. Who hasn’t bookmarked her NYPL web style guide, already?

    With Web Design on a Shoestring, Bickner carries the torch of efficient web standards from the virtual world to the real. The book sets out to help over-worked and under-resourced web professionals do the most with the least. In a post-dot-com-bubble world where the web has remained essential even as budgets for it have shrunk to almost nothing, this book is a sign of the times and a harbinger of things to come. Everyone needs a web site, but there’s not much money for it. Welcome to the real world.

    As a public sector web designer and an occasional free-lance web expert, I could read the book as a member of two audiences, and Web Design on a Shoestring does indeed try to cover as many situations as possible. As long as you’re trying to make web design more cost-effective, this book has something to offer.

    Bickner, for instance, illustrates the importance of web standards in bringing down costs; by designing to standards and doing cost-efficient usability testing, it’s relatively easy for web designers to sidestep incompatibilities between web browsers, simplify the design template of sites and be reasonably confident that they’re satisfying the vast majority of their audience. Further tips on typography, hosting, images and web writing help the book cover a very large subject.

    There is, all told, a lot to like about this book. As is the norm with books by New Riders, it manages to provide a lot of technical information without being dull. The writing style is conversational, often quite amusing. The organization of the book is logical. It’s quick and to the point at just over 200 pages. There are plenty of summary points to recap the book’s most useful passages. Some of the material is unique or very handy, such as the very interesting chapters on Content Management Systems or how to deal with image sources.

    Still, I can’t help but feel let down by the book. Having borrowed it from my employer’s corporate library, I’m not very well-placed to say that the book is page-per-page expensive. But even as short as it is, I know enough about a few subjects to see parts of the book as pure filler; the primer on XHTML and web design standards goes in too much detail as compared to the rest of the book, and yet doesn’t say much compared to other resources on the subject. (Furthermore, it’s not unreasonable to assume that most of the book’s target audience is already well-versed in XHTML.) Like a few other “name” web design books, parts of Web Design on a Shoestring feel like a “greatest hits” of the author’s knowledge, complete with a few technical how-tos that feel a lot like padding. Some of it is essential; some of it is practically useless and redundant.

    I still think it’s a reasonably useful guide for the vast majority of web designers stuck doing much with less. But I’ll stop short of calling it an essential read: Most of the information can be picked up elsewhere on the web for far less than C$37.99 (how’s that for being cost-effective?) and whatever is left can be read at the bookstore if needs be. Too bad; there’s a lot to like about Bickner and her practical approach to web design. But when you call a book Web Design on a Shoestring, you have to deliver the best shoestrings possible.

  • Trump: The Art of the Deal, Donald J. Trump & Tony Schwartz

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 1987, 372 pages, C$6.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-35325-6

    Like many North-Americans in early 2004, I was taken by the reality-TV show “The Apprentice”, a series in which sixteen ambitious tyros competed to become one of Donald Trump’s cadre of executives. It’s easy to see why the series was such a success: Beyond the good visuals and taut storytelling of Mark (“Survivor”) Burnett’s production, the series revolved around a larger-than-life character. At a time where the reality-TV craze was in danger of crumbling upon itself for being too close to the boredom of reality itself, “The Apprentice” went the other way and found what is nearly a fictional character in a fictional environment: Donald J. Trump in New York City.

    You will not find any explicit reference to “The Apprentice” in Trump: The Art of the Deal (it is, after all, a 1987 book), but it doesn’t really matter: Trump is Trump, and even the 1987 version of himself has all the hallmarks of the gruff 2004 reality show superstar. In the “real world” interval, Trump nearly went bankrupt in the early nineties and then climbed his way to a vast fortune all over again. So reading his portrait as he stood on top of the world in the late eighties makes it appear as if nothing serious had happened in the interval; certainly, Trump’s self-assurance is identical.

    Certainly, there aren’t many better book from which to learn about the man himself. He has published other books since (including the aptly-titled “Trump: The Art of the Comeback”), but this first one is closest to a straight-up autobiography, complete with childhood recollections, the adventures of a budding tycoon in midtown Manhattan and the making of his first blockbuster deals. After reading this book, it’s easy to see where Trump comes from: a father already familiar with the workings of real-estate deals and a thirst to do even better. It’s an interesting story even though it’s not exactly a rags-to-riches one. (Young Donald Trump, without being very rich, was comfortably set by just about any measure.)

    But Trump: The Art of the Deal is more than an autobiography and a recollection of biggest deals: It’s first and foremost a tribute to, well, the sacred art of the deal. Through Trump’s advice and recollections, it’s easy to see what is so attractive about deal-making. It is, after all, what best defines Trump and what he does. How to negotiate and get something from someone else while still both feeling good about it. The book is stuffed with complex wheeling and dealing with dozens of stakeholders and tight deadlines. It’s hard, through it all, not to develop a stunned admiration for anyone with the sheer audacity to go after such negotiations. Anyone with an interest in business probably has a copy of the book already: it’s just such a great primer on business.

    For fans of “The Apprentice”, the book also details the making of several of the show’s backdrops, from the Wolfram Ice Rink to the world-renowned Trump Tower. (Warning: Many of the references may be wasted on anyone not familiar with the eighties’ New York City) Great stories in almost all cases, even as Trump doesn’t miss an occasion to blast bureaucracy, tenants, politicians and the media. As with all great works of propaganda and self-aggrandizement (and I say this in the best sense of the term), we read the book firmly on Trump’s side even as our natural sympathies may actually rest with the opposition. (Has anyone ever compiled a “companion guide” detailing the context, alternate viewpoints and ultimate fate of people, projects and places mentioned in the book?)

    Now, it’s ridiculous to imagine Trump carefully poring over the prose of this book and so considerable credit must be given to his co-author Tony Schwartz. The best measure of his success is that the written Trump sounds almost exactly like the Trump we know from the media: You can easily imagine his brash no-nonsense voice narrating the book’s chapters. It also helps that it is compulsively readable like few other business books: Packed with great anecdotes and glimpses in the life of the rich, busy and powerful, Trump: The Art of the Deal is just a terrific piece of entertainment.

    What is certain is that the story of Donald J. Trump is far from being over yet: He may have seven books to his credit already, but with decades to go in the shaky world of business, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next to “The Donald”. But to judge from his story, his charisma and his appreciation for the art of the deal, it’s a safe bet that he’s never going to be all that far away from the public eye.

    [June 2004: Trump: Surviving at the Top, his 1990 follow-up tome, is more of the same, without the novelty interest but with an interesting look at a Trump on the verge of his early-nineties troubles. His marital difficulties are briefly discussed, but once again it’s The Donald’s dealmaking that deserves center-stage.]

    [July 2016: I’m not going to discuss Trump’s presidential run, but anyone interested in The Art of the Deal should take a look at the recollections of its ghostwriter, nearly thirty years later.]