Benzadmiral
Call Me a Cab
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His novelette "Red Wind," in the Trouble Is My Business collection, is truly dazzling.
"There was a wind blowing that night. . . ."
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What Are You Reading
- Thread starter Lancealot
- Start date
"There was a wind blowing that night. . . ."
Benzadmiral
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,815
- Location
- The Swamp
I've discovered I enjoy the work of Joyce Maynard, the author of To Die For, which became the famous movie with Nicole Kidman. TDF is well done -- in fact I see now screenwriter Buck Henry had everything he needed, including the "documentary" style of the film, right there in the novel. Well, I've also read Maynard's The Good Daughters and Labor Day, and am now on The Usual Rules, about a 13-year-old New York girl whose mother is killed in the WTC on 9/11/01.
Maynard is up there with Anne Rivers Siddons and Ruth Rendell. All three tell fascinating stories, not always with women as the leads (Labor Day is narrated by a 13-year-old boy), and they play fair. By which I mean they have unpleasant women and good men in their stories, as well as the reverse, which seems to be the default setting of a lot of women writers whose work I've read recently: Women Good, Men Bad. Which is tiring and annoying -- just as it would be if a male writer wrote only tales in which all the women are stupid and/or evil, and all the men heroic and darn near perfect.
(I suspect it comes down to having the talent to portray people as they really are.)
Maynard is up there with Anne Rivers Siddons and Ruth Rendell. All three tell fascinating stories, not always with women as the leads (Labor Day is narrated by a 13-year-old boy), and they play fair. By which I mean they have unpleasant women and good men in their stories, as well as the reverse, which seems to be the default setting of a lot of women writers whose work I've read recently: Women Good, Men Bad. Which is tiring and annoying -- just as it would be if a male writer wrote only tales in which all the women are stupid and/or evil, and all the men heroic and darn near perfect.
(I suspect it comes down to having the talent to portray people as they really are.)
Izabella
New in Town
- Messages
- 10
Thanks! Currently adding it to my goodreads list!
LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,699
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
"The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America," by David Hajdu.
This is a breezy yet thorough look at yet another manifestation of the wave of manic paranoia that swept across postwar America -- the wave of book-burnings, social sanctions, and worse that drove the comic-book publishing business into near-extinction. Hajdu does a good job of contextualizing this panic against the background of the Red Scare and other paranoid aspects of the postwar world, and he doesn't make the mistake of portraying comics publishers as entirely naive innocents. Comics was a sleazy business run by questionable characters, and many of these characters, notably EC Comics publisher William Gaines -- who testified before Congress while strung out on Dexedrine -- did themselves no favors in their bumbling, grandstanding attempts to stand up to the witch-hunters. The real victims emerge as the artists and the writers themselves -- many of whom, like their colleagues in other media, ended up losing their livelihoods to an effective blacklist, and many of whom still carried the shame of the period for years after. The book concludes with a list of hundreds of men and women who lost their jobs to this blacklist, and it has all the impact of a death roll.
Likewise, Hajdu gives an even-handed treatment to the arch-foe of the comics, the crusading physician Dr. Frederic Wertham, whose real-life concern for juvenile delinquency in Harlem led him into a field of investigation in which he was by no means qualified to publish. Wertham wasn't the fire-breating fanatic comics buffs have long assumed him to be -- but in attempting to explore the sociology behind the popularity of comics he jumped in way, way over his head.
He was, however, right, in a way, about one thing -- Hajdu cites former Batman artist Jerry Robinson as sort-of-confirming that there may well have been a homoerotic subtext in the interactions between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. "What they got up to between the panels," chuckles Robinson, "is their own business."
This is a breezy yet thorough look at yet another manifestation of the wave of manic paranoia that swept across postwar America -- the wave of book-burnings, social sanctions, and worse that drove the comic-book publishing business into near-extinction. Hajdu does a good job of contextualizing this panic against the background of the Red Scare and other paranoid aspects of the postwar world, and he doesn't make the mistake of portraying comics publishers as entirely naive innocents. Comics was a sleazy business run by questionable characters, and many of these characters, notably EC Comics publisher William Gaines -- who testified before Congress while strung out on Dexedrine -- did themselves no favors in their bumbling, grandstanding attempts to stand up to the witch-hunters. The real victims emerge as the artists and the writers themselves -- many of whom, like their colleagues in other media, ended up losing their livelihoods to an effective blacklist, and many of whom still carried the shame of the period for years after. The book concludes with a list of hundreds of men and women who lost their jobs to this blacklist, and it has all the impact of a death roll.
Likewise, Hajdu gives an even-handed treatment to the arch-foe of the comics, the crusading physician Dr. Frederic Wertham, whose real-life concern for juvenile delinquency in Harlem led him into a field of investigation in which he was by no means qualified to publish. Wertham wasn't the fire-breating fanatic comics buffs have long assumed him to be -- but in attempting to explore the sociology behind the popularity of comics he jumped in way, way over his head.
He was, however, right, in a way, about one thing -- Hajdu cites former Batman artist Jerry Robinson as sort-of-confirming that there may well have been a homoerotic subtext in the interactions between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. "What they got up to between the panels," chuckles Robinson, "is their own business."
DNO
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,815
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
Just started Philip Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
Harp
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,508
- Location
- Chicago, IL US
The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
...just for the hell of it.
...just for the hell of it.
tropicalbob
My Mail is Forwarded Here
- Messages
- 3,954
- Location
- miami, fl
Casanova's "History of my Life," Volumes 1 and 2. I've just ordered 3 through 6 (there are 11), and I'm wishing I'd done it earlier. This is one of those books that makes you wonder how you could've missed it all these years. When I left him he had already taken me with him through many of 18th C. Italy's courts, opera houses, brothels (lots of 'em), gambling dens, army barracks, prisons, intellectual centers, back alleys, and ladies' boudoirs, and he was only twenty-three. I can't wait to get back to him.
Harp
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,508
- Location
- Chicago, IL US
Tuchman's folly, Paul Johnson; The New Criterion/June 2016
An examination of Barbara Tuchman's historical approach regarding Vietnam in The March of Folly.
An examination of Barbara Tuchman's historical approach regarding Vietnam in The March of Folly.
- Messages
- 17,182
- Location
- New York City
Penelope Fitzgerald's "The Gate of Angels." I just started it, but it has her general vibe and style where the characters our subtly complex but relatable and you see them living in their "small" worlds that Fitzgerald makes universal and large.
AmateisGal
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 6,126
- Location
- Nebraska
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans. Set in WW2 Britain. A young evacuee lodges with a less than scrupulous woman who's always broke, and they are about to hit upon a scheme wherein they make money. It's a fun read.
- Messages
- 17,182
- Location
- New York City
Finished it yesterday. If you don't know Penelope Fitzgerald, this would not be the book to start with, but if you do, it's a solid second-tier one for her. The ending left me a bit unsure, but what the heck, that's how I go through life everyday.
LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,699
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
"Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster," by Brad Ricca.
This is the first full-length biography of the two teenagers from Cleveland who created one of the dominant fictional characters of the 20th Century, only to spend most of their lives fighting for an honest piece of the millions that character made. The story of Superman himself, as a phenomenon, is almost incidental to the genuinely tragic lives Siegel and Shuster ended up living. The style of the book bridges the gap between narrative history and scholarly history, and consciously tries to come across in the voice of a story that Jerry Siegel might have written himself. This device isn't always successful, but it does give the book a real flavor of its subjects.
What's unusual about the book is how thoroughly Ricca digs into the many 1920s and 1930s popular culture sources Siegel and Shuster mined in the creation of Superman -- not just general themes but specific incidents from pulp novels, comic strips, radio shows, and movies found their way into Superman's adventures. This wasn't plagiarism as much as it was a matter of Superman growing out of a mulch made up of dozens of previous popular culture concepts, and some of the obscure sources Ricca documents are fascinating.
It's also an uncomfortable book in a lot of ways. There's a myth of Siegel and Shuster as being lovable misfits, the founding totems of "geek culture," but in real life Siegel especially emerges as a difficult man who in some ways never grew out of a desperate adolescent need to make the world notice him. Shuster meanwhile comes across as the more tragic of the pair -- a man of otherworldly guilelessness and limited social skills who never wanted to do anything but draw, and never had any stomach for dealing with the business end of the Superman operation. That combination made it all too easy for the boys to be bullied -- and there is no other word, they weren't swindled as much as literally bullied into submission by the pinstriped thugs who ran DC Comics in the 1940s. It's heartbreaking to read of Shuster in the 1950s, scratching out a humiliating living drawing pastiches of Superman and Lois Lane engaging in S&M games for under-the-counter fetish magazines, or Siegel alternating between lawsuits, fly-by-night publishers, and anonymous work at DC, where he was "treated like a dog" by editor Mort Weisinger -- a man who had once been a friend.
Siegel and Shuster are both gone now, but their estates continue to tussle with DC over ownership and royalty issues right up to the present day, and the documentation of these battles in the final chapters of the book leave one with an unpleasant sense of deja vu. Superman had a lot of powers, but he could have used a super-lawyer.
This is the first full-length biography of the two teenagers from Cleveland who created one of the dominant fictional characters of the 20th Century, only to spend most of their lives fighting for an honest piece of the millions that character made. The story of Superman himself, as a phenomenon, is almost incidental to the genuinely tragic lives Siegel and Shuster ended up living. The style of the book bridges the gap between narrative history and scholarly history, and consciously tries to come across in the voice of a story that Jerry Siegel might have written himself. This device isn't always successful, but it does give the book a real flavor of its subjects.
What's unusual about the book is how thoroughly Ricca digs into the many 1920s and 1930s popular culture sources Siegel and Shuster mined in the creation of Superman -- not just general themes but specific incidents from pulp novels, comic strips, radio shows, and movies found their way into Superman's adventures. This wasn't plagiarism as much as it was a matter of Superman growing out of a mulch made up of dozens of previous popular culture concepts, and some of the obscure sources Ricca documents are fascinating.
It's also an uncomfortable book in a lot of ways. There's a myth of Siegel and Shuster as being lovable misfits, the founding totems of "geek culture," but in real life Siegel especially emerges as a difficult man who in some ways never grew out of a desperate adolescent need to make the world notice him. Shuster meanwhile comes across as the more tragic of the pair -- a man of otherworldly guilelessness and limited social skills who never wanted to do anything but draw, and never had any stomach for dealing with the business end of the Superman operation. That combination made it all too easy for the boys to be bullied -- and there is no other word, they weren't swindled as much as literally bullied into submission by the pinstriped thugs who ran DC Comics in the 1940s. It's heartbreaking to read of Shuster in the 1950s, scratching out a humiliating living drawing pastiches of Superman and Lois Lane engaging in S&M games for under-the-counter fetish magazines, or Siegel alternating between lawsuits, fly-by-night publishers, and anonymous work at DC, where he was "treated like a dog" by editor Mort Weisinger -- a man who had once been a friend.
Siegel and Shuster are both gone now, but their estates continue to tussle with DC over ownership and royalty issues right up to the present day, and the documentation of these battles in the final chapters of the book leave one with an unpleasant sense of deja vu. Superman had a lot of powers, but he could have used a super-lawyer.
- Messages
- 17,182
- Location
- New York City
^^^ My sympathies are with Siegal and Shuster (I don't know all the details, but if there is any ambiguity, then I'll always lean to the original creators versus the corporation - unless the corporation clearly and fairly purchased the rights / etc., or the men were under contract for the company with it explicitly and clearly known that all their creations were the property of the company), but my God, what is wrong with our court system that it can't resolve a seventy plus year dispute (that is hardly about an obscure issue and has a pretty high profile)? How broken is that?
LizzieMaine
Bartender
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- 33,699
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
It occured to me as I was plowing thru the chapters about the court cases that the ideal judge for the dispute would have been Captain Marvel, who, after all, had the Wisdom of Solomon. Maybe that's why DC put him out of business.
The situation's complicated in part by the situation with the heirs -- Siegel married twice, and had a son by his first marriage and a daughter by his second, and his second wife was still alive up until a few years ago. Shuster never married, which is a story in itself, and left no direct heirs, so his estate passed to his sister, who also passed on a few years back, leaving his share in the hands of various nieces and nephews. The more heirs involved, the more squabbling and the more conflicting agendas there are at work. There are also two properties in question -- Superman and Superboy, each of which has a different set of issues in play. (The Siegels could also make trouble for DC with The Spectre, which Jerry created as well, but so far that's been more or less off the table.)
And there were also various separate deals and agreements cut by Siegel and Shuster over the years, along with various settlements along the way. And DC Comics has passed thru a series of owners since its founders left the scene -- Kinney Corporation, Warner Communications, and now Time Warner, all of whom have put their share of spin on things.
Contrast all this with the Batman situation. When Siegel and Shuster first sued DC in 1947, they asked Bob Kane to join them in the suit. Instead, Kane went to DC and used the Superman suit as leverage to negotiate an arrangement where he regained ownership of Batman and got a very favorable contract for producing the stories. He did this by claiming that his original 1939 contract was invalid because he was a minor when he signed it. This was a lie -- he was born in 1915 -- but he managed, thru some people who owed his father a favor, to make his birth certificate "disappear." With his dad testifying that Bob was in fact a minor in 1939, the original contract was voided, and Bob Kane made a very great deal of money for the rest of his life. I'm not one to endorse such chicanery no matter who does it, but in this case it was a matter of the scammers getting scammed. Bob Kane had the one thing Siegel and Shuster really could have used -- chutzpah.
The situation's complicated in part by the situation with the heirs -- Siegel married twice, and had a son by his first marriage and a daughter by his second, and his second wife was still alive up until a few years ago. Shuster never married, which is a story in itself, and left no direct heirs, so his estate passed to his sister, who also passed on a few years back, leaving his share in the hands of various nieces and nephews. The more heirs involved, the more squabbling and the more conflicting agendas there are at work. There are also two properties in question -- Superman and Superboy, each of which has a different set of issues in play. (The Siegels could also make trouble for DC with The Spectre, which Jerry created as well, but so far that's been more or less off the table.)
And there were also various separate deals and agreements cut by Siegel and Shuster over the years, along with various settlements along the way. And DC Comics has passed thru a series of owners since its founders left the scene -- Kinney Corporation, Warner Communications, and now Time Warner, all of whom have put their share of spin on things.
Contrast all this with the Batman situation. When Siegel and Shuster first sued DC in 1947, they asked Bob Kane to join them in the suit. Instead, Kane went to DC and used the Superman suit as leverage to negotiate an arrangement where he regained ownership of Batman and got a very favorable contract for producing the stories. He did this by claiming that his original 1939 contract was invalid because he was a minor when he signed it. This was a lie -- he was born in 1915 -- but he managed, thru some people who owed his father a favor, to make his birth certificate "disappear." With his dad testifying that Bob was in fact a minor in 1939, the original contract was voided, and Bob Kane made a very great deal of money for the rest of his life. I'm not one to endorse such chicanery no matter who does it, but in this case it was a matter of the scammers getting scammed. Bob Kane had the one thing Siegel and Shuster really could have used -- chutzpah.
- Messages
- 17,182
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- New York City
RE Kane, sometimes two wrongs do make a right. Morality by the book is wonderful until it doesn't work - then real life begins.
Even with all the separate suits, heirs, owners and issues - normally, somewhere in those seventy years, an opportunity for a grand bargain would have / should have occurred to settle the mess en total for better or worse, but clearly it didn't and on it goes enriching the lawyers and befuddling the courts.
Oh well, maybe it's true everywhere, but a seventy years lawsuit over the rights to Superman does seem very American.
Even with all the separate suits, heirs, owners and issues - normally, somewhere in those seventy years, an opportunity for a grand bargain would have / should have occurred to settle the mess en total for better or worse, but clearly it didn't and on it goes enriching the lawyers and befuddling the courts.
Oh well, maybe it's true everywhere, but a seventy years lawsuit over the rights to Superman does seem very American.
Benzadmiral
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,815
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- The Swamp
I'm trying Patricia Highsmith again -- The Two Faces of January from 1964. The story is fascinating for the first half . . . then something happened that made it all get rather complicated. I'm waiting to see if it works out. I also have two of her other non-Ripley novels to try.
- Messages
- 17,182
- Location
- New York City
I keep revising my opinion of her books. She's clearly a talented novelist, but uneven (I started to lose interest in "The Two Faces of January" and, perhaps unfairly, like it less looking back on it than when I had just finished it). I enjoyed the first and second Ripley book, but found the second one to be more page turner than well-constructed story. I have "The Price of Salt" queued up for my next Highsmith read, but need more time to pass since reading "The Two Faces..."
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Harp
I'll Lock Up
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- Chicago, IL US
Andrew Wilson's Beautiful Shadow serves background for Patricia and her work-a talented expatriate scribe but deeply troubled and seemingly lost within herself.
The Price of Salt reads well but a bit tame and Cupid himself would be confused over the novel's innate uncertainty.
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Justice Sotomayor's dissent in the Utah v. Strieff reversal. Always arresting reading.
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- Messages
- 12,734
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- Northern California
Day Keene's Carnival of Death (1965)
