Book Review

Amphigorey anthology, Edward Gorey and various authors.
I enjoyed looking through these and want to thank Jenny Magidson again for taking me down this delightfully strange rabbit hole. They're a collection of adult comic strips. Adult because the themes tend towards the macabre and disturbing. The grotesque and surreal illustrations put me in the mind of every Tim Burton movie I've seen and they appeal to my warped sense of humor. And they range from a story board with a coherent story to follow written in either prose or verse to a disjointed series of images that aren't necessarily related, or only vaguely so.

It's this strange style that really pulled me in and kept me interested. Especially the seemingly random entries. There were several in which the noun of each panel description corresponded to each letter of the alphabet just like a toddler's book. Or a series of random but not well known words. Or simply vignettes that portray a mood. Mostly melancholy moods, but I understood it on a subconscious level. I used to draw a lot as a kid in story board method and other experiments. It reminds me of how creative I used to be when I was young, with a sinister twist of course. But it inspires me to be creative again.

It's definitely not for everyone. If you're uncomfortable with suicidal inanimate objects, dark and tragic unrequited love stories, or children being eaten by a fictitious beast - I mean, the classic fairy tales in their original forms were equally weird and twisted when you think about it - or if you tend to take such things too seriously then it's probably not for you. I see it as pure entertainment and brain candy for curious minds.

Book Review

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
I don't normally read something that could be classified as "romance" but the romance was sufficiently relegated to second place next to the plot. The synopsis actually drew me in on this one. It's the story of two magicians' students pitted against each other to the death who fall in love in spite of this circumstance. But it's not the epic sort of high fantasy battle that it sounds like. The writing focuses more on the characters than the mechanics of magic. The only spell that is detailed is the one that binds everyone to their contracts. After that it's more of vague but elegant backdrop. And it works well since the primary setting is a circus and the time period in which it takes place is the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There's no need for details to the magic, just the mood. You see that each student is trained differently as they grow up - one intellectually and one cruelly. The works they produce later are added to the layers of the circus which serves as the venue for their challenge.
It not only follows the lives of the two competitors, it skips ahead to track the movements of another character that would be important to the resolution at the end. I really liked that diversion from the main story. It was well constructed as the present caught up to the future in which that character is introduced. A nice touch.
It's a relaxing fantasy read without too much depth or intensity to weigh on the brain or exhaust you when it's finished. I'll reread it again some time and I definitely recommend it.