In Medias Res

I had to look that phrase up to see if it wasn’t in “media” res, which is where I frequently feel I am. But ahem, here we are.

Not many posts lately as things have gotten busier amongst commitments full-time, part-time, freelance and otherwise. What kind of life are we living when you can’t blog on the job? Another reason is that after taking a look at my bookshelf I realized I haven’t finished a book in a while because I just keep starting new ones. That ever happen to you?

It’s not that the books I’m leaving no longer hold my interest, it’s more like the different books I’m reading are on different channels; they are each their own experience–one does not replace the other. That being said, with so many hanging over from 2007 I’m getting the urge to close a few covers and get onto something new. That and I don’t like letting people read books while I’m reading them, and my lovely wife is getting restless waiting for the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. What to do?

Currently on the go I have A Spot of Bother (read intermittently before going to bed); My Boring Ass Life (Kevin Smith’s ‘extremely candid’ diary, read to put me to sleep); The Fermata (dipped into and savored. Like scotch); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (Dove into in the evenings when I’ve got the fortitude for it– don’t get me wrong it’s totally engrossing and enjoyable, but it demands full attention to get the most impact); Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (a history book, best read at work at lunch to fully absorb the copious details); and The Braindead Megaphone, essays by George Saunders (read on streetcars, perfect little gasps of detail and empathy. Or is that sympathy?) 

With all this on the go, I’ve got the desire for some closure. Which is why I devoted all of my free time to reading the entire, what is it 50 issue run of the complete Planet Hulk and World War Hulk crossover Marvel Comics Event! What can I say I’m a sucker. It’s winter people> Ya gotta do what you like when hibernating.

Three Hundred Day Road

I get thrills just looking at that sketch below. It’s incredible. This is the start of something big. Kind of a resolution here, if I hang onto it things will keep moving into the realness. Which is all I’m looking for anyway. Anything I do now I don’t want to do it for the drawer. The drawer-times are over! Long live the realness!

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In other matters… I never did get around to posting a real conversation with me and T about the Three Day Road… But I lost the thread so long ago and got tied under other books. So as an idea that has sustained itself since the summer, I think I can still stick by it.

To recap, 3DR was a story about a pair of native Canadian snipers in WWI on a gritty mystic odyssey of trench warfare, and inevitable confrontation with themselves. And surprisingly not pretentious for all that– it gives you the goods as a story, as beautiful writing, and as just as damn realistic account of what life was like for those poor bastards. I don’t think I’ve ever really understood how trench warfare worked before. It just seems so unlikely–you know, we all hide in pits on opposite sides of a field and occasionally try to run across it while being shot at by machine-guns. How’s anyone supposed to get ahead that way, eh?

Anyhow, I was convinced that I had unlocked a great mystery of this book, a sort of inevitable Oedipus-like dramatic destiny for the protagonists, which uh, was actually not so thinly veiled now that I think about it. I finished the book first with a sense of Hah! I knew it! And threw this back at T along with the question “Did it end as you expected?” And this is what she said:

“Ok -

The book did end the way I expected. Well, let me clarify – I was thrown by your telling me that you had figured it all out, because I wasn’t really thinking there was a mystery. I figured when Xavier witnessed Niska killing the Windigo that he would be called on to do the same to Elijah, but then after talking to you I kept looking for some deeper hidden identity scooby-doo style mystery which thankfully didn’t pan out.

I think in general the book earns a solid place amongst my other favorite world war one novels – The War and Regeneration. In fact, while it’s been some time since I’ve reread either of those it strikes me that Boyden sustains the boredom and the terror of trench warfare in a way that the others don’t. The others seem to depend more on one or two particular moments that drive people over the edge, while Boyden strikes a different note by wearing the characters down with the daily horror of it.”

Well there you go. Lesson learned for the new year–keep smart-ass book-club notes till AFTER the other person’s done.

Coming in the Y2K8…

Story by Ian Daffern and Michael Leone. Art by Vicki Tierney.