I was hoping this might be a soft entry into the Mahabharata and Hindu mythology. Unfortunately, a basic understanding of the story is really necessary before fully enjoying this version. More like the euphoria after a revelation than an actual story, the gorgeous art in Krishna: A Journey Within dreamily delights while falling short of delivering a fulfilling tale. The art is pure beauty like eating the whipped cream off the top of a dessert but it is empty calories without a fuller understanding. My rating is based upon my ignorance, when I am better versed I will revisit this again.

I have often thought about reading H. P. Lovecraft. Not knowing if I would be repulsed or intrigued, I have yet to cross the line. Recently, however, some facsimile of him appeared before my eyes. Late last Halloween evening I was looking for something to read before sleeping. Too lazy to rustle up my glasses, I grabbed this book blindly off the shelf. I wrinkled my brow at the chance and fell into bed reading. I was immediately drawn in. Origin stories always intrigue—the origin of madness even more so. Lovecraft as a person appears to have run the gamut from unseemly to unsavory to unforgivable. This story offers how he sympathetically might have reached that place—and where the worlds he “created” might have sprung from. Childhood trauma germinates into adult horror obliterating the life he might have had. The story kind of slithers along—events happen or may not happen—Lovecraft ages but may not mature. Is anything real. The story is well paced and inventive and smothers when you almost catch your breath. The art work has a nice contrast. The presentation of Lovecraft manages an almost endearing caricature that is then set upon by the wildly imaginative art of Lovecraft’s worst fears. The art managing to be both indistinct and ominous, billowing as if the laws of this world don’t apply—instead answering to the demands of another. It all ends in devastation. A nice late night ride. I picked the book randomly but in the middle of reading, I remembered someone earlier in the day asked me out of nowhere if I had heard of Providence. It was odd then…stranger later when I began reading about possibly it's most famous scion.

If J. D. Salinger wrote The Day The Earth Stood Still.

If you are reading Patricia Highsmith for the first time, this is not the place to start. Generally her work describes what people are capable of doing to each other—here she discusses what we are doing to the planet. The results are kinda mixed. I wouldn’t say there were any stories that I loved but several were quite good. The first three had something odd in common--I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like them when they started but by midway, she had me. MOBY DICK II or THE MISSILE WHALE in particular turned me off at the beginning but I couldn’t resist it by the end. OPERATION BALSAM or TOUCH ME NOT might be my favorite over-all. Manages to be clinical and slyly sinister at the same time. NABUTI: WARM WELCOME TO A UN COMMITTEE was also quite good. The next three stories however start out unpleasant and stay that way. SWEET FREEDOM! AND A PICNIC ON THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN actually had my attention then lost it. Kind of a riff on the events of Jan. 6, 2021 three decades before they happened—gets pointless fast and stays there—much like the actual event. The next three (TROUBLE AT JADE TOWERS & RENT-A-WOMB & NO END IN SIGHT) also were annoying—kind of revved up the engine but never got in gear. The last of that three being my least favorite in the collection. NO END IN SIGHT dealt with our tendency to live longer and longer and maybe never die—like I thought the story would never end. It was like sucking the worst tasting cough drop that still didn’t sooth your throat. Just when I had given up hope I quite liked SIXTUS VI, POPE OF THE RED SLIPPER—religion can be used for good—who knew? My second favorite story of the bunch and which ends this collection is the sharpest critique of America (as many/most/maybe all of them are) PRESIDENT BUCK JONES RALLIES AND WAVES THE FLAG. Brutally efficient and satisfying and maybe one of the best short story titles ever.

My first Patricia Highsmith and I loved it. The story starts with the perfect murder. Existing perfectly, it is admired and maybe emulated. Maybe not. Where your sympathies are at the beginning will not be where they rest at the end. The reader is constantly forced to re-evaluate--as characters distance themselves from each other, eventually you will do the same. The perfect life seems only a breath away….but instead each breath blows it further out of reach. A constant un-nerving unraveling of proper lives amidst improper thoughts. At first the title seemed awkward and ill-fitting but as the story went on, each chapter added brush strokes darkening the title until it fit perfectly by the end . Marvelous ending that shocked and left me a little bit sick. But in a good way.

Normally I am hesitant to compare a book and a movie but this book is neither a novelization nor a stand-alone work. This version of METROPOLIS was written in conjunction with the screenplay for the classic silent movie (which was written with her then husband Fritz Lang—Director of Metropolis). While the novel does allow certain parts of the story to breathe more—allowing time for understanding—much of it is written at a gallop. Almost every emotion is fevered and every response emphatic. Easier to adapt to on the screen—kind of understood that the language of silent films involves overly dramatized activity. Though initially interesting to read in detail the motivation for each hyper-response, reading it in book form actually minimizes much of the overall drama. There is some odd repetition in the book as well. Multiple times I thought….didn’t they just discuss that in another scene. Biggest disappointment in the book is the lack of focus on the robot—a delightful focal point of the movie. In the book the transformation is barely discussed and the actions of the robot are often referenced vaguely as if “oh yeah, this is going on too”. This sucks all the drama out of the section at the end where their dueling identities come into question. The similarities to the movie are stronger in the first half of the book—as it diverges from the movie, the book tends to get somewhat repetitive and less focused. The world building and presentation of the tangible is well done. The skyscrapers and machines and the underworld all spring to life. And the less tangible, the various hypnotic reveries (which there are many—generated by dreams, illness, exhaustion and terror) are creatively visualized. As there are too many dramatic reactions, the number of reveries fallen into can wear thin as well. Another place where the book differs, is how largely religion looms. In the movie, the church as a building is a large physical presence on screen—and that is the majority of it’s role. Religion is an aspect of man, but the gist is man getting along with man. In the book, religion seems to be another form of madness or a structural trapping to wear and discard randomly. The movie managed a narrative through-line. The book managed to run in circles for awhile and end up roughly in the same spot--more a curio than admirable work.

I should have known from previous Martin Amis reading not to expect formula. NIGHT TRAIN comes at you like a police procedural. The narrator is no non-sense, tough as nails—no life but the job. The facts of the case are laid out—appears to be a suicide but has to be a murder because it’s a procedural and immediately suspects are brought into focus. But at every procedural turn, expectations unravel. The characters are not empty dolls to be pushed through a by the numbers plot. The “crime” is a big splash in a small pond and each character feels the ripples in their own way. And as happens in life, those ripples don’t stop until reaching the farthest shore. We depart the procedural altogether when the focus swings from those who might have been involved in the crime to the victim herself. Just like the story references that there are many different versions of Night Train, there are many different ways to view a life. The point of NIGHT TRAIN is the only perspective that matters is our own. The mystery of any action is wrapped up in the actor. We never know from the outside if that person is looking up from the bottom of a well, looking down into a well or lives in a world without wells. Marvelous ending where an oblique novel attains a kind of oblivion.

SAILING ALONE AROUND THE ROOM saved me as a reader of poetry. I had never read a lot of poetry, but I at least visited now and again. Before this book, it had been a long time since reading favorites such as Anne Sexton or Pablo Neruda. If reading poetry requires a particular muscle--I had let mine atrophy. Then I heard an interview of the author Billy Collins that included his reading some poetry. Suddenly the years of my not reading poetry that felt so insurmountable fell away. Poetry made sense to me again. I leapt upon the first book of his I could find (fortunately this one) and was amazed at his ability to be humorous one moment, incredibly touching the next and sometimes both at the same time. I can’t recommend this enough—it is accessible for people just getting into poetry but also sturdy enough for people who have read their share.