octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

This is a strange little book, published in 1889. I found it at the Internet Archive, and it's both terrible and wonderful at once. It's a long narrative poem, set in the United States, and it concerns a tent revival come to town, and the subsequent religious debate between the revivalists and the established religious leaders of said town. Every page has a new verse, and every verse is accompanied by one or more Bible quotes which act as not-quite-footnotes. It's apparently based on real life events.

Given the the author, Mr. Duffie, must be very long dead by now, I know that I can't hurt his feelings by saying, with perfect truth, that he is a terrible poet. Oh, he's no William McGonagall, but his earnest attempts don't rise above doggerel. I'll quote a verse in a moment and you can see for yourself. So Octavia, you ask, if this is so dreadful why do you like it? I'll tell you why. Duffie is... limited in his poetry, shall we say, so every poem is of the same exact form. Eight lines, with the rhyme scheme a,b,a,b,a,b,a,b. I started reading, wincing slightly, but before I'd finished the third poem I'd stopped, baffled with familiarity. I couldn't think why, but then it struck me. 

Beethoven.

That's what this book is. It's the Ode to Joy; one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Every single poem here is structured so as to be sung to it. I don't know if Duffie has done this deliberately or not - he certainly never cops to it. I only know that from the third poem on, I couldn't read a single page of this terrible poetry and not sing it in my head as I read. I am simultaneously appalled and delighted, and I defy anyone to be able to read this awful collection and not sing along in the same way. Go on, try it with the deathless prose of page 71 (long out of copyright, so don't bother me):

From the battered, crumbling ramparts
Of tradition's last redoubt,
They are driven in discomfort;
They retreat in hopeless rout!
Thus, the truth will ever triumph,
Though opposed with hoof and fang;
Every missile hurled against it
Only proves a boomerang.

*snickering quietly to myself, Mr. Duffie you shameless hack* 

A surprising number of people seem to have shelved this novel as romance. It isn't. That is to say, there's romance in it, but the primary relationship is between two estranged step-sisters, former best friends, who are slowly repairing their relationship over the course of a summer after a decade of not seeing each other. Both of them get involved with decent men, but those romances are very much subplots. Remove them from the novel and there wouldn't be that much of a difference in the overall storyline, so general fiction it is.

It's a very readable book. I gobbled it down in one sitting, and only part of that is because I'm procrastinating on the grant application I'm supposed to work on today. The characters are sympathetic, the prose is smooth, and the pacing's good - it's just an all-round easy read. There's nothing very surprising about it, but it's pleasant, with a happy ending, and fingers crossed that the library has the rest in the series because I've got more grant applications due than this one, and this is the perfect way to put them off. Also, I really like blackberries. 

Not very interested in stories that are nothing but gore. Not very interested in stories where the only plot is fighting. Absolutely will never be interested in bloodbaths that result from fridging.

It gets a point added for the baby, but what a disappointing end to a series that started so well. 

Stylish but unconvincing.

It gets an extra point for the art, which is the visual equivalent of slurring over pages and really quite effective, but the story leaves me cold. This edition has the script reproduced in the back, footnoted to illustrate the mythological inspirations, but clever doesn't necessarily equal compelling, I'm afraid. It feels as if a number of (admittedly myth-connected) elements are thrown at the wall and intended to produce an effect of madness, but the book's just too short for Batman's journey into insanity to be at all credible - and I say that knowing he's not the most stable character in the first place. I'm aware that length is a limitation of the graphic novel format, but the story went too quickly for me to take any of it seriously, especially as it was occasionally studded with elements that were so simplistic that they didn't work for me either. I'll never like fridging - it's a terribly overused shorthand to motivate characters - and the word association technique that Dr. Adams uses on Batman is presented as something shocking and deeply revealing of his character. It's not. It's blatantly obvious low-hanging fruit; I have to admit that my reaction was "No shit, Sherlock."

This has got such a good reputation, so clearly other people find it compelling and good for them. I was glad when it was over, though. 

Tiny little piece of flash fiction available to read for free on Butcher's website, so I've just gone and read it before heading to the library for the next novel in the series. It's not bad, exactly, it's just forgettable - and honestly, I read this series for the monsters, mostly, so a small piece about Harry and Bob arguing about the wording for his Yellow Pages advertisement... meh. I'd rather have the bloodthirsty unicorns and the demon-possessed coins and the creepy vampires, thanks. 

I have to admit, I find Charity Carpenter's total disdain for Harry Dresden endlessly entertaining. I enjoy her and Michael and their family, so it's good to see them appear more often. Michael's a fantastic supporting character, but I don't know that I'd enjoy a book with him as a protagonist - he seems a little too unbendingly good, under the circumstances, and while unbendingly good characters can indeed be compelling, his whole philosophy of not killing clear and present threats, despite the evil they will no doubt unleash in the future, because there's a chance that they'll reform is one that I have zero sympathy for. It's admirable in small doses, but in a main character it would drive me up the wall. Never have I felt so sympathetic towards Dresden as I did when he and his baseball bat came to the same irritated conclusion... 

I read and reviewed each of the comics collected in here separately, so this is basically for my own records. The rating's an average of the individual ratings, rounded. Actually, most of the individual comics were three stars for me. I enjoyed them, but I didn't find them particularly outstanding. The opening comic was, though - it was the best of the bunch, at four stars, with this quiet dystopian story of restraint. It went on from there to be both less interesting and more bloody, but the whole series sharply degenerated right at the end, with its reliance on one of my most hated of tropes: fridging. I don't want to explain further as that might spoil things, but that trope has a reputation of being lazy and boring for a reason. 

Great start, terrible end, middle was okay. 

There are very, very few women in this series and one of them has just been fridged. Christ, but I am sick of that trope.

I don't even care that Logan has finally developed some common fucking sense, because of the fucking fridging. 

The fact that Logan really thought it was drugs that were being transported explains entirely why he's still blaming himself for something that wasn't his fault. He's just not very bright. Neither is his friend, who was swindled without much more effort.

I'm beginning to see why the villains won. I don't say I'm on their side, exactly, because they're clearly all terrible people, but a modicum of intelligence, when combined with dinosaurs, is always going to be attractive. 

Well, I suppose I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the loss and the grieving, certainly, but there's a whole lot of misplaced guilt and responsibility going on here that I don't have much time for. It's certainly not reason enough to allow terrible things to keep happening, I'm afraid. Not when you're one of the few left who can do something about it.

Suck it up sounds unsympathetic, but for fuck's sake... if you did the absolute best you could to the limits of your knowledge at the time, stop the wallowing and get on with it.