What I've been reading: The Severed Streets, Good Omens and, *sigh* Gone with the Wind

YAY!

Yay! I've been waiting for this!

So. The Severed Streets, by Paul Cornell, is the sequel to 2012's London Falling and is part of a genre that I have taken to calling the supernatural-police-procedural-set-in-London. Among this rather niche interest group, Cornell is probably my favourite as he is the darkest, most merciless, and the most likely to give you nightmares

To be more specific, both books follow the experiences of a group of Metropolitan Police Officers after the investigation of a drugs bust grants them the Sight and reveals a whole other, much scarier side, to the London they know. Their remit becomes the investigation of crimes that have 'impossible' aspects to them, 'impossible' because the suspects or motives involved concern this other, invisible London. In The Severed Streets this refers to the Ripper, a killer who travels among the protests and riots of 'The Summer of Blood', able to walk through walls, to create riots, a Jack-the-Ripper whose victims are rich, white men.

I think what I like best about these books is the powerlessness of the main characters. They are thrown into a big, terrifying supernatural world, of whose rules they know nothing, and in which the abilities they have been granted seem woefully inadequate. The real sense of fear and frustration which pervades these books makes the narrative race along with an almost hallucinatory intensity, something even more pronounced here than in London Falling. Cornell is also more openly political in this novel, clearer about his intentions and themes, better at balancing the different moods and experiences of the characters, working overall with an assurance that makes The Severed Streets far stronger than its prequel.

Still, much as I love it, I would say that the very pace of the novel can work against it. As well as telling a breakneck mystery/thriller, Cornell is constructing a very complex world - as such it is possible to get lost and confused, to miss vital bits of exposition. I would advise anyone who hasn't read London Falling to read it first, and anyone who has read it to reread it before embarking on The Severed Streets. And, if you like your crime/horror fiction intense and gruesome, I'd suggest you do so asap.

Okay, that was a long review. So, let's not talk about Gone with the Wind, suffice to say I haven't finished it yet and it doesn't look like it's getting any better. It's making me think of this parable.

Much loved, as you can see.

Indeed, on the theme of heaven and hell, there is Good Omens, an absolute masterpiece from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. If you haven't read this, all your friends are laughing at you behind your back. It tells of the end of the World, the rise of the anti-Christ, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the battle between Heaven and Hell and it's hilarious. Smart, sharp and incredibly silly, its sheer awesome has not diminished in the 24 years since its publication (although it has dated a little).

If you have read it before and you're feeling down, maybe read it again. That's what I'm doing. Lovely stuff.

What I've been reading: The Bloody Chamber, Sandman, The Roses of Berlin, Dracula

How can any week be a cop out if it includes this?

This week is going to be a bit of a cop out.

Yeah, I read The Bloody Chamber, but it was probably for about the thirtieth time. It's not that I've said everything that I think about it, everything that I have to say about it elsewhere on this blog, it is simply that if I started doing so here I'd be stuck in front of my keyboard all day. Places to be! Books to read!

Still, there was a slight difference this time as I had subjected my poor book group to Angela Carter's fabulous short stories. Suffice to say we got a few converts to the cause and left a handful of people crying into their gin, or shaking their heads at my depravity. (Honestly, I love you chaps. Sorry if you didn't like it.) I consider my work there to be done, though, if only because one woman experienced the same ebullient glee reading Puss-in-Boots that it always give to me.

As to Dracula, well, I've only read until the end of chapter 5, because I'm reading it slightly ahead of real time on account of this. I should be done in October.

And I'm not going to review issue 2 of Sandman, Overture, because I want to finish the arc before I give a considered review of it. Or, you know, gush in a fangirly, obsessive fashion about its obvious superiority to everything.

So that basically leaves The Roses of Berlin, latest instalment in one of my other favourite comics, Moore and O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. When I read the first two arcs of this I got the impression that Moore and O'Neill were writing this for me - or at least, people significantly like me. With everything since The Black Dossier, I have become increasingly convinced that they are making these for no-one but themselves.

Isn't it wonderful when your partner brings you roses?

I don't actually have a problem with that.

Oh, it makes it harder to read, of course, but it also means that they are willing to go places, to do things, to please their own sense of artistry. O'Neill's art in the Nemo arc has been breathtaking, far too complex for a visual illiterate like myself to fathom without spending minutes studying each frame. The plots, perhaps, are simpler, the characters more broadly drawn, but the subtext, the implications of the stories, the moral dimension of them, becomes increasingly grey and complex. I have found myself uncomfortable with the level of violence in Nemo stories, with the motivations of the characters. Yet in the flawed world Janni Dakkar inhabits, still, I root for her more than anyone else. Why is that?

As to The Roses of Berlin, I'll need to read it a couple more times before I decide how I feel about it.Visual illiterate, remember? I've read a lot of bad reviews of it but, while I can't yell my love to the rooftops, I preferred it Heart of Ice.

I suppose I can't complete this review without saying mentioning Moore's refusal to bend to the Hollywood trope of, 'foreigners, when in private, prefer to speak in English'. Suffice to say: I respect his stance on this. It is far more authentic. I get it, I really do. But frankly, my German isn't up to the job and some subtitles might have been nice.

'Little, Big' - John Crowley: Dangers of forgetting, pleasures of remembrance:

Sometimes, we forget things. Most of the time, the things that we forget are small enough; I forget to put my mobile in my pocket, or to attend a meeting, or to bring along that vital piece of paper... The world makes its predictable, irritating fuss and then we forget all about it because these things do not truly matter. Other things that we forget have more impact, and the worst of this is that we seldom notice that the memory is gone – one forgets the tiny, silver finger ring given by an elderly relative, the words to a once beloved song, or an afternoon spent picking blackberries as a child. Little by little, as we lose these things, it is as though our very selves are melting into forgetfulness.

But the truth of the matter is, these things are not gone – one will find the finger ring, buried in the jewellery box, catch the strands of a familiar melody or see that break of brambles in the autumn light with the breeze coming from the west and we will recall. Not simply the event that had slipped away, but a whole host of circumstances, emotions, people who we believed had vanished from the world, or, at the very least, our minds.

Even though working with texts is my main occupation, sometimes – as a writer and a reader – I forget things too. It is easy, too easy, to forget how rare good writing is; I don't mean reasonable writing, the 'enjoyable with a few moments of sparkling prose' kind of good, I mean the good that stops you and makes you think and makes you live again. I'm talking about the kind of good that gives the reader that strange, soaring, swooping sensation; the kind of good where one word, one phrase, one expression can be so totally and irrefutably beautiful, that we just have to stop and read it again, aloud, for the benefit of the entire room.

John Crowley writes like that.

Right now, I am re-reading Little, Big. I re-read a lot and I am familiar with all the different ways of doing it. There are the re-reads where you seek new understanding, re-reads where you pick over familiar ground to support arguments and find answers. There are re-reads where one does it merely for pleasure, the joy of seeing again familiar words, of sinking into the prose like hot bathwater, or warmed chocolate. Then there are the re-reads that matter, the ones that are our touchstones for remembering the things we readers and writers forget. A list like that is a personal thing – books that are read many times and lent often, books that are never thrown away: Holdstock, Gaiman, Crowley...

Reading Little, Big again for the sixth (or is it seventh?) time is like drinking Chartreuse for the first time after months where only an empty bottle reminded me of pleasures past. It's too good, too fine an experience to rush; I'll drink it neat, of course I'll drink it neat, but I'll let it singe my tongue a little, I try to work it out sip by tiny sip. Fennel of course, or maybe aniseed. Mint, yes, always mint – is that angelica? Did I notice that last time? And, ah, that fierce, familiar burn and it's time for another sip... Would you like a glass? Come, you must try some. Too good, after all, to be enjoyed alone.

My Gods, John Crowley can write. And there was me, almost forgetting how it was done.