Looking for Transwonderland

Travels in Nigeria

Noo Saro-Wiwa, 2012

(February 2013)

Noo Saro-Wiwa has more reasons than most to feel ambivalent about the country of her birth. Given that, in the tradition of expats/exiles/diasporans everywhere she’s also very much from but not of her homeland, this would make for an interesting and conflicted read anyway; the murder of her father obviously contributes to that in a way I’m not wholly sure I can isolate, nor am I convinced it’s worthwhile trying to do so.

The Islanders

Christopher Priest, 2011

(January 2013)

Cheeky motherfucker.

He's Better Looking Than He Looks

1.    I don’t go to parties, baby

I’m something of an introvert. I realize that a bare few weeks ago I was bludgeoning you (metaphorically speaking) with the throbbing, priapic magnificence of my Brobdingnagian genitalia, so some of you may find that hard to swallow (metaphorically speaking), but it’s true.

The Boys Vol. 1 and 2

Vol. 1: The Name of the Game, Vol. 2: Get Some

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, 2007-2008

(January 2013)

This’ll do. This’ll do just fine.

  

Take Two

Ah now, that's more like it.

The Island of Doctor Moreau

H.G. Wells, 1896

(January 2013)

I could probably compose this post almost entirely from fragments of stuff I’ve already written about other books. Let’s see, what exactly do we have here?

Jagannath

Karin Tidbeck, 2012 [Karin Tidbeck, 2012]

(January 2013)

“People who hurt others are the ones with the best imagination,” Rebecka said.

Twitter My Arse

Or: Seriously Guys, You’re Not Helping Yourselves Here

You’ll recognize this photo, I’m sure. If not, if this whole sorry episode has somehow passed you by, then I can only offer my sincere apologies for causing it to intrude upon your previously prelapsarian state of guileless innocence. Still, too late now. May as well join the rest of us proles down here in the gutter.

Loups-Garous

Natsuhiko Kyogoku, 2001 [Anne Ishii, 2010]

(January 2013)

“Computers were viewed strangely for too long,” Shizue said. “Clearly the excessive illusions about computer technology wrought confusion at one point, and society thereafter attempted to adapt a midcourse, and these thoughts overflow in this generation of people who can’t let go of their outmoded ideas.”

IT’S ALL LIKE THAT.

Punctuation Matters

P.S. Fuck your "thirty minutes or it's free" guarantee.

Osama

Lavie Tidhar, 2011

(January 2013)

Can a something be both tender and hardboiled concurrently? Melancholy Noir? Wistful Pulp? Clearly I think it can, else I wouldn’t be asking the question. Osama is both, all of these and more; but ultimately it’s just singularly brilliant.

Bully

So another Japanese kid has committed suicide because of issues at school. Like Japanese prime ministerial resignations or American gun massacres, it’s yet another of those events that seem to roll around so regularly that, while on an intellectual level you know you should care to some degree, in actuality it’s hard to summon up more than a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders. Even a real shrug feels like too much effort.