Flicker
One external keyboard richer, and I feel like I just learned how to fly. Man, freedom.
I am back very soon, because I have this urgent need to tell someone about the book I am reading, and I allready sent 6 messages to Lien about it without feeling satisfied. You're up next.
I was at the library the other day, because I promised Majd I'd find him a funny book for his Chiro camp. Funny literature is not what I know the most about if you skip the children's section, so I was wandering around the English section a while looking for something in bright colours or with a childish font on the back or so (my experience is that funny literature often is identified by these things). I had three books in my mind in advance that I thought maybe could pass for funny: the first was Good omens, which turned out to be on loan by some one else; the second was The dice man, which I read last year and remembered as somewhat funny; and the third was My uncle Oswald, which I had a certain suspicion Majd would not see as appropriate camp reading (you never know, ofcourse).
Anyway, as I went there in search of something else to add to the selection, my eye fell on a ragged book with something I identified as a negative film printed on the back. Slightly curious, I pulled it out and put it on top of my allready tall pile of brightly-coloured books, and marched over to a table for further examination.
As I read the descriptions of the potentially funny books, I could not help noticing the words on the filmstrip book: 'Sunset Boulevard meets The name of the rose'. What kind of meeting would that be? Which would be dominant? I simply had to look closer at it. Turning it over, I find it was written by a certain Theodore Roszak. Not a name that rang any bell. Should it have? The title, Flicker, also rendered me clueless. Ah well then, on to reading on the back:
Jonathan Gates loves going to The Classic, a legendary little art cinema wedged between Moishe's Strictly Kosher Deli and Best Buy Discount Yard Goods in West Los Angeles. There he succumbs to what will become a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genious of the silent screen and film noir who vanished in the 1940's at the height of his power.
Twenty years later Jonathan seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance - and finds himself on a journey deep into Hollywood's own heart of darkness, where nothing on the silver screen is ever quite what it appears.
A macabre detective story and an occult tale of medieval heresy, an apocalyptical thriller and a secret history of film, Flicker is a richly evocative study of the dark side of human genious.
Read Flicker and you'll never be able to watch a movie in the same way again.
... By the time I had read it, I had almost forgotten about my actual mission in the library that day. Could this really be as good as it seemed? I was surprised I had not heard about it before, but I was sort of happy as well; for there is something special about finding it on your own. It is the dream when you enter a library or bookshop, isn't it; to find that perfect book just by accident, not reading about it in a review or having it strongly recommended by a friend. I have done it succesfully only once before: at the age of 11, when I fell for the exciting titles of a trilogy written by a certain Bernard Borge, brought it home, read it, loved it, and only later realized that Borge in fact was a pseudonym for André Bjerke, one of my favourite Norwegian writers. At that time, I did not even know he wrote for adults.
Anyway, to return to Flicker: I have read half so far, and I am absolutely charmed. The film history bit is a treasure chest in itself, for he really describes the early film history and it's creators to the full. But the way he writes... He has sentences here and there that really make me stop and pause for at least 30 seconds, due to their sheer beauty or insight. Like the way he describes a movie: A thin broth of illusion smeared across perishing plastic. It is not only an almost painfully beautiful picture; it is also exact to the pinpoint.
What is strange, however, is that he does not at all write the book as a thriller. In the beginning I was wondering whether the person writing the abstract had gotten it all wrong: but then the day gives way to darkness, and I realize that I in fact am shit scared. It is just like those eerie movies of Max Castle he keeps describing... something is making me wonder whether it might not be such a good idea to read any further late at night, but when I look at the words on the pages and the casual way he writes, I cannot possibly see why I shouldn't. The smoke is there, but there is as far as I can see no fire. Strange. Strange, yet highly recommended.
Anyone else read it? Or wants to do so, so that I can hear someone else's opinion? I have seldom felt like discussing a book like I do right now.
I am back very soon, because I have this urgent need to tell someone about the book I am reading, and I allready sent 6 messages to Lien about it without feeling satisfied. You're up next.
I was at the library the other day, because I promised Majd I'd find him a funny book for his Chiro camp. Funny literature is not what I know the most about if you skip the children's section, so I was wandering around the English section a while looking for something in bright colours or with a childish font on the back or so (my experience is that funny literature often is identified by these things). I had three books in my mind in advance that I thought maybe could pass for funny: the first was Good omens, which turned out to be on loan by some one else; the second was The dice man, which I read last year and remembered as somewhat funny; and the third was My uncle Oswald, which I had a certain suspicion Majd would not see as appropriate camp reading (you never know, ofcourse).
Anyway, as I went there in search of something else to add to the selection, my eye fell on a ragged book with something I identified as a negative film printed on the back. Slightly curious, I pulled it out and put it on top of my allready tall pile of brightly-coloured books, and marched over to a table for further examination.
As I read the descriptions of the potentially funny books, I could not help noticing the words on the filmstrip book: 'Sunset Boulevard meets The name of the rose'. What kind of meeting would that be? Which would be dominant? I simply had to look closer at it. Turning it over, I find it was written by a certain Theodore Roszak. Not a name that rang any bell. Should it have? The title, Flicker, also rendered me clueless. Ah well then, on to reading on the back:
Jonathan Gates loves going to The Classic, a legendary little art cinema wedged between Moishe's Strictly Kosher Deli and Best Buy Discount Yard Goods in West Los Angeles. There he succumbs to what will become a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genious of the silent screen and film noir who vanished in the 1940's at the height of his power.
Twenty years later Jonathan seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance - and finds himself on a journey deep into Hollywood's own heart of darkness, where nothing on the silver screen is ever quite what it appears.
A macabre detective story and an occult tale of medieval heresy, an apocalyptical thriller and a secret history of film, Flicker is a richly evocative study of the dark side of human genious.
Read Flicker and you'll never be able to watch a movie in the same way again.
... By the time I had read it, I had almost forgotten about my actual mission in the library that day. Could this really be as good as it seemed? I was surprised I had not heard about it before, but I was sort of happy as well; for there is something special about finding it on your own. It is the dream when you enter a library or bookshop, isn't it; to find that perfect book just by accident, not reading about it in a review or having it strongly recommended by a friend. I have done it succesfully only once before: at the age of 11, when I fell for the exciting titles of a trilogy written by a certain Bernard Borge, brought it home, read it, loved it, and only later realized that Borge in fact was a pseudonym for André Bjerke, one of my favourite Norwegian writers. At that time, I did not even know he wrote for adults.
Anyway, to return to Flicker: I have read half so far, and I am absolutely charmed. The film history bit is a treasure chest in itself, for he really describes the early film history and it's creators to the full. But the way he writes... He has sentences here and there that really make me stop and pause for at least 30 seconds, due to their sheer beauty or insight. Like the way he describes a movie: A thin broth of illusion smeared across perishing plastic. It is not only an almost painfully beautiful picture; it is also exact to the pinpoint.
What is strange, however, is that he does not at all write the book as a thriller. In the beginning I was wondering whether the person writing the abstract had gotten it all wrong: but then the day gives way to darkness, and I realize that I in fact am shit scared. It is just like those eerie movies of Max Castle he keeps describing... something is making me wonder whether it might not be such a good idea to read any further late at night, but when I look at the words on the pages and the casual way he writes, I cannot possibly see why I shouldn't. The smoke is there, but there is as far as I can see no fire. Strange. Strange, yet highly recommended.
Anyone else read it? Or wants to do so, so that I can hear someone else's opinion? I have seldom felt like discussing a book like I do right now.
posted by maren at 2:36 PM
1 Comments:
Wasnt that good after all. Such a shame, cause the story really has potential... but I really dont like his main character, and I dont think he builds up his book very well. If I was a publisher, it would be one of those books I would publish - but only for profit, and with a deep regret.
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