The Lobster

Goddamn I love Lobster Johnson.

I haven't had this much fun since Stenbeck's run on Baltimore. This is pulp at its best, all the way through.

I do hope there'll be more as I've blazed through all of it in a day, already.

It's too early to tell if this is going to be one of my favourites but I thought I'd let you know, at least.

Malang

I have the biggest smile on my face.

More on this tomorrow, probably.

Round 2

Jup, going into the ring again (to fight the daily fight?).

This time with the most prescribed anti-depressant in the world (at my side?).

Most-prescribed, probably because this one's name is rather easy to remember, and certainly not because it doesn't have any side-effects. Because it most certainly fucking does... It's all about what you're willing to trade for some peace of mind. Sometimes the trade-off is a steep one, but of course you can't tell beforehand.

I've used parentheses up above to clarify that I'm well aware that this medication is supposed to help me, but that until I can acclimatize to them, every day the fight's actually with the medication and might even make the days a little tougher to get through. As I've had two days under my belt now I can say it's definitely not as debilitating as the previous type of meds but I will still have to see if this one will actually end up helping me.

Right now I'm not even sure what I want it to do. My mind's everywhere these days, hung up on certain... things, and I feel pretty lost.

I just know that I need help from something or I'm going to have to make some dramatic changes in my life. Take some steps. Maybe become a hermit, or something.

Hey, I know, I'll become a monk. I do have a lovely singing voice.

The Collector, John Fowles

Well. I finished this one in just a few days. It's been quite a while since I've finished a book that fast, actually. It's a massively compelling read.
I bought a copy for a friend for the occasion of his birthday, knowing from various sources that it would be a novel right up his alley. As I'm the jealous sort I couldn't have him go and read it and not go and read it myself, mainly because I felt I already had dibs on this author. Fowles' The Magus is still one of those books I need to get around to reading and as I still haven't touched my copy of that one (mainly because it looks so hugely daunting) I thought this would also be a good way to introduce myself to Fowles' writing style and methods, take away some of that 'looming' quality, see?
But where I originally picked up my copy (of the Magus) (and from the same place I bought this one at, also from the Grim bookshop, remember that place?) on its reputation of having some meta-elements and a deep ambiguous psychological story, and of course Loopingworld's in-depth write-up of it, I didn't actually know much about this one.

The Collector is the story of a  man who kidnaps a young woman to keep her in his basement.

It takes place over a period of something like 2 months and, for the most part, in four segments. In the first the man swiftly outlines his initial fascination with the woman, the circumstances leading up to the kidnapping and the period of him holding her prisoner for a period of about 6 weeks.

In the second we double back to within a week of the capture from the point of view of the woman.

In the third we have the resolution followed by a short, open-ended epilogue.

So, as I said; I read this really quick, as it was a very engaging and engrossing read. Maybe it was the first-person perspective, maybe Fowles just reads like magic (which bodes well for The Magus).
But as a side-effect of this quick reading I must admit I find I have very little to say.
I wasn't disturbed at any of what was on display, I wasn't appalled, I wasn't surprised. In fact, the resolution seemed pretty much a foregone conclusion, if not exactly in the manner as it played out. The collector is one of those novels to cast a long shadow. In specific, it is known for influencing many a serial killer, kidnappers and their ilk. As such, it seemed to me as if I'd seen or read this thing many times before.

At the Serial Killer convention,

from Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

The writing style is a good one though.

We actually have two different styles here, our kidnapper Clegg's, ordered, matter of fact, void of much embellishing, and our victim Miranda's, which is submitted to us in a diary-format, and which is occasionally filled with some quite beautiful prose and because of her artistic nature, some slap-dash creativity (read: QnA/script-style dialogue). Despite that, I must admit that I found Clegg's point of view rather magnetic, very much in the moment, whereas Miranda's was filled with such extraneous drivel (it was all the art talk that did me in), endless, pointless retrospection and ideas, that I simply had no interest in it. It's a plot not much driven by character but there's so much of it on display with her that, though I ended up caring about her, I didn't actually ever end up liking her.

By first introducing us to her character from Clegg's point of view, only to then switch to hers, halfway through the novel, we meet her side of things with some fixed sentiments having formed. That way, the more we read her point of view, we find that most of our preconceptions have gone out the window. It was nice to feel wrong-footed occasionally, but I again have to confess to just having ended up frustrated with her. She's an intelligent person who through the enforced isolation comes to seem very self-aware, but though neither character ends up quite understanding the other, as a reader, with our bird's eye view on the proceedings, we end up understanding quite a bit more of Clegg's motives, even those motives to which he's blind himself, than Miranda, who just can't let go of her preconceptions, opinions and bias.

It's a great work, an incredibly well written and interesting read, but, because of its age, it might not seem like it's got such a good story. Still, I'm very happy to have given it a go.

Witchy reads: The Last Wish and The Sword of Destiny

I wasn't quite sure before reading these, but these Witcher short story collections should definitely be read before the 'Main Witcher saga' as a lot of this is build up for the Ciri storyline that I've heard referenced so much ("In the Witcher universe she might be the main character actually"). They should also be read in the order that they're presented. The weird thing is that you can't quite tell until you've read the 'One More' short story, the last one, where everything finally falls into place, where the themes, ideas and story seeds that have been built up so much beforehand, over the course of all these vaguely connected short stories, are finally brought into a satisfying resolution (or opening gambit to kick off the saga). Sapkowski makes frequent use of flashbacks or dream sequences wherein Geralt remembers past events, making it seem as if the short stories take place out of order. But if you do happen to read them out of order you're likely to get at least a little spoiled.

Where Sword of Destiny is just a genuine collection of short stories, albeit arranged in chronological order, The Last Wish has a loose overarching narrative wherein we are introduced to the Witcher world and in one particular flashback, the very first seeds of the Ciri Storyline, and I'll be honest: I didn't think I would be, and I wasn't expecting much but, having read the 2 collections back to back now I'm actually really invested in what might happen with Ciri and Geralt.

Sapkowski has an amazingly deft hand at evoking an emotional response in his readership. It's mainly melancholy; the passing of the old guard, the changing of the world, the vanishing of species, but also the more easily identifiable fear of the encroachment of death, both universal and personal, coupled with anger and sadness at the waste of life, at personal sacrifice without appreciation or acclamation.

There were also feelings that were harder to pinpoint.

I've mentioned it before here, but there's a heightened focus on the vagaries of love, its necessity in life, its many joys and its many, many problems. It was something I wasn't expecting at all.

Relationships to root for in fiction are crowdpleasingly easy, a dime in a dozen, but to have those difficult feelings adjacent to pure love explored so deeply, so thoroughly and with such feeling is already something. But to do so in under a dozen short stories is quite something else. I said it before, I'm invested already. And this doesn't mean I'm rooting for a particular relationship, no, not at all, quite the opposite; Team Yennefer I am not. But I do want to see more of these characters, their loves and their woes, I want to see more of this interesting world and the monsters and the different races, but above all and most importantly; I want to see and feel more of the voice that does the telling. Sapkowski is good. He's fresh and yet deep. An old world in a new coat.

The last wish

Strigai and feeding habits.

How to prepare for a hunt (, OR for

the reversing of spells).

Fangs and Teeth. The cock's crow.

A scene of carnage, fangs and tearing.

Beauty and the Beast, distorted.

A Curse, well deserved by old sins.

Honesty and hilarity in the telling.

Blood, broken spells, and love.

A Wizard's plight.

Snow White, distorted.

Offers and enticements.

Plans stopped. Massacre.

No evil, just souls in pain.

The Witcher Versus Destiny.

An invitation. A code, of sorts.

Oofh. Noice.

Tension building extraordinaire.

Of oaths, denying them and consequence.

Cataclysmic Force, and a happy interregnum.

The Witcher and Destiny.

At the edge of the horizon,

one can find the Devil,

and those he serves.

Elves are pricks, with reason.

Lady of the Flowers, bestower.

Moments of melancholy.

Copious amounts of humour.

Yennefer of Vergerberg.

Djinn and their purpose,

their hard gift of wishes.

Entwining of fates,

the desperate Last Wish.

Visions of the final end,

the Witcher's fateful lot.

-----

The Sword of Destiny

The Limit of Possibilities.

Three black birds, 2 warrior

women, 1 witcher and a hot tub.

The hunt (not so wild),

for the imaginary, Fables,

but then made real.

The most beautiful, dragon.

Of feelings, Wizards and Witchers.

The sorceress Yen, Yennefer, or Yenna.

Suicidal Intentions, the foolishness

of men with a woman on their mind.

Unfaithful love, a shard of ice to the heart.

Of the investments of changelings

and the halflings that might or might

not profit from them. Clever tricks.

Coexistence and hope eternal.

An evening of blanching and blushing.

Sunken cities and their protectors.

The worst illness: Not enough to sacrifice

a little, for love one sacrifices all.

But even a little is a hell of a lot.

Be of the self, or be of a part,

there is no middle ground; sacrifice.

The pain and joy of love and melancholia.

Perpetual war for the last forest.

An envoy to the queen, the same,

useless message. Destiny, a child

foretold, hidden in the mundane

matters of royalty. Two-edged sword.

Afraid of what might happen, you run.

In defence of humanity the Witcher wounds.

Illness brings memories, A rollercoaster of the past.

In a night of wild abandon the only constraining element;

love.
To walk with Death.

Calamity, destruction. perceived loss, Destiny stilled.

The present. What you did not expect waited all along.

A visit from the Devil(jho)

Been mostly playing Monster Hunter World these last few days, and damn that game can be unexpectedly brutal sometimes; to wit:

Imagine fighting that little raptor thing for about 15 minutes, only to have that big brute come in and end it for you that fast, that sudden and in such a shocking manner. Bit of a surprise, I'll tell you.

The Deviljho has been owning monsters left and right in other missions aswell.

Eater of Worlds indeed.

And I've figured out that weapon a bit more, as you can see, it's beautiful to watch it weave when everything is going well. It's almost art. But I do still very much prefer the hammer as my go-to weapon for the larger monsters.

I also spent a few moments editing my Guild card and now finally look a little less green around the ears:

You can dye the skull and I chose red to have it in keeping with the rest of the armour.

No real antagonism exists with Captain America.

Post-Aripiprazole Update

So, it's time for one of these again.

Let's get the obligatory narcissism picture out of the way. 

Look at me I'm so pretty.

I've got contacts now. They're horrible for pc; blogging, general reading and gaming though so I only put 'em on when I go out or when I'm working. So, pretty much only when I'm working then. Which means that at around 180 euros for 6 months or so, profitable this is not. But this also means they'll probably last longer than they would for most people. Hurray, I guess?

Alright, with that out of the way, let's talk about some of the stuff I might blog about: the genre stuff.

You already know it but I'm reading the Witcher books and taking a general laissez-faire attitude to thinking about them. This is pure escapism right now, back to the old ways. Which means that there's less of a compulsion to do a full in-depth write-up which in turn means that there's less content I'm working on behind the scenes. From the start I've tried to keep the book posts down to a few paragraphs but that resolution has almost never survived contact with the ideas present after reading a book. I think I somewhat got it with Summer of Night though. That book deserved way more but because of the medication I managed to keep it down quite easily. There's still a little niggle there though. Could've, should've maybe? An aspect of the caring less probably... hmmm.

About that by the way: I'm off the meds.

After a month and a half of trying, I finally threw in the towel. 14 hours of sleep a day on average just wasn't really my thing. I was tired all the time and didn't feel like doing much of anything.  Paradoxically, they imbued me, my limbs, with a nervous energy, a desire to go out, to move forward, to evolve, to make headway, some how, some way. They're probably perfect for people who are more outgoing. Whenever I was with someone, things were pretty great. They took away my fears and in general made me less inhibited when talking to people, which was easy and relaxing and made me feel like new roads were opening up. But they also dampened my emotions, mainly the bad, but also the good, and more importantly; my empathy.
There came a moment, when I was watching a movie, I think it was You Were Never Really Here when I thought to myself, this moment should be making me cry, and I didn't. There was the feeling but it was dumbed down. It didn't reach my eyes, didn't reach my mouth, didn't let me disappear inside my chosen escapism, it was all so very constrained. With people too, I felt them less. I wasn't me in the way that I used to be, the way that I was proud to be: my empathical self; the emotional viewer/ reader/ listener. There's less chance to worry and care about others when you're cripplingly tired.
So really, mainly, chiefly, above everything else, it was the way it made me feel tired all the time that made me decide to quit taking it.

It probably did some good though. Some time off for my mind, which had been taking up casual residence more and more in one of the more widely visited districts of the common household psychosis. (I'm downplaying things, obviously. There were serious problems.)
Telling yourself it's all different than what you feel doesn't really help. These things need to be given some support from outside as well. That appears to be what I got. I hope it's been enough. I could do with some stability for a while.

It's also nice to be able to drink some alcohol again.

So, doubling back a little, I've been reading the Witcher, which overall has been rather clever and hugely entertaining to read. I'm now at the Sword of Destiny short story. Chronologically that's book 2 short story 5.
There's so far been a surprisingly large focus on the theme of love, its problems, its joys, its everything. It's all written so well, with such feeling that I must confess that it's liable to make one quite lonely. I came here for some monster hunting damnit, why are you giving me all these emotions!?

Speaking of monster hunting, I've picked up Monster Hunter World, which is more than decent enough to wile away a few hours with. Though I confess I'm getting bloody tired of the flying monsters. Give me the good old-fashioned 2- or 4-legged assholes every time.

Here's me flawlessly *cough* using one of the newer weapons to murder a defenceless raptor-thing.
Don't mind the man-thong, I swear I didn't pick it for its looks.

Here's the awesome Odogaron fight with a hammer.
I got super lucky here pretty much constantly. But some of it is definitely skill as I'm an old hand at hammers

And the Odogaron fight with a longsword.

Same same, but different.

The name's Berek, from Berek Halfhand, the legendary hero of the Land, in the time before Thomas Covenant (Chronicles of). It's pretty much always been my name in the Monster Hunter games, that or Beren or Hannes something or other. Tolkien and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the two big epic series of my formative years.
I must say, I still prefer the Land over Middle Earth. Even though Middle Earth now has a million facets of colourful representation these days. The Land has always felt more vibrant to me. And since Covenant is a bit of a twat, especially early on, Berek it is.

My current Guild Card

Then, mostly during the weaning process of the medication (you know; gotta watch those panic attacks), I also binge-watched the Punisher which I thought was overall very good and very moody but occasionally quite slow in its, it must be said, rather methodical build-up, slow right up until the final episodes where there was so much blood and violence on the screen I spontaneously started tearing up with glee.

I'm not even exaggerating, it's been a while since my vengeance-bone has been tickled that thoroughly. I started giggling again when I took the above screen capture. Maybe it just makes me uncomfortable, I don't know but I doubt it, as we all seek to satisfy certain thrills, and the Punisher definitely manages to take it to another level, making you feel it all the while.

And lastly, I've finally started to continue reading ' The Mignola-verse'.
I was originally planning to do this super involved thing where I was going to do a post for every trade paperback, my favourite bad-ass piece of art for every issue but, thankfully, I've let that slide (mainly because that would inevitably constitute spoilers). I'm not a reviewer and giving you my rote impressions, filled with unimaginative hyperbole, didn't seem worth it, somehow.
I'm still following the Mignola-verse reading order though. this time the 2018 version, except I'm not re-reading anything Hellboy related except where his storyline is post Bride of Hell... meaning of course I haven't read Hellboy in Hell yet, and looking quite forward to doing so.
Right now I'm at BPRD volume 2 and it's all good. I prefer Mignola's or Stenbeck's art to the art that's on display here but what can you do; if you want an epic modern gothic where else are you going to go?