Hey, why not right?
Joyland - Stephen King
I gotta admit, I thought this was going to be more of a hardboiled detective novel then it actually was. Softboiled. I am not really the biggest fan of King when he goes sentimental. I prefer him in his William Castle mode, a bright eyed huckster spinning EC Comic style horrors. So I had really high hopes here, cause the setting and the material seemed ripe for a Carnival of Souls type horror thriller. But in actuality it is more like Adventureland crossed with his usual psychic moppets. That being said there is a lot to like. I wish he had actually gone harder on the older protagonist remembering his halcyon days, cause that was easily the strongest part of the novel. A mixed bag, but like usual it goes down like candy.
The Yiddish Policeman's Ball - Michael Chabon
I read The Adventures of Kavilier and Clay last month and loved it, but I only got it out of the library cause I had originally wanted to read this. Set in an alt history where the Israeli government was overthrown in the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, leading to the center of the Jewish diaspora being an Alaskan enclave that was formed post WW2 as a temporary Hong Kong styled outpost for refugees, set to revert back to the United States during the book's events, the book is a Raymond Chandler styled detective story, involving the murder of a messianic figure and the cop who is piecing together the conspiratorial tapestry as his world falls apart. Sickenly relevant again with the Palestinian massacre happening in the world right now. Found it excellent, even when it made me feel sick!
Tombs & Lovesickness - Junji Ito
Wrote a little about both of these already. Will expand on some Ito thoughts but I think out of all four I read this month Tombs is my favorite. If I were to put this in the rankings of all the Ito I have read, I'd say it's above Remina but below Gyo. (My favorite of his works is either Uzumaki or his adaptation of Frankenstein. I also really like about half of Tomie.
Black Paradox - Junji Ito
Started stupid, ended strong! I mean, anything that begins with "And they made a doppelganger robot of me" is going to have a certain appeal to me. I thought the idea was interesting, and I liked the idea of the suicide pact keeping these four weirdos together, but I think at the end of the day it kind of has a muddled point. I loved how it ended though! Wish the rest of the work had the same conviction as the last chapter.
Planet of the Apes - Pierre Boule
Fun fact about Ramona: I am kind of obsessed with the Planet of the Apes franchise. The 1968 movie is definitely in my top ten movies ever made, if not my top five. I love the whole series, and I really love the way it completely takes it's pretty mondo idea to it's most ludicrous and logical end. I had started reading the original book (by the same guy who wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai, which is weird!) but had never finished it. I read the whole thing on a long train ride, and it's very interesting in comparison with the film series. I think it's strange that as opposed to the film's twist, which showed that it was man's own folly that became the species' undoing, it's instead reframed from an appeal to peace and the end of warfare to "what if humans got real lazy, then apes started mimicking the only thing they knew!" Not bad, I did like the framing device of the space faring apes and the added horror of the protagonist's dehumanization at the hands of the apes via forced copulation, but I think the films improved on the premise in almost every conceivable way. I mean, for Christ's sake, in the book it isn't Earth all along!! WTF?
No Longer Human -Osamu Dazai & Junji Ito
Upsetting. I have never read Dazai's original text so I cannot speak to how closely it stays to it. but I found it to be a very interesting and gripping work. Nevertheless, it also feels almost shallow in it's point. I love the idea of the protagonist as a hollow humanoid faking figure, but think that it was always short of what I wanted it to be. But like I said, I am not at all familiar with the original work, so I will not pretend to be any sort of expert. Interesting but lacking for me.