I've Seen The Movie If That's Any Help....................Pt2

Continuing on from the weekends book list............ The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain - Twain isn't really my bag, but this story intrigued me. Believe it or not, it was seeing a spooky kids animation, which contained a sort of ultra condensed synopsis of the story, that made me investigate this odd piece. One of it's problems is that the posthumously released novella, The Mysterious Stranger, A Romance, is something of a literary 'cut 'n' shut', combining two very different drafts that Twain was working on, as well as a bit of bridging and some wholly unnecessary character/plot revision by Twain's biographer Albert Bigalow Paine. Allegedly, it was a desire not to offend the religious sensibilities of the time that was responsible for this vandalism. Essentially, what was released was not a Twain novel, but a 'beyond the grave' collaboration between Twain and Albert Bigalow Paine. It's a tale of cruelty, superstition, stupidity, venality and mankinds "damnable moral sense". A sinless nephew of Satan appears to a group of boys in a remote Austrian village in the middle ages. He is befriended by the boys, and enters the village with them as nothing more than a new playmate. In short order, his influence grows and he proceeds to demonstrate his supernatural powers, at first secretly and seemingly to the betterment of certain people in the village, but as he comes under further scrutiny, his actions begin to arouse the attentions of the religious authorities. In all, his presence brings havoc to the village, upsetting the order of things and putting into effect events that lead to terror, death and misery, though it's possible to argue that in each instance, 'Young Satan' has acted with mercy and 'in the interests' of the villagers he comes into contact with. I'd say that the released text is probably just about worth finding, if only for it's 'conclusiveness', but if you want the juicy stuff, then have a look out for the Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts. This volume presents the three working drafts that Twain had laboured over in the years up to his death. In chronological order; The Chronicle of Young Satan, Schoolhouse Hill, and No44, The Mysterious Stranger. If any of the drafts are complete, it's the third one, No44. It's somewhat phantasmagorical and very much worth reading, but it lacks the clear, withering satire and narrative drive of the 1st draft, which formed about 85% of the 'Romance' version that was published in 1916. It also has one of the most stunning endings ever written, almost too good to be left hanging in space, unsure of what draft it's meant to be a conclusion to................. Perfume by Patrick Suskind - If the Mysterious Stranger needed excessive explanation, this one needs only the bare minimum. Grenouille is an oddity and an outcast. He has the ability to define scents from each other, even at distance, but has himself no odour. He isn't so much born as deposited under a fish gutting table, in an 18th century Parisian street. Grenouille plies his trade as a perfumiers apprentice, but trouble is never far away from him and neither is murder as he becomes obsessed with possessing and extracting the true essence of scent, killing a number of young women in an attempt to do so. This is a storming read, a funny, tragic and murderous rampage across pre-revolutionary France, from Paris, through the mountains of the Massif Central, into the rural villages of Auvergne and back to the filth ridden streets of his birthplace.

I shall pick out a couple more later this week, then leave it at that. Dammit, these little reviews are a pig to write..........

Not Given Lightly

Cocktails & Records has tagged me with a meme. Essentially, it involves taking a book you are currently reading, going to page 123, going five sentences down and then quoting the next three sentences. At this moment in time I'm in the middle of about four books. Two of them are about Bill Hicks and I've just about read them both, but I continue to dip in and out of their pages. I'm trying to finish off Mark Twain's 'Mysterious Stranger' Manuscripts, but the un-published version of the story started to bore me a bit, so it lies un-finished. Finally, I decided upon Hunter S Thompson's 'Kingdom Of Fear' which I vow one day to finish reading. Oddly enough, page 123 is about where I'm up to. Except there is no page 123. It consists of something called 'Aspen Wall Poster No4'. It's a big marksman target with a picture of a brain at it's centre and along the bottom the legend "The American Dream". So, I headed over to page 124 and found this gem. It's not Thompson himself, rather it's an article by Loren Jenkins called 'Dr Hunter S Thompson And The Last Battle Of Aspen' which has been included in the book to illustrate the battles Thompson and the locals of Woody Creek, Aspen, Colorado had with a multi-millionaire interloper called Floyd Watkins The ponds he had stocked with trophy sized trout over the past three years were shimmering with the bellies of dead fish. More than six hundred trout, some weighing up to twenty pounds, were dead. The waters had been poisoned in the night and Watkins immediately blamed the slaughter on his neighbours, charging them with employing "Terrorist Tactics" against him because they didn't like his taste and style. Ah yes, a tale of two deeply belligerent men in Colorado. One with guns and peacocks, another with money and absolutely no taste. Turns out the pond wasn't poisoned by the neighbours, but by Watkins' own son. Oops! Ok, two more extracts from the Flying Nun CD. 'Not Given Lightly' by Chris Knox, as requested by Cocktails........ ...and 'Outer Space' by '3D's' Finally realised that the 3D's song reminds me a bit of Superchunk. Never a bad thing. More selections from the less travelled parts of my collection tomorrow. I now hereby tag Tampon Teabag, Oye Billy , Last Years Girl and Szelsofa A friendly Chinese Burn for anyone who fails to comply.......... =]