I read this one for a book club discussion. I didn't like it much.
- Too full of pondering instead of being in the action, and as a result, the main chI read this one for a book club discussion. I didn't like it much.
- Too full of pondering instead of being in the action, and as a result, the main character didn't appear so much like a "god who doesn't know whether he should intervene or not", than like a passive observer.
- The political commentary laid it a bit too tick to my tastes. It called for something more subtle.
- The female characters. Only two, and basically one is a wallflower who's obviously only here to get kidnapped or whatever, and the other is the courtesan type who "gets what she deserves—and here's to notice that in spite of all his disgust for this "backward society", our hero just goes about his business knowing all too well what he'll left in his wake (and all for nothing). Granted, there's Anka, but I don't really se the point of having her in the novel at all. As a love interest? I couldn't feel anything there, so I really don't know.
- The translation: I can't compare with the original text, but the prose in general felt like something had been... lost. I probably wouldn't have liked it much more had it been for a different translation; still, it sure didn't help....more
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
An appropriate adaptation of Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderlan”[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
An appropriate adaptation of Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderlan” and “Through the Looking-Glass”. An adaptation, not a retelling: it follows Carroll's works faithfully, and offers a good approach to the original text (complete with its poems and rhymes—it includes “A Wasp in a Wig”, too, which at the time was dropped at Tenniel's request).
I really liked the artwork here. At first, I was expecting something a little more colorful, but after a few pages I realised the slightly muted colours worked pretty well. The drawing style has an anime-like edge when it comes to human faces; as for the Wonderland creatures and animals, their interpretation is vivid enough, and overall the atmosphere has a whimsical je-ne-sais-quoi that totally fits with Wonderland. It is “expected Alice” (blond girl, blue dress, white stockings...) yet at the same time it has its own flavour. The artist brought a lot of details into her illustrations and panels, and more than once I found myself perusing those, trying to find out what I had missed; this would deserve a second or even a third reading.
I'm not too sure if this book would make it easier for younger readers to get introduced to Carroll's stories, as it doesn't makes the text more simple to read; on the other hand, it's definitely not “dumbed down”, which wouldn't be very interesting for me, and I think it can provide a good introduction in this way....more
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
Caveat: the ARC copy I got was backwards, which doesn't make it t [I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
Caveat: the ARC copy I got was backwards, which doesn't make it too easy to read on a Kindle or tablet. This won't be an issue with the paper copy, though—and readers not used to manga format won't be too lost, since this is explained in the book.
This isn't the first manga in this series I read, and like the others, while obviously not dealing with every single detail of the novel from which it's adapted, overall it provides an accurate enough reading of said novel, making it easily accessible. (Even though I haven't read Hawthorne's “The Scarlett Letter” in 10 years or so, and my memories of it are fairly fuzzy.)
While quite a few things are omitted, this is likely for the best. The novel is ripe with dialogue and descriptions that wouldn't sit too well in comics format, and condensing the story was the only way to go. The stifling atmosphere of Boston when it comes to Hester living there after she got her “A” letter is depicted fairly accurately: townspeople shunning her for her sin, their hypocrisy when they nevertheless buy her embrodery and use her works daily, how they do so while telling others “don't accept her works because she's a sinner”, etc. Pearl's wild streak is represented through her relationship with the forest, where she is presented as free, at ease, playing with wolves, and through her slightly slanted gaze, a bit mysterious, a bit like some kind of “witch-child”.
I wasn't sure about a couple of things that were shortened, though. Chillingworth's slow revenge, for one: I don't think all the little things he did to make his “victim” more sick were so obvious in the manga. And some of the characters' psychology—it would've been interesting to see more of Hester's relationship with Pearl's father.
The artwork, as usual in this series, is really good, with emphasis placed on clothing and on keeping the panels clear enough. The “A” letter is the only note of colour in the whole manga, a graphic choice that allows its weight to constantly bear on the characters no matter what they do.
Conclusion: As expected, it doesn't and wouldn't be able anyway to encompass everything Hawthorne included in his novel. However, I think this manga summarises “The Scarlet Letter” well enough, and could very well make a reader potentially interested in going further and reading the original story....more
[I received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]
A huge collection of Sherlock Holmes-related short stories—as is [I received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]
A huge collection of Sherlock Holmes-related short stories—as is made obvious from the title—written by various authors: some who were Doyle's contemporaries, some from the late 1990s or even 2000s, and some from the 20th century. Mostly two kinds of stories are represented: “serious” Holmes adventures, and humorous ones (the latter ranging from light pastiches to ridiculous ones).
Breaking down this collection into separate commentary for each story (there are 83!) would be too long and time-consuming, so I won't do this here, and keep to a more general commentary. As in every anthology, there are good things and less than interesting ones; as the editor himself wrote in the introduction, some of those are worth a shot because they were never reprinted, and were only published in obscure magazines in their time. In my case, I realised that I didn't really care about the comical Holmes stories: I guess I like my Sherlock somewhat “serious”, although I'm also known for liking heroic sociopath versions of him (see Thomas Day).
Among the most memorable ones for me: * “The Case of the Unseen Hand”, which goes back on the Dreyfus affair. (And that was *quite* a big deal in late 19th France). *“The Martian Crown Jewels” — one the rare really different takes on Sherlock Holmes here (considering it's science fiction). * “A Case of Mis-Identity”, both quite amusing and clever, in presenting different points of view about the same situation. * “The Startling Events in the Electrified City” — a plot against President McKinley's life.
While I still think a lot of these stories had an interest only as quirky little examples of what was once done regarding the Holmes & Watson corpus, this is a collection still worth borrowing, for want of actually buying the book....more
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
This series of classics turned to manga remains interesting. I re[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
This series of classics turned to manga remains interesting. I read Great Expectations some 9 years ago, so I admit I forgot a lot of details, and it's difficult now for me to properly decide if this adaptation is faithful enough or if it culled through a lot. However, I think that for someone who never read Dickens's original story, this manga version covers the essential parts: Pip's feelings towards his class as he grows up and moves up the ladder, his relationship with the beautiful but cold Estella, and the mystery about his benefactor. For those who have read Dickens, well... it's a good reason to read him again, I say.
The artwork is similar to that of the other adaptations in this series: not by the same artist, but nonetheless quite pleasant to look at. Miss Havisham's dress is plain gorgeous, and her dusty, spiderweb-covered room definitely creepy. Estella's posture and attitude reflect the way she was brought up. Joe isn't like the character in the novel, physically, yet no matter what his design still conveyed that he's a good man. Actually, it's easy to detect who is "nice" and who is "evil" from their features—and while it may be considered a graphic shortcut, it also quickly allows the reader to picture who does (or will do) what, something that would be more difficult to achieve here anyway than in the original prose form.
The pace was rushed in places, though, especially when it comes to how Pip's take on life, people and events changed: it was wrapped up a little bit too fast, and as a result, Pip mostly came off as bratty most of the time (which he is, alright). And as the format demanded the story be restricted to 300 pages, some of its depth was lost along the way; the novel left room for more development, whereas in the manga, most characters felts rather one-dimensional.
Still, I would recommend it if only for the artwork and for its ability to make one want to (re)read Great Expectations itself. 3.5 stars....more
[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
A hard one to rate, for sure. 3 to 3.5 stars?
On the one hand, it's one of the [I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
A hard one to rate, for sure. 3 to 3.5 stars?
On the one hand, it's one of the classics of "old science fiction" I've always wanted to read—I only recently linked its English title to the French one. And, like many stories written several decades ago, it retains a quaint charm. Science that was prominent in minds at the time (atomic power...). Themes of a better world, of Man evolving into better beings, renouncing the old ways of killing, even of living in cities. Openings towards strange, new dimensions, even though reaching for those would involve a complete change of perception. But also sadness: the end of a world, of several worlds, humanity devolving into solitary creatures, then nothing, leaving Earth into the "hands" or dogs and robots. A sort of paradise, untainted by the concepts haunting human beings... yet here, too, a solitary one, for while the dogs developed their own society, they, too, were haunted by the idea of Man, kept alive by Jenkins, the faithful robot who served the Webster family.
On the other hand, I have to admit that a lot of those were painfully outdated for a 21st-century person. I'd probably have appreciated these stories more if I had read them when I was much younger—in other words, especially when it came to all those "atomic" thingies, back when I still had recollections (although heavily filtered through my child's eyes) of Chernobyl, and a vague fear of the Cold War. I would've missed other themes, for sure, but maybe some of the "scientific" ones wouldn't have struck me as so wobbly. Granted, this was unavoidable; a lot of SF classics would suffer the same fate. It did bother me to an extent, and that was really too bad.
The biological side of science here didn't make much sense either: mutants; people turning themselves into creatures adapted to life on Jupiter; ants developing a kind of clockwork/steam power; dogs being given words and voice while still forced to rely on robots for want of hands (why would surgery on vocal chords translate into heavy genetic changes in just a few generations?). And generally speaking, the Earth described in "City" was just too big, too empty, to justify the maintainenance of robots as a whole (no factories were mentioned, for instance), with the passage of thousands of years emphasising the "how did they manage to last for so long?" question.
And yet, I cannot deny these stories, as well as the way they are linked, a certain power. Not in the writing itself, not in the obsolete or weird science, but in how they conveyed strong feelings. The despair of one man, whose fears doomed humanity to lose an important philosophical theory that could've changed the world forever. The end of a city, abandoned by people who preferred to live in the country, an echo of the suburbian dream. Men left behind and choosing to dive into endless sleep in the last surviving city, forever enclosed within countermeasures long forgotten, for there was no point to staying awake anymore and kill their boredom with hobbies become meaningless. Robots performing tasks even after their owners had died and gone. Dogs keeping a promise, passed down from a long-dead ancestor, a promise the meaning of which had been somewhat lost. Man, both the god-creator and a legend in which dogs only half believed.
It *is* definitely strange, for the human characters were not particularly striking. I guess the book managed to tell what it had to tell through other means, among which the dogs and Jenkins?
So I could not wrap my mind around the nonsensical science... but the feelings were here, and kept coming back at me, along with reflections on what it means to be human, on what humans could d/evolve into. And although this wasn't my favourite read of the year, it will stay with me for some time no matter what, and I would still recommend it....more
The society and humans depicted in this book have fascinating sides: for instance, the subtle and complex social/political/cultural dance of 'shifgretThe society and humans depicted in this book have fascinating sides: for instance, the subtle and complex social/political/cultural dance of 'shifgrethor'; or the fact that Gethen's inhabitants are sexually neutral most of the time, except during 'kemmer', where they get sexually active and can become either male or female, without any set rule here.
However, some things definitely bothered me:
- The negative qualities associated with female gender, openly or not. Genly tends to do that a lot, and while it may be part of his insight as the only alien on this world, I just couldn't reconcile this disdain for 'feminine characteristics' (don't start me on how everything feminine is so often associated to weakness/lazy/corrupting/and so on) with the image of broad acceptance conveyed by the Ekumen (a federation of dozens of diverse worlds) he represents. I mean, so you're willing to embrace a world in which everyone's basically a hermpahrodite, but you still can't get over Eve the Imperfect Temptress? Come on.
That's all the more surprising, coming from a female author. Although, to be honest, I've found that women can be often worse than men when it comes to disdain towards their own sex. Meh.
- Also, since Genly calls every Gethenian a 'he', it gives a male colouring to every character he meets. A 'zé', 'they' or whatever else would have been so much more appropriate.
- A quarter of the book or so is devoted to travelling for hundreds of miles on ice, in blizzard storms, etc. I'm really not for 'travel novels' anymore, if I ever was, and this was a pretty boring part for me.
- The basis for Gethen is, as said, fascinating, but not exploited enough....more
(I got an ARC of this manga through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
Though I'm a native speaker and have studied a lot of French classics(I got an ARC of this manga through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
Though I'm a native speaker and have studied a lot of French classics during my high school and university days, I must admit, and not without shame, that I've never read Les Misérables—not the full version, that is. I only ever laid my hands on parts of it many, many years ago, mostly Cosette's early life story, as well as Gavroche's, and those were adapted for younger readers. In other words, I can't pass judgement on this manga adaptation's faithfulness regarding Victor Hugo's original work. However, I can tell that it should at least make a lot of readers want to pick the actual book, and get to know the characters and the missing side stories better. It sure made me.
Because some side stories are missing, and the script writer's bit at the end of the manga confirmed this. I do remember, for instance, that there was a part about Fantine's lover/Cosette's real father, and why they were separated. The same way, Gavroche's story was shortened. There just weren't enough pages available in manga format to properly put those in. Now, considering the original stories' complexity, I still think the adaptation was well-done and interesting. The essential story lines remain, and all tie together as they should.
The drawings, too, seem to reflect the characters fairly well. Negative characters such as the Thénardiers are easily recognisable to their features. Cosette is cute, as she should be. Fantine's drop from a beautiful woman to a destitute one is clearly shown as well. And the more ambiguous ones, such as Javert and Valjean himself, appear with serious features that allow the illustrator to depict their emotions, especially when they go through rethinking their purposes in life. Overall, the illustrations were really pleasant and fitting.
As an adaptation, it might seem a little light in places to someone who already knows the whole work. On the other hand, someone discovering it, or only knowing part of it, would likely be drawn (no pun intended) to pick Hugo's books later on. It's a pretty good thing in my opinion.
(Beware, though, of the ebook format—which is the one I got, as an ARC: the PDF reflects the order of the printed pages, which means you have to go to the end of the manga first, and then scroll your way back to the "beginning". I'm used to doing this, so it didn't matter much to me, but it can be surprising and annoying at first.)...more
(I got a copy of this manga through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
First, a word of warning: the way this book is printed means you have(I got a copy of this manga through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
First, a word of warning: the way this book is printed means you have to read it from right to left, and from "end" to "beginning". Which means the printed version isn't mirrored (always a good thing), BUT the ebook version (that is, the one I got) is a problem, since it opens on the back cover and ending. I strongly advise to directly jump to the apparent "end" (page 377 or so) in order to start reading at the actual beginning.
This would make a nice enough introduction to Jane Austen's work for younger readers, although an older audience with proper knowledge of the book will likely find it lacking: obviously, due to the format, some shortcuts had to be taken, and as a result, some secondary characters aren't given the spotlight they'd deserve, some scenes just don't happen, and Elizabeth didn't appear as smart as she did in the novel. The focus remains on Elizabeth and Darcy, but some flavour is definitely lost here. On the bright side, it probably helps making things clearer for a reader who might be confused otherwise by all the secondary characters gravitating around the main couples in the story. Dialogue was also fairly well-respected, from what I could tell (I haven't read the novel in a few years, though, so I might be mistaken).
I found the artwork reminiscent of older shoujo manga styles, with a touch of modern lines. Not unpleasant at all, depending on what a reader's preferred kind of style is, of course; personally, I quite enjoyed it—and was totally biased towards Mr. Bennet, I admit, whom I've always liked because he genuinely cared for his daughters; here, he was all dapper and stylish to boot. Typical manga comical codes work especially well here for characters such as Mr. Collins or Mrs. Bennet, who were eally hilarious. On the other hand, I didn't like how Darcy was portrayed: too often he seemed more of the emotional, slightly panicky type, when I've always perceived him in the original novel as proud and somewhat aloof. I couldn't reconcile this vision with the Darcy I grew to know when I first read the real Pride and Prejudice.
It was a pleasant read, and one I'd recommend to people who'd like to be reconciled to the original novel; however, it has its shortcomings, and if you feel you won't like a script taking a few liberties with what inspired it, it might not be so interesting....more
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