Culeco Academy of the Arts is a magnet school for gifted middle schoolers in a Cuban-American neighborhood of Miami, Florida. It’s usually a fun placeCuleco Academy of the Arts is a magnet school for gifted middle schoolers in a Cuban-American neighborhood of Miami, Florida. It’s usually a fun place for a school, full of creativity and teachers who want to bring out the best in their students. But even with strict anti-bullying policies in place, there are problems. Yasmany has a difficult home life, a hair-trigger temper and poor impulse control. Today is the third day of the new school year, and the third day he hasn’t been able to open his locker. So when he thinks the smaller kid next to him is mocking him, he reacts…poorly.
But Salvador “Sal” Vidón is no ordinary child. He is a (stage) magician, trained in misdirection. And also, he has the gift of tearing holes in the fabric of space-time to bring objects from parallel universes into his. So, to distract Yasmany from the thought of beating him up, Sal conjures a raw chicken into Yasmany’s locker. The good news is that this confuses everyone enough that no violence occurs. The less good news is that now both Yasmany and Sal must go to the principal’s office.
It’s there that Sal meets Gabriella “Gabi” Reál, student council president, editor of the school paper, and potential defense attorney, who’s come to help Yasmany maybe not get expelled from school. Between her fast-talking logic, Sal making all traces of the chicken disappear while no one was looking, and Principal Torres being a reasonable authority figure, Yasmany gets another chance.
But now Gabi wants to know exactly how that chicken got into Yasmany’s locker, where the evidence went, and just who this “Sal” character is anyway. And she’s like a shark when she wants to know something. Oh, and the hole in spacetime in Yasmany’s locker hasn’t closed. That’s worrying. And Gabi can see it. That’s intriguing/terrifying.
This middle school science fiction novel is part of the “Rick Riordan Presents” publishing line which presents books by authors for young people speaking to and about different cultures and heritages. It won the Pura Belpré Award for best Latino representation in a book for youth in 2020.
While it’s definitely a science fiction book, I can tell it’s been heavily influenced by Latin American “magical realism” in its style. To the naked eye, Sal’s abilities look like magic, and not everyone is cool with that. Plus, he has an unfortunate habit of summoning his dead mother (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) across the multiverse, something upsetting to his father and stepmother.
Sal also has diabetes, which is a recurring problem as he doesn’t always take the best care of himself in the moment. While he’s excellent at improvisation and planning out magic tricks, he’s not good at anticipating secondary consequences. He’s a smartass, but means well.
Gabi has her own issues. Her family is a polycule, (including a robot) which sometimes gets disapproval from outsiders. Also, her infant brother Iggy is in intensive care and struggling for survival. She means well, but her dedication to journalism causes some issues for Sal.
In general, this is a story with no on-stage villains. There’s just people with different agendas, personalities and beliefs who clash because they don’t understand each other or because their immediate goals aren’t compatible. Even Yasmany is trying very hard to be a better person. The character I feel most sorry for is Mr. Lynott, the gym coach, who is desperate not to be the hardass P.E. instructor stereotype, but keeps getting wrongfooted.
Sal and Gabi are extremely articulate for their age, which borders on precocity from time to time, but should go over well with the target audience. There’s some untranslated Cuban-accented Spanish, so monolingual kids might have some difficulty without the internet to help.
I really appreciate that the parents are neither hostile nor useless; Sal and Gabi have strong positive relationships with their families, which benefit everyone.
Gabi wants to help her little brother, and Sal’s powers may be the key to that, but those tears in space-time that aren’t mending are worrisome. What if they save Iggy, but break the universe?
Content note: Bullying, mention of child abuse. Gabi punches and bites playfully. There’s an arachnophobia scene. Children in peril, with hospital scenes. Body function humor. Mentions of ethnic prejudice, a bit of gender stereotyping. Heteronormativity. Some conservative parents and politicians may object to the depiction of the polycule. Naughty words in Spanish. Most middle schoolers should be able to handle this book.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. Some sections were a bit twee for me, but as usual, I am not the target audience. Recommended for bright middle school readers, especially ones that haven’t been exposed to Cuban-American culture before....more
I’ve mentioned before that as a teenager, I had rather morbid tastes in entertainment. This naturally led to an interest in the horror genre. This fasI’ve mentioned before that as a teenager, I had rather morbid tastes in entertainment. This naturally led to an interest in the horror genre. This fascination has never entirely left me, as you can tell from the many horror-tinged reviews I’ve done for this blog. But these things are relative. I watch more horror movies than the average person by a fairly wide margin, but I know people who are true horror flick fans that I can draw upon for information on the most obscure or never-on-video movies. Back in the 1970s, though, I had to rely on books such as the one in hand today.
William K. Everson was a film historian and preservationist who helped save many rare movies and produced fine programme notes for them. So he’d seen a lot of movies, often repeatedly, and was well-versed in the subject.
Most of the book is discussion/reviews of movies in roughly a chronological order, starting with the 1925 silent The Phantom of the Opera and up through the 1940s. More recent films are mentioned when they are related. At the back, there’s discussion of films by category, like vampires, werewolves and lastly “possession” so that Mr. Everson can finish with a discussion of The Exorcist, still in theaters at the time of writing, very popular, but too new to be considered a “classic.”
In the introduction, one of the topics discussed is that it can be hard to say just what is a “classic” in the horror genre. Many of the movies discussed are at best flawed gems, while others are only “classics” because of one strong feature such as a particularly good script or performance or camera work, or being the first of a given type. A couple were “lost media” even back in the 1970s, so Mr. Everson has to guesstimate what they were like.
The many black and white photographs liven up the dense text. A nostalgic buzz comes from Mr. Everson’s distaste for the increased emphasis on gore and sex in horror films of the Seventies; one can only imagine how he’d feel about the movies of the 2020s! He’s notably also not keen on the Japanese efforts in the horror genre–all the kaiju movies are a footnote in his discussion of King Kong, and he wasn’t enthusiastic about Kwaidan either, mentioning it only as part of a review of a British ghost story anthology movie.
If there’s one major flaw in the book, it’s the lack of an index–since several movies are discussed only in reviews of other movies, it can be hard to find them.
I fondly remember running across this book in the library as a teen, and the thrill of reading about all these cool old movies (I’ve now seen over half, and some of them I’ve reviewed on this very blog.) Happily, a younger relative found this volume in a used bookstore and recognized it as just the sort of thing Uncle SKJAM! would appreciate.
Both this and the follow-up volume, More Classics of the Horror Film, are highly recommended to fans of the genre. Check out libraries and used bookstores near you!...more
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway for the purpose of writing this review. No other compensation was offered or rDisclaimer: I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway for the purpose of writing this review. No other compensation was offered or received.
For a generation, the dominant form of religious music in the North American market was “Contemporary Christian Music.” It was sold in Christian bookstores, sung in Christian churches (or at least at their youth groups) and played on Christian radio. This history looks at the subgenre’s roots, rise to prominence and eventually ebbing as “worship music” took over.
In the late Nineteenth century, revival meetings needed music to sing, and the new music recording industry needed songs to sell their reels and discs. Both the “Christian” music and country music industries started concentrating around Nashville, Tennessee. (There was, and is, a considerable overlap.) They drew heavily from black Gospel music and blues, though usually through white covers.
Starting in the 1950s, there was an increasing worry among what would become known as the white evangelical community about the youth being corrupted by the “jungle rhythms” (read “Black people’s music”) of rock music. Even as the rock and roll genre became heavily dominated by white musicians, the anti-establishment, open love, anti-segregation, pro-party ethos of then-mainstream rock freaked out the buttoned-down squares in charge of churches.
But you didn’t have to be square to be a Christian. A fraction of those turning on and dropping out found Jesus was transcendent and able to be found even when you weren’t necessarily looking. These “Jesus Freaks” started making “Jesus music” that drew on rock and its musical trends of the time.
Reluctantly at first, the Christian music industry started working with Jesus music–it was, after all, a moral substitute for the devil’s rock and roll. Especially helpful for keeping the youth entertained and not going somewhere other than the church basement.
Over the course of time, being the “moral substitute” for the music popular with the rest of the culture became CCM’s big thing. It helped that conservative white evangelicalism had become its own subculture, with Christian bookstore chains, Christian radio stations, Christian TV channels and a Moral Majority mindset all feeding into each other. It became a multimillion-dollar business.
But the insular nature of the subgenre came with problems. The industry and the fandom wanted performers who were the moral paragons that embodied the values proclaimed in their songs. A failure to live up to that, especially when it came to the right kind of sex, crashed several careers. Nonwhite artists were excluded unless they conformed to white cultural standards. And a growing adherence to right-wing politics tainted the message for many.
Plus, CCM artists that were able to “cross over” to popularity on the regular charts were viewed with suspicion at best, and often had to abandon one market or the other. Contemporary Christian Music was often derided for low quality.
The devotion to the “Becky” market eventually made the CCM industry vulnerable to changes in the market. The internet allowed Christian musicians to reach listeners without the strict gatekeepers, the evangelical left came out of its shell, and American tastes changed to a wider variety of styles, skin complexions and national origins for religious music. “Worship music” became the next big thing.
And of course, conservative white evangelicalism’s adherence to the less savory parts of Republican policy led them to support a certain candidate for president, and his insurrection, turning off more segments of the potential audience.
This book seems well-researched, though the author notes many people she talked to would not go on the record. No illustrations, but copious footnotes with citations, and an index.
Having been adjacent to the target audience of CCM over the years (I’ve owned some of the albums mentioned) I found this an interesting subject and a fun read. Some readers may be turned off by the frank discussion of racism within the music industry and other political entanglements, but those are subjects that are integral to a fair retelling of events.
I’d recommend this book to music fans, people curious about the Contemporary Christian Music subgenre, and American church history buffs....more
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway for the purpose of writing this review. No other compensation was offered or rDisclaimer: I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway for the purpose of writing this review. No other compensation was offered or requested.
Jack Kirby (1917-1994) was one of the most prolific and influential American comic book creators of the Twentieth Century. With other noted creators like Joe Simon, Stan Lee and a host of others, he was responsible for such enduring characters as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer, Etrigan the Demon, and Darkseid. His influence is still felt today throughout the Marvel and DC universes, as well as independent comics and other media.
This biography is told in graphic novel form, as though Mr. Kirby were narrating it (with a couple of sections told by wife Roz Kirby and colleague Stan Lee.) As much as possible, it uses his actual words from various interviews and speeches. It covers his whole life, plus a little bit of postscript.
Jack’s parents came from Galicia, which is now parts of Poland and Ukraine, though back then it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They emigrated to America separately, and met in New York through a matchmaker. Jacob Kurtzberg was his birthname, with Jack Kirby initially being a pen name before he found it easiest to just go by it. He showed an aptitude for and interest in drawing from an early age, and a fondness for comic strips (comic books per se not having been invented yet.)
It’s an eventful life, from a poverty-stricken childhood filled with gang violence, to his short-lived animation job, to working in the early days of comic books before superheroes became a thing. Then comes his first big success, working with Simon on Captain America (as well as lesser-known characters.) Unfortunately, they were kicked off the book when the manager of Timely found out they’d also been working for the competition. Still, lots of other work.
This gets interrupted by World War Two. Unlike some other creators who got put into creative jobs for the military, Kirby was drafted into frontline combat, being made a scout when someone finally noticed his art skills. “Go into this Nazi-occupied village and draw pictures of what you see.” A perhaps fortuitous case of frostbite took him out of combat, but the army wouldn’t discharge him until after V-J Day.
Simon and Kirby did well for a while with crime, romance and non-gory comic books, but then came Wertham and after him, the Comics Code, and losing distribution killed their business. Jack worked for National/DC for a while and got a syndicated comic strip, but things turned sour again and Kirby had to axe the strip and burn his bridges with National.
At a low point, Jack Kirby had to turn to Marvel Comics and a man he had hated, Stan Lee. Marvel itself was on the ropes, and Stan had long since forgotten any part he’d had in Kirby and Simon getting fired, so he warmly welcomed Jack back. Kirby started doing a lot of science-fiction related material, even in the books that weren’t strictly supposed to be SF, and when superheroes started coming back, created the Fantastic Four with Stan Lee’s help.
This is where memories really diverge–Kirby claimed that he was responsible for much more of the actual writing and creation of characters than Lee would ever admit. Mr. Lee had to put his name as writer on almost everything that was coming out at Marvel, and it rankled both Jack, and Steve Ditko, another artist with a creative vision that didn’t always match the dialogue Stan put on his stories.
Eventually, the leadership changed at DC Comics, Kirby left Marvel in disgruntlement, and went over to the distinguished competition to create the New Gods saga. But he didn’t actually get the creative control he was promised, and after his work got cancelled time after time, he went back to Marvel for a while, just in time to do a fondly-remembered Bicentennial storyline for Captain America.
By this time, television animation had taken off, and this paid a bit better with less actual work for Kirby, who was beginning to slow down and enjoyed creating character designs and worlds. Plus he finally had health insurance!
Which he needed, as while “King” Kirby was finally getting some of the credit he deserved for creating so much of the comic book landscape, his health was failing.
One of the running themes of this biography is that “comics will break your heart.” Jack Kirby’s talent and overactive work ethic meant that he was almost always in work, but his most commercially successful creations were “work for hire” and didn’t legally belong to him. While he often got a high page rate, that was a one-time payment, and handshake-promised royalties and tie-in money almost never materialized. Executive meddling, personal conflicts and just plain bad luck ended many of his jobs or robbed them of satisfaction.
A telling point is that would-be comics writers often wanted to script for Kirby, saying that they wanted to be “the next Stan Lee”, not catching on that that was the last thing he would be interested in.
But this is history from Jack Kirby’s point of view, and the companion volume about Stan Lee may tell a slightly different story.
Author/artist Tom Scioli is best known for his surreal art and plotlines, which are considerably toned down for this mostly true story. He does a nice job of mimicking Kirby and other artist’s styles as they come up in the book. His one odd touch is drawing Kirby with manga-esque “big eyes” throughout the story, regardless of age, This is done with no other character.
There’s end notes indicating where most of the quotes come from, and an index.
Content note: violence, gore, salty language. Jack is shirtless a few times. Younger readers before late teenagers may find this rough going due to the adult concerns involved.
This is a well-illustrated story of a full life with many interesting incidents. Highly recommended to comic book fans....more
Disclaimer: I contributed to the Kickstarter for this book.
In over a century of movies that can be considered “science fiction” of one sort or anotherDisclaimer: I contributed to the Kickstarter for this book.
In over a century of movies that can be considered “science fiction” of one sort or another, there have been a number that challenged the status quo in one way or another. This book is a collection of essays by various authors on forty-one of those films.
After an editorial introduction, the essays are mostly in chronological order by when the movie was released, from Metropolis (1927) to Crimes of the Future (2022). Each movie is discussed for what it did that was new (innovative effects!) or different (taboo subjects!) or otherwise “broke the rules” (going behind the distributor’s back!) A note here–all these essays spoil things about the movies they’re discussing, sometimes in great detail.
It’s an interesting assortment of movies, some acknowledged classics, some flops–a couple are even pretty bad. There’s a Disney film, a couple of anime features, representatives from Soviet and Bollywood movies…even a movie or two you may not have known was science fiction.
Given the variety of authors, the quality of essays also varies. I was especially fascinated by the essay on Ghost in the Shell (1995) which talks about the perspective of a woman who has chronic pain on the central character, a full-body cyborg. The least interesting essay for my taste was on Blood Machines (2020) which read more like a complaint about other movies than an examination of the one under discussion.
While these are scholarly essays, bright teenagers should have little difficulty following them. (Given that some of the movies are about taboo subjects, parents might want to check the book out before giving it to younger readers.) The book is currently available either as a downloadable PDF or print-on-demand. I especially liked the hardcover version of the physical book as the cover does not take fingerprints too easily, unlike some other POD books I’ve read recently.
Highly recommended to science fiction movie fans–this one would make a good gift for the one in your life who also likes books....more
Humans have long been fascinated by structures that pack the maximum amount of path in a small space, and those that create a puzzle to move through tHumans have long been fascinated by structures that pack the maximum amount of path in a small space, and those that create a puzzle to move through to find a center or exit. This 1922 book was the first major work in English to take a thorough look at the history and locations of mazes and labyrinths.
The author mentions in the introduction that the words “labyrinth” and “maze” have been used so interchangeably over the years that defining a difference between them is a matter for the individual scholar. Sometimes it comes down to which flows better as a name.
The history starts with the ancient world, particularly the Egyptian and Cretan Labyrinths, the latter of course most associated with the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur. Both of these seem to have long since vanished, but there are cave systems and ruins that resemble the fabled confusing structures of yore.
Then it’s up to the church labyrinths of Medieval Europe, embedded in the floors or walls of cathedrals. Later scholars suggested that these were used as ways of making penance for those who could not go on pilgrimages, but as of 1922 no contemporary sources had been found to support this belief. The labyrinths were not generally decorated with Christian symbology, and many had direct visual depictions of minotaurs.
Then it’s on to turf mazes cut into the soil once very common in rural England. These chapters make somewhat sad reading as it mentions maze after maze that has vanished, including one that was destroyed by tanks in World War One.
After that, botanical mazes, both floral ones that do not block your view of other paths, and the topiary or hedge mazes that do. These were huge for English estates back in the day, but considered somewhat passe by the early 20th Century and nowadays confined to a few diehard grounds and parks.
Then stone-built mazes of various places including Finland and Arizona. This is followed by a discussion of why so many labyrinths were named after Troy, the famously impregnable (until Trojan Horse) city. And Rosamund’s Bower, named after an alleged mistress of King Henry the Second, who was kept from the jealous queen by a house (bower} filled with confusing, maze-like passages. It didn’t work, according to legend.
Then it’s time for the etymology of mazes and labyrinths and some thoughts on designing them. The author looks at mentions of labyrinths and mazes in literature, often as metaphors.
The final chapter brings us up to the present of 1922, talking about paper mazes, mirror mazes, and maze toys. This is followed by a bibliography (now considerably out of date) and index. There are copious illustrations showing real and reconstructed mazes that should afford hours of fun if traced.
My reprint of the book by “The Lost Library” preserves the original typeface, which adds to the charm.
This is a thorough look at the subject using the resources available to the author at the time. It’s Anglocentric, so those outside Europe and the classical world who want their own countries’ rich maze heritage acknowledged may need to seek out newer volumes. I found the subject fascinating and the writing engaging when the author wasn’t just listing locations as he sometimes does.
Recommended to bright teenagers on up who enjoy puzzles and games....more
Austin Swiftbrooke’s sister Skylar disappeared two years ago on the planet Callister. Practicing his fencing alone in the natural “arena” near the humAustin Swiftbrooke’s sister Skylar disappeared two years ago on the planet Callister. Practicing his fencing alone in the natural “arena” near the human colony without her seems hollow, but is a connection to her, and a way of showing he hasn’t given up hope Skylar’s alive. When a strange little man named Ko Lian Po appears and offers to take Austin to his sister, the boy agrees despite his misgivings.
It’s at this point that some monsters show up. As a result, Ko Lian Po is forced to open a gateway further away from Skylar than he had intended, and a much longer voyage is started. It is eventually explained that they are on the parallel world Saffrian. Most of its technological development appears to be at a medieval level, though there are hints that it once was more machine-oriented before a disaster called the Separation occurred. There’s a thriving subculture of competitive swordplay, and artists have an elevated status.
The latter turns out to be because artists tend to have precognitive abilities in this world, creating art that foretells events to be brought about or forestalled. Skylar, as it happens, looks very much like one such artist, Cabrill. Cabrill is on the run from the Art Guild as it’s feared that her visions have driven her mad, and from the lord Kriken, who wants her to solve a crisis in his fiefdom at the cost of her freedom. Skylar is currently impersonating Cabrill in an effort to allow the artist to have enough time to figure out what her artworks truly mean.
Ko Lian Po has fetched Austin not just because Skylar would like to see him again, but because a figure that looks just like Austin appears in Cabrill’s artwork and is presumably key to solving the upcoming crisis.
This small press science fiction novel falls mostly into the young adult category due to the age of the primary protagonists and its themes. There are chapters from other viewpoints to fill in some background details (I like the self-centered fellow who’s stuck in charge of the asylum for mad artists.)
The art creation segments are interesting and varied. It’s fairly obvious though that the writer wrote large sections of this work to reflect an interest in modern fencing. We get a little bit of Austin having to adjust to the more rounded sword combat of Saffrian, only to get matters arranged so that the locals have to play more or less by his rules instead. And the final confrontation is specifically designed to play into the specific kind of swordplay he and Skylar practice.
There’s a lot of world and characters crammed in, and much of it gets short shrift as this is a standalone book. Once the actual villain of the book finally shows up, explanations and motivations are rushed for the big combat scene.
Perhaps the biggest question bandied about but never quite answered is whether the artists’ visions and works create the future, or are created by the future. Certain segments seem railroaded.
There is plenty of room in the setting for other works, though probably not with the same main characters.
Recommended for young adults with an interest in fencing....more
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a big boom in paperback horror books, which was helped along by some truly lurid cover art that told the potentBack in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a big boom in paperback horror books, which was helped along by some truly lurid cover art that told the potential reader right up front that this was a book about, say, flesh-eating rabbits. Horror writer and vintage paperback collector Grady Hendrix leads us on a voyage through these exciting decades.
After an introduction in which Mr. Hendrix talks about his discovery of “The Little People” by John Christopher, which includes Nazi leprechauns as a major plot point, and got him interested in what else might be out there, the book takes us on a journey from Satan through haunted houses to serial killers.
Per this history, horror book covers in the 1960s tended towards the understated and even the downright musty. Horror was a smaller part of the market, and the majority of the novels coming out were old-fashioned. But gothic romance was the hot thing, and the classic “woman in nightgown running from castle with one lit window” covers gave them a clear identity.
About the time gothic romance was giving way in popularity to “bodice-rippers”, Rosemary’s Baby, The Other, and The Exorcist all came out right in a row. They hit the bestseller lists, and suddenly horror literature was hot!
But eventually market changes ripped the heart out of the midlist publishers, and the emphasis was on books that were “guaranteed” to sell for three months. “Thrillers” rather than “chillers” dominated the bestseller list. Oh, horror literature still survives, but it’s mostly small press these days, and covers often make you have to work to determine if a book is horror or just urban fantasy.
Of course, this sort of history just wouldn’t look right without plenty of illustrations, and full-color ones at that. This book delivers with many cover reproductions, including both pages of several die-cut covers. (That is, where the outside cover has a hole in it that reveals part of the inside cover.)
Naturally, there are some gruesome images that might not be suitable for sensitive readers. The “Inhumanoids” chapter also points out that there was a subsection of the genre that heavily played on fear of non-white people and “foreign” cultures; Native American lore was especially mined for horrors.
End matter includes minibios of some of the creators and publishers discussed, recommendations of the books that are actually fun to read, extensive picture credits, acknowledgements, and an index.
The writing style is humorous, but more in the way of setting up one-liners rather than horror host puns. “If Whitney Houston is right, and the children are indeed our future, then we need to approach our future with maximum caution.”
While this book may be fun to get for yourself, it would also make a fine gift for your horror-obsessed relative or friend. It’s sure to spark many a discussion if you let the neighbors see it!...more
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was the first president of the United States to have been a movie star. Motion pictures that he’d worked in and that he saw Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was the first president of the United States to have been a movie star. Motion pictures that he’d worked in and that he saw certainly affected his politics, and his politics affected the movies that came out during his time in office. This volume examines the intersection of film and politics in America between 1976 (Reagan’s first run for president) and 1988 (his last full year in office.)
The author was a movie and cultural columnist in the Village Voice newspaper for many years, and has written two previous books on the intersection of movie culture and political culture in previous time periods. He quotes columns he wrote about Reagan at the time extensively.
It’s pretty obvious from the outset that the author was and is not a big President Reagan fan. The emphasis is on Ronnie’s skill at projecting an image of “normal guy you can trust, but tough on the inside”, and believing what he said even when it was at odds with observable reality.
The writer also makes it clear that many of the movies he’s discussing are not his favorites from that time period, but rather those that were most influential or that reflected the times best. Lots of summer blockbusters in here!
The first full chapter compares and contrasts Nashville and Jaws from 1975, and how each reflected the political climate at the time, whether overtly or as subtext. In the runup to the Bicentennial election, America thought it was thirsting for moral rectitude in its leaders, so Jimmy Carter was narrowly elected.
But it turned out that the ability to make the American people feel like they were in the right worked better than trying to steer a course based on moral principles, so Reagan came in four years later.
This was a time of Rocky and Rambo and Terminator and a bit of Dirty Harry, as well as Star Wars, feeding the president lines he could use to describe his policies and actions in Hollywood terms.
I found this book to be a nostalgic blast, even if my personal circumstances during that decade-plus weren’t the best. The author makes good points and brings up some interesting films. I suspect, however, that this book will resonate more strongly with those who were and are critical of the Reagan administration and its policies and aftereffects. (Including the very disappointing remake in the 2010s.) Unabashed President Reagan fans will find less here to enjoy.
I could have done with some more digging into the AIDS crisis and the Bork fiasco, but perhaps those didn’t have (at the time) the right movie counterpart to grapple with.
Overall, a good overview of the time period from a film culture perspective. Recommended to those who want to learn more about the intersection of Hollywood and politics....more
Griet is sixteen, and would ordinarily be living in her parents’ home for another few years, preparing for the day she would get married and join her Griet is sixteen, and would ordinarily be living in her parents’ home for another few years, preparing for the day she would get married and join her husband’s family. But her father was blinded in an accident at his job as a tile painter, and it will be years yet before her brother graduates from his apprenticeship and starts earning money. So the guild has decided to help out by getting Griet a job as a maidservant.
As it happens, prominent guild member and portrait painter Johannes Vermeer is soon to add yet another child to his growing family, so they could use the help. And Griet has a talent that will make her especially valuable, a detail-oriented sense that will allow her to clean in the master’s studio without moving anything from the place he needs it to be. We and Vermeer first see this when she’s chopping vegetables for soup, showing a natural gift for color balance.
A maidservant’s work is hard, and Griet must learn to deal with the varied people in the household, from Vermeer’s mother in law, the matriarch of the clan, through Vermeer’s often cranky and often pregnant wife, through the children, one of whom is especially bratty, to the senior maidservant who sees Griet as a threat. But there are compensations, too. Griet gets to see the creative process of a master artist up close, observing the paintings as they slowly develop.
And more, once Vermeer realizes how acute Griet’s artistic sense is, he brings her closer into his world, allowing her to mix his paints and even asking her advice on the development of paintings!
But though Vermeer’s family is better off than Griet’s, he still needs to support them, and as such he needs wealthy patrons to buy his paintings. One of them, Van Ruijven, is a lecher that has already had his way with one of Vermeer’s previous models, and now he has set his eye on Griet. Griet has no interest in being a married man’s plaything, but Van Ruijven insists on having her one way or another.
Vermeer’s answer leads to the creation of the masterpiece known as “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”
Relatively little is known about the personal details of Vermeer’s life, so there is plenty of room for fiction in this novel set in 1660s Holland. Griet and her circumstances are entirely made up, which is all to the better. She’s a fairly engaging viewpoint character whose circumstances are difficult but wastes little time with might have beens. (It’s hinted that in another time and place she would have been a skilled painter herself.)
I especially liked the recurring use of the compass rose in the Delft town square to show the different directions Griet’s life takes, including the moment she chooses her own future.
This is a quiet novel, with most of the focus being on the developing relationship between Griet and Vermeer. She develops a crush on him, but he’s self-absorbed enough not to notice, and his fixation on his work causes Vermeer to make some missteps dealing with his wife’s feelings. The development of the relationship between Griet and her future husband is more perfunctory.
It’s worth noting that since a fair amount of time is spent on Vermeer’s artistic process, the author goes with the idea that he used a “camera obscura” supplied by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek to created some of the effects in his paintings.
This 1999 book was a best-seller, and there was a movie in 2003. Keeping in mind that the personal relationships and personalities in the story are almost entirely made up to serve the narrative, I recommend this book to those interested in life in Holland in the Seventeen Century, and those wanting books about the artistic process....more
Confessing your love to your high-school crush is always a nerve-wracking experience. It’s possible that your beloved returns your affections, but morConfessing your love to your high-school crush is always a nerve-wracking experience. It’s possible that your beloved returns your affections, but more likely you will receive a flat “not interested”, or “buzz off” or perhaps she will laugh in your face and tell you you are a hideous deformity that no woman could ever love and you should do yourself in as a favor to everyone–but enough about my high school days. Let’s talk about Chiyo Sakura, who has eyes for no one but her tall and quiet classmate Umetaro Nozaki.
Sakura fumbles a bit and says something that sounds like “I’m your fan!” which is sounds more like “I have a crush on you” in Japanese. Nozaki doesn’t seem the least bit surprised and gives his classmate an autograph. It turns out that Nozaki is not-so-secretly a mangaka (comic book creator) who gets published in shoujo (girls’) manga under the pen name Sakiko Yumeno.
Despite being expert at depicting chaste romance on the page, Nozaki is clueless about Sakura’s crush on him, and she winds up becoming one of his art assistants. As time goes on, we meet their friends and associates, all of whom are clueless in some way. And so this romantic comedy begins!
This shoujo manga is done in what’s called the 4-koma format, which is kind of like a newspaper comic strip (which are vertical in Japan.) Four panels per strip, with some sort of gag in each. This gives the story a rapid-fire feel as unlike a daily strip which must recap constantly, several pages of strips appear each month.
As this is a series about making manga, it gets into some meta humor. For example, because the magazine Nozaki’s stories appear in is aimed at junior high school girls, editorial has decreed that the characters cannot be shown doing anything illegal lest impressionable children copy that. Not only does this mean that Nozaki can’t show his juvenile deliquents smoking or underage drinking, but he can’t even depict them breaking traffic laws! So he must find a different method to use a particular romantic moment.
Oh, for the few readers who aren’t already experts on manga conventions, the “-kun” in the title is an honorific, like “Mr.” or “Ms.” “Kun” is used between or to teenaged boys primarily, it’s a bit less formal than “-san.”
The jokes are pretty funny, especially if you’re familiar with shoujo manga cliches, and the art serves the 4-koma format well (plus there’s jokes about the art.)
However, because this is primarily a gag strip with romantic elements as opposed to a romance strip with comedic elements, the characters’ cluelessness means that relationships progress little if at all over the course of the volume.
Content notes: some humor revolves around gender roles and certain characters not fitting into the society-approved categories.
Recommended to romantic comedy fans who are okay with the characters being dolts about romance....more
When John James Audubon arrived in Philadelphia in 1824, he carried with him a portfolio of beautiful bird paintings he hoped to turn into a book, andWhen John James Audubon arrived in Philadelphia in 1824, he carried with him a portfolio of beautiful bird paintings he hoped to turn into a book, and a backstory of childhood in Louisiana, being the son of a French admiral, and studying painting under one of the great artists of the previous era. The paintings were very well done, especially since Audubon insisted on always making them life-sized. But much of his supposed history was simply not true. In fact, John James Audubon wasn’t even his birth name!
Possibly worse, Audubon was seen as stepping on the legacy of Alexander Wilson, America’s greatest ornithologist to that point. Wilson’s life work, American Ornithology, had been posthumously completed by his friends, including one George Ord, a member of Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Audubon reportedly was dismissive of Wilson’s accuracy and completeness, and claimed to have met the older man some years before, given him pointers, and then not given credit in the published version.
Ord was angered by this, and suspicious of Audubon’s wild tales of his past, blackballed the painter from Academy membership, as well as convincing the city’s publishers not to print Audubon’s work. Rejected, Audubon knew he would have to find another way.
That setback begins this biography of the famed painter and ornithologist. It then tracks back to his origins as they are now understood. The name change and fib about where he was born was meant to conceal that Audubon had been born out of wedlock in what is now Haiti. Some of the rest was to boost his social status, and the remainder was just the tall tales frontiersmen liked to tell.
This volume also serves as a biography for Alexander Wilson, and how the British immigrant weaver, poet and schoolteacher came to be one of the top experts on American birds. It’s interesting to compare and contrast his life to Audubon’s.
After things got dicey on Haiti for the French, Audubon’s father (who was merely a commander) took him to France to live with his family. When young Jean came of age, France was at war, and to avoid having the boy drafted, his father sent “John James” to America to manage some property there.
Audubon loved the great outdoors, especially the birds, and spent most of his time out there shooting birds and drawing pictures of them. He had his ups and downs, moving from place to place for business with mixed results, though his rambling ways seemed not to be the major reason for poor income. Indeed, he was doing quite well for a few years before the Panic of 1819 left Audubon and his family penniless.
Mrs. Audubon took on various jobs, mostly teaching, and their family resided with friends while Audubon buckled down to the project of creating as many bird illustrations as possible for the project he was sure would make their fortune. Once he felt ready, Audubon headed northeast to Philadelphia, with the results we have already seen.
Audubon scrimped and saved for a ticket to Britain, where he thought he might have better luck. As indeed he did. First in Scotland, then in England, Audubon’s bird paintings were a sensation. Alexander Wilson was a non-entity there, and Audubon’s outlandish ways and stories so denigrated in Pennsylvania were adored by the Brits.
The Birds of America found a printer there, as did the companion volume Ornithological Biography which not only described the birds depicted in Audubon’s pictures, but had sidebars on the author’s personal life. Alas, these sidebars are often at least partially fictional.
Audubon began having larger mood swings while residing in Britain, perhaps foreshadowing the mental illness he would have in his twilight years. (Constant exposure to arsenic, which was used to preserve bird specimens, probably didn’t help.) Eventually, The Birds of America was finished, though only a few hundred complete sets were ever published, and Audubon went on to other projects.
After John James Audubon died, his widow Lucy wrote a sanitized biography of him, which most children’s biographies of the man have worked from. Between that and his own habit of prevarication, it can be difficult to sort out what of his life is true.
The prose style of this biography is decent, and does not spend too much time on the drier side of history. I was a bit disappointed that there is only a small selection of black and white illustrations in the center, as the whole book is about the beautiful color paintings Audubon did. There are endnotes (good reading as the author sifts through the sources for reliability), a bibliography, and a small index.
Sensitive readers should be aware that there’s a lot of descriptions of hunting (Audubon was after all an avid hunter) and that Audubon, like many people who lived in Kentucky and points south during this time period, owned or rented slaves. (No quotes are cited about his personal feelings on the subject of slavery.)
This book would be best appreciated by bird lovers from senior high school level on up who want to know more about America’s early ornithologists.
While you’re here, if you like birds and want to support them, please consider donating to the Audubon Society, named after the fellow we’ve just been discussing. http://mn.audubon.org/support (Note: I am not a member of the Audubon Society and was not asked to provide this endorsement.)...more
Rakugo is a traditional Japanese form of storytelling in which a single performer sits on a stage and tells a comedic or sentimental story with only aRakugo is a traditional Japanese form of storytelling in which a single performer sits on a stage and tells a comedic or sentimental story with only a fan and small cloth for props and never moving from the seiza position. It has its roots in sermons preached by Buddhist monks trying to liven up the audience, and became especially popular during the Tokugawa period (when most of the stories are set.)
But times change, and in the Showa era, it is not clear that the tradition of rakugo is going to survive. Many of the young people have no patience for going out to a theater to hear some old guy talk when they can just turn on a television. And the grandmasters of the art are passing away without successors, causing their specialty stories to be lost.
Yakumo Yurakutei VIII (one of the traditions of rakugo is that new masters take on the name of former greats) in particular has despaired of the art form meaning anything in the present day. As far as he’s concerned, rakugo will die with him, and he has refused until now to take on any apprentices. But on a whim, he agrees to a performance in prison (insert joke about captive audiences here) to lighten the lives of the condemned men.
This bears unexpected fruit some months later, when one of the prisoners appears before Yakumo, begging to be made his apprentice. It seems this petty criminal was so moved by Yakumo’s “God of Death” story that he decided to dedicate his own life to the art of rakugo. Yakumo is amused, and whimsically agrees, naming his new apprentice “Yotaro”, which in rakugo stories is always the name of a blockhead.
Since this is a fair assessment of Yotaro’s mental acumen, and he had squandered the old name (Kyoji), Yotaro is just fine with this. He works hard as an apprentice, learning the ropes of the rakugo world. He also meets Yakumo’s adopted daughter Konatsu, and the soap opera elements of the story come in here.
Konatsu is the daughter of Yakumo’s best friend and fellow rakugo master Sukeroku. Sukeroku died young under suspicious circumstances, and Konatsu suspects Yakumo of murder. She longs to follow in her father’s footsteps, but there has never been a female rakugo artist, and as far as Yakumo is concerned, there never will be. This has caused a lot of friction between them.
This josei (women’s) manga series was titled Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju in Japanese, referring to Yakumo’s plan of “double suicide” with the art of rakugo. It was well-received and has a twelve episode anime adaptation.
As someone who does storytelling every so often, it’s fascinating to learn about this specialized branch of the field. Yotaro is a fun protagonist–we know he’s done wrong in the past, but Yotaro has put that behind him, and looks to the future with optimism. He may not be the brightest fellow, but he has heart and once he learns his own style of storytelling, shows a knack for the field.
Yakumo’s motives for apprenticing Yotaro are a mystery even to him, he’s a serious, stern man who likes things a certain way and doesn’t like change. And yet, somehow this feels right. He’s also hiding some mixed feelings about his friendship/rivalry with Sukeroku, and their parting.
Konatsu’s a bit more difficult to read at this point in the story. She wants revenge for her father, but is also grateful to Yakumo for taking her in after her parents’ deaths. She wants to succeed in a career that doesn’t allow women, but there doesn’t seem to be a way forward for her. She can support Yotaro’s efforts, but how does that help her?
The author’s research shines through, and the bits of rakugo storytelling we get to see are fascinating. While there’s nothing in this volume that goes too far, the series is rated “Older Teen” so parents of young readers may want to be careful.
Recommended to fans who want to learn more about this traditional performing art, and are good with some soap opera along with the education....more
Moritaka Mashiro’s uncle was a one-hit manga creator whose work appeared in Weekly Shounen Jump back in the day. After the end of that series, he workMoritaka Mashiro’s uncle was a one-hit manga creator whose work appeared in Weekly Shounen Jump back in the day. After the end of that series, he worked himself to death trying to come up with a new hit. Warned by this example, Moritaka has already discarded the idea of becoming a manga creator in junior high school, even though he’s a talented artist.
But one day Moritaka is tracked down by his book-smart classmate Akito Takagi, who wants to use his writing abilities to plot manga, but isn’t a good artist. Akito suggests teaming up to create comics, as sharing the load should avoid the overwork problem. He also gives Moritaka the nudge needed for the young artist to speak to his long-time crush, Miho Azuki. Turns out she returns the crush, but her ambition is to become a voice actress in anime shows.
The young teens make a pact. The boys will create a manga good enough to become an anime, and Miho will play the part of the female lead. After that, Moritaka and Miho will get married, but until then they won’t pursue an in-person relationship while concentrating on their careers. This decided, they must now learn how to become successful manga creators!
This manga series ran from 2008 to 2012 in Weekly Shounen Jump, and was rather “meta.” Several of the characters were based on actual employees of Jump, and there were frequent mentions of other manga that actually appeared in the magazine, and their creators, who always remained just off-page. The business practices were modeled after those of the real magazine, so it was a peek behind the curtain for fans and aspiring creators.
The creators of Bakuman. had previously created the hit series Death Note and continued to have excellent art and twisty plotlines where smart people try to out-think each other and the readers.
Note that the volume at hand is #11, so there will be spoilers for previous volumes in the next few paragraphs.
After having two series end early for different reasons, our creative duo is skating on thin ice with the senior editor. They have to come up with something that will compete in the popularity polls Jump runs each issue with Crow and +Natural, the two series drawn by genius creator Eiji Nizuma. The first step is complete, thinking up a solid premise, about a group of elementary school students who commit elaborate but harmless pranks.
Now it’s time to come up with character designs, names and the best title to make readers interested in the first chapter, and then in continuing to read the series. The fellows settle on Perfect Crime Party. They also welcome two new art assistants, the pretentiously arty Shuichi Moriya, and the whimsical pleaser Shun Shiratori, as well as their assistant on the previous series, Ichiriki Orihara.
The combination is a success! PCP gets the number one spot in the reader survey for its first chapter. That’s a real ego-booster, but as the weeks pass, the ranking steadily drops. Our heroes are going to need to come up with something truly special if they want to stay in the magazine!
But of course Moritaka and Akito aren’t the only manga creators out there. Aiko Iwase, the writer for +Natural, has come up with a gimmick that boosts that series’ ratings considerably. Bad boy creator Shinta Fukuda just came up with a motorcycle racing series that’s sure to attract attention. And Eiji continues to be a genius.
We also look at some creators who aren’t doing so well. Gloomy shut-in Ryu Shizuka has let his series True Human drift in a direction too fetishy for even the fans of Jump that like the sexy stuff; he’s in danger of cancellation unless his editor finds a way to kick his butt into gear. And talented but slovenly and socially inept former assistant Takuro Nakai is growing bored of farm life in his semi-voluntary exile.
The volume ends with Moritaka and Akito having come up with their big plan, with the results to be revealed in the next volume!
As I’ve noted in other reviews, “work” manga, about what a particular job is like and how to succeed at it, is an area where manga has it all over mainstream American comic books. This is a fine example of the genre, mixing realistic business practices and artistic notes with exaggerated circumstances and a soap-opera set of subplots. There’s an assortment of fun characters, and it’s good that our heroes aren’t the most naturally talented of the bunch.
One iffy part of the manga is the use of female characters. The few creators who are women are not really taken seriously as competition by the male creators, even when they probably should be. Akito has a habit of saying things that are kind of sexist, and it’s not clear if this is supposed to be a character flaw or an example of his intelligence. (One of his early speeches was toned way down in the anime adaptation, which suggests I wasn’t the only one who was uncomfortable.) And is Aiko Iwase constantly undercut by the story because she’s a woman who stands up for herself and wants to be appreciated for her brains, or simply because she’s got a personality that would turn people off even if she was a man?
Overall, this is an excellent series for manga fans who want to see what the creative process for manga is like, or who wish they too could work for Weekly Shounen Jump....more
Back in the early 1980s, manga and anime fandom was tiny, with almost no material being available in English save dubs heavily edited for American chiBack in the early 1980s, manga and anime fandom was tiny, with almost no material being available in English save dubs heavily edited for American children’s television and expunged as much as possible of their Japanese roots. It required a certain amount of determination, luck and a little madness to collect these foreign entertainments. One of the first cracks in the dam was this book, published in 1983. (The edition I am reviewing is the 1986 paperback with updated sales figures.)
The book begins with a look at the manga industry itself, the insanely high sales figures, the wide variety of genres and the demographics covered. This is compared to the relatively tiny and narrow American comic book market. (To be fair, Japan was going through an economic boom and the U.S. comics market would do much better in the latter half of the Eighties, but it’s still striking.)
From there we proceed to the history of manga, starting from the delightful Animal Scrolls of the 12th Century. While there was a thriving culture of humor magazines with cartoons and political cartoons, magazines with just comics were primarily for children until after World War Two. Then there was a phase where independent non-children’s manga were primarily made for the pay library market. But with cheaper printing processes and especially the mass-market success of Osamu Tezuka, weekly and monthly manga anthologies sold at newsstands became the standard format.
The chapters that follow cover general themes found in manga: The samurai spirit and Japanese tradition, often translated into modern-day sports. Romance and emotional drama catering to girls and women. Business comics both dramatic and silly. And taboo-breaking manga, dealing with subjects from sex to teen rebellion against society.
There’s another chapter on the details of the industry, showing how artists, publishers and accountants work together to produce the manga everyone loves to read.
And then a chapter on the future of manga. This is naturally the one that’s most interesting in retrospect. Mr. Schodt predicted that manga would never become successful in America due to the difficulties of translation and resistance to foreign goods. He thought only a handful of classics would ever be brought successfully to market, and primarily for the scholarly venues. As it turned out, there was in fact a tremendous thirst for manga, which just needed to find the right distribution channel.
The book closes out with four manga samples. The first is a brief interlude from Osamu Tezuka’s classic Phoenix in which a sculptor has a vision of the undying bird. Reiji Matsumoto’s Ghost Warrior is a complete story about two Japanese soldiers separated from their units during World War Two. (Note: sexual situations.) Ryoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles is represented by the chapter where Marie Antoinette refuses to talk to Madame DuBarry, setting off a diplomatic crisis. Keiji Nakazawa’s searing Barefoot Gen depicts the events of August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima. (Note: Horrific depictions of injury and corpses.)
There’s a brief index and bibliography at the back, and plenty of illustrations throughout.
This is an excellent introduction to the subject of manga, and a snapshot of what the industry looked like in the mid-1980s. Younger readers may be a bit disappointed by the dated material–many of today’s top creators weren’t even born when this book was published! Still, recommended to anyone with an interest in manga as a primary text....more
Note: This review contains SPOILERS for earlier volumes and the video game.
Kazuki Sendō is a mediocre college student who is somewhat adrift in life aNote: This review contains SPOILERS for earlier volumes and the video game.
Kazuki Sendō is a mediocre college student who is somewhat adrift in life as his talent was deemed insufficient to qualify for art school. His buddy Taishi Kuhonbutsu invites Kazuki to come along to an event at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center. This turns out to be Comic Party, a fannish gathering where amateur manga artists sell their doujinshi, home-made comics magazines.
Fired up by the enthusiam of the otaku (extreme fans) community, Kazuki gets talked into forming a “circle” (partnership) with Taishi named “Brother 2” to create doujinshi. Kazuki will handle the artistic duties, while Taishi focuses on the production aspects such as printing and licensing. Kazuki’s childhood friend Mizuki Takase considers otaku to be smelly, bad-mannered creeps and objects to Kazuki going into fanwork. (She eventually lightens up about this and even learns the art of dressing up as favorite characters, cosplay.)
Kazuki hones his craft and becomes a popular doujinshi maker while interacting with a number of pretty girls who are also in the doujinshi trade.
This seinen (young men’s) manga was based on a popular dating simulation video game that also got an anime adaptation.
In this, the final volume, Kazuki engages in a sales battle with the arrogant Eimi, then gets a chance to break into professional manga creation. While he’s struggling with this new career path, Mizuki has her own crisis as she sees the man she…loves, okay, she loves him! moving away from her into a world she doesn’t have a place in. Kazuki and Mizuki must resolve the issues in their relationship before he can complete his professional debut.
As is common with dating sims, Kazuki is a rather bland fellow, mostly distinguished by kind-heartedness and a strong work ethic. This allows the more quirky supporting characters to carry most of the action as they bounce off him. And as is common with adaptations of dating sims, many of the branching paths where he would be romancing girls other than Mizuki have been cut short.
There’s a good evocation of what it’s like to be a fan in a creative community, making your own art or stories, and enjoying those of others–and sometimes clashing over matters that are rather trivial in the end.
The art is okay, and the fanservice is not overdone, but the girls do tend to suffer from “sameface”, relying on their hairstyles and accessories to be told apart.
The series was printed in the United States by now-defunct Tokyopop and is unlikely to be “rescued”, so copies may be difficult to track down. Mostly of interest to those interested in the doujinshi community....more
Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922) was a German-speaking Swiss psychiatrist who developed an interesting experiment involving inkblots. T“What do you see?”
Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922) was a German-speaking Swiss psychiatrist who developed an interesting experiment involving inkblots. The son of an artist and himself artistically trained, Rorschach was fascinated by visual perception and hoped to use the things people saw when they looked at his inkblots to help understand their minds. The experiment was surprisingly successful, and the strapped-for-cash doctor barely managed to scrape together enough money to do a first printing of Psychodiagnostics and the associated illustrated cards.
Rorschach died short years after the publication of his book, and before he could see the test gain acceptance outside his native Switzerland. Without its creator to correct any flaws or incorporate new insights, the Rorschach Test became a force to reckon with in international psychology.
This is, according to the introduction, the first full-length biography of Hermann Rorschach, but it’s also a history of his famous creation–which doubles the length of the book.
We learn of Rorschach’s childhood happiness and sorrows, his education in Zurich, his fascination with Russian culture (Hermann married a Russian woman who’d come to Switzerland to become a medical doctor), and his important but poorly paid institutional work.
The inkblots themselves are reminiscent of a children’s game, blotting paper and trying to interpret the shapes. And some similar psychological experiments had been tried before. But Rorschach was the first to craft specific blots, neither too abstract nor too obviously one thing, and to systematize the interpretation of what the examinee saw.
Because the inkblot test interpretation contained both crunchy numbers and fanciful imagery, it could be used in a number of ways. It was adaptable across language and cultural barriers, unlike many written tests. So the Rorschach Test grew in popularity and influence, not just in the realm of medical science but in pop culture. Its imagery resonated in 1940s film noir and 1980s comic books.
But one of the flaws of the test, as Hermann Rorschach noted, was that he’d found something that seemed to work, but not laid a solid theoretical foundation under it that explained how and why it worked. So the test became itself “a Rorschach test”, with different people reading into it according to their own psychological theorems. This caused schisms among those who used the test in different ways, and eventually gave rise to a movement that believed Rorschach Tests didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.
The author of this biography thinks the inkblot test is still of importance, and still of use.
There are black and white illustrations throughout, and two sections of “colored plates.” An appendix directly reprints Olga Rorschach’s speech on her husband’s character. There are extensive end notes and an index.
The subject is fascinating and the writing is interesting, though sometimes veering into deep psychology jargon. There is discussion of famous cases and people involved with the inkblot test, including Adolf Eichmann!
On a side note, Hermann Rorschach was quite a good-looking fellow, and one of the few psychiatrists who could be played by a Hollywood star without suspending disbelief.
Highly recommended to those with an interest in the history of psychology.
Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books to facilitate this review. There was no other compensation requested or offered. Sadly, the BfB site is closing down, so this will be my last review from that source....more
![さよなら絵梨 [Sayonara Eri]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1667712287l/60786081._SX50_.jpg)
Loading...
