DAILY PHOTO: Creatures of the Gangtok Zoo
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BOOK REVIEW: Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief by Maurice Leblanc
Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief by Maurice LeblancMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Out: July 5, 2022
This is a beautifully illustrated edition of the first collection of stories featuring the fictional burglar-extraordinaire, Arsène Lupin. While some of the nine stories reference others, they each read standalone.
Arsène Lupin is the Sherlock Holmes of crime. Like Holmes, he’s extremely intelligent, gifted in observation, with deep insight into human nature, and with a range of practical skills from hand-to-hand combat to disguise, but Lupin puts these talents to use for the purpose of theft. While one might think of Prof. Moriarty as “the Sherlock Holmes of crime,” Lupin operates by a code, eschewing senseless violence, carefully targeting his victims, and returning items he feels inappropriately taken. (Mirroring how Holmes occasionally lets a [technically] guilty party go free due to extenuating circumstances.) Besides cameo references to Holmes in multiple stories, the final story pits England’s greatest detective against France’s greatest burglar (though in a way that mostly allows each to retain an unblemished record and mutual admiration.)
I found these stories to be enjoyable to read, and generally clever, but – having been forced to make the comparison due to the repeated references to Holmes – I couldn’t help but see their inferiorty to the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Lupin is more one-dimensional and fantastical than Holmes. In Holmes, one recognizes that one is unlikely to get extreme intelligence without some sort of countervailing cognitive challenges – e.g. Holmes is an addict who needs to fill his days with work lest he fill them with heroin, and for all his great observational skills, Holmes frequently doesn’t recognize when he’s offending others with his brusque nature and sense of superiority. Lupin can come off as an arrogant jerk (he recognizes that he’s being narcissistic, but doesn’t care) but it seems we’re supposed to conclude that he’s just that good. Lupin is a fantastical mix of super intelligence, preternatural charm, and zero weaknesses – i.e. a perfect being made for pure escapism.
The stories are enjoyable and the art is beautifully rendered, and if you can avoid comparing it to Sherlock Holes and take it as mere escapism, you’ll likely find this book pleasing.
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BOOK REVIEW: Bone Orchard: The Passageway by Jeff Lemire
Bone Orchard: The Passageway by Jeff LemireMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Out: June 21, 2022
A geologist from the Geologic Survey is dispatched to a remote lighthouse island to investigate an unusual hole in the rock, and what he finds is beyond expectation.
I must admit, I might have found this book more intense were it not for my own recent reading history. In the past year or so, I’ve read more than one book placing a stranger on a lighthouse island, and so it feels cliché. I can’t say for certain whether it’s truly an overused plot device or a fluke of my reading selections (though they were all new releases.) The lighthouse is a visceral setting by virtue of its isolation, with only an antisocial lighthouse keeper for company.
The bigger challenge for me was the decision to let the art do much of the heavy lifting at the climax of the story. This created a great deal of ambiguity, and I couldn’t tell whether it was purposeful / strategic ambiguity or whether it was just a misunderstanding of what the reader would glean from the rapid succession of stylized panels. The artist did a good job of capturing the stark and frightful imagery necessary to achieve the requisite emotional palette for the story. However, I was distracted by so many questions: “Is this meant to be real or a dream?” “Why does the island work that way?” “What is the story’s base reality?” etc.
The book’s art and premise are good (if overly familiar,) but I felt the story was given short shrift, possibly the author was more focused on the overarching story and not enough on this as a standalone entity. Long-story-short: it’s okay, and maybe as a whole the series will be more promising.
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Buddha Wisdom [Haiku]
in the temple yard, i read the Buddha's words, and feel their wisdom
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DAILY PHOTO: Gangtok Graffiti
BOOK REVIEW: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark HaddonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Christopher Boone, an autistic teenager, decides he must solve the murder of his next-door neighbor’s dog, Wellington. Boone is extremely bright, but nearly dysfunctional in high-stimulation environments. He displays a number of the characteristics common among those on the Autistic Spectrum, including: constructing an exacting routine and set of rituals for living, the inability to tolerate deviations from said routines and rituals, and challenges in dealing with emotions and physical contact. The book isn’t really the murder mystery or Sherlock-style crime fiction it sounds like (though it does play on those genres and references Sherlock, a character that appeals to Christopher,) but, ultimately, the book is about the humor and drama of family life as both are impacted by the presence of a special needs child.
The book is humorous, and if you’ve seen TV shows like “Young Sheldon” or Netflix’s “Atypical” you’ll be familiar with the kind of humor – i.e. the humor of the disconnect between how neuro-atypical characters experience / perceive the world as opposed to how “neuro-typical” characters do so. Where this book does a better job than those shows is in its comfort of going just a bit further with the math and science jokes and references, presumably recognizing that readers are likely to follow the thinking a bit better than the average tv viewer. In fact, the book uses diagrams and even the rare equation to distinguish how Christopher sees the world.
What I think this book does best is putting the reader into Christopher’s shoes so that when he is doing something that most of us would consider a routine act of living, e.g. taking the subway, we are as on the edge of our seat as we would be in any hero’s journey that featured monsters and mayhem.
I’d highly recommend this book for all fiction readers. It’s highly readable, engrossing, funny, and, at times, heartrending.
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Silent Hilltop [Haiku]
DAILY PHOTO: Buddha Park of Ravangla
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Green Field [Haiku]
sunlit green field; clouds drift in from behind -- the farmer watches
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Madman of the Empty Valley [Free Verse]
Thang Tong Gyalpo, They called him: Maker of Iron Bridges, King of the Empty Plain, "Excellent Persistence," & Madman of the Empty Valley You might not like your bridge-maker sharing mind & body with a madman, but some of his 15th century bridges are still in use today.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 