Out, Long Halloween

I read The Long Halloween over shabbat. I was intrigued, because I saw that it had gotten the "absolute" treatment, and I liked Time Sale's work back when he was an indie artist writing Billi 99.

The good news is, I still like his art. The bad news is that the story was not very good. Loeb, the writer, structures the story in chapters such that each one takes place on a holiday(Halloween, Christmas, 4th of July, etc). Each one also has a cameo by one of Batman's super-foes. Since the story is set early in Batman's career, Loeb seems to be trying to make a point about how Batman's presence draws these villains to Gotham (He even has Gordon and other characters say something to the effect of "none of these freaks were here before Batman came," just so we readers don't miss the point). The only problem is that he never actually bothers making the connection, and most of the villains have no reason for being there at all--they're just there to show up in the cameos for that holiday, then go away again.

Then there's the surprise ending. Lafferty may not have been 100% correct when he said that every book would be better without the last couple of pages, but he was sure right about this book. It's a surprise, but it loses any impact, because it makes no sense in the context of what's come before. You can't even go back to the beginning and look at it in a different light--it just makes no sense.

Also moved along in Natsuo Kirino's Out. I started the 4th chapter feeling very let down by the book--it really hadn't been what I'd been hoping for. But in this chapter, the police investigation into Kenji's murder finally gets under way, and Kirino's talents come to the fore. I think that everything up till this point (Masako's near-rape, Kenji's murder and disposal, the yakuza's crimes) are presented for shock value, and it's just not that interesting. (It probably doesn't help that I'm reading it through the filter of Japanese, which has an automatic distancing effect, lessening the shock value)

Here, though, we see Masako under pressure, and, even though we know what's going to happen, it's still very tense. I think that's one of the marks of a good story-teller -- even though we know how a situation is going to come out, she can still ratchet up the tension. I'm looking forward to finishing up the first book.

I started Meir Shalev's Fontanelle, if you can call 2 paragraphs starting. My dictionary was utterly useless by the time I hit the fourth word, so I've ordered a new one that should help. Sadly, I can't carry the Even Shushan everywhere I go.