Dark Entries

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Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow. He is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, and he received two Dagger Awards for the year's best short story and the Gold Dagger for Fiction. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, and Edinburgh. And then there's the overarching issue, which isn't Rankin's fault. This is just the whole "how do the western underpinnings of Constantine's metaphysics reconcile themselves with non-western metaphysics." I really feel for the Japanese character, for example: not just because she was molested by salarymen on trains, and not just because the comic's editor let the artist let the reader ogle her (talk about adding insult to injury -- though I guess here it works, a little, because the panels mimic the reality-TV viewer's perspective), but mostly because she was raised in a non-western country yet finds herself, after dying, left to deal with an overlord who is, for all intents and purposes, the western conception of the devil. I mean, you can read as much Joseph Campbell as you want and assume all myths are just masks painted on the faces of shared myths, but for a self-consciously cynical comic, Hellblazer really is beholden to powers it is smart enough to, but too lazy to, wrestle with. (Again, this is an ongoing failure of Hellblazer, not just of Rankin's entry, though he does fail to even remotely explore it.)

A young fiancée spends her first weekend in the country with the family of her betrothed. Although she finds them all basically nice, she also senses that their life is a tad too commonplace and passive for her. There is, however, an alternative of how to spend one’s time in the country offered to her. Author of: close to 50 "strange stories" in the weird-tale and ghost-story traditions, two novels ( The Late Breakfasters and The Model), two volumes of memoir ( The Attempted Rescue and The River Runs Uphill), and two books on the canals of England ( Know Your Waterways and The Story of Our Inland Waterways). Dark Entries tries to bill itself as an old school John Constantine story. It doesn't quite measure up. That is not to say it is not interesting and it does display a small shadow of the angst driven "real" JC stories (such as Hellblazer vol 1 and on). Choice of Weapons - I really liked this one, the end left me a bit at sea, the last paragraph in particular REALLY throws one for a loop. But overall I thought this was an excellent story with a very shadowy, almost "haunted house" atmosphere to it. A man becomes suddenly obsessed with a woman he sees in a restaurant, he goes after her, contending for her love with a quite sinister figure. If Hell's residents can tunnel so easily into Limbo, well, that's kind of a major mess of story that makes the plight of these few 20somethings seem kinda slight by comparison. And again, it's just left dangling.

Before DC pulled the plug on their adult-oriented horror line, Vertigo, they were still doing some really interesting things. In 2009, Vertigo started a Vertigo Crime series, a digest-sized hardcover graphic novel series written by well-known authors in the crime/mystery genre. You live surrounded by the claims of other people: to your labour when they call it peace, your life when they call it war; to your celibacy when they call you a bachelor, your body when they call you a husband. They tell you where you shall live, what you shall do, and what thoughts are dangerous.” Sewn signatures, printed on 110gsm acid-free paper, and bound by Biddles in bergundy wibalin cloth stamped in gilt and silver, with a silk ribbon marker and head and tailbands. 350 copies. Vertigo Crime που διαβάζω, το οποίο όμως ξεφεύγει από τα στενά όρια του αστυνομικού, μιας και πρωταγωνιστής είναι ο John Constantine, ή αλλιώς Hellblazer, ένας ντετέκτιβ παραφυσικών φαινομένων με ξεχωριστές δυνατότητες. Η αλήθεια είναι ότι παίζει να είναι η πρώτη φορά που ασχολούμαι με τον συγκεκριμένο χαρακτήρα, μιας και στο παρελθόν δεν έτυχε να διαβάσω κάποιο κόμικ με αυτόν πρωταγωνιστή και δεν έχω δει καν την ταινία με τον Keanu Reeves. Θα επανορθώσω όμως!

The first in the series, “Dark Entries”, was written by Ian Rankin, a popular British mystery writer best known for a series of novels featuring his detective John Rebus. My second favourite story, dealing with Carfax, a convalescent young man, who accepts a young woman’s invitation to her house which is situated on an island. They pass the days indulging in conversations about arts, or playing the piano and the protagonist finally falls in love with the woman, who embodies a philosophy of egotistical aestheticism, mirrored in a statement like this: The Waiting Room: Very much a traditional ghost story but masterfully framed for maximum disorientation. Straddling a very wobbly line between neo-noir and straight-out horror, “Dark Entries” is also a satirical criticism of reality-TV. This sentence speaks volumes about the tension between the two characters of "The View," but also of the sensitivities of each character toward one another. One should not be surprised, then to find that "The View" is winsome and absolutely heart-rending. It has caused in me a genuine fear of growing old, something I have never really felt before. This is more from the sense of things past and lost than worry about future decrepitude. This is the empty hole at the center of nostalgia, a true existential dread. This story bit deep into my heart. It hurt, and I am better for it.Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth