James Galvin

A few months ago (here), I mentioned the fact that HBO might be making a TV series of George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”. This fan has matched each character with the actor he would like to see in the role (good call on the clerk from ER as the Greatjohn). Just looking through the lists I’ve forgotten half of the characters…hope I’ll be able to follow it when the fifth book, “A Dance with Dragons”, is released (probably later this year).

Graham Linehan, on his Hompendium of Dorithies, has taken a quick look at the new His Dark Materials film. They have reuinted the Casino Royale leads Daniel Craig and Eva Green, and opted to cast Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter. Choosing the child actor is always a gamble, so they played it safe with another Dakota. Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel - good stuff.

I have to agree with Graham though, they’ve got Lyra all wrong… and those daemons/polar bears look a bit dodgy too. There’s no better way to cheapen a film than with second rate CGI. A game, made by SEGA, is also announced for this December - that has great potential, but video games which accompany movie releases are always disappointing. Have a look at the website - there’s a lot of stuff on it, including a ‘Meet Your Daemon’ utility, which must be broken because it said my daemon is a crow.

John Connolly’s new book, the Unquiet, should be hitting the shelves in Ireland this week. This will be the sixth in a series of mystery novels, from the former Irish Times journalist, centered around a haunted private investigator, Charlie Parker. Connolly has faced some flak or ‘breaking the rules’ of crime fiction, straying too close to the border of fantasy/horror in the vein of Stephen King.

The Charlie Parker novels are gripping and horrifying - always a great read. As the series developed, however, the supernatural elements became a bit too pronounced for my liking, and I sometimes found myself thinking that it was getting a bit ridiculous. I have no problem with the horror genre, and I’m a big fan of fantasy, but one thing that doesn’t go down well in crime fiction is the realisation that this is much too far-fetched. A murky gothic overlay enhanced the early half of the Parker series, but by the time the Black Angel came on the scene, it was so steeped in mysticism that I felt that JC had lost the run of himself.

I hoped that The Unquiet would see a return to a more orthodox style, but from the synopsis, I get the feeling that ancient, big-stomached shapeshifters smelling of earth and raw meat will yet again feature prominently.

Someone is funding Merrick’s hunt, a ghost from Parker’s past. And Merrick’s actions have drawn others from the shadows, half-glimpsed figures intent upon their own form of revenge, pale wraiths drifting through the ranks of the unquiet dead.

The Hollow Men have come . . .

John also hints at next years offering, “The Reapers”:

The next novel, to be published in 2008, will be called The Reapers. It’s pretty much an Angel & Louis novel, and I think it will be a little lighter in tone that most of the earlier books.

Read: the killer chooses not to drug his victims to prolong their torture, as he guts them alive.

This will come as great news to any fan of George R. R. Martin’s heptalogy-to-be, “A Song of Ice and Fire”.

The series will begin with the 1996 first book, “A Game of Thrones,” and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to fuel a season’s worth of episodes.

This is a series that lends itself to TV more than most in its genre, since much of it is driven by George Martin’s own passion for the history of the middle ages - authentic battles, knights, jousting tournaments, castles, etc. Keeping the dragons and pookas to a minimum is advisable, since they so often end up looking cheesy. The books are so steeped in cruelty that it will take a courageous director to maintain the spirit - I’m glad its HBO at the reins.

Other fantasy epics that I would like to see coming to our screens:

• Tad Williams: Memory, Sorrow, Thorn
• Stephen R. Donaldson: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

Via Sinéad, I have just become addicted to Library Thing. Its like a last.fm for books - catalogue all of your books, rate them, review them if you have time, and browse other catalogues. RSS feeds, tags, recommendations, and all that stuff included. My brand new account is here - so far I only just added whats within physical reach of me at the moment - will get around to the bulk of my collection hopefully next weekend. I can see myself wasting thousands of hours on this as I try to get every book cover right and all the ratings in place. The downside for my friends and family is I won’t be giving away any of my books when I finish them anymore, because from now on I’ll have to keep my catalogue in tact.

In other news, I was very impressed by Snakes on a Plane. I have never seen a film that takes the piss out of itself so thoroughly. I’m sure there are people who will consider every scene a classic. I hate when people refer to a movie as being “fun” but thats probably the best word to describe the appeal of this film… I would compare it to Dog Soldiers in that respect. I was pleased to see Todd Louiso had a part, following his recent role in Thank You For Smoking… I think he’s hilarious ever since his perfect performance as Dick, the record store nerd in High Fidelity, which constituted one half of the best comedy double-act ever, with Jack Black.

Speaking of the great JB, I also went to see Nacho Libre - very much a cross between School of Rock and Napoleon Dynamite. Not as entertaining as Snakes, but plenty of laughs if you think its funny to see Jack Black prancing around doing his thing. Some cringeworthy acting from the little orphans… my dog could do a better Mexican accent. Great soundtrack though, and I’ll agree with Hi-Fi Popcorn about the peculiar track “Real Religious Man” being the highlight.

This is torture. I don’t often read detective/murder stories but, based on a very strong recommendation from my sister, I borrowed John Connolly’s first novel Every Dead Thing. At first glance, the internet nerd in me was disappointed to see that he, an Irish author, opted to register a johnconnolly.co.uk as opposed to johnconnolly.ie which is also available… perhaps it was due to the expense and bureaucracy involved in registering .ie domains. But once I opened the book, I was instantly absorbed into a Thomas Harris-style detective vs depraved serial killer mystery. 4/5ths of the way through, having exercised considerable restraint in saving the conclusion for tonight, all the pieces were ready to fall into place and vaguely occupied the back of my mind for most of the day. I didn’t realise that I had left the book behind until I was past Cashel, and now I am kicking myself. I just pray that one of the Dublin bookshops has this in stock tomorrow.

What is an Irishman but a nigger turned inside out?

I have been looking forward to this one ever since it got the Sigla thumbs up, it was well worth the wait. I love all of these Australian movies, Mr. Reliable, The Castle, Rabbit Proof Fence… even Wolf Creek although it scared the bejesus out of me.

The Proposition is a gritty Australian western, set in the outback of the 1880’s, following a family of outlaws reminiscent of the Kelly gang. Ignoring the inconsistent Irish accents all-round, Guy Pearce was well cast in the lead role as Charlie Burns, Ray Winstone as “Captain Stanley” was excellent, Arthur Burns (Danny Huston) looks perfect as the villain. Some great characters, the film was really well done, and I would recommend it if you don’t mind seeing a dead body protruding spears “like one of your English hedgehogs”.

The best thing about this film is Nick Cave’s unique stamp. The savage murderer Arthur Burns, who knows his poetry and is so loyal to his brothers. The crazed bounty hunters. The dark fantasy overlay - the badlands where Arthur has made his hide out “the blacks won’t go there”, and the aborigines howl like dogs as they speak of the Arthur’s alleged shape-shifting ability. If I had a million euro, I would commision Nick Cave to write a book. 19th century Australia is the only possible setting for the wildness and brutality in his work, and I have usually associated his songs and stories with this place and time, even if they are supposedly set elsewhere.

I’m reminded of And the Ass Saw the Angel - a book which makes The Wasp Factory resemble a Ladybird Classic. Take all the bad stuff from the settlement in One Hundred Years of Solitude make it ten times worse, and populate it the worst kind of hypocrite Bible freaks that you can find, a few filthy hobos and some scum-of-the-earth drifters and you have something like Ukulore Valley - the setting for Nick Cave’s first and only novel to date.

I have always been horrified but fascinated by some of Nick Cave’s more brutal songs - in particular the likes of “The Mercy Seat” and “Stagger Lee” - these are windows into the world inside Nick Cave’s head that he further reveals in this book. My dog has since eaten the book, but I managed to salvage a couple of quotes.

In 1859, Jonas Ukulore, a Welsh convert to the baptist faith, announced that he was the “Seventh Angel” prophecied in the book of Daniel. Excommunicated, narrowly escaping death, the Prophet Jonas flees with his brother and sets up residence in a secluded valley. Planting sugar cane, they prosper and build a devoted settlement in Ukulite Valley.

The story follows a mute boy Euchrid, born in a burnt out Chevy beside his parents’ junk yard shack. His mother is a vile alcoholic who ties him to a chair and swats him with a fly swatter. His father “has hill in him” - a twisted, inbred man who sets dozens of traps daily, and each evening places the maimed animals into a tank to fight to their death. He fled the “Black Morton Range” where most of his kin was hunted down and killed - If you haven’t read the book, peruse the extract below, an account of one of the Morton clan, and it will give you a good idea as to whether or not this novel will appeal to your taste.

Investigation into the disappearance of the Black Range travellers (the ‘Morton’ was added to the name officially in 1902), led to the discovery and subsequent disposal of one Toad Morton, or as the press-gang tagged him, Black Morton. A low-minded, wart-worried giant, Toad had been driven from the Morton clan by his own kin, after they had found the faimily hog dead in its pen, covered in flies and human teeth marks - its back leg had been bitten clean off. Finding Toad covered in pig-shit and sucking a trotter, they had chased him out of the Morton’s valley to roam the gullies and gulches of the out-hills, a sore Goliath shunned by his own blood, without friend or companion save the league of demons that rubbed and itched amongst the crags and sunless cracks of his bad, mad and unholy brain.

Crouched in ambush on that tricky eastern road, Toad plucked at his pleasure lone-riders befitting his own infernal usage.

Found in a small stone cave bitten from the roadside, stitch naked save for his great outsized boots and a plague of flies …. Toad squatted in the slitted stomach of a warm child, eating loudly the face of her hapless headless father, who sat a good foot off the ground impaled up the ass on a pointed post.

Looking up at the search-party silhouetted in the glare at the mouth of the cave, the great lonely oversized Toad said, gesturing at the carnage, ‘Brothers, ah am found! You have come to bring me home! Pull up thy stool!’ Then a hot tear broke upon each cheek and he smiled warmly up at them, his green teeth filed to wicked points.

BEWARE! MORTON’S MURDER MILE
O world-weery Pilgryms, unburden thy lode
Nowither a Doome mor horrid I know
Than that wich awaits Thee down bluddy roade
Prey! Bewar ol Black Morton. The murdress Toad!

Euchrid’s life has its ups and downs… actually it doesn’t really have any ups, but I’m not going to summarise any of that here. I think by now you will know whether or not you should read this book. Any fan of Nick Cave’s music should not miss it, as some light is shed on the darker offerings that he has produced over the years. “From Her to Eternity” is very much echoed in these pages, and at times we are given momentary vision through the eyes of the killers in the Murder Ballads, and the madness of the Lyre of Orpheus and the Mercy Seat. We see, through the twisted haze of Euchrid’s disturbed mind, the moth as it tries “to enter the bright eye”, the man with the letters tatooed on his knuckles, the place where the wild roses grow, and other familiar flashes here and there which clear at least some of the mystery behind Nick Cave’s dark lyrics.

Despite each of the 312 pages frothing with a sickening kind of horror, this is not one of those Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer experiences. This can only be attributed to the mastery with which Nick Cave presents the subject matter. Consider the lyrics of “Stagger Lee” - some lines could be considered so offensive that I couldn’t echo them here in my blog or I would probably have Blacknight knocking on the door. But each horrible event is wrapped in the darkest kind of humour. This is what I like best about the book - this antidote to the underlying unpleasantness:

“The sun rose and waked the cock. The cock a-doodled and waked the wild dog. The dog gave a ho-o-o-owl and waked the crows, who took to the air, flying low, going ‘caw-caw-caw’ and not stopping till the whole fucken valley was woke. Little wonder every season is open season on crows.”

Perhaps the most enduring impact of the novel is the warped interpretation of the fire-and-brimstone bible. Here is a quote from the novel, as Eucrid looks on from afar as the villagers swarm around the burning church:

“The Ukulites, armed with torches and hay-rakes, looked like ants from where ah was poised, on the rise, near the shack. They barked and chanted and fanned the flames. Ah wondered how they must look to Him, these ants, these frantic specks down below. Ah held out my hand. They were no bigger than mah thumb. Stretching wide the fingers of mah hand, ah saw that it spanned with width of Glory Flats and ah slowly folded mah fingers in, crushing them all, fire and all, in mah fist.
Ah laughed and the valley trembled, ringing with it.”

Here is a quotation from the bible which was the inspiration for the title:

“And the ass saw the angel of Jehovah, and she lay down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with his staff.”

To be honest, I don’t know which is freakier.