The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume 1) - Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Since my last book, Trainspotting, that I wrapped up in August, I have been reading Nietzsche. My comments on him, I will reserve for a later post. For now, let's just say that he leaves the head heavy and the being desirous of something entertaining and refreshing. Moore! shouted my brain. And so it was that "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"s first volume slowly made its way to my hands.

"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is a pathetically made movie. So much so that I would really not have considered buying this book had it not been my blind trust in Moore's storytelling skills. I had read another Moore in the interim - "Lost Girls" which he and the co-artist, Melinda Gebbie, describe as a work of "pornography". Other than the obvious delights that the controversial book held, it showed a remarkable ability of Moore. That of perverting a well known stories and presenting them in a radically new light. Tracing back, it was the same with "From Hell" and "Batman : The Killing Joke". And it certainly was the same with "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". You meet well known characters from stories unrelated. Dr. Jekyll, Edward Hyde, the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, Professor Moriarty, even Well's time traveller! All twisted and mixed into a concoction that serves to entertain. O'Neill impresses with his psychedelic art. It is hallucinatory and slightly dark. The consistence of detailing is very impressive.

The story starts with Mina Murray being recruited by Campion Bond in the name of a certain Mr. M to form a menagerie of adventurers to help the British empire against its enemies. Miss Murray hunts down the opium addicted aging adventurer Allan Quatermain with the help of the supposedly deceased Sikh pirate Captain Nemo and the three go on to capture Dr. Jekyll and Edward Hyde from Paris, and Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man) from Edmonton, London. The collection complete, they set out to thwart the oriental Doctor's plans to dominate the Empire and the world. But that is certainly not the end of their adventures!

I did get what I was looking for : some light entertainment, however, Moore did not impress me as much as he had done in the previous works, though the art was amazing, probably the best after "Batman : A Killing Joke". I think the plot was looser and lacking in a theme as compared to the likes of "V for Vendetta" and "The Watchmen". But then this is just the first volume. Who knows whether the future volumes will hold me just as mesmerised. And I just have to commend these guys make the graphic novel. It is so much more than a simple comic book. There is commentary, extra notes, side stories, etc. that offer a variety of entertainment to the reader. I was comparing it with the recent rising graphic novel scene in India - Ramayana, 18 Days, Devi, etc. There is much lacking in terms of story-telling here.

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

It was in college that a friend had told me that "Trainspotting" was a good read. I was surprised then to find out that it was a book as well. Danny Boyle's movie was the only thing I had seen, mostly for the music back then. When I picked up "Fight Club" I thought I would also order "Trainspotting", the intent being to compare the movie and the book.

A couple of pages into the book and I was swearing loudly. Welsh had written the book in a Scottish accent! It took me a long time to understand which word had what English equivalent. The complexity of the reading took my mind off the plot and the flow of the story many a times and I had to turn back and forth to establish a connection between what I was reading and what I had read. All this edge of interest in the book. Welsh has written the book as individual chapters being narrated by some character or third person. The characters usually do not identify themselves immediately and at times are randomly introduced. This makes you more interested in what is happening rather than to whom it is happening, which, in my opinion, is the better way to enjoy this book. Welsh has portrayed a gang of junkies and addicts at the center of a vague plot. This is more of an insight into how junkies think and why they behave the way they do. No moral lecturing makes it even better. The social and legal implications of the British punk is highlighted pretty well. Compared to the movie, the book lacks a strong story but more than makes up for it with the strong thought processes and the per chapter protagonist structure.

Rents, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie are mostly at the center of the story, each addicted to heroin, heroin, sex and violence respectively. They live in Leith in Edinburg and are unemployed, resorting to various illegal activities to gather money for survival and drugs. The story moves between their lives and circle of friends touching many briefly. The frivolity and irresponsibility with which they lead their lives is highlighted. Eventually people start dying because of AIDS and the remaining try mending their lives.

"Trainspotting" was a light read once I got over the word mapping exercise. One in which you particularly did not care about the plot and just enjoyed the thoughts of a man. The way he thought in the given situation and how he acted because of it. I will probably not pick up another Welsh anytime soon but perhaps I might consider "Porno" once I am done with my list of pending books.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Bookshops have a strange magnetism to them. I have been a happy customer of flipkart.com for quite a few years now. But it has been mostly due to the ease of discovery and availability of desired books. But make me walk past a bookshop stocked with volumes and my steps divert in the direction of the establishment. It is the same exhilarating sense that led me to a local shop advertising a sale on its gate. I browsed through a lot of books with a certain restraint. The constant awareness of a humongous and increasing pile of books lying on my shelves was dogging me. My eyes fell on a book that displayed the name of 'Oscar Wilde' in big fonts. I picked up the book. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" had an interesting teaser. A story that I remembered having heard. But I could not remember where and I certainly could not remember Oscar Wilde being the author. So I picked it up and brought it home and dumped it with the rest of the books in my shelf. I picked it up at long last to accompany me in my Uttarakhand travel. I intended to finish it over two weeks. I was done in half the time.

Oscar Wilde is a well known name. I think I had first heard of him back in school when I used to read. Or perhaps in college when I had resumed my affair with literature. I had, for some reason, thought of him as a poet. But a man of literature is rarely bound to a single form. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is Wilde's only novel. He has written several plays and essays which combine into an interesting bibliography. He is an expert raconteur and the story is extremely witty. Every page of the book contains witticism that makes you smile inwards at its frank realism. You agree with Lord Wotton's view of the existing world and his idea of a new hedonism. You agree with Dorian Gray's loss of morale and his repentance. You agree with everything that Oscar Wilde puts on those pages.

The story is about a certain beautiful young man who, in his age of innocence, befriends a perverted gentleman - Lord Henry Wotton, while sitting for a portrait by an artist friend. This portrait and Lord Wotton's enchanting words produce in the youth a revelation of his own beauty. He cries at the injustice of the portrait retaining all the beauty while he bearing the brunt of age and character. He wishes that things be otherwise. As he grows corrupt under his new friend's influence, he discovers that his wish has miraculously been granted. He hides the portrait and goes about committing one misdeed after another owing to the shield of his undying youth and beauty while the portrait changes to reflect his soul.

Oscar Wilde has pleasantly surprised me. I was expecting the work to be drier for some reason but it was certainly not. My interest piqued, I have been looking at the list of Wilde's works. Perhaps I will order another in near future.

Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Moore is my second love, after Dostoyevsky, in terms of storytelling. I had thought of reading "Watchmen" before giving Moore a break. So I got the novel, a few days later than I was expecting it but in time for me to pick it up. I read it at leisure while travelling back and forth between cities and the book kept me good company.

Moore stands out for his storytelling. Period. His stories are engrossing and bizarrely adorned with stuff that engrosses you further. "Watchmen" is a twelve part series that was published by DC. In the compiled edition, you see a small feature that digresses from the story and elaborates on a certain part of it. It was fictional research and I found myself reading those five pages with as much zeal as I had read the main story with. The story tries to look into the concept of super-heroes in a real world. The theme 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' is, in my opinion, wrongly used but like every other imperfection in the storyline, this one too adds a certain degree of respect for the author. It is a sign that the story evolved during the twelve editions. In order that I might be able to compare, I watched Snyder's 215 minute ultimate cut before I read the book. And guess what, Moore outshone like every single time before. The inconsistencies were smoothed out in the movie but the novel was just too good. Gibbons' art was a true equal to Moore's story.

The story opens with the murder of a 'masked adventurer'. Rorschach, another of the masked adventurers, investigates deeper into the matter and finds that many of his former colleagues from an erstwhile group 'Watchmen' were being targetted. He suspects someone with a vendetta but further investigation leads to astounding revelations. The story is set in a nuclear cold war scenario where a war is expected at hand. The presence of a certain 'superman', Doctor Manhattan, in the United States of America has led to huge technological improvements and a morbid arms race.

Moore still spellbinds. Gibbons was quite an equal. My itch has not been cured yet though. Probably one more Moore before I let him rest for a while. I am eyeing "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

Poor Folk - Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky

This is one of the Dostoyevsky's that I had been partially itching to read for quite some time now. I finally thought it was time to get back to another Dostoyevsky and hence the book.

"Poor Folk" was the first novel that got Dostoyevsky a decent amount of fame as a writer and represents a side of him before the death sentence episode that scarred his life. It represents a comparatively less mature style than one encounters in his later works, for obvious reasons. The book talks about, as is apparent from the title, poor denizens of St. Petersburg and their thoughts regarding themselves and others. It is very interestingly presented as a chain of letters between two main characters and nothing else. It starts abruptly and ends with the same abruptness.

The two main characters of the story are Makar Alexievitch Dievushkin and Barabara Alexievna Dobroselova, a copier in his later middle ages and a young woman still to see her prime. The are distantly related and closely situated in their lodgings and affections towards each other. Both being poor, seek solace in the other. They share their lives with each other and an occasional book. Makar Dievushkin showers gifts upon Barbara to his best capacity and she returns his gift with her affections as well as monetary help on a couple of occasions. In the background are the lives of the few people that these two associate with, mostly of the same class as theirs. Towards the end there occur a tumult of gay and saddening occasions.

This was a comparatively less gripping Dostoyevsky than the others but it was still a Dostoyevsky. My interest lies more in the author now than his work. The concept of the story was interesting though there were occasions where the author might have been inconsistent. But all is forgotten and forgiven since he is Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

I had never heard of Milan Kundera. The ramblings of a friend as to how she was unable to understand the movie "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" led me to google the fascinating title. What I hit upon was the book by Kundera. It seemed acclaimed and the title was, as I have mentioned, fascinating, so I ordered it, received it, shelved it and picked it up a couple of weeks back.

The teaser on the back cover says that Kundera talks about "irreconcilable love and infidelities". In my opinion this summary limits the breadth of what Kundera is talking about in this novel but it gives us a taste of the more alluring topics that he covers. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is also a misleading title to the book since this phenomenon is the experience of just one of the four main characters that make the story. The book mainly expounds on various philosophies regarding preferences and differences. It's about individuality and the need to see consistency, the need to find the second half of your hermaphrodite self. Kundera pours forth a profusion of ideas, each of which is inane, each incomplete and each real. Somewhere he strikes a cord with his reader. The four characters that he uses as his tools for the task are at times inconsistent but the reader is able to relate to them as parts of himself in some capacity or the other. This book truly deserves to be more popular than it already is.

The exact plot of the story would be difficult to outline in a short space primarily because of the diversity it explores. The story has four protagonists : Tomas, Tereza, Sabina and Franz in decreasing order of amount of text devoted to their characters. Each has his own peculiarities and his own preferences. Tomas is a womanising surgeon who does not believe in the oneness of sexual intercourse and love. Tereza is a woman in search of her individuality and someone who provides her with it. Sabina is a painter who is obsessed with betrayal. Franz is a professor who romanticises about being in a grand march and the approval of the woman he loves. There is the background theme of Russian invasion of Czech and the anti-Communist feelings of the population; the persecution of the intelligentia and their revolt in the face of a apathetic regime.

Kundera's charm lies in the way he has managed to intertwine the love lives of the protagonists with a political satire. His style of writing is enchanting and engrossing. The book is modelled so crisply that you never feel anything drag for too long. Kundera also overcomes the unintentional boredom that is typical of philosophical books. In all, this was a very good read. Probably I will pick another one of his some time.

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

I did not know that there was a novel as well. And when I did it came highly recommended. But this was years ago. What made me order this novel of recent was the nature of books I had been reading. They were mostly classics and the style of writing can get a tad bit boring after a while. So I ended up ordering this one and after a few books, this one jumped the line and I started it.

I finished it in about a day's time. Something that I have not done in quite a while; sitting and reading a book cover to cover within a day's time. Since I, like many others, am a big fan of the movie the characters and sequences were terribly mixed up with it. The characters already had faces. The locations already had settings. There were sequences that were probably less descriptive in the book and better portrayed in the movie that I did not wholly mind being incomplete. My imagination was in a confusion. And the confusion was awesome. Chuck Palahniuk, despite all the incompleteness in his scenes and story, has done an incredible job of creating characters. The immortality of these characters is evident the way Tyler Durden is worshipped as a symbol of anarchy, as a symbol of rebellion. And of course there is this whole idea of a "fight club". But the first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about fight club... Palahniuk planned this book as a piece of writing that would connect the men of the world together. He added on to this idea with various elements that he got from anywhere and everywhere and put it under the blazing light of anarchy.

There is an unnamed protagonist who is fed up of life and his needs and wants to start afresh. He "meets" Tyler Durden on a flight and they strike a friendship. Tyler is confident and full of useful information. Especially about homemade explosives. The protagonist moves in with him in an abandoned industrial sector of town after his house and all his belongings are destroyed in an explosion. They create a fight club to feel what it is like to get into a real fight. Then there are fight clubs springing up all over the country. There is anarchy being conceived for the better of the human race.

Palahniuk's work was not one of the best for it's literary qualities but it was so vivid (or maybe it was so because I had seen the movie, but then it was this book that inspired the movie as well) that I could imagine every scene and every thought of the pitiable narrator. It was certainly something that I would like to read again sometime. So he stays on the list.

V For Vendetta - Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Moore again. "V for Vendetta" was a really good movie. I am sure most who have seen it would agree to that. But comparing Moore's "From Hell" and the movie, I wondered whether this one could also be a better graphic novel. Hence I bought it at the first possible convenient chance. In the middle of all the Greek epics and tragedies which are proving a bit too much to handle by now, I picked up this book as an asylum. Shame that I ended it within 24 hours.

Moore proved his script writing prowess once again. The book fared better than the movie, not by a great margin, but yes, it did. There is something about Moore's novels that make you live them. The fluency of the story draws you in. It is not one scene after another, rather it is one scene running into another, stringing into a beautiful garland. A work of art that you cannot help appreciate. Moore does not simply build a character. He builds characters. The story is not just one protagonist shining above all others. There are multiple stories going on. Characters that make them. Everything contributing to one main plot. David Lloyd is equally a genius. The art work is to dies for. Not as pristine as "Batman : A Killing Joke" but well laid out and beautifully done.

The story set in Britain in an imaginary 90's (the novel was written in the 80's). London ruled by a fascist government in the nuclear holocaust after a third World War. No freedom to anyone. Everyone being observed all the time. In this setting emerges a man of superhuman strength and full of ideas of liberality. Wearing a mask and going by the name 'V', he starts killing the top brass of the party. He advocates anarchy in a totalitarian regime. He takes on a young girl as his protege. He plans to shake the masses awake from its servile slumber.

Alan Moore is nothing short of a genius. A few months ago I was not too big on graphic novels. Now I am a big fan of them. Moore's work at the least is nothing less than a text novel. Next up is "Watchmen". Reading Moore's works, it is no wonder that so many of them have inspired motion pictures.

Theogony & Work and Days - Hesiod / M. L. West

The same course Greek and Roman Mythology course got me to order "Theogony & Work and Days". Before long, I am sure I will be writing about a few more books that I read during this course. But it is these epic poems by Hesiod that are the subject of this post.

Hesiod was an unknown name to me when I picked up this book. In case I had heard of him somewhere, I certainly did not remember. Despite his lack of fame in the world of laymen, he is a prominent figure in Greek epic poetry, as prominent as Homer. But you soon find out why he is such an obscure figure in the world of leisure readers. His works are of academic interest and hold little charm for light readers. There are long lists of gods and didactic verses on virtues. There are interesting bits of information but they are well hidden under piles of jargon. Enough to make anyone lose interest. It is a good thing that the poems are short (despite their epic status).

Theogony is the story of the birth of Gods. It is a fanciful tale that involves a lot of deceit, lust and power struggle. There are sons castrating their fathers, the gory details of which are necessary in order to know of the birth of the Aphrodite (Love). It is apparently borrowed from Sumerian and other Eastern cultures in parts and serves to establish Zeus as the ultimate father of Gods and men. It lays out a genealogical connection between Gods and utterly confounds the reader.

Work and Days, on the other hand, is a preaching of values to be followed and practiced in everyday life. It is much more pragmatic than Theogony and has fewer names. But it does not altogether do away with mythical stories. It talks about Pandora and the breed of women as an ailment sent by the heavens. It talks of the various generations of man. But mostly, it talks about the virtues of labour, how to manage an agrarian household and how to trade for profit. It tells of what to do on what day of the month, what practices are favoured by the gods and which are frowned upon.

Hesiod might be a big name but he certainly draws interest only from the academia. I think I have had enough of him, for a lifetime perhaps. So long poet.

Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol

Ever since I started reading Dostoyevsky, Gogol has been a constant presence in the background. He is much referred to in Dostoyevsky's stories. It was upon reading one such reference that I decided to get "Dead Souls" whenever I could lay my hands on it. I did so in a clearance sale but was a long time before I could get myself to start reading this book.

"Dead Souls" is an amusing caricature of human beings and their systems. Despite a pressing urgency to read the Greek classics alongside, the book held me strongly enough to see me finish it. Gogol shows all of human folly in a comic light. The style of writing is very digressing though. There are pages at stretch about things that are irrelevant to the story. One can see something similar in Dostoyevsky as well but to a lesser extent. However, there is a story that goes on steadily and which keeps you transfixed to discover where it will lead to. That in itself is genius. The second part is rather incomplete (though there is a feeble attempt by another to complete it) and leaves you a tad bit dissatisfied. But it prods your imagination all the more. Where does Chichikov go on from here? What happens to him?  You can come up with a story of your own in case you crave closure.

We follow our protagonist, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, in a journey across the Russian provinces. He is a gentleman with refined skills at charming both the sexes. He is knowledgeable of ever subject. He is easy to befriend. And he needs dead souls. Chichikov states various reasons for wanting to take or purchase the dead souls that are still counted on census list from all the landed proprietors he comes in contact with. It is not till the end of the first part that one comes to know why he needs them. In his hunt he comes across various kind of people who treat him in various fashions, some hesitate, some bargain while some beat him up. Chichikov adapts and perseveres.

Gogol excels in oration. His stories are funnier if read aloud. No wonder his is the play (The Government Inspector) considered as Russia's greatest. He can make a story out of a plot. Apparently, the plot for "Dead Souls" was provided by Pushkin. I surely will read another Gogol (The Overcoat) before long.

The Odyssey - Homer / Robert Fagles

Of course, no one remains a stranger to the names of the great epics for long. I had heard of Iliad and Odyssey as a boy and had stumbled across their translated prints a few years ago when I was flitting through the stalls at a World Book Fair. Following a series of unfortunate events, I lost my copy of "The Odyssey" and I decided not to start the Iliad till I had another copy of Odyssey with me, and so it has stayed ignored in my shelves for more than three years now. A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a course on Greek and Roman mythology on coursera.com, enrolled and ordered Fagles's translation of the epic. Coincidentally, his translation was the one I had bought earlier as well.

The Odyssey needs no laudation from me. It is an epic not only in its construct but also in its entirety. Fagles's translation, however, I can comment on. It is extremely poetic, brings out the music in the epic that I have found lacking in so many other Greek tragedies I have read thus far. The construct of the prose are excellent. I wonder how close a literal translation this is, but evidently it is held in high regard by people who know what they are talking about. I can only comment on what a pleasure it was to read this rendition.

Odysseus is a man of suffering, endurance and everlasting tact. His journey home from Troy is rigged by the Gods. He brings it upon himself in parts, his crew bring it upon him in parts. He however is the only one to survive and return home years later, a broken man with adventures and sufferings borne all his journey. That is primarily what the epic is all about : the journey home and the winning back of one's life of peace. We are taken through fantastic tales of brutality, wit and magic through Odysseus's eyes. Immortal goddesses bed him; giants slay his crew; he peeks into the world of the dead; strangers help him homeward and Gods hold him back. Fantastic and thrilling!

Fagles has renewed the zest for Greek epics and tragedies in me. Despite the redundancy, I will once again praise the poetic feel to Fagles's translation. He keeps the reader bound. It hardly seems like a translation from an alien language, so fluent do his lines flow. I might look into Fagles's other translations later, but for now, I have another one of his lying in my shelves. Time to pick up the Iliad and read about the brave and swift Achilles!

Batman : The Killing Joke - Alan Moore

The covers of Alan Moore's 'From Hell' enumerated a few of his more popular works : 'V for Vendetta', 'The Watchmen', etc. I looked them all up on flipkart.com and came across a few more. One of them, 'The Killing Joke'. The reviews seemed pretty good and since it was Batman and Joker, I decided to make it my second Moore book. It arrived in a few days, all glossy and colourful, and I finished it the same night.

'The Killing Joke' was not as huge as the earlier Moore work I had read, 'From Hell'. It was more of a comic book and less of a graphic novel. Particularly scintillating was the art work in this book provided by Brian Bolland. The book traces the roots of Joker and tries to show a more humane side that the unnamed villain once had. There is not much that I can review here other than saying that the book indeed was brilliant and gripping. It probably ended too soon, or maybe I am being plain greedy.

Moore continues at the top of my list for the time being. Have a couple other graphic novels of his to complete before I give him a rest for good.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

I had heard about this book from too many people to recount here. This book had been on my list for a long long time before I finally got around to ordering it. I knew close to nothing about the book. So when I searched online and found a "complete and unabridged" edition, I thought it would be the complete and unabridged edition. Even though it was, turned out that H2G2 is a 'trilogy' in six parts (as of this date). But then this book would let me know whether I wanted to continue with the others in the series.

It took me two or three odd sittings to wrap up the book. Not something that happens frequently now a days, given the kind of schedule I have. It was partly because the book had grabbed my interest and partly because it was the most senseless thing I had ever read! The book is indeed meant for children. The immature humour was entertaining for a change but I am sure I would not have managed to endure it in long doses. The book is scrawling with sentences that make no sense either grammatically or logically. But then that is the charm of this book. After a tiring day, what better than occupying oneself with a book that lets the brain snooze for a while?

Despite the mayhem of senselessness, there is in fact an underlying plot to the novel. Arthur Dent, the protagonist, finds himself rescued by his best friend, Ford Prefect, when Earth is vaporised to make way for a new inter galactic highway. Ford is in fact an alien from around Betelgeuse who has been stranded on Earth while researching for the new edition of an extremely handy book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which has information about everything. After they hitch a ride to get off Earth just in time and are thrown out in space, they find themselves on a spaceship with Ford's semi-cousin and the Galactic President, Zeephod Beeblebrox who is on the run. Thus begin's Arthur's first unearhlt adventure.

Although not wholly remarkable, the book was fun to read. It is one of those senseless books that you remember for its whacky concepts and funny dialogues. I do intend to finish the series, but not immediately.

From Hell - Alan Moore

I bought this book in a blind sale, not at all aware that it was a graphic novel. And since I had never tried graphic novels before, I was not particularly inclined to start off with this one as soon as it arrived. Therefore it stayed in my book shelf as I finished one book after the other but could not get myself to pick up this one. Until one fine day, I did.

'From Hell' was known to me as a Depp movie. One that I did not particularly remember, but had a faint recollection of. I knew it was about Jack the Ripper in some sort of way. So I picked up the book thinking that it would replay the movie for me, but it did not. In fact, the book and the movie were far far apart! I had to watch the movie again just to compare. And it was the novel that held me in awe. The motion picture looked almost puerile in wake of the work that Alan Moore had done. The book looks at the historic tragedy through the eyes of Stephen Knight, whose theory propounded that Jack the Ripper was a conspiracy to cover up the traces of a royal baby. The book has Sir William Gull, the alleged Ripper, as the protagonist and traces the course of the events through his chains of thoughts.

The novel starts with the inception of the frivolity that started it all. Prince Eddy marries a shop girl and fathers a child of hers. Sir William Gull, the royal physician, is commissioned with the task of covering up for Prince Eddy to avoid a scandal. Sir Gull, a freemason by heart, disillusioned since a heart stroke, takes up the task with zest. He puts the shop girl, Annie Crook, into a mental facility after making her insane surgically. And when it is later found that four prostitutes know about the secret and are creating a nuisance, he sets out to silent them. In doing so, he performs a ritual that he believes will show him the real truth. He gives birth to the legend of Jack the Ripper.

Alan Moore was astounding in more than one respect. There is apparently a humongous amount of research that he has put into the book. It is evident in the appendix where almost every scene is explained with a bibliographical detail. So much that I gave up reading the details after three odd chapters. Moore also brings his characters very vividly to life. In no way did it feel that he relied on the graphics to make his novel sell (they just made the book fatter I guess). Anyhow, Moore is up top on my list at the moment. In fact, I am expecting another book of his in a couple of days.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg

This was another idle buy resulting from a compulsive browsing through a bookstore's offerings. The name seemed interesting enough to pick the book and look at the teaser on the back cover. That being interesting as well, I bought the book and it lay in my shelf while I tried to finish the ones that were already scheduled.

James Hogg was a surprise for me. In the opening chapters I was quite unsure whether to treat the book as a serious work or a comic one. Hogg has tried to hold in ridicule a few social stigmas that must have plagued his times. A few of them still plague ours. The way the author has gone about it though is very unique. As the title suggests, the book is the memoirs of a "justified sinner". It talks about how one justifies his sins. How one makes a world in which he can live with himself after enacting monstrosities. There are two parts to it. The editor of the notes giving a background and his perspective, and the memoirs themselves.

The book begins with the editor telling us of a Scottish folklore about a certain laird of a certain Dalcastle who married a deeply religious woman. This woman mothered two sons, one to the laird and the other allegedly to her preacher. This bastard son, Robert, is the author of the memoirs. He is brought up in a gravely religious household and develops a fanatic view of Christianity. He reads into the scriptures to further his own interests even as a child. He sins, is aware of his sins and can justify his sins. He then encounters the devil, whom he takes to be a holy prince of another land. Together they commit murders and crimes in the name of religion. Robert is finally driven to despair by his supernatural friend and lives a life of anguish.

The book was extremely entertaining in bits. Especially because of the double meaning puns that are scattered all over the two narratives. But in parts it was a little drag and uninteresting. As of now, I have no intentions of looking at other works of this author.