Rule 34 by Charles Stross

There's a rather juvenile reason why I decided that I needed to read this. For anyone who hasn't trawled the Internet enough to have found this out, Rule 34 is the rule of the Internet that states the following: "If you can think of it, there's porn of it". Immediately, there will be people closing down this review wondering what kind of hideous pornography I could be reviewing. But you would be surprised by how tame Rule 34 actually is.

Rule 34 is a mystery novel. Set in a near future Edinburgh, the plot is sparked off by the suspicious death of a fetishist, who happens to have served time for scams and identity fraud over the Internet. For the most part, you follow three main characters over the course of the book. First is DI Liz Kavanaugh, the head of the Edinburgh's 'Rule 34 Squad'. It's her job to keep her eye on the Internet, observing memes and chasing down various acts of Internet crime; as such, she is quickly brought in on the case, due to the victim's history. Second is Anwar Hussein, a small-time ex-con trying to go clean; when he gets a job as a consul for a newly created country in Eastern Europe, he appears to have struck gold, although there are a few things that don't seem quite right. Finally, there is a mysterious man known only as 'The Toymaker', an agent of a sprawling organised crime syndicate. He's in Edinburgh to reinvent one of their outposts, but his plans keep getting foiled when his potential recruits keep getting killed; the fact that his meds keep gradually wearing out, causing him to imagine giant lizard people taking over, only makes things more difficult.
In terms of plot, there are quite a few threads to keep in mind. All three plot threads intersect at various points in the narrative, whether it's through main or side characters: for example, The Toymaker ends up having sex with Liz's on-again-off-again girlfriend, as well as meeting with Anwar at the consulate. All of these narratives are necessary to understand how the mystery may be unravelled, and they all provide quite a lot of overlapping information. Fair enough, you say, but this isn't all that uncommon in mystery novels these days. The thing is though, Rule 34 doesn't feel like your standard detective novel/police procedural. In contrast to most mystery novels that I've read, I don't think that this is a mystery that the reader could solve; don't get me wrong, in hindsight it is quite well signposted, but it just doesn't have an outcome that most mystery readers would even begin to consider. I don't personally have a problem with that though: while it caught me off-guard when I first read it, it does feel right and I'm actually kind of impressed at how the solution was reached. My only real problem is with the rest of the ending. You see, throughout the different plot-lines, the main focus characters have their own personal issues that they must attend to: for DI Kavanaugh it's her dissatisfaction with her life ever since her career went down the toilet, for Anwar it's his wife's disapproval with his criminal past and his inclinations for other men, and for The Toymaker it's the aforementioned giant lizard people; those are very basic summaries, with much more intricacy and messiness. Those plot-lines are just dropped, for the most part. In the rush to get to the solution, whatever character development that had occurred during the narrative sort of grinds to a halt, which is disappointing really. When you have such a wide and varied cast, it makes me sad to see all of their development left hanging; granted, it is given justification of sorts in the final chapter, and I suppose it does reflect real life more than most books, it just leaves me a bit disappointed.
The only other thing that I should probably mention is the writing style. It's written in the present tense, which I personally didn't notice until I checked just now, and also in the 2nd person. The use of 2nd person just confuses me. Not in terms of clarity, as it's pretty clear what's happening most of the time. I just don't understand why you would use it in a mystery novel. To my knowledge, the only other things that I've read that use the 2nd person perspective are Choose Your Own Adventure-style novels, as, for all intents and purposes, you are actually the main character in those. Here, it just seems different for the sake of being different; if there was some kind of hidden meaning behind it all, I certainly missed it.

Overall, a generally enjoyable mystery novel with some viciously cutting humour. Unfortunately, I do feel that I have to mark it down for a largely disappointing ending and the use of the 2nd person perspective that just seems pretentious really. 3.5/5

Next review: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Signing off,
Nisa.

Adventures in Cooking: Apricot and Walnut Sandwich Bars

Ah, Mary Berry. We meet again. Why must your recipes look so yummy?

So, my experience with cakey things has been a much smoother road than my overall experience with bread. Give me a cake recipe and 99% of the time, it'll go smoothly. So I wasn't really worried about this one. The only thing that concerned me was the syrupy apricot mixture that I had to make for the sandwich filling, as I tend to be a bit wary about anything that involves burning on the stove.

As it turns out, I shouldn't have worried so much. It turned out about as well as I thought it would; it was different than I anticipated, but still good. In terms of ingredients, I ended up changing a couple of them. First, I used crushed hazelnuts instead of chopped walnuts as part of the dough. Second, I used white self-raising flour as opposed to the recommended wholemeal self-raising flour, simply because the former was all that I could find. I think that these changes in ingredients might explain why the final product was more cakey than I would have assumed from the picture provided in the recipe book. Not that this was a negative point, it was just a bit unexpected.

What I would mention for those who are looking to make this, is that in spreading out the top layer of dough, I may well have displaced the apricot mixture from the centre of the sandwich bar mixture, so I ended up with a situation where I would have nothing but cake in the middle and all the apricot mixture would be pushed to the edge. As the dough is an odd kind of consistency, due to the oats that make up a portion of the mixture, it needs to be pushed out to make it fill the space correctly. So I'm not really sure how to remedy the problem.

Overall though, I would readily give the recipe another shot at some other time. I would probably change what I did a bit more, but otherwise I'm perfectly happy with this recipe. Now I just have to stop trying recipes with nuts so that I won't kill my boyfriend accidentally.

Signing off,
Nisa.

ZOO by Otsuichi

There are some books that you just pick up on a whim. ZOO was one of those books: as it was one that was being given away for free at a convention, I was hardly going to pass it up. But now that I've gotten around to reading it, will it be a case of complaining about things that I didn't have to pay for?

Now, as this is a collection of short stories, I will be taking a slightly different approach to my usual one. Instead of discussions of plot and character, I will talk a little bit about each story in the collection. 

The title story of the collection, 'ZOO', is probably one of the more disappointing stories included. When the story is about a man who receives pictures in the post of his ex-girlfriend's body as it progresses through decomposition, you expect it to really wow you. While it is admittedly creepy, I thought that it could have been paced better, to make better use of the tension created by the situation. 

'In a Falling Airplane' is one of the more interesting stories from a more critical viewpoint, as it focuses on the actions of people who have nothing to lose as they are confronted with a life-threatening situation. 

'The White House in the Cold Forest' more than delivered the eeriness that 'ZOO' was missing, as it follows a girl who has grown up with almost nothing but abuse as she is unleashed into the world. The narrator's lack of comprehension regarding her own actions is incredibly creepy. 

'Find the Blood!' is a mystery story of sorts, as a family try to figure out who could have stabbed their father figure in the back as well as finding the bag of blood that could potentially save his life. I was surprised by the humorous tone that it took, but it was unexpectedly effective. 

'In a Park at Twilight, a Long Time Ago' is the shortest of the bunch, and is enjoyably creepy for the two pages or so that it lasts. 

'Wardrobe' is another mystery story, revolving around a woman who hides the dead body of her brother-in-law in his wardrobe. This was actually another disappointment, as I didn't feel that the mystery actually worked. While I did enjoy the twists and turns that events took for the majority of it, when the ending came up, I couldn't help but feel cheated as I felt that I had been denied information. 

'Song of the Sunny Spot' kinds of feels like it should be in a different collection, as it contains none of the macabre features present in the other stories. That isn't to say that this is a bad story though; on the contrary, I think it's one of the stronger stories, with a genuinely touching relationship between the narrator and the dying old man who built her to look after him. 

'Kazari and Yoko' brings the collection back to the nightmarish end of the scale, as it follows the wildly different treatments of the two eponymous sisters. It is a seriously messed up story, with seriously messed up people inhabiting it. I can't help but still feel wary when I look back at it, but then I suppose that is the sign of a good horror story. 

'SO-far' is a strange one. Granted, that statement doesn't mean much in light of the rest of the collection, but even compared to the rest of the book, this story is strange. In it, the reader follows a young boy as he has to act as a mouthpiece for his parents when it appears that they can no longer see, hear or perceive each other. If that isn't odd enough, there is a plot twist at the very end of it that I was genuinely not expecting. 

'Words of God' is another strange one. This one is more on the unpleasant side though, as a teenage boy goes through life, occasionally influencing things through the power of his voice. I couldn't help but feel really uncomfortable with this one; while unpleasant or morally dubious characters are more common here than I'm used to, this was one of the few characters that made me feel really uncomfortable. 

'Seven Rooms', the final story and probably the longest of the collection, is utterly terrifying when you're actually reading it. Considering that it involves a brother and sister as they get caught in a death trap that takes a week to kill you, that's understandable. The problem that I had was that after I had finished reading it, I couldn't help but realise that the killer and his MO are really impractical and would never be able to operate without the police investigating. That might just be me, but if you're going to use horror involving things that are plausible, such as serial killers, then everything needs to be plausible for it to be truly scary. I felt it failed a bit there, but it was really thrilling to read nonetheless. 

Overall, I was very impressed with this collection. The dark tone and macabre characters that inhabit these stories were very refreshing, considering the lighter material that you often find in shorter prose. I would definitely recommend these to someone who enjoyed horror or the darker end of the fantasy spectrum. 4/5 

Next review: Rule 34 by Charles Stross. 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Henry VI Part Three by William Shakespeare

Thus are the Henry VI plays concluded. Having thoroughly enjoyed the second part of this trilogy I was quite looking forward to the conclusion of the story. I find myself kind of confused by it. There will be spoilers for Henry VI Part Two. 

Having read an adaptation of Richard III into comic form, I couldn't help but think of this as a prequel to that play. While this play isn't bad, it seemed a bit odd from a dramatic standpoint, as the end of this play is largely the same as the end of the second. Granted, this is probably due to the adherence to overall historical events, but it still felt odd. The only major differences between the two are the death of Richard, Duke of York, in the first act and the set-up of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as a thorn in the side of his brother's ambitions. Otherwise, it is a similar mix of political intrigue and outright war that was showcased in Parts One and Two. 

As for the BBC's adaptation, I must commend Julia Foster for her performance as Queen Margaret: she manages to be both sympathetic, as she fights to win back the throne that she believes to lawfully belong to her husband Henry as well as her son, yet at the same time she is genuinely unpleasant as she taunts and curses her foes. The rest of the cast turn in very good performances and I can't fault the production overall. 

Overall, this is a fairly simple review to write. If you enjoyed the first two parts, you will enjoy this part. I would also recommend this trilogy to those who enjoyed Richard III. 3.5/5 

Next review: ZOO by Otsuichi 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Scarlet and Black by Stendhal

This is another of those books that I pretty much picked up on a whim. Since I bought Scarlet and Black at a used book stall, I've had an opportunity to learn more about its author, Stendhal. As I knew at least a little bit about the author's life, and sympathised with his low self confidence amongst other things, I was looking forward to reading this more, so that I could see how my initial impressions of the man measured up to against his work. For that reason, this review could get awkward.

Scarlet and Black follows the life of a young man named Julien Sorel as he tries to make his way and be successful in Romantic-era France. As he is a peasant by birth, he can rise in the ranks in one of two ways: that of a soldier or that of a priest. He is enamoured by the success and the politics of Napoleon, and would love to follow in his footsteps by becoming a soldier; unfortunately, this is post-Napoleonic times, so the would-be conqueror of Europe is not in vogue. Thus Julien decides that the life of a priest will have to do if he is to achieve his ambitions. That as a story isn't a bad basis to start from, and indeed, it is written very well; there are just a few things that just bug me overall.
My main problem with the story is Julien himself. I just couldn't bring myself to liking him, for two simple reasons. Firstly, he didn't seem to be a particularly consistent character. It seems more like his emotions are devices that move the plot along, as opposed to examples of genuine feeling that people might have; for example, there is a point at which a girl who is in love with him asks him to climb up to her window in the middle of the night. He climbs up to her window because he doesn't want to seem like a coward, not because he has any feelings for her that are anything more than platonic; so far, a motivation that is not particularly nice, but it does make sense. Skip to a couple of days later, and he is head over heels in love with her. I'm sorry, but feelings don't work that way. If you've known a person for months and felt nothing romantic towards them thus far, it takes more than two days for those feelings to do a 180 degree change. Secondly, he just seems generally selfish and callous to those around him. By the end of the novel, all I could think of that he achieved was to completely break the spirits of two women through his seduction, and create turmoil within both of their respective families and social circles. I don't know what part of that I am supposed to like. The worst thing is that there are enough similarities between Julien and Stendhal's backgrounds that you just sort of instinctively realise that Julien is supposed to be Stendhal's idealised version of himself; at least that's what it feels like, and it's really uncomfortable.
The other things that bugged me, to a lesser extent anyway, were parts of the plot that I think could have been shortened or just cut completely. There are two instances that immediately spring to mind. The first involves that rendezvous in the middle of the night that I mentioned earlier. In the hours preceding the meeting, Julien tries to figure out whether she is genuinely in love with him or whether the meeting is a trap to humiliate him among her aristocratic peers; this question, the answer to which the audience is already privy, takes up an entire chapter. It did not need an entire chapter to itself, maybe a paragraph or two; any longer and it just seems indulgent. The other instance that springs to mind involves a political intrigue that Julien acts as a messenger for. The ultimate purpose of it, in terms of the plot, is for Julien to meet an old friend, who he asks for advice in love. With that in mind, I see no reason why the reader needs to know the exact details of the entire intrigue, considering that it doesn't actually have an effect on the plot other than Julien's need to travel out of Paris; Stendhal himself even admits that politics in a novel is both tedious and dating, so why include it?
On the positive side, this is written very well, and is actually fairly interesting if you look at it as a kind of portrait of France in the era during which it was written. I was much more taken by the descriptions of society and the intricacies of etiquette than I was by Julien's struggles, which were, in my opinion, largely brought on by himself.

Overall, I couldn't help but read this with a measure of disappointment. Despite the fact that Scarlet and Black is well-written, I just couldn't bring myself to like the main character and so I ended up dissecting most of what I read in my head. I almost had a review pre-written about fifteen chapters before it ended, which tends not to be a good sign for me. It may be of interest to people interested in Romantic-era France. 3/5

Next review: Henry VI Part Three by William Shakespeare.

Signing off,
Nisa.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

I knew the ending of this novel before I started reading it. As a book widely considered to be a classic, it suffers from having a plot that is known to anyone who makes even the vaguest of inquiries. So, if I knew the ending, why pick it up? To put it simply, I like to read about clever people outwitting other, not-so-clever, people. It's perhaps a pleasure that can be considered mean-spirited, but it works for me none the less. If that was all I was reading for, did it deliver?

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is constructed from the letters of various members of French aristocratic society as their personal lives mingle in such a way that can only create disaster. Key amongst the many figures who get a moment in the spotlight are the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, two libertines intent on corrupting and ruining several people within their wider social circles. For the Marquise, this involves the corruption of a young girl, Cecile Volanges, in the lead-up to her marriage to one of the Marquise's enemies; this corruption is helped by the presence of the Chevalier Danceny, a young member of high society who has taken a shine to the innocent Cecile. The Vicomte's plans revolve around the complete seduction of Madame de Tourval, the virtuous wife of a judge, to prove once and for all his skill with women. These two plots converge in such a way that each libertine is working to help the other, until their personal feelings for their partner in crime lead to outright war between them. With a set-up such as this, I was given my train-wreck. It was glorious. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I was enjoying their machinations so much that I didn't actually want Merteuil and Valmont to fail; but, of course, wits such as theirs are not often paired with humility, so those looking for a "happy" ending, where the bad people meet their proper ends, will be satisfied. What I wasn't expecting from this set-up was insight, of a sort, into the sexual dynamics present in relationships and how these dynamics are perceived by society according to gender. This is most obvious when considering Madame de Merteuil and her relationship with Monsieur de Prevan, an unfortunate noble who convinces himself that he can ruin her pristine reputation by seducing her. When Merteuil decides to play Prevan at his own game, Valmont warns her to say that Prevan has successfully seduced and ruined three women at once before. Despite this story being fairly common knowledge, Prevan's reputation hasn't suffered for it; the only way that Merteuil can damage his reputation is to make it look as if he were about to rape her. The ideas that society has regarding male and female promiscuity has always seemed absurd to me: if a woman is labelled a slut for her promiscuity, why is a man congratulated, or at least not punished in the same way, for the same offence? It's not something that I was expecting to come up, especially considering that this was published in 1782, so it was nice to see both Merteuil and Valmont portrayed in similarly negative fashion for their similar conduct.
Unfortunately, this isn't utilised fully, and women seem to get the short end of the stick here more often than not. A particular gripe for me is the relationship between Mademoiselle de Volanges and Chevalier Danceny. I knew from his first letter that I deeply disliked Danceny. I considered his behaviour to be generally dreadful, yet he comes out of the novel the least damaged. First, his tactics in persuading Cecile to return his feelings come off more as him taking advantage of Cecile's inexperience and guilt; if your main tactic is guilt-tripping your object of affection, then there is a serious power balance issue. Second, when he is taken away from Cecile, it takes very little time for Merteuil to seduce him herself once she makes up her mind to do so; this is made worse by his decision to hide his affair from Cecile once he has access to her again, in order to "spare her feelings". Finally, once her relationship with Valmont is revealed to him, he seems to spare her no sympathy, just allowing her to seclude herself in a convent and suffer for her infidelity; ignoring the hypocrisy there, she's something like 15 years old and utterly clueless about sexuality, due to having grown up in a convent. To say that I was horrified by Cecile's ultimate fate would be an understatement.
The other aspect that has interested me especially about Les Liaisons Dangereuses is the huge amount of ambiguity that Laclos includes regarding motive and feelings between characters. I am referring in particular to the relationships that Valmont has with Merteuil and with Madame de Tourval. Throughout the novel, it is unclear whether Valmont is treating Madame de Tourval with the same callousness that he has done with countless other women, or whether he does actually possess some genuine form of love for her. At the same time, it is unclear whether the love affair that Merteuil and Valmont had in the past is impacting the events of the present story: does Merteuil still have feelings for Valmont, or is she merely referring to the past in order to bait him? They're questions that cannot be answered definitively, but I like to think that genuine feelings are present in both cases; even though they don't really affect the machinations overall, it is more interesting for me to consider Valmont and Merteuil as capable of love in some capacity, if only to introduce a point of mental weakness that can be exploited.

As you can probably gather from that lengthy discussion that I had with myself about this novel, I enjoyed Les Liaisons Dangereuses enormously. It is a difficult book to recommend to those who like a traditional happy ending, as no-one escapes this unpunished, regardless of their crimes. I can, however, recommend it to those who enjoy following intricate manipulation by masters of social convention, such as myself. It's also interesting to read the odd mix of libertine and traditional values of the time that this book presents. As a book that is also superbly well-written, I can think of few reasons to outright dislike it. 4.5/5.

Next review: Scarlet and Black by Stendhal.

Signing off,
Nisa.

Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec

I suppose I should preface this post with an apology for my inactivity. There are two main reasons for that. First, this book is fairly hefty. Second, the last month or so has been largely occupied with writing my last essays of the year and, more recently, with exams. I feel that I should have mentioned this in a separate post earlier in the month, but with one thing or another it just didn't happen until now. So yeah, sorry about the complete absence with no explanation there.

Anyway, on to the actual subject of this review. Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec. I am still unsure as to what made me pick up this book. I had heard of Perec before, having had my interest peaked by the idea of his novel A Void, in which the letter e is never used. I suppose it was the idea here that made me pick the book up: Life: A User's Manual looks at the lives of past and present inhabitants of a Paris apartment block. I guess the idea of something that was at once broad in scope, yet focused on a particular microcosm fascinated me.

As you could probably tell from the differences between the date of this post and my last post, this book took me a while to read. Considering that I was largely caught up by exams and university work in that period, this was perhaps not the wisest choice of book to read. The book as a whole could well be described as a collection of intertwined short stories, with each story taking place in a different room in the apartment block. While the largely self-contained nature of each chapter means that it is easy to find convenient places to pause reading, the interconnected nature of the stories as well as the huge cast of characters that is necessarily going to appear in the setting means that referring back to the previous chapters of less focused on characters is going to be a must. I have a feeling that if I had had less things preoccupying me, I might have remembered overall story-lines better. Although considering the huge appendices section, I may not be the only one who would have this trouble.
Talking about the characters is probably a futile exercise, as there are so many that it is necessary that I leave out descriptions of most them, simply so that this review won't be as long as the book itself. I suppose there could be considered a main character of sorts, as his is the story that is most in-depth. The main character then, is probably Bartlebooth, an eccentric Englishman who has dedicated his life to creating watercolours to be made into puzzles, which will be reverted to their original state of blankness after he has solved them. I actually came to like Bartlebooth the most out of the very large cast, simply because I could remember his story more than most of the other residents. There are other residents who are nearly as interesting, such as Hutting, a celebrated artist, Madame de Beaufort, a woman raising her grandchildren after the death of her daughter and son-in-law, and Henri Fresnel, a chef who left his wife and successful restaurant to pursue his dream of being an actor. There are, however, several times where the constrained way in which the narrative progresses means that there are some really interesting (or just plain weird) situations that are set up and never re-visited. There are two that spring to my mind immediately: first there is a kind of pseudo-cult initiation ceremony in an otherwise empty apartment, which I was desperate to know more about. The second one I was just utterly confused by: the aforementioned Henri Fresnel is a previous resident of the apartment block, so there is a quick glimpse of the current resident. The resident isn't given a name, and the glimpse the audience gets is of this unknown man lying naked among five blow-up dolls; as it comes at the end of a fairly standard rags-to-riches sort of story, it just seems totally out of left-field and is never given more explanation. This is probably not the only unexplained moment in the book, but it is that one that perplexed me the most.

Overall, I guess I'm still trying to figure out what my feelings are about this book. Like How the Dead Live and The Man in the High Castle, this is a predominantly intellectual book. It was quite rare that I would read a part that really affected me all that much. But it was an interesting read at the very least, so I guess I would recommend it to those who would have the patience for this, as well as those who appreciate good world-building in books. 3/5

Next review: Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Signing off,
Nisa.

(P.S. For those of you wondering about the picture, it's the author. I couldn't find a decent picture of my edition, so I figured that crazy hair and a cat would make up for it.)