Monkey droppings - Dog Blood by David Moody

The Monkey has the taste for blood and gore, for some reason.

Must be a monkey thing. No way humans have that impulse, right?

Right?

Dog Blood
by David Moody (2010)

NOTE: Spoilers abound in this review, particularly if you have not read Hater, Moody's unnerving first novel, and a direct precursor to the events in Dog Blood. Sorry, can't be helped.

When all the living have been infected and there's no one left to kill, what happens next? Does the hunger every go away, or is rotting all that's left for them?

There are a few ways to write a novel from the monster's point of view. One way is to soften the creature, try to make it seem sympathetic while it does monstrous things. See the canon of Anne Rice for many examples of this, taking the terrifying vampire of lore and making him a gothic romantic. There's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, and it can be done quite well - I love the first few instalments of Rice's Vampire mythos, but lost complete interest when Lestat slithered his way into Hell.

The other way is to embrace the monster for what it is, a monster. Something irredeemably grotesque and vile. This is what David Moody does. He started it with Hater and directly continues it with Dog Blood, presenting the monster as pure monster, crafting the story in such a way that the reader gets confused as to who to root for.

Hater posited a world where something (something never explained) transforms a good third of the world's population into violent, bloodthirsty fighters (or 'Haters') who will stop at nothing to kill the unaffected or 'Unchanged.' Moody started slowly, mixing his tale with equal parts Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 28 Days Later, and Night of the Living Dead. Part of Hater's grindhouse brilliance was to be narrated by Danny, one of the infected, a rather unassuming and put-upon father whose brain simply clicks over into destructive mode. There is no explanation offered, there is no room for questions. The Hater exists to kill the Unchanged, and there is no arguing points of logic or intellect.

However, where Hater was an exercise in sustained tension, Dog Blood finds itself firmly in sequel territory wherein the audience is already primed and ready. So, as sequels go, will Dog Blood be an escalation of themes and gore a la Dawn of the Dead or 28 Weeks Later, or will it be, well, a dog?

Luckily for the discriminating reader of hard-core horror, Dog Blood is pretty damn good. It's clumsy, and the writing is rarely more than serviceable, but Moody amps up the violence while driving his pseudo-zombie narrative into some uncharted territory, expanding his own mythos while staying true to the designated monster-movie format of killing anyone and everyone.

Dog Blood opens on Danny, a few months or so after the outbreak has firmly taken hold. The world is already heavily militarized; the Unchanged are kept behind walls that threaten to burst from overpopulation, while the Haters roam free, picking off any remnants of humanity they can find. But as with all addictions - like all good monster stories, the plot is rife with subtext, drug addiction being one of the more obvious - once the supply begins to dwindle, there's very little for the addict to do:

I don't get the same highs anymore, just the cravings. The euphoria has faded, and life's more of a struggle now. It's getting harder to find food, and I'm tired. The gap between kills in increasing, and all that's left to do in those gaps is think.

While Danny still gets a powerful high from killing, enough time has past that he has gained some perspective on the situation. Indeed, he is not the only one, as the Haters are beginning to mobilize and organize, believing that only once the Unchanged are wiped from existence can their lives return to normal. But Danny has a modicum more self-interest than most of his new brethren, understanding the risk concentrated attacks may pose the new world order.

When we're together we become an easy target for the Unchanged to pick out of the sky. Cowardly bastards. Face-to-face they know they don't stand a chance. Long-distance battles are the only ones they can win.

Speaking of subtext, the parallels to America's response to terrorism come through loud and clear. It may be unfair to ascribe a whole mind-set to one novel, but it would appear Moody does not hold out much hope for humanity's chances under sustained periods of strife.

But for Danny, his new comrades are only a tool to help him get what he truly seeks; his missing daughter Ellis, a five-year-old Hater he lost when his initial transformation overwhelmed him. Danny's quest takes him into the heart of the new Hater hierarchy, where the infected able to control their impulses plan a new strategy, that of subterfuge and infiltration.

No mistake, Dog Blood is not for everyone, and there are many who will see little value in its intense cynicism and graphic violence. But connoisseurs of the genre will realize the craft behind the mayhem, and will appreciate Moody's refusal to enliven his grim fairy tale with humour or hope. This is the horror of blood and guts, the horror of vintage Romero and Fulci, and if you're not prepared for it, why are you reading it?

It's the possibility of a new working world after the devastation that drives much of Dog Blood; in many ways, it is a sister novel to Octavia E. Butler's masterful Clay's Ark, about a space-borne pathogen that slowly alters the whole of the human race. Moody, like Butler, isn't interested in the whys of the infection, but in the consequences. In both stories, man is slave to his passions, and all the intellect in the world can only hold it at bay for so long. Moody isn't afraid to show the unpleasantness of his universe; despite Danny's identifiable personal quest, he's a conniving monster, as are his cohorts, and the rampant violence in Dog Blood is not for the squeamish.

In the end, Dog Blood, like Hater, is a true grindhouse horror movie translated onto the page. It is vile, nauseating stuff, done with verve and more style than you'd think. I recommend both books to the devoted horror fanatic who can appreciate both good art and good trash. I'd also recommend skipping lunch before you start.

VERDICT: MONKEY ENJOYS, IF THAT'S THE CORRECT TERM

Critical Monkey, entry seven! Flowers in the Attic - There won't be any trips to the dentist until your grandfather dies.

So, here we are. My very last (thank the various imaginary deities) Critical Monkey challenge.

Number seven. Acceptance.

Wonderful.

Not so wonderful, actually. My choice as capper to this tournament of evil is a staple of WalMart bookshelves, Safeway impulse racks, and pre-teen girl bedside tables. The Twilight of its time. A novel of potentially limitless awfulness, especially given its refusal to die a natural death.

I give you, Flowers in the Attic!

WHY I MIGHT HATE IT: C'mon, seriously? You can't not be familiar with this book, at least in passing. Written in 1979, V.C. Andrew's debut opus - a lurid blend of budding sexuality, gothic psycho-religious overtones, abandonment issues, confinement, incest, etc. - was an instant bestseller. Andrews went on to write a new novel every year or so, all covering the same basic themes, until her death in 1986, whereupon her name was implemented as a brand, and the series continues to this day. The covers all look the same, and let's be honest, I am obviously not the target demographic.

WHY I MIGHT LIKE IT: Can't think of reason one. If I could think of a reason I might like it, it probably wouldn't make the cut for this contest.

THE VERDICT: Well, it's marginally better than Twilight, anyway, but that's more to do its propulsive narrative than its overall quality.

I've been trying to determine exactly why none of the dialogue in Flowers works. And I mean none of it. Certainly, realistic dialogue is not necessary to enjoyment, and all literature requires at least a minor suspension of disbelief. Most novels contain passages no one would ever say; the novel I'm currently reading, Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction, is positively overflowing with brilliantly ridiculous dialogue impossible to accept as possible. Maybe it comes from desire; while no one would ever speak like a character in a Tom Robbins novel, I wish people could. The world would be a better place for it.

Contrast that with Flowers, with its pseudo-Victorian speech patterns that do nothing but annoy and never once approach believability. Here's a sample, a dialogue between the narrator Cathy (aged 14ish) and her brother Chris (17?):

"My God! You've made me look like a blond Prince Valiant! At first I didn't like it, but now I see you changed his style just a bit, so it isn't squared off. You've curved it, and layered it to flatter my face like a loving cup. Thank you, Catherine Doll. I had no idea you were so skilled at cutting hair."
"I have many skills you don't know about."
"I am beginning to suspect that."
"And Prince Valiant should be so lucky as to look like my handsome, manly, blond brother."

People don't talk like this, and I don't want people to talk like this. People who talk like a V.C. Andrews novel get beaten up an awful lot, I suspect. It's more entertaining than the deadly flat dialogue of Twilight, but equally bad all the same. Overwriting is Andrews' curse.

The plot, really a wonder of a soap opera, concerns the Dollanganger children. There's Cathy, the narrator; Christopher, the older brother; and Carrie and Cory, the twin babies. They exist in ridiculous happiness with their loving parents until ten pages in, when their father is killed in a car accident. High marks to Andrews for jumping right in to the action.

In a plot that challenges the definition of the word 'convoluted,' the mother must keep her children hidden from view of their grandfather. If he gets a whiff of their existence, she will be unable to claim any inheritance. She squirrels them away in an abandoned wing of his by all accounts massive mansion, where they spend years away from the outside world, tended to by a maniacal grandmother and an increasingly absent mother.

I'll give Flowers this; it does keep you reading. Andrews layers on so much ludicrous plot that, like an episode of One Life to Live, you can't help but wonder what could possibly happen next. This should not be read as a recommendation, but a warning; this is the worst sort of junk food for the mind, a soulless machine that keeps feeding you as much sugar as you crave. Oh, you'll eat, but you'll feel sick afterwards for stuffing your face. As the years (!) pass, and the children still haven't summoned up the courage to, I don't know, open the door and leave, Andrews piles on tragedy upon tragedy until the reader, along with the children, is left gasping for the pain to end.

The pain, that is, of reading it. Because Flowers is really, really bad. It gives the word 'loopy' a bad name. It's utterly stupid.

Which is why it sells, of course. It's a fantasy where children survive by their own wits against nefarious adults, set out in bleak tones readily identifiable to any morose teenage girl. And it never stops for breath, and never once does it appear that the phrase 'over-the-top' might have given Andrews pause.

But lord, is it bad. I read it, I can't unread it. The damage is done.

Still, again, better than Twilight.

VERDICT: MONKEY WEEPS AT THE THOUGHT OF 18 MORE SERIES LIKE THIS. SERIOUSLY. 18. ONE EIGHT.

And that's it. I complete my challenge. I'm, uh, going to go lie under the desk for awhile.

Monkey droppings - Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

The Monkey sits down to read a spanking new novel by an old favourite.

One hundred seventy-plus pages later, the Monkey finishes the novel and is crushed by overwhelming despair.

Tell-All
by Chuck Palahniuk (2010)

NOTE: Before the actual review begins, I'd like to take a moment and discuss something I've been struggling with for some days. As you'll read, I well and truly (spoiler alert!) loathe this novel. But I admit to internal conflict in this. How is Tell-All, to my mind, as poor a novel as The Murder of King Tut or Left Behind or The Justice Riders; novels that can't even summon up the gumption to be interesting. Palahniuk is undeniably a better author than the people behind those masses of tripe, a far more talented craftsman with a unique voice and (usually) singular energy. Yet Tell-All reeks of tedium. I read it, and I cannot find a reason for it to exist. If it weren't for the force of Palahniuk's name, I find it impossible to believe that it would ever have been published. Is it the unproven cynicism behind the novel that goads me, the thrusting of any of Palahniuk's half-baked ideas into the marketplace with the assumption that his fans will lap up anything? That is something I well and truly believe James Patterson does on a daily basis, but I never before would have lumped Chuck in the same pile. As I said, conflict roils in my belly, and I feel sick. Nevertheless, I have to stand by my criticism; Tell-All is execrable.

And now, preamble over, let's get to the review...

A respected author with his best days behind him is a sad, depressing prospect. And with his eleventh novel, American author Chuck Palahniuk has become very sad indeed. Palahniuk used to be a satirical darling with both critics and audiences. His novel Fight Club is a deservedly praised debut of verve and strength, and subsequent novels such as Rant and Choke justly earned him comparisons to J.G. Ballard and Kurt Vonnegut.

Lately, however, the quality of Palahniuk’s writings has been slipping. Snuff, about a porn actress trying to beat a sexual record, was a divisive piece of work, and his last novel Pygmy, about a pint-sized terrorist infiltrating an American family, found Palahniuk misfiring on many cylinders.

Yet even with the heartily disappointing Pygmy, Palahniuk was still an author trying out some new moves. But with Tell-All, his fourth novel in as many years, Palahniuk simply gives up, delivering a novel as negligible in size as it is in ambition.

Setting as his centerpiece the antics of a fading oft-married movie star a la Elizabeth Taylor combined with Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond, Tell-All is an excursion into the classic Hollywood of the 1940s and 50s. Written in a style akin to gossip tabloids of the time (complete with boldface font for every name mentioned), the novel promises on its surface to be a devastating dissection of celebrity, classic Palahniuk fare.

Palahniuk’s star is the once-famous Katherine Kenton, an actress now “earning applause, not for any performance, but for simply not dying.” The roles have dried up for Ms. Kenton, the only script on her night table “a horror flick about an aged voodoo priestess creating an army of zombies to take over the world.”

Tell-All is narrated by Kenton’s servant Hazie, who tends to “the endless job of dusting and polishing the not insignificant number of bibelots and gold-plated gimcracks awarded to Miss Katie.” Hazie also guards Kenton from possible suitors with ulterior motives, such as the celebrity biographer Webster Carlton Westward III, “the literary equivalent of a magpie, stealing the brightest and darkest moments from every celebrity he’ll meet.”

It’s hardly a unique setting, but the curse of celebrity has always provided a rich vein for satire. There are mild hints through the pages at what Tell-All could have been, an exposé of starwatchers who crave depictions of the sordid lives of celebrities, seeking “comfort and license in their own tawdry, disordered lives.”

Yet while even lesser efforts such as Invisible Monsters saw Palahniuk still pushing at his limits, Tell-All is the effort of an author who has utterly given up. It is a soggy, misshapen mess of half-baked parody and puddle-shallow inspiration.

Not one narrative element is even remotely interesting in presentation. Calling its characters superficial caricatures is a vast understatement, and not once throughout the thankfully meager length does Palahniuk ever achieve anything approaching actual insight. This would not be fatal if the story was at least somewhat captivating, but his paltry attempts at plot are, in keeping with Tell-All’s overall production, laughably insignificant.

Tell-All is an insulting shrug of indifference from an author who once actually mattered on the literary scene. To misquote Norma Desmond, Chuck may still be big, but his novels have gotten small.

VERDICT: MONKEY FLAT-OUT HATES

Originally published (expurgated version) in the Winnipeg Free Press, May 22, 2010.

Monkey droppings - talking animals galore!

The lonely Monkey, seeking companionship away from humanity, reads some Canadian novels about talkative animals.

Seriously, I must have a jones for anthropomorphism. Several of my favourite novels have animals (and objects) exhibiting human characteristics - The Bear Went Over the Mountain (bear), Firmin (rat), Winkie (teddy bear), Skinny Legs and All (can of beans, sock, painted stick, and spoon). On the tellybox, current favourite characters include Tim (bear) from The Cleveland Show and Brian (dog) from Family Guy. Don't know what it means.

I'm also the guy who loses emotional control when an animal bites it in a movie, but chows down on seconds of popcorn during examples of gratuitous human violence.

So, now you know something about me.

Come, Thou Tortoise
by Jessica Grant (2009)

My dad used to say I was a chalant. A lost positive. Nonchalance, he said, is indifferent to mystery. Nonchalant is one of the worst things a person can be. You hang on to your chalance.

So, I hears about this book, see? About a lopsided young woman and a verbose pet, and I thinks to myself, I thinks "Damned if that doesn't sound a lot like Erika Ritter's novel The Hidden Life of Humans."

And then I shake my head, and I can speak clearly and concisely again. And I find the book. And I am blown away.

The book is Come, Thou Tortoise, a critical Canadian darling that has already won author Jessica Grant a few awards, most recently the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Like Ritter's work, it alternates narration between an odd young woman and her pet; Ritter used a dog, whereas Grant employs a tortoise. Unlike The Hidden Life of Humans, with its mundane writing and medium sitcom-level humour (think Two and a Half Men, but in print, and with a canine in place of Charlie Sheen), Come, Thou Tortoise is an affecting and lyrical piece of work.

The odd woman, in thankfully Grant's only nod to overt preciousness, is Audrey 'Oddly' Flowers. Oddly is competent, intelligent, and yet, well, odd. So very odd. In the first chapter, thinking him to be a terrorist, she disarms an Air Marshall and barricades herself in a plane restroom. Yeah, she's odd.

Oddly has been living in the U.S. for awhile, but is returning home to Newfoundland to visit her ailing father. After her run-in with the Air Marshall, she boards a flight to home, a plane laden with Newfoundlanders. "The sound of Newfoundlanders on a plane: If sarcasm were generous, that is the sound."

Oddly leaves with friends her beloved Winnifred, a tortoise which is her last connection to a past lover. Winnifred, as befits an ancient soul, has a more sedate yet no less unique opinion of the world around her.

I am a pretty powerful tortoise. I walked across the desert once, about a century ago. All the way from Texas. Slow like the camel in Lawrence of Arabia...All along the way I passed overturned tortoise shells, picked clean by birds. Pretty discouraging. But I kept going. Why. Because I had heard stories about trees a hundred feet tall. I had heard about rain. And why should a tortoise not have rain in her life.

As Oddly comes to grips with her new obligations (her father, a scientist, actually passed away), Grant weaves a strange, comic novel that is as moving as it is funny. It says a lot that I find myself playing certain scenes over in my head weeks later, wondering at how Grant found such new ways to view the world.

Even as Oddly goes completely off the rails, in a loose plot that contains conspiracy theories, missing uncles, offbeat wordplay, and strangely eternal mice, Grant keeps the plot running with effortless efficiency, somehow rooting its absurdities in reality. There is very little in the way of overt wackiness, and Grant's writing never becomes irritatingly coy or overbearing. Oddly and Winnifred are winning characters (Winnifred is given far less to do, but that's for the best), and Grant populates her pages with all sorts of endearing characters. Especially Uncle Thoby, a relative from England, holder of the family secrets and saddled with one arm longer than the other.

Come, Thou Tortoise, with echoes of Vonnegut by way of the gentler humour of Miram Toews, is strange. So strange. And like Oddly, so very, very lovable.

VERDICT: MONKEY DAMN NEAR LOVES

Beatrice & Virgil
by Yann Martel (2010)

I don't get it.

Not the novel Beatrice & Virgil; that I get, and will return to it shortly. What befuddles me is the immense amount of hatred that has been levelled toward Yann Martel's follow-up to Life of Pi.

The reviews so far have varied wildly, from praise to admiration to dislike, and then to loathing of a most disturbing sort. There is one particular blogger, a popular (and quite smart) writer, who proclaimed Beatrice & Virgil, amidst a diatribe so hyperbolic and obscenity-laden it completely loses focus, to be the worst novel of the decade. I won't bother linking to the post: enough has been written about it that it's not hard to find, and quite frankly, the post is so ridiculously over-the-top that it calls into question (for me) everything he has previously written. I'm not unfamiliar with exhibiting an arguably unreasonable hatred for a novel (see this James Patterson post as example, as well as my upcoming review of Chuck Palahniuk's latest), but if this gent thinks Beatrice & Virgil is the worst novel of the decade, he doesn't read near enough.

B&V concerns Henry, a famous author taking a sabbatical from writing. His previous novel was a major hit, but his follow-up work - a flipbook that would contain a story and an essay, both concerning a Holocaust - has been turned down by his publisher as lacking in commercial appeal. Henry moves with his wife to a new country, where he does his best to ignore his storytelling urge. But a fateful meeting with a strange old taxidermist reignites his passion.

Make no mistake, this is no Life of Pi. Instead of a fable, Martel works within the genre of direct allegory, as his author struggles with the dilemma of presenting the Holocaust within the realm of art.

No such poetic license was taken with - or given to - the Holocaust. That terrifying event was overwhelmingly represented by a single school: historical realism. The story, always the same story, was always framed by the same dates, set in the same places, featuring the same cast of characters...And so Henry came to wonder: why this suspicion of the imagination, why the resistance to artful metaphor?

The taxidermist fuels Henry's imagination through an absurdist play the old man is writing, a Beckett-like fable involving Beatrice, a donkey, and Virgil, a howler monkey. As Henry learns more of the play, he becomes obsessed with discovering a way to encapsulate the horrors of the Holocaust within his art.

This is not an easy subject, but Martel's take on it is artful and airy. Almost too airy; unlike Life of Pi, where the fantastic elements were rooted in a devastatingly believable narrator, none of Martel's characters in B&V rise about the level of being a tool to the parable. Martel is not so much telling a story as he is expressing an opinion, and this does the work a disservice.

Okay, so, it's not Life of Pi (a novel with its own fair share of detractors, although I do not count myself among them - I love the book, practically unconditionally). Martel lets his ideas on allegory overwhelm the potential of his narrative. But so what? The book is eminently readable, literate, and poetic, and leaves the reader filled with questions that demand a reasoned response. How to present unimaginable horrors within an artistic context is a puzzle that may never be answered, but must be continually addressed. So why the utter animosity? If you expected Life of Pi 2, sure, you'll be disappointed, but the deluge of hatred that has spewed forth is all out of proportion to the work itself. If you want to complain about poor allegories, go read some Paulo Coelho (talk about an unreasonable hatred).

Myself, I'll take Beatrice & Virgil for what it is, an imperfect quest to solve an impossible question. It's not perfect, but it made me ponder philosophical and artistic theories, which puts it head, shoulders, waist, and knees above anything Coelho ever wrote.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES A LOT

Critical Monkey! Update the 10th!

Ten months down, two to go!

Acceptance (seven reviews)

Lori L
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Roses of Glory by Mary Pershall
Spock's World by Diane Duane
A Texan's Honor by Leigh Greenwood
Star Wars: Rebel Dawn by A.C. Crispin
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer *ineligible for contention*
Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke
The Outlaws of Mesquite by Louis L'Amour

Scrat
Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey
Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
Double Cross by James Patterson
Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
Lisey's Story by Stephen King
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Steve Zipp
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Whiteoaks of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche
The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Navy Times Book of Submarines by Brayton Harris

Depression (six reviews)

Corey Redekop
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Justice Riders by Chuck Norris
Jake and the Kid by W.O. Mitchell
Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson & Martin Dugard *ineligible for contention*
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Anger (five reviews)

Jeanne
Empire of Lies by Andrew Klaven
A Merry Heart by Wanda E. Brunsetter
A Washington, D.C. by Robert J. Hensler
It's Not that I'm Bitter by Gina Barreca
Fat Girls in Lawn Chairs by Cheryl Peck

Guilt (four reviews)

Bargaining (three reviews)

Betty
Generation Dead/Generation Dead: Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters
A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

gypsysmom
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

Denial (two reviews)

Shock (one review)

Alison
On the Road by Jack Kerouac

As you can see, we now have three triumphant titans of terrific grit. Bravo!

Unfortunately, I let myself down this month. Due to a combination of factors, I have spent far more time on personal exploits than I have this contest. But I have chosen my final challenge: the death-defying exploits of V.C. Andrews in the one that started it all (by all, I mean all those endless, terrible-looking sequels I see dotting the bookshelves and racks at the WalMart checkout line) Flowers in the Attic.

As for the rest of you brave souls: two months left. Sixty-one days. Can you handle it?