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King of Cats
May. 12th, 2006 08:46 amI'm sitting on a cushion on the floor, because the laptop is ADSL-cable-chained to a low table and the only low chair in the house broke last night. This may affect my concentration. Also, it means I have to go chair-shopping today.
Now to the reason why I'm bothering with the cushion: Blake Fraina's King of Cats - A Life in Five Novellas.
Okay, I'm just going to breeze past my numerous issues with grammar/spelling/whathaveyou with a single word: argh!
I rather adore the story. I'm a huge fan of stories where few things are what they seem to be, where twists and turns reveal in small pieces what may or may not be some kind of truth.
The main character, the musician Jimmy Lyons, is introduced through the first story, about a man fascinated with Balthus' painting The king of the cats (see above). Through his rather unhealthy fascination and wish to find someone who looks like the man in the painting he meets Elliott, who also appears fascinated with it, and gets drawn into what appears to be a very unhealthy and tangled relationship between Elliott and Jimmy Lyons.
Elliott is actually the character that interests me the most, probably because he remains mysterious throughout the book. Jimmy Lyons' enigma is gradually picked apart, and I find that he ends up rather flat and clichéed - not that there's actually anything wrong with that. He's a musician, focused primarily on his own ambitions, and he's hardly the first cool looking guitarist to prove less than exciting on further examination.
The characters in this book, Jimmy included, are real and believable, revealed as human beings through often irrational and sometimes rash actions and chopped-up, limping thought processes. Elliott, on the other hand, is a person whose actions could always be disguising a motive and whose thoughts stay shut away from the reader. He's a trickster, a shameless liar and manipulator, and it's never clear which, if any, of his declarations are truthful. He's the constant spoke in the wheel of relatively straightforward actions of the others.
I have to admit, the last story of the five disappointed me a bit. I'll avoid spoilers, and just point out that while it's every bit as well written as the other four, the plot seems so mundane to me. I'd like a different backstory to Jimmy's life as an adult.
The language sometimes creates a distance to the plot and the characters, through pared-down, summarising sentences, and that works with the stories, contrasting with the vividness of the characters. Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult for me to say anything intelligent about the use of language, as I'm honestly not certain what is intended and what should have been edited.
Now to the reason why I'm bothering with the cushion: Blake Fraina's King of Cats - A Life in Five Novellas.
Okay, I'm just going to breeze past my numerous issues with grammar/spelling/whathaveyou with a single word: argh!
I rather adore the story. I'm a huge fan of stories where few things are what they seem to be, where twists and turns reveal in small pieces what may or may not be some kind of truth.
The main character, the musician Jimmy Lyons, is introduced through the first story, about a man fascinated with Balthus' painting The king of the cats (see above). Through his rather unhealthy fascination and wish to find someone who looks like the man in the painting he meets Elliott, who also appears fascinated with it, and gets drawn into what appears to be a very unhealthy and tangled relationship between Elliott and Jimmy Lyons.
Elliott is actually the character that interests me the most, probably because he remains mysterious throughout the book. Jimmy Lyons' enigma is gradually picked apart, and I find that he ends up rather flat and clichéed - not that there's actually anything wrong with that. He's a musician, focused primarily on his own ambitions, and he's hardly the first cool looking guitarist to prove less than exciting on further examination.
The characters in this book, Jimmy included, are real and believable, revealed as human beings through often irrational and sometimes rash actions and chopped-up, limping thought processes. Elliott, on the other hand, is a person whose actions could always be disguising a motive and whose thoughts stay shut away from the reader. He's a trickster, a shameless liar and manipulator, and it's never clear which, if any, of his declarations are truthful. He's the constant spoke in the wheel of relatively straightforward actions of the others.
I have to admit, the last story of the five disappointed me a bit. I'll avoid spoilers, and just point out that while it's every bit as well written as the other four, the plot seems so mundane to me. I'd like a different backstory to Jimmy's life as an adult.
The language sometimes creates a distance to the plot and the characters, through pared-down, summarising sentences, and that works with the stories, contrasting with the vividness of the characters. Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult for me to say anything intelligent about the use of language, as I'm honestly not certain what is intended and what should have been edited.
