I'm still a bit baffled by the title; it's like saying

I still clearly remember the day in high school English when my teacher decried the evils of formulaic writing, citing Stephen King as a prime offender. I’ve long since forgotten my teacher’s name but King’s popularity prevails, as does that of another serial offender, children’s author Brian Jacques. His Redwall series has been around since 1986 and the cover of High Rhulain, the 18th book in the series, proclaims “over 5 million Redwall books sold”.

So in spite of what I was taught in school, formulas seem to work well for both authors and readers. High Rhulain shows Brian Jacques at the top of his game: he seems comfortable with the elaborate animal world that he’s created, and the comfortingly familiar plot flows easily from his fingers. The usual elements are present: the Abbey and its peaceful-yet-feisty inhabitants, the comically militant hares and their solemn badger lord from the mountain fortress of Salamandastron, an evil race of vermin (in this case, wild cats) bent on oppression and destruction of their enemies, a group of oppressed innocents looking for a leader (otter slaves), and an unlikely hero in the guise of young otter maid Tiria Wildlough.

The animal races are a very simple and effective shorthand to help younger readers understand the various allegiances, and also make for affable characters, with different species identified by their accents. Like Terry Pratchett, Jacques has a great talent for representing these in text form. The battles are violent and young readers are not spared from both the horrors war and death, although bravery is rewarded and the forces of good prevails. (A quick aside: conservative political ideology resonates with kids, resulting in leftists worrying about a new generation of conservatives that will undo their efforts.)

I only wonder how much longer Jacques can keep his stories fresh – there are only so many animal species and so many types of accent. Having said that, 3 more Redwall books have been published since Rhulain, so if nothing else, it could just be that Brian Jacques has found a winning formula.

What goes in, must come out...

Purpose designed to be read on the bog, Trivia for the Toilet comes with a “splashproof, easy-wipe cover”, and offers amusing little tidbits of information for you to read while passing, er… time.

There’s enough to keep one entertained throughout many visits to the throne, with plenty of amusing anecdotes, fun stats, examples of nature’s quirkiness, and just plain randomness, such as a list of the many words that Eskimos have for different types of snow.

In the midst of these, I noticed a few that are based on popular urban myths, e.g. “A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no-one knows why” (debunked)* – so I was never 100% sure that the other “facts”, however funny or interesting, aren’t also incorrect.

If you can find it on the cheap, or need a gift idea and couldn’t be bothered thinking of something better (e.g. a Kris Kringle for a colleague you don’t know very well), Trivia for the Toilet is just the thing.

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* And on an unrelated note, the duck quack’s echo is also the topic of one of my favourite pictures – the duck looks so happy to be having a conversation with the researcher. It makes me laugh every time:

Testing to see whether a duck's quack echoes

Behind this plain cover lurks an immense wealth of information about language

Considering that I picked this up as a Penguin Classics edition from Borders for $10 minus the 40% discount, How Language Works is both a much more recent work (2007), and a heck of a lot more comprehensive than I thought it would be – hence you’ll have noticed that this title was my “Currently reading” title for at least the last several months.

Within 73 chapters across almost 500 pages, David Crystal crams in an overview of practically every single scrap of human endeavour relating to language. From where languages came from, how they’re structured and how we use them, no curiosity is left unsatisfied. If you had any question as to where your interest in languages might lie, by the end of this book you will be in absolutely no doubt.

Though biblically epic, and at times just as boring (the chapters listing out the languages and their families is about as riveting as the book of Numbers detailing the genealogy of the Abrahamic faiths) there is plenty to interest the casual reader. Maybe it’s the phase I’m at in life, but I found Crystal’s many insights into how children learn language to be especially interesting:

In the middle of the third year, there is a significant shift in procedure. Children start asking lots of questions about the names of things: What’s that?, What’s that called? Parents usually do quite well in replying to these opening questions, but they tend not to be so good in answering the follow-up ones, many of which begin with ‘Why?”: Why is it a jackdaw? Most people cannot answer, other than wearily and emptily: Because that’s its name, Because it is. We find it difficult to say such things as Because it’s a bird and it’s black, as that is not how we are used to using the word because. But it is precisely such details that the child is hoping to hear.

There are also many questions to pique the reader’s curiosity, although few are satisfactorily answered, e.g. How many syllables are in the word meteor?

Each chapter covers what must be an entire field of study, which makes for a mind-boggling exercise reading with any kind of speed. It brings to mind looking out the window of a bullet train as it passes by a train station. Endlessly fascinating, but you only get the merest glimpse – even if something catches your eye, it won’t pause for lengthier consideration, like this passage condensing the entire history of typography into a single paragraph:

In Europe, the main step forward came in the mid-15th century, with the invention in Germany of movable metal type in association with the hand-operated printing press – developments that are generally credited to Johannes Gutenberg (1390 – 1468). Metal type was set by hand  until the introduction of various systems of mechanized typesetting in the 19th century. The linotype machine was introduced towards the end of the century, and became standard in newspaper offices. Techniques of photo-composition became a commercial reality in the 1950s. Computerized typesetting began to be used from the late 1960s. The prototype of the typewriter was built in 1867 by the American inventory Christopher Latham Sholes (1819 -90), and rapidly achieved popularity. Modern developments include the electric typewriter, the word processor, the use of the telephone keypad to send messages, and the computer keyboard – now the preferred mode of graphic expression for most young people.

In case you didn’t catch it, he was talking about SMS text-messaging using mobile phones somewhere in there – phew!

In my day job as “Editor-in-Chief” and as a blogger, I tend to fall in with the crowd that loves pointing out whenever somebody has put an apostrophe wrong, or has spelt a word incorrectly. Given its nature, you’d expect this book to support this cause, but David Crystal is surprisingly critical of the emerging zero-tolerance attitude, and has an especially scathing message to those he calls “Trussians” (after Lynne Truss, the author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves) – in a section titled “Potato’s as a test case”, Crystal explains that there is little basis, historically or linguistically, for criticising what seems to be an incorrect use of the apostrophe since it represents a class of specific exceptions in the way that we pluralise words English, and also that it was a perfectly acceptable form until the 1700’s. He chides us by saying “to condemn someone for using such forms as potato’s is actually to display linguistic ignorance – an ignorance of the logic behind such forms which the modern users are unconsciously manifesting.”

Overall, a very interesting if epic read. Plus, you seriously can’t argue the bang-per-buck, even at the full price of $9.95.

Another classic Paul Kidby Discworld book cover

Despite the tragic early onset of Alzheimers, Unseen Academicals shows that popular fantasy author Terry Pratchett is still in top form. He’s got the “diamond in the rough” schtick down to a T, but the difference is that at the end of each story, those polished diamonds don’t disappear off into obscurity – they sparkle on in subsequent novels, imbuing the Discworld with an extreme richness (pun intended).

The 37th novel in the Discworld series(!), Academicals continues the recurring theme of the modernisation of the capital city of Ankh-Morpork. Recent books have seen A-M gain a postal service, a telecommunications system known as “the clacks”, a shiny new banking system, its own currency, and now, football (soccer) and, er… a high-end fashion industry*.

Pratchett still has the touch, and the book offers unnervingly accurate insight into the human psyche, as the plot bores deeply into the inner workings of players, fans, and of course – because it’s soccer – hooligans. The British humour, Flintstones-style take on the modern world, and the satire of fantasy conventions are all exquisitely funny for sure, but beneath the veneer of slapstick he hits hard at issues such as taking the ambiguity of dwarven genders and putting them into the context of the high-end fashion industry, to explore ideas of sexual identity and individual choice, without speaking of sex whatsoever (although there’s more sexual innuendo than usual for Discworld novel as far as I can recall).

The "Jolly Sailor Tobacco Football Cards" depicting characters from Unseen Academicals, available separately and also illustrated by Paul Kidby

Rather than following the escapades of a single character, several plot threads weave their way in and around of each other:

• The wizards of Unseen University, who need to put together a football team or risk losing the significant financial benefits of a bequest that funds their lackadaisical academic lifestyle
• Trevor Likely, trying to grow out of the shadow of his late father Dave – a legend who scored a record number of goals the historical game of “foot-the-ball”
• Nutt, a genteel so-called goblin who discovers the truth about his enigmatic past
• Glenda Sugarbean, the homely head of the university’s Night Kitchen, and her ditsy, comely friend Juliet (“Jools”) Stollop whose modelling debut (heavily armoured and wearing a dwarf beard) leaves the fashion world abuzz and has them trying to find the mysterious “Jewels”
• The dwarf Madame Sharn, head of the fashion label Shatta, and her flamboyant assistant Pepe, at the launch of their new line of micromail.
• The ins-and-outs of the “Shove” – the collective of football followers, being that when they get together to watch a game, nobody can really see anything and all that happens is a lot of shoving.

… and of course the welcome appearance of recurring characters such as Havelock Vetinari, the seemingly omniscient Patrician of Ankh-Morpork; and brief cameos by Death, and Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler.

What I love most about Pratchett even more than the insights, is his mastery of the written form, and his ability to ignore the conventions of language that we take for granted, as when one of the characters in the book is described as being full of “charisn’tma”. And like most of the other Discworld novels, he pushes the boundaries of typography by using bolds, italics, font-sizes, Death’s dialogue ALWAYS IN CAPS and more, to eke every bit of meaning possible out of the words on the page.

To confuse my sporting metaphors, Unseen Academicals adds another home run to an already impressive scoreboard, and I seriously hope that Pratchett hits a couple more before the end of his innings.

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* For this reason, if you’re new to Discworld I don’t recommend starting with this book – check out the reading order in Wikipedia for more details.

Subsequently, butchers around the country took this to heart, aggressively marketing the BBQ as an Australia Day tradition, and the national holiday is under threat of becoming a national day of animal slaughter.

The book cover has this cool gimmick where the title and outlines over the cow are part of the clear plastic jacket.

Not that I’m complaining. I love my dead animal as much as the next guy, which brings me to the point of this post – GeekReads is supposed to be a book review blog after all (the fact that the vast majority of posts are about everything other than books notwithstanding). I’m talking about Meat. by Adrian Richardson, owner of “La Luna Bistro” in Melbourne. It’s a book that aims to educate Australians on the art of “how to choose, cook & eat [meat]“, and is divided into a couple of introductory chapters explaining the basics, chapters for each of the main animals (beef, veal, lamb, etc.), and a few chapters around meat-related types of cooking such as pies, charcuterie (preserving meat), and stocks and sauces.

Each of the chapters about meat starts off with a few pages detailing the various types and cuts available, what to look for, how and where to buy and tips on cooking, followed by a good variety of recipes that cover a wide range of styles and cultures. I haven’t had a chance to try any yet, but I definitely like the look of them – they mostly use common ingredients and have clear, easy-to-follow instructions.

Adrian Richardson, owner of La Luna Bistro and author of Meat.

The book is written in a personal and amiable style. Richardson coyly mentions in his opening sentence that he was a vegetarian as a child, but thereafter launches straight into his passion and love for cooking and eating meat, including a section dedicated to mapping out the journey that meat takes “from the farm to the fork”, and not glossing over the fact that it is, after all, a bunch of dead animals. For example:

The abattoir
There is nothing pretty about abattoirs, or about the slaughtermen (and they are mainly men) who work there, but they are an essential part of the journey. [...] I’m not denying it’s a confronting and even a brutal experience, but slaughtermen are skilled professionals and I’ve always been impressed by the pains that they take to give the animal as stress-free and comfortable a death as possible. It certainly seems no worse a way to go than any other more ‘natural’ end.

This is unlikely to appease animal activists, but Richardson is nothing if not respectful:

I’ve also discovered that the more one thinks about and understands the way animals live – and die – to feed us, the more it’s natural to want to give them back some sort of dignity. For me, this is not just about ethical farming practices and ensuring that animals have happy lives, but it’s also about valuing the animal by using its meat to the fullest extent you can.

I came across this book in the library, but will definitely get my own copy (the reason why I haven’t bought it already is because I’m waiting for a voucher or something, being the cheapskate that I am).

Happy meat-eating festiv… er, I mean Australia Day, readers!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on the Nintendo DS doesn’t fall too far from the tree anyway, since within its interactive nature lurks a linear narrative. It’s not exactly a recent release either, considering that it was originally released in Japan way back in 2001 (isn’t it funny that the early 2000’s seem so long ago now?) More recently, it was updated for Nintendo’s new touchscreen platform and translated into English. The game consists of 5 loosely inter-related cases, where the eponymous lawyer must outwit his opponent and out the truth.

The graphics are simplistic, with each character having only a few frames of animation to show emotions such as triumph, remorse, shock, etc. The bulk of the storytelling is left to the dialogue, which is surprisingly competent, even with some of the lines and jokes which must have been quite difficult to translate well from the original Japanese version.

It should be no surprise that the experience is nothing like a real courtroom trial. Progressing through the game is mostly a matter of deduction, matching up various clues with holes in the witness testimonies and calling them out as “Objections”. Sometimes the game’s linear nature can make for frustrating play, as what might seem logical isn’t expected to unfold until later in the storyline and you’re left to figure out exactly what it is that you’re supposed to be discovering.

I found the stories just entertaining enough to keep me plodding through the game structure, but I could see how others might prefer to just read their stories unfettered by a game mechanic that, ultimately, is designed to impeded progress. If that’s you, maybe you should just stick with books. Then again, this game is nearing 10 years old – an eternity in the medium, and newer titles in the series (including a follow-on starring a different lawyer, Apollo Justice) may have improved on the forumla. Well worth picking up if you can find it on the cheap, purely for the novelty value of yelling “Objection!” into your DS and getting a reaction.

I won’t write a whole lot about James Cameron’s latest, Avatar, because the following diagram sums up almost exactly how I feel about the movie (courtesy of Aurich Lawson, from Ars Technica):

Avatar: the Venn diagram

It just seems as if storywriters cobbled together elements from many popular movies (look in the comments, especially) and added a huge dose of incredible 3D imagery – akin to hanging Monica Bellucci’s beautifully voluptuous body on Kate Moss’s scrawny skeleton. The movie is still entertaining – as the huge box office opening numbers attest – and the world of Pandora is certainly compelling, but time will tell whether this particular chapter of its history will have the same legs as Cameron’s previous work in the genre such as Terminator and Alien.

Watch it and make up your own mind, but if you do, definitely go for a 3D session otherwise you’d be missing out on one of the most compelling things about this movie.

Sherlock Holmes movie poster

Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, is one of the recent crop of sexed up literary classics such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland. This movie is surely conceived for the current generation, with its slow-motion flashbacks accompanied by a narration of how-it-works; you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a new CSI: Ye Olde England.

Director Guy Ritchie has delivered us a quick-thinking, fast-talking, and hard-hitting Holmes. Without having actually read the books, I’d hazard a guess that they’ve made a valiant effort to retain the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, but have sadly taken the liberty of emphasising the characters’ physical prowess as much as their intellectual capabilities. Regardless, Holmes solves mysteries by being a superlative detective, with or without biffo, and I found the movie to be agreeable, with Downey Jr. an inoffensive Holmes, and Jude Law playing the affable but beleaguered Watson perfectly.

However, there were two things that really, truly irked me in Sherlock Holmes, although they weren’t problems with the movie, per se:

1. The blatant declaration of franchise
It seems that a Hollywood movie wont’ be bankrolled these days unless it’s a sequel, or could potentially spawn sequels. When was the last time you saw a movie whose title doesn’t contain a numeral (deliberate attempts to avoid this, such as The Dark Knight notwithstanding)? Sherlock Holmes brings this to a new low, by incorporating Holmes’ arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty into the plot right from the get-go, but not resolving that particular part of the storyline.

2. It’s all about America
In the middle of the movie, the film’s antagonist Lord Blackwood delivers his monologue about the fruits of his nefarious plan, about how the “new colonies” are weak from civil war, how their government is just as crappy as the British one, and how by taking over both he will rule the world. It’s as if everything that happens up until then doesn’t matter, but once their precious country is threatened, that’s the moment when the penny drops and the duh-merican thinks to themselves “hoo boy, that’s why his ass needs a-whuppin’!”

Why is it that America is always depicted as “the world”? It’s as if the average citizen can’t fathom how a foreign person could conceivably do significant evil to the world if it’s not a threat to the U.S. of A. Take Quentin Taratino’s Inglourious Basterds – they even had to insinuate themselves into history of Nazi Germany. Sadly, I’m sure that if pressed, they would just retort that America makes movies for America, and if you don’t like it go and make your own… except that they ripped off Sherlock Holmes from the British. Oh well, I’m sure the irony is lost on Hollywood. At least they have the decency to make their movies entertaining, unlike Australian ones.

Dunno why the carousel horse was significant enough to warrant being depicted on the cover

Reviewing a literary classic is fraught with danger, if only because there’s bound to be loads of stuff I miss – captured by decades of academic scrutiny – making me seem unlearned. Yet any serious reader, especially geeky ones, can’t ignore the classics… ahem… especially if you couldn’t be bothered going out to buy or borrow a book after you’d finished your previous one, and your wife just so happens to have a copy (no, I’m not reading Pride and Prejudice, er… again.)

This is my first time reading J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, a book relentlessly studied in high schools, but not one that I ever came across in my schooling. Maybe because I imagined that I’d have to turn in an essay after reading it (which this review is, in a way), I approached the book with an analytical eye, but unsure of what to look for exactly. This is most likely why I found it difficult to like when I first started reading – the language was too old-school for my tastes, the main character was particularly odious, and it seemed to be completely lacking in plot.

But there’s just something about Holden Caufield’s story, isn’t there? It’s not that the character himself is likeable per se, but in the glimpse that you get of the world through his eyes, you start to see a little of your own world – the ever-present malaise affecting society that’s bubbling just below the surface. Salinger doesn’t claim to have the answer, which is largely why I found the book so unsatisfying initially, but he does manage to impart some timeless wisdom to eternally disaffected youth through these words spoken by Mr. Antonlini:

‘Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you.’

There’s something wonderfully recursive about that quote, given that the story is written in the first person from Holden’s perspective. And that seems to be the crux of it. The book isn’t so much a story as it is parable for misguided young persons.

If I was writing an essay, that would be my conclusion. What do you think… would I have passed?

The otherworldly Lily Cole

You will quite likely have heard of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, probably because Heath Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose during its filming. Ledger’s death also occurred at around the same time that he was being lauded for his superb performance as The Joker  in The Dark Knight, further increasing the anticipation for this movie.

Without wanting to make it a recurring theme here at GeekReads, I tell you: don’t let yourself get affected by the hype. Parnassus is a clever and entertaining movie and Ledger is good in the lead role of Tony, a disgraced charity mogul being used as a pawn in a bet between Mr. Nick (the devil) and the doctor, but it’s not a performance that will win him the same accolades that he received for playing the deranged nemesis of Batman (inevitable awards given as a posthumous “tribute” notwithstanding). Nevertheless, I still much prefer Heath Ledger to Eric Bana, who can’t seem to shake off his “Australian-ess”.

The rest of the cast – including the very exotic looking and doll-like Lily Cole (Valentina), and Verne Troyer (Percy), who must be the only short-statured actor who can act if his ubiquity is anything to go by – play their roles well, and provide plenty of circus freak-show moments to keep the movie interesting. Unfortunately, the characters never quite fit together, and lack the chemistry necessary to hook you into the story emotionally. Completing the triangle with Tony and Valentina is Anton (Andrew Garfield), an orphan adopted by Dr. Parnassus, who is more annoying buffoon than viable love interest.

The look and feel is hard to describe, but the feel of the movie is dirty, gritty and gypsy-ish – the seedy bits somewhere in between past and present London, although it is set in modern times. In contrast, the bright and surreal scenes inside the Imaginarium take some getting used to, and like the characters (or maybe because of the characters) vary greatly in consistency. The movie certainly lives up to its name though, with lots of very imaginative sets, costumes and visuals.

The four Tonys: Heath, Johnny, Colin and Jude

Mention must be made of the stand-in actors – Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell and who donated their time and effort to help complete the movie (their fees are being donated to a trust fund for Ledger’s daughter, Matilda). Each of them does a marvellous job of channelling Ledger. Personally, I thought Johnny Depp did the best job.

I really do wonder how the movie would have turned out had Heath Ledger lived. The ending did feel somewhat tacked on, and I never did quite figure out whether I was supposed to like or hate Tony. Surprisingly, Parnassus is an original idea from (director) Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, so maybe a few years down the track they’ll do a remake using the original concept.

If you do go see this, try not to think of it as “Heath’s last movie”. You’ll enjoy it more.