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Sep. 18th, 2023 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1.I'm beginning to think 2023 is the year of strikes. Every time I turn on the news, someone else is striking. So far, the Frieght Rails threatened to strike (it was resolved), the Airline Pilot's union (also resolved), the Airline Flight Attendants (resolved), the WGA (television/film Writers) and SAG/AFTRA ( Actors union) - not resolved as of yet, The Theater Stage Crews and Film Crews (resolved at the final hour), UAW (United Auto Workers).
My union has a contract which I think was up in either June or July, but we rarely strike. We came close only once - way back in 2011.
2. The weather makes me ache. Everything hurts today. I took tynenol. Felt better. I usually just ignore it - I've inherited my mother's and grandmother's high tolerance for pain.
3. Saw two people on the subway today that I had to draw and possibly water color this week. But maybe not water color tonight. I did draw them. The man irritated me - so I came home and drew him. The woman fascinated me, so ditto.
4. Making my way through Gabino Iglesias horror novel The Devil Takes You Home. It isn't highly rated on Good Reads, but it is Good Reads - ninety percent of the reviews and ratings on Good Reads are unreliable - it's why I gave up and stopped reading them.
It's a Southwestern Gothic Noir Horror Novel. Leans heavily towards noir. So if noir is not your thing, or horror for that matter, best avoid. I tend to like both for the most part. The style and story structure reminds me a lot of Stephen King. (I happen to like King's work but it isn't for everyone.) The story is about a man who loses everything that matters to him. His daughter dies of cancer - and it unravels from there. To pay off the medical bills, he takes a job as a hit man - killing off bad dudes. And he has a bit of a second sight - he can see things. The first man he kills - worms roll out of the corpse. It's fairly descriptive - not quite as descriptive as King, but close.
Iglesias is a good wordsmith - considering he is writing in two languages. Spanish pops up in various passages. This doesn't bother me - I can figure out what it means by context. It has a lot to do with my brand of dyslexia and how I figured out how to cope with it. It's why James Joyce's Ulysses wasn't an issue for me. For me? It's an easy enough read. The description takes me there - I can see it in my head, but not to the degree that it bugs me. I'd rather read a horror novel than watch a horror film or television series (if that makes any sense?)
I'm not finding it as unnerving or scary as Kingfisher's novels. Even though this too is in first person - close. First person often works best for horror (not so much for romance novels) but definitely for horror. You feel like you are going through it with the protagonist - and you have an unreliable narrator aspect. In that - you only see what the protagonist sees.
I think I know where this novel is going, and so far it feels formulaic to me, but I could be wrong. (I've read a lot of noir in my lifetime. It usually just goes downwards.)
My union has a contract which I think was up in either June or July, but we rarely strike. We came close only once - way back in 2011.
2. The weather makes me ache. Everything hurts today. I took tynenol. Felt better. I usually just ignore it - I've inherited my mother's and grandmother's high tolerance for pain.
3. Saw two people on the subway today that I had to draw and possibly water color this week. But maybe not water color tonight. I did draw them. The man irritated me - so I came home and drew him. The woman fascinated me, so ditto.
4. Making my way through Gabino Iglesias horror novel The Devil Takes You Home. It isn't highly rated on Good Reads, but it is Good Reads - ninety percent of the reviews and ratings on Good Reads are unreliable - it's why I gave up and stopped reading them.
It's a Southwestern Gothic Noir Horror Novel. Leans heavily towards noir. So if noir is not your thing, or horror for that matter, best avoid. I tend to like both for the most part. The style and story structure reminds me a lot of Stephen King. (I happen to like King's work but it isn't for everyone.) The story is about a man who loses everything that matters to him. His daughter dies of cancer - and it unravels from there. To pay off the medical bills, he takes a job as a hit man - killing off bad dudes. And he has a bit of a second sight - he can see things. The first man he kills - worms roll out of the corpse. It's fairly descriptive - not quite as descriptive as King, but close.
Iglesias is a good wordsmith - considering he is writing in two languages. Spanish pops up in various passages. This doesn't bother me - I can figure out what it means by context. It has a lot to do with my brand of dyslexia and how I figured out how to cope with it. It's why James Joyce's Ulysses wasn't an issue for me. For me? It's an easy enough read. The description takes me there - I can see it in my head, but not to the degree that it bugs me. I'd rather read a horror novel than watch a horror film or television series (if that makes any sense?)
I'm not finding it as unnerving or scary as Kingfisher's novels. Even though this too is in first person - close. First person often works best for horror (not so much for romance novels) but definitely for horror. You feel like you are going through it with the protagonist - and you have an unreliable narrator aspect. In that - you only see what the protagonist sees.
I think I know where this novel is going, and so far it feels formulaic to me, but I could be wrong. (I've read a lot of noir in my lifetime. It usually just goes downwards.)
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Date: 2023-09-19 10:26 am (UTC)Interesting that your dyslexia could make Ulysses seem more relatively accessible.