Wow, other people seem to have LOVED this book. I’m heartened though, after reading some of the three and two star reviews that mostly we non-believers seem to be highlighting the same points – i.e. that, although the art was excellent, the narrative was not as good as it could have been and that the action descended into melodrama at times (chapter seven being almost unreadable in my opinion).

One of the main conceits of the book, having Bras die at each chapter end, diminished the overall effect of the riff on mortality, in my opinion. It made any philosophical idea that may have been intended seem silly and false, not to mention repetitive and finally predictible (I even started to guess how he was to die after the first couple of chapters). I realize that the authors were trying to get across the sheer futility of worrying because your life may end sooner than you plan, but I got it – early.

I will say I loved the final chapter, this seemed to really say something and I felt quite sad as Bras hugged his overweight son and watched him walk away for the last time – shades of my own final parting with my dad there. If only the rest of the book could have supported this fascinating end, for most readers it seems to have done just that, but for me the middle 2/3rds let the ending down badly.

As a writer I always look for narrative first and I realize that that makes me not the best graphic novel reader out there. But I feel that narrative in graphic novels should at least contribute a meaningful 50% toward the effect of the book as a whole. And so, while I’m giving this book 2 stars because my reaction definitely was “it was ok”, I do realize that I am heavily prejudiced toward my reading of the narrative, which I found to be lacking. The art work would score higher with me, but then I am not an artist.

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When a sculpture is created the usual process is to chip away unwanted materials until a form appears – the sculptor will not so much create the sculpture as discover it by removing material from around it. At Borders stores the reverse is happening. A living, cultural sculpture is being made by consumers who are removing great literature and prime non-fiction from the towering edifice of stock to reveal the rubbish, the ill informed and the impoverished.

If you go down to a Borders today you’re sure of a big surprise. Those social commentators whose views, we are assured, rest on the cutting edge of American life, whose fingers are poised over the palpitating pulse of American political concerns are now left to stare out from increasingly bare shelves. Yes the Becks and the Bachmanns, the Palins and the Coulters are now finally in the majority, at least of the books left behind at Borders.

I can’t find my favorite authors on shelf anymore, after all with discounts now up to 80% the best books have long gone. But if I wanted to indulge in dangerous, self-promoting opinion then I’d have no end of titles to choose from. There are still 20 copies of Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’ at my local store and there are enough Beck books around to satisfy a whole Tea Party rally.

Art is usually greater than the sum of its parts. We get more pleasure, for example, out of looking at the statue of David rather than looking at the hammer that Michelangelo used, or at the discarded shards of marble. But in this case the diminishing return of pleasure as the better material is jettisoned is obvious.

Of course, I’m lucky enough to live in the Midwest – well known for its tolerance and its politically educated population; I’m sure in other parts of America that these sorts of book are long gone, perhaps they have copies of Kafka and Jon Stewart left on their shelves. Still I find myself uplifted by this clear visual sign that people just aren’t interested in these hate mongers, certainly not as interested as Fox would have us believe. Their books, despite having dominated the ranges in Borders both in good times and bad, are clearly not moving – even with massive discounts applied. I hope I can draw a conclusion that there is cause for a cautious optimism in the hope for maturity in the future of American politics and social debate.

This book is so awful that it leads me to one of two conclusions – firstly, that it was written, despite its release date, very early by Fleming and was an extended short story that was never meant to be a novel. Or secondly, that Fleming didn’t actually write it at all and published it as a favor to an admirer or in payment for something.

My reasons for the first conclusion are simple – the dialog, action and even the psychological aspects of Bond are so different from any of the other novels that this feels like a starting point or workup for the character; it feels like it could have been the very first thing that he wrote around Bond. Now, the reader could say that that is obvious because Bond is being described by another character and not Fleming – but that wouldn’t affect his dialog, or the evident self-doubt, a quality which is present in other tales but not so cloyingly as here (unless we are to see Viv as a dubious narrator). Also, it would seem to me, that with the editing and loss of about a hundred pages or so, there would be a very good Bond short story here – very similar to those in the ‘For You Eyes Only’ collection. In fact if you were to start reading this novel at Part Three and stop after Bond leaves you would a. not have missed anything important to the plot and b. would have read a fairly good Bond short. In short I didn’t recognize the Bond portrayed here and so I’m fairly convinced that Fleming didn’t either, which suggests that he was still formulating the character at this point. Or…

My second conclusion is just a hunch. Ian Fleming has been reported as disliking the novel enough that he would only sell the film rights if the studio promised not to use anything other than the title, which they duly did. If you take his own dislike and add in the rather strange ‘disclaimer’ at the beginning naming his main character, Viv, as the co-author then thoughts start to pop up. Obviously I don’t mean to suggest that Viv is real in any sense but there could have been many reasons why Fleming published a book under his own name written, or half written by someone else. I have no proof whatsoever for this theory – it would just explain some of the more shockingly bad elements of the book. This novel reads, after all, as if a fan had attempted to write a Bond book as an experiment – the ‘plot’ itself is weak and vacillating, the lead character’s back story is dull and provides no pay off whatsoever to the plot, the villains are annoying, the dialog grating and Bond is strangely off kilter in a way that he never seems to be before or after.

Not good at all. If you adhere to conclusion one above then this is a strange blip in the middle of some strong and atmospheric spy thriller writing. If you like the sound of number two then ignore this as a ‘non-Bond’ and move on to the infinitely better ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’.

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What an amazing book. As the translator says, the attempt by Perec to detail everything he sees in three days from various points on the Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris, is ultimately doomed; if not artistically then simply by the impossibility of listing, and noticing, “everything”. But despite this fact, this book is still a triumph.

This is my first Perec read and I didn’t really know what to expect. It appealed to my quirky sensibilities that an author would try to list and categorize everything he saw. Of course, this “list” as some have called the book, is anything but dry.

There is real poetry in the rhythm of the language, even the repetitive listing of bus numbers, amongst other things, becomes a punctuation point, a kind of caesura, to the work as a whole. These pauses between wider ideas seem to represent a ‘real’ representation of the tempo of life through the author’s window and so add to the overall effect of the book. The author also occasionally breaks into the text with parenthetical reflections that are amazingly self-aware and honest, and never unwelcome.

The idea that struck me the most as I read this was that I felt I could see Perec’s world more clearly than I could in most other novels I have read. By listing the “infra-ordinary” he described life in a much more immediate and accessible way than pages and pages of descriptive prose ever could.

The translator implies that this book could have turned out very differently in another’s hands, and I agree. There is a deceptive simplicity to any courageous art and this book is clearly no exception. Reading it feels like swimming in the ocean – you’re content and comfortable on the surface but painfully aware of the depths underneath.

Favorite line: “By looking at only a single detail, for example rue Férou, and for a sufficiently long period of time (one to two minutes), one can, without any difficulty, imagine that one is in Étampes or Bourges, or even, moreover, in some part of Vienna (Austria) where I’ve never been.” – this seems, to me, to sum up the idea of the book, a combination of the need to see everything in minute detail with the imagination fully intact and aware of endless possibilities. I can’t wait to read my next Perec book.

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Well now I’ve read everything out there by David Sedaris and, with the news that his next book will be another half-baked collection of fables “detailing animals in strange adult situations”, this one will probably be my last.

Sedaris is a talented and funny author – the first book I read of his (‘Barrel Fever’) made me laugh and hooked me enough that I raved about him for a while. The second book (‘Holidays on Ice’) still had that same charm and enough laughs to hold my interest. Now that I’ve read everything I can see that once you’ve read one Sedaris story you’ve certainly read them all – it seems that he doesn’t have another gear.

I was convinced that some of these stories had appeared before, in his other collections, but after checking the titles I don’t think they have – it’s just that they’re all so similar that after seven books your head starts to spin.

Others have noted the slide in Sedaris’ story-telling from the brilliance of the struggling and hungry artist in the early tales to the dull, whining and insufferable middle-class snob in these later stories and I agree. What was funny and twee in his tone has become acerbic and something to endure rather than to enjoy. His early writing seemed more self-deprecating but now it reads like he feels entitled and, dare I say it, “starry”. The last story in this book, ‘The Smoking Section’, is a perfect example of this change in tone – it’s overlong, dull, disjointed, repetitive and whiny. He seems now to be more interested in why other people make him feel irritated rather than in mining those situations for the ‘humorous’, which was one of his strengths.

If you’re reading this and thinking “Should I bother reading David Sedaris” I’d say a whole-hearted yes. He IS funny and the first time you read one of his books you will be entertained, just start with the right one (‘Barrel Fever’ or ‘Naked’) and try to resist the temptation to read absolutely everything – it will put you off him.

I’m sure there are people out there who like to be fed the same thing time after time by the people they like (how else to explain modern ‘culture’?) but I need some kind of evolution or journey from my artists, especially if I’m going to invest time in a large body of work.

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