Vampires And All That Jazz

The thing that caught my eye about The Passage as I perused the new release shelves a couple of years ago was the cover. The little girl with the wise yet lost little face made me feel like the book was written for me.

And the blurb on the jacket was quite vague; or was it ambiguous??? Aren't they supposed to be opposites?!

Anyway, the girl, the vague synopsis, coupled with the fact that when I go into a bookstore, (as Loris would gladly testify!!), I go into kind of a semi trance or something; the smells, the carpet, all the quietness and shiny staircases. And the staff with their lovely quite style of doing their job, like they're there right behind you but not. If you know what I mean? It's like being enveloped in a kind of warm cocoon of old pulp and low lighting. If you read books then you know what I’m talking about. Time slows down, speeds up, something like that. There is NOTHING worse than when there is someone in a bookstore with you, and they are rushing you; I am a man, I hate shopping, yet when I’m in a bookstore, or bookshop (I yield to North American blog readers when I say store, I know, forgive me!), I can almost empathize with women. It’s not about the buying, it’s about the deciding.

I say  this because The Passage by Justin Cronin was one of those decisions, I’d never heard of the guy, never seen his face on the internet or his name on Amazon. But the book just leapt out at me..

And I never regretted it. After the first hundred pages you realize why the blurb on the jacket was confusing. The book is confusing. After about a hundred pages it becomes more confusing. You should read it. After you have finished it, read its sequel: The Twelve.

The Passage is no flawless masterpiece, but it’s terrifying in parts, and while the writing can be a bit confusing at times, it is eminently readable. And it barrels along. Stephen King is the first name that comes to mind. But his name comes to mind a lot in the horror genre one would say.

It is also touching at times, and the plot I think is quite clever. I know there are people out there who will hate this book but I’m not one of them. It sets up nicely the sequel. Which is the image you see on tonight’s blog. Has anyone read The Passage? Has anyone got any opinions regarding it? I haven’t actually started reading The Twelve. I have it sitting there. My brother has started it. He is a definite Cronin Disciple. But he is the kind of guy who when he follows a literary path, for good or ill, he follows it to hell; I’ll explain that in more detail another day…

Don't Forget The Cannoli

There be SPOILERS!!! ahead...


Has anyone read The Godfather by Mario Puzo? I was watching the film with Loris last night and it got me thinking about books made in to movies... I realize that this blog is called BukNazi but I would like to make the point that the blog is written with an eye towards any entertaining art medium out there.. Well, movies and books... E- book users are encouraged also!
So anyway I was watching The Godfather and I was thinking how incredible the movie is y'know? It is close to perfect.. Although Loris, from Calabria in the South of Italy had a thing or two to say about the Sicilian dialects of some of the characters. But it is an incredible feat of film making, everything about it, the pacing, cinematography, the acting. Little things y' know? Like babies crying in the background, that kind of thing.. Every little detail taken care of.
The reason I mention all this is because I was thinking that I believe that The Godfather has to be simply the best novel to screen transition ever made. Being one of the best movies of all time does help but it's not necessarily a reason to call it the best conversion ever.
Like most people I would think, I saw the movie before reading the book. While the story runs virtually identical, I think the book has a different tone to the movie. It is harder edged, but it does give more insight into each characters motives, which is a problem a lot of movies have I believe in transferring material to screen.
I think The Godfather movie avoids this pitfall by the strength of the performances of the lead actors. Where words are needed and some narration helps things along in a written story, the likes of AL Pacino and James Caan only had to look a certain way or shrug a shoulder like so, and a picture was painted.
Another angle the book gave was the Michael Corleone transition story arc, which of course was the central element running through the whole story. Michael's descent into barbarity represented one supposes the loss of a defining morality I suppose I could call it, for his family, and for an American Underworld moving into Heroin and away from the smaller operations of racketeering.
Michael needed to become something not even his father would have been capable of becoming. It was maybe a blessing in disguise that his father passed away.
So the book goes into great detail, but not in so many words, of explaining how Michael came to prepare himself mentally whilst he was in Sicily for his return to New York. He had already begun his journey by murdering Sollozzo and the crooked cop. But Michael was not changed by that act alone. Sicily changed him, Sicily made Michael the man who would later slap his future wife across the face for aborting an unwanted child, and would kill his own brother.
Falling in love in Italy, seeing the old world and the old ways, these were what set Michael Corleone on the road to ruin.
Another thing about the book which I touched on earlier is that it is harder edged... There is a lot to digest which some might find hard to swallow. You sometimes feel it was written by a man who believed every word of what he wrote... References to women, and their perceived likes and dislikes are some examples of what might put some readers off..
The writing style also to me is perfect. Puzo writes (in my opinion), like he is speaking to someone who is a little slow or perhaps doesn't speak English so well.. I love this style, I do like my James Ellroy, sometimes the easier read is nice.....

Later