It’s Alive is a tale of behind-the-scenes shenanigans that ushered into existence one of the greatest movie monsters of all time. Eventually, Universal became inextricably associated with Universal Monsters just as It’s Alive is a call inextricably linked to one of its most famous ones, but back in the day the very fate of the movie hung in the air, batted between the powers that be like a tennis ball at Wimbledon.
Universal studio owner Carl Laemmle and his son Junior Laemmle was firmly in the opposing camps. Junior, the youngblood, believed in the project passionately, his much more conventional dad wanted nothing to do with it. They couldn’t even agree on the casting, yo-yoing between two actors who later came to be (once again inextricably) associated with the monsters they played on screen. You probably have to be a movie buff to really appreciate all this, but if you are, this book will certainly hold your interest. Its author is a man who’s no stranger to the movie industry and appears to know a thing or two about weaving a compelling narrative about it. The book, as a result, does a great job of bringing a black-and-white movie to life in technicolor. It’s enjoyable to read, well-paced and reasonably succinct. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
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Not only did this book seemed right up my Abominable-obsessed, Yeti-loving, Sasquatch-fascinated alley, but it was perfectly suited for the first proper snow day in at least two winters. I was very excited to read it and somehow ended up quite disappointed with it. And I say somehow, because I’m not sure it’s the book’s fault or, more accurately, the book is technically too well done to find a fault with. Sometimes, it’s just one of those reader/book incompatibility things.
The plot is very straight forward - a man goes up the mountain to ski down it, like his grandfather before him. There’s a something up in the mountain that might not want company, might in fact be hostile to company altogether. Let the battle for survival begin. Told through soul-searching hallucinatory visions, flashbacks, and copious action scenes, this one is meant to be positively cinematic. The author certainly does an excellent job of conveying the place – the peak is a character here, one of the main ones. One that is arguably more compelling than its humanoid counterparts. The writing is perfectly decent, the pacing is technically dynamic…I can recognize it intellectually, even if it didn’t engage me emotionally. There was just something…not enough of the Abominables. Too overdone on the descriptions. I mean, I don’t get skiing or snowboarding really, and this was almost too technical, too play by play, of an account of such activities. I don’t know, it just didn’t connect and because of it slightly dragged or vice versa. Not quite as fun as the cover. For one of the legendary giants done right/to my liking in fiction, check out Max Brooks’ Devolution. See the difference. This was just kinda sorta entertaining but that’s about it. Plus, I learned the word verglas. It’s used all over the place. Many thanks to the publisher for providing a free ARC for reviewing purposes. Jenny Fagan isn’t what you’d call a prolific writer. This is only her third novel. She’s also a remarkably uneven writer in so much as none of her novels are alike. In fact, the only thing one can say for sure about Fagan is that she is immensely talented. This book showcases that amply.
My person reading experience with Fagan has been uneven too. I didn’t care for her debut, but really enjoyed her sophomore effort. And this book…well, to be fair, I didn’t engage with it on the purely emotional level as much as with its predecessor, but it’s such an awesome, awesomely impressive volume that it’s impossible not to appreciate. This is a story of a building. It follows a building in Edinburgh for nearly a century through the stories of nine of its tenants. Each one is a separate timeline. Conceptually, it’s a masterpiece of intricate storyweaving. Stylistically, its’ a masterpiece of intricate storytelling. And it is very stylized, took me a moment to get into – short sentences used like Van Goghesque brushstrokes to create the images and people before you. But once you do get used to the style, you realize it’s a thing of beauty. Though the main attractor for me as always remains the story or nine stories. Stories so strikingly diverse, so poignant, so interesting, so cleverly interwoven, so magical…from devil’s daughter to William Burroughs and more. What an idea, what an execution. No wonder Fagan took her time with this one. Oddly enough, for such an epic, it reads surprisingly quickly. Not an easy read, perhaps, and certainly it won’t be to everyone’s liking, but for the right audience this book will sing, absolutely sing, a strange haunting melody all of its own, with maybe just a dash of Scottish burr underneath. Lovely. Recommended. |
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December 2023
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