Uzumaki - Ito Junji

Uzumaki - Ito Junji

Oh boy. This one...
Do you think manga is for children? That they are predictable? That it's all about fighting and superpowers?
Oh boy. This will blow your mind.

I won't preach to you about manga. I was going to, but I decided against it. Let's blow your mind first.

It starts very traditionally. A girl is introduced going to school, Kirie. She meets a strange man starring a snail shell with an spiral. He doesn't even acknowledge her presence. She goes away and meet her friend, Shuichi. Oh, he's the son of the strange man... And he claims that this city is strange and want to run away with her from there.

Overall, it looks like a 'coming of age' story, right? They will go away, thru pains and hardship to realize that 'there's no place like home', right?
No.
Oh hell no!
They would wish very hard that they could...

The story proceeds and Shuichi's father is obsessing more and more over spirals. And then it starts. Mr. Junji is a very important horror writer and I understand why he didn't became 'only' a writer. Understand: the writing business in Japan, like everything else over there, is a Business, capital B. They devour books over there. People are always reading. But he became a mangaka (manga author/artist). Why? Because he loves a specific type of horror: body horror. And boy, it's disgusting. The way he draws body horror is one of the best things in horror. It makes The Thing looks nice in comparison.

Let's continue. Shuichi's father goes insane and start experimenting with his body. He's aiming to become one with the spiral. And he finally succeeds. He dies in a bizarre spiral that he made contorting his own body. It's gross as hell. And it's only the beginning.

Kawaii!!!

The spiral theme goes on. In some way, spirals are haunting this city, and the door that Shuichi's father opened cannot be closed. First his mom goes insane, traumatized by what happened to his father. Then a friend of then became possessed by the spiral, and devouring her own body in the process.

Sugoi!!!!

 

Then it's Kirie's father time to goes insane. And a subtle note is delivered: it seems that the spirals are holding the souls of the departed, and it sediments on the clay that her father makes pottery (a very traditional and profitable profession in Japan). And by burning this clay, the tormented souls creates spirals in the pottery. They destroy the oven but by now, there's a hint it may be out of control.

Cut to the slums, where two lovers are being separated by their families, very Romeo and Juliet. In the end, they start contorting, like a spiral, fusing together and jumping in to the ocean. Focus on those slums, they are homes constructed long time ago and are important.

Kirie's hair start spiralling, and became an entity, bewitching those who looks at it. Another girl, that always seek attention, start to do the same. Kirie is saved in a confrontation with this girl by Shuichi and the girl dies with her hair consuming her energy and body fluids while trying to get more attention. As you can see, the influence of the spirals are getting stronger.

A few more chapters showing the increasingly number of people being affected. Then comes the lighthouse story, in which the lighthouse are emitting light in a spiral-like way. And by consequence, affecting much more people. The spirals are affecting objects AND people now. Oh, and don't skip the pregnant women. It's one of the highlights of body horror in this manga.

The beauty of a pregnant woman

Then things get even more crazy. It's typhoon season. And guess what a typhoon is? A spiral. The typhoon became enthralled with Kirie and start to stalk her. Shuichi understand it and tries to save her, with lots of people being killed by the crazy typhoon. Then, the typhoon wins and get her. Or did he? The city lake absorbs the typhoon before he can get away. If you are observant you get the feeling of "don't mess with my stuff" from this scene. And your guess is as good as mine. Yeah. This city is sentient. Or something in there is...

Typhoon season continues and the people that lost their homes, obviously our main characters included, are redirected to some temporary shelter: the slums... remember it? Yeah. These old houses are all over the city, and by some weird reason, were never destroyed. And into it, the spirals powers are stronger. People start to become possessed by it, and like the pregnant women, becoming monsters.

And here's the moment you all were waiting for: shit hits the fan. The typhoons are circulating the city, blocking any tentative of escape. People are getting powers, like the kids that generates tornadoes with their bodies. The population seeks refuge in the old slums, the only buildings that weren't destroyed. It's cramped and more and more people are coming.

The city decent into madness. Some are using the new powers of controlling tornadoes to fly around causing mayhem, some are becoming a type of human-snail hybrid, a nice look back to one of the early chapters, and most are hiding into the slums. It goes a little Lord of the Flies for a bit, with the discovery that some are eating the snail people. Then it all end with, once again, the lake inhaling people causing to much trouble and letting the rest go.

It goes on, now with the protagonists expelled from the slum houses and walking around meeting other survivors. They meet a group and band together. They try to invade one of the slums, to discover that those people inside became a tangling mess, all stretched and bundled together. As soon as they see that, destroying some walls in the process, the slum people starts to build an expansion of the slums, to cover their disfigured bodies. It will be important soon.

The group decided to try to run away from the city, one of which is becoming a snail person and the others waiting for it to eat him. It ended very weirdly. They decided to eat him raw, going inside the snail shell. The protagonists run away, since a friend of theirs has a small brother that's becoming a snail person. He finally became one and they let him escape. The others reach then, and as they starts to remember the inside of the shell, they... Stretch and start spiralling. The group decide to go back to the city, seeing no way out.

When they arrive, the city is a spiral maze. All the people constructing extensions? It all meets and it is became a giant spiral. The group decide to investigate it. There's people alive, but they are spiralling and stretching. They thrown their dead outside and a man is collecting then. Apparently,  time is different inside this walls. They go deeper and deeper, trying to find the centre of it all.

They are still constructing, and trying to go deeper, one of the group is stuck inside a constructing gap and assimilated. As soon as it occurs, there are screams of "we are all connected" and a strange sounds is heard. Suddenly, all houses are vacant, nothing inside their walls. They follow the inside and find an strange spiral stair going down and decide to follow it. During it, Kirie is attacked and Shuichi defends her, falling into the space below. Kirie proceeds and finally discover something: all the spiral people are there and there's an ancient ruin there. She finds Shuichi there, hurt and paralyzed. They analyze the building, it has a kind of conscience and from time to time, it woke up and attract people. With nowhere to run, Shuichi tell Kirie to run away, but she won't leave him behind. They spiral together and then, with the final piece of the city there, the ruins close. Time stand still. Till the next time.

Wow. That's a lot to swallow.
What can we say about it? It's a plain lovecraftian story. Beautifully crafted and with a beautiful ending. It has all the right points, it has all the horror, in particular body horror, that you can ask for. The art is good, the writing is marvellous. So why is it not more famous?

Because people don't understand manga.

Ok. Lecture time: manga is a genre, like comics. But different from comics, that has became an art form thanks to lots of great artists, manga in the Occident is still saw as a "for kids" stuff.
What they don't understand is that manga is an art form. And has it's own genres and branches. This one is what is called Seinen. This kind is more focused for adults, more deep stories, great character development (there are ones, that I will review later on, that are solely based on character development). Ito is one of the greatest of this genre. He's also considered a genius in the horror genre in general, at least for those that know him.

I definitely urge you to read more stuff from him. I won't review all his work, since most of his work is fragmented in short stories and I prefer to analyze more complete works. But seriously, go read it. If you love horror, you would be satisfied.

And yeah, maybe on some manga & comics, it'll be heavy on images. After all, what can be more effective on showing you art, in a visual art genre? If you don't like it, I'm sorry. Skip it.

Next week: we go East to meet a different brand of literature. Terror Infinity!

See ya.

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson (Blue Ant Trilogy #1)

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson (Blue Ant Trilogy #1)

OK. Let's get it straight: I like this guy. Really like him. He's important to me. Neuromancer was an important book in my formation. I love cyberpunk. Specially the early days of it.

Mr Gibson is great, one of the pioneers of the genre. Some says the pioneer. 

He wrote an amazing story with the Sprawl Trilogy. But he's not a one trick pony. He's a great writer, even if he always uses the same pattern.

Strange protagonist with problem past & strange quirky skills? Check.
Cayce is a witty and fashionable woman with a pathological fear of brands, which gave her the superpower of knowing when a new logo will work or not. She's addicted to Pilates, customizing her clothes, and overall be an avaunt-guard chic woman.

Lots of strange & eccentric side characters, living on the verge of society and that will have some use in the story later? Check.
If there's one thing that Gibson does is that he follows the Chekhov's gun principle. Everyone and everything that he mentions is relevant. And plot relevant. If he presents a strange and quirky character, he will be 'used' to advance the plot somewhere. Very early we are introduced to eccentric experts, that are always floating around in his books. There's the weird but well connected experimental artist, that are connected to the curiosities trader, that are connected to a strange curta obsessive collector with a shady past. There's the always shady and kinda evil corporate man, this time upon the form of Hubertus Bigend, a marketing genius that is always trying to monetize trends. And the crazy fucking bitch is Dorothea. God, she's such a psychopath... Oh, and they all live in a kinda underground peripheral world, full of this kinda people. Very Gibsonish.

Here's a curta. Yeah, they're real

Bizarre mystery that needs all the combined effort of characters to achieve? Check.
Yeah, this time is not as weird as a box full of strange things (yeah... I love Mona Lisa Overdrive) but a weird segmented movie that pop-up in different parts of the Internet and are collected and discussed on an online forum by fans. Cayce is asked by her kinda evil boss to research and find the creator. Unlimited funds are available. Obviously she goes with it. He wants to monetize it. How? Who knows... but she must comment on it as an Evil thing, otherwise it is not a Gibson book.
Oh, and this time, different from Mona Lisa Overdrive, it makes sense. The story of the movie is a very good, touching story.

A hurried ending that makes you feel like somewhere, someone was demanding that Gibson deliver the book on the deadline that he probably pushed over the acceptable? Check. 
Till the moment that she meets with Dorothea in the lobby, all is cool. The pacing was good, the advancement of the plot was great, things are good! And then... It jumps in time, with not that much explanation and a last chapter that kinda try ties all loose ends. You can almost feel that there was supposed to be at least one more chapter, but the deadline and the editor said enough with the delays. (On a side note, I believe the editors from Douglas Adams and Gibson go on the case of a G. R. R. Martin. Put the fat old man in a vault and demand Winds of Winter, for the gods' sake!)
 

Yeah, it's a Gibson novel. And also, a good one. The way he writes, plots and plan his books are amazing. If you are looking for, you find all the mechanisms that he usually uses, as stated above, but even tho, you like it. Why? The pacing is fast, the characters are interesting, the way the plot advances is inventive and witty. Usually his mysteries are so weird and different from anything else, that you must know what it is. That's why Gibson is a master: even if you know where he's going, the journey is interesting. Even if the end is somewhat rushed, or in some cases a bad one (Count Zero anyone?) you still want to reach there.

William Gibson is a writer that you must always look for. Even his worse works will have some interesting and intriguing. He is a visionary, after all he kinda predicted the way we would use the internet. And we must never forget: his characters are always interesting.
The most curious thing in his work, to me, is that it always has a Sci-fi aftertaste in it. Even with this book, that's supposed to be on the years after 9/11, it has a sci-fi taste. Maybe the way he writes, the way he sees technology... It's not sci-fi. But I, and others, classified it as Sci-fi.

As an avid fan of his work, I'll review the full Blue Ant Trilogy.

But I'll be fair: I have not great expectations for the second one. At least, till now, most of the second books on his trilogies didn't meet my tastes. Count Zero was interesting, but the ending was horrible. Minoru left a strange taste in my mouth. Maybe this one will change my views, but don't get your hopes high. I sure won't.

See ya.

Foreword

Let's get this party started. 

Hi!
I'm an ass hole. Seriously. Most people I know say that. Why?

I discuss about quantum physics, math, Shakespeare, RPG, fantasy works, Marvel continuity, DC plot holes, philosophy, economy... you get the jist.

Probably because I read too much. Always had.

One of my favourite childhood memory is a good example. I was always reading, but I was also a very active child, so I mostly read in the evenings, after being dragged home by the curfew. So... I read. But, as all children, I had a sleeping time imposed by my mother.
Initially, she used to go into my room, tell me to sleep and turn off the lights. After I was given a night lamp by the bed, she usually come inside, turn it off and take it with her, otherwise I would wait for her to sleep and light it to go back to reading.
My grandma, helluva woman, decided that it was wrong. That reading was more important than sleeping, (lesson which I still carry in my heart). And defying my mom, bought me a Panasonic pocket light. That rectangular black light with an orange switch, I treasured it for years...
My mom would come in, take away the night lamp and I would wait around a quarter of a hour, and then light it up and go back to reading.
She would find it out and would take it away. Then my grandma would give me another. This went like this for most of my childhood. I really miss those pocket lights.

So, what it proves? That I'm a compulsive reader. 

Sometimes I stay away from books, for the good of my wallet and bank account, but never for long.
Even after I bought a kindle, the money disappears very quickly when I start to read in the rhythm that I like to. I usually can devour a book in a day, if below 200 pages. If I'm unemployed or on vacations, the number can go way up. 

Even libraries are not all that good. In middle school I read all books in the school library (it was not that big, but still over a thousand). From in deep analysis from cetaceans, passing thru philosophy, history and going into romances, I started to get a hardcore critic sense on books. I love then. And hate them.

Why? Well, any bookworm knows why. If you are not one of us... GTFO. Here's not the place for you, as you probably had guessed. If not, well... GTFO. 

Just to be clear. 

So... Why do I hate books?
As a matter of fact, you can say that I hate authors. Don't get me wrong, not all. But even the ones I love, I also hate.
Here's why: pattern recognition.
Yeah. It's the name of this blog. And from a book from William Gibson. And the cause of my hate. 

You can know that a song is from U2, (at least in the good albums) in less than a minute. You can know that a movie is from Kubrick in less than a minute. You can also know that a book was wrote by some authors in a few pages.
It's a pattern.
That's why I like U2 in their golden years (decades, to be more fair). Also, what I love about Kubrick. But authors can change their writing style, like the magnificent Ítalo Calvino, one of my most beloved authors, in a way that you can't recognize them. Still, there's something that may made you recognize then. The themes, the way it flows, the types of plotting, the characters. And... the patterns. 

I can assure you: the same way you go into a M. Night Shyamalan expecting a plot twist ending, you can read a Stephen King books expecting a sloppy ending. Yes, there's exceptions. But overall it's there. The pattern.
Some authors can do it wonderfully, like the man who inspired this blog: Mr. Gibson. You know how tricks, his machinations, his pattern. But, at least to me, it works! Works well. Even King works well. He can change lots of stuff, (I already know the ending is gonna suck, so I enjoy the ride in the King bandwagon), but the way his books go, it works!
And then there's my hate: the ones that doesn't... 

I used to love Nail Gaiman. Really. Truly. Sandman to me is one of the best comic I have ever read. Books of Magic, was delightful. Then I read Stardust. Hmm... Well... It's practically the same as always. I know this character already. Then I read Neverwhere. Hmm... Same thing. Let's read American Gods. Again, but at least it was more 'meaty'. Let's read Anansi's Boys. Shit...
It's always the same thing. You can change some things, but it's always the same kind of characters, same dilemmas, sometimes the same plot!
Nowadays, I start reading a Gaiman book and after some pages I wrote what I believe is going to be the ending and jump to the end to see if I was right. Sadly, most of the times I am. I also know when the journey is gonna be useless (looking at you, The ocean at the end of the lane).

But Mr Gaiman, at least, is one of my top authors, in particular for his run of Sandman and Books of Magic. There are others that aren't as good as him. Percy Jackson? I knew the ending by the end of book 3. Yes of the series. Black Tower? I was getting it right till the shit hit the fan on the last book. (I'll never forgive you, Stephen. Never.) Hermann Hesse is ALWAYS the same thing...
And oh... Don't get me started on manga. I LOVE manga. But man... How many I had given up because it started to repeat the same plot over and over again.
Worse of all, is my recent discovery & enjoyment of wuxia novels. Man... There are some guys that don't even try...

Which brings me to the creation of this blog. 

I was reading the aforementioned Patter Recognition from Mr. Gibson and laugh out loud in some point. (I believe it was when Boone shows up and had all the Gibson's signs of a traitor). My wife was walking by and asked "why are you laughing?" "oh, it's just a thing that I already know what will happen in this book I'm reading." "Why are you reading it then?" and I explained it to her.
She nodded and said "you should write it down. You have so much knowledge, you should share it."
And here I am. Doing it.

Why? Because I like to discuss books. And I hope you, dear readers, like it too. I know that it's hard to come by people to discuss about it. In particular anything more meaningful. Bad experience with book clubs and Oprah's recommendations, anyone? 

I hope we can have a nice chat over here.
I'll read about anything, as always. Manga, comics, wuxia, romance, history, sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy... I read a lot. And I'm aim to please, so if you have any recommendations, please, feel free to tell me. I'm always looking for a good book.

But I won't be sorry if I hate it and critically destroy it here. 

Hope someone cares and read it. 

And discuss.

 

Welcome.