Weekend in review, plus a giant dog, a book, and history

[scarlettina]

My vision for the weekend was of two days of productive work sweetened by time with jackwilliambell. The reality was a jumble of plans that sort of worked out, naps, a spur of the moment road trip, a giant dog, and other disconnected stuff.

The plan for Saturday was that I was going to work from home and get some extra hours onto my time card. The best laid plans of scarlettina went awry though, with my remote access connection failing even after two hours of intense troubleshooting with Tech Support. I spent Saturday afternoon reading instead of being productive.

Then Jack and I hopped into his car and drove north to Bellingham for a party. We arrived early enough to tour a couple of the book stores in Fairhaven, and then went a-partying (the "Exploding Saints" party, at which one protests St. Valentine's Day and celebrates St. Patrick's Day, with reportedly tasty corned beef--reportedly, because I was experiencing digestive distress and didn't eat). At this party, besides the very cool, jovial hostess, a photography-literate surfer dude, many other cool people, and the small fireworks display, was a giant 9-month-old English mastiff who went from person to person wiping drool onto their clothes. Sweet dog, gross drool. As we drove home, I plaintively moaned about smelling like a giant dog.

This morning, as part of the preparation for our trip east, Jack and I watched a documentary about the building of the New York City subway system. Did you know that the IRT was built by hand in the space of four years? It was a fascinating bit of turn-of-the-century history, and I recognized subway stations I used to frequent in the photographs and films of the era. Wonderful stuff.

I spent the rest of the day reading--for leisure and on freelance projects.

The leisure reading culminated in my finishing Bad Monkeys by our own matt_ruff. Jane Charlotte, arrested for murder, narrates her own story to--presumably--a psychiatrist who's examining her after her capture. Jane's voice is distinctive and her story is bizarre. Recruited by a secret organization dedicated to the elimination of evildoers--bad monkeys--she finds herself with a strange set of allies on the strangest trip she's ever taken. It's only when you realize that Jane may not be an entirely reliable narrator do both her story and her experience begin to unravel. I still can't quite decide how I feel about the end of the book. On the one hand, I saw it coming and it made sense in context. On the other, I found myself feeling a little deceived, maybe because of Jane's approach--or maybe because of the author's--I'm not sure. I need to think about it a little more. The book's a quick read and a fun ride, and has the feel of a story just begging to be made into a movie--but only by just the right director. Hollywood would be tempted to muck with the mechanics of the plot and invariably make it less than what it is. At any rate, I do recommend it, and am curious to hear thoughts from anyone else who's read the book.

And now, on with the week....

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I read it soon after it came out and really liked it. Right up there with PKD for reality breakdowns.

[irrationalrobot.livejournal.com]

I really liked Bad Monkeys. I think it strikes a good balance between genre fiction and mainstream literature, in that it has its crazily fantastical elements, but the story isn't really about those things.

The author has a really great visual sense, which made a recent trip to New York very disturbing- we went into a candy and train store that was almost precisely like the one in the book. It also had one of the few recent Really Scary scenes I can remember in a novel- when she's at the gas station late at night and the attendant keeps trying to get her to leave the car... (brr)

I hadn't seen the ending coming quite as much. After a while, you start getting doubtful, but that kept things fun for me. I also thought it posed moral claims that I found actually interesting, which I don't say often.

Yeah, I'd reccomend that book to people who can handle comic book worlds and are interested in "the ongoing struggle between good and evil." Might make a nice companion piece with Soon I Will Be Invincible, given the narrator.

[jackwilliambell.livejournal.com]

I think Christopher Nolan (Memento) or Spike Jonze could make Bad Monkeys into a movie without screwing it up. Only, I think they would be tempted to muck around with the story too.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

In 2004, the New-York Historical Society displayed photographs taken from the 1904 construction of the subway. When the city was building the subway, they hired photographers to take photos using some sort of archival film, because they wanted the pictures to last and they knew that the construction would be of historical interest.

[oldmangrumpus.livejournal.com]

I just liked finding out there's a literary joke at the heart of Bad Monkeys.

Plus the Scary Clowns.