Normally I don't cross-pollinate my blogs, but dang it, this time I'm a'gonna.
I wrote a big long piece on the hunt for the great graphic novel and reviewed three contenders for the title: Blankets by Craig Thompson, The Buddy Bradley Stories by Peter Bagge, and that book I kept meaning to write about at length but put off until now, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid in the World by Chris Ware. Check it out.
On an extra-snobby note that also solidifies my comic geek cred, I've begun reading a new book.
Marvel's big summer extravaganza, House of M got me thinking. I had no interest in whatever the "event," but it reminded me of another book.
This summer, Harvey Jerkwater's big summer extravaganza is the original "House of M," The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. For what it's worth, it's one of the best novels I've ever read. Put down the Infinite Crisis tie-in miniseries where Booster Gold gets punched in the eyebrow by OMAC and pick up Wharton.
As a would-be writer myself, I mentally slot books into five categories:
1. I crap better books than this;
2. I could do better than this;
3. I could do this;
4. Someday I might be able to write like this; and
5. Sweet Holy Mother of Christ, not on the best day of my life could I write anything like this.
The House of Mirth falls solidly in the fifth category.
Read it, fanboy.
I dig Wharton.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in a senior in college, my professor thought I should do my Thesis on Wharton, that's how much I wrote about her over the years...hehe.
House of Mirth IS quite good. While Lily dies the conventional death, she does so with a much more impressive use of gusto than, say, the lady from the Awakening...but then again, I hate the lasy from the Awakening...hehe.