Category: Books

Reading The Shining

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TheShiningCover

The Shining has always been a fixation in my life when it comes to horror — specifically the 1980 Stanley Kubrick adaptation of the famous Stephen King novel. There’s always been a certain je ne sais quoi about it that has cemented it in my mind when I start to think about horror films. Whether it’s the beloved Simpsons short from “Treehouse of Horror V” that first exposed me to the idea or the impact of watching the film itself for the first time, I can’t begin to think about watching Halloween movies without asking someone new “Have you seen The Shining?” There’s something about the whole scenario; the grisly spectres, the oppressive, isolated landscape, and descent into madness that makes the whole thing a tantalizing horror story.Read More »

Book Review – Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt

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UndermajordomoM‌inorCover

Undermajordomo Minor is the newest novel by Patrick DeWitt, published by Anansi House Press on September 5, 2015. DeWitt is well known for his previous and bestselling novel The Sisters Brothers, which received significant acclaim. The story follows Lucien “Lucy” Minor, a young man going out into the world to seek something more from life, gaining employment as an undermajordomo at the mysterious Castle Von Aux. Promotionally, the novel is described as “A love story, an adventure story, a fable without a moral, and an ink-black comedy of manners.”Read More »

Book Review – The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

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BuriedGiantCover

The Buried Giant is the seventh and latest novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, published on March 3, 2015, and it is the author’s first novel in a decade.  It follows Axl and Beatrice, an old Briton couple living in Britain after the Romans have “long since departed.” In this world falling into ruin nobody seems able to remember much of the distant, or even recent, past. The couple embark upon a journey together to find their long lost son, whom they scarcely remember. Their travels through this misty and forgetful world threatens their love for each other as it brings them closer to their veiled past.Read More »

Favourites: Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer

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Far-SeerCover

The first time I picked up Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer it was in a library in my middle school. I had never heard of the book or the author before, but I was drawn to the cover, which unashamedly displayed the image of an evolved tyrannosaur wearing a sash and using astrological instruments. I’ve always been drawn to reptiles — and by extension dinosaurs and dragons — so I was immediately interested. Growing up, I always wanted a story focused on a reptilian character; even series like Redwall, which featured nonhuman characters, were all mammals.Read More »

Book Review – Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell

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PrimitiveMythology

Primitive Mythology is the first volume of The Masks of God, a four volume work by Joseph Campbell. Campbell is well known for his other works in the field of mythology The Hero with a Thousand Faces and the PBS series The Power of Myth. He was the creator of the concept of the monomyth (one myth) — a word he borrowed from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake — which essentially refers to a theory that all mythic stories are variations of a single great narrative, which is made evident by themes, tropes, and other elements common among numerous great myths around the world, regardless of place and time. While The Hero with a Thousand Faces — which I understand to be his most renowned written work — approaches this idea from the perspective of psychology, The Masks of God approaches it more through anthropology and history.Read More »

Book Review – Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

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Invisible Monsters is a 1999 transgressive fiction novel by Chuck Palahniuk, and was his third novel published. The novel follows an unnamed, disfigured woman who also serves as the narrator. She travels across the United States and parts of Canada with Brandy Alexander, her glamorous transgender companion, who bestows upon her many aliases as they rip off wealthy open-houses for prescription drugs to sell.Read More »

Reading Epics: The Odyssey by Homer

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Very recently I finished reading Homer’s The Odyssey in its entirety for the first time. This is particularly significant for me because while minored in classical studies in university and learned a lot about the story of The Odyssey, I never actually read the entire text. I’ve made it a personal mission to read epics like these, having started with The Iliad, which I finished reading at the end of 2013.Read More »

Book Review – Ablutions by Patrick DeWitt

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This past week I finished reading Ablutions, the first novel by Patrick DeWitt — published in 2009 — who is better known now for his award-winning novel The Sisters Brothers. Structurally, the novel is a collection of notes, anecdotes, and recollections of the nameless protagonist’s experience working as a bartender in a seedy Hollywood bar. The story explores many of the bar’s vagrant, down-and-out regulars and employees, as well as the protagonist’s own spiraling life centred on an excess of Irish whiskey and popping pills.Read More »

Book Review – Why I Hate Canadians by Will Ferguson

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Why I Hate Canadians

This past week I finished reading Why I Hate Canadians by Will Ferguson, a collection of essays and anecdotes published in 1997 about the author’s experiences as a Canadian, as well as Canadian culture and history more generally. As the title suggests, Ferguson takes a sarcastic and humorous approach, challenging a lot of the points we use to define ourselves as Canadians, often referencing history, contemporary culture, and politics. The print I read was the 10th anniversary edition, with a foreword from the author. It being nearly 20 years since the books original release, the foreword helped to but the book in context.Read More »