Khaos Komix by Tab Kimpton

Happy Harvest!

Some time ago an online graphic novel entitled Khaos Komix recently finished updating, and I finished re-reading it in one fell swoop.

Khaos Komix is a graphic novel told in eight parts by eight different characters revolving around LGBTQ issues as a whole. Through the narration of each character the inner thoughts, feelings, and stories of each is revealed and they discover themselves and  fall in love.  The story takes place in England as the characters take on the fight to get them to where they want to be.

The comic, revolving around angsty youth certainly has some notable language, as well as trigger plot-lines, and some occasional sexual content.  The side stories of the comic are sometimes more graphic, but are easy to skip over and simply move on to the next character's story.  The art occasionally falters in my opinion, but the story-telling and writing is always brutally honest to each character it is being told from.  The story carries all the hilarity of friendship and misunderstandings, and all the terror of having no idea who you are and how to become the person you want to be, as well as the grief of unrequited love, and and the dismay of it being requited.

Regardless of whether one enjoys Tab's unusual art style, I feel if the reader has any experience with the LGBTQ community it would be an extremely personal read.  From the doubts experienced in falling in love with your best friend, to the bullying, and the confusion, and the bigotry it shows all the beauty and ugliness of growing up and living while questioning the worth of your identity.

I would definitely say that Amber's story and Tom's story were my favorites, though I loved all of them.  Jamie's story was extremely difficult for me to read, as was Charlie's really, just, the vivid detail Tab goes into regarding the trauma of their lives is very hard to handle, but it's a valuable read, that gives a highly personal view into the worlds of eight very different people who are so very human, in all the beautiful foibles and connotations of that word.  

Total Pages: 573
Number of Flying Platypus Tea Cups: 8/10

The Dark and The Tolstoy

Greetings muggles!



So far I'm 200 pages into the beloved classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  Though I'm reading it for AP Lit it's a book I've wanted to read in general from the avid recommendations of my uncle.  So far the writing isn't my absolute favorite, but I'm fond of the story.  Thus far Anna Karenina is in a gloriously scandalous tryst with the illustrious Vronsky.  Yet there is dreadful scandal in the relationship for Anna is married and has a son.  Also in the world of elegant Russian society Levin proposed to Kitty but Kitty refused because she loves Vronsky who dumped her because He loves Anna who's married and knows a guy who cheated on his wife who knows Levin who's depressed and killing squirrels in the forest of his farm because Kitty doesn't love him and he's sick of his farm and wants to be married.  It's all very dramatic.  

As far as horror novels go I want to read King!  I haven't read anything by him but I've heard he's so completely brilliant I want to try him out.  Poe is of course flawlessly classic, though I'm more partial to his poetry than his short stories.  For the most part I'm not a huge lover of the horror genre in general because I often feel it's over done, trading in the scary for the stupid, but I adore a truly a subtly frightening plot line.  Fire Sea the third novel in The Death Gate Cycle is terrifying but so classy and so well done.  It's a genre I would like to further explore but haven't truly looked into as of yet.

I often think that the element of horror is most valuable when combined with another genre, it's almost too much in concentration, but it's a perfect and thrilling addition to other styles of writing.  The Death Gate Cycle is high fantasy, but through all of the book there are truly horrifying moments with necromancy and titans and evil creatures of the sea and the Labyrinth and alkjfgl/;kgj/;lkag I need to re-read these books I love them so much.

Happy belated All Hallow's Eve!  And for all you happy Wiccans out there: )O(

India: A Whole Other World of Words

I could tell you that India's literacy rate has grown from 12% in 1947 to 74% in 2013, but that's something you google.  Though it was only a week I spent in Vrindavan, a small town in the Mathura area of Utar Pradesh India, I've been somewhat absorbed in the country since childhood, since before I could read or even speak, though I still can't read or speak any of the languages of India.  Though Hindi is the official language, English is stated as the nation's second, and besides these Bengali, Manipuri, and Sanskrit are also in use.  It's a country of words and songs, dances that pose meaning akin to sign language using the entire body.  It's a place of stories, a place where the most popular Indian film offered on Air India's flights is "The Adventures of Vishnu", stories, and books, and poetry have been with the land for longer than most other parts of the world, yet you would be less than likely to have a chat with your rickshaw driver about the exploits of Hamlet, or the woes of Mr. Darcy, let alone the curiosities of Oedipus Rex.  But The Vedas are over five-hundred years old and have been taught for longer, and much of The Vedas is what the people are still familiar with, along with, of course, many other works of literature from India and around the world.

However, what I noticed the most about books, and reading, and stories, and language in India is that the history, the religion, and the stories that children fall asleep with and reenact in the day are one and the same.  Many could read of course, but those who couldn't were still moderately fluent in English and were familiar with ancient Sanskrit texts even if they couldn't be read.  Explaining it is difficult, but in a place like Vrindavan you go to a place, and the story is in the ground you walk on and it's told by the people walking on it.  They take the histories and stories and songs of their land to be one and the same, and you get the same feeling on the banks of the Yamuna that you get looking at The Magna Carta, except amplified, you are so close to something so old with so many emotions and stories and people that were a part of it, except in a museum you can only look, but when you're in the place you touch and smell and see the same parts of the stories you've grown up hearing.

Though their literacy rate isn't the highest, it's a nation that craves education, and loves and remembers some of the oldest epic poems in the world's history, for it's a culture that thrives on the art of telling stories to remember their history.

Challenge 1:Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins

Long time no see!  India ate me, so now for some catch-up blogging.

So I can safely say that poetry is not a genre I have read much in.  Now, I love poetry, all kinds of it.  Longfellow, Keats, Poe, Frost, you name it, but it's a rare occasion when I sit down with a book of poetry, and you know, read it.  But with Billy Collin's beautiful collection Sailing Alone Around the Room reading it was nothing but a joy.  It contains many of his more famous works including "Marginalia", "The History Teacher" and "Mad Men" with pages upon pages of his other works.

For me, a student of older poets, adoring the ballads and fireside poets, Billy Collins is a bit of an unusual poet.  I'll be frank, I'm not generally a fan of most varieties of un-rhymed poetry (Shakespeare excluded) however with Billy Collin's work I wouldn't dream of it being any other way.  His poems are conversational and thought provoking, and though it doesn't rhyme, his rhythm and diction has express  purpose that carries his words through you.  When I read him I find myself hearing this strong, kind, male voice of a perfect scholar that I just kind of make up.  Many of his poems like "Victoria's Secret" are extremely humorous, and on that subject mirror my thoughts so closely it was a joy to read, while ones like "Marginalia" make me want to cry for a reason I can't quite understand.

Maybe the reading experience would be different for disgruntled lit students who really don't care about the egg salad stains, but for a lover of words and raw exploration of the human condition such as myself it was a glorious read.  Of course there were a few I wasn't so fond of, but they too were a naked and interesting as the rest of his work.  I look forward to reading more Billy Collins in the future, and will likely bring him back out around Christmas to read under the clock in Manitou Springs, or at least that's what I'd like to do.

"Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

Total Pages: 172
Number of Flying Platypus Teacups: 9/10

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

What a book this was, considering I have no idea where to begin, I suppose I'll just try to describe it.

Quentin Coldwater is an average genius graduating from high school, who is lonely and in love with his best-friend's girlfriend.  However soon enough he's whisked away to the magical School of Brakebills where he meets Eliot, charming, debonair, and alcohol snub who befriends Quentin, as well as shy and talented Alice who Quentin soon falls for.  As five years pass by (in about one-hundred pages) Quentin sleeps with a fox, I mean Alice, the two of them  move to Manhattan and soon after that begins binge-drinking, experimenting with drugs, partying, having crazy threesomes, and then they go to Narnia, killing Edmund and becoming kings and queens.  I mean, no, they go to Fillory, sorry.

I have so many mixed feelings about this book I can't even say.  While I truthfully enjoyed a lot of it, the writing was lovely in parts, rushed in others, and really uncomfortable and crude other times.  The story had its high points, but was horribly disappointing in others, with character development put on fast-forward, and emotions and revelations so directly stated you have to be left wondering when it happened at all. I can't say I was fond of the book, though I did finish it, and enjoy large portions of it, the ending of the book was satisfying for me though much of the middle wasn't.  Sometimes the cliches and the allusions felt charming, other times they felt like cheap jabs at the original stories much of the plot was so clearly mimicking.  Yet despite this, I think my true problem with the book came with the relationship dynamic between Quentin, Alice, and Eliot.

Quentin is without doubt, an overly sexualized character who tends to objectify women.  Without fail, every time a female character shows up, there are firm comments from his narration about their appearance, possible sexual orientation, and whether or not he would want to sleep with them.  Through the course of the story he has three main female friends, Alice Julia, and Janet, he sleeps with two and wants to sleep with another, thus having a sexual relationship with all three of his female friends.  For the first portion of Quentin's time at Brakebills he's in the company of his senior, Eliot, who is often admired by Quentin for his confidence, hard-earned aloofness, and his cool demeanor.  Eliot is the first person Quentin meets at Brakebills.  Later on Quentin discovers that Eliot is having a fling with another boy in Quentin's year, upon finding this out Quentin begins to weep because Eliot hadn't given his affections to Quentin.  It is later discussed by other characters that many people think that Quentin is in a relationship with Eliot.  However even with the developments in their relationship, Quentin soon has sex with Alice when they were both magically transformed into foxes and were together and in love thereafter. (???!!!???!?!?!?!?!?)

It seemed to me that Grossman miraculously ended up skipping over all of the relationship potential between Quentin and Eliot to simply further Quentin's very literal animal like sexual attraction for Alice.  A relationship between him Eliot would have introduced immense complexity into Quentin's character, showing that he could have meaningful relationships with women without a sexual element being present, while choosing the present emotional bond he shares with Eliot, choosing emotion over sexual drive, for a character like Eliot who has somewhat severe facial maiming.  I believe strong character development is the heart of any story, and when such an opportunity for such a strong point to be made in writing is passed up for mediocre, crude, and bizarre plot lines it disappoints me more than anything else in the story ever could have.

All in all, I doubt I will bother with the equals.

Total Pages: 402
Number of Flying Platypus Tea Cups: 4/10

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

What a beautiful cloudy day it is!

A few days ago I finished reading the second installment of The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss, and was appropriately blown away.  Often times the second book in a series falls into a bit of a stump, but Rothfuss avoided this entirely and gave his readers a brilliant sequel.  As I've mentioned before, generally reviews may have spoilers for previous books in the series.

The Wise Man's Fear takes Kvothe, a trouper of the Edema Ruh, a student of the University, and a wandering youth through a dance of travel, names, love, and the fae.  As Kvothe continues his studies at the University, and his adoration of the beautiful and never-still Denna, he soon finds himself traveling away from his schooling from some time to work in the grace of a powerful lord, become a matchmaker, hunt bandits, meet and lose one of The Seven for a second time, lay in the twilight grove of Felurian, live among the Adem, and call the name of the wind thrice.  However, in his small Waystone Inn, Kovthe continues to await death as his hands play no music, cast no spells, and his lips utter no seven words to make someone love him.

Though I adored book two, and drank the lovely prose like steaming chocolate in winter, I truly can barely await book three.  I have no feasible idea how on earth the story will be wrapped up in only one book, and I can only desperately hope for a happy ending, at this point I must simply trust that Patrick Rothfuss, being the exceptional storyteller that he is, will give the story an ending deserved for a tale this gorgeous.  I have faith that his talent will carry the story to a satisfying place, though the wait is hard.

"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man."

Total Pages: 1107
Number of Flying Platypus Tea Cups: 10/10

The Night Angel Trilogy Book Two: Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks

It's been a long time, a really long time since I started reading Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks, but as I have finished it today, I can firmly say it won't take long to read the third and final installment of The Night Angel Trilogy.  As this is book two of a series, I can't help but include some spoilers in my review of it, so read with caution.

Book two tells the tale of our Kyler, the Night Angel, a wetboy, and killer extraordinaire, as he attempts to give up his bloody trade in favor of a life with Durzo's daughter and the ever lovely Elene as an herbalist and a part of a real family.  However with Logan captive, Mamma K orchestrating a war that will decide whether Logan or The Godking will be king, Kyler has little choice but to return to his wetboy grays to do his duty as the bringer of retribution.

I can't begin to express how much I adore Brent Weeks and what he has done with this series.  Every moment the reader thinks the story is going in one direction, it ends up gallivanting down the opposite ally only to have the book fall out of your hands when you realize nothing you thought was going to happen for the entire book happened at all.  The writing has some truly lovely moments, and it's generally extremely good, but unlike some fantasy, the writing does focus on fast-paced accuracy and realism with little time for sweeping descriptions or poetic revelations.  Told from the point of view of most of the character depending on the chapter, the writing can seem crass and the word choice occasionally crude, but only in keeping with the voices of his rather crass and crude cast.

Despite being one of the darker, more unashamedly gruesome series I've read, I've found the story to be remarkably beautiful at its core.  It speaks of finding beauty within the ugly, redemption, goodness, forgiveness, nobility, and searching for a god where one has always been denied through the lives of the wretched, unfortunate, and maimed.  The story is thought-provoking, honest, brutal, and above all else hopeful, for all who face their own demons.

"Count Drake had once told Kyler, 'There's a divinity that shapes beauty from our rough-hewn lives'" (Weeks pg. 634).

Total Pages: 636
Number of Flying Platypus Tea Cups: 8/10