|
|
|
|
Blogs by Jerome Parisse
More Vampires! Breaking Dawn and The Passage
9/5/2010 5:04:00 PM
I’m back to the land of the living! In my last post early August I said that I would be on and off email for the next four weeks. Well, it was definitely more off than on. It did feel weird to be totally disconnected from the electronic world, but I have come back more refreshed than ever. I spent a few days in London, followed by a few weeks in Eastern France, in a one-hundred-people village lost in a hilly area covered with green meadows and deep forests. Quite idyllic. I spent lots of time with my two nephews and a string of aunts and uncles, and other relatives and friends. Lots of time to catch up, chat, and take long walks and bike rides.
I did manage to read a few books. I’ve completed my exploration of vampire literature with Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer and The Passage by Justin Cronin, although I still have Blood Canticle by Anne Rice on my To-Read list. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not big on vampires, but then again I felt I needed to know enough about their treatment in recent literature to be able to hold a decent conversation if the need arose! I had read the first three instalments of the Twilight series and was curious to find out how Meyer had concluded the series. Verdict? I wasn’t thrilled. It’s in the same vein as the other three, with little happening, hapless characters and a simple plot. Meyer does cover the various points that I am sure her fans expected to find in the last book, i.e. Bella and Edward’s wedding, the honeymoon (meaning sex), Bella being turned into a vampire, Jacob and Bella’s relationship, and the Volturi. A new element in the story: Edward and Bella have a child. I felt that the plot was a little too predictable and that, unlike in the other books, there were a few gaping holes in the story. The ending didn’t satisfy me either – much ado about nothing. No fight. No big bang. It felt like water being poured on ashes.
Cronin’s “The Passage” was much more exciting – and much better written. Here’s a brief synopsis of the book: The US Army is leading an experiment in which they use death-row prisoners to develop a virus that could provide the key to eternal life (not a new concept, but the rest of the book is quite innovative). Something goes wrong and the prisoners turn into beasts (vampires), which reproduce quickly and almost wipe the entire world population (the US population to be more exact – little is known of the rest of the world). A six-year-old girl, who was part of the experiment, acquires everlasting life. She will play a vital role in saving mankind. The story jumps hundred years ahead when human survivors live in isolated communities, trying to stay alive. The book is the epic journey that a number of individuals, bound together in various ways, take to try to save the human world from extinction. This is not a horror story; there is no gore, and no detailed descriptions of deaths or other horrible events. This is much more a mixture of fantasy and epic. And it’s good. I enjoyed sharing the lives, hopes and despair, of a surviving colony in California. The characters are well drawn, and the plot, once you accept the premise, is well structured and thought provoking. I liked the fact that the vampires are not described in much detail – but the details that are used are excellent to get a picture of the beasts that is very scary – yet almost real. The book is cleverly built, told from various viewpoints, including excerpts from a manuscript found hundreds of years later, which (you will understand if you read the book) tells a lot about the ending, without ever mentioning it. I found this very smart. Much of the story happens in the future, but a future that is, in a way, behind us. I rushed through the first and the last two quarters of the novel. There are a few holes in the story though. Some elements are there for effect, but without clear explanation or tools to decipher them. The ending is very open and can be interpreted in many ways, and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that. With 766 pages, it is a big book, but one to enjoy. Four stars.
Post a Comment new!
More Blogs by Jerome Parisse
• Body Swap Interview and Yunnan Trip... - Thursday, March 10, 2011
• The Corrections - Wednesday, March 09, 2011
• Buried - Wednesday, March 09, 2011
• Black Swan - Monday, March 07, 2011
• Educating Rita - Sunday, February 27, 2011
• Bidrman, by Mo hayder - Sunday, February 27, 2011
• The Insomnia of Stars - Wednesday, February 23, 2011
• If I Stay, by Gayle Forman - Wednesday, February 23, 2011
• Blacklands by Belinda bauer - Wednesday, February 16, 2011
• Where is Marc Levy's respect for his readers? - Saturday, February 12, 2011
• The Wings of Leo Spencer at $10 only! - Wednesday, February 09, 2011
• Boracay, twenty years later - Tuesday, February 08, 2011
• Hereafter - Tuesday, February 08, 2011
• Gone (Mo Hayder) - Tuesday, February 08, 2011
• Free e-books until 6 February! - Monday, January 31, 2011
• Two Brothers - Sunday, January 30, 2011
• Miserere - Saturday, January 29, 2011
• Shanghai - Saturday, January 22, 2011
• 3 e-books for free until 6 January! - Thursday, January 20, 2011
• A Spot of Bother - Thursday, January 20, 2011
• Sarah's Key - Wednesday, January 19, 2011
• The Tree - Tuesday, January 18, 2011
• Norwegian Wood - Tuesday, January 18, 2011
• The American - Tuesday, January 18, 2011
• Eat Pray Love - Saturday, January 08, 2011
• 50 literature ideas you really need to know, by John Sutherland - Saturday, January 08, 2011
• Aftershock - Thursday, January 06, 2011
• Room by Emma Donoghue - Tuesday, January 04, 2011
• Harry Potter and the Deahtly Hallows - Friday, December 17, 2010
• The art of happiness - Thursday, December 16, 2010
• The Scold's Bridle by Minette Walters - Wednesday, December 15, 2010
• Worst film ever? - Sunday, December 12, 2010
• Trailer for BODY SWAP - Friday, December 10, 2010
• Hong Kong Murders - Monday, December 06, 2010
• The kids are all right - Monday, December 06, 2010
• The Killing Fields - My Father's Guests - Tuesday, November 30, 2010
• Interview on Body Swap and publishing on Kindle by David Wisehart - Friday, November 26, 2010
• The Animated Version of the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival - Monday, November 22, 2010
• What is it about Japan? - Saturday, November 13, 2010
• The Ice House - Sunday, November 07, 2010
• Body Swap - Wednesday, November 03, 2010
• Taipei: the city that reads... - Tuesday, November 02, 2010
• Free royalty-free music - Monday, October 25, 2010
• Trailer for THE WINGS OF LEO SPENCER - Saturday, October 23, 2010
• Reference Material for Learning Chinese - Saturday, October 23, 2010
• The world’s first text message adventure romance with the other side! - Wednesday, October 20, 2010
• Grease.... or a failed English test - Monday, October 18, 2010
• The jungle temples of Angkor, Cambodia - Wednesday, October 13, 2010
• A little lower than the angels - Wednesday, October 13, 2010
• 61 Hours by Lee Child - Friday, October 01, 2010
• The obsessions of Amelie Nothomb - Monday, September 27, 2010
• Kaohsiung, the friendly city - Sunday, September 26, 2010
• A concise history of Hong Kong - Tuesday, September 21, 2010
• Nicaragua, twenty years on... - Monday, September 20, 2010
• We all make mistakes, don't we? - Saturday, September 18, 2010
• Serena - Thursday, September 16, 2010
• Early works: Coben takes us for a ride - Tuesday, September 14, 2010
• Tokyo / The Devil of Nanking - Sunday, September 12, 2010
• Young and bold - Saturday, September 11, 2010
• Gay marriage anyone? - Thursday, September 09, 2010
• iPad anyone? - Wednesday, September 08, 2010
• Online book promotion: The French strike again! - Tuesday, September 07, 2010
• Blood Canticle - Monday, September 06, 2010
• More Vampires! Breaking Dawn and The Passage - Sunday, September 05, 2010
• Blackwood Farm - Wednesday, August 04, 2010
• Animal Kingdom - Wednesday, August 04, 2010
• Breath - Sunday, August 01, 2010
• The Ghost Writer - Date Night - Dragons et al - Thursday, July 29, 2010
• According to Kit - Friday, July 23, 2010
• Playtime - Wednesday, July 21, 2010
• It's all about words... - Monday, July 19, 2010
• Deed to Death - Friday, July 16, 2010
• The Art of Flying - Thursday, July 15, 2010
• A Gate a the Stairs - Wednesday, July 14, 2010
• Twitter: the art of (non) conversation? - Sunday, July 11, 2010
• City of Thieves - Saturday, July 10, 2010
• Gravity and Drift - Thursday, July 08, 2010
• Who says nobody is reading any more? - Wednesday, July 07, 2010
• Watercolours: the travelling artist - Wednesday, July 07, 2010
• Release of "My Sister's Choice" - Monday, July 05, 2010
• Eclipse: the movie vs the book - Saturday, July 03, 2010
• Three chocolate croissants, please! - Wednesday, June 30, 2010
• Paranormal romance: The list goes on - Sunday, June 27, 2010
• Sex and the City - Friday, June 25, 2010
• A great launch - Thursday, June 24, 2010
• Jackhammering, sniffles and gum chewing - Tuesday, June 22, 2010
• New Moon, Stephenie Meyer again - Monday, June 21, 2010
• Reilly: The case for literary fiction - Wednesday, June 16, 2010
• TWILIGHT - Tuesday, June 15, 2010
• Bedroom Farce - Wednesday, June 09, 2010
• Writing for the deaf and the hearing - Monday, June 07, 2010
• A kiss or three - Sunday, June 06, 2010
• Is - Wednesday, June 02, 2010
• A prolific writer - Tuesday, June 01, 2010
• Angels are the new vampires! - Tuesday, June 01, 2010
• The ebook epiphany! - Sunday, May 30, 2010
• Theatre Value Meal: Small, Medium, or Large? - Saturday, May 29, 2010
• Of the importance of detail - Friday, May 28, 2010
• Literary fiction or gothic horror? - Friday, May 28, 2010
|
|
Bookmarks
