(no subject)

[learnedax]

Finished V for Vendetta this morning. It's good. It's very good. I disagree, however, with jducoeur and alexx_kay that it is Alan Moore's best work. My central issue with it is that the story is, odd as this might sound, traditional to the point of not saying much. I had no foreknowledge of this book, and nothing in it surprised me. Great art can of course be made as process rather than product, and this is quite good art on those terms, but it also seems to go to great lengths to shake up the reader and tell them something interesting and new. I really wanted it to be both, but for me at least the latter aspect winds up coming off rather weakly.

Mine may also be a less than typical perspective. I'm a rabid fan of The Prisoner, and I saw a lot of parallels between it and this book (sure, all dystopiae look similar, but I see far more large and small echoes of McGoohan here than Huxley or Orwell).

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

nothing in it surprised me

Huh. Not even the part with Evey on the rooftop in the rain? (vagueness to avoid spoilers for those who haven't read it)

I'm also a rabid Prisoner fan, but I din't notice the parallels. Now that you mention it, they certainly are there to be found.

Also, I said that it was perhaps AM's best *comic book* work. The Moon And Serpent Grand Egyptian Theater of Marvels is certainly in the running for best creation overall. IMNSHO, of course :-)

[The first four books of Promethea are also in the running, but I think that book five is being significantly weakened (as Art) by becoming so strongly tied to "the ABC Universe".]

Re:

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

The Moon And Serpent Grand Egyptian Theater of Marvels is certainly in the running for best creation overall. IMNSHO, of course :-)

Agreed, though my pagan identity and admiration for David J might be showing. I find that listening to this ups the syllable count in my everyday speech. If you like the mystic moments of Promethea, this performance piece is for you.

Re:

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Not even the part with Evey on the rooftop in the rain?

That was a very emotionally powerful sequence, and I wasn't positive that it would be resolved the way it was. But I had some suspicions from the beginning of that thread, and by the end I was mainly unsure because I couldn't think of a plausible explanation for how it had been done. In fact I was thinking along the wrong lines: they never bothered to explain exactly how it was done, because the book is about ideas, not mechanics.

It helped that I was seeing Prisoner parallels by then. But then, I tend to see parallels to everything all over.

I am yet young in the works of AM. I will need to find out more about this Theater of Marvels of which you speak.

Re:

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

TMaSGEToM was the first (and, so far, best) of a series of live performance-art pieces (spoken word with music, dance, fire-breathing, and other random multimedia thrown in), which have been subsequently released on CD (well, the audio portions at least). Musical collaboration is generally with David J and/or Tim Perkins. [Coming back around to V, David J wrote the music for the "Vicious Cabaret" episode. Recordings of it exist, but I haven't yet tracked one down.] Alan isn't a great singer, but his spoken-word stuff is insanely potent.

I will happily put some of these into the loaner queue for after you've returned the current batch :-)

But then, I tend to see parallels to everything all over.

One of the reasons it's so much fun to talk with you!