flyingskull (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flyingskull) wrote2007-08-02 05:50 pm
flyingskull) wrote2007-08-02 05:50 pm
Skeleton Hand is back and writing book reviews! yay...?
Got my new Robert Rankin madness the da-da-de-da-da code - title is all lowercase, it's him not me! - and what a frabjous day is this. In lieu of going Calloo Callay in me office (it's oddly quiet, too quiet, a tad scary, I don't feel like making a sudden violent noise), I'll regale you with a brief gem. The Very Beginning of the Book:
A headless corpse was floating on the ornamental pond.
It troubled the view and it troubled the ducks and it troubled the two park rangers.
The rangers stood, uncomfortably, upon the north shore, before the Doric temple. The elder of the two was smoking a cigarette; the younger was trying very hard to keep his breakfast down.
'Now, that,' said the elder of the two, puffing smoke and speaking through it,'is the thin edge of the wedge. Bikes and baby buggies, crates and shopping trolleys - I don't know how they sneak the stuff in through the park gates. Nor why they feel the need to chuck it in the pond when they do. But that,' and he pointed with his cigarette, 'is too much. Much too much, that is. And,' he continued, 'it's wearing a park ranger uniform.'
The younger of the two men, who had lately returned from Tierra del Fuego for reasons known only to himself, was sick into a mulberry bush. Which is more difficult than it might at first appear, because it's generally understood that mulberries grow upon trees.
'Yes, you get it up, lad,' said his companion. 'Better out than in, that is. Egg and bacon and beans. At least your mother loves you.'
From the middle to the near distance came the sounds of police-cars sirens.
'At long last,' said the ranger who still retained his breakfast, stubbing out his cigarette.
And we're off. I utterly LOVE this man. His passion for horrible puns, recurring AND recurring AND recurring gags (you scream at his books after you get the recurring gag the 9888373947th time) and for hurling raspberries at all writing conventions warm the cockles of me heart no end. It's not that he's funny, in an odd way he isn't exactly funny, but that his brand of humour has to do with irreverence, breaking boundaries and the author having lots of fun.
R. Rankin was my childhood, together with D. W. Jones, D. Adams, Pterry (well, alright and Verne and Leiber and Anderson and... Sorry, bout that, I get carried away). But even at twelve I could see that Pterry owes a lot to him, as do a LOT of later writers of so-called humour-fantasy (Jasper Ffordes comes to mind. A lot. Also Tom Holt. A lot.) not only for his style, but because Robert Rankin was and is the ultimate smasher-to-itty-bitty-bits of the Bildungsroman. He takes a coming-of-age story and demolishes all of its tropes - though, I admit, not always its theme - exposing literary pretension as the sham it is. He's the exponent of Literature as a Game, an utter ludocrat who will jeer at himself and his attitude just as much as he jeers at conventional writing.
Not that he condemns it, he prefers to rip the veil, so to speak, and show the naked emperor. Point is he respects the emperor, he'd agree with Morpheus' words "At the end of the day the jester remains a jester and the emperor an emperor." Laugh as much as one will at an emperor denied all pomp and circumstances, the power is all in the emperor's hands. I think I've brought this metaphor far enough, thankyou.
Robert Rankin's style can be called a Take Urban Legends, Clichés, Cockney Rhyming Slang, Pop Culture and Pubs, Shake Well in a Mixture of LSD and Crack, Season with Fake and True Dementia, Add a Pinch of Rage and Serve Hot. In other words, he ain't got a style, it's mostly puns, verbal plays and attitude. He, like Nanny Ogg, is the cause of literature in others. Can you tell I rather like the man? Yet his moral compass never wavers, his affectionate (key words, you can see the love pour out of every word) teasing of his characters is paternal and extremely benevolent. There are no villains, as such, there are rather over-the-top aliens, demons and misguided humans who can, and do, commit every dastardly deed known to man; but they aren't villains, just the opposition. There are no heroes, not even one, except maybe the Time Travelling Sprout Who Often Lives in Elvis Presley's Head. There are lots of people who do things because they A) can't help it, they're being PUSHED for fucksake! B) didn't really stop and think about it, C) are willing but, y'know, stupid, D) for the hell of it, hey, it's fun! E) they hope to make lots of money and never to have to do said things again, but rarely manage it. My kind of heroes. *G*
Read Robert Rankin, he's been writing since 1981 at the very least and has titles like East of Ealing, The Brentford Triangle, Armageddon, the Musical, The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag, Raiders of the Lost Car Park, Web Site Story and The Brightonomicon. Bad puns galore! He's got an unhealthy fixation for apocalyptic themes, pubs and aliens. SPROUTS are the gods of his idolatry. He's got the irritating habit - but I love to be irritated like this - of carrying on a recurring gag from book to book. His opus is a sort of giant series, if a number of books loosely tied by recurring themes, gags and, sometimes, characters can be called a series. If it can, then the road he makes readers travels is so winding one can find oneself having to pass the same sodding place twenty times before being allowed to move on in a slightly less circular path.
Now I'm off to have a Rankin-reading orgy and sod the customers! I'm closing early today. :-D
A headless corpse was floating on the ornamental pond.
It troubled the view and it troubled the ducks and it troubled the two park rangers.
The rangers stood, uncomfortably, upon the north shore, before the Doric temple. The elder of the two was smoking a cigarette; the younger was trying very hard to keep his breakfast down.
'Now, that,' said the elder of the two, puffing smoke and speaking through it,'is the thin edge of the wedge. Bikes and baby buggies, crates and shopping trolleys - I don't know how they sneak the stuff in through the park gates. Nor why they feel the need to chuck it in the pond when they do. But that,' and he pointed with his cigarette, 'is too much. Much too much, that is. And,' he continued, 'it's wearing a park ranger uniform.'
The younger of the two men, who had lately returned from Tierra del Fuego for reasons known only to himself, was sick into a mulberry bush. Which is more difficult than it might at first appear, because it's generally understood that mulberries grow upon trees.
'Yes, you get it up, lad,' said his companion. 'Better out than in, that is. Egg and bacon and beans. At least your mother loves you.'
From the middle to the near distance came the sounds of police-cars sirens.
'At long last,' said the ranger who still retained his breakfast, stubbing out his cigarette.
And we're off. I utterly LOVE this man. His passion for horrible puns, recurring AND recurring AND recurring gags (you scream at his books after you get the recurring gag the 9888373947th time) and for hurling raspberries at all writing conventions warm the cockles of me heart no end. It's not that he's funny, in an odd way he isn't exactly funny, but that his brand of humour has to do with irreverence, breaking boundaries and the author having lots of fun.
R. Rankin was my childhood, together with D. W. Jones, D. Adams, Pterry (well, alright and Verne and Leiber and Anderson and... Sorry, bout that, I get carried away). But even at twelve I could see that Pterry owes a lot to him, as do a LOT of later writers of so-called humour-fantasy (Jasper Ffordes comes to mind. A lot. Also Tom Holt. A lot.) not only for his style, but because Robert Rankin was and is the ultimate smasher-to-itty-bitty-bits of the Bildungsroman. He takes a coming-of-age story and demolishes all of its tropes - though, I admit, not always its theme - exposing literary pretension as the sham it is. He's the exponent of Literature as a Game, an utter ludocrat who will jeer at himself and his attitude just as much as he jeers at conventional writing.
Not that he condemns it, he prefers to rip the veil, so to speak, and show the naked emperor. Point is he respects the emperor, he'd agree with Morpheus' words "At the end of the day the jester remains a jester and the emperor an emperor." Laugh as much as one will at an emperor denied all pomp and circumstances, the power is all in the emperor's hands. I think I've brought this metaphor far enough, thankyou.
Robert Rankin's style can be called a Take Urban Legends, Clichés, Cockney Rhyming Slang, Pop Culture and Pubs, Shake Well in a Mixture of LSD and Crack, Season with Fake and True Dementia, Add a Pinch of Rage and Serve Hot. In other words, he ain't got a style, it's mostly puns, verbal plays and attitude. He, like Nanny Ogg, is the cause of literature in others. Can you tell I rather like the man? Yet his moral compass never wavers, his affectionate (key words, you can see the love pour out of every word) teasing of his characters is paternal and extremely benevolent. There are no villains, as such, there are rather over-the-top aliens, demons and misguided humans who can, and do, commit every dastardly deed known to man; but they aren't villains, just the opposition. There are no heroes, not even one, except maybe the Time Travelling Sprout Who Often Lives in Elvis Presley's Head. There are lots of people who do things because they A) can't help it, they're being PUSHED for fucksake! B) didn't really stop and think about it, C) are willing but, y'know, stupid, D) for the hell of it, hey, it's fun! E) they hope to make lots of money and never to have to do said things again, but rarely manage it. My kind of heroes. *G*
Read Robert Rankin, he's been writing since 1981 at the very least and has titles like East of Ealing, The Brentford Triangle, Armageddon, the Musical, The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag, Raiders of the Lost Car Park, Web Site Story and The Brightonomicon. Bad puns galore! He's got an unhealthy fixation for apocalyptic themes, pubs and aliens. SPROUTS are the gods of his idolatry. He's got the irritating habit - but I love to be irritated like this - of carrying on a recurring gag from book to book. His opus is a sort of giant series, if a number of books loosely tied by recurring themes, gags and, sometimes, characters can be called a series. If it can, then the road he makes readers travels is so winding one can find oneself having to pass the same sodding place twenty times before being allowed to move on in a slightly less circular path.
Now I'm off to have a Rankin-reading orgy and sod the customers! I'm closing early today. :-D
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And he makes fun of the way he makes fun of stuff, too. I love the part in Web Site Story where the heroine complains about how something makes absolutely no sense, and then finally realises that, "this is a running gag, isn't it?" And the hero sheepishly admits that, "it doesn't really work if it's your first time here." =]
So yeah, enjoy your Rankin-o-rama. =] Who's this Jasper Ffordes fellow, by the way? Is he any good?
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Also, any author who has an Inspectre of Scotland Yard jolly well DESERVES to be loved. :P
Jasper Ffordes, author of a humour fantasy series - the first was good, the others boringly repetitive - set in a parallel world where classic literature is TEH COLLECTIVE MANIA and society is ruled by a ruthless Holding. She can travel into books and she does so, becoming a sort of police-woman of literary works. There's this immense Library from which one can jump into books and interact with the characters thereof. It's not really a multiverse, because he lacks the talent to mirror the authors' several voices so it's pretty uniform all told. In the first one, The Bronte Affair IIRC, the heroine changes Jane Eyre's ending, thus making it into the novel we know. The original ending had Jane get fed-up with Rochester and going off to America(?) with another man. Ha. Ha. Ha. Rowling and Paolini are not the only writers of today who go about pilfering every single thing they think will work from other, better, authors.
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I just so happen to be currently unemployed. ;)
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I'll have to use menaces for something else, then. C'mon... I like menaces...
HUGZ!
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I'll see your :P and raise you... well, you'll see. XD
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Well played, that Zoalord. But... I'll see your scary and raise you a... twist of the tongue?
Nah, I'd never menace you for real. No, not even for RP. :-D
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HUGS!!