Suite Devils

I was chatting with K this morning while dropping Kirk off and we circled around to books. As I was recommending Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky I started feeling guilty about not keeping up with my book reviews. Suite Française was one of the most incredible books I have ever read. It was written in the midst of World War II and was just so alive and fresh and immediate and modern. Sometimes it seemed so contemporary it was hard to remember it was written during the actual events taking place in the book. The first part is during the evacuation of Paris on the eve of the German invasion. The second part is set in a small village in Occupied France, but near the border of Vichy France. The characters change from part to part and yet there are subtle interweavings that are so current in serialized story-telling. The characters don’t know about their connections, only the reader, much like viewers of Lost. The feelings evoked by these personalized historic events are of course filtered by the knowledge that the author died at Auschwitz. She had originally envisioned this masterpiece in 4 or 5 parts and only got as far as outlining the third part. That’s included as an appendix but it’s not the same. Just one more tragedy during a time of countless tragedies.

Besides book club books I’ve been delving into the rather Gothic. I read the Whedon future Slayer comic Fray and a fantastic alt-history comic The Five Fists of Science. I also decided to catch up on all the Hellboy one-shots and have been reading the Darkhorse compilations where there is a Hellboy story. I also read the Hellboy / Goon crossover and now think I need to read more of the Goon! All that horror put me in the mood to read more vampire stuff so I finally got around to the next Anne Rice book.

I have mixed feelings about that Vampire series. Part of the problem is that I honestly just don’t really like Lestat. That's why it has taken me so long to get around to the next one. My favorite has been Queen of the Damned and I think that’s largely because Lestat is relegated to minor character status. So I wasn’t sure what to think about Memnoch the Devil. Lestat’s vampiric nature wasn’t completely central to the plot, and yet it totally was. And he was still the stubborn, childish, annoying Lestat that he always is. Yet the concept was very interesting. The Devil’s case against God was quite enjoyable, though I came away thinking that they’re both wrong. The biggest problem is that there was far more talking than doing and that’s always tricky to pull off. I found myself frequently wondering if Christians would be offended by the narrative or see it as correct Biblical interpretation. It could definitely go either way.