So I Guess I'm not a Fan of Realism

I think about Alma Katsu's The Taker. It has made an impression. I love the beginning; Lanny is so cool. But then she twists and turns into something icy, and flippant, smoking doobies. Ugh. The story descends to a point where there are no heroes or heroines and I feel disappointed. I didn't know I wanted one so much.

But then I remember seeing Farewell My Concubine so many years ago in that funky old theater on West Gray, the one down the street from Birraporettis. Yeah, me and my best friend were into foreign flicks, but we sat through that whole film, I think it was almost three hours, flabbergasted as Cheng Dieyi's life starts out bad and then gets worse and then at the end unbelievably sinks to new lows.

Later when we went to the coffee shop to hang out with the guys who weren't so into subtitles, Estella and I tried to explain to them what we had seen. We looked at each other across the table and laughed hysterically. There were no words for the trauma we had just endured in the name of art.

So I guess I'm not a fan of realism.

Anyway...that is what the Taker felt like. You keep reading cause Katsu's storytelling abilities are pretty wicked, but in the end...you feel like the foulness of that nasty alchemist is hanging in the air all around you and you just want to get rid of it...open all the windows even if its nineteen degrees outside.

There was a time in my life when darkness attracted me. Everything damaged perverse and corrupt had a compelling draw. But it was in that same theater on West Gray, I think I was watching Tous les Matins du Monde, and I realized that period of my life had ended. I wanted light. I craved it needed it wanted to suck it into all the cracks and chasms that some part of life had left broken and shadowed.

Yeah, so now I read The Taker and wonder WTF was I thinking? Putting in a library request for The Reckoning.

I'll have to blame it on Katsu's ability to hypnotize.