We Are What We Pretend to Be: The
First and Last Works. By Kurt Vonnegut. Da Capo. $12.99.
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity
Code—The Graphic Novel. Adapted by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin. Art by
Giovanni Rigano. Color by Paolo Lamanna. Disney/Hyperion. $19.99.
The Heir Chronicles IV: The
Enchanter Heir. By Cinda Williams Chima. Hyperion. $18.99.
The late movie critic Judith
Crist made an interesting distinction between “masterpiece” and “masterwork.”
The former, she believed, was just what most people think it is: something
superlative in its field. But the latter, she thought, was not a synonym for
“masterpiece” but the description of a work by
a master that was scarcely of masterpiece quality. This is what comes to mind
when reading We Are What We Pretend to
Be, which contains the novella Basic
Training, written by Kurt Vonnegut two years before Player Piano was published, and the piece-of-a-novel If God Were Alive Today, which scarcely
stands on its own and even in its existing form could use some polishing. Neither of these works is polished, the
early one because it is a rather cloying piece of juvenilia and the late one
because Vonnegut did not live to do much with it. Certainly Vonnegut’s legions
of fans will welcome the chance to read his earliest, previously unpublished
work, and the one he was working on when he died in 2007 at the age of 84. And
certainly both of these works have some attractions. Basic Training is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story whose
pacing and characterization are far more interesting than its decidedly mundane
plot. If God Were Alive Today
features some trademark Vonnegut acerbity in its budding portrait of a comedian
who, like Vonnegut himself, looks primarily to seriousness and tragedy for sources
of humor; and this snippet of what would have been a novel includes some very
pointed dialogue sections written as if for the stage (where one can imagine they
might have eventually ended up). Nevertheless, We Are What We Pretend to Be, whose title is taken from one of
Vonnegut’s more-famous assertions, is thin gruel even for Vonnegut fans,
offering sidelights on his brilliance rather than anything that speaks firmly
to it. A masterwork, then, but surely no masterpiece.
Whether Eoin Colfer’s
eight-book Artemis Fowl series is a “master”
anything is a matter of opinion – although the novels are certainly written
well and distinctively, and with plenty of flair designed to appeal primarily
to a young-adult audience. The way the series eventually turns back on itself,
the end becoming the beginning, is scarcely original but is well handled; and
the characters of Artemis and some of his compatriots and enemies have more
depth than in most SF/fantasy sequences, with Artemis himself changing
personality and motivation as the series progresses (although, it must be said,
not always completely convincingly). The series is being turned bit by bit into
graphic novels, of which the first appeared in 2007 and the second in 2009. Now
the third, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity
Code, is available, and although it is a worthy successor to the two
previous adaptations, it is somewhat too talky and text-heavy to be a fully
effective graphic-novel presentation. The events of the third novel – and
therefore of the adaptation by Colfer and Andrew Donkin – revolve around the
theft of the “C Cube” by Artemis’ enemy, Jon Spiro, and its eventual recovery. But
the essentially simple plot is not the main point of the book. This is the
novel in which Artemis’ bodyguard, Butler, is shot in the chest and almost
dies, forcing Artemis to confront his criminal ways and his attitudes toward
others with a new level of introspection. Holly Short eventually heals Butler,
but he becomes substantially older in the process. And at the book’s end, both
Butler and Artemis are mind-wiped by the Lower Elements Police – only to regain
their memories in the next book. Being a middle-of-a-series book, The Eternity Code is not a good place
for someone unfamiliar with the Artemis
Fowl stories to enter into Colfer’s world; and this is as true for the
graphic novel as for the original book. Those who already know Artemis, though,
will enjoy the way he and the other characters – including Butler, Holly and
Spiro – are portrayed by Giovanni Rigano, whose action scenes are effective
even though he uses a very ordinary square-and-rectangular-panel design that
makes this graphic novel seem more like an old-fashioned comic book. Paolo
Lamanna’s colors are attractive but not always logical, as scenes change hue
for no apparent reason and in ways that sometimes compromise their clarity. And
while the considerable amount of dialogue is true to the original book and
certainly in keeping with Colfer’s storytelling, it is just too much for a
graphic novel, especially one printed in a rather small size (6¼ inches wide by
9¼ inches tall). One example among many: Spiro and two henchmen appear in a
small panel (one-eighth of a page) along with four dialogue balloons – the
result being so overcrowded that the characters are almost blocked by their
dialogue. This is a perfectly fine adaptation but not a particularly
distinguished one, and not a graphic novel that takes full advantage of the
visual impact of which this medium is capable.
On the other hand, at least
it is clear where The Eternity Code
fits within the Artemis Fowl sequence. The
Enchanter Heir occupies a much stranger position within the Heir Chronicles: it is the fourth book
of a trilogy. The Warrior Heir
(2006), The Wizard Heir (2007) and The Dragon Heir (2008) collectively made
up an effective three-book group, with different central characters in each
novel but enough commonalty of setting and approach to tie the trilogy
together. Cinda Williams Chima created a world of colors for her books – not
literally in the manner of graphic novels, but in ways that permeated the plots
of the three works. Gold and silver for wizards, purple for enchanters, green
for sorcerers, blue for warriors, red for soothsayers – the colors were
practically characters of their own in the Heir
Chronicles, and Chima’s use of them rendered what was essentially just
another sword-and-sorcery epic more interesting than it would otherwise have
been. It was so interesting, in fact,
that Chima could not quite let go of it – or her fans could not, which amounts
to the same thing. So she agreed to extend the sequence by two more books, The Enchanter Heir and a fifth book that
may be called The Sorcerer Heir
(although this is not a firm title). The
Enchanter Heir is emphatically not a good series entry point, any more than
The Eternity Code is in the Artemis
Fowl sequence. A very great deal has occurred before The Enchanter Heir begins, and while Chima provides a brief
Prologue, it by no means serves as an adequate introduction to her world. Nor
could it, really: the Heir Chronicles
are packed with characters and events, and the only way to keep up with
everything is to read the series from the start (because even though the books
have different central characters, the same characters appear again and again
and are referred to even when they are not present). The protagonists of The Enchanter Heir are Jonah Kinlock, a
17-year-old assassin and survivor of the Thorn Hill Massacre, and Emma Claire
Greenwood, who bursts into Jonah’s life after finding a note of warning in her
dying grandfather’s hand. The two initially connect, rather amusingly, over a
guitar that Emma has built – she is trained in music, not magic – and after
some awkwardness in which both talk about music as being like sex, and a
dramatic fight in which Emma ends up tied on the basement floor, it becomes
clear to readers (if it has not already) that Jonah and Emma are destined, one
way or another, for each other. Their encounter in the middle of the book sets the
stage for the happenings in the second half, by the end of which the two
protagonists know a great deal more about each other and are not on the best of terms, to put it
mildly. And there Chima stops the book, rather too abruptly, making it clear
that the next book will again have to
use Jonah and Emma as protagonists – or at least very important characters. Heir Chronicles fans will relish this
return to Chima’s world and the fast, sure pace of her writing, although the
book’s rather contrived ending will frustrate those who would prefer a more
definitive conclusion. Presumably that is what Chima will provide in the
sequence’s fifth book – unless, of course, she decides that what was once a
trilogy and is now a tetralogy deserves to grow even beyond its still-unwritten
fifth entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment