V is for Very Good

V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is full of great titles. The first book is Europe After the Reign, establishing the time and place of the story. The second book is This Vicious Cabaret, evoking a song that describes the increasingly important role of the supporting cast. Finally, the third book, The Land of Do-As-You-Please, indicates the anarchy that Britain races towards in the finale.

Even the book's title is awesome: V for Vendetta. Two meanings: yes, "V" stands for the word Vendetta, a concept that seems to be child's play. But the enigmatic character V stands for his own vendetta. Double meaning, see.

Also, every chapter in the book starts with the letter V. It's one of the very few gimmicks that Alan Moore's inserted into this comic.

This is quite different from his last work. Watchmen, produced with Dave Gibbons, was so deep in symbolism it needed a flashlight and spelunking equipment. Here, the ideas are even better than Watchmen's, applying as they do to human philosophy in general, and not just super heroes.

V for Vendetta is one of those sad occasions on which I am biased going into a book. You see, I saw the film first, which was itself an impressive work of story and atmosphere. Going into the comic, there are a few things I noticed right off the bat.

First, the story is almost exactly the same, with a few exceptions. Second, Moore and Lloyd make no effort to hide the radical fascist and anarchist themes in the book, unlike in the movie. Third, it's much harder to tell who's who in the book.

This last point makes a few scenes very hard to follow. However, it ultimately works, because the people whose names I lost track of are largely the members of the government -- and they're supposed to be nameless faceless entities. It's only when they get real character development -- like Finch and the Scotsman -- that I start paying attention to them, and they break free of their conformist, samey lifestyle.

To counter the hard-to-follow moments, there are some bits that translate much better in the world of comics. The reveal of the nature of Evey's imprisonment is a splash-page. V's television transmission is a really awesome metaphor that lasts an entire chapter. (Essentially, he explains to the citizens of Britain that they have not done their job properly, and have two years to right themselves... or face the consequences.) The character of the Leader, and the true nature of V (revealed at the verrrrry end), are subtle and well-done. I miss the montage from the movie where things rise to the breaking point with the murder of the little girl, but it's a small price to pay, and the slow build works better in this medium anyway.

The material seems to better fit the medium, too. David Lloyd has a very gritty style that fits the themes of fascism, prostitution, and corruption in a future post-holocaust Britain. Think Blade Runner meets Fahrenheit 451. Actually, that doesn't even begin to describe the tone. Go read this book, instead.

I do wish that I hadn't seen the movie first. It's a nice movie. The themes in the book, though, are purer and less subject to current-day politics. Actually, it's interesting simply as a book about breaking free from oppression. And the ending is still one of the most truly satisfying I've read recently.

Even if you don't read comics, pick up V for Vendetta and give it a try. It's a heavy work, but it's easier to read than Watchmen, and not quite so full of itself. And anyway, the character of V will stay with you for a while -- or, at least, his ideas will.

Dreams are dangerous things

Che Guevera is perhaps the most enigmatic man to grace the Earth in the twentieth century, which could be why his image is so popular. Unfortunately, his image is popular in two different ways: one as a Communist hero of South America, and one as a Western-culture-like martyr that is easily exploitable in Capitalist means. Witness the great publicity, for example, that followed Che's exhumation in the 1990's, or the film The Motorcycle Diaries that was based on Che's first voyage across the continent. How does one reconcile these views?

Patrick Symmes attempts this very thing with his memoir/travel diary/history of Latin America: Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevera Legend. In what is the most seamless piece of nonfiction I've read recently, Symmes blends Latin American history, primary sources about Che (including Che's own diaries, and his travel companion's), and Symmes's own journey across the continent. That's right: to complete his search for Che (or rather, to ignite it), Symmes follows Che's first journey nearly to the letter -- by motorcycle, through Chile and Argentina and Bolivia and Peru, until he ends up in Cuba at Che's funeral.

And so Symmes feels the call, like so many others, to Be Like Che. This in itself, we find, is not a proposition to be taken lightly. Che himself took a dangerous, self-contradictory route to become Like Che, the revolutionary he would evolve into. As we progress through Chasing Che, Symmes begins to subtly deconstruct the idea of becoming a radical. We find that Che had all he could have wanted in his hometown. As a child of the middle class, he could have pursued his passion to work in medicine. Instead, following his travels, he chose to try to liberate the entirety of the lower classes of South America from their poverty... which led to disastrous results.

The final images of this book are haunting. Fidel Castro uses Che, and the capitalist propaganda surrounding him, as a means to get the Cuban peoples to follow his will. People who do not attend Che's funeral are checked off on a list, and in a communist regime, they may face consequences later. Che, the symbol of hope for the poor, is being used to enforce a regime.

And how much of a symbol is he, really? Che does not belong in South America. This contradiction has been apparent to me, subconsciously, since seeing The Motorcycle Diaries. Like the Spanish conquistadors, Che was out of his element. Many of the people Patrick Symmes meets on his travels have never heard of Che. In return, Che's final months on this earth are furthering his own image in history. He becomes a coward, retreating to a cabin.

Symmes doesn't belong in South America, either; nor is he Che. This quickly becomes apparent to both him and the readers. The only way Symmes can verify himself is to take his own journey, and meet his own people. While Che is the thread that links everyone, and starts many of his conversations, Symmes's efforts to be Che are not his own. Symmes's writing really shines when his voyage becomes his own, and the excerpts from Che's journals mirror his journey, instead of the other way around.

Ultimately, though, Symmes's alienation from the people of South America gives us the view of Che that Symmes set out to find: as a soul who has lost track of his passion. And yet, despite the terrible consequences that resulted from Che's revolutions, and the guerillas that have plagued South America for decades, Che was a symbol of hope for a lot of people. Misguided though that idolatry may be, it explains why even the United States could not avoid it; the US is, after all, the land of dreams-- even dangerous ones.

A combination that really doesn't fly

I feel almost bad for Peter and the Starcatchers, my latest read. Right from the start, it has three things going against it.

1) Dave Barry is an author. While Barry may be an excellent humorist, this is his first foray into the world of young adult fiction; how qualified is he, really, to write this genre?
2) Ridley Pearson is another author. Previous books by him include The Kingdom Keepers, which functioned as a grandiose advertisement for Walt Disney World. That book, like Peter, was published by Disney; I wonder if Pearson has a contract with them.
3) Finally, and most importantly, these two authors are attempting to write a prequel to the brilliance of Peter Pan.

Understand that Peter Pan is possibly one of the greatest adventure novels ever written. Not a lot of adventuring goes on-- Never Land is, after all, an island that the Lost Boys have presumably explored prior to the book. But it's chock full of pirates, magic, strange creatures, and action. To top it off, the book has some really interesting themes of immortality, growing up, and good versus evil. It's probably my most beloved children's story, as I've seen the stage production no fewer than three times.

These two authors have a lot to live up to.

I'll start with the good. Ridley Pearson has a reputation, in my mind, for being readable, but horribly bad at pacing, and drearily unoriginal with his ideas. At the beginning of this story, these problems seem to have disappeared. Several mysterious, unfamiliar elements enter the picture, and it seems we're getting a whole new, starkly original Peter Pan story. The pirates are there, but the source of the magic doesn't seem to come from fairies. There are (inexplicably) talking animals. And best of all, Ridley Pearson's terrible storytelling (more on that in a minute) has been lightened by Dave Barry's presence, making the book much more readable.

But what Peter and the Starcatchers ultimately is, is an origin story, and so we have two problems. First, the authors have to hit all the right beats for Peter to be ready for his debut in Peter and Wendy. That means we need the creation of the Jolly Roger, the origin of Never Land, the identities of the Lost Boys, and much more. By the end, I was holding my breath, but not because I was involved in the story. No, I was waiting for Hook's hand to be cut off, which I knew had to happen by the end of the story, or the book would be incomplete.

It's an OCD approach to writing, and it leads to predictability. Furthermore, it causes the second problem with origin stories: the new elements, to which not enough attention is paid by the writers. Characters like Molly and Alf, and ships like the Never Land, are interesting at first because they're new, but they don't develop any more than that. Molly is a blank slate, an emotionless fountain of information (except on rare, seemingly random occasions when she bursts into tears). The Black Stache has levity with killing, just like Hook, but he has too much levity-- it's obvious that he still has some sort of soul, so his few problems with killing sometimes seem contradictory.

Even old characters have problems. The Lost Boys are mostly not characterized, though they're present for much of the novel. Tubby Ted, on the other hand, switches character randomly halfway through, from "hungry" to "constantly irritated". Also, Peter seems to be going through puberty by being attracted to Molly, which seems inconsistent with previous Peter characterizations (but only a little).

Finally, an origin story will nearly always tell you more than you wanted to know about a world. Spoilers hoy: Never Land is an actual island, not a magical place reached by flying through the galaxy. Pixie dust is actually star material. The savages are former British slaves. Peter's immortality is an arbitrary deus ex machina.

And by the end, the terrible pacing is back - in spades. Any slight progression in the story brings a new chapter, whether it be a character's decision or a step forward in the forest. It gets unbearable, though the book is still pretty readable.

In the end, it's the entertainment that Kingdom Keepers 2 was, only slightly better in that it is more skimmable. But appropriate though it may be for kids today, Peter and the Starcatchers does not live up to its source material.