'Watchmen' - a Graphic Novel - Script: Alan Moore; Illustrator/Letterist: Dave Gibbons; Colorist: John Higgins

I have read so many interesting books this year and not blogged about them! *Guilt!* But this one I needed to.

Watchmen was one of the first classic graphic novels, originally published in DC comic books in 1986 and 1987, and as a single volume in 1987. I needed to read a graphic novel for a book bingo, and I found this book by going to Amazon and browsing graphic novels - it came up as the top hit because it has just been made into a TV series by HBO. I was interested not because of the TV series, but because I recognised the name of Alan Moore as the creator (along with David Lloyd) of the graphic novel V for Vendetta. I have taught the film of V for Vendetta many times to my senior students and had previously read the original graphic novel for background.

Watchmen is quite a dark and satirical look at US society, human nature, and the whole 'masked avenger/superhero' trope.  It is set in an alternate timeline where America won the Vietnam War and Nixon is still President, having altered the constitution to allow himself to run for a third term. Watergate was never exposed: there is a throwaway mention somewhere about Woodward and Bernstein being found dead in a garage and "What's with that?" Masked avengers, aka vigilantes, became a big thing in society in the 1940s and 1950s. But then public opinion turned against them, and in 1977 vigilantes were outlawed. At the time the story is set, in the 1980s, the masked avengers have either unmasked and 'gone straight' or are deep underground. The title of the novel comes from the Latin tag by Juvenal: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - usually translated as 'Who will guard the guardians?' or 'Who will watch the watchmen?'



The novel is a complex of interwoven stories: the main plot centres around the fact that someone appears to be killing off all the old masked avengers. The main characters are the ex-avengers such as Dr Manhattan, Nite Owl, Rorschach, etc. Gradually, we learn their backstories and the complex reasons why they decided to dress up in costumes and roam the night seeking justice. We learn that their actions have often been questionable. As the avengers are disposed of, the Cold War (still going!) heats up and we get closer to nuclear war:



There are also sub-plots revolving around minor characters who act as vox populi (similar to V for Vendetta) giving the voice of public opinion. An entire sub-plot revolves around a boy reading a comic book called Tales of the Black Freighter, sitting against a fire hydrant next to a newsstand. Without giving spoilers, that story acts as a foil to the main plot, and is skillfully juxtaposed with the main story.

The novel is full of allusions to historical and political events, films, and other texts. It is also quite brutal in places, being explicitly violent and including an attempted rape. The underlying themes are around the morality of seeking justice outside the law, the human condition, war, greed, etc, so it is pretty deep. Interspersed with the main comic strip are 'excerpts' from Nite Owl's autobiography, scholarly articles on vigilantes, newspaper articles, etc.

It was interesting to see that some of the themes were ones which were also central to V for Vendetta, such as 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' and 'Is it justified to break the law if you feel the law is unjust?' As someone who participated in civil disobedience and broke the law to protest against NZ playing sport with South Africa in the days of Apartheid, this latter question has always been close to my heart. To me, there is a difference between peaceful protest and taking the law into your own hands. The masked avengers in this novel often go beyond the original Batman trope of 'Biff!' 'Whack!'  'Tie them up and deliver them to the police', to simply killing those they believe to be evil-doers. What if they are wrong? And who gave them the right to judge? I look at the current popularity of the Jack Reacher novels (a vigilante if ever there was one) and compare those to the superheroes and masked avengers. I see that there is a strong thread in American society (perhaps in humanity as a whole, even going back to Robin Hood), which applauds the person who will take action to seek justice when the powers that be are not doing so. Watchmen reminds us that there are significant moral dangers attached to this romanticised viewpoint.

If you are interested in the themes then you will probably find this a fascinating read, but likely not a comfortable one. I did feel that it would benefit from a re-reading, a bit like the kid reading the comic book story:

By the way, speaking of morality, you may be interested in finding out why Alan Moore is not going to be watching the HBO TV series based on his graphic novel:
Article: Why Alan Moore wants nothing to do with HBO's Watchmen.

'Death of a Salesman' by Arthur Miller

I hadn't read this play since my own high school days. I remembered it as being good but depressing, and my memory was accurate.

Why this play? I have launched this year into a literary exploration of the American Dream with my Year 13 class. We will be reading The Great Gatsby, and I have been toying with other texts which we might explore. As I googled my way around the theme, I kept coming up against Death of a Salesman on reading lists, time and time again. I was dubious, but we have a number of dog-eared copies in the resource room, so I decided to re-read it and see.

Miller's play is a good example of the adage that 'there is a reason why the Classics become Classic'. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1949, and a Tony Award. It has been adapted into two feature films and a number of TV movies. It is old, but it is still very good.

In fact, like Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four---written around the same time---seventy years later, the underlying themes and questions of this drama are still as relevant as ever: the tension between the 'American Dream' and the reality; the societal pressure to live up to some norm or expectation, regardless of one's aptitude or personality; the realities of the way that families can replicate destructive patterns of thought and behaviour from one generation to another.

My question after re-reading it is no longer whether it is worthy of study, but around the sensitivities and appropriateness of teaching a text which deals with suicide. I will need to discuss this with the class and see what they think.

'If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home' by Tim O'Brien

This is an autobiography, or memoir, of Tim O'Brien's tour of duty in the Vietnam War. If you want to
understand what the Vietnam War was like for an American soldier then this is a great memoir to read. He is college educated, thoughtful and reflective, but tells it like it is. 

I was re-reading this book to decide whether I want to teach it this year with my Year 12 class. I still haven't decided. One of the things I noticed particularly this time around was the way the author switches from first to second person narrative. He uses second person (you) when he is talking about the worst parts of the fighting. I came to the conclusion that it could be more a way of distancing himself from the memories than a way of involving the reader, but it is a bit disconcerting switching pronouns from chapter to chapter.

What I like about this memoir is that he is completely honest about his feelings. He is drafted and doesn't want to go. He believes that the war is not a just war; that the US involvement is wrong. But he also feels his duty as a citizen. He considers dodging the draft, and later considers deserting before he is sent to Vietnam, but he can't bring himself to do either. The memoir starts in Vietnam for the first few chapters and then flashes back to him getting drafted, and after that tells the story in chronological order. For this reason, I think it is a more useful book to teach than his Pulitzer-nominated collection of short stories (The Things They Carried). Students tend to find that collection disjointed and don't get an overall picture. But the short stories are better crafted writing than the autobiography. Meh. Can't decide!

'Educated' by Tara Westover

This memoir was a challenging read on the emotional level, but I was completely riveted from the outset. Westover was brought up in rural Idaho by strongly religious survivalist parents who would not send her to school or use medical intervention of any kind, including antibiotics. The family was Mormon, but their views were more radical than the Mormon church, and Westover insists that her memoir is not a story about Mormonism or any organised religion.

Tara's birth was not registered and she essentially did not exist in the legal sense of paperwork, until her mother applied for a birth certificate for her when she was 9. She was taught at home to read and use basic number skills, but after that was put to work in her father's junkyard and assisting her mother, who was a herbalist and midwife. 

At the age of 16, Tara decided she wanted an education. She bought an algebra textbook and began teaching herself the maths she needed to pass a college entry certificate. At 17, she left her family against her father's wishes to attend the Mormon college, Brigham Young University. She ultimately ended up studying at Harvard and at Cambridge University in the UK, graduating with a doctorate in History. In the process of gaining her education, the beliefs she had been taught by her family were challenged and eventually she ended up estranged from her parents and some other family members.

Her family was... dysfunctional, I think would be the best descriptor. Her father's belief that everything was God's will meant that he was negligent to the point of causing accidents to happen to the children. Later, one of her brothers subjected her to emotional abuse and physical violence. I found the story of Tara's quest to be educated a painful but inspiring one. I finished it some days ago now, but it has stayed in my mind and I keep thinking about it and about her experiences.

One of the messages that I have taken from the book is the benefit of self-education and of motivation to learn:

"My parents would say to me all the time: you can teach yourself anything better than someone else can teach it to you. Which I really think is true. I hate the word “disempower,” because it seems kind of cliché, but I do think that we take people’s ability to self-teach away by creating this idea that that someone else has to do this for you, that you have to take a course, you have to do it in some formal way. Any curriculum that you design for yourself is going to be better, even if it’s not the absolute perfect one. You will follow what you care about." (Tara Westover in an interview with Vanity Fair)

If you are trying to decide whether or not you want to read 'Educated', I suggest watching this video of an interview with Tara Westover:

'The Adventures of Nanny Piggins' and 'Friday Barnes: Girl Detective' by R A Spratt

I finished reading this book on 16 January. It was recommended to me by a young cousin who was reading the third Nanny Piggins book at a recent family gathering. I don't tend to read a lot of junior fiction these days, more YA, so it was a nice change to discover this author.

Nanny Piggins is a pig who gets a job as a Nanny. In one sense she is the total opposite of the Mary Poppins syndrome - she is pretty much the world's worst Nanny (for example, she and the children hide and pretend there is no one home when the truancy officer knocks on the door...)

In another respect, Nanny Piggins does have parallels to Mary Poppins in that both of them have limited respect for the father of the household and generally subvert the paternal authority to side with the children.

I found the book funny and entertaining and would like to read the others in the series. You might enjoy the first paragraph:

After reading Nanny Piggins I read the first in another series by the same author: 'Friday Barnes: Girl
Detective'. Friday is a kind of 'Matilda' character who has read a lot of books (including lots of detective stories) but has limited social skills. She applied to university to study medicine and was accepted until they found out she was only 11, so she has to go to high school. Friday is not super keen on the idea but with some reward money from solving a police case she pays for her tuition at a private school. Socialising is challenging for her, as is the fact that she has to solve some mysteries. I enjoyed this story also and will look out for others in the series. I finished this book on 18 January.

No Stone Unturned: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery by Julie Moffat

I finished reading this book on 15 January. I really enjoy this series though it is 'fun reading' rather than great literature. It is a kind of romance/spy story/hacker story mix. The main character, Lexi, attracts a lot of trouble and some of her predicaments are quite funny. 

Lexi is a math nerd hacker genius who works in IT security in Washington DC. Her fiancé is a spy/hacker who used to work for the Vatican and now works for the NSA. Some of the books in the series involve travel in Italy, which I enjoy reading about. This latest book includes some fun Dan Brownish kind of Vatican mystique and goings-on.

I'm not giving detail about this particular book as it would create spoilers for someone starting at the beginning of the series. I will just say that the story is about Lexi and her fiancé and how a mystery from the past threatens them and their relationship. 

If you enjoy spy/thriller/romance with a touch of humour then you might enjoy this series. The first book is 'No One Lives Twice'.

'Star of the North' by D. B. John

 I decided to read this book after picking it up idly in a book store and seeing it was set in North Korea. It made me nostalgic for all those Cold War spy stories I used to read (my favorite was the Quiller series by Adam Hall aka Elleston Trevor). 

I don't want to do any spoilers so it is hard to describe! The story follows various different characters including a CIA agent, a peasant woman, and a colonel in the North Korean army. It paints a very grim picture of life in North Korea, but it is also a story with hope in it and the idea of the value of humanity. It is very well written and I found it hard to put down. 

I noted a number of nods to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, including use of some of his terms, such as 'thought police' and 'unperson'. One of the NK characters reminded me strongly of Winston's mentor and torturer, O'Brien. At one point there is a description of the mindset needed for survival in NK which is very reminiscent of Orwell's definition of 'double think'. 

Just in case you think the plot is too far-fetched there is an author's note at the end explaining the reality behind a lot of the things described. I found this an engrossing story and it was entertaining while still leaving me plenty to think about.

'Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda' by Becky Albertalli

This was a re-read of a title I discovered last year; after finishing 'Boy Erased' I desperately needed to read a happier coming out story.

Things start off badly when Simon is blackmailed by someone who accidentally gets access to his emails. The blackmailer eventually outs him online. That part is not so great, and Simon is understandably really angry about what the blackmailer has done by outing him: 

“This was supposed to be—this is mine. I’m supposed to decide when and where and who knows and how I want to say it.” Suddenly, my throat gets thick. “So, yeah, you took that from me.”

However, there are a lot of positives in the story. Some of the good things are: the acceptance of Simon's sexuality by himself, his friends and family, and the relationship he is pursuing online with the mysterious Blue. He knows Blue is a boy at his school and he is desperate to meet him in person.

This is a great YA novel which explores the difficulties of coming out in a supportive and affirming way. It also takes a good look at the nature of friendship and at family relationships. The novel has also been made into a film called 'Love, Simon'.

'Boy Erased' by Garrard Conley

Boy Erased is a memoir telling Conley's true story of growing up gay in Arkansas, in a fundamentalist Christian family and community. When he was outed to his parents at the age of 19, they sent him to 'conversion therapy' - a programme ironically called 'Love in Action' (shades of Orwell's Ministry of Love) - which aims to 'cure' people of being gay.

I knew that such programmes had existed in the past, but I had no idea that this was still happening. According to Conley's website, 
"Over 700,000 Americans have been subjected to conversion therapy and over 20,000 Americans are currently affected by this abusive practice." In addition, according to Trans Lifeline, “Trans people are twice as likely as LGB people to be subjected to conversion therapy, which substantially increases the risk for suicide.”

I listened to a podcast of Conley being interviewed on Rainbow Country, a gay radio show in the US. He was asked what made him write the memoir. His response was, "I survived a lot, but I didn't survive as much as some other people who were in 'Love in Action' for six months, a year, whatever, and I think that gave me the ability to write about it with a bit of objectivity. You know, to be able to look above, to sort of swoop out, and look at why my parents did what they did, and why the counsellors did what they did, and why I did what I did. And I think when you're in pain you can't write that. So it was almost like, I had this privilege that allowed me to tell the story and I should use it to help other people. It sounds cliche, but it's true, it's actually what I thought."

I'm warning you, this is a not a happy read. Conley was raped by a young man in his college dorm, and it was this rapist who outed him to his family. Some of the details of what happened to others in the programme were disturbing. Reading about a culture and community where people think that being gay is a sin and can be 'cured' is disturbing. I did find it encouraging that, no matter what his parents thought about him being gay, and what they did by sending him to the programme, he still loves them and they still love him. I was pretty depressed when I finished reading it, but listening to the podcast encouraged me to post my review, since the book gives an important message: 'conversation therapy' is torture, and it shouldn't be allowed in any society.

Even more disturbingly, I find that conversion therapy exists in NZ and that it is not illegal. Britain is moving to ban conversion therapy and NZ should do the same.

'Fear: Trump in the White House' by Bob Woodward

What made me decide to read this book was the quotation from Trump which had given it the title, "Real power is - I don't even want to use the word - fear." I found this disturbing and wanted to read more. I was also influenced by the fact that Woodward was one of the journalists who broke the Watergate scandal, so I thought he would be reliable. The book paints a pretty unflattering picture of Trump, so his supporters would probably think it was 'biased' despite the meticulous documentation and footnoting throughout. Personally, I find Woodward's account convincing.

The book was written in an easy to read style and I found it interesting. Most of the issues I had previously read about in the media, but it provided an insight as to what was going on behind the scenes with issues like Charlottesville, North Korea, the Paris Accords, etc. I don't think it told me much about Trump or his administration which I hadn't already picked up from the news, but it provided detail and documentation which explained a lot of the thinking and background.

I have recently read Hugh Brogan's The Penguin History of the United States of America. One thing I reflected on while reading Woodward's book about the Trump administration was that, seen in the context of American history, Trump's popular support made more sense. To me, when Trump was elected, it came out of nowhere, and his ideas seemed very out of synch with both American and worldviews. Yet, when I looked at his key issues: immigration, tariffs, trade barriers, withdrawing from international cooperation, I was reminded that isolationism and protectionism (and the racism and sense of entitlement on which they are based) have, in fact, been threads in American political history over a very long period of time. It doesn't make me like or agree with them, but it makes their appearance as 'key issues' in the American psyche more understandable.

Woodward's book paints a picture of a President who is egotistical, unstable, racist, ignorant, irrational, and, in the alleged words of his own advisers, a 'liar' and a 'moron'. One White House staffer said: "He's an idiot. It's pointless to try to convince him of anything. He's gone off the rails. We're in crazytown." A military adviser allegedly stated that the President: "...acted like - and had the understanding of - 'a fifth or sixth grader.'" Fear: Trump in the White House claims that Trump's administration constitutes: "a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world."

'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley

I decided it was about time I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I read the original 1818 version, rather than the revised 1831 version, which is the more common text. I decided to read the first edition when I read that Mary Shelley, in revising it for the edition in 1831, had aimed, "...to make it less radical." Mind you, that is according to Wikipedia, so who knows? In her preface to the 1831 edition, Shelley said more or less that she had just tidied it up, especially the writing of the first sections.

Mary Shelley, her lover and future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, decided to have a competition to see who could write the scariest story to 'thrill' their readers. Shelley's novel was the result. It is a classic horror story, usually seen as the first to move from 'Gothic Novel' to a new category of 'Horror'. Some people also regard it as the first science fiction novel because it essentially explores the dangers and potential of the misuse of science. 

I have been meaning to read this for ages because it is a classic, but I don't really like 'horror' stories so I had been putting it off. It isn't as scary as I thought, and the story is different from what I expected. I had always imagined that Frankenstein created and nurtured the monster, which then turned on him. However, in the novel he creates the monster, gives it life, takes one look at it, is horrified and runs away, leaving the monster to make its own way in the world. I found it bizarre that Victor Frankenstein could create the being and then fail to take any responsibility for it or even realize that he ought to. I didn't really find Shelley's idea that he would run away in horror from his own creation at all plausible. My sympathies were all with the monster, until he decided to turn on humanity and start killing people for revenge at being rejected.

At least two years have passed since he abandoned his creation, which fled, and we are into Volume II, Chapter 3, before the monster finds and confronts him, and Frankenstein decides he ought to give his creation a hearing because: "For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness." About time, I think! You could do a great Freudian analysis of this novel, centred around the monster's abandonment by his 'father'. Someone probably has...

If you haven't read this, you might find it more interesting (from a philosophical, literary and sociological viewpoint) and less scary than you would expect.

Welcome to the new home of 'What's Jess been reading?'

Hi, so I used to have a reading blog, but then I got lazy and stopped blogging, and then I changed my name... 

So here is my old reading blog, if you would like to check out my previous reviews. 

From now on, this is my new reading blog.

One of the things that sometimes prevented me from posting on the old blog was the feeling that whatever I wrote had to be deep, meaningful and crafted. Like, people would read it and go: "Wow, what a deep, meaningful review!"

But the problem with that is that with such high expectations of myself, I used to think: "I don't have time to craft a good review now, I will do it later." And later never came.

So with my new version of the reading blog I am just going to treat it like a record of what I read and a brief review, and then if I want to write more and deeper sometimes, that is okay; and if I don't, that is okay too. 

Jess Torley