https://cdvr.org/babel/the-good-shit/index.html The Good Shit / CDVR bog bodybuilder 2024-11-08T00:00:00Z https://cdvr.org/babel/the-good-shit/index.html#key-the-metal-idol <![CDATA[<cite>Key the Metal Idol</cite>]]> 2024-11-08T00:00:00Z 2024-11-08T00:00:00Z A sick little ultra-90s mystery series with a cast of often strange and sometimes deeply unpleasant characters; a story never afraid to be cryptic or hostile or linger in beautiful or melancholy shots. One of those personal visions that rejects easy genre assignment.

Unfortunately the money fell through and the second half ended up extremely rushed after all the atmospheric buildup of the first.

Let down by how few female characters it has, and the main character's explicit lack of personality or interiority.

]]> https://cdvr.org/babel/the-good-shit/index.html#sorceror <![CDATA[<cite>Sorceror</cite>]]> 2024-11-07T00:00:00Z 2024-11-07T00:00:00Z Billy Friedkin's magical adventure, a heart-attack thriller about down-and-out bastard foreigners driving unstable dynamite through South American jungle to make enough money to escape their dead-end lives. Both harrowing and bleakly uplifting. “No-one is just a man.”

The 1953 film The Wages of Fear, adapted from the same novel, is probably more famous and seems to be better-regarded, but Sorceror brings its own strengths and point of view.

]]> https://cdvr.org/babel/the-good-shit/index.html#the-street-of-crocodiles <![CDATA[<cite>The Street of Crocodiles</cite>]]> 2024-11-06T00:00:00Z 2024-11-06T00:00:00Z A fascinating magical-realist short story collection by the Jewish Polish author Bruno Schulz before his murder at the hands of the Nazis. Vivid semi-autobiographical fantasy, cold and hot, myth and mud, a looming signpost for my own writing at the time.

And that was just the older translation, broadly agreed (including by the translator herself) to be a watered-down version of the original. There's a newer translation (2017) that's supposedly even better.

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