The Magic Men

Recently, I finished rereading The Prestige by Christopher Priest. I think it ranks as one of my favorite books. It has all the elements I find appealing in a novel - Historical setting, fantasy elements, a twist of some sort, and complex characters. It also has what I would normally consider a strike against it - first person narrative throughout (for five different characters!). However, Priest handles this choice so deftly that the narrative style becomes intrinsic to the story, which is how things should be.

The story itself is a steampunk infused, pseudo late-gothic thriller. The first-person narratives sit like nesting dolls, one within another, and the reader must crack open the shell of Andrew's mystery to get to the Lady Angier's to get to Borden's to get to Rupert's. The revelations occur slowly but satisfyingly, but, once the final mystery is unearthed (literally), the shells snap back, closing both the remaining characters and the reader out of the fantastic history and thrusting them, shivering, into the cold of reality.

The film adaptation, by virtue of its medium must needs differ from the novel, but Pajiba.com's review of The Prestige sums the matter up quite nicely. Daniel Carlson writes, "Magic and movies are a lot alike, notably because some essence of the thing is inherently lost in the dissection. On one level, it’s disappointing to find out the magician’s secret: That’s all? He palmed the coin? He forced the card? Then again, I never was one to subscribe to Mark Twain’s sad belief that learning to pilot a riverboat robbed the Mississippi of its beauty; to me, learning the trick only enhances the showmanship used to pull it off. However, people are often tempted to carry that sense of letdown, of betrayal, over into cinema, especially when it comes to movies built upon misdirection and a killer twist."

He's right in some respects, but what you lose in the genre shift is the overreaching effect that the main characters' actions have on their families into the present day. In the film, the twist satisfies less, not because you can chalk it up to "movie magic" but because the trick is revealed within the tricksters' lifetimes. The book, as is almost always the case, far surpasses the book - allowing the story to exist within various types of text - a history within a diary within a first-person novel narrative. In the film, the jumps back and back and then forward again sometimes lose the viewer and one is left unsure if this is happening "now" or if this is something that has happened before. The film is a lovely addition to the tale of The Prestige; something, perhaps, better enjoyed with the book rather than instead of it.

Growing Up Goth

I grew up on the sunny Central Coast of California, loving the Gothic. Now, I'm not talking the "oh, my upper middle-class life is a veil of tears - I must clothe myself in the mourning weeds of a misunderstood youth and 'Please, Mom, I have to stop at Walgreen's on the way home to buy more semi-permanent black hair dye'." type of Goth, I'm talking misty moors, haunted houses, and brooding gentlemen. So, below is the brief history of my time in the Gothic mode:

The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
A Little Princess Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rappacinni's Daughter Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Speckled Band Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The short stories of Edgar Allen Poe
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Dracula Bram Stoker
The Thirteenth Tale Diane Setterfield
Gormenghast Mervyn Peake
Pretty much anything by Shirley Jackson - particularly We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The Picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde
Edward Gorey's anything - but I like "The Curious Sofa" best

I'm sure that, with enough time and energy, I could come up with twenty more, but this is a solid start. Now go to the library, and get reading!