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Recent Features
Tumbling for Boy George in Baghdad
This month the Cultural Gutter features the first of two articles by Katarina Gligorijevic about growing up with Western pop culture in Baghdad and Belgrade.
My first time setting foot on North American soil was in 1989, when my family arrived in Toronto. It has remained my home ever since, and I credit the ease with which I took to life here in large part to the traveling we did when I was a child, but also to the early education I received in “western life”from the random assortment of films and television programs broadcast in the cities where I spent my childhood - Baghdad, Iraq, and Belgrade, Serbia (Yugoslavia, back then).
There are reasons I left alternative comics for superheroes and there are reasons I keep going back. They each have their wonder and joy; they each have their irritating and sadly heartbreaking points. Nothing's perfect, not Superman, not Jimmy Corrigan. But there is a way to find comics that you love and avoid ones that make you disike comics: collections. I've gone alternative again, even for just a while, with Top Shelf's AX: Alternative Manga (2010), compiled by AX Magazine editor Matsushiro Asakawa and edited by Sean Michael Wilson.
The director’s cut is a familiar term in the world of film, but an equivalent “author’s cut” in the realm of
books is not a widespread notion. Why might that be?
We have saying in our bookstore: Frontlist may bring customers through the door, but it's the backlist that brings them back. Book lovers are completists. Bookstores that can fill the gaps in their ever-increasing collections quickly become favourite stops. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of putting it all together, of finally finally owning all the books by a much-loved author. Of course, neither is there any pleasure to equal the joy in the discovery of a new favourite. Like, say, one of the recent additions to my pantheon of must-haves: Tamara Lejeune.
Lejeune is not, strictly speaking, precisely ‘new’: her first Regency novel came out in late 2005. But since I didn’t discover her until this past March, she counts as new to me. I picked up her first book, Simply Scandalous, on a whim, and went back the next day for the second, Surrender To Sin. Her third book, Rules For Being A Mistress, arrived in May. And that, so far, is it.
And I really mean it: to date I have found no information at all about Tamara Lejeune. No author website; nothing on Google but listings; even Wikipedia failed me. This frustrates my inquisitive impulse, but it also intrigues me. No website? In this day and age? That could be due to a dearth of time, or know-how, or even money (especially since her books are sold at $5.99 and $6.99 - not exactly great for royalties). But all of that is conjecture. What remains is only the work, the books themselves.
I did find a few reviews on personal websites, but not many, and most of them contradicted each other. If nothing else, it was a valuable exercise: while we may read the same text, we’re not always reading the same book. Reviews for Simply Scandalous, ranged from “Wonderful!” to “Disappointing!”, and what one reviewer found hysterically funny another found dull. The story is about Juliet Wayborn, a wealthy gentlewoman, whose older brother Cary is beaten the night before a curricle race. His attackers claim to have been sent by his opponent Lord Swale. Infuriated, Juliet humiliates Swale in public. Swale is enraged in turn, and determines to best Juliet at her own game. Of course it is only to be expected that impassioned defiance turns into passionate attachment.
Lejeune does a number of things very well. For all that there were a few first novel stumbles, she has a good grasp of the historical aspects of the Regency period, particularly those that pertain to social dynamics. The book’s sense of humour was lively, occasionally obvious but usually subtle. But what really struck me was how she truly excelled at something I rarely see done well: the trope of the hero and heroine who dislike each other.
As a trope, it’s more of a cliche, and sadly abused. Sometimes it’s dropped in for plot purposes and feels noticeably fake. Foot stomping, hair tossing and barked orders do not equal dislike. In other cases the emnity seems all too real, which makes a successful conversion into love unbelievable, not to mention unwise. Geoffrey Swale and Juliet Wayborn avoid both these traps.
For one, neither character is entirely likeable to start. Swale, the son of duke, is utterly unused to correction in any form. His dress, deportment and erudition are all lacking. Juliet herself isn’t without fault: she can be thoughtless when it comes to others, including her own family. But despite - or possibly because of - their flaws, they appealed to me. And before long, they appeal to one another as well.
What Lejeune captures so well is people behaving badly. Sometimes for good reason, though often not, and usually in the presence of someone the perpetrators would prefer to impress. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had people in our lives who make us act like fools, or children. Or worse, like teenagers: sullen, rude and disobliging. And sometimes the knowlege that we’ve acted badly is enought to make us act worse. Then hopefully, eventually, better.
Because change is the point, and Juliet and Geoffrey illustrate it perfectly. Aggravation becomes attraction. Attraction gains depth as it surmounts and changes behavior, and becomes love. It’s hard to do properly, but Tamara Lejeune manages the task with ease. Next up, a website!
That's one of the best recommendations I've seen in a while. I love imperfect characters, and decent characters who behave badly, and best of all decent characters who behave badly without an outlandish excuse like simultaneous plague, maiming, bankruptcy, and torture. Too many novels feature characters whose flaws are really assets (e.g. she's so beautiful he can't trust her), or characters who are perfect except for occasional, inexplicable foot-stomping and pouting.
That's one of the best recommendations I've seen in a while. I love imperfect characters, and decent characters who behave badly, and best of all decent characters who behave badly without an outlandish excuse like simultaneous plague, maiming, bankruptcy, and torture. Too many novels feature characters whose flaws are really assets (e.g. she's so beautiful he can't trust her), or characters who are perfect except for occasional, inexplicable foot-stomping and pouting.
Lady killers get their revenge in this Vaultcast from Vault of Horror interviewing I Spit on Your Grave director Steven Moore and actress Sarah Butler. Vault of Horror also debates misogyny in the film with producer of both the original and the remake, Meir Zarchi. Meanwhile, ladies serve up their revenge hot in the game "Hey Baby," a first person shooter where guys who harass ladies on the street are the target.
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"Once again, a [film-making] technique progresses from 'innovative' to 'standard procedure' to 'OK, please stop doing that.'" (More teal and orange madness, here).
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Gloria Stuart has died at 100. Most of the media remembers her as the elder Rose in Titanic. The Gutter remembers her in the James Whale classic, The Old Dark House. The New York Times obituary discusses her many accomplishments outside film here.
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Yellowback novels were pulpy Victorian reading. Emory University has a bunch of them for you to download. (via @houseinrlyeh)
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View all Notes here. Seen something shiny? Gutter-talk worth hearing? Let us know!
This month the Cultural Gutter features the first of two articles by Katarina Gligorijevic about growing up with Western pop culture in Baghdad and Belgrade. 
There are reasons I left alternative comics for superheroes and there are reasons I keep going back. They each have their wonder and joy; they each have their irritating and sadly heartbreaking points. Nothing's perfect, not Superman, not Jimmy Corrigan. But there is a way to find comics that you love and avoid ones that make you disike comics: collections. I've gone alternative again, even for just a while, with Top Shelf's AX: Alternative Manga (2010), compiled by AX Magazine editor Matsushiro Asakawa and edited by Sean Michael Wilson.
The director’s cut is a familiar term in the world of film, but an equivalent “author’s cut” in the realm of
books is not a widespread notion. Why might that be?
We have saying in our bookstore: Frontlist may bring customers through the door, but it's the backlist that brings them back. Book lovers are completists. Bookstores that can fill the gaps in their ever-increasing collections quickly become favourite stops. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of putting it all together, of finally finally owning all the books by a much-loved author. Of course, neither is there any pleasure to equal the joy in the discovery of a new favourite. Like, say, one of the recent additions to my pantheon of must-haves: Tamara Lejeune.
I did find a few reviews on personal websites, but not many, and most of them contradicted each other. If nothing else, it was a valuable exercise: while we may read the same text, we’re not always reading the same book. Reviews for Simply Scandalous, ranged from “Wonderful!” to “Disappointing!”, and what one reviewer found hysterically funny another found dull. The story is about Juliet Wayborn, a wealthy gentlewoman, whose older brother Cary is beaten the night before a curricle race. His attackers claim to have been sent by his opponent Lord Swale. Infuriated, Juliet humiliates Swale in public. Swale is enraged in turn, and determines to best Juliet at her own game. Of course it is only to be expected that impassioned defiance turns into passionate attachment.