Folklore, American Vampire, and the Once Upon a Time Challenge

I read American Vampire (Volume One) back at the end of March (review) and it has stayed on my mind.  A lot.

In the various musing on it that I have done, I realized that it is perfect for the "Folklore" category of Once Upon a Time Challenge and I'm shocked that I didn't see it at first.  That's the thing about a book like this, though.  It is so layered it takes months to peel away at it; and the more I peel, the more I find.

Folklore takes the customs of a group of people and tells it in story form, usually (to my layman's mind) using a lot of exaggeration and showing that particular people to be something special.  Think of the Jack tales, if you will.

Snyder and King (especially in King's half of the novel) have taken the vampire legend and made it something completely American, indigenous only to this breed of people.  In short, they've created a new folklore.

If you like vampire stories, or the Wild West, or revengeful women, or. .. heck, just as long as you like to read but don't mind a little gore (okay, even if you DON'T like to read; this might be a good starting point), give this one a try.  Let it marinate for a while afterwards and see where it takes you.

Darn fine book.

In the Garden of Beasts

In the Garden of Beasts
Erik Larson 
Hardcover: 464 pages 
Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (May 10, 2011)
reviewing ARC, courtesy of Amazon Vine
5/5 stars

In the Garden of Beasts is an amazing book.  It is a nonfiction account that reads with the ease and entertainment of a good novel.  When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it.  When I was reading it, I was engrossed.

Larson uses letters, journals and papers to tell the story of William Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany in the thirties, of his daughter (Martha), and of Hitler's rise viewed through their eyes.  Martha, socialite and party to many romantic escapades, found herself in a position to garner information that the Ambassador couldn't know and become the center of several intrigues herself.  As for Ambassador Dodd, as he became more disillusioned with (and ultimately more fully aware of) Hitler's Germany, he became more of an outcast with the "in crowd" of the State Department, creating an entirely different, but important, conspiracy of sorts.

Despite knowing the ultimate outcome of the Dodds' adventure, In the Garden of Beasts is still a page turner and thoroughly fascinating.  It was with reluctance that I turned the last page, and said good bye to these people that had consumed my mind so completely.

Larson's apparently has the ability to write a biographical account in such a way that makes it more enjoyable than most fiction.  (I've not read The Devil in the White City*, but that has been moved to the top of my to-read list.)  I can not recommend this enough, regardless of your interest in the subject.  My initial interest was not high, but I came away with new understanding and knowledge of the time period, US and German politics, and ultimately, human nature. In the Garden of Beasts is a must read.

*I did read The Devil in the White City and it was a five star read!

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Anita Loos
4/5 stars

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has long been one of my favorite movies, so I was tickled to discover that it was a magazine serial first. Until I stumbled across the book, I had just assumed that Loos wrote it for the screen.

Lorelei is a beautiful blonde with a conflicting amount of predatory logic, downright dumbness and a deep conviction of her own intelligence. The book is the journal she kept during the few months she was traveling abroad (her fiancé, Mr. Eisman is "educating" her) with her friend Dorothy, who "really does not care about her mind and I always scold her because she does nothing but waste her time by going around with gentlemen who do not have anything".

Mr. Eisman (never called Gus, because "when a gentleman who is as important as Mr. Eisman, spends quite a lot of money educating a girl, it really does not show reverence to call a gentleman by his first name") makes the mistake of not going with Lorelei, and so with just Dorothy to chaperone, she makes conquests of kind rich men all across Europe.

Loos has written an amusing story, and though at times I got tired of the purposeful misspellings and grammatical errors, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. The few not-as-interesting parts were completely forgotten as soon as I read another one of Loos' little gems such as "Well, it's been three days since my debut party started but I finally got tired and left the party last night and went to bed because I always seem to lose all of my interest in a party after a few days" or "So, she found a box of liqueur candies that are full of liqueurs and she was really very delighted. So I finally got dressed and she threw the empty box away and I helped her down stairs to the Dining room."

If you've seen the movie, you should definitely read this as it gives a little more depth to Lorelei. If you've not, the book will still be a fun trip back to the 20's where bootleggers, gold diggers and millionaires party side by side.