We decide what artistic endeavour passed approval to earn the Scorcher label from the past seven days & what also had the dishonour of being that week's Torture...
There was very little that I managed to watch on the television this week, apart from starting a re-watch of Stranger Things but that exceptional show is getting an article all to itself. I did however finish reading two books. One of them had me turning the pages in anticipation, the other one I couldn't wait to get to the end of and be done with it. Let us see why...
The Scorcher
I have had Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on my Kindle for a couple of years now and hadn't got around to reading it. With Tim Burton's film adaptation hitting the screen this week I thought it was high time I gave it a go. What an entertaining read it was indeed.
Jacob, our hero, is a very likeable character as are the peculiar children he meets. I wasn't keen on his parents but they are peripheral figures anyway. The island setting gives it an extra air of mysterious intrigue.
The story overall is not an edge of your seat thriller; nor are there many scares. The characterisation as well as the stories depth and detail are enough on its own though to keep up interest levels. While there are very few surprises as the story unfolds; about a boy who might have a secret power he hasn't yet realised; it is told in such a way that it keeps you engaged throughout.
Ransom Riggs developed this tale around a bunch of old unusual photographs from different collections he viewed over a period of time. The photos themselves are sprinkled throughout the book and provide a nice addition to the narrative. I enjoyed this enough to go straight into Hollow City the second part in the trilogy.
All in all I am now eagerly waiting for some free time to go to the cinema and see how well Mr Burton adapts this material. I tend to enjoy his work a lot and the subject matter seems to be right up his alley. I would not be too surprised to find a future article coming up on my thoughts regarding the film version.
The Torture
Before I started Klan: Killing America I was well aware that it was not an analysis of the Ku Klux Klan but a collection of news articles from the late 1800's when the Klan were first formed up until the early 1920's at the point of their greatest power. I wasn't expecting anything other than reading what amounts to newspaper clippings and in that respect the book does not disappoint as it is full of snippets.
What did annoy me was the blurb on Amazon and Goodreads proved to be quite misleading. It made the book sound like it focussed on the lynching's and attacks the KKK meted out throughout these turbulent years. Whilst there are articles detailing events of this nature; overall they make up a very small percentage of the book.
Mostly you get articles which break down the number of lynching's that occurred during a year or in a state; without getting into any detail of the actual crime. I can appreciate that those details probably weren't covered in any great depth by the papers but it means you aren't getting the overall picture that the author was possibly aiming for.
To make matters worse the editing and spell checking on the Kindle version I had was atrocious. Considering I wasn't happy with what I was being presented with anyway; the fact that Ken Rossignol or whoever was responsible for the editing, couldn't be bothered to make sure correct words were used made it even more frustrating. On top of the grammatical errors; there are an awful lot of articles that repeat information. Rossignol would have been better served cherry picking the better ones and leaving out others that repeat the same details.
If like me you want to learn more about this terrorist organisation that attained such an enormous influence and following throughout America then I suggest you avoid this one and look for another piece of work instead.
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