Eating Muffins

Posted by jukkahoo

I thought that I might do a bit of a kharismacy calendar kinda-thing: share a thought or two about various books and films I've read/seen in this past year, and drink a bottle of beer while writing about them. And perhaps add a song for good measure. This is unlikely going to be very insightful or deep or thought-out, but we'll see how it goes.

Beer du jour: Kaiserdom Hefe-Weißbier Naturtrüb. A light-weight wheatbeer, nothing special. Easy to drink, but I cannot see me drinking too many of these. Cheap plastic imitation of the real thing.

Book du jour: Sam Eastland: Eye of the Red Tsar. I bought this 1929 Soviet-era murder mystery on a whim. Mainly due to the fact that it had a character called Pekkala in it. A Finnish name, spe-fi-cally familiar from His Dark Materials as the surname of the witch queen from Lake Enara. In this book, inspector Pekkala is a former super-special private jamesbond aka. Emerald Eye of the last emperor Nikolai II. After the revolution Pekkala has been living in an Siberian gulag, where he has done the impossible: stayed alive.

When the titular Red Tsar, comrade Džugašvili is in need of a great detective, he calls on Pekkala. Solve what happened to the royal family in Ekaterinburg, as well as find out where the bloody hell is the treasure they managed to hide from the bolševiks, and became a free man. Easy-peasy. Armed with the mind of a super-sleuth and the assistance of his personal spy Kirov, Pekkala sets out to find out the truth.

This is a nice little novel with decent mystery and several good parts where Pekkala's past is revealed, his abilities are used efficiently and the relationship he had with the tsar is shown. Eastland gives out a good explanation and visceral literal execution of what happened in Ekateringburg that day the Romanov's were taken care of. Pekkala is a great character and the era depicted is filled with such opportunities, that it is sad to see the book isn't as exciting and interesting as it should be. But as a book for a lazy summer day or two, it is perfect. Cold, gruelling Siberia goes well with a glass of something cold and refreshing.

There seems to be two more Pekkala novels, but them take place in 1939. Why? I wanted to read more of the wild and crazy years of the early 30's. Author's blog seems to indicate more books are coming.

Film du jour: Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. This is a fairly recent American film (2010) about the Italian comic book, of which few issues came out in Finland a decade or so ago. The comic book was a delightful horror detective affair, which I could've read more provided the price would've been right ie. cheapo. The film isn't all bad, but it lacks most of the charm the comics have by being so.. American.

Now, there are good parts to it, too. A sidekick is funny as a zombie that has trouble believing that he is one of the undead ones and the various creatures of the night are delightfully buffyish, but the plot is stunningly boring and really just a weak excuse for building up suspense for a massive monster mash finale. Which is really lame. Lame-o. Slightly better than Constantine (starring Keanunununu, shudder), but nothing to write home about. Once you've seen it, you've forgotten the most of it. Optimal for lazy hangover layabouting in front of the tube. 

Decent book, so-and-so film and a plodding beer. Song du jour is then: Things Can Only Get Better by Howard Jones. I remember being less that inspired by the man in the days of yore, but after I found his solo live record Live Acoustic America, I seem to have found new insight to his artist. Things can apparently get better. Not so sure about "only". Really fine clean slap-bass line.