Oh my, God.

God is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.

When I was given this book, it was actually described to me as a comedy- so I decided to look past the title and give it a shot. The premise of the story is that God comes to earth as a starving Sudanese woman in search of her brother. In his/her travels, he/she ends up murdered (hence the title).

The humorous part is that the world doesn't know quite how to deal with the revelation that God is dead so all sorts of wacky things start happening. The chapters are ordered in a short story fashion so each one is about some different wild and crazy thing that goes on because of God's death. For example, adults start to worship their children and the animals that ate God's dead body start speaking in tongues, etc. I actually haven't read it all yet, but so far it's fairly interesting and it gives you the opportunity to tell all of your religious friends how hilarious things would be if God were dead.

The sketch is God as the Dinka woman. When I first showed it to my friend that gave me the book, she was appalled that I pictured her happy and bubbly (and white) since the story is set in Darfur (seriously, this book is a comedy) and goes into the atrocities that are occurring there. However, I wasn't quite in the mood to draw a lady getting raped with a torch or something like that. I also felt that no one would really be in the mood to view any pictures of a lady getting raped by a torch, so I decided to go with the happy, bubbly lady instead.

Rocketman-oh-man

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

As I mentioned in the post below, this is one tough cookie to read. Not that you read cookies. Anyways, there are 400+ characters and countless subplots and tangents, so it is basically like reading 15 different books at once. Which isn't the best for a straightforward storyline, but is quite good for illustrating!

The aforementioned Slothrop is rather special: Apparently, whenever he "gets intimate" with a female, a bomb strikes whatever location the action took place soon afterwards. This "ability" sets off a number of things, one being that people want to keep tabs on him. Another is that he gets dubbed "Rocketman" and sort of has a superhero status.

I'm sorry, I don't think I mentioned that this takes place during World War II, and Slothrop is a young (and promiscuous) lieutenant in the British army. There we go; consider it mentioned.

People send him off on various missions. The sketch above depicts Rocketman, in his Rocketmannish attire (a white Zoot suit and a helmet made from the nose cone of a rocket), stealing a bag of hashish for one of his fellow soldiers. He runs into Mickey Rooney there, in a comical scene where nothing is said, and pretty much nothing happens. But how random is that? Imagine stuff like that for 800 pages. I didn't draw Mickey Rooney because I really don't know what he looks like. Or what he looked like during World War II.

All that being said, I think I might have one more Gravity's Rainbow sketch in me. It will be from a very small part in the book (maybe three pages) that made me laugh out loud. Think three stooges, but in fighter planes. Check back soon!

Wait, What?

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

If you manage to read this book, you automatically enter an elite brotherhood (sisters welcomed, too). As soon as you flip over the final page, sigh, and ask "What the hell?" a courier arrives with a shiny medal emblazoned with a flaming book. This signifies your burning love for literature.

Gravity's Rainbow has been hailed (by some) the 20th century's greatest postmodern work. It has also been branded (by some others) as "unreadable." And while there are over 400 characters, oh-so-many plots and subplots, uncountable references to science and culture and history, you could get your kicks out of just reading the wonderful prose (and not actually trying to draw anything from it.)

It is about 800 pages of...topsy-turvy this-and-that madness, topped with humor and crazy scenarios and images. It is the hardest book I have ever read. I have also read Pychon's The Crying of Lot 49, which I found was a little easier. Maybe that was because it was a LOT shorter?

OK. So, anyway. This sketch is from one of the few scenes that I was actually able to retain. One of the main characters, Slothrop, aka "Rocketman," aka a bunch of other things, drops his harmonica in a restroom at a ballroom. He really doesn't want to lose it, so he dives in the toilet after his beloved harmonica. He enters a world inside the toilet, with all sorts...toilet world things. There are all sorts of symbols and parallels and what-have-you down there. The movie of Trainspotting even pays homage to this with a similar scene!

Ah, my head hurts just thinking about this book again. But as I type this companion text to my sketch, I look up at my coveted Fiery Book award, and smile proudly.

A-SPIRING Holy Man

The Spire by William Golding

When I found this book (hardcover, great condition from Alexander Books) I thought "Well, Lord of the Flies was excellent, so this will be also." While it was a good, psychological book, I didn't fall in love with it. It kind of drug on and wasn't quite as tense as you'd think.

It might help if I summarize the novel. Jocelin, the dean of the cathedral, receives funding to build the largest spire ever. Everyone sees that it cannot technically be built (without collapsing utterly), but Jocelin drives them onward. As the story progresses, he becomes sick and starts having delusions, thus only adding to his fanatical drive to see his impossibly tall spire built. I recall several parts of the book where the construction workers say that they can hear the walls singing and screaming under the pressure of the spire above. Creepy!

The sketch is just an imagining of the spire, near completion. I am not an expert on architectural drawings, as you can see, but it is pretty fun to make up stuff as you're going along.

Unstuck In Time

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

One of my friends recently reminded about KV's most popular work, as titled above. Well, I took liberties to shorten the full title, which is Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death. Of course, you can find out why such a title was given to the novel, but you have to pay attention! This clues you in as to what type of author Vonnegut is. A GREAT ONE.

The novel follows Billy Pilgrim, who, by means of an accident, has become "unstuck in time," and can travel to different points in his life and experience them first-hand, second-handly. Lots of things ensue. One such thing is that he gets kidnapped by Tralfamadorians. These are aliens that can see in four dimensions (time included!). They can, like Billy, jump to different parts in their life at any time. So while they have a fatalistic view on life, they aren't sad about death because it isn't necessarily at the "end" of their life. Still with me?

Well, the sketch above is my imagining of how Tralfamadorians see humans. The book describes it as "a human millipede with a set of baby legs at one end and old person legs at the other."

This created a very interesting image in my head! I've remembered it from when I first read it, back in early high school. Fun!

Bucolic

"Feathers" Raymond Carver

While reading this
I found myself
in that kitchen
in a small house in the country.
A German woman with good teeth
consoling her very ugly baby
while their peacock rattles
it's feathers and
clatters across the linoleum.
I can almost smell the coffee brewing
as I take it all in.

A Handle on the Situation

You've guessed it: A handlebar mustache.

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

Somewhere in the thick of this novel, a theory is proposed as to how one might actually go about growing bicycle handlebars from one's face. It boils down to just how much said person rides his or her bicycle. I will not spoil the details of the theory; I must leave that for you to enjoy. I will, however, say that everyone in the novel seems to be obsessed with bikery (that is, all things bicycle-related). Sans our main character, and this makes him an enigma to the policemen!

This book is so surreal and inventive, I really wish it were longer. I'm about 4/5 of the way through it as of the moment of this post.

Two policemen, of titular reference, are lead characters in this novel (the third officer is supposedly always undercover and secreted away, but always watching). They bustle about the surreal county with the main character following them, not necessarily by choice. They dazzle and puzzle him with all sorts of strange theorems and devices and creations. They amaze and scare him, alternatively. He's in quite a pickle at the moment, just so you know. But I can't tell you what exactly it is.

;)

He's In The Details

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

This book is presented as a catalogue of letters from an experienced demon, Screwtape, to his inexperienced newbie-demon nephew, Wormwood. Screwtape offers sagely (devilishly sagely) advice to Wormwood and seeks to help him earn his keep in the underworld by properly tempting those oh-so-corruptible humans.

I need to mention that Wormwood is pretty inept. Sometimes he has the reverse effect of his intent. I don't need to mention that Screwtape is usually exasperated each time he opens a new letter. I tried to portray some exasperation in the sketch.

C.S. Lewis always takes a wonderfully thoughtful approach to religion and morality. Through the two demon's correspondence, one can see how to actually avoid unwanted temptations, and enjoy some laughs in the process. Good stuff!

This sketch was done with inkwash and a tiny, tiny bit of Micron pen. Then I just digitally converted it to a nice red hue. Hope you like it!

That's So Cold Hat

You know, instead of saying "That is old hat." Ahem...

My friend Lauren and I had agreed to each do a booksketch from Sombrero Fallout, a novel by Richard Brautigan. If you'll scroll down you can see her great entry. Here is my sketch; better late than never, right?

The sketch is based off of a section of the sombrero storyline, where the mayor, his cousin, and an unemployed man are debating about who will pick up the strange black sombrero that has just fallen out of the sky in front of them. The mayor's cousin sees this as his chance to gain politcal influence and cement his future as a leader. The mayor wants to keep his hold on his power, of course, so letting someone else pick it up would be a sign of weakness. The unemployed man sees this as his opportunity to impress someone enough to get a job.

All of them want to pick up the sombrero, but they also have doubts! Eventually the mayor's cousin touches it and finds that it is ice-cold. This freaks him out and things escalate and people start crying. And then all hell breaks loose. I won't spoil anything else that happens, but it is very, very memorable!

I'm laughing just thinking about it!

A Fright For Sore Eyes

As of January, I've started to read The Third Policeman, by Flann O'Brien. I had heard of it a while back, but was unable to find any copies for a nice price online. More recently, it was mentioned in passing on a podcast to which I was listening (a podcast about LOST, of all things). So I searched for it online again and found a nice, cheapish copy.

When the reviews of this book said that it was whacky and out there, I believed them. And so far, I love it. I'm not very far into it at all, even. I'll give you a synopsis of what has happened so far (Oh and if you read this, don't read the foreword. It spoils the ending!):

A young man who grew up on a farm inherited the property from his parents. While he is away studying, a worker tends the land in his stead. Upon his return, the young man and the worker become best of friends. The worker eventually coerces (through means of poverty and anger) the young man to kill a rich hermit and steal his money. They do so, and the worker hides the money, and for a good while the young man sticks close to the worker to make sure he doesn't skip out with the money. Eventually, the worker says it is safe to withdraw the stash from its hiding place and lets the young man do it.

The money is hidden in the victim's empty, dark house, under the floorboards. Upon reaching a the hole for the cash box, a cough is heard. Everything freezes. A lamp lights up, revealing the dead old man sitting in a chair not four yards away, staring at him with "terrible eyes". After and endless silence, the young man strikes up a conversation with the "dead" man, in hopes of staying sane. The deceased, talking through bandages, answers in riddles.

And that's pretty much where I am. What the heck, right? The scene towards the end of my synopsis is what is pictured above. Really, it was one of the creepiest bits of literature I have ever read. But it is downright interesting too! The conversation they are having is hypnotizing!!! I'm excited to see what transpires next...

Elegant Tigers

"In Watermelon Sugar" Richard Brautigan

Tigers used to exist in iDEATH.
They were elegant tigers.
Intelligent.
With beautiful singing voices.

But they were tigers, nonetheless.
And so, they came upon a family having breakfast and
decided to eat the mother and father.

These tigers are civilized,
and don't eat children.
Instead, they assisted
the boy with his arithmetic.

Yet left him an orphan.

*****

"It's a nice day," one of the tigers said.
"Yeah," the other tiger said. "Beautiful."
"We're awfully sorry we had to kill your parents and eat them.
Please try to understand. We tigers are not evil. This is just
a thing we have to do."
"All right," I said. "And thanks for helping me with my arithmetic."
"Think nothing of it."
The tigers left.

Fun[eral]!

Ok, so The Stranger was a French novel written in the 1940's about a man that was sort of discombobulated in his own emotions. As the author, Albert Camus puts it: "the nakedness of a man faced with the absurd."

Anyway, the story begins with the death of the the main character's mother. He goes to the funeral, which is at the retirement home where his mother lived out her life. The funeral is odd, but I suppose it was completely normal for a funeral in France in the 1940's- The casket is in a small house with some chairs and a skylight all by itself. There is also the funeral director and a nurse who's got some sort of bandage on her face because "she's got an abscess". Some of the residents of the home also come to view the casket. The funeral process involves sitting through a vigil with the casket all night then, at dawn, walking with the hearse down to the graveyard where they say some prayers then bury the body and everyone goes home. Throughout this process, the son smokes a cigarette, refuses an offer to see his mother's body, falls asleep, doesn't talk to anyone, walks lackadaisically behind the casket and sort of doesn't care that his mom just died.

Later in the book, he's involved in a murder and his behavior at the funeral is used as evidence into his psyche- suggesting that he has no remorse for his mother's death and therefore, he must not have remorse for the murder he committed.

The book actually won the Nobel Prize in Literature and is pretty entertaining- also, it's a pretty short read and occupies an afternoon nicely. It's chock full of symbolism and reading between the lines and deep-thought inducing plot lines. And it's French, if you like THAT sort of thing.

Yikes, Just Yikes.

Azazello is another one of Woland's henchmen in The Master and Margarita. He is described as a "wall-eyed", intimidating, fanged figure (I think they mention one fang, so the ONE fang stuck in my mind) who dons a bowler hat atop fiery red hair. He is kind of portrayed as an assassin or strong-arm, though pretty much every member of the entourage ends up killing something.

When writing these descriptions, I tend to go on Wikipedia to refresh my memory on the points I want to talk about. When thinking of this character, I thought that "wall-eyed" meant having eyes similar to those of a fish...spaced far apart, or on each side of the head, haha. Upon looking it up (two minutes ago), I found it just means that the eyes don't look in the same direction, kind of similar to a "lazy eye." But I think my imagining of the character makes it even creepier with his eyes on either side of the head, hahaha.

Black Magic Woland

The Master and Margarita is a Russian satire that speaks in both political and moral themes. The storyline is pretty complex, so I'll just gloss over the main "villain" and his posse.

In Moscow, sometime around 1930 or so, a black magician named Woland shows up and starts manipulating and secretly turning the city upside down. Not literally, though he could probably do it, since he is Satan in disguise. Going out to spread greed and the like by holding a grand magic show for a large audience and shovels out treasures to the crowd.

It's really interesting because Woland and his accomplices can just make stuff appear or disappear. Like trays of food and money and people. It's pretty entertaining!

SO, following Woland around are some great characters. I'll just go over the ones that I've drawn so that in the future maybe I can draw the rest.

Koroviev, the "ex-choirmaster", which he is referred to as on several occasions, dresses (for some reason) like a jockey. His "title" may allude to him once being a member of an angelic choir whom has fallen from grace. He is tall and eccentric. He has a pair of those spectacles that you just press onto the bridge of the nose; there are no earpiece supports. However, one of his lenses is missing and one rattles around in the frame.

Behemoth is a black cat. A black cat who is the size of a large pig. A black cat, the size of a large pig, who walks around on his hind legs and talks. And drinks whiskey and smokes cigars and loves pistols. There's once scene with Behemoth trying to board a train and pay for his fare, but the attendant says "NO CATS ALLOWED!" so he jumps off, waits for the train to pass some, and jumps back onto the caboose. He then pockets his fare. Well, I say "pockets," but you know, I guess he put it somewhere. I don't think they mentioned a gun belt, but I felt he should have one! They can just make stuff appear randomly, so that's kind of cheating.

Asian Invasion!

"To some men the most beautiful sight in this world is a sleeping Japanese woman. The sight of her long black hair floating beside her like dark lilies makes them want to die and be transported to a paradise that is filled with sleeping Japanese women who never wake but sleep on for all time, dreaming beautiful dreams."

Sombrero Fallout is about a writer who has lost his girlfriend of two years, a 'sleepy' Japanese woman. Three story lines are intertwined: his story of crushing depression and painful memories, the story he began to write about a sombrero that falls from the sky (which is probably the most entertaining one- ending in mass bloodshed), and the story of his ex-girlfriend- who is sleeping and dreaming throughout the entire book.

The imagery of the sleeping woman is amazing, as is the fact that he wrote several chapters on someone sleeping which were actually entertaining and not boring- as you would imagine several chapters on a sleeping person would be. Yukiko (the girlfriend...as you can probably figure out) sleeps with her black cat and her dreams are powered by the cat's purr. When the cat gets up at night to get a drink of water her dreams fall apart until the cat returns. The sketch is from the opening passage- The Japanese women are supposed to be short and tall and mostly skinny (IE-beautiful...just kiddin'), but there is also a fat one (if you're into that sort of thing). I was also going to draw a Japanese girl in there snuggling with a teddy bear, then I realized that the passage had slightly sexual tones, so I figured that would be unnatural and very very wrong. The middle woman is Yukiko (the one with the cat) who is said to be the "queen of such a paradise."

It's a very good read! I read it in one sitting- partly because it's short and mostly because it was just good.

Shot Through The Heart (of Darkness)

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness has inspired quite a few other works, one being the movie Apocalypse Now. This movie was based loosely on the story, but actually gave off a pretty similar vibe (in my opinion). Anyways.

In this rather short tale (published 1902), our "tour guide" Marlowe recounts his experience of traveling down a river in a country that is never named, but is similar to the Congo or some other country that rates yikes!/10. Marlowe is sent down into the chest of dimness to search for a rogue ivory procurer, Kurtz. Things get pretty animalistic, as things usually tend to do when exploring the darkness that lurks inside humans. It is, of course, one of the major themes in the book. A life-altering journey into unfathomed areas of life. And death. But I guess once you journey to death, then you're pretty much stuck there. Well, I definitely won't spoil what happens, but I will just say that Marlowe becomes quite determined to find Kurtz. A determination that keeps him moving down river, despite how high the darkness stacks.

This sketch is inspired by a part of the book where the steamer boat is putting along in the quiet night, when all of a sudden a storm of arrows shakes the sheets and wreaks havoc. Those natives are quite restless, especially when under the influence of a charismatic outsider!

Oh, right, and I decided to try out some water colors, since the scene takes place on a river and all. It turned out alright; I'm not too experienced with them. And it's only a sketch, after all!

The Kool-Aid Wino That I-Know

Ahhh, Trout Fishing In America, a wonderful gem by Richard Brautigan. It is packed with random, seemingly absurd moments. And yet some of them are subtly powerful, aren't they?

This sketch is from a chapter called "The Kool-Aid Wino," where our narrator recollects a time when he was a child and he was friendly with a German boy who lived nearby. The boy was "ruptured" (I'm still not really sure what that means) and spent all day loafing around his house and scraping up money for Kool-Aid. Granted, a package of the powder was only a nickel, but in this chapter the "Kool-Aid Wino," so aptly dubbed, bummed a nickel from our narrator and purchased his sweet almost-nectar.

The process of the Wino making the Kool Aid is so intriguing that it earned a booksketch. He retreats to the family chicken coop and lays out four pint-sized containers in a row. You're only supposed to make two quarts of liquid bliss (I imagined Cherry-flavored bliss, of course) from each packet, but his addiction was so great that he made a gallon! This meant that it was diluted. Ewwww.

Anyway, he would be careful not to spill a drop, as was his ritual. Then he would proceed to secure all of the containers in a nice spot until he needed to empty them into his gullet. Whoa, did I just used the word "gullet"? Awesome!!!

I decided to throw in some color, also. Mainly to point out what flavor of Kool-Aid I tasted in my head, and also just for fun.

Brrrrrrrrr!

The Call of the Wild. We've all read it in 6th grade, so the story is pretty well worn territory. Buck is a husky that has been raised as a domestic pet in a nice populated town when one day is is kidnapped, nay- dognapped, and sold as a sled dog in the Alaskan Tundra. For Buck, culture shock sets in and he's forced to adapt to his new surroundings and sort of make lemonade out of his frozen lemons.
The REAL story behind this sketch is not so much about The Call of the Wild as it is about WHY I chose this particular sketch. I was sitting in my hotel room in Chicago last weekend thinking about how it was 70 degrees when I got on the plane in Baton Rouge on Friday and now I was in Chicago in 9 degrees looking out at the snow. It reminded me about the point in the story where Buck is forced to sleep in the snow and learns to dig himself into a little snow-hole to keep warm. After that I just daydreamed about sitting on my patio at home in a T-shirt. Eating ice cream, perhaps. But instead, I drew this little sketch and was forced to dig myself into my white comforter and turn the heater up to 75. Just like Buck. Sort of.

Let's Do the TimeQuake Againnn!

It wasn't enough that Kurt Vonnegut was an awesomely talented writer. He had to go and create a character that is also a talented writer! Talented in a different sense, of course.

Kilgore Trout was an author of various zany sci-fi short stories, quite a few of which are mentioned and told in various Vonnegut books (thankfully). I love them. In some of the Vonnegut books, Trout does more than write. In Timequake, Trout takes charge!

The plot of the novel is that a 'timequake' occurs in 2001. What is a timequake? Well, it is an event that sent time moving backwards until the year 1991. Which means for ten years, people had to relive every moment, backwards. They were basically watching a movie of their lives. If you think about it, it's pretty crazy. And that isn't the end. If I remember correctly, when it became 1991 again, something else happened which made the situation a little more...timely. Without spoiling too much, I'll just say that by the time things were righted, people had forgotten how to act for themselves. So when that moment came, utter chaos sprang forth.

The one part of the book that is fixed in my memory is right after this moment occurs. Trout gets hold of a bazooka and says "F-–– the bums!" I forget exactly what was the deal with the bums, but Trout wasn't having any of it. And it may be just my mind wandering, but I seem to remember him kicking over something before saying that wonderfully hilarious line, so I just figured a shopping cart would be idea. Oh, and I'm going to feel really stupid if he wasn't in a bath robe. Because that is what popped into my head. I don't actually own the book, so if you remember what happened in that chapter, please comment about it, hahaha.

My Kingdom For A Horseradish

"I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion."

It was about time I did another sketch from Don Quixote. This here jolly, simple fellow (atop his donkey) is Sancho Panza. He comically served Don Quixote as a faithful squire through various misadventures and escapades. DQ recruits him at the onset of the book by dazzling Sancho with hopes of governing his own island once DQ becomes a famous knight. The kind of thing that grabs at a peasant's heart, right?

After I drew the sketch, I wiki'd Sancho and was surprised to find a picture taken of a statue of Sancho in Madrid, Spain. The statue looks pretty much like the sketch, sans sandwich. I felt the need to draw him with some sort of food because he was constantly grumbling about how hungry he was.

Since Sancho is a rather simple, hardworking fellow, and Don Quixote is a rather muddled, disillusioned figure, Sancho is often found to be the more rational of the two. I suppose you could say that he was the brains of the operation, since DQ couldn't really claim that title, being addled and all. So, really, it was a pretty good team!