"All children mythologize their birth".

Go get this book now. As in, right now. Go out, to your nearest bookstore. Walk there if you have to. Get an advance on your allowance, if you must. Steal from your brother's wallet, if necessary.
You simply have to own a copy and read it.
It's been a long time since I last enjoyed a book so much. I sat down with it for 5 hours; during that time forgetting to eat, drink, answer phone calls, perform regular bodily functions and hold normal conversation. I barely looked up. If the roof had fallen in at the time, I'd have barely noticed. My only mission in life was to go to the next page, the next page, the next page, etc..


I am not even going to tell you what it's about.





Well, okaaaay I will. The story revolves around the prim and proper biographer Margaret Lea, who owns and runs a bookstore with her father. She receives a most mysterious letter from Vida Winter, allegedly the greatest living English novelist of the age (the time period of the story is never actually mentioned, but if I had to guess I'd say it was probably around the 1930s).

The aging Miss Winter wants Margaret Lea, of all people, to write and publish her biography, through many interviews and research processes at Vida Winter's home in the Yorkshire moors.
Miss Winter, being a masterclass storyteller and also, therefore, a phenomenal liar, is an exceedingly mysterious woman. Nothing is known of her birth or early life. Within a 20 year span she gives 20 very different, very wild and very imaginative accounts of her birth and life (all obviously not true). But she is prepared to divulge the entire truth to Margaret Lea, for some sinister reason.
And so begins Vida Winter's amazing tale, of her family, and her life, and her darkest secrets, while Margaret also learns to face her own painful past. The "Thirteenth Tale", so called because Vida Winter once had a book of short stories published under that title, but mysteriously the book only contained twelve stories, the pages of the thirteenth one being completely blank. I suppose you could assume that this elusive 13th tale is the chilling, disturbing and tragic narrative of Vida's own childhood. To call this book "freaky" would be both inappropriate and an understatement. It has the elements of ghosts, adultery, incest, obsession, disease, madness, the concept of twins having their souls torn apart and placed in two bodies, insanity, life after death, secrets, the fragility of family, the love of strangers, murder, arson, rape, religion. All these themes and concepts whirling about and tying each other up in knots and giving you rather unpleasant sensations of being watched (or maybe it was just me).And if you find it all too confusing or boring, even; take my word for it. This is one book you won't be putting down until you've devoured every word of every page.
Diane Setterfield is my new hero.

And one more thing; pay attention to the way Vida Winter refers to herself in the stories. The pronouns she uses; I, you, we, and so on.
That is all.

A Poem that made me Cry

The Little Boy

Once a little boy went to school.

He was quite a little boy

And it was quite a big school.

But when the little boy

Found that he could go to his room

By walking right in from the door outside

He was happy;

And the school did not seem

Quite so big anymore.

One morning

When the little boy had been in school awhile,

The teacher said:"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy.

He liked to make all kinds;

Lions and tigers,

Chickens and cows,

Trains and boats;

And he took out his box of crayons

And began to draw.

But the teacher said,

"Wait!"

"It is not time to begin!"

And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,

"We are going to make flowers."

"Good!" thought the little boy,

He started to make beautiful ones

With his pink and orange and blue crayons.

But the teacher said "Wait!"

"And I will show you how."

She drew a flower on the blackboard.

It was red, with a green stem.

"There," said the teacher,

"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at his teacher's flower

Then he looked at his own flower.

He liked his flower better than the teacher's

But he did not say this.

He just turned his paper over,

And made a flower like the teacher's.

It was red, with a green stem.

On another day

When the little boy had opened

The door from the outside all by himself,

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make something with clay."

"Good!" thought the little boy;

He liked clay.

He could make all kinds of things with clay:

Snakes and snowmen,

Elephants and mice,

Cars and trucks

And he began to pull and pinch his ball of clay.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"

"It is not time to begin!"

And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,"We are going to make a dish."

"Good!" thought the little boy,

He liked to make dishes.

And he began to make some

They were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said "Wait!"

"And I will show you how."

And she showed everyone how to make

One deep dish.

"There," said the teacher,"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at the teacher's dish;

Then he looked at his own.

He liked his better than the teacher's

But he did not say this.

He just rolled his clay into a big ball again

And made a dish like the teacher's.

It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon

The little boy learned to wait,

And to watch

And to make things just like the teacher.

And pretty soon

He didn't make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened

That the little boy and his family

Moved to another house,

In another city,

And the little boy

Had to go to another school.

This school was even bigger

Than the other one.

And there was no door from the outside

Into his room.

He had to go up some big steps

And walk down a long hall

To get to his room.

And the very first day

He was there,

The teacher said:"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy.

And he waited for the teacher

To tell what to do.

But the teacher didn't say anything.

She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boy

She asked,

"Don't you want to make a picture?"

"Yes," said the lttle boy.

"What are we going to make?"

"I don't know until you make it," said the teacher.

"How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.

"Why, anyway you like," said the teacher.

"And any color?" asked the little boy.

"Any color," said the teacher.

"If everyone made the same picture,

And used the same colors,

How would I know who made what,

And which was which?"

"I don't know," said the little boy.

And he began to make flower.

It was red, with a green stem.

~Helen E. Buckley

A Very Premium Book and Its Equally Premium Movie

So. After weeks with no word from my fellow freakybloggers, and a push from the International Mastermind, my boss who gives me the highest payment by reading what I've written and commenting on them, I have decided to be selfish and post yet again. In truth I miss freakyblogging, and reading what you guys are reading, and I hope the rest of you come back soon!

Until then I'll just draw your attention to a book I've wanted to read ever since it came out, but only got the chance to read very recently.



Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer, isn't a freakybook on the whole, but its many disparate and freaky bits and pieces create a tale that proves sometimes just regular everyday life can be freakier, stranger and more miraculous that any freaky product of the imagination. The book follows three points of view, across three different time periods; that of Jonathan, the young American author come to Ukraine to find his grandfather's wartime saviour(a woman named Augustine)while writing a rather magical account of the village and people of Trachimbrod ranging from the early 19th century to World War Two; that of the young Ukrainian translator and guide who describes and narrates the search for Augustine using his hilarious and endearing mangled version of English, and all these being attached to letters Alex sends to Jonathan.
It sounds a bit confusing but once the book is in your hands it really isn't all that daunting, even being rather short for a novel with such an epic scope. The problem with Everything Is Illuminated, as one critic so accurately points out, is that its first chapters are so hard to read, mainly because "..you burst out laughing every few sentences, lose your place, get tempted to call your friends and read out long sections of the prose, and then have to start all over again".
The novel excels at being a comedy; in fact the last time a book made me literally laugh out loud was Tom Holt's Earth, Water,Fire and Custard, but also is so incredibly touching, poignant and utterly miserable, only to make you bust a gut laughing again by the next page.
Most of the humour comes from a dog named Sammy Davis Junior Junior, a "blind" grandfather who apparently has no problem driving a car or reading road signs, and my personal favourite, Alex's mangled English,which surely must be some genius form of sentence construction. The dialogue is also sharp, witty, and almost insanely funny;

Jonathan: I'm a vegetarian.
Alex: You're a what?
Jonathan: I don't eat meat.
Alex: How can you not eat meat?
Jonathan: I just don't.
Alex: [to Grandfather, in Russian] He says he does not eat meat.
Grandfather: [to Alex, in Russian] Yes you do.
Alex: [to Jonathan, in English]Yes you do.
Jonathan: No meat.
Alex: Steak?
Jonathan: No...
Alex: Chickens!
Jonathan: No...
Alex: And what about the sausage?
Jonathan: Oh god, not the sausage,no.
Alex: [to Grandfather, in Russian] He says he does not eat any meat.
Grandfather: [to Alex, in Russian] Not even sausage?
Alex: [to Grandfather, in Russian] I know!
Grandfather: [to Alex, in Russian] What is wrong with him?
Alex: What is wrong with you?

In any case, Bloody Awful Poetry highly recommends. There is also a movie adaptation of the book,starring Elijah Wood and directed by Liev Schreiber, which, for once, I am very pleased to say, is almost as good as the book itself. This is for the simple reason that it does not stay with the book word by word, neither does it stray too far from canon, but it simply becomes its won wonderful story while staying true to the essence of the novel. For a little taste of it you can have a look at the trailer. It makes an equally premium movie, with a supremely premium soundtrack,which is really just the icing on a very premium cake, as Alex Perchov would say.





You can buy the book here or purchase the DVD here.

The Downfall of the Freakish Empire!

Hello? Is anyone out there? I gotta say, this is really becoming sad. Have you all just completely FORGOTTEN this blog? Or are you just being lazy? I for one think that I am going to have to send out alert messages, if no one has posted in... *checks calendar* ...four days.

So, as my extreme and agonizing disappointment continues, I have one last thing to say. Not much really.


HELLO?!?!?!?!?!

And no, I'm not getting paid to do this.

Since we agreed, originally, to branch out into freaky music and movies as well as books, I thought I might as well get the ball rolling a bit, eh? Also I'm really excited to get you Freakybloggers into this band, which is why I'm taking the luxury of posting twice this month, instead of once, which is what I usually do for the sake of politeness.
I have already raved about these guys on my other blog ,so you might wanna check that post out first for more info on the band. Basically Sigur ros are an Icelandic quartet, a bunch of four skinny white dudes with impossible sounding names who one day decided that they would much prefer to hole up in a studio and make strange, wonderful sounds together rather than go to school, which is what they should have been doing.

They recorded their first album way back in the mid to late nineties, making a deal with the studio owners to paint the outside of the building in exchange for permission to use the equipment. For their second album, the members of Sigur ros glued and put together the CD casings on their own, resulting in most of the CDs being useless because of glue deposits on them.
But what makes them freaky, you ask?
They're freaky in a good way. The lead singer's voice is so high-pitched, ethereal and spine-tingling , that you would be graciously forgiven for thinking the voice came from a woman's throat, or the throat of someting that wasn't even human. They sing in a language that doesn't exist. Even their own countrypeople don't understand them, most of the time. According to keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson, the lyrics aren't important to them. They aren't interested in tagging each of their songs with a message or a story. They would, in fact, much prefer the listener to interpret and understand and "feel" the sounds in whatever way they feel.
And what a sound that is. In various reviews, the music of Sigur ros has been described as everything from "irrelevantly pretentious" to "the sound of God weeping tears of gold from heaven" .
They have been tagged with almost every musical genre imaginable ;post-rock, progressive rock, avantgarde, new-age, world music; when in reality the sheer size and scope and depth of their sound defies any attempt to categorize them. They are an acquired taste, like blue cheese or raisins (for me, anyway).
I raved about them constantly to one of my friends and whined about how difficult it was to find their stuff. But Annmarie came through spectacularly, and dropped by at my crib with a copy of Sigur ros' 2005 release, Takk...
I now take this opportunity to thank Annmarie, very publicly, on Blogger.

Takk is easily the band's most musically accessible record. Most of the songs remain under 10 minutes long (which is unusual for Sigur ros, but we don't mind) and have a definite structure. They tend to start out slow and soft and tinkly before exploding in a magnificent wall of sound that is predictable but still wondrous. Despite their huge, ethereal, apocalyptic soundscape, the songs aren't about God and Heaven and Hell and Judgement or angels and monsters, but simply about walking in the rain, or admiring the sunrise, or jumping in puddles, or holding hands with someone special, or smelling grass.
At some point, words fail to describe or do justice, when it comes to this band. In the same way that they defy being pigeonholed into a specific genre, they also defy the limitations of language to fully grasp what they have done to music as we know it.



Glosoli (from the album Takk.., also probably my favourite music video of all time).


Hoppipolla


Sigur ros live in Philadelphia (you gotta watch this, I'm telling you)



The trailer for their new (gorgeous) tour film, Heima.


Buy their albums here.
Stream their stuff here.
Download (free and legal, don't worry.) mp3s here.
Visit their official site.
Check out their MySpace.
Read other (better) reviews here.
Have a look at their Youtube channel.

The official site of their new tour film, Heima.

I think I've pretty much covered everything. Please please please do give them a try, in the spirit of Freakishness! And let me know what you think, regardless of whether you like them or not.

(International Mastermind also recommends!)




edit :International Mastermind, who is something like our Boss here (except that we don't get paid) is adamant that I add more freaky details about Sigur ros. But I'm a wee bit lazy to do that. Soo...if you are interested in learning more freakish trivia on this wonderful wonderful band please head on over to my humble blog and stuff yourselves with all manner of weird and wonderful gifts, talents, behavioural problems and disabilities that make this band true Freaks in their own freakish right! And if you still aren't even a little bit interested in trying their music out, well then I really cannot help you there.

American Gods

If Stephen King is the King Of Blatant Shameless Freakishness, then Neil Gaiman is the Emperor of Subtle Fine Freakishness.

Neil Gaiman doesn't do sharp teeth or gooey ickiness or wet warm blood. He does it in a way that's so subtle and refined and quiet that you forget it's supposed to be freaky. And then you remember. And then you get a wee bit scared.
Take this excerpt for example.

"The telephone in Shadow's apartment was still silent and dead. He thought about getting it connected, but could think of no-one he wanted to call. Late one night he picked it up and listened, and was convinced that he could hear a wind blowing and a distant conversation between a group of people talking in voices too low to properly make out. He said, 'Hello?' and 'Who's there?' but there was no reply, only a sudden silence and then the faraway sound of laughter, so faint he was not certain he was not imagining it."

Shadow, in question, is a convict. Days before his release from prison, he is told that his wife has died in a mysterious car crash. Numb with grief and confusion, he gets on a plane home, where he meets the enigmatic and decidedly odd Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a former god. Shadow, having nothing else left to live for,agrees to work for Mr Wednesday. So they embark on a strange journey across the United States, from New York to Las Vegas, from South Dakota to San Francsico, while a so-called "storm" breaks out, and a war of supernatural and divine proportions is poised to break out.
Shadow meets multititudes of the most remarkable people, all at one time who were gods, brought over from their native lands in the minds and hearts of the people who migrated to the New World.
While Shadow himself struggles with his true identity, and that of the "gods" around him, and his dead wife's corpse who keeps returning to him.
It may not sound like much, but the fact that I am blogging about this book before I have even finished it (just 200 pages to go!) gives you an idea of how good it is.
A great deal of research is necessary in reading American Gods. Neil Giaman features gods, deities and mythological figures from practically every known civilization; Norse, Native American, Bavarian, African, Asian, Arabic, Egyptian. Hindu gods, Chinese gods,Greek gods, Roman gods, even Jesus Christ is given a mention. The process of finding out the stories and details behind the myths and legends, and drawing parallels and lines and connections to the story, are just as fascinating as the book itself.
However if you are familiar with Norse and Scandinavian mythology, to a certain degree, the plot will be quite obvious to you. But Neil Giaman is a fabulous enough author to not let your knowledge of what should happen next spoil the read.
In any case, Bloody Awful Poetry highly recommends.

Edge by...Michael Cadnum

Ugh. This is definitely freakish. In the BAD way.

It starts out with Zachary, a high-school dropout living in a bad area. The first chapter is a blur-a brawl of crazed, drunken teens, that ends up blood spattered cloud of tear gas. Zachary finds himself stowing away a hard, steel gun.
Suddenly his life is falling apart, his father is in the hospital with a bullet in his spine, his girlfriend's mother is a bit too friendly with him, and all he has to hold on to is the revolver.
No one knows who shot his father.

It sounds much more exciting than it really is. The plot could have been great, but the author writes it in such a depressing way. I know that it is meant to have tear-jerking parts, but we are seeing this through Zachary's eyes. And Zachary sounds like he's on heavy meds.

Alas, as an avid reader I am compelled to read the rest of the book, even though it sucks. Oh well.


UPDATE: This is the first book that I have officially abandoned. Of course, I abandoned it to read three fantastic books that I have, stacked up and waiting for me. Midnighters 2: touching darkness, Midnighters 3: (forgot the name), and Specials. Got to love Westerfeld!