Given that the nearest thing that Batman has to a superpower is a trust fund and a willingness to punch bad guys in the throat, when you remove him from the equation what you're left with is pretty much a straight police drama. That said Gotham is hardly The Wire. While it's a million miles from the camp glory of the Adam West show the setting still has to be presented in such a way that cosplayers knocking lumps off each other at some point in the future doesn't seem too out there. A better reference point would probably be Sin City; it's dark and gritty, but its designer dark and gritty; a facsimile of tough guy tropes and detective drama archetypes. Not that this is a criticism. The 90's cartoon, which was the absolute tits, had the same sort of Diet Raymond Chandler thing going on and one of Gotham's strongest attributes is the city that frames all the running around: part 1970's New York shit-tip, part film noir sound-stage, fully realised and wonderfully timeless. It's just a shame the producers get a bit over excited and ram references to the Batman universe in your face, pulling you rather sharply out of the experience.
Ben McKenzie is strong in the lead role. Granted, he doesn't really fit my own personal idea of a young Jim Gordon, but he's got a solid, burly presence and manages to portray a moral idealist without coming over like a naive tit. I'm less enamoured with Sean Pertwee, whose geezerish take on Alfred Pennyworth just seems a bit daft, but it's early days. The child actors don't embarrass themselves The standout however is Robin Lord Taylor's Oswald Cobblepot (or the Penguin if you prefer - which he doesn't) striking a great balance clammy menace, wimpy self pity and the surly bitterness of a dog that's been kicked too much. He's repellent, but the fact that there's something intangibly off about him also makes him fascinating. He's easily the best thing about a pilot episode that is, for the most part, merely okay.
 |
| Picture pinched from Paul Hostetler over at Deviantart |
I haven't had the opportunity to read Richard Flanagan's Man Book prize winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North, although I have just finished fellow nominee Joshua Ferris's To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. The plot follows Paul O'Rourke, a dentist who is shaken out of his existential funk when a stranger begins impersonating him online and uses his identity to proselytise in the name of an obscure religion.
The conflict in the novel, such as it is, is between the protagonist's secular and spiritual side. Paul is instinctively and intellectually an atheist, yet he's aware of a gap in his life that aches like a dry socket. He tries filling the hole with various hobbies and ephemera, but ultimately finds that the banjo is no route to beatification. the problem is compounded by the fact that he lacks any sort of defined identity and he blatantly - if unconsciously - covets the sense of place and history that those around him have. This results in him trying to appropriate the cultural heritage of his various lovers. Fine. Until he starts pulling stunts like, apropos of nothing, lecturing his girlfriend's (very Jewish) uncle on the history of anti-semitism.
Cue the mysterious Seir Design, who set up a website in Paul's name, and the Ulm religion of the Amalekites, a religion which seems tailor made for a man like Paul, being both Abrahamic faith whose one and only commandment is that adherents remain sceptical of God at all times and one that provides him with an access all areas pass to a history and a culture that stretches back to biblical times (and an oppressed one to boot! That's like 75 extra points on the whiteliberalometer!). I did wonder if the Ulm religion (discussions of which take up a significant percentage of the book's word count) functions as a sort of parody of Scientology; a quick and easy shot of significance and theological soothing for those spiritually bereft who also happen to have a lot of spare cash sloshing around their bank accounts). Ultimately though what little comfort Paul finds is not from looking inward, or even outward, but from directly in front of him. For most of the narrative Paul is utterly dismissive of social media (he consistently refers to smartphones as 'me-machines', which gets more than a little irritating towards the end) and cannot wrap his head around the fact that a client (random dickhead) is willing to dismiss his (trained professional) advice purely on then strength of a vague, ill defined feeling of wellness, the joke being, of course, that he's just as inward looking and self obsessed as those he derides. This all builds to a moment of epiphany where (OMG! SPOILER ALERT! LOOK AWAY NOW! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!) he buys a baseball cap with the logo of a bollocks sports team on it
I'm not surprised Ferris was nominated for the Booker Prize. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is well written, pertinent and, occasionally, very funny. I'm also not surprised it didn't win either. The book is extremely digressive, wandering off into extended faux biblical passages about the history of the Amalekites, which clash with the rest of the text in terms of language and tone and act as a major drag on the narrative. There's also the fact that, as relevant and timely as Paul's pains may be, they're very much first world problems, which results in him come across a bit like Holden Caulfield going through his mid life crisis. Maybe that floats your boat and if it does all power to you, but ultimately To Rise Again at a Decent Hour feels far longer than a 340 page novel should.
Love and Fishes
Dave Denton
No comments:
Post a Comment