Tag Archives: books

(knjiga) Ljubica Anđelković Džambić – ‘Tijelo otpora Satana Panonskog’

Ovo je ogromna knjiga od petstotinjak stranica koja Ljubice Anđelković Džambić, koja je osim sudjelovanja u Tabor festivalu pripadnica underground scene i sudionica i članica bendova. Zapravo, ova knjiga je njena doktorska dizertacija i secira Body Art i povijest te vrste subkulturne umjetnosti u Jugoslaviji i kasnije u Hrvatskoj. To čini kroz seciranje lika i djela Ivice Čuljka, poznatog kao Satan Panonski i Kečer II. Za one koji ne znaju, Satan je bio punker po narodnosti, a prijatelj po zanimanju hehe. Rođen je 1960., a poginuo je u ratu pod čudnim okolnostima 1992. Za to kratko vrijeme svog života stvorio je mit o sebi o kojem se priča i u ovoj knjizi, snimio nekoliko albuma, boravio u umobolnici u Popovači zbog ubojstva i izlazio van držeći koncerte koji su zapravo više bili performansi zvani ‘hard blood shock’ koristeći svoje tijelo kao platno za body art. Ljubica secira sve aspekte, od bolesti, djetinjstva, odnosa s majkom, glazbe, punka i kreiranja antimodne odjeće do puštanja iz umobolnice i pogibije. Dio knjige koji se odnosi na Satana samog mi je bio zanimljiv za čitanja, no ima i puno znanstvenih citata i objašnjenja pojmova i povijesti nekih pojmova što je bilo dosadno za svladati. Isto tako, knjiga sadrži puno odličnih fotografija, Satanovih pisama, kako privatnih, tako i onih koje je slao radi pomilovanja raznim institucijama, pa i samom Tuđmanu. Tako da, nekome će ova knjiga leći nekome ne, meni je onako pola-pola. Nije biografija, nego znanstveni rad i to detaljan, na kome kapa dolje, ali meni je bio malo too much i pretežak radi previše meni nepoznatih znanstvenih pojmova i takvih poglavlja.

2,5/5

(book) Koji Suzuki – Dark Water

I found somewhere that Koji Suzuki is called Japanese Stephen King. Well I read his famous Ringu, which was a base for Japanese Ring movies and also couple of American remake and its sequels and spinoffs. Ringu was fine book. Dark Water was also made into a movie, which also got American remake, but this one was not based on a novel, but on a short story from this short story compilation by Suzuki. Each of the stories is in fact one chapter, but you might have guessed it, common denominator to all of the stories is water, whether being in tank on top of the building, or ocean, or lake, water is crucial to horror in each of the stories. As in any short story collection, some are great, some are boring. What bothers me about this collection is that horror creeps too slow and it is hard to keep you as a reader concentrated because it is too slow and even boring in some parts, although there are couple of creepy moments in there. This one is not what I was hoping for to be, so if you want to read something by Koji Suzuki, better read his novel Ringu.

(book) James Herbert – Portent

James Herbert (1943-2013) is in no way stranger to the pages of this webzine. His works have already been featured and reviewed here and I am a great fan of his chiller horror novels as you can say if you read my previous features on his books. This time, Herbert brings us a mixture of horror and catastrophe novel about the end of the world and new start. Something is happening all over the world, tsunamis destroy coasts and thousands die, Loch Ness boils and hot water turns into wave which kills, storms kill thousands with hail size of a tennis ball on highways. Mother Nature decided to strike back for all of our sins against her. In midst of trying to save what is left to save are two special Romanian siblings, their adoptive mother, one meteorologist and evil cult from New Orleans who try to stop saving and end the world into infinite darkness. What to say? I read almost all of Herbert’s books. He was also known that he DIY arranged all of his front covers in a way he thought they should represent the novels he wrote. He died suddenly at the age of 69, not being ill or anything, so he could have written to us fans so much more.

Considering this novel, I must admit that it is not his top five. It is just too much confused in some places, too long and too light compared to let’s say Rats trilogy, Ash trilogy or Others and similar of my favorites. Also, ending seems to be a little to abrupt and all of those horrible things that happened throughout the story are just solved too easily. You could say that there is a happy end, but there is also no happy end to this story. If you are a fan like I am, you will like this one. If you are a first time Herbert reader I recommend some of the works I mentioned above in this paragraph.