The Courtyard; Neonomicon; Providence

The Courtyard
Neonomicon
Providence
by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows
read: 2018

The Courtyard, Neonomicon, and Providence are three series that stand on their own but also tell a connected story (with the first 10 issues of Providence a prequel to the events of Courtyard / Neonomicon and the final two the story's conclusion). Moore has written some of the most brilliant comics (or writing in any medium, really) I've read, and he weaves together H.P. Lovecraft's work with other dark occult fiction. It was fun to read through and spot allusions to various stories and works.

There are some problematic elements. Lovecraft's stories often had racist undertones and Moore integrates that aspect in some of his characters. There is a fair amount of sex in Neonomicon and Providence, which is partly a reaction to the conspicuous lack of sex in Lovecraft's work, but the amount of rape and the treatment of rape are troubling. It's a work of horror, so there are going to be a lot of disturbing elements, but both the representation of sexual assault and the characters' reactions to it bothered me. That didn't stop me from enjoying the rest of the story, but I would have reservations recommending these works on those grounds.

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
read: 2019
Guardian 1000 Novels, Pulitzer Prize

I read this partially while in New Orleans, and it was fun to spot the novel's places as I went, particularly when Ignatius was hawking hot dogs in the French Quarter. It's a silly novel with a nonsense plot that somehow all ties together. Some of the scenarios were laugh-out-loud funny. But the unusual circumstances of the book's publishing history - Toole committed suicide some years before it saw the light of day - also bring emphasis to a sad undercurrent in the novel. The book ends on something of a high note, but it's easy to imagine Ignatius squandering his good fortune in short order.

The Awakening

The Awakening
by Kate Chopin
read: 2019
Guardian 1000 Novels

I read this in preparation for a trip to New Orleans. The novel caught a little of that city's flavor but was mostly set in the vacation area Grand Isle. I'm sympathetic to the idea Edna Pontellier felt that she couldn't be her authentic self, but her circumstances and actions are hard to relate to more than a hundred years after the novel was first published. It probably doesn't help that I'm a man, either.