Ok, I know I’ve tweeted about this already, but I just can’t not mention it. I’ve read Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and it was great! I bought the book because I had read The Magicians by Lev Grossman (they’re brothers) which I loved and counting on the writing gene to run in the family, I gave it a try. Soon I will be Invincible is a book about a world where superheroes and super villains are a ‘common’ thing. It’s a sort deconstruction of the superhero/comic genre, written in witty prose and funny remarks. The book is well written and just so much fun to read. I listened to The Sound of Young America Podcast with Austin Grossman (I know, I’m such a geek) and he made a really cool point about how he could explore different things in his ‘comic-novel’ that he wouldn’t be able to do with a real comic book. In a novel you get to spend so much more time in the main characters head, so you can explore the things that are taken for granted in comics, like why they wear the costumes they wear, what it feels like to have a body that is half made of metal and what the difficulties are of wearing a really heavy velvet cape. It’s really interesting to see how they deal with all these crazy things, which adds a more human aspect to the godlike feeling most superheroes/-villains usually have.
Before this, I hadn’t read a book in a while, because I was going through an insatiable craving for magazines. I rediscovered the fun of buying and reading them not too long ago and it took up most of my free time. My interest in magazines has wavered a bit, which is a good thing, because now it won’t get to the point where I have to eat dry bread because I can’t afford a simple slice of cheese. I would love to write a superhero story one day. I love the epicness of the battles, the drama of being different and the great love stories. It’s a shame I can’t even draw a simple stickfigure, but otherwise I would’ve definitely gone into the comic business.
Emma Forrest
This month’s British Elle contained an article from Emma Forrest (I love her name!) about how it feels to leave your twenties. Emma herself was 15 when her first article was published and 16 when she got a column in the Sunday Times. In the article she writes about what it was like to grow up in the limelight and how much better she felt after turning 25. It ended with an anecdote about herself and her friend Kat Dennings (which you might know from the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) attending an Oscar-seasoned party where Emma ran into an old ex-boyfriend.
‘As I talked to him, I processed that some things do not change at all as you get older. Heartbreak now was just like the heartbreak I’s felt when I was 19, then 25; and now I was 30 and it was the same heart, the same ache. Really, my heart felt like vinyl that had been scratched so it would always jump in that song. Kat sensed the awful, quivering moment when I was about to lose it. She marched me to the bathroom under the pretext of needing to tell me something, and before we made it past the swing door I was crying. She handed me a stiff drink. She dug a false eyelash from my cleavage when it skied there on my tears. But I couldn’t stop. ‘I’m just too old for this,’ I wailed. Then someone walked in and the evening took a strange and beautiful turn. ‘You don’t remember?’Kat asked the next morning.
‘Oh my god…’
‘Yes. And then Demi Moore hugged you.’ Neither of us had ever met her before or since. ‘She clutched you to her bosom and stroked your hair.’
‘Oh God, Kat! She did!’
‘And she kept saying, “Everything’s going to be fine, everything is going to be fine.”
And it is.
I was having a bad day while I read this, and for some reason this anecdote was so reassuring that I felt better in an instant. I’d wish we all had a Demi Moore walking around to give us a hug when we feel bad!
Her latest book is a memoir called It’s Your Voice in My Head and if it contains more of these reassuring stories, I’ll definitely love it.
Get back in your book
The last ‘idea’ I want to share with you are some really pretty pictures I found on But, Honestly, a blog by Emma Fourie (I guess I have a theme, with these Emma’s). She posted some pictures from Lissy Elle which are really impressive. I started browsing her Flickr Page and found a collection of pictures called ‘Get back in your book’. They are about ‘a collection of characters who strive to stay in the real world’. I’m a sucker for anything literary so I couldn’t help but like them! Be sure to look around on her page, there is a lot more to see.
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| Alice in Wonderland |
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| Harry Potter |
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| Wendy - Peter Pan |
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| Beauty and the Beast |
The concept reminded me of the first issue of Afterzine, where six style bloggers where asked to create a look based on their favorite book, character or cover. I thought it was fun how most of them picked a book by Haruki Murakami, I guess he’s just a very fashionable writer. If you don’t own Afterzine yet, I really urge you to buy it. It’s filled with amazing pictures, illustrations and stories. If only I could write for them! But if you do already own it, a little bird recently told me a second issue will appear around spring this year… Can’t wait!
