Straddling a very wobbly line between neo-noir and straight-out horror, “Dark Entries” is also a satirical criticism of reality-TV. I say music - the musical elements of the writing seem at times as important as the words, and the effect of the stories is similar. Recounting the plot - there's no such thing as a "spoiler" in these stories, and the stories are about their style. I could tell you how they end, and it would change nothing of the effect. He's not writing to tell a gripping yarn, he's providing an "impression" which can be beautiful (exceptionally so), or unsettling, or terrifying. Mystery pervades, if you're looking for answers to the questions, you are missing the point of the story. This sentence speaks volumes about the tension between the two characters of "The View," but also of the sensitivities of each character toward one another. One should not be surprised, then to find that "The View" is winsome and absolutely heart-rending. It has caused in me a genuine fear of growing old, something I have never really felt before. This is more from the sense of things past and lost than worry about future decrepitude. This is the empty hole at the center of nostalgia, a true existential dread. This story bit deep into my heart. It hurt, and I am better for it. Dark Entries was first published in 1964 and contains six curious and macabre stories of love, death and the supernatural, including the classic story 'Ringing the Changes'.

Apro il commento con un sincero elogio alla casa editrice: non è da tutti rilanciare i nomi di autori classici vinti dal tempo. John Constantine, the occult detective and only man to get out of Hell alive, is a familiar character. He goes where no one wants to go and does what no one even thinks about doing. In this graphic novel he gets involved with a reality show. In my opinion, reality shows are about as real as professional wrestling. Never the less, they are very popular and cheap to produce. Yeah, spoilers. Boilerplate, polite version: I promise I don't "spoil" anything about this book that would have bothered me had I known about it in advance of reading this book. That said, I cannot think of anything I have read in my life that would have been spoiled had I known the plot-advancing facts. And this is not, I promise, a mini–Cliffs Notes–style detailed summary of the story. Perhaps the only real way to "spoil" a book is to detail any serious flaws in logic, to the extent that you then can't get them out of your head as you read the book. I can't promise that I don't to that -- but neither can anyone else.] The premise as described in the blurb is that of an "occult detective" investigating strange goings-on in a Big Brother-style reality TV house. I count Ben Elton's Dead Famous as one of my favourite novels, so I was expecting something vaguely similar. I was sorely disappointed. Basically, half way through it turns out that all of the contestants are actually dead and in Hell, changing the entire genre of the book. I felt completely cheated. Last month, I described The Colorado Kid by Stephen King as "a bait and switch of a book". It promises hard-boiled crime and resoundingly doesn't deliver, but when all's said and done, it's still a crime novel. Dark Entries doesn't even end up in the same ball park as advertised.The story I most enjoyed in "Dark Entries" (His second collection of stories following "We Are for the Dark: Six Ghost Stories") is the story called "The View" (Which was originally printed in his first collection "Six Ghost Stories"). The story concerns the protagonist a gentleman named Carfax a vulnerable and exhausted man who needs to get away from the hectic life in the city. He meets a beautiful woman on a sea voyage who invites him to stay with her in her home. As the story evolves we glimpse Carfax's voyage from imagined self doubt into the fringes of madness, yet hopelessly madly in love with his Femme Fatal. This is one great story. See Faber authors in conversation and hear readings from their work at Faber Members events, literary festivals and at book shops across the UK. Apartments of the most various shapes and sizes led into one another in all directions without doors; and as no two apartments seemed to be decorated alike, the mirrors set up a chiaroscuro of reflections co-existent with but apparently independent of the rich and bewildering chiaroscuro of the apartments themselves.

Co-founder and longtime president of the Inland Waterways Association, an organization that in the middle of the 20th century restored a great part of England's deteriorating system of canals, now a major draw for recreation nationally and for tourism internationally. Clever concept that gets a little bogged down as it progresses but a generally entertaining and genuinely fun little book. Rankin does a nice job with John Constantine even if the ride is a little more broad than nuanced. Who needs nuance in hell, anyway? Ian Rankin είχα διαβάσει μέχρι τώρα (αν είναι δυνατόν!), ούτε κόμικ με ήρωα τον John Constantine, παρ'όλα αυτά το απόλαυσα πραγματικά. Η ιστορία μου κίνησε το ενδιαφέρον από την αρχή και το κράτησε μέχρι το τέλος, μιας και η πλοκή είχε αρκετό μυστήριο και ωραίες αποκαλύψεις, ενώ και ο χαρακτήρας του Constantine ήταν ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρων, κυνικός και σαρκαστικός. Το σκίτσο μου φάνηκε αρκετά καλό και απόλυτα ταιριαστό με το ύφος της ιστορίας, με απλά και καθαρά ασπρόμαυρα σχέδια, δίχως αχρείαστες λεπτομέρειες και σκιές.I really loved Ringing the Changes, The View and Bind Your Hair with The Waiting Room being the weakest. My second favourite story, dealing with Carfax, a convalescent young man, who accepts a young woman’s invitation to her house which is situated on an island. They pass the days indulging in conversations about arts, or playing the piano and the protagonist finally falls in love with the woman, who embodies a philosophy of egotistical aestheticism, mirrored in a statement like this: Constantine's TV is a portal to hell. That's a nifty concept, but the idea that throwing it out the window would break the spell doesn't fit -- certainly not in Constantine's story-world, in which de-demonizing objects and places (and people) is often the pretext for multi-issue story arcs. I just started re-reading the series from the start, so I'm especially sensitive to the way tiny objects linger in the storyline like houses with hidden mold carcinogen, waiting for an unsuspecting new tenant. In an actual Hellblazer storyline, that TV would end up in a Salvation Army, and its parts would then be reused by some unaware Internet start-up, which would then discover a demon is its most generous angel investor. And Constantine, at this stage, would foresee such an eventuality and work to avoid it. As a friend noted, the main characters aren't particularly interesting. The mystery, which appears to really mean "puzzle" here, is what it's about. The characters are puzzle pieces, and it is neat to see how they fit together, and Rankin did a really good job of rationalizing all that into the Hellblazer mode (tying it to one character who is the fulcrum for it all). But, yeah, the characters have no development, aside from shifting from not knowing their fate to knowing it, and from us misinterpreting their dreams to being told flat-out what those dreams "symbolize" (a direct causality that is too clean-cut even for Freud, and utterly disinterested in the ambiguity inherent in the surreal). If anything, the characters change depending on what the story needs. At times, just in time for whatever the imminent joke needs.

Surprisingly devoid of any crime, Ian Rankin’s Dark Entries was strangely printed under the now defunct Vertigo Crime Imprint. Perhaps not crime-ridden in regards to the events that unfold, our beloved John Constantine is present with all his established charisms of rakism and unfiltered roguishness that could very well fit into a story of a more illegal nature. With our hero in the picture the only thing left to establish is the setting. And, weirdly enough, it’s a demented take on The Truman Show that sets the stage for this contradictory story to take place. The first half of this was really good. But once we found out what was going on, the whole thing fell apart. Completely. A young fiancée spends her first weekend in the country with the family of her betrothed. Although she finds them all basically nice, she also senses that their life is a tad too commonplace and passive for her. There is, however, an alternative of how to spend one’s time in the country offered to her. John Constantine, να συμμετάσχει στο παιχνίδι και να ανακαλύψει τι γίνεται. Όμως τα πράγματα δεν είναι καθόλου όπως φαίνονται...

Ian Rankin’s dialogue is good; he pretty much nails Constantine’s scouse nihilism, but the story, which starts with great promise, falls flat at the end. Hell comes across as an inconvenience rather than torturous eternity. This is partly due to the artwork and writing. For the majority of the contestants to escape at the end seemed too bright for a Constantine story.