A Genteel Black Hole

Ally's bookish (and other assorted) rambles

  • Bookish Ramble: Maigret Sets a Trap

    Ally

    Title: Maigret Sets a Trap
    (Maigret #48)
    Author: Georges Simenon
    (Translated by Siân Reynolds)
    Year: 1955
    Country: Belgium

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 176
    Read: 9 – 16 March 2026
    First reading

    There’s a serial killer on the loose. Once a month or so he strikes in the Montmartre area of Paris, randomly stabbing a woman to death. DCI Maigret hatches a plan to lure the killer out of hiding. He stages a fake arrest and interrogation, tricking the local reporters into declaring the killer caught. Now, with plainclothes WPCs walking the streets of Montmartre as bait, Maigret hopes the killer’s next victim will be one who can defend herself. But will the plan work, or has he just sent an unwitting officer to her death?

    This is Georges Simenon’s 48th Maigret book but my very first. I’ve been meaning to try Simenon for a while but he’s so absurdly prolific, I never knew where to start. Luckily the decision was made for me when I found this ebook on sale for 99p—and I really lucked out! Turns out this is one of the most popular Maigret books, subject of multiple screen and radio adaptations. And I can see why.

    Maigret Sets a Trap is a gripping story of the hunt for a serial killer, and a psychological study of what drives him to kill. Ultimately it’s a portrait of toxic masculinity—of a weak, pathetic man trying to reassert himself by lashing out at women. If I had read this in my teens I might have dismissed it as outdated. Now, with the rise of the Manosphere, it feels disturbingly timely.

    Simenon’s writing style is simple, spare, but vivid. He captures his characters and their surroundings in three dimensions. It’s a quick, unpretentious read, but far from a shallow one. I’ll definitely be reading more Maigret.

  • Bookish Ramble: Lord of Light

    Ally

    Title: Lord of Light
    Author: Roger Zelazny
    Year: 1967
    Country: USA

    Format: Paperback
    Pages: 284
    Read: 1 – 11 March 2026
    First reading

    An alien world is ruled over by the Lords of Karma, Hindu gods with legendary names: Brahma, Kali, Vishnu, Krishna. But they’re not the true gods. In fact they are the First—human settlers who have colonised the planet. Their technology, so advanced it looks like magic, imbues them with the power and immortality of gods. The Lords of Karma abuse this power to reinstate the old caste system, placing themselves at the top, and imposing upon the planet a perpetual Dark Age. At every turn they are opposed by Sam, a fellow First who has rejected godhood. Sam assumes the role of the Buddha and, in various reincarnations across the centuries, spreads his message, slowly and patiently building a resistance movement. But is it enough to defeat these ruthless self-made gods?

    I was excited to read Lord of Light, having recently fallen in love with Roger Zelazny’s short stories. But Zelazny is a literary chameleon, his writing style ever shifting to fit the story, and Lord of Light is one that just didn’t click with me. On the surface it’s a religious myth, an epic tale of cruel and capricious gods. But that mythic tone is an ornate veil, concealing behind it a more rational, more “sci-fi” explanation. At first I was enjoying the process of peeking behind the veil, trying to glimpse the real story. But about halfway through I started to tire of it, and my enthusiasm never really recovered.

    For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of characters’ identities. Colonists often get reincarnated, taking on the mantle of different gods in different chapters. This made the whole thing feel quite disjointed to me, something compounded by the overall structure: Every chapter feels like an individual short story, each one centuries apart. (Two chapters were actually first published as short stories.) I love both novels and short stories, but for me “a series of interconnected short stories” is a hard sell. I had similar problems with A Canticle for Leibowitz—another beloved sci-fi classic with religious overtones.

    While I do appreciate ambiguous storytelling, Lord of Light is a dense text with very little space for interpretation. It felt more like something written in code, its one true meaning stubbornly obfuscated by Zelazny’s ornate, mythic prose—for “metal lotus” read satellite dish, etc. I found it an oppressive experience, and ultimately an exhausting one.

    That said, I do look forward to recording a discussion video with my friend Gavin from Genre Books. We buddy-read this as part of Gavin’s Century of Sci-fi project, in which he’s reading a sci-fi novel for every year of the last century. I get the impression he liked the book more than I did, so maybe he’ll be able to show me some of what I’m missing.

  • Bookish Ramble: A Sorceress Comes to Call

    Ally

    Title: A Sorceress Comes to Call
    Author: T. Kingfisher
    Year: 2024
    Country: USA

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 336
    Read: 24 February – 9 March 2026
    First reading

    Evangeline is a monster. She’s a powerful sorceress with the ability to make people “obedient”—to control every muscle in their body, using them as unwilling puppets. This horrific spell is most frequently turned against her terrified and isolated teenage daughter, Cordelia. But when Evangeline goes in search of a rich husband, it puts Cordelia in touch with some new friends. Could they help her escape her evil mother?

    A Sorceress Comes to Call is a dark and creepy retelling of a relatively obscure Grimm fairytale. I haven’t read The Goose Girl, but a quick glance at the synopsis suggests that this is a very loose reimagining. Evangeline is an extremely disturbing villain. The scenes where she puppets Cordelia made my skin crawl, as did some of the Lovecraftian horror (involving an uncanny horse) towards the end of the story. But it isn’t all Doom and gloom. The supporting characters provide some much-needed warmth and humour, especially the enchanting Penelope Green—and, later, her ghost. (Er, spoilers, I guess.)

    This was my third T. Kingfisher book, and probably the best so far. She creates a distinctive blend of uncanny horror and irreverent humour. It’s maybe slightly longer than it needed to be, but otherwise a very enjoyable and engrossing read. I can’t say her style is a perfect fit for me, but in the end I always find myself willing to try another one of her books.

  • Century of Cinema: Lonesome

    Ally

    Day 3 of Century of Cinema. Also day 43 of Project Glowing Rectangle, in which I try to divert some of my daily doomscrolling time back towards a more nourishing oblong: Cinema.

    Title: Lonesome
    Director: Paul Fejös
    Writer: Tom Reed, Edward T. Lowe Jr
    Year: 1928
    Country: USA

    Format: Blu-ray
    Length: 65 minutes
    Seen: 12 March 2026
    Rewatch

    Picking my 1928 film wasn’t quite as tricky as 1927… but it still wasn’t easy. I could easily rule out two Buster Keaton films (Steamboat Bill Jr and The Cameraman), since I started this whole project with Buster. And I eliminated Fritz Lang’s Spione (Spies) because I wasn’t in the mood for such a long film today. That left me with two possibilities. I was tempted by Speedy, a Harold Lloyd vehicle I’ve only seen once before. But in the end I went for Lonesome (1928), a mostly-silent romance directed by Paul Fejös.

    Among the crowds of New York City, Mary (Barbara Kent) and Jim (Glenn Tryon) each live alone. Every morning they rush to work, then come home at night to empty apartments. When the two meet by chance at Coney Island, it’s love at first sight. They spend a whirlwind evening together at the funfair, quickly confessing their love for one another. But when the pair are separated just as suddenly as they met, can they ever find each other again?

    Lonesome is a very sweet little film about two lonely people finding love. Fejös finds some visually creative ways to evoke the stress and drudgery of their busy workdays, as well as the chaos of the crowded funfair at which they meet. Some scenes have hand-tinted colour, adding an extra visual ‘pop’. The two stars make a cute couple onscreen, I found myself rooting for them immediately. But things grind to a halt during the studio-mandated talkie scenes. The roving camera is suddenly locked to one angle, the actors forced into stilted vocal performances that can’t match the charm of their expressive silent faces. Talkies were still very new at this point—and it shows!

    In many ways this is a good companion to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Both films were made during the last gasp of silent cinema, both are very visually creative, and both centre on the fate of a couple. But while Sunrise is about a married couple repairing their broken relationship, Lonesome is a much lighter, sweeter film about the first flushes of love. I’d say Sunrise is a better constructed, more compelling film, but Lonesome certainly has its charm.

    It’s just a shame about those clunky talkie scenes.

  • Century of Cinema: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

    Ally

    Day 2 of Century of Cinema. Also day 42 of Project Glowing Rectangle, in which I try to divert some of my daily doomscrolling time back towards a more nourishing oblong: Cinema.

    Title: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
    Director: F.W. Murnau
    Writer: Carl Mayer
    Year: 1927
    Country: USA

    Format: Blu-ray
    Length: 95 minutes
    Seen: 6 March 2026
    Rewatch

    Picking a film for 1927 was tricky. This was the year that gave us the seminal sci-fi classic Metropolis, and the Oscars’ first Best Picture, Wings. But in the end I settled for the first American film by German Expressionist pioneer F.W. Murnau: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

    A Man (George O’Brien) is seduced by a glamorous Woman From the City (Margaret Livingston), who persuades him to murder his Wife (Janet Gaynor). The Man takes his Wife out in a rowboat, planning to push her overboard. But as she cowers and pleads for mercy, he is stricken with guilt and cannot do the terrible deed. He begs her forgiveness, but can their fractured relationship be healed?

    Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans won three of the first ever Academy Awards. One was for cinematography, one for Janet Gaynor’s performance. Its third Oscar was in a category never since repeated: Unique and Artistic Picture. (I wish they’d bring that one back!) It’s almost a mirror image of another film I watched recently: Varieté. That film started with a man leaving his wife and ends in murder; this one starts with attempted murder and ends in reconciliation. I question whether reconciliation with a would-be murderer is really A Good Thing, but Sunrise is such a visually stunning piece of cinematic storytelling, I find myself swept along by it regardless.

    The film uses a variety of German Expressionist techniques to vividly evoke the characters’ emotional landscapes. There are too many enchanting images to count. I particularly love the shot of the Man surrounded by ghostly images of the Woman From the City, clinging to him seductively as he contemplates the murder of his Wife.

    Its use of sound is equally inventive. Despite being a “silent” film, it came with an early example of a synchronised soundtrack—no “talkie” dialogue, just music and occasional sounds effects. The music, like the imagery, overlaps different styles and tones to create complex sonic textures.

    Sunrise is an incredibly evocative film. Admittedly it has an uneven structure and a troubling central premise, but the sheer artistry of its construction kept me utterly beguiled.

  • Bookish Ramble: The Moomins and the Great Flood

    Ally

    Title: The Moomins and the Great Flood
    (Moomins #1)
    Author: Tove Jansson
    (Translated by David McDuff)
    Year: 1945
    Country: Finland

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 52
    Read: 21 – 24 February 2026
    First reading

    Moominmamma and her son Moomintroll are looking for Moominpappa, who hasn’t come back from his latest adventure. Their search takes them through forests, swamps and mountains, meeting various weird and wonderful people along the way. A heavy rainstorm almost spells disaster, but Moominmamma and Moomintroll survive the flood and eventually find Moominpappa—and a new place to call home.

    The Moomins and the Great Flood was Finland’s introduction to the Moomins, first published in 1945—but only translated into English in 2005. It was the last Moomins novel I read, and to me it feels very different from the rest of the series. For one thing it’s a much shorter book. It’s also less coherent, flitting from scene to scene without pause, like a small child breathlessly telling you a story: “And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened…” Tove Jansson’s illustrations are (as always) utterly charming, and there’s a faint glimmer of the magic that would come in later books. But this is easily my least favourite Moomins novel of the bunch, and certainly not one I’d recommend as an introduction. Much better skip ahead to the magnificent second book, Comet in Moominland.

    The edition I read did include some interesting bonus material though. There’s a nice foreword from the current Children’s Laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, providing some historical context for the story. There’s also excerpts from Tove Jansson’s own notes about her characters, originally written to help prospective writers and directors of Moomins adaptations. So, while the novel itself was pretty disappointing, reading it still enhanced my apprecation for the other books in a series I’ve grown to adore.

  • Century of Cinema: The General

    Ally

    Day 1 of Century of Cinema. Also day 41 of Project Glowing Rectangle, in which I try to divert some of my daily doomscrolling time back towards a more nourishing oblong: Cinema.

    Title: The General
    Director: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
    Writer: Al Boasberg, Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, Charles Smith
    Year: 1926
    Country: USA

    Format: Blu-ray
    Length: 75 minutes
    Seen: 4 March 2026
    Rewatch

    In a recent YouTube video I made an offhanded comment about maybe watching a Century of Cinema, inspired by my friend Gavin’s project to read a Century of Sci-fi. Having combed through my film collection and found almost every year accounted for (the only exceptions being 2020, ’22, and ’26), I’ve decided to take the idea more seriously. So here’s my mission statement:

    I aim to watch a Century of Cinema: One film for every year from 1926 to 2026. Some films will be new to me, others old favourites. In most cases they will already be part of my physical media collection. I won’t use this as an excuse to buy more films! There’s no deadline for the project, and I’m not promising to make blog posts or YouTube videos about it. It’s just a fun personal project of mine. I won’t announce the full list ahead of time, so I’ll have some wiggle room with my choices as I go along. And I’ll check in with myself every ten films to decide whether I want to continue with the project. If it stops being fun, I’ll stop.

    With all that out of the way… Today’s film was The General (1926), the classic Buster Keaton comedy. Keaton stars as Johnnie Gray, a Confederate train engineer whose engine, the titular General, is hijacked by Union soldiers. Johnnie sets out to retrieve the train he loves, coincidentally rescuing the woman he loves (Marion Mack) along the way, and helping his side win the battle… if not, thankfully, the war!

    Buster Keaton’s deadpan screen persona makes him feel like the most modern of the legendary silent comedians, and his inventive use of the camera is surely the most cinematic of the bunch. I’m a huge fan, and The General was my introduction to his genius. It’s not my favourite of his films—not least because of the slightly uncomfortable Civil War aspect—but as a piece of cinema it’s incredible.

    Keaton’s daredevil stunts remain thrilling to this day. I feel a frisson every time I watch him use one railway sleeper to knock another off the tracks, all while perching perilously on the front of a moving train. A few years ago I was lucky enough to see the film on the big screen, with live musical accompaniment, and that moment still had the power to make an audience gasp, cheer and applaud. Rewatching it today didn’t quite match that magical big screen experience, but I still had a great time.

    An auspicious start to my Century of Cinema!

  • Bookish Ramble: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

    Ally

    Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
    Author: Philip K. Dick
    Year: 1968
    Country: USA

    Format: E-book
    Pages: 208
    Read: 10 – 21 February 2026
    Reread

    Rick Deckard, proud owner of an electric sheep, is a bounty hunter for the San Francisco police. His targets are androids, escaped slaves who have killed their human owners on Mars and fled to this bleak, post-apocalyptic Earth. Deckard must track down the androids, using the Voigt-Kampff empathy test to discern android from human, and “retire” them. But is Deckard a match for these superhuman androids? And just how reliable is the empathy test anyway?

    I first read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in my early teens, having first seen the film adaptation, Blade Runner. I adored the film and watched it repeatedly. I remember being surprised by just how different the novel was. Revisiting it for the first time in all those years, I am once again surprised. This is a book stuffed with interesting philosophical and sociopolitical ideas, most of which were only hinted at (or outright ignored) by the makers of Blade Runner. I found it a fascinating, thought-provoking read.

    The setting is a future Earth, one where animals are all but extinct; owning a real, live animal is prohibitively expensive and therefore a status symbol. Failing that, one can keep up with the Joneses by purchasing a realistic electric animal, such as Deckard’s fake sheep. Deckard and his wife maintain the facade that their sheep is real, but they cannot care about it as deeply as a real creature. It simply doesn’t provoke the same empathic response. Similarly, Deckard feels no compunction about “retiring” androids. After all, they don’t count as people… do they?

    The Voigt-Kampff test (like in the film) measures a subject’s empathic responses to a set of hypothetical situations. Those who lack the proper response are revealed to be androids. But this is a poisoned Earth where humans are prone to developing cognitive disabilities. Such people are labelled “specials”—marginalised, banned from emigrating to Mars, despised and abused by humans and androids alike. And there’s a risk that a special could fail the Voigt-Kampff test and be mistakenly murdered by Deckard or his colleagues. Ultimately specials are seen as subhuman, just as unworthy of empathy as the androids Deckard is hunting. As a disabled reader myself, I found that theme particularly engaging.

    The novel’s dominant religion is Mercerism, in which humans can merge electronically with a martyr figure called Mercer and literally experience his suffering. But when Mercer’s authenticity is called into question, so is the validity of that experience. People can also use a machine to dial in the emotion of their choosing—including the desire to use the machine itself. If something so patently artificial can provoke real emotional responses, does that lend it a certain legitimacy after all? In our current age of chatbot therapy and AI-generated “art”, it’s increasingly clear that the answer is no!

    My only gripe with the book is a few moments of Male Author Syndrome: Women’s bodies, whether human or android, are frequently described in a little too much detail. Otherwise this is a fantastic novel. It’s a gripping, engaging, thought-provoking read. It works both as a hardboiled detective thriller and a piece of deeply philosophical sci-fi. I’m eager to read more Philip K. Dick in the coming months.

  • Project Glowing Rectangle: Varieté

    Ally

    Day 40 of Project Glowing Rectangle, in which I try to divert some of my daily doomscrolling time back towards a more nourishing oblong: Cinema.

    Title: Varieté
    Director: E.A. Dupont
    Writer: E.A. Dupont, Leo Birinski
    Year: 1925
    Country: Germany

    Format: Blu-ray
    Length: 95 minutes
    Seen: 2 March 2026
    First viewing

    This afternoon’s film was Varieté (1925), a silent drama directed by E.A. Dupont. It stars Emil Jannings as a prisoner telling his tragic story to a warden. As his story begins, Jannings was a carnival boss and a retired trapeze artist. But when a young vamp (Lya de Putti) joins the carnival, her beauty tempts him away from his wife and daughter, back to highwire acrobatics. With Artinelli (Warwick Ward) they form a successful new trapeze trio—but the story inevitably ends in jealousy and tragedy.

    This is a fairly predictable tale of lust, infidelity and murderous revenge. But thanks to the inventive camerawork of Karl Freund (Metropolis, Dracula) and solid performances from the central cast, it’s surprisingly stirring. Not essential viewing but recommended if you’re in the mood for a lesser-known silent film.

    My copy came with a choice of three musical scores—which is just as well, because the first one I tried was so irritating, I restarted the film with different music after a couple of minutes! That first score was by the Tiger Lillies, featuring lyrics that narrate the plot, complete with spoilers. Thankfully the score by Stephen Horne was more traditional and less distracting.

  • Project Glowing Rectangle: Flying Down to Rio

    Ally

    Day 39 of Project Glowing Rectangle, in which I try to divert some of my daily doomscrolling time back towards a more nourishing oblong: Cinema.

    Title: Flying Down to Rio
    Director: Thornton Freeland
    Writer: Cyril Hume, H.W. Hanemann, Erwin Gelsey
    Year: 1933
    Country: USA

    Format: DVD
    Length: 89 minutes
    Seen: 22 February 2026
    Rewatch

    Roger Bond (Gene Raymond) is an orchestra leader with a habit of getting fired from venues for canoodling with the customers. Despite warnings from his bandmate Fred (Fred Astaire), Roger falls for the flirtatious Brazilian heiress Belinha De Rezende (Dolores del Rio) and gets everyone fired yet again. He manages to book a new gig in Rio de Janeiro, planning to track down Belinha and continue their courtship. But the course of true love never did run smooth, and Roger discovers that Belinha is already engaged to his best friend Julio (Paul Roulien).

    Flying Down to Rio secured its place in film history by introducing the immortal pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Honestly it’s not got much else going for it! There’s some fun song and dance numbers (I particularly like Ginger’s song ‘Music Makes Me’) but those are few and far between. Most of the runtime is taken up by the rather dull, chemistry-free romance between Raymond and del Rio. There’s also some vintage casual racism and misogyny—which, while not exactly surprising, is especially hard to overlook when the actual plot is so boring. I’d only recommend this for dedicated Fred and Ginger completists!