Page: 1 2 3 4 5
Doctor Delia
VEEK
Global user
Registered: 06-2006
Posts: 519
Karma: 52 (+53/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
A New Book About V
I was trolling around Amazon the other day and I found a real gold mine. Some professor has written a book about V!!! 240 pages discussing both the film and the graphic novel arrived today...Oh my God!
Here's the blurb from the back cover:
" The 2005 James McTeigue and Wachowski Bothers film "V for Vendetta" represents a postmodern pastiche, a collection of fragments pasted together from the original Moore and Lloyd graphic novel of the same name, along with numerous allusions to literature, history, cinema, music, art, politics, and medicine. Paralleling the graphic novel, the film simultaneously reflects a range of authorial contibutions and influences.
This work examines in detail the intersecting texts of "V for Vendetta." Subjects include the alternative dimensions of the cinematic narrative, represented in the film's conspicuous placement of the painting "The Lady Of Shallot" in V's home; the film's overt allusions to the AIDS panic of the 1980's; and the ways in which antecedent narratives such as Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," Huxley's "Brave New World," and Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451 represent shadow texts frequently crossing the overall "V for Vendetta" narrative.
-fron "V for Vendetta as Cultural Pastiche: A Crticial Study of the Graphic Novel and Film" by James R. Keller, professor and chair of the English and Theater Dept. of Eastern Kentucky University.
(And we thought we were V's most obsessive fans!)
|
|
3/13/2008, 3:52 pm
|
Send Email to Doctor Delia
Send PM to Doctor Delia
|
freedom4ever
Freedom Fighter
Global user
Registered: 01-2007
Posts: 1091
Karma: 77 (+78/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
 That sounds (To quote Tony the Tiger) Grrrrr-eat! Lurve a good critical study.
How exciting! 
*trots off to Amazon*
|
|
3/14/2008, 10:48 am
|
Send Email to freedom4ever
Send PM to freedom4ever
Blog
|
Doctor Delia
VEEK
Global user
Registered: 06-2006
Posts: 519
Karma: 52 (+53/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
I've just started reading the book in earnest and it IS kind of "academic" in some parts. The introduction sounded very complicated and I thought OH NO! Not another one of those post-modern, deconstructivist treatises, filled with incomprehensible terminology! But I was wrong. Some parts of it are quite good, and easy to understand.
In the first chapter, "Tyranny and the Powder Treason," Professor Keller discusses the use of torture by the state, and how by taking freedoms away from the people, the state may actually be promoting home-grown terrorism and revolution, instead of protecting society from these "threats."
He also mentions that the name Evey derives from the initials of Eliza Vaux, who was involved in the concealment of Catholic priests under Elizabeth I. She was arrested and questioned by the authorities and ..."When one of her questioners attempted to coerce her into exposing the priest, threatening her with death if she did not confess, she balked, 'Then I would rather die, my Lord'." Sound familiar?
And according to Dr. Keller, that is why V says, "E-V, of course you are."
|
|
3/15/2008, 9:48 am
|
Send Email to Doctor Delia
Send PM to Doctor Delia
|
friendlysolarflare
Detective Sergeant
Global user
Registered: 04-2006
Location: Snape's Office
Posts: 11038
Karma: 204 (+205/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
Good find, Doctor D, it sounds like a really interesting book. Tell us more 
|
|
3/15/2008, 12:13 pm
|
Send Email to friendlysolarflare
|
freedom4ever
Freedom Fighter
Global user
Registered: 01-2007
Posts: 1091
Karma: 77 (+78/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
Yesh! Good stuff! Tell us more. 
|
|
3/16/2008, 10:15 am
|
Send Email to freedom4ever
Send PM to freedom4ever
Blog
|
Doctor Delia
VEEK
Global user
Registered: 06-2006
Posts: 519
Karma: 52 (+53/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
Well, I'm really taking a long time to read this book, because I'm working on a project right now, but I'm also enjoying it.
In chapter 2, Dr. Keller explains the difference between revolutionary terrorism and state terrorism. V of course is an individual involved in revolutionary terror, but as Dr. Keller sees it, the Suttler government is also involved in terrorism. One definition of terrorism is the use of fear for the purpose of intimidation. While some indivduals may use this tactic, it is more often used by states to control the behavior of the citizens. Along with contant monitoring of the citizenry and random acts of violence, people are coerced into state-approved behaviors. They never know whether they are being watched and "behaving" gives them "control" over whether bad things happen to them or not. State-sponsored terrorism actaully harms and kills more people than revolutionary terrorism ever did. As an example, he sites "the disappeared" of Chile.
In V's speech to the nation he says as much when he says that the state uses "cruelty and injustice, intolerence and oppression," as well as censorship ("where once you has the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.") V doesn't actually use the work terrorism but that is the charge he is leveling at the Suttler government.
Dr. Keller also contrasts terrorist states with what is going on in this country right now.
He doesn't feel that V is insane or even a sociopath, but a normal reaction to intolerable conditions. As he notes, very few people actually escaped from Larkhill to tell the tale, or for that matter to take revenge. As V says later on, "What was done to me created me. It is a basic priciple of the universe that every action will create and equal and opposing reaction..."
The chapter also includes a very touching appraisal of who V is. The professor characterizes him as a rather gentle soul, and he sites several examples of his behavior to support this. I probably wouldn't agree, that V is as much of a gentle soul as Dr. Keller feels he is, but that does go a long way to explain why we feel so attached to him.
|
|
3/16/2008, 5:23 pm
|
Send Email to Doctor Delia
Send PM to Doctor Delia
|
friendlysolarflare
Detective Sergeant
Global user
Registered: 04-2006
Location: Snape's Office
Posts: 11038
Karma: 204 (+205/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
Thanks for sharing  tell us more
|
|
3/17/2008, 2:07 am
|
Send Email to friendlysolarflare
|
freedom4ever
Freedom Fighter
Global user
Registered: 01-2007
Posts: 1091
Karma: 77 (+78/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
quote:
Flare wrote:
tell us more
 Yeah! Doctor Delia, could ya just retype the book in here for us?! 
|
|
3/17/2008, 7:19 am
|
Send Email to freedom4ever
Send PM to freedom4ever
Blog
|
friendlysolarflare
Detective Sergeant
Global user
Registered: 04-2006
Location: Snape's Office
Posts: 11038
Karma: 204 (+205/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: A New Book About V
quote:
freedom4ever wrote:
quote:
Flare wrote:
tell us more
Yeah! Doctor Delia, could ya just retype the book in here for us?!
no, no, that's not what I ask for LOL. It just sounds like a book that's too complicated for me to read, that's why I appreciate Doctor D's abridged version
|
|
3/17/2008, 7:22 am
|
Send Email to friendlysolarflare
|
Add a reply
Page: 1 2 3 4 5
Powered by AkBBS 0.9.5b - Link to us
- Blogs
- Hall of Honour
- Chat
Click here to get your own free message board
|
You are not logged in (login)
Board's time is: 11/25/2009, 9:09 am
|
|
|
