The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Alan Moore, �Voice of the Fire�

Started December 30 � Finished December 30, 2004; 320 pages. Posted 20 January 2005

Comic genius Alan Moore finally decided to write a novel.

I wouldn�t have known about this title myself, but I happened to walk into my local comic shop after reading Promethea and asked the clerk if it was possible to reserve a copy of anything Alan Moore had his name attached to. The clerk said it was fine, but the owner, overhearing the conversation, put an end to that really quickly.

�I don�t think you realize how much Alan Moore puts out,� he said. I told him that didn�t matter: I still wanted it. He said that he didn�t have room to hold Alan Moore items for me.

That makes sense now, as the guy constantly has things coming out. But he did show me his super-secret Alan Moore stash, and this novel was one of them. At the time he showed me, this novel wasn�t even available in the U.S., but it is apparently out now. I�m trying to follow the rule of finishing two books before I buy another one, but I was willing to cheat for this, and so I picked it up.

I don�t know how many people have read Zora Neale Hurston�s Their Eyes Were Watching God, but when I started reading this I was reminded of that novel, if only because both authors were using dialect from the time period portrayed that takes at least 20 pages to get used to before you can make any sense of what the author is trying to say.

Consider this, and try to make sense of what Moore is trying to say: �I is no more a-stand, and is I down on dirt in hind of log, with bright of shagoal see I they through shut of eye. Now is I open they, slow, all a-fright.�

Uh... yeah.

I�ve dealt with a lot of these kind of novels with regional dialects, and I know it just takes a while to get used to. I practiced the same tactics here, but as soon as I was used to the writing style, Moore switched time periods on me, and I had a new dialect to try and make sense of.

This is not a fun exercise when you are hungover.

Speaking of hangovers, that�s exactly what I was nursing when I had to deal with my recently hijacked funds.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am master of the segue.

The person from the fraud department was extremely happy that she caught the checks so quickly, explaining that the bank won�t lose any money.

�Well, that�s just peachy,� I said. �And how about me?�

�No problem, we�ll just credit your funds back to your account.�

�What about prosecution?�

�It�s not an amount that we�re really worried about,� she said, shaming my account balance.

�Yeah, but the person who cashed all those phony checks on my account just committed fraud!� I reasoned. �Shouldn�t there be some kind of detrimental reaction to their action?�

�Perhaps, but the lawyer fees would be more than the amount that they stole, so we�re certainly not going to pursue it,� she replied.

I�m not a vengeful kind of person, but I thought something should happen. Talking with the fraud department, I had already realized that most of the phony checks passed were to individuals. I daydreamed about visiting these folks. In the meantime, I hid in my room trying not to do anything that involved money. In the one case of good luck I can think of, I had already stockpiled cigarettes and beer before I lost everything.

Food could wait.

So yesterday, on my day off, imagine my surprise to find a business card from the sheriff�s department jammed in my door with a handwritten note saying, �We�ve arrested a person who had your checks in their possession, which we think are stolen � please call.�

Have you seen the movie Goodfellas? You know the scene after the La Tonga heist, where Robert DeNiro is telling people to lay low, yet they all show up with new cars and fur coats? Apparently, the same cautionary tale proves true here, because the person who cashed all my checks got busted for drugs while tooling around in full party mode.

The lesson here is that after you rip people off, you should keep the party at home.

So I got copies of all the phony checks. Two of these were to Sprint, in which they called in my bank information to pay their bills. Not being the most brilliant criminal masterminds in the world, they provided their address, which I now have.

Everybody familiar with the concept of a house destruction party?

I�m sure these people rent, so the concept doesn�t carry over here. But if we destroy everything in the house, I think it�s still a worthy cause.

Of course, as I�m not really the vengeful type, this probably won�t happen.

But man, it�s nice to think about.


Rating: Worth used.

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