The Wilcox Foxtrot

by Brian K. Vaughn & Pia Guerra

Right now, Vaughn and Guerra are still at a standstill with this series. Our characters are in Australia, looking for both Yorick’s fiance, Beth (who is having some wacky visions of her own), and preparing to head off to Japan to save Yorick’s monkey, Ampersand. But that’s okay, because this issue isn’t so much about furthering the plot of the narrative, but of pausing and giving you more insight into the characters.

It’s been no secret that I think this series has been at its best when it jumps back in time and shows you what helped bring the characters up to this moment. We get more of that here than anywhere, including the important path of Agent 355 (who, for as tough as she was originally, really does get her ass handed to her on a pretty consistent basis) and, my favorite part, from Ampersand’s POV. (This sequence includes probably one of the most heartbreaking moments I’ve seen in this series so far, where Yorick tries to go see a friend, whose carcass is being devoured by feral cats.)

The humor and the character help carry this one along. The art is still fantastic and, what’s more, consistent, even though Guerra doesn’t turn the work in for every issue. What I also appreciate is how the world isn’t as detrimental as it was just a couple volumes ago. The women are figuring out how they’re going to go about setting them ups, and civilization is starting to return. It’s another plotline happening in the background and, I think, much more effective there. 

by Brian K. Vaughn & Pia Guerra

Back on the road again. For a little while there, Team Yorick thought they were able to settle down, take some breathing time, come down to Earth in San Francisco, but, bam!, right then, Ampersand, the monkey, has been kidnapped by a JAPANESE NINJA ASSASSIN and they’re on the trail again.

Pretty standard serial stuff. Think Appa. Think Han Solo. Think Frodo. Think Ron. 

This volume focuses on the sea-leg portion of their voyage, as they hitch a ride with a group of sailor women allegedly delivering medical supplies, who, in turn, are being pursued by a submarine of Australian seawomen. Them hitching a ride and getting pursued by some faction is getting a little played out at this point, and Vaughn and Guerra are stalling for time again. Their hearts don’t seem to be as involved in the action sequences in this one either. The character moments are short and scattershot, except for Yorick, whose genuine glee at finding another English major on board is infectious. 

The collection ends with a flashback issue through Beth, Yorick’s girlfriend, in this dream haze, which is definitely the standout chapter here. 

At one point, a character says, “There’s millions of people left in the world, and still the story always focuses on the one man.” (I’m paraphrasing a bit.) As much as I like Yorick, the story’s lately been picking up/been much more interesting when we pull back from him. (Except for the Tel Aviv assassins, who are back now and just as annoying.) 

by Robertson Davies

With this book, Davies throws a lot of elements and themes at you, almost as if he’s saying, ‘I understand you’re not going to get everything I’m thinking, because, hey, I’m Canadian and a little crazy, as evidenced by my beard,’ —

— and that’s part of the charm and interest with this book, what makes it work and what makes it interesting. 

Nominally, it’s the story for Dunstan Ramsay, who grew up in the fictional Canadian town of Deptford (indeed, this is the first book in Davies’s Deptford Trilogy) and has spent the rest of his life teaching, travelling, and living in the shadows of some of the town’s more prominent residents. 

Davies is interested in a lot of Jungian theory, and apparently each of his characters represents some sort of face of those theories — I don’t know a lot about them, so don’t see fit to comment more than this little bit.

He’s also fascinated by myth and legend, and his characters are constantly travelling somewhere on some adventure. What’s more, there’s a lot of changing of character, a lot of themes of rebirth, of personal reinvention. 

It’s a dense and fascinating novel, exhausting though not long, with a sense of humor and tragedy and wonder running like a current through it. 

by Laurent Binet

For any major event in history, there’s bound to be someone who makes an attempt to fictionalize it. Just look at the listing for the subject of this book, even. It covers the assassination attempt of Reinhard Heydrich by a pair Czech and Slovick parachutists under orders from the British government. (Heydrich, for those of you who don’t know, is the man basically responsible for the Holocaust, and was the architect of the Final Solution and conquerer of Prague.) There’s probably a ton of books on this man alone, a fact Binet acknowledges basically by bringing all of them up. While Binet is interested in the assassination plot, he’s also equally interested in the ways we rewrite history, in the things we have to do to events to make them fit into a story.

So yes, Binet’s book is ridiculously metafictional. He’s inserted himself, or at least a version of himself, into the narrative, with the conceit that he’s doing all this research and giving you the information. But this is a novel, so there’s a certain leeway to the information he’s finding, and the mode of storytelling has to fit into the story.

Binet acknowledges this, too. 

He delivers his book in a series of short chapters — something like 250 of them altogether — covering Heydrich’s beginning to the minute details of the parachutists. It operates, therefore, on a Day of the Jackel sort of momentum (I’m assuming, because I haven’t actually read that book), and all the planning and preparations help make the final payoff that much more rewarding. And as much fun as all his metafictional games are, his questions of what’s real and how can we ever truly know what happens during any given events and how much influence a narrator or the narrator’s source has on an event or the failure of perception, a good climax is always worth noting. 

It’s a fascinating specimen, this book; ambitious, bold, and utterly fascinating.

by Charles Dickens

Here we have a late novel from the immortal Dickens, spinning the tale of Philip Pirrip, or Pip, as he tries to make a better life/fortune for himself during a time period when social classes were even more defined and readily drawn out than they are now. Along the way, of course, Pip has a lot of adventures, some fascinating — like Miss Havisham and her continued attempts to scorn men after her man abandoned her at the altar — to weirdly and oddly out of place — the Pocket family for instance.

The novel is divided into the three parts, the details growing richer and more astute as Pip grows older. The first part, his youth, is wonderful, with great set pieces and interesting characters and spot on social satire. Part two pretty much grinds the narrative to a stop. Dickens is still pulling his jokes at the expense of the British middle class, but he doesn’t move the narrative anywhere. There’s the aforementioned Pockets, but there’s also some business with his idiot friends who sit around and drink and spend money. The last section of the book takes all these elements and throws them together nicely, if messily.

Dickens, a serial writer, let’s face it, has a difficult time ending the book. The climax happens and we get another 50 pages of things wrapping up, causing me to cry out in aggravation: JUST END THE FUCKING THING ALREADY! He’s overly verbose with some characters and his sense of pace goes from brisk to ploddering, often within the space of a paragraph. 

There’s great setpieces and fun plot twists; it’s only dragged on too long and drugged down. Some funny moments, and great action scenes (when they finally come up), but no desire to get to end.