LOEG Century: 1969 (SPOILERS!)

[House of Usher]

Really, this thread will give the whole thing away if you haven't read it yet.

Mine arrived in yesterday's post. I read all of it, with the exception of the text pages, either side of a late shift at work. I enjoyed it significantly more than 1910, but it wasn't perfect (I disliked the epilogue, but nothing else). I must re-read Mike Molcher's preview Megazine article this afternoon in light of having read the book.

Nevins-style annotations to follow. Anyone else want to share their reaction to it yet?

[House of Usher]

I see The Emperor already started a thread on this! Last October. 

[JOE SOAP]

Waiting for it to arrive post-fully next week...

[Dandontdare]

I was a little disappointed in this. The actual story seems irrelevant these days, it's just a glorified 'Where's Wally' book for spofs. I found that I was barely registering the dialogue I was too intent on scouring the background details for references. The story itself, both in 1910 and 1969 didn't really go anywhere. Overall opinion - Fun, pretty but very indulgent.

[House of Usher]

I found that I was barely registering the dialogue I was too intent on scouring the background details for references.

Whereas, late and night and reading in poor light, I totally missed a sexual assault taking place over 4 pages because I was so intent upon reading three simultaneous strands of dialogue!

[JOE SOAP]

Pervert.

[House of Usher]

Pervert.

Yep. I just get so carried away with reading the words sometimes I barely see what's going on in the pictures.

This morning I started reading Jess Nevins's annotations, then my afternoon and evening went down the plughole as I started making four pages of my own (the easy stuff), which I finally emailed him in the last half hour.

[Arkwright99]

(I disliked the epilogue, but nothing else).

I thought the epilogue worked really well as the big come-down after the euphoric high of the '60s. Lots of casualties of the Summer of Love

I agree 1969 seemed to work better than 1910, which perhaps was mostly setting the pieces up on the board, whereas ending Act 2 on a cliff-hanger is a smart move imo. I enjoy spotting the various literary & cultural references that Moore & O'Neil throw into the mix but it's important they don't get in the way of the story, which I don't think they did. It's a volume that pays re-reading however and Jess Nevins' annotation are a godsend for giving answers to the references I don't get (like the guy Mina encounters at the Hyde Park concert - I've never read those books so totally didn't get who he was).

[The Adventurer]

I liked the Epilogue a lot. As it represented a lot of things, the end result of a idealistic era, the complete disintegration of the LoEG (Mina always was the core of the team after all), Allen going back to where he was before the League was also pretty heavy stuff, Orlando running off to become Tank Girl*. It was rather nuanced IMO.

I'm really wondering how the League is going to survive come 2009.


*okay, I'm making this up.

[Steve Green]

I think it works better on a re-read, anyone know who the boy/girl familiar with the moustache is?

Seems like I should know - he/she hasn't been picked up in the annotations yet.

[House of Usher]

Jess Nevins' annotation are a godsend for giving answers to the references I don't get (like the guy Mina encounters at the Hyde Park concert - I've never read those books so totally didn't get who he was).

^ This. As 'those books' barely impinge upon my consciousness at all, I was totally at a loss there.

I liked the Epilogue a lot. As it represented a lot of things, the end result of a idealistic era, the complete disintegration of the LoEG (Mina always was the core of the team after all), Allen going back to where he was before the League was also pretty heavy stuff, Orlando running off to become Tank Girl*. It was rather nuanced IMO.

You're right to like the epilogue more than I did. What happened to Mina was too much of a downer for me, and also I didn't enjoy Zuki and the Tawdries' performance much, probably because I have always been such a fan of Siouxsie and the Banshees. The LoEG analogue for the group doesn't sound like it's up to much, but, to be be fair, Siouxsie and the Banshees didn't have very good material themselves in 1977. Perhaps if I were familiar with the Threepenny Opera source material I'd have liked the punk version more (or at all).

The contrast between the psychedelia of the preceding decade and the griminess of the 1977 punk scene was very effective, and the moral that drugs fuck you up is pretty inescapable. The epilogue certainly succeeds in conveying mood, etc.

As for a putative connection between Orlando and Tank Girl, I think it's too soon. Firstly, Orlando is female in the scene and is on the brink of changing sex again to become male. Secondly, Tank Girl's Australia is post-apocalyptic and futuristic: I don't think it's set in the 1980s as such. In order for Orlando to become Tank Girl there would first need to have been a limited nuclear war and Orlando would need to turn male and then back to female again and adopt the same look she sported in 1977.

This brings me onto the topic of apocalyptic, dystopian futures in the world of LoEG. At some point there is bound to be a whole series of nuclear wars! If all of fiction is canon in the LoEG world, then the task remains of somehow integrating such sources as Dr Strangelove, The Bed-sitting Room, Planet of the Apes, Judge Dredd, The Silver Locusts, On the Beach, The Kraken Wakes, The Drowned World and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I'm very excited at the prospect of the third instalment of Century, although I expect it to be a relentlessly gloomy reading experience.

[Dandontdare]

Ah, I didn't realise there was going to be a third installment - hence my puzzlement that the plot doesn't really get resolved.

can someone post a link to these annotations? Sounds like just what I need!

[Steve Green]

I thought the breaking up of the Norsefire style cross into the two Xs in the epilogue was a nice touch BTW.

[Adrian Bamforth]

Having not read beyond the second book, I'm wary of the jump to the psychadelic era: Alan Moore is best when writing about non-magic, non-psychadelic subjects through the filter of his psychadelic experiences, rather than boring us with those subjects himself: I fear like many authors he needs someone else to impose barriers for him to subvert in an interesting way. It really is less interesting when he has complete freedom to indulge in the subjects of sex, drugs and how great the 60s were. Besides, surely it's the Victoriana which gives LOEG its charm - bringing it into the modern era is surely like taking The Flintstones and setting it in the modern day?

[House of Usher]

can someone post a link to these annotations? Sounds like just what I need!

http://jessnevins.com/annotations/1969annotations.html

I thought the breaking up of the Norsefire style cross into the two Xs in the epilogue was a nice touch BTW.

Mind you, the 'double X' emblem was previously used in The Black Dossier as a substitute for the swastika in connection with Adenoid Hynkel, the Chaplinesque Hitler analogue.