Day 1: A new beginning, a new Kindle, and a very merry Christmas to you all.

Books read today: Kick Ass [Mark Millar] (comic), It's A Jungle Out There [Amanda Marcotte]

Hello everyone. Welcome to the blog. It's 10 O'clock in the evening, it's Christmas day, and whilst the scene outside couldn't really be described as a white Christmas, there is still a little bit of ice hanging onto the pavement, providing an appropriately festive trip hazard and risk to the elderly. The rest of the family are downstairs, watching Xmas television, and I'm sat in my room with my brand new Kindle, starting on a New Year's Resolution a little early, and coincidentally dipping a first, nervous toe into the swirling, chaotic water of the blogosphere.

The aim here is fairly simple: I will list all the books I read this coming year, and try to review at least most of them. This is primarily for my own benefit (I doubt anyone is anxious to read my musings on any subject); I'd like to impose some discipline on my thoughts, and organising them into a form that (theoretically, at least) other people will read strikes me as a good way to do this. Hopefully it'll also inspire me to read some more Serious Literature, to supplement my usual diet of history, politics and science fiction.

I guess I should introduce myself (although if you're reading this, you almost certainly already know me). As you could gather from the title, my name is Tom, I'm a graduate student in the Theoretical Chemistry department at Oxford and I have a strong interest in politics (although after some unfortunate experiences, I'm no longer politically 'active', and confine myself to shouting from the sidelines [i.e. at the TV]) and in history.

So today's reading: Kick Ass, the graphic novel the film (which I have not seen) was based on, and a Christmas present from a friend of mine (which, if you're reading this, was very much appreciated). The second book, It's A Jungle Out There (subtitled The Feminist Survival Guide To Politically Inhospitable Environments) is the first book written by Amanda Marcotte, who is one of my favourite bloggers. It's also one of the first books I've put onto my new Kindle.

Kick Ass is an interesting piece, about a lonely and inadequate teen who decides, having read one too many comics books, to don a cape (well, a wetsuit) and, like a modern day Don Quixote, vanquish evil from the land. Realistically (and, again, much like Don Quixote) the boy quickly finds himself in deep over his head, and dealing with a sharply rising body count. Unfortunately, there is no Sancho Panza here, and without a more grounded, saner foil to the inspired madness of Kick Ass (the name adopted by the would-be superhero) his section of the tale is somewhat dull and ultimately unsympathetic. The issue here isn't that the lonely, inadequate and bored make poor heroes, but rather that unless we sympathise with the protagonist (or if not the protagonist, at least some major character), it becomes very difficult to care for them; there is a great deal of pathos to be had in the lonely and inadequate, either in those heroes (like Neo in the Matrix) who transcend their mundaneness, or in those (like Chichikov in Dead Souls) who end up consumed by it.

Unfortunately, the protagonist (who's name I have already forgotten) lacks the character development that enables us to see (and sympathise with) the human being behind the sordid adolescent angst. This could well be part of the intended message of the comic - that only the damaged or deranged would dress up in spandex and decide to fight crime (an argument made very well in Alan Moore's Watchmen, and perhaps slightly less well, although far more (hilariously) violently, in Garth Ennis' The Boys). Unfortunately, that message falls flat, precisely because I find myself unable to care what happens to the protagonist - a mistake neither Moore nor Ennis falls into.

A far more sympathetic, and much more interesting character is Hit Girl, the coke snorting, swearing ten year old killing machine with "Kevlar down to my underoos, dickhead". It has been said in every review of the movie I've seen so far, but it is true: she should be the hero. Hit Girl is just more interesting, and it is the first (and more or less the only) requirement of a protagonist that they be interesting. Plus Katanas are cool (\geek). There's not much to add to what's already been said there, and it's getting late, so I'll move on.

It's A Jungle Out There reads a lot like a series of blog posts (Marcotte* being a blogger, this isn't surprising), being composed of short chapters, divided into even shorter sections, each with it's own heading. I found the book fascinating reading, although obviously I'm not really a part of the book's intended audience and most of the tips, whilst interesting, aren't really of practical use to me (for example, I think the chance that I'll ever have to try and buy a sex toy whilst deep in the Bible Belt runs somewhere between very slim and none). I would never describe myself as a feminist, partly because I feel I haven't the right, partly because although I agree with a lot of feminists about a lot of things, I also disagree with a lot of feminists about a lot of things, and partly (possibly primarily) because I've noticed a strong correlation between men who stand around at parties proclaiming themselves to be feminists and sanctimonious hypocritical arseholes**. Labels aside, I generally find that Amanda Marcotte is one of the few modern intellectuals (Paul Krugman being another) that I genuinely enjoy reading, even when I happen to disagree with their position on the issues. The book is easy reading, being partly serious advice to the curious feminist, and partly a fairly detailed (and always humorous) overview of the more common varieties of misogyny to be found in contemporary American society. I found the book to be more of cautionary tale than anything else: it is a reminder of what can happen if you let the libertarians and the religious fundamentalists crawl out from under their rocks and take over your political parties. It is unfortunate (for me), although probably inevitable that the book is so focused on the American feminist experience, as I would be interested to read a British perspective on the same issues (something to look up next time I feel). A final curiosity: the repeated use of the word "spastic" to describe musical style makes me feel that the word must have a different meaning on the other side of the Atlantic.

* I will try to be consistent and refer to authors by either their surname or full name; I don't know any of them personally, and I won't pretend that I do.

** Apologies to those self-described feminist men who are neither hypocrites, nor sanctimonious, and not arseholes.