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Post by Dante on Feb 4, 2015 3:44:56 GMT -5
After many, many years, Daniel Handler's long-awaited pirate novel, a novel has had many release dates and been mentioned many times over the years, a novel which I remember him once referring to as his "1999 novel," has finally been released, in the form of We Are Pirates. (Unless you live in the U.K., in which it apparently releases on the 12th.) Title: We Are Pirates Author: Daniel Handler Cover (Bloomsbury):Release Date: 3rd February 2015 (Bloomsbury, U.S.) ( Source) Details: As Daniel Handler. Official synopsis: --- A boat has gone missing. Goods have been stolen. There is blood in the water. It is the twenty-first century and a crew of pirates is terrorizing the San Francisco Bay. Phil is a husband, a father, a struggling radio producer, and the owner of a large condo with a view of the water. But he’d like to be a rebel and a fortune hunter. Gwen is his daughter. She’s fourteen. She’s a student, a swimmer, and a best friend. But she’d like to be an adventurer and an outlaw. Phil teams up with his young, attractive assistant. They head for the open road, attending a conference to seal a deal. Gwen teams up with a new, fierce friend and some restless souls. They head for the open sea, stealing a boat to hunt for treasure. We Are Pirates is a novel about our desperate searches for happiness and freedom, about our wild journeys beyond the boundaries of our ordinary lives. Also, it’s about a teenage girl who pulls together a ragtag crew to commit mayhem in the San Francisco Bay, while her hapless father tries to get her home. ( Source) --- Notes: Previous release dates are as follows: Spring 2015 (?) ( Source); 12th February 2015 (?) ( source; revised after original projected release date of February 2014 passed) (Bloomsbury) (first speculated as 2014 here: source; earlier thought to be 2012: source). Concerns "attempts by people in the present day to become pirates in the classical mode." ( source) The protagonists are teenage girls and the residents of an old people's home, and their piracy is situated in the San Francisco Bay. ( source) "It was all set to go and then I had this professional upset where my editor was fired, and she and I had to go find this other publisher. A Series of Unfortunate Events was published by Harper Collins, and now I’m at Little Brown. That took like a year. The book is about a couple of girls in high school who team up with some people in an old age home to steal a boat and attack other boats on the San Francisco Bay." ( Source) Discuss. |
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Post by MisterM on Feb 4, 2015 4:28:15 GMT -5
I don't believe it. It still cant be real.
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Post by Anka on Feb 4, 2015 5:38:47 GMT -5
I'm not a pirate officially released.
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Post by Bill Turner on Feb 4, 2015 6:13:57 GMT -5
I don't believe that. It is not still real!
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Post by Cafe SalMONAlla on Feb 4, 2015 6:42:49 GMT -5
I think this is a dream, brought on by too many years of "the novel about pirates he's working on". I would have to dream of the release sooner or later.
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Post by Dante on Mar 1, 2015 16:13:31 GMT -5
Better late than never, here's my We Are Pirates review for 667. I've been really busy lately. asoue.proboards.com/thread/33657/667-reviews-piratesMore colloquially, what surprised me most about the book was the short time-frame of the piratical action. Though the chronological jumping about early on does muddy the waters. |
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Post by Hermes on Mar 1, 2015 16:27:01 GMT -5
I'd agree with that. But what really struck me was the darkness of the work. I said a while ago that a book with this theme would have to be funny unless it was very bleak indeed; in the end it seems that it is very bleak indeed; there are jokes in it, certainly, but it isn't as a whole at all a humorous work. It was always clear that if someone tried to be a pirate in San Francisco Bay it would not work, but the way it fails to work is much more shocking than I expected.
Is this the most realistic thing DH has written (apart from WWBU, possibly)? Watch Your Mouth is blatantly fantastic, Adverbs is fantastic at points, TB8 is nearer the real world, but the figure of Natasha casts a pall of unreality over it. Here we have an absurd premise, perhaps, but its consequences are followed out quite realistically.
Picking up on something I said on another thread, there is a fairly clear TB8 reference. Are there links with his other works as well? I'm now wondering if all his books are interconnected.
(Also, there are thirteen chapters.) |
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Post by bandit on Mar 1, 2015 21:52:45 GMT -5
It's odd that your copy just has a centered Neil Gaiman quote instead of "A Novel" on the dust jacket, Dante. I didn't realize there were actually separate US and UK editions-- unless something else is at work there? |
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Post by Dante on Mar 2, 2015 7:08:01 GMT -5
I'd agree with that. But what really struck me was the darkness of the work. I said a while ago that a book with this theme would have to be funny unless it was very bleak indeed; in the end it seems that it is very bleak indeed; there are jokes in it, certainly, but it isn't as a whole at all a humorous work. It was always clear that if someone tried to be a pirate in San Francisco Bay it would not work, but the way it fails to work is much more shocking than I expected.
Is this the most realistic thing DH has written (apart from WWBU, possibly)? Watch Your Mouth is blatantly fantastic, Adverbs is fantastic at points, TB8 is nearer the real world, but the figure of Natasha casts a pall of unreality over it. Here we have an absurd premise, perhaps, but its consequences are followed out quite realistically.
Picking up on something I said on another thread, there is a fairly clear TB8 reference. Are there links with his other works as well? I'm now wondering if all his books are interconnected.
(Also, there are thirteen chapters.) I hadn't noticed the detail about the chapters! I felt that the novel was a lot shorter, chronologically, than I expected, as I said above, but apparently this goes for the chapter count as well. Incidentally, speaking of things shorter than expected, I also found that the Gwen:Phil ratio was far in favour of the former, with the latter seeming almost tacked-on - though I do think, in the final analysis, that he is a sort of pirate, and also a pretty reprehensible human being.
Is the book a lot darker than Handler's previous work? I suppose it is, in retrospect. I didn't notice it so much while reading it, excepting the deeply ambivalent final lines, but I suppose the violence in particular lacked Handler's usual whimsy and had in its place a kind of anaesthetised blankness; it happens, and no judgement is passed. With that said, I thought there was something faintly whimsical in the way Gwen walks away essentially scot-free, as if the whole episode was some picaresque adventure without consequences, some youthful rite of passage. I think, above all, it's a strange text, and if it's neither whimsical nor dark it's precisely because it's taken quite seriously as an unbelievable event in a believable world.
Oh, and you also noticed the reference to The Basic Eight? I assume we're talking about the same one - I don't remember TB8 very well at all, but the whole Octavia sequence felt to me like one long callback. It's odd that your copy just has a centered Neil Gaiman quote instead of "A Novel" on the dust jacket, Dante. I didn't realize there were actually separate US and UK editions-- unless something else is at work there? I'm pretty sure the paper dustjacket thing differs by region; I doubt the U.S. edition has a quote from Russell T. Davies on it. I'm fairly sure that the hard cover is the same, though. It's simply tailored for the accessibility of different audiences. The British edition of Adverbs isn't "A Novel" either, unlike the American edition; I think maybe in Britain we just assume this to be the case rather than needing it spelt out for us. |
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Post by Hermes on Mar 2, 2015 7:58:43 GMT -5
Is the book a lot darker than Handler's previous work? I suppose it is, in retrospect. I didn't notice it so much while reading it, excepting the deeply ambivalent final lines, but I suppose the violence in particular lacked Handler's usual whimsy and had in its place a kind of anaesthetised blankness; it happens, and no judgement is passed. With that said, I thought there was something faintly whimsical in the way Gwen walks away essentially scot-free, as if the whole episode was some picaresque adventure without consequences, some youthful rite of passage. I think, above all, it's a strange text, and if it's neither whimsical nor dark it's precisely because it's taken quite seriously as an unbelievable event in a believable world. Darker than his previous work - I'm not sure: just darker than the way it's been sold would lead you to expect. 'It's about some teenage girls who try to be pirates in San Francisco Bay' wouldn't immediately lead you to think 'and raid a yacht and kill the people on it'. With TB8, we knew almost from the start that it was about a murder, so the effect wasn't the same. Yes, I agree the Octavia episode was very reminiscent, but the direct reference is on page 98, where Amber refers to the school her stepmother wants her to transfer to, and Gwen reminds her that someone was murdered there. |
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Post by Dante on Mar 2, 2015 8:18:57 GMT -5
Is the book a lot darker than Handler's previous work? I suppose it is, in retrospect. I didn't notice it so much while reading it, excepting the deeply ambivalent final lines, but I suppose the violence in particular lacked Handler's usual whimsy and had in its place a kind of anaesthetised blankness; it happens, and no judgement is passed. With that said, I thought there was something faintly whimsical in the way Gwen walks away essentially scot-free, as if the whole episode was some picaresque adventure without consequences, some youthful rite of passage. I think, above all, it's a strange text, and if it's neither whimsical nor dark it's precisely because it's taken quite seriously as an unbelievable event in a believable world. Darker than his previous work - I'm not sure: just darker than the way it's been sold would lead you to expect. 'It's about some teenage girls who try to be pirates in San Francisco Bay' wouldn't immediately lead you to think 'and raid a yacht and kill the people on it'. With TB8, we knew almost from the start that it was about a murder, so the effect wasn't the same. I think a lot of the promotional synopses must have been written by people who hadn't actually read the book, as most strike me as inaccurate; there is only one care home "escapee," who I don't know if I'd even really call an escapee, and Phil doesn't really try to get Gwen home, he just sort of muddles along and follows the police investigation and promotes, what was it, a laundry on the radio? The promotional synopses did lead me to expect something rather different from what I got but I don't really think that's the book's fault. If you just approached the book on its own merits... well, the violence would still be strange and blank, but I don't know that it would be quite so at odds with expectations.
Oh, that's meant to be it? That's a bit vague for me. Did the murder in TB8 even happen at the school? ...It's been a very long time since I read TB8.
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Post by Hermes on Mar 2, 2015 10:53:43 GMT -5
Phil doesn't really try to get Gwen home, he just sort of muddles along and follows the police investigation and promotes, what was it, a laundry on the radio? As I read it he does go on the radio to appeal for his daughter's return, it's just that a commercial he has previously recorded goes out at an inopportune moment. (Note the bit about Gwen not really grasping that sounds on the radio are recorded.) It's not just the promotional synopses, though; it's the way DH himself has been talking for a long time. I expected something that was more celebratory of piracy. (Which, of course, wouldn't make sense in the real world, but then I expected it to be less realistic.) Well, it's such a random thing I can't see the point of it unless it's to link the books. I think you can talk of the murder happening 'at the school' if one student kills another student because of school-related activities. So I am now wondering about the other books. I haven't read WYM, and Adverbs is so diffuse it's hard to spot references to it - though the way the narrator (ah, the narrator. What do you make of him/her?) refers to how things were 'in that era' makes me wonder if it is written after the Catastrophe which features in that book. |
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Post by Dante on Mar 2, 2015 16:46:13 GMT -5
Phil doesn't really try to get Gwen home, he just sort of muddles along and follows the police investigation and promotes, what was it, a laundry on the radio? As I read it he does go on the radio to appeal for his daughter's return, it's just that a commercial he has previously recorded goes out at an inopportune moment. (Note the bit about Gwen not really grasping that sounds on the radio are recorded.) Not a point I'd considered, but given that at the time Phil was distraught, high, and a moron, I would credit absolutely anything. I also got the vibe that he'd never actually made the advert in question, which was why it poured out of him at that moment when he had no idea what he should be saying. |
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Post by Hermes on Mar 2, 2015 17:54:37 GMT -5
I really like that idea, but I'm afraid I don't think it will work; it seems they are on different stations. Phil is at KUSA, while Gwen hears the commercial from KXKX. |
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Post by Dante on Mar 3, 2015 3:29:45 GMT -5
I really like that idea, but I'm afraid I don't think it will work; it seems they are on different stations. Phil is at KUSA, while Gwen hears the commercial from KXKX. ...If that's so, then I can only regard that as a missed opportunity. I never even questioned that I was interpreting it correctly as it seemed natural to the point of inevitability that that would be what was happening. |
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