Customer Reviews

Crooked Little Vein: A Novel

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I figure that someone recommended this title to me, as it's not the type of book I would normally pick up on my own... Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. I don't think I'd necessarily say it was the best novel I've ever read, and I'd be cautious to recommend it to someone due to its very raw nature. But in terms of creative and unique writing style, this ranks right up there.

The story involves Michael McGill, a struggling private investigator in New York, who is described as a "s..t magnet". Because of his unwanted ability to turn up in situations involving the seamy, ugly part of human activities, he's hired to track down a special book. The book is an alternative Constitution to be used if and when the original version stops influencing society. A whacked-out chief of staff to the President brings him up-to-date on what the government knows, and McGill has to pick up the cold thread from there. Half a million dollars for expenses and a tattooed girlfriend with unique views on sexuality, and he's off on a cross-country trip that exposes him to practices and kinks that he didn't know existed. Along the way, he has to confront his ideas as to what is right and wrong, what should and shouldn't be allowed in a free society.

The book isn't overly long (280 pages in a format about 2/3 the page size of a regular book), so the read is quick. The language would give it an R rating from page 1 if this were a movie. And the kinky practices... These are some things I've never heard of nor imagined. What's scary is that a search of the internet confirmed that these things are truly fetish practices, complete with pictures (ewww...) There's a deeper message that Ellis is trying to convey (I think), but it's definitely not a message or philosophy that would mesh with my own. For me, the best part of the book was the writing. It's reminiscent of a dark 50's PI novel, only with a bizarre cast of characters and plenty of cynicism. His prior work involved graphic novels, so it doesn't surprise me that he is able to paint a scene with few words but an abundance of detail. If you can pull off a chapter that has a single sentence and have it work, you know your stuff...

Not a book to read if you're easily offended or looking for some action-adventure mind candy. But if you're wanting something out of the mainstream with some great writing, check it out...

The more I think about the book, the less I like it. It was a quick read and I enjoyed reading it, to be sure, but as I think on it, there really isn't much going on there.

Take away the fetishes and you're left with an ostensible mystery in which the heroes are handed the exact clue they were looking for at the right time without any real pitfalls or dead ends. It's well written, but that's not enough to disguise a plot that is little more than very kinky ride at Disneyland: it may appear dangerous and edgy at first glance, but really you're on rails for a guided tour. "The Godzilla fetishists are chasing us! Whew! That was close, wasn't it?"

Not even close. Our Heroes move from plot point to plot point without any sense of tension or dread, just an ever diminishing sense of shock.

I'm glad I read it, I guess, but I wouldn't exactly want to recommend it to anyone else.

I just finished reading Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis, the same guy who wrote the comic series Transmetropolitan among others. I had really really looked forward to this book, and I tore through it in the same of about 2 hours.

Which makes me all the more sad to say that I was disappointed in it. It felt like Transmet's little brother, who hadn't grown enough plot to stand on it's own two feet yet. The storyline is a parade of 'underground' fetishes, with a special float dedicated to the wonders of technology thrown in right after the marching band of bukkake fans. I kept wondering why the hell a private detective would have been put on the case, when the 'leads' were a straight line that a community college criminal justice major could have followed, much less the combined powers of the government spooks. And while the dialogue was entertaining, I didn't feel any kind of attachment to the two dimensional characters either.

I did find Ellis' writing style to be intriguing and the book certainly sucks you in, though I think that's more because I kept wanting to see what bizarreness is going to pop up next and hoping maybe it will start to have some meaning.

I'm sure that some with argue that there are plenty of themes and metaphors and deep universal truths to be found in the book, and maybe so, but it still feels watered down compared to what I was hoping for. That said, if you're not as jaded to the multitude of sexual deviances as I am, it's certainly worth a read for the amusing sideshow, if nothing else.

If this book were even half as clever as it thinks it is, we would have a minor masterpiece on our hands. Unfortunately it's not. Having been suckered into buying it by the viral site [...], I now regret it and am massively disappointed. Cliche ridden gross out humour that was done better and with far more finesse 2 decades ago on Usenet's alt.tasteless group. This is old. This is tired. It is not even written with any distinct style that could redeem it. Were I a cynic, I would say it was constructed out of noir pulp paper backs and usenet post cut ups. It's going into this years secret Santa pool without the slightest twinge of regret.

Ok I nearly put this book down after reading the first page about a rat pissing in our hero's (anti-hero's?) coffee-I have a thing about rats- but I'm glad I didn't. I became so engrossed in the book I read it in one sitting. While a quick, funny read, this book also touches on some important issues about our country and culture. What is "underground" in a society where anyone has access to the internet can find information about anything no matter how disturbing to some? Shouldn't tolerance and diversity not conformity be considered our strength? If you have a weak stomach or closed mind stay away, otherwise I think you'll find this a thouroughly enjoyable and thought provoking book.

Ellis writes at the end how quickly he dashed off this book, and it shows. The characters are one-note cliches and the "plot" (if you can call it that) amounts to a bunch of gross things Ellis found surfing the web which are barely strung together. The cynicism and disdain fairly drips off the page - if you end up reading this book, the joke's on you.

...though it is embarrassingly short. By god, I've had bowel movements that lasted longer than it took me to read this book. And I'm a ponderous reader with a mightily efficacious GI tract.

A moment for a major qualm: Ellis seems a little too eager to, you know, really "push the envelope" of taste & co., and this novel--strike that, this novella--is rife with "lurid" and "in-your-face" descriptions of "unnatural" or "perverse" acts. The majority of this material is too obviously endweighted for shock effect. And I don't think that the modern reader really can be shocked, inasmuch as s/he wants to be. Instead, there's this niggling sensation that one is supposed to be shocked, that the author wants this reaction, and thus the reader is kind of slapped in the face with the artifice of the story.

Then again, cultural approbation and acclimation are underlying themes of this novella, as is the supervening relationship between culture and technology. More here than in any of Ellis' other works, you get the sense of an emerging thesis--that we are all of us only catching on to the possibilities of an ever-emerging world for which we are never fully prepared, etc.

There are approximately two people and one human relationship in the novel; everything else is a glorious cartoon, and to be taken as such. The two main characters--Mike the protag and his galpal Trix--are real enough for as short a story as this is. And because the book's so short, their relationship seems a little too fast. Ellis gets us from zero to love in about 240 pages; that's slower than Harlequin, but almost double the speed of mainstream chick lit. But we're not reading it for the romance, are we?

No, we're reading it because it's funny. This book is hilarious, and it assaults you, buffets you, stones and maims you with its wit and easy humor. Ellis' metaphors and Mike's misfortunes will have you laughing so hard that anyone within earshot will begin edging uneasily away. And the banter--granted, it feels so damned *written*, but you'll forgive it anyhow--the banter will tickle your soft parts hard.

If you're a fan of Ellis, you should already own this book. But so should anyone else looking for something wildly comic. And anyway, even if you don't like it, you won't have wasted more than a few hours of your disposable luxury time.

"Crooked Little Vein" is a quick, hilarious, and insane read, instantly identifiable as Ellis by anyone familiar his previous work. For those who aren't, be prepared to have weak stomachs tested and sensitive dispositions beaten with sticks. While not as wild as I was expecting based on the hype (Jacket quote from William Gibson: "Stop it. You're frightening me."), it definitely has Ellis's classic, over-the-top situations: a drunken, bitter flight attendant handing out box cutters in the airport; an insane, naked oil baron hunting, garroting, and eating cows raw on his Texas ranch; and, of course, an alternative US constitution bound in the hide of an extraterrestrial entity that kept sticking things up Benjamin Franklin's backside.

While I wouldn't call this book high literature (whatever that means), Ellis does include some interesting cultural commentary among the madness. What is the "real" America? What is mainstream in a world where everything has a website? What happens when a single person can snap a video on their phone pass it to the entire world in a matter of minutes? These philosophical interludes are well-handled and interesting, slipped neatly between the major events of the story without seeming forced.

I highly recommend this book to Ellis's fans, especially those who enjoyed the commentary of "Transmetropolitan" (Transmetropolitan Vol. 1: Back on the Street) or the humor of "Nextwave" (Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. 1-6 Set (1-6)). For everyone else, expect a fun, quick, manic, thought-provoking read.

The world is a weird place. This is as true now as it was fifty years ago, but there's one big difference between us here in the twenty-first century and our primitive twentieth-century forebears: they didn't have the internet.

With the democratization of information, what was once only whispered about is now available to anyone who wants to see it. What few people knew, they can now share with the world. This is certainly true of science and history, culture and arts, but what concerns most people on the internet is not the finer, more cerebral aspects of culture.

It's the porn.

Have you heard of Rule 34, for example? The Rule states that, if it exists then there is porn of it somewhere on the internet. Remember your favorite childhood TV show? The one that you used to look forward to every week, and which perhaps you watched with your parents and/or siblings? You have fond memories of those times, I'm sure, and cherish the characters in your heart - characters that you grew to love and thought of as, dare I say it, family.

Well somewhere on the internet there's a picture of them engaged in acts that would make the Baby Jesus weep. Weep, I tell you. [1]

And that's not the worst of it. Warren Ellis is arguably one of the current superstars of the internet, with a huge online following. He produces content every day, and it's followed by thousands of readers all over the world. Much of the time it's talk about fiction and the industry of fiction, perhaps promoting up and coming artists or talking about the projects he's working on. Sometimes it'll be a commentary on the World Today, though that's less often. His output is varied and always interesting, and occasionally comes with a link that says, simply, "Don't look."

Well when Warren sends one out, the consequences are much more severe. He links to people who are doing things - usually to their bodies - that I would shudder to describe. There are graphic photographs and descriptions by people who willingly cut, mar, mark and sever things that (in my opinion) really shouldn't be cut, marred, marked or - and I'd like to stress this - severed. Should you be so brave as to click on one of Warren's links (these days usually reading as, "Conan! What is best in life?"), you will see something that you probably never wanted to see, and which you most certainly cannot un-see.

Keep in mind that Warren doesn't create these people. He doesn't find them and put them on the internet, unless he is far, far more diabolical than we give him credit for. He simply shows us where they are and lets us make up our own minds. To look, or not to look. To condemn, or not to condemn. Regardless, what he's showing us is a side of the world that most of us never knew existed, and were probably happy to have been ignorant of. The question then becomes, what are we going to do about it?

In his book, Crooked Little Vein, the U.S. government has the answer to the rising tide of deviation that seems to have engulfed the country in the latter days. There exists a book - a Secret Constitution of the United States. It was allegedly bound in the skin of an extraterrestrial and is weighted with exotic meteorite stones. The act of opening the book creates a sonic pulse that resonates with the human eyeball and forces you to read it. In it you will find the secret Constitution and its twenty-three invisible amendments that tells Presidents what the true intent of the Founders was. For nearly two centuries this hidden document governed the country, until it was lost in the 1950s. Since then, America has slid into perversion and degradation, and the White House Chief of Staff wants private investigator Michael McGill to track it down.

For his part, McGill wants nothing to do with it. Despite the huge amount of money that he stands to earn, he knows that taking this case will refocus the Universe's attention on him and he'll start to draw the freaks like iron filings to a magnet. And since finding the book is all about stopping the freaks, Mike is in for all of the weirdness that America can throw at him. Before he can find the book, Mike will have to confront the twisted, kinky and perverted side of the country and decide what is to become of it.

This book works on a lot of layers. For one, it's a fun read, and you'll probably get through it pretty quickly. Ellis is an accomplished writer, with a vivid imagination and an excellent ear for dialogue. He also has a very good sense of written rhythm, which probably comes from his main gig as a writer of comic books. Some of the chapters are single sentences, meant to be read and absorbed in a moment, but also to be thought on. When you get to Chapter 6, which simply reads, "I wish I still had that photo," you're meant to take a moment to think about what that means, both to the character and to the story.

What this means is that not only does Ellis know that he's telling us a story, he's vividly aware of the medium through which he is doing it and exploits that very well. It shows an awareness that most authors lack, or at the very least don't often take advantage of.

I have only one nit to pick about Ellis' writing, though, and I'm sure he will subject me to Horrors the likes of which you cannot fathom for pointing them out, but not to do so would mean I was shirking in my duties. This is how much I love you all.

While it is set in the United States, and is something of a dirty love letter to the country, there is a distinctly British English tone to some of the writing. Not too much, just enough to make you notice, if you're the kind of person who notices these things. His narrator uses the verb "trod" at one point, as in "I trod on her foot," which doesn't sound very American to my ears. Likewise, he refers to wainscot and leatherette, words which ring with a certain amount of Britishness. Maybe it's just me, but they kind of stood out. Your experience may vary. [2]

Anyway, beyond the simple entertainment of reading the book, there are some very real things to think about in there. For example, in an age where anyone can put up a webpage, what does it mean to be "mainstream?" What's more, what does it mean to be "underground" these days? Fifty years ago, homosexuality was something that most decent, God-fearing people didn't even know about, much less experience. Now there are openly gay actors, athletes and politicians, and the "gay next-door neighbor" is already a character so common that it's become a cliche. Is S&M, for example, "underground" when we've been making jokes about it in TV and movies for years? How about swingers? Hell even the pedophiles are mainstream, which you'd know if you were a viewer of Family Guy. How long with it be until we see saline injection fetishists, macroherpetophiles or functioning heroin addicts as being simply part of the endlessly variegated crazy quilt that is American culture?

What's more, should we allow all these people into the cultural mainstream? Is there a kink limit for society? Is there something that people can do to themselves, or to other consenting adults, that is just so Out There that we have to draw the line and say "No further, weirdo!" For those of us who are a bit more open-minded than most, can we turn around and decry the whitebread people who like their vanilla lives and sexual predictability?

Who will make that judgment call, and how? In this book, it's the U.S. Government that's trying to do it, and they'll roll the country back to the Fifties if they can. One of the wonderful and scary things about living in the Internet Age is that these cultural rules have yet to set in. We're looking around and seeing all the strangeness that we never knew was there and deciding in the moment what's acceptable and what isn't. Should we appreciate these unusual practices for their creativity and for the flavor they lend our culture, or should we snuff them out in the name of some notion of "Decency?"

Ellis' answer is pretty clear once you get through the book, and I have to agree with him. I've always been on the side of personal liberty, so long as you're not hurting anyone who doesn't want to get hurt. As for those of us who might be a little weirded out by knowing what it is that people get up to in their bedrooms, remember - you don't have to click on the link.

Either way it's a serious philosophical issue for the 21st century, and Ellis has done a very fine job of presenting it to us. Beyond the book, I have no doubt he will continue to do so.

-------------------------------------------------------
"You don't get to keep the parts of the country you like, ignore the rest, and call what you've got America."
- Mike McGill, Crooked Little Vein
-------------------------------------------------------

[1] Rule 35, by the way, states that the if no porn is found of it, it will be made.

[2] Warren's eels are doubtless on their way for me now. Run! Save yourselves!!

There's a well-known guideline in writing: if your characters are commenting on the problems with your story, you need to step back and re-evaluate what you're writing. Warren Ellis omitted to do this while writing "Crooked Little Vein," and the result was so ugly that I couldn't read past the part where the main character notices that what he's doing is ridiculous and implausible, as though daring you to read further and have your suspension of disbelief further abused. There are enough good books in the world that don't insult me for giving them my time; I certainly won't spend any more on this determinedly ungrateful novel.