Last night was for major travel, so tonight is for majorly early bedtime. I can’t go there without sharing the news that at last I found a copy of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness and it’s mine mine mine. Well, okay, and the real news you probably couldn’t pick up on in previous sentences is that I’m totally geeking out and it did in fact lift my spirits every time I picked it up, which is just amazing. So here are some of my super-spoilery happy impressions.
Steph from Lost at Sea plays viola and percussion (and probably something else prior to that) in Kid Chameleon and I’m so glad to see her again!
Lynette is straight, which really surprised me. Or maybe she’s not straight and is just fucking Todd to destroy him, which would be basically evil and awesome. I don’t suppose we’ll really find out. But hmm.
Oh, and speaking of which, Wallace’s new not-quite-boyfriend is the next ex, right? Because Ramona’s head lights up when he’s mentioned and she (intentionally?) misinterprets the chi trick Scott learns from him via Wallace, and even her response to Wallace’s plans to cuddle with him seems pretty much ambivalent. But if he is indeed the dark, mysterious man at the final concert, he knows Todd and is influencing him for non-vegan psychic reasons, at least during the Honest Ed’s fight. SCOTT, IT’S A TRAP! BEWARE! Oooooooh, divided loyalties! I can’t wait for more of it in the next book.
I love that Ramona reminisces in her underwear and the memory is so strong that she reverts to the tank top she was wearing then. It seems so real that she and Scott are in many ways less mature in their relationship than Scott and Knives were, though on the surface that seems not to be the case.
My favorite scene is just post-fight when everyone’s in pain and sad and yet looking to help or at least be aware of someone else. Envy may not be one of the story’s “good guys” (and recall that this is a story in which the top good guy has to beat people into oblivion) but she’s not the heartless bitch her ex and his friends might almost wish she were. The more plot there is, the more things in the social group get tightly incestuous and yet, while “everyone in this town is bitches, apparently” there’s an undercurrent of support and strength amid the heartbreak that just makes me want to wiggle.
And there’s more Comeau! I hope his ring from the future comes is something he picked up (can you use past tense for trips to the future?) while visiting me so we can share data and gossip because we’re the National Security Agency, though I’m not holding my breath on that one. But how awesome would that be? Call me, Michael. I know you know who I am.
So yeah, what I’m saying is that I’m really too old for this now, but I’m utterly charmed. It’s great that the wacky fantasy and the emotional frenzy have come to the forefront now. I mean, by this book when there are save points and extra lives I might have finally noticed that there were video game references instead of having to be informed after reading book one, but I’m not there for the geeky in-jokes, just the in-book in-jokes. I barely know the characters in any real sense, but I have such a fondness for them all the way down to the poor waitress who doesn’t want to be in a documentary and doesn’t want small and thoughtless tips. I feel so lucky to have these books that speak to me at a dopey emotional level and just make me happy. I like this happiness. “Today a child is born unto us, and his name will be bacon.” And it was good.
David Golding says:
I don’t know about Wallace’s almost-boyfriend, Mobile—Ramona’s head is lit up all through that scene, because of Envy.
But the guy at the end definitely looks like Simon, the kid from Benvie Tech High School, who Scott fights to save Kim when he first moved to Ontario, at the start of Vol 2.
But, yeah, bacon. I loved Vol 1—and I should thank you and Steven, because I think it was your site that finally pushed me into buying it—but Vol 2 lost a little of the intensity/cleverness for me. Vol 3, however, totally rocked. The density, the humour, the wealth and nuance of social relationships… I am a Scottaholic. “Ovo-lacto vegetarian, maybe” is me and Penny’s new catchphrase.
— 22 June 2006 at 7:37 pm (Permalink)
Rose says:
You’re definitely right about the guy looking like Simon, which is also intriguing. I remember thinking about that, but I hadn’t gone back to look, especially because I’d rather come up with wild conspiracy theories. Although really you can do that with Simon, too, because was his Kim-kidnapping venture all a ploy to pull Scott into his web? Or was that the start of everything and now he’s getting back at Scott via Ramona?
I’m still going to be skeptical that Ramona’s head lights up because of Envy, but I don’t remember all the times it does. I think the first time in book 3 it’s because of Todd and then this time because of Mobile, but again that’s because I’m making things up. I do like it that if you pronounce his name like the Alabama city it sounds plenty like Monica Beetle, who is also “intense” / “very intense.”
I’m so glad that you and Penny like it! I saw on your blog that you’d gotten it, which made me happy (and jealous, since I hadn’t found a copy yet at that point). What I remember most about volume 2 is that I didn’t know what to say about it (and I guess I’m having a bit of that still with this volume) but I’ve definitely got the same feeling I had when I read the first volume, that this is something so strange and pleasant and clever and appealing that I could not possibly resist.
— 23 June 2006 at 8:09 am (Permalink)