The Passage

By Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books

Trying to explain The Passage is like explaining Lost or the Harry Potter series to an outsider. You end up having to sum it up in the simplest terms: Lost is about people stuck on a really weird island, Harry Potter is about a boy defeating evil wizards, and The Passage is about a little girl trying to save the world. Since this is a review, I’ll go a bit deeper than that, but it might sound ridiculous, so bear with me.

The Passage starts with a military experiment gone wrong. This experiment created beings that resemble vampires (don’t go out during the day, don’t age, feed on humans, etc.), and they have escaped. There’s a little girl, Amy, who was also a subject in the experiment, but who fared better than the others because she retained some of her humanity. The creatures are killing most of the U.S. population, and a man helps Amy escape. We jump forward a hundred years to a small settlement of survivors still trying to protect themselves against these creatures. It’s up to them and Amy to save what’s left of the country, perhaps the world.

No pat description can really do this book justice. The first part could have been a novel all on its own, and it probably would have been one of my favorites if it ended there. But as I kept reading, the storyline, character development, suspense, and surprises made the book unforgettable. Beyond that, there was the strength of the female characters, the significance of race—or lack thereof—in a society that believes they’re the last humans left, and the contemplation of how we pass down our history and what it means to future generations. All of this took me away from any traditional idea of sci-fi, fantasy, or trendy vampire lit to a look at what our culture is and what it could be.

I’ve read through negative reviews of this book, and while I can understand where others are coming from, I don’t agree. The biggest complaint I’ve read is that the book ends abruptly. That’s because this is the first book of three, and there’s more of this story to tell. Even then, The Passage easily stands alone because the first journey is complete by the end.

Another complaint is that while the first part of the book is beautifully written, it stumbles a bit after that. I agree that the first part is written much better than the rest, but it’s something I didn’t worry about as I let myself get into the story rather than focusing on the writing. After a hundred pages or so (a drop in the bucket for a book over 700 pages long), the story and the suspense carried me through to the end.

The best way I can sell this book is to admit that I could not put it down. Even when the story started to slow, even when I found myself awake at three o'clock in the morning with my fiancé groaning that I wasn’t asleep, even when I should have been eating food rather than words during my lunch break, I kept reading. It was hard to leave that world, even for a few hours. I finished all 700+ pages of The Passage in a week, and my only regret is not savoring it more.

I hope you aren’t intimidated by the page count, and I hope you’re not put off by the negative reviews, because this may end up being one of the best books you’ve read in a long time.

Review by frau sally benz

Rajneeti

Directed by Prakash Jha
UTV Motion Pictures



The wait for a high-octane, all-engrossing drama just became longer. But that doesn't mean we don't have a decent watch in hand with Raajneeti. The setup is certainly complex and intriguing, and there are a couple of sly and conniving twists, no doubt. Yet depth is still missing, almost as if introducing the characters and their connections was an end in itself, and not merely the beginning nor the means to get there.

Given that the characters are based on Mahabharat, it would take real skill to make them uninteresting. In fact, if you focus only on that angle, you'll see even more curious amalgamations. It's best to leave these aside and just watch the film for what it is. Despite so much potential for complexity, the lack of details along with the creativity-challenged treatment of the situations can give you the heebie-jeebies. Some of the scenes, like the one in which a sundry woman gets pregnant, clearly didn't belong here. Nor do the on-the-face references to the mythological epic. It also would have helped to keep the Corleones, Gandhis, and Thackerays at bay. As glaring as they are, they only serve as distractions.

With the various connections and cross-connections, the film deserved a lot more in terms of flow from one sub-plot to another. Instead we get a "my turn-my turn" shout out by the characters whenever they were made missing-in-action for a bit. Prithvi's (Arjun Rampal) sudden eccentricity was almost meant to say that Arjun's otherwise wooden facial muscles can be chiseled into another form. Yet the usually plastic face of Katrina Kaif wasn't in this film, at least not in some parts, though all of you are going to see is a surreal vision of the diva in a sari.

This almost three-hour affair doesn't slacken, but doesn't keep you waiting for the next move either. Because somehow there's a foregone conclusion, given the epic characters the film is based on.

Review by Meetu

Excerpted from Wogma

Emanuel and The Fear - Listen

Paper Garden Records

Initially, I was put off by Emanuel and The Fear. I didn’t understand their show tunes inspiration, their jaunty piano melodies, and their choral backing. It’s been a long road from the high school show choir stage to the sofa where I sit today, and it took several weeks for Listen to grow on me. Once it did, it was a like a viral infection for which there is no cure.

Emanuel and The Fear sound like some combination of The Mountain Goats meets Bowie meets The Polyphonic Spree meets Hedwig And The Angry Inch. (Throw in some Arcade Fire for good measure.) Epic, sweeping melodies complete with cymbal clashes blend rather comfortably with mostly-spoken lyrics. The album—a neverending musical storytelling exercise if there ever was one—is best played in one steady stream, no skipping tracks, no searching for radio-ready singles. For this reason alone, I can only imagine how amazing Emanuel and The Fear—all eleven of them—are in concert.

Though all the songs fit together seamlessly, “Jimme’s Song” was an immediate favorite with Jimme lamenting, via Emanuel, “I don’t want to do nothing but be in a rock band/I don’t wanna get a job/I don’t wanna be a man.” Thankfully—for me, if not for my partner—this anti-adult sentiment doesn’t describe my ex-boyfriends so much as it describes me. Sometimes I am so freaking pleased that I don’t conform to daily wage slavery in a cubicle; other days, it seems a little too obvious that I am over-educated and under thirty. All I want is a metaphorical rock band—the real one, not that video game fakery—to be my job, to pay the bills. Instead, I review albums. We all make compromises.

Similarly, “Free Life” speaks to the ways you can take control of your own destiny. “It’s a free life if you live it/Why not give it a try.” For all the unfortunate things I have been in my life, the worst thing I’ve ever been was confined.

“Same Way” also speaks to my romantic-but-partnered heart—as if one supersedes the other. To no one’s surprise, I am the downer half of the couple, the misanthrope who cries for no reason and will never be satisfied with my own twisted version of “success.” Just the other night, I was actively frowning (not that I noticed), and my partner leaned over to look at my glum face. “It’s really hard,” he said with total sympathy.” “What is?” I asked. “To be happy.”

How you can’t seem to be happy
Unless you’re making some poor girl feel the same
But I don’t wanna be that way
So if you gotta leave me babe
I won’t say anything

With an impressively generous nineteen songs on one album, Emanuel and The Fear remind me of all the reasons I fell in love with the total album experience as a youngster. Catch them on tour this spring and tell me how much you loved the show.

Review by Brittany Shoot