While stranded at Queenstown Library, I read Arkham Asylum to kill time. It was not the typical action comic book, but was something more like a work of art — like those literature books or films where the plot is secondary, if not negligible, to the style. It gave Batman a more chilling perspective. If anything, madness and throat-slitting with a razor were the motifs in the graphic (at times too graphic) novel.

And like those short stories — the reader is left with a slight ‘huh….is that it?’ sentiment, while the conclusion is nonetheless still a good one.

I will probably re-read it (I think most people won’t catch the ending about Two-face’s choice) but for now I will watch the Dark Knight — probably in two nights time.

******

Trashy read aside, with all my talk about Economic History, I have borrowed a thick-ass book on ‘The Economic Future in Historical Perspective’. It has essays by authors from each of the universities I’ve set sights on and those which I have said before that I wouldn’t go for. Let’s see how long I can last through this book and what I gain from it.

For now, I just covered the most painful introduction and a chapter on the Industrial Revolution, which is far easier to read than the introduction which claims to be accessible to  the lay reader “without having first to acquire the formal, highly abstract vocabulary and mathematical concepts that are so prominent a feature of modern day professional economic writings.“

The good stuff is further at the back such as East Asian development and Health — which gives me an incentive to skip over and glance through quickly clear the earlier stages.

About these ads