millennial_dandy's reviews
339 reviews

 "In these pages enthusiasm has doubtless frequently outstripped caution and even probability, but if errors and false hypotheses are to be encountered therein, I must plead that these are due to a spirit of experiment and archaeological enterprise." (p.231)

I think it's fair to say that in 'Atlantis Discovered' author Lewis Spence let his headcanon get away from him a bit. In a chapter titled: 'The Evidence from Old Peru' he goes into a lengthy physical description of the 'Temple of the Sun' as described by (according to Spence) a Spanish explorer. Just at the point at which the reader might find themselves wondering why we're talking about this in such detail, he cuts back in to say: "I have described these remains of Peruvian grandeur at some length, because in my estimation they preserve the atmosphere of what I believe Atlantis to have resembled." (p.190)

And I would argue that this quote and that referenced above just about sum up the seriousness of the archaeological rigor employed by Spence when putting this together.

It's my understanding that pretty much any book purporting to be a serious exploration of the reality of the city/continent/island of Atlantis reads like this. Which, of course, makes sense, given that no serious researcher seems to be on board with the whole 'Atlantis was definitely a real place with super advanced technology/philosophy inhabited by super hot people and from which European culture sprang forth' thing.

So why did this lad go to all the effort of LARPing so hard as an anthropologist that he doubtless spent years researching only to produce a work of fantasy such as 'Atlantis Discovered'? Well, why does anyone get sucked into any conspiracy theory?

Obviously, every person's story of what conditions led to them getting lost in the sauce is going to be different, but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of them seem to boil down to white supremacy. White people just seem to have a lot of anxiety around letting go of the notion of being the harbingers of all historical progress (in addition to being the determiners of what even constitutes progress).

This is a super complicated anxiety to unpack, but in any event, 'Atlantis Discovered' is steeped in it. So much of the page count is made up of asides about how Atlantis must have existed and must have been populated by white people because it's impossible (apparently?) that any other group of people could have developed advanced forms of construction, religious/philosophical complexity, etc. Like, it's legitimately wild how often he brings this up, dismissing indigenous South and Central American populations as barbaric, underdeveloped, savage, and in a sentence dismissing the notion that any form of 'culture' could have spread East to West rather than West to East. So when he gives examples of architecture or burial practices in the Americas, Egypt, and parts of Europe that he considers similar, he has to underpin this with 'and since, obviously, those uncivilized lads over there couldn't possibly have come up with these things on their own, they must have gotten it from somewhere else, somewhere more proto-European, ergo, Atlantis was real. The end.'

He sometimes gives Egypt a pass, but then he'll go back into his little phrenology asides.

What 'Atlantis Discovered' most reminds me of, actually, is Oscar Wilde's less famous short novel 'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.' in which the protagonist gets swept up in the mystery of who Shakespeare dedicated his love sonnets to. As in that novella, Lewis Spence tried to tailor the facts to fit his theory rather than the theory to fit the facts. And just like in that novella, you can feel (even if you don't empathize with) Spence's desperation to be right.

Whether this desperation stems from a place of sunk cost fallacy or unexamined white supremacy brainrot or both, it's clear that this is a book by and for sad and probably lonely people (and me! Although I, of course, approach this from a sensible rather than unhinged anthropological perspective, being that I'm a superior being completely above letting feelings get in the way of facts. Ever. Amen.).

It's made perhaps even sadder by the fact that, based on his earnestness in the conclusion, Spence really does believe everything he wrote.

To quote Tulio of 'Road to El Dorado' fame: "You're buying your own con!"

That all being said, if not taken too seriously, this is an interesting peek into the mind of a conspiracy-theorist-adjacent type of person and the types of rhetoric they employ to make the completely made-up fantasy world in which they inhabit feel plausible enough to draw in someone untrained in how to spot such linguistic trickery that appeals to 'common sense' (lots of 'obviously...' and 'it has been well established that...' and 'this would logically lead one to conclude...') without ever actually proving anything.

Personally, though, my favorite thing is a quote from the Times Literary Supplement on the front cover of my edition that lauds 'Atlantis Discovered' as "The most level-headed work which has yet appeared in support of the Atlantis theory."

The most level-headed indeed.

I shudder to imagine. 

 "Have you ever heard them? The voices of the paintings?"

It was speculated that 'Cats of the Louvre' was commissioned as part of the 'Louvre Collection' which included 'Guardians of the Louvre' by artist Jirô Taniguchi, whose graphic novel was referenced in 'Cats of the Louvre'. I couldn't find any confirmation of this, but regardless, 'Cats of the Louvre' gives a lot of love to what has been called 'the world's most popular museum.'

As whimsical as the set-up of a rag-tag group of cats living in an attic at the Louvre sounds, 'Cats of the Louvre' is actually surprisingly melancholy and thoughtful.

We start off by following a few human characters: a Louvre tour guide and two security guards, including an old man whose connection to the museum going back fifty years is slowly revealed.

Then we get to the cats. Though we meet a number of them, we're primarily focused on Snowbébé, a seven-year-old cat who has mysteriously remained a kitten. We soon discover that Snowbébé has the ability to enter certain paintings at the Louvre. This ability becomes the central plot focus as things begin to wrap up and the storylines with the humans and the cats begin to converge.

When the cats are alone, mangaka Taiyo Matsumoto made the artistic decision to anthropomorphize them, though he makes it clear that this anthropomorphism is just a means of allowing the cats to express more human emotions/reactions -- they don't actually shape-shift.

The style of these human-cat hybrids isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, and indeed, many of the complaints about 'Cats of the Louvre' center on their design.

I agree that it was a little bit jarring, and I think giving them little outfits was a bridge too far, but I quickly got used to it, and I actually think in some ways that giving them these almost-but-not-exactly human forms worked well to show-don't-tell who each of the cats were, especially since we only really get to know a few of them. Yes, sometimes this led to some creepy imagery, but honestly, as a cat parent, I would say that cats, for all that they're very cute, can be creepy looking, especially when they pull a particularly mean hissy face.

Anthropomorphic cats aside, the mystery at the center of the plot was one I found interesting, the trials and tribulations of the Louvre cats when they would occasionally venture outside the safety of their attic were harrowing, and Matsumoto doesn't shy away from maiming and killing off a feline here and there. It's horrible to see, but surely reflects the reality of the lives of stray cats.

These trials and tribulations also give the humans a chance to intervene in various heartwarming ways, so it all balances out.

I don't think anyone would find the ending of the story to be earth-shatteringly unpredictable, but it was certainly serviceable for the type of story Matsumoto wanted to tell.

And the artwork. The artwork

I've been to the Louvre, and I wish it was as interesting as it appears in 'Cats of the Louvre.' Matsumoto's art style worked superbly to bring the museum to life as more than just the setting, and it's so well-integrated into the story that it feels like a sort of character itself, making 'Cats of the Louvre' a joy even just to flip through. The line work is *chef's kiss*.

Definitely one for the cat lovers out there, especially anyone who liked the look and tone of the anime film 'Catnapped' -- the mixture of whimsy and melancholy is definitely there, though more graphic in 'Cats of the Louvre'. 

 Shadows of Atlantis does us the rare favor of being exactly what it says it is on the box. Exactly what is described in the synopsis is what happens.

I'll admit I was a bit surprised by this. I was so sure once the 'star-crossed lovers' met that the political intrigue plot would play second fiddle to the romance, but that never happened. In fact, I'm not sure the so-called lovers spend enough 'screen time' together for their relationship to even count as one of the main plot points -- which was great. Star-crossed romance is by far the least interesting type of love story because insta-love just isn't that compelling (As per Contrapoints's video on Twilight: people read romance for the yearning, not for the happily ever after).

Luckily in this case, the fact that this is 'insta-love' is part of the intrigue because neither Brigitte nor D'Vinid know why they're so drawn to each other, and D'Vinid is actually really frustrated that it feels out of his control, thus tying the romance aspect back to the behind-the-scenes machinations being set up by the mysterious 'Watchers.'

As is typical of the first book in a high fantasy series, there's a lot of time dedicated to setting up the world and the mechanics of its magic system, and all of that necessary exposition does sometimes weigh down the pacing, but author Mara Powers also does her best to 'show' rather than 'tell' the exposition, which helped tremendously, even if it meant it took a bit longer to catch on to certain mechanics, like 'The Grid' or 'Dreamtime'. And it also meant that by the end of the book it was still a bit unclear what the relationships between various different sects and secret societies and individual characters were. But again, that's just par for the course for the first installment in a series like this, so I can't really ding it for that.

The world of Atlantis as built up by Powers is well-grounded and intriguing, and I really appreciated that setting this story in Atlantis felt purposeful rather than just incidental or lazy. Atlantis is supposed to be a cautionary tale about greed and decadence, and that idea is very much at the heart of 'Shadows of Atlantis.' That being said, the different specific aspects of the culture that she builds up (such as the Kamishari ritual, and various other rituals and customs relating to ‘The Grid’ or ‘The Watchers’) don’t feel derivative, but fresh and vibrant, so that her ‘Atlantis’ didn’t just feel like ‘Ancient Greece but with magic’ as can sometimes be the case in such stories.

She also nicely expanded on the idea of Atlantis as this ancient, yet high-tech civilization. Integrating the necessary sci-fi elements of futuristic technology could have felt anachronistic if not done well, but she went the route of Disney's 'Atlantis' and tied the technology to the magic so that it was easy to imagine them co-existing rather than trying to plop computers or refrigerators in the middle of Ancient Greece or some such. Rather, the magic allows otherwise organic objects to be used in similar ways to modern technology (like stone 'hover disks' powered by magical crystals in lieu of motorized vehicles for instance).

While well-integrated, things like hover-disks or magical healing elixirs aren't anything new. What did feel unique to this world and its technology are these uncanny bio-engineered automatons that act as bodyguards and soldiers. They more or less look like people, but are (for all intents and purposes) lab-grown and therefore have no 'soul.' One of the plot threads I was the most intrigued by was the convergence of the existence of these beings with the mysterious illness 'the madness' that reduces once normal people to mindless zombies. There's a conversation between two characters at one point about a rumour that victims of 'The madness' are being kidnapped and passed off as these automaton creatures because it's a cheap way to increase the supply.

Very creepy.

I wanted to know more.

I'm not normally a high-fantasy girly, but I was honestly invested enough by the end of book 1 to potentially go on the sequel: I need to know what's going to come of all of the puppeteering going on within the government, I need to know how the automoton plotline pans out.

Sure, Brigitte is kind of a boring paint-by-numbers character, but she's really the only one like that, and frankly, this isn't a character-driven story for the most part, so that's not a big deal. I'd rather she feel generic than be annoying.

Also, everyone is hot in Atlantis. Not really a pro or a con (unless you want it to be), but worth noting.