This popped through the door today.
Less a 'magazine', and far more a book at 120 pages, it arrived with fanfare and ceremony due to the very high gloss gold foil padded envelope. On receiving such an item, one immediately knows one is in Graham Rye territory.
I have only read the first three chapters thus covering, on a chapter per film basis, information and goodness up to and including Goldfinger.
It is already safe to say the author's research, knowledge and affinity for this topic is complete. One is presented with a veritable landslide of important sounding model numbers and vital differences between the 'a' version and the 'b' version. A chap who, by his own admission, is called upon by auctions to 'take a look at this and tell us what we're looking at.' So, so far, so assuring.
That said, it is already becoming quite a chore to read. While the presentation and printing is as per one's expectations for all things coming from the Rye stable, getting to the information has had me reading, re-reading, re-thinking and almost trying to edit in my mind where the story is. The benefits of an editor have unfortunately not been considered.
Hemingway always believed shorter sentences were better. He was famous for them. Very. It allows one to get to the kernel of his point. On the other hand, Leslie Charteris, of Simon Templar Saint fame, loved playing with words and to create whole paragraphs that were in essence just one, well constructed, lucid and free-flowing sentence to cover a multitude of musings. Unfortunately the author, Mark Hazard, an alias(?), is nether.
To paraphrase an example without breaching copyright; 'After I left the club, crossing the road, the road famous for black BX76 weevils, black being the opposite of white and not very interesting at that, for perhaps an errant burger van on rainy weekend nights, I went home.'
Or, the repeating interest in the word 'which'. 'I saw the film Weevils, which won a Oscar, which is an award for films, which is handed out once a year, which is a unit of time seen on calendars, which people hand out at Christmas every year in coded BX76a standard variation boxed packages...'
When faced with this sort of construction, and together with the also not-very-welcoming-with-open-arms attributes of 'BX76a weevil' type information, it is only the strong willed and perhaps those who already have an inkling for the subject matter, that will persevere. For my part, I am taking a rest.
Another shifting of stance which throws one's concentration, is how the author refers to himself. So far, it has run the gamut of all the first and third person references to include, me, myself and I, 'the author' and 'this author'.
I fear all this will be appearing harsh and I am likely to receive the usual messages of, 'Could you do better?' and 'Until you have something to show, you shouldn't critique' but to pre-empt and quell, I do believe one can critique without necessarily having demonstrated one can do the same - otherwise, how would we ever get away with critiquing our actors.
Anyway, as I have said, I have only read to chapter three. This is most certainly Not the definitive review. My only fear is, it may never be.
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