When was vendetta written

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I forget about the rest. View all 10 comments. Apr 06, Lyn rated it liked it. The BOOK turned out to be a graphic novel. I asked if this was an illustrated version of the literature and searched to discover that this WAS the book. So the graphic novel sat on my bookcase for months and months while I read other books, more traditionally published. But then I learned that Neil Gaiman had published The Sandman series and I recalled fondly my high school days when I read Marvel and DC comics and I have helped to enliven in my youngest son a fondness for the comics as well and he and I have had fun as he discovered this exciting medium.

View all 11 comments. Nov 29, Bookwraiths rated it it was ok Shelves: graphic-novels , graphic-novels-dc.

Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths. Watchmen by Moore is one of my all-time, favorite graphic novels, so I always envisioned V for Vendetta being another masterpiece of comic writing along those same lines: not only entertaining but enlightening as well. Unfortunately, I was immensely disappointed by this graphic novel. Now, to be fair, I hate overtly political literary Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths. Now, to be fair, I hate overtly political literary works.

If a writer wishes to explore political themes in the framework of an interesting and compelling story then I am fine with that, but I personally do not enjoy stories that are only about politics. It preaches. It prods. It shouts at you to pay attention. He is an idol to anarchy, wrapped in pop culture coolness to make anarchism an attractive viewpoint.

And to make this political theology even more appealing, Moore squares him off with the most repulsive opponent he could concoct: an ethnocentric, homophobic, pedophilia, racist, anti-science fascism that drapes itself with religious justification for its inhumane actions.

No matter his opponent, however, V quickly proves himself to be insane. Whether his insanity is mild or extensive is up for debate, I suppose, but there is little doubt that he is not going to pass a psychological evaluation without getting several diagnoses.

He kills when he needs to. He blows up things when he deems it appropriate. He tortures — both physically and emotionally — his foes and friends alike when he believes it serves some greater good. And he shows no regret for any innocents who might be harmed in the aftermath.

Revolutionary behavior, I hear some of you saying. Yet,V never seems to have any rhyme or reason to his madness. At least not one that he sticks with. There is no desire to fix the problems of the world, but rather an all-encompassing desire to unleash chaos so that it may spread in a wild conflagration until anarchy is obtained and, somehow, remolds society into a chaotic utopia. He will aid a person one page only to set them up for horrible things to happen to them the next.

The sad truth about this graphic novel is that V for Vendetta is a work of political proselytism. A piece of demagoguery whose message takes precedent over the actually story being told. V more an avatar for anarchy than a real revolutionary attempting to better the lives of his fellow men and women. This graphic novel is not inspirational. Rather, it is just another piece of political ideology, where the writer frames the narrative in his terms so that only his viewpoint is attractive, and as such, it is better left undisturbed by those seeking a true story.

View all 21 comments. Oct 02, Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing Shelves: graphic-novels , dystopian , englishth-c. There are some classics that it takes time to get around to reading, watching, and appreciating. I will talk first about the comic book, then about the movie, then about my general impressions. Hope you enjoy it. The comic book from is definitely a classic. A mysterious terrorist arises called simply V who threatens the established order.

His destructive path crosses that of Evey and their relationship is the primary focus of much of the comic. There are several interweaving plot-lines besides the V-Evey story primarily focussed on the lives and sometimes deaths of various members of the government as well the cat-and-mouse game between Eric Finch of the Nose and his target V.

It is a surprisingly complex tale — more so than I had imagined — and requires concentration to fully understand and follow. The artwork of David Lloyd is pseudo-realist sort of like that of Frank Miller, but a bit darker in color choices primarily black, white, blue, and yellow throughout. It is a long read, but ends up being very rewarding — at least as much as Watchmen in terms of a standalone story.

The film as previously noted came out in Another major departure from the book was the confrontation at the end between V and the Finger where the blood splashes as V hacks through the secret police troops — again classic Wachowski Hugo Weaving borrowing some of his Smith moves from Matrix but still lots of fun to watch.

The great thing about this movie is that it is relatively timeless and shot in such a manner that it will probably still look fresh in another years. As for Portman, despite my skepticism about her I have a real problem with anyone associated with The Phantom Menace and the rest of the Star Wars Prequel trilogy , she was extraordinary in this film as Evey.

The final kiss notwithstanding, it was not overacted and was challenging shaved head, torture — lots of difficult acting choices to make , so I regained some admiration for her acting skills. Overall, this is a keeper for sure. I also recall some of the criticisms aimed at punk rock having a strong fascist vein to it associations with swastika tattoos, jackboots, etc.

I have only really known the UK since the late 90s and I find it so far removed from fascism today that I have a real hard time suspending disbelief and imagining a fascist dictatorship in place of the parliamentary democracy.

Was it really a reaction by artists to the strictures of Thatcherism or perhaps preoccupation with the Irish crisis and unrest at home? I am really curious about this. Another thing that is a bit forward-looking perhaps in the book is the treatment of the pedophile Bishop Lilliman. Was this visionary on the part of Alan Moore as well or had there already been some high profile scandals back when it was written?

The relationship between Evey and V is a fascinating one that ebbs and flows throughout the graphic novel and the film. The love that V has for Evey has a fatherly aspect, but also a brother-sister aspect as well. It does not seem sexual in the least but it is profoundly important to V. Evey comes to love V profoundly as well as she is the only one to see behind the mask — while respecting his desire to never glance behind the mask — because she sees his indomitable spirit despite the suffering he endured at the hands of the government and she realizes that despite the violence, his integrity is intact.

In the best fiction and film, our values of good and bad are challenged Walt in Breaking Bad, Tony Soprano, Julien Sorel, Raskolnikov… and here we want to root for V despite his massive acts of violence. I think that is the essential timeless quality of this V for Vendetta and why it will remain a cult classic for years to come.

View all 7 comments. Mar 16, Sam Quixote rated it did not like it. But why is this so feted? V for Vendetta is a badly written, even more poorly conceived pamphlet espousing anarchism as the ideal political system featuring non-characters in a moronic dystopian future world with a storyline of the most convoluted revenge.

The setup: when nuclear war breaks out, the environment goes to hell, flooding and black skies etc. Fascism rises and the country becomes a military dictatorship, banning things like art, music, and public freedom just because, and everyone is ok with this. One of these poor souls experimented upon survives and takes the roman numeral on his door as his name — V. This man quietly builds up a hideout of contraband and weaponry as he prepares to tear down the government and begin a revolution.

Ok, the nuclear war thing was a product of its time. V for Vendetta was written in the 80s when the Cold War was going on and everyone thought the nukes would start flying at any moment. So the setup right away dates this book and makes its proclamations of future dystopianism seem utterly ridiculous and hysterical - which they are. But the rise of fascism in Britain is completely unbelievable. People in Britain will protest at the drop of a hat - a cutting of benefits in certain public sector jobs, an unfair tax, and so on.

That NOBODY would protest or stand up against the dismissal of democracy, the rise of fascism, concentration camps, strict curfews, the loss of basic freedoms, and insane amounts of prejudice and random violence from the people supposedly in charge? Or an extreme left winger like Moore. Or both. My point is that anarchism is definitely not the right political system, but to Moore it is the perfect form of everything.

Under anarchism, people are free to be themselves, live in peace, enjoy things they like, etc. But democracy has to fail because Moore believes anarchism is the answer and so paints democracy as bad and anarchism as good. Nearly all of the characters in this book are ciphers. The detective character, Finch, is equally boring. Oh yeah and through Finch we discover that apparently if you take psychotropic drugs in abandoned places where bad things happened, you literally time-travel and the past comes to life around you!

Except I read that scene and felt nothing. It was two non-characters making empty gestures. The story is repetitive: V kills someone who was at Larkhill Resettlement Camp, goes and tells Evie about the wonders of anarchism, Finch shows up and uselessly tries to figure out who killed the person, the Leader looks at a screen and stares at a screen.

So what a daring position to take: a stand against a failed political concept that everyone is already against!

DUH, we already know, stupid! Give the people some credit! You see what I mean? The bad plotting, non-characterisation, terrible writing, and obnoxiously moronic political posturing is like listening to a teenager wittering on ceaselessly about something that could only make sense to someone who shared his worldview, not to anyone with a considered opinion who thought for themselves. View all 26 comments. Jul 09, Bryce Wilson rated it it was amazing Shelves: comics.

Like Rubber Soul it tends to get overlooked and undervalued because it's "merely" a perfect pop record rather then a artform redefining masterpiece. V is simply put a potent piece of Pop Art. The story is bracing, the art beautiful, the way it plays with iconography of humanities past sins is simpl If Watchmen is Alan Moore's Sergeant Pepper, and From Hell his Abbey Road And in the end the love you take is equal to the number of prostitutes you disembowl then V For Vendetta is his Rubber Soul.

The story is bracing, the art beautiful, the way it plays with iconography of humanities past sins is simply genius. It's politics are more earnest then they are sensible. I find Anarchy to be a very coddled philosophy. Not because I have any great love for government, but because I side with The Joker in my firm belief that so called "civilized" people will eat eachother alive when given the slightest reason or provocation.

Hell most of them do it anyway. Anyway rant ended, great book, Alan Moore Prevails. View all 8 comments. Mar 15, Algernon Darth Anyan rated it it was amazing Shelves: comics , Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea And ideas are bulletproof. Comic books are for geeky kids who dream of men in tights saving the world and women in skimpy outfits who swoon into their brawny arms, right? Who takes comic book seriously? Alan Moore is not the only name to be put forward in answer to this question, but he is for me the best example of the power behind the medium.

I rate 'V for Vendetta' on the same level as '' or 'Animal Fa Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. I rate 'V for Vendetta' on the same level as '' or 'Animal Farm' or 'Fahrenheit ' : one of the literary manifestos that have come to define our modern society as Voltaire and Montesquieu defined the French Revolution , an allegedly dystopian future that is painfully already become the present we are living in.

Honestly, the actual presentation of the book was uneven, alternating between brilliant script passages and stark, powerful poster-art graphics down to muddled secondary characters and slow paced detours from the main story. But, like it says in my opening quote, the idea behind V is stronger than the execution Alan Moore was still experimenting with the medium and developing his skills in this early piece. The proof of the enduring quality of the tale is not necessarily in the success of the movie version which I liked even better than the comic , but in the recent proliferation of masked 'Guy Fawkes' anarchists who are starting to challenge their governments in their abuse of authority, and who believe in the freedom of information and the freedom of expression, with Wikileaks, Anonymous, assorted whistleblowers and antiglobalization protesters hopefully only the tip of the iceberg: People should not be afraid of their government.

Governments should be afraid of their own people. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.

The artist uses his anarchist premise in a didactic role with V as the teacher and Evey as a stand-in for the reader , as a challenge to take a hard look at our own lives and do something about changing the world: Artists use lies to tell the truth.

Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself The artist is 'V', who makes a spectacular entrance as the flamboyant masked justiciary in a cape who saves a damsell in distress Evey from the clutches of secret police thugs. In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate.

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me "V". I will leave the actual details of the plan and of the execution out of my review out of consideration of readers unfamiliar with the comic, only mentioning that Alan Moore did a sterling job subverting the myth of the superhero, pointing out the risks of taking the law into your own hands and the fact that destruction is necessary but not enough for creating a better world.

I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villain, the black sheep of the family. The identity of the man behind the mask remains a mystery to me, as it should, because 'who' he is is less important than 'why' he is. With all my heart, I love you. This is the part I sometimes found confusing and less well executed, with the exception of an elderly crime investigator who still reads books and thinks outside the box.

By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. I hope they will remain there to burn brightly as I continue my literary pursuits in other directions. My mother said I broke her heart Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us Feb 19, Sud rated it it was amazing Shelves: comics , favorites.

V for Vendetta is superb. For people wanting to read this book, that's really all you have to take away from my review. As soon as she saw the man, Semillante would begin to tremble. Then she would look up to her mistress, who, lifting her finger, would cry, "Go! When she thought that the proper time had come, the widow went to confession and, one Sunday morning she partook of communion with an ecstatic fervor. Then, putting on men's clothes and looking like an old tramp, she struck a bargain with a Sardinian fisherman who carried her and her dog to the other side of the straits.

In a bag she had a large piece of sausage. Semillante had had nothing to eat for two days. The old woman kept letting her smell the food and whetting her appetite. They got to Longosardo. The Corsican woman walked with a limp. She went to a baker's shop and asked for Nicolas Ravolati.

He had taken up his old trade, that of carpenter. He was working alone at the back of his store. The maddened animal sprang for his throat. The man stretched out his arms, clasped the dog and rolled to the ground. For a few seconds he squirmed, beating the ground with his feet.

Then he stopped moving, while Semillante dug her fangs into his throat and tore it to ribbons. Two neighbors, seated before their door, remembered perfectly having seen an old beggar come out with a thin, black dog which was eating something that its master was giving him. Return to the Guy de Maupassant Home Page, or. Read the next short story; The Wardrobe. Henry H. The Vendetta by Guy de Maupassant The widow of Paolo Saverini lived alone with her son in a poor little house on the outskirts of Bonifacio.

His old mother began to talk to him. At the sound of this voice the dog quieted down. Then Semillante began to howl again with a long, monotonous, penetrating, horrible howl.

The two of them, the woman and the dog, remained there until morning. Antoine Saverini was buried the next day and soon his name ceased to be mentioned in Bonifacio. The wind, which blows uninterruptedly, has swept bare the forbidding coast; it drives through the narrow straits and lays waste both sides. The pale streaks of foam, clinging to the black rocks, whose countless peaks rise up out of the water, look like bits of rag floating and drifting on the surface of the sea. This suggests that the village is a harsh, dangerous place to live.

The tone is threatening; the mood dark and depressing. The story is told in the third person by a limited omniscient narrator; we only know the thoughts and feelings of the widow Saverini.

It is important to understand that with this type of story as with stories written in the first person we are only getting one version of events. At first, we might feel sorry for the poor old woman left alone in the world after her only child is murdered. However, there could there be other sides to the story. Consider these questions:. In describing the setting, the tone is threatening. After the killing of Antoine, the tone changes and becomes detached and objective throughout the rest of the story.