Luda
I have to begin by admitting that I am buying what Grant Morrison is selling. I enjoy his mainstream comic book work (All-Star Superman, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Doom Patrol, and so on…), and his forays into television like Happy! and Brave New World.
But for me, the most Morrisonian Morrison are the works that directly explore his ideas on magic, self-creation, and the nature of reality. Luda is a solid entry into this latter category, which I expect explains both the lovers and haters of his first novel.
Luda pursues several interlocking stories at once. On its face, we have a memoir from drag dynamo Luci LaBang as she returns to the Glasglow stage for one last hurrah. In the course of staging Aladdin with a meta-Phantom of the Opera twist, Ms. LaBang meets the titular Luda, a rising upstart with charm to spare.
Amidst their burgeoning relationship, we follow along with Luda’s initiation into the Glamour, a system of magic somewhere between Chaos Magick and the concept of the fiction suit introduced in earlier Morrison works.
Reality seems to ripple under our feet as the play spins out of control, and Luda’s shocking past is slowly revealed. As we race towards opening night, we’re left questioning our narrator’s reliability, the motivations of all involved, and the very limits of what is real.
Full disclosure, some readers may find Morrison’s writing style challenging. The book reads like poetry, and there were several points that I read out loud for the sheer delight of the language. Like Joyce, it’s best to immerse yourself in the hypnotism of the poetry instead of plodding along word to word. I found myself looking up fashion and music references pretty often, but I still made quick progress and never lost the plot.
If you’ve enjoyed some of the stranger aspects of Morrison’s work and are willing to enjoy a thrilling break-neck ride into the unknown, I highly recommend Luda. And I suspect that as with much of this work, it will continue to reveal new layers on future reads.