Books Read & Films Watched during February
Friday, February 28th, 2003 20:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeBooks Read
The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
The Vinland Sagas (Graenlendinga Saga & Eirik's Saga)
The Persistence of Vision - John Varley
I've joined the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50bookchallenge, which as you might guess, is a challenge to read 50 books during 2003. As I've been posting reviews of the books I've read there, I decided to include them in my monthly books summary here as well.
This is the first post I made there, about the books I read in January.
The Girls of Slender Means
I got a Muriel Spark fix towards the end of last year, when I re-read "Momento Mori", "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and "The Abbess of Crewe", all of which I'd recommend, especially MM which is one of my favourite books of all time.
However, TGOSM is new to me. It is the story of the residents of the May of Teck Club, a hostel for young women working in London in the summer of 1945. Like the other Muriel Spark novels that I have read, it is amusing but with darker sadder undercurrents.
Oh and if you're falling behind on the 50 book challenge, they're nice and short : ) I read TGOSM in one afternoon, when I wasn't in the mood to carry on reading Gloriana.
Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen
I read this for Motley Fool UK's online Book Club, but it's the kind of book I like anyway.
Moorcock dedicated this book to the memory of Mervyn Peake, and it is indeed very Ghormanghastly. The huge palace with its complex of interlinked buildings and roofed-in alleyways, hidden rooms and secret passages behind the walls is a perfect setting for a tale of courtly intrigue, spying and seduction. I was glad to find that it has a straight-forward narrative, unlike some of his other books such as the Jerry Cornelius novels, where you have to keep your wits about you to keep up with what is going on.
The story is set in an alternative history version of Elizabethan England. Instead of England in the throes of the Reformation, we have Albion where Christianity and Islam do not appear to exist and it is still the pagan feasts of Yule and May Day that are celebrated at court. There are mentions of a 'High Tongue' that presumably is something other than Latin. Gloriana's empire encompasses the Americas and much of Asia, and the American diplomats at her court include representatives of the Sioux and the Aztecs as well as of the Europeans who have settled in Virginia.
"The corruption lies in the fact that a myth was used to manufacture an imitation of reality. Could Albion fall so swiftly if the foundations were secure?"
The Vinland Sagas
This is the Penguin Classics version of the Vinland Sagas, which includes a very interesting introduction as well as both Graenlendinga Saga & Eirik's Saga.
The introduction describes the Vikings' exploration and settlement of the islands of the North Atlantic, showing just how feasible it was that they could have reached America once they had settled the west coast of Greenland. This is followed by a discussion of why the Icelanders became such prolific saga writers and about the differences between the Greenland Saga and Eirik's Saga, both of which concern the same events.
The sagas themselves are very interesting and the Skraelings encountered by the Greenlanders certainly sound like Native Americans. There are also some interesting supernatural encounters, outbreaks of disease and a lot of trading voyages, to Norway and Iceland as well as Vinland. The differences between the stories mostly concern who went on which voyage and which order things happened.
And finally, there is a very useful index of names in the back to help with all those confusing thornames : )
The Persistence of Vision
The majority of the short stories in this book are set in a future where man has spread out into the solar system with the help of advanced technology, which allows humans to enhance themselves to exist even in the hostile heat and atmospheric pressure of Venus. Just about anything about the the human body can be changed quickly and easily by the medicos. A change of sex can be done on a whim and is hardly even worth commenting on in Varley's future. Although their world is so different from our own, the protagonists are still very much human and easy to identify with. The title story which ends the book, is very different, the thought-provokingstory of a man's stay in a community of deaf-blind people and their new methods of communication.
I especially liked "The Phantom of Kansas"and "The Black Hole Passes". The only story that I have definitely read before is "In the Bowl", although I may have read "The Phantom of Kansas" before, as it seemed vaguely familiar at times.
Cinema Trips
About Schmidt
I cannot believe that anyone would choose to have a waterbed! It may just be due to being extremely prone to travel-sickness and tending to wake up with a stiff back in the morning if I'm not on a firm mattress, but I can't stand the thought of sleeping on one.
Oh and Jack Nicholson was very good, if very un-Jacklike. The cinema was filled with roars of laughter.
Catch Me If You Can
Was also very funny. LdeC was more endearing than I usually find him.
Chicago
For the second time.
Two Weeks Notice
Funny, but that's enough romantic comedies for me for a while.
Final Destination 2
OK, but nothing new after the first film. The protagonists' explanation for what was going on did not make sense, but I guess that's because they didn't understand Death's plan as well as they thought!
DareDevil
I was subtly disappointed in Daredevil. So much time was spent on the back-story that there didn't seem to be time to fit in the 'present-day' plot. Once the Kingpin decided that Electra's father had to go, you could have missed the rest of the story if you blinked ! They could have made so much more of the contradiction between Electra loving Matt and hating Daredevil. And Electra would have had to be a total fool not to think that there was something odd about Matt, after that impressive fight in the playground. It was amusing how the kids lined up against the fence, yelling 'fight, fight, fight' just as they would in a real playground fight!
I have gathered from the Internet that in the comics Electra is dead but subsequently gets resurrected, but it seems obvious from the ending of the film that she wasn't actually killed at all. If she was killed, then when in the extremely short time frame of the film, would she have had time to get a Braille version of her necklace designed and made, and to sneak up onto Matt's roof to hang it up? Especially as she would surely not have been concerned with such things in the aftermath of her father's murder. And who was the woman in the cafe at the end with her back to Matt & his friend. The camera lingered on her for a suspiciously long time, but if it was Electra then surely Matt's friend would have noticed her, even if she had fooled Matt by wearing different perfume.
If this becomes a franchise of Daredevil and/or Electra films, I hope they improve the plots.
The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
The Vinland Sagas (Graenlendinga Saga & Eirik's Saga)
The Persistence of Vision - John Varley
I've joined the
50bookchallenge, which as you might guess, is a challenge to read 50 books during 2003. As I've been posting reviews of the books I've read there, I decided to include them in my monthly books summary here as well. This is the first post I made there, about the books I read in January.
The Girls of Slender Means
I got a Muriel Spark fix towards the end of last year, when I re-read "Momento Mori", "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and "The Abbess of Crewe", all of which I'd recommend, especially MM which is one of my favourite books of all time.
However, TGOSM is new to me. It is the story of the residents of the May of Teck Club, a hostel for young women working in London in the summer of 1945. Like the other Muriel Spark novels that I have read, it is amusing but with darker sadder undercurrents.
Oh and if you're falling behind on the 50 book challenge, they're nice and short : ) I read TGOSM in one afternoon, when I wasn't in the mood to carry on reading Gloriana.
Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen
I read this for Motley Fool UK's online Book Club, but it's the kind of book I like anyway.
Moorcock dedicated this book to the memory of Mervyn Peake, and it is indeed very Ghormanghastly. The huge palace with its complex of interlinked buildings and roofed-in alleyways, hidden rooms and secret passages behind the walls is a perfect setting for a tale of courtly intrigue, spying and seduction. I was glad to find that it has a straight-forward narrative, unlike some of his other books such as the Jerry Cornelius novels, where you have to keep your wits about you to keep up with what is going on.
The story is set in an alternative history version of Elizabethan England. Instead of England in the throes of the Reformation, we have Albion where Christianity and Islam do not appear to exist and it is still the pagan feasts of Yule and May Day that are celebrated at court. There are mentions of a 'High Tongue' that presumably is something other than Latin. Gloriana's empire encompasses the Americas and much of Asia, and the American diplomats at her court include representatives of the Sioux and the Aztecs as well as of the Europeans who have settled in Virginia.
"The corruption lies in the fact that a myth was used to manufacture an imitation of reality. Could Albion fall so swiftly if the foundations were secure?"
The Vinland Sagas
This is the Penguin Classics version of the Vinland Sagas, which includes a very interesting introduction as well as both Graenlendinga Saga & Eirik's Saga.
The introduction describes the Vikings' exploration and settlement of the islands of the North Atlantic, showing just how feasible it was that they could have reached America once they had settled the west coast of Greenland. This is followed by a discussion of why the Icelanders became such prolific saga writers and about the differences between the Greenland Saga and Eirik's Saga, both of which concern the same events.
The sagas themselves are very interesting and the Skraelings encountered by the Greenlanders certainly sound like Native Americans. There are also some interesting supernatural encounters, outbreaks of disease and a lot of trading voyages, to Norway and Iceland as well as Vinland. The differences between the stories mostly concern who went on which voyage and which order things happened.
And finally, there is a very useful index of names in the back to help with all those confusing thornames : )
The Persistence of Vision
The majority of the short stories in this book are set in a future where man has spread out into the solar system with the help of advanced technology, which allows humans to enhance themselves to exist even in the hostile heat and atmospheric pressure of Venus. Just about anything about the the human body can be changed quickly and easily by the medicos. A change of sex can be done on a whim and is hardly even worth commenting on in Varley's future. Although their world is so different from our own, the protagonists are still very much human and easy to identify with. The title story which ends the book, is very different, the thought-provokingstory of a man's stay in a community of deaf-blind people and their new methods of communication.
I especially liked "The Phantom of Kansas"and "The Black Hole Passes". The only story that I have definitely read before is "In the Bowl", although I may have read "The Phantom of Kansas" before, as it seemed vaguely familiar at times.
Cinema Trips
About Schmidt
I cannot believe that anyone would choose to have a waterbed! It may just be due to being extremely prone to travel-sickness and tending to wake up with a stiff back in the morning if I'm not on a firm mattress, but I can't stand the thought of sleeping on one.
Oh and Jack Nicholson was very good, if very un-Jacklike. The cinema was filled with roars of laughter.
Catch Me If You Can
Was also very funny. LdeC was more endearing than I usually find him.
Chicago
For the second time.
Two Weeks Notice
Funny, but that's enough romantic comedies for me for a while.
Final Destination 2
OK, but nothing new after the first film. The protagonists' explanation for what was going on did not make sense, but I guess that's because they didn't understand Death's plan as well as they thought!
DareDevil
I was subtly disappointed in Daredevil. So much time was spent on the back-story that there didn't seem to be time to fit in the 'present-day' plot. Once the Kingpin decided that Electra's father had to go, you could have missed the rest of the story if you blinked ! They could have made so much more of the contradiction between Electra loving Matt and hating Daredevil. And Electra would have had to be a total fool not to think that there was something odd about Matt, after that impressive fight in the playground. It was amusing how the kids lined up against the fence, yelling 'fight, fight, fight' just as they would in a real playground fight!
I have gathered from the Internet that in the comics Electra is dead but subsequently gets resurrected, but it seems obvious from the ending of the film that she wasn't actually killed at all. If she was killed, then when in the extremely short time frame of the film, would she have had time to get a Braille version of her necklace designed and made, and to sneak up onto Matt's roof to hang it up? Especially as she would surely not have been concerned with such things in the aftermath of her father's murder. And who was the woman in the cafe at the end with her back to Matt & his friend. The camera lingered on her for a suspiciously long time, but if it was Electra then surely Matt's friend would have noticed her, even if she had fooled Matt by wearing different perfume.
If this becomes a franchise of Daredevil and/or Electra films, I hope they improve the plots.
