Books I’ve read recently
Ines of my Soul, by Isabel Allende. I don’t usually read historical fiction – at least, not such recent historical fiction! My mum raves about Allende; most of her other work is contemporary literature, so I’m unlikely to read it. This one, though, is about Ines Suarez, a real Spanish woman who heads off to South America in the 1500s, following her husband. She ends up going to Chile with the conquistadors, when they conquer and settle there. It’s written as though it’s a memoir – old Ines interrupts the story of young Ines at various points, and she speaks directly to her daughter at a number of points. It’s a really fascinating story on a number of levels. There is, apparently, very little info about Ines, so this is very definitely a fiction, but I understand that Allende did a huge amount of research beforehand, so the conditions she describes (at the very least) will be based on fact. Then, old Ines reflects a lot on the whole idea of memory and writing autobiographies, throwing doubt on her own memories at various points, so that’s an intriguing philosophical line. And the writing – well, I read this in a couple of days, which I often do, but her prose is simple delightful to read.
Flood, by Stephen Baxter. Not my favourite Baxter, but still pretty good. The world is flooding… and no, it’s not a global warming polemic. Time span is 2016 to 1052. Some good characters, and interesting social and political reflections.
Chaos Space, by Marianne de Pierres. The sequel to Dark Space, this follows a number of characters – some of whom have finally met up, so their stories start meshing, which makes it all a bit easier to keep straight. There is a lot of weird stuff going on in this universe, and a lot in the background which is only just being revealed in this, the second book. It’s a fairly awesome space opera, although some of the characters tick me off. Still one of the most intriguing aspects is that her main character is Latina; it made me realise just how Anglo a lot of the future is projected to be (at least in the stuff I’ve mostly read; maybe that’s just a reflection of me).
twenty-six lies/one truth, by Ben Peek. About the weirdest book I’ve read in a long time. 26 chapters, each with ten or so entries; each chapter has entries starting with the same letter. It’s roughly “autobiographical” – although like Ines, Peek has a lot to say about the unreliability of memory, and when you pair that with his many entries on fraudsters and hoaxes of the literary world, it’s clear he’s sending up the whole idea of autobiographical ‘truth’. It also reminded me of Eddie Burrup, the male Aboriginal artist who sold a lot of paintings and was then revealed to be the female, white Elizabeth Durack; she’s a distant relative. Anyway, twenty-six lies is confronting, absorbing, and disturbing – mostly in a good way. I read it in a few hours. Half way through I realised it doesn’t have to be read in a linear fashion, but I’m stuck in my ways so I just kept turning the pages. And, at the end, I realised that in fact it does work linearly – there are revelations towards the end that change the way you think about the rest of it. You could read it haphazardly, it would just change your reception of some of the things Peek reveals, although it wouldn’t spoil the story as it would your bog-standard narrative. I also like the cover – typewrite art by Andy Macrae, and the art by Anna Brown, which I recognised from the Nowhere Near Savannah webcomic Peek and Brown collaborated on.
At the moment… Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light, by Mort Rosenblum. I had thought this would be more about the history of chocolate, and it does have some of that, but it’s actually more about chocolate today – the chocolate masters, the chocolate producers, the scandals, the individuals, different perspectives around the world. It’s made me realise that I am in no way a chocolate connoisseur, and probably never will be – living in Australia, and not having the money to spend on it! It’s brilliantly written… and I think I will go back to it right now.
Thoughts on Harry Potter #1
Fairly random thoughts, really:
The book was quite similar to the film, in that there was only one section that I remembered being a lot different from the movie (and that might anyway be my memory): the opening. I don’t recall so much detail about Harry-getting-to-Dursleys, which didn’t surprise me and which I quite enjoyed.
It felt very much a first novel; there were some aspects of her writing style that had me wincing. That said, it was certainly readable. Obviously…
It is hard for me to say whether I would have been hooked on this had I read it sans-hype, and before seeing the movie. Possibly? Certainly the omnipresent threat of Voldemort, and the rather neat ‘one school year in a book’ timeline, makes a series seem attractive enough.
There weren’t that many characters in this book, and I think most of them made it into the movie. I know a friend of mine has a thing for Pansy, and I don’t remember her from the movie; there might have been one or two profs who didn’t make it into the movie either. Other than that, a good concordance I think? Also, I had forgotten how genuinely obnoxious Hermione was early on, and how little Harry and Ron like her at first.
This is probably one of the books where for me, having seen the movie was actually quite useful. I love Maggie Smith, so seeing her as Prof McG worked immensely well for me; ditto Robbie Coltraine as Hagrid. The banquet scenes etc probably also worked better for my limited imagination with something to remember.
Characterisation? Not that great. Plot? Not overwhelmingly original. Descriptive? Quite. Do I understand Tansy’s mania for fanfic? Not yet.
It has begun
Yesterday was extremely productive. I had to do something that required my presence but no action – physical or mental – on my part. So I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Yes, the whole thing. In about three hours. Yes, for the first time. Also the first two chapters of Chamber of Secrets.
As predicted, I enjoyed it. I’ve been putting this off for a while – first off I refused to read it because it seemed like a tawdry rip-off of many of my favourites; then later because one of the things I hate most is waiting for the next book in the series (I’m looking at you, Garth Nix; get on with Lord Sunday already.) Also, when they first came out I was not in a YA frame of mind. And finally, I am a mule sometimes: so many people told me to read them that I got stubborn.
Aaaaaanyway… now I’m going to read them. Good thing I have plenty of friends who can hook me up with the set on demand.
The Other Boleyn Girl
I wonder if Anne really was as scheming and conniving as this movie makes out… I’m not sure which I think is more believable.
And George?? Seems to me that that’s taking the slander and propaganda put out at the time a little bit too seriously. I find it very difficult to believe that there was any suggestion of incest. It was simply too taboo, surely. (The actor, though – Jude from Across the Universe! – lovely.)
Poor Mary Boleyn. How horrid to be dealt with like that… and to have history all but ignore you, too, after all of that! She is the most interesting of them all, I think, from this portrayal: George is weak; Anne is something of a bitch; Mary is simply too good for her own safety. Natalie Portman is surprisingly good in this role, as is Scarlett Johanssen.
Their mother – whom I can only ever regard as Duckface, thanks to Four Weddings and a Funeral – is magnificent in this movie. Eric Bana… usually I’m a big fan, but he wasn’t wonderful for me here. Maybe because he has quite a bit part, focusing as it does on the women; maybe because filling the shoes of Henry VIII is a big ask, and he’s just not quite up to it – or the script isn’t.
I also hadn’t realised that the gap between Anne and Jane was quite so short as the movie implies, but I guess it makes sense since one of the reasons for getting rid of Anne was the overwhelming desire for a male heir, and Jane seemed like a good option (as, of course, she was. Poor Jane).
Sad: no mention of the allegation that Anne ordered a French sword for the execution because it would be sharper and therefore swifter.
The costumes are simply delightful; I enjoyed the music, too, and the sets.
Librivox
If you have a commute, or otherwise do things that don’t require a lot of brain power and you’d rather be reading, and you have a music device, you should totally get hooked up with Librivox. Books that are our of copyright get read by volunteers and are available to download for free! How cool is that?
So far, I’ve listened to two H. Rider Haggard stories (written in the 1890s, Brits travelling in Deepest Darkest Africa and having adventures; be warned about the casual racism) – both well done; and HG Wells’ The Invisible Man, which was totally not what I expected: much more social drama, much less SF, but enthralling nonetheless. I downloaded Wells’ Time Machine too, but… well, it’s done by volunteers. And I simply could not, could not listen to the reader’s voice another minute. Drove me batty. *sigh* Still to go, I have more H. Rider Haggard (Allan Quartermain), I have The Island of Dr Moreau, and I have The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I’ve never read! So hopefully the readers of those will be approachable. (I must say that the reader of The Invisible Man is utterly swoon-worthy… I recommend listening to anything he’s read!)
She Who Must be Obeyed
So for those of you about my age or older, who had parents who liked the non-commercial side of TV, that saying surely only has one connotation: Rumpole of the Bailey, discussing his Missus.
I have recently discovered, to my delight, that Leo McKern/Horace Rumpole is not, actually, the originator of that saying. Instead, it is the full title of the titular character in She, by H. Rider Haggard.
I’d heard of the book in passing, and had recently listened to King Solomon’s Mines (more on that in a bit), so I was delighted to find it at Librivox. I got seriously hours of entertainment from listening to She. It’s a glorious adventure tale – very obviously of its time; one of the few difficulties is getting past the “he was a good fellow… for a savage” comments that abound – with handsome young men, ugly old stalwarts, servants who know their place, cannibals, and a supremely beautiful yet terribly flawed woman. I couldn’t figure why I’d never heard of it as a movie – there are some scenes that just seem to have been written for the screen – but I’ve discovered there have actually been two movies. One b&w number from the 1930s, which from IMDb stays faithful, and one starring Ursula Andress as She and Christopher Lee as one of the ‘savages’ (boot polish, anyone??) (and Bernard Cribbins as the servant – that’s Donna Noble’s grandpa!) from the 1960s that is… less so. I don’t think I’ll bother.
Anyway, it’s great. All sorts of interesting questions are raised: are men simply zombified by love? Are all women expected to wait 2000 years for their true love to return after they kill them the first time (oops, slight spoiler)? Are all savages either utterly corrupt or utterly noble? Can hair really go from grey to golden?
The Book Thief
So I finally read The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. A friend had warned me not to read it until I had a lot of time to devote to it, because I wouldn’t want to put it down, and she was right. I used to walk to school reading a book; this book made me want to do that again. When I finished it, I thought about lending it a friend; then I decided that I didn’t want to let it out of my sight quite so quickly. I might have to buy another copy, so that I have one to loan and one to keep at home.
It’s amazing. It’s brilliant. It left me in a daze for a while after (just ask my husband). It’s not at all my normal reading material – it’s set in Germany in WW2 – I tend not to read books like this because you just know there will be sad bits, and I don’t like sad bits. But this… well, I’m struggling to figure out what to write here, frankly. You should just go buy it. Let me try a little though:
The narrator is surprising, and it works. Really works. The perspective, while not entirely unique I think, had an edge to it that made the story seriously compelling. Not that the story wasn’t compelling by itself, of course: Liesel goes to live with foster parents – it’s late 1930s, Munich – and has to deal with a new situation and tragedy and, in the background, Hitler.
One of the really interesting aspects of the story is that Hitler and the Nazis are not in the foreground. For the reader he is (well, for this one, anyway), but not for Liesel. This makes perfect sense, since Liesel is in early adolescence and probably at that age, unless you had extremely political parents (or were Jewish/other persecuted group), you didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in wider Germany at the time. I know most of my students of that age don’t today. So there’s an awareness of Hitler, but it’s the personal ramifications that absorb more of Liesel’s attention.
Zusak’s descriptions are one of the powerful aspects of this story. His metaphors and juxtapositions are frequently startling, but for me it all worked together to create a vivid, compelling picture.
The idea that books and words can be so compelling in a life is a delight to read about, and brings joy to my heart as well as affirmation. Books are pivotal in everything that happens in Liesel’s story, and it all makes sense: there’s nothing forced about the connections. There was no moment where I felt dubious about a reaction, or a progression, or a result.
This is a glorious, wonderful book, and everyone should read it. It’s probably aimed YA, but my mother read it (she doesn’t tend to read YA like me), and she declared it one of the best books she’s ever read. Which I think is a pretty good recommendation.
Moby Dick
Just watched the 1998 TV version, with the delightful Patrick Stewart as Ahab (and a little cameo from Gregory Peck, Ahab of the 1950s). I thought I recognised Ishmael, but it wasn’t until nearly the end when there was a shot of him looking particularly astonished, that I realised who he was. Henry Thomas: better known to those of my generation as Elliot, little boy who finds ETs and helps them go home.
It’s a good movie – heck of a lot more interesting than the book, which manages to have a whole chapter on why a whale is actually a fish. The CGI was a bit average though; either it’s improved a lot in a decade, or Hallmark and Channel 9 couldn’t schill out for the good stuff. Stewart was great; Ted Levine as Starbuck was magic, and Mr Stubbs – whom I recognised from FarScape – was also excellent. It was a bit weird to have a Maori as Queeqeg, though, I thought: surely he’s meant to be Native American? Or is it unclear what sort of ‘savage’ he is, in the book? It’s been a looong time since I read it.
I don’t think I’m mad enough to have a white whale. I’m not quite obsessive enough.
Eragon
Watched the movie today.
meh.
Malkovitch was cool. Hamish Macbeth (Robert Carlisle, is it?) was ok; Rachel Weisz was entirely average as Sapphira’s voice. Jeremy Irons… was Jeremy Irons. The boy who played Eragon was average.
All up, disappointing.
Oh well.
Randomly Yours, Alex 