august wrap-up
Sep. 13th, 2023 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agletbabyweird month. already feels very distant. still, art is forever
books
paul, daisy lafarge
really surprised how much i appreciated this, given it’s… contemporary [everyone quivers and shakes]. i don’t tend to be impressed by much contemporary fiction, and whilst this still had some of the issues that tends to put me off (a real flatness of narrative voice being the immediately obvious one), i still found the book’s ideas affecting and effective. this review captures some of what it was doing.
great expectations, charles dickens
fun and readable, except for the agonising moments of extreme pip rudeness, during which i had to keep putting my kindle down. i particularly liked how it kind of seemed to be an exercise in creating the most random ways in which two characters can be connected.
the last dickens novel i read was martin chuzzlewit, which was so massive and slow-going that i had to take a year and half off before trying anything else; in comparison, great expectations is so easy, and it really clarified how people can be into dickens for me in a way i genuinely hadn’t fully grasped before. and yet. i felt into martin chuzzlewit, because it’s so long and intricate (on basically every level) in a way great expectations never really managed. i came out of it having missed the difficulty
les liaison dangereuses, pierre choderlos de Laclos
it’s so overflowing with drama and scandal, which is genuinely very modern, despite being the oldest book i read this month (third oldest this year, after a beowulf and pilgrim’s progress. this isn't relevant, i'm just trying to read more pre-19th century stuff because if unwatched i will just read like spark and greene on rotation). letters are so good for storytelling. also, unexpectedly, cruel intentions is kind a tonally amazing adaption, although it misses the really quite agonisingly tragic fallout. reece witherspoon does not drive off victoriously in this
nothing left to fear from hell, alan warner
this is a historical novella about the aftermath of the jacobite rising. it didn’t blow me away (like most of the world, i’m not great on scottish history so i wasn’t primed to appreciate the context) but warner is an excellent writer (the sopranos is so good) and some of the descriptions in this felt revelatory. there’s something of the quest in the structure of this, and something fantastical in the figures he describes (they are, on purpose, of another time), so that it felt like it tied into my curiosity about historical fantasy, despite lacking the latter elements. there’s also a really excellent afterword, in which warner reflects on writing something historical, and there’s an extent to which i’m glad i read the book (which is short, after all) for that alone
my cocaine museum, michael taussig
picked it up because i heard it described in an interesting way: as a museum for the history of cocaine in columbia, because it's something that won't ever be officially displayed in an institution. and it does sort of do that, but it’s mainly an anthropological work, very much framed by taussig’s outsider position as ethnographer, in a way i found frustrating.
i guess ultimately, i had this strong preconceived expectation of the book, and that simply wasn’t what it was. this happens all the time, particularly with non-fiction. what’s wrong with me, that i can’t judge these books properly? i guess there’s a multitude of genres and approaches under the non-fiction banner, only some of which work for me, and there’s no way of knowing which it’ll be from the way they’re marketed, because the book industry doesn’t tend to go for positionality-based blurbs. sucks.
death's end, cixin liu
ugh
films
seen before, knew i would enjoy, did enjoy: zodiac (2007), parasite (2019), hero (2002) (this is the wuxia movie to me, it's so good)
fun to watch with friends: scooby doo (2002), the faculty (1998) (this is such a fun communal watch), cruel intentions (1999) (to go with les liaison dangereuses), annabelle: creation (2017) (just watch annabelle comes home instead)
broadly good, in ways i haven't thought much about since: benedetta (2021) (although i think on a rewatch, in a diff mood, it would get under my skin), passages (2023), cinema paradiso (1988)
broadly good, in ways which have stuck with me: blue jean (2022) (this is really good btw, if you're interested in (british) queer history i highly recommend. bears comparison to brokeback mountain in being deeply about gay experience in a specific but recognisable time and place), a cock and bull story (2005) 12 angry men (1957) (probably the best new film (to me) i saw this month), showing up (2022), melancholia (2011)
disappointing: barbie (2023), past lives (2023)
alright, not too worth anyone's time: joyride (2023), event horizon (1997), the nun (2018)
books
paul, daisy lafarge
really surprised how much i appreciated this, given it’s… contemporary [everyone quivers and shakes]. i don’t tend to be impressed by much contemporary fiction, and whilst this still had some of the issues that tends to put me off (a real flatness of narrative voice being the immediately obvious one), i still found the book’s ideas affecting and effective. this review captures some of what it was doing.
great expectations, charles dickens
fun and readable, except for the agonising moments of extreme pip rudeness, during which i had to keep putting my kindle down. i particularly liked how it kind of seemed to be an exercise in creating the most random ways in which two characters can be connected.
the last dickens novel i read was martin chuzzlewit, which was so massive and slow-going that i had to take a year and half off before trying anything else; in comparison, great expectations is so easy, and it really clarified how people can be into dickens for me in a way i genuinely hadn’t fully grasped before. and yet. i felt into martin chuzzlewit, because it’s so long and intricate (on basically every level) in a way great expectations never really managed. i came out of it having missed the difficulty
les liaison dangereuses, pierre choderlos de Laclos
it’s so overflowing with drama and scandal, which is genuinely very modern, despite being the oldest book i read this month (third oldest this year, after a beowulf and pilgrim’s progress. this isn't relevant, i'm just trying to read more pre-19th century stuff because if unwatched i will just read like spark and greene on rotation). letters are so good for storytelling. also, unexpectedly, cruel intentions is kind a tonally amazing adaption, although it misses the really quite agonisingly tragic fallout. reece witherspoon does not drive off victoriously in this
nothing left to fear from hell, alan warner
this is a historical novella about the aftermath of the jacobite rising. it didn’t blow me away (like most of the world, i’m not great on scottish history so i wasn’t primed to appreciate the context) but warner is an excellent writer (the sopranos is so good) and some of the descriptions in this felt revelatory. there’s something of the quest in the structure of this, and something fantastical in the figures he describes (they are, on purpose, of another time), so that it felt like it tied into my curiosity about historical fantasy, despite lacking the latter elements. there’s also a really excellent afterword, in which warner reflects on writing something historical, and there’s an extent to which i’m glad i read the book (which is short, after all) for that alone
my cocaine museum, michael taussig
picked it up because i heard it described in an interesting way: as a museum for the history of cocaine in columbia, because it's something that won't ever be officially displayed in an institution. and it does sort of do that, but it’s mainly an anthropological work, very much framed by taussig’s outsider position as ethnographer, in a way i found frustrating.
i guess ultimately, i had this strong preconceived expectation of the book, and that simply wasn’t what it was. this happens all the time, particularly with non-fiction. what’s wrong with me, that i can’t judge these books properly? i guess there’s a multitude of genres and approaches under the non-fiction banner, only some of which work for me, and there’s no way of knowing which it’ll be from the way they’re marketed, because the book industry doesn’t tend to go for positionality-based blurbs. sucks.
death's end, cixin liu
ugh
films
seen before, knew i would enjoy, did enjoy: zodiac (2007), parasite (2019), hero (2002) (this is the wuxia movie to me, it's so good)
fun to watch with friends: scooby doo (2002), the faculty (1998) (this is such a fun communal watch), cruel intentions (1999) (to go with les liaison dangereuses), annabelle: creation (2017) (just watch annabelle comes home instead)
broadly good, in ways i haven't thought much about since: benedetta (2021) (although i think on a rewatch, in a diff mood, it would get under my skin), passages (2023), cinema paradiso (1988)
broadly good, in ways which have stuck with me: blue jean (2022) (this is really good btw, if you're interested in (british) queer history i highly recommend. bears comparison to brokeback mountain in being deeply about gay experience in a specific but recognisable time and place), a cock and bull story (2005) 12 angry men (1957) (probably the best new film (to me) i saw this month), showing up (2022), melancholia (2011)
disappointing: barbie (2023), past lives (2023)
alright, not too worth anyone's time: joyride (2023), event horizon (1997), the nun (2018)
