Two Stories of fun

Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

After the disappointment of The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett, I was dubious about this "What if Jane Austen wrote fantasy/Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell substitute."  Especially given the recommendation of Cory Doctorow, who's Little Brother left me furious for two days for its shameless glorification of immaturity as selflessness.  The first three quarters didn't fully allay that trepidation - a typo in the first chapter, and distinctly uncomfortable relationships between the heroine and her sister, not to mention the unadventurous nature of the plot (completely cribbed from Austen in terms of event and situation, not that that's necessarily bad).  However, the final quarter, where the character show their mettle and the action wraps everything up in a glamour of delight, more than made up for it.  Not up to the "masterpiece of the past ten years" level of Susannah Clarke's Norrell, but quite diverting, and more than superior to Beckett's series.

Easy Virtue, by Noel Coward (film, starring Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, and an awesome butler)

Well, I must give Coward a try now.  Delightful, if saddening, with very strong performances (Biel making up for the rather dull performance in the lackluster Illusionist).

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Gadgets!

So, my monitor, which had built in speakers, died two days ago. Much frustration. So I trekked out to MicroCenter, bought me the second cheapest monitor (the cheapest was out of stock, and now that I have something this large, I'm already very happy - even if it's cheap, it's a huge step up from my last monitor - plus being much prettier). My speakers weren't quite so cheap, but on the recommendation of my sister, I bought them anyway, and they are very, very nice sounding. Not to mention being tiny tiny tiny so they don't take up space on my poor desk/two-bookcases-shoved together. Yay for new gadgets! My desk, now cleaned of all that dreck, is nice and techie looking with the new screen, new speakers, tiny tower and extra hard drive all piled around on it. All black. And pretty!

Okay, that was very silly. But what I really wanted to say is this: the number of volume controls is very confusing. I mean, I have the two computer volumes, Wave and Master, and then the media player volume, topped off by the physical volume controls of the speakers. Why so many?

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

I am amazed

So.  I find it sad that:

a) while trawling the net for Lord Peter Wimsey fanfic

b) as a result of Jill Paton Walsh's Windows 7 (in other words - not good, but not nearly as bad as the last thing - the last thing being either A Presumption of Death or Vista) profic The Attenbury Emeralds

c) I get linked to Sayers posts on LJ

d) finding said posts to be of high quality (not to mention quite obviously a trained litcritter) I

e) look at the profile

f) ta da!  PhD in English Lit...

g) wait, she writes books?  What books?  Melusine?

h) oh, she's THAT English Lit PhD - the one who got her degree and got married and writes gay erotica fantasy novels

i) and I realized this without reading her name...

j) she writes about C. S. Lewis?

k) woah, and about that viciously upsetting Gaiman story?

l) and there's a link in the (ginormous) comments of that post to a much, much better version of what happened to Susan

m) and I still have a billion tabs of Wimseyfic open unread

n) and now I'm posting

o) and well over half the alphabet

p) so I'll stop.

Postscript: In happier news, I am the proud owner of a new copy of the reprinted Hawk of May, from Borders (with the kind gift cards and coupons of my buddies and Borders Rewards, respectively).  For once, Sourcebooks is doing something with it's amazing book design staff other than printing Jane Austen fanfic.  Not that I hate Austenfic.  I love it.  I just don't think the stuff they're publishing deserves the lavish presentation they give it.

Wow, that afterthought was more thoughty than I thought. ;-)

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Man...

Beethoven rocks!  You know, ever since I got hooked on the 5th symphony after mistakenly thinking the Peter Pan soundtrack by James Newton Howard was imitating it - the second movement has a cadence to die for, it is that poignant - I've had a sneaking love for that German/Austrian/whatever deaf guy.  But just now, listening to the King's Speech soundtrack, I found out that the credits music I loved so much in the film and thought was Alexandre Desplat (of New Moon fame, and yes, I'm going with that, since it's the first time I really loved one of his scores, cause Golden Compass was boring) doing his "imitating classical orchestration but with modern, easily emotionally accessible chord progressions" thing - yeah, that turns out to be some dude who's been dead for almost two hundred years.  Dude.  I love that guy!

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Sadness and Woe: Gaudy Night edition

So, have been doing a bit of googling, and discovered that J. R. R. Tolkien and Q. D. Leavis both really, really hated Gaudy Night.  And cast aspersions on its author.  Maybe it was their shared prediliction for initials instead of names?

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone

Speaking of the King...

Well, I finally saw it - alone, since I couldn't get hold of any of my buddies who wanted to see it.  But that's okay - it was pretty funny sitting as the only under-50 person in the theater at 10 in the morning.  There was much eye-wiping, as the film provokes a lot of sympathy and poignancy from an isolated, frightened public indentured servant and the people who care about him as much as the audience comes to.

Tom Hooper, the director, provoked my interest first with the brilliant Daniel Deronda miniseries adapted by Andrew Davies for the BBC and starring Romola Garai, Hugh Dancy, and Hugh Bonneville.  I was unable to finish John Adams due to the annoying use of handheld camera and pointless closeups, so my only real reference for his work was Deronda.  And to me, it's quite plain they are directed by the same eye - the constant use of fisheye lenses, formal compositions, the manipulation of color (though I preferred it in Deronda, as in that one he popped the blues and reds and whites, while in King's he muted everything to a subtle contrast in greys and bluey greys), and a real richness of period objects.  If Hooper continues in this vein, he may become a more emotionally mature version of Joe Wright, who began making excellent miniseries for the BBC (Charles II) and graduated to making feature films which shared characteristic camerawork as well (vivid colors, a real physical isolation, a penchant for incredibly dramatic shots, and brilliant long steadicam scenes) - only hopefully without the more maudlin sensibility Wright can't seem to escape.

One of the few flaws in the film's casting was the age difference between Guy Pearce and Colin Firth, the latter supposed to be several years younger than the former, while in reality being ten years older - a gap which to my spoiled eye was very evident.  This does nothing to diminish Firth or Pearce's performances, however.  Firth's tortured, gentle soul shines with technical and physical control as well as incredible depth to the relational choices he makes, while Pearce (who I just found powerfully amazing in LA Confidential) again pulls a new character from his hat - instead of Memento's amnesiac, disciplined, rage fueled yet ice cold antihero, or Confidential's straight-laced but bursting at the seams cop, we have an aging playboy under the thrall of a gold digger, who nonetheless possesses great charm and power over his younger, more conscientious brother.  Helena Bonham-Carter, in a non-quirky role, shines (though they took her best line from the trailer out of the film - "I intend to be a very good queen - to a very great king."  Tim Spall as Winston Churchill is suitably bluff and funny while maintaining the type of gravity necessary for the other great leader who led Britain through her darkest hour.  A hilarious and touching moment for me was the meeting of the King and his speech therapist's wife - played beautifully by Jennifer Ehle.  Ehle and Firth together made the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice a thing of glory - and when Geoffrey Rush as the therapist says "I believe you have met..." I laughed out loud, and am rather curious to know if it was intentional.

The King's Speech isn't perfect - I've noted some dialogue moments which ring a bit false - but it's very, very good.  Much in the same vein as "The Queen," which I think has less missteps, it could possibly be seen as a prequel to that earlier work - as the tiny princess Elizabeth sees the pressure on her father which later comes back to haunt her during Diana's death in Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan's treatment of 20th century British royalty under pressure.

Posted via email from We read to know we're not alone