|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Heaven: Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
If you've not read Allingham, then you have a lot of treat in store. Did you know Campion is supposedly modelled on George VI?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
|
Posted
I did not know that! So now I have a mental picture to help me along. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm definitely going to read more, and I hope that Campion got a bit more to do in his younger years.
--------------------
"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
|
Posted
I think Tiger in the Smoke is her best work. I wouldn't dream of calling it a romp. A wonderful sinister atmosphere.
As I remember the other hero - Geoffrey - spends half the book in the hands of the sinister gang - a nice change from the cliche of the helpless heroine.
Wodehouse and Christie continued to turn out works post WW2 barely adapting the formulas of their 1930s works. They are fun if you like the formula but not a patch on the earlier work.
By contrast, Allingham's work developed after WW2 to produce more interesting works, of which Tiger in the Smoke is definitely one.
--------------------
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
Tiger in the Smoke is one of my two favorites. My other favorite is Tether's End. It's possible that Tether's End was published under a different title in Britain.
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Tiger in the Smoke is one of my two favorites. My other favorite is Tether's End. It's possible that Tether's End was published under a different title in Britain.
Moo
I think it was called Hide my Eyes when originally published. I can't remember it, but looking it up on Google, it sounds interesting.
--------------------
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
I like Tiger in the Smoke too, but I think my favourite is Traitor's Purse.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
I must scout the shelves and dig out the old green Penguins (now there's a sentence you have to be a certain age to understand).
With luck, the senile decay of memory will enable me to enjoy them again.
[ 25. May 2016, 08:59: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
With luck, the senile decay of memory will enable me to enjoy them again.
{tangent alert}
When my grandmother was in her seventies, she said that when she was younger she enjoyed reading the novels of William Faulkner, but she felt depressed afterwards. Now that her memory was failing, she could enjoy reading the novels, but she didn't remember them well enough to feel depressed.
{/tangent alert}
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Egeria
Shipmate
# 4517
|
Posted
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series; there's a story with a whole vanished world inside of it. Characters you come to know as though they were members of your family (and sometimes loathe as though they belong in the "difficult relatives" discussion--hi there, Mrs. Williams). Settings that burn themselves into your memory and make you want to start checking out fares to faraway places. The small vignettes that pop into your mind and make you smile: Jack singing along while the crew practices the Hallelujah Chorus, the men trying to comfort frightened slaves who've been taken off a pirate ship, Stephen talking to the Bishop's mule..."you are a kind of tame mule, I find."
I have never been a really big fan of Peter Wimsey, but I did have a good time last weekend reading Jill Paton Walsh's pastiche The Late Scholar. The Oxford setting was part of the charm--I definitely class this novel as comfort reading--especially since I once spent a couple of happy weeks there when researching my dissertation ![[Cool]](cool.gif) As for Gaudy Night , I wish I could enjoy re-reading it. As a fan of mysteries and historical novels, I've encountered a lot of nasty villains in my time (Dorothy Dunnett's got some of the very worst, and most persistent, evil characters I can think of), but the perp in Gaudy Night was just so detestable, so foul, that I can't seem to pick that book up again. (Perhaps making matters worse is my experience as a student sharing an office with The Queen of Malicious Gossip. She didn't go in for poison pen letters, but character assassination, rather than archaeology, was her main interest in life.) If I want to revisit Oxford in fiction, I will have to find an alternative.
--------------------
"Sound bodies lined / with a sound mind / do here pursue with might / grace, honor, praise, delight."--Rabelais
Posts: 314 | From: Berkeley, CA | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Egeria:
the perp in Gaudy Night was just so detestable, so foul, that I can't seem to pick that book up again.
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.
I'm not going to re-read it in a hurry, though.
--------------------
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
I like and reread Gaudy Night, but basically ignoring the perp in favor of the other storylines (Peter and Harriet, of course; Miss deVine's development and that of a bunch of others as they deal with women's roles; St. George's relationship with his uncle; Padgett; Cattermole and Pomfrey; Harriet's regaining of her mental balance.
The perp is a sad, sad person, but really not the core of the book. And she's got such a terribly limited view of the world that it comes close to mental illness in my opinion, making what she did more forgivable.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.
I find her enormously believable. And I agree - very much to be pitied. She's not likeable, of course, and I don't enjoy reading her parts of the story, but she provides a necessary contrast, and the book would be much poorer without her.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
|
Posted
Have never read anything by Virginia Woolf before, but am going to have a go at Mrs Dalloway this weekend. Also just coming to the end of H is for Hawk, which is very very good.
--------------------
I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.
I find her enormously believable. And I agree - very much to be pitied. She's not likeable, of course, and I don't enjoy reading her parts of the story, but she provides a necessary contrast, and the book would be much poorer without her.
I wonder if Sayers based her on a real person.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Have never read anything by Virginia Woolf before, but am going to have a go at Mrs Dalloway this weekend. Also just coming to the end of H is for Hawk, which is very very good.
I really liked Mrs D., hope you do too (I won't say any more in case I spoil it for you).
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
|
Posted
I've just picked up another Edward Rutherfurd doorstop-size multi-generational epic at the railway station, where they have a book swop area. (Everything goes really quickly, no matter what it is.)
This time, it's "The Forest", set in and around the New Forest in England. I quite like his books but he does have the irritating habit of half developing a scene and plot, then you abruptly find he's moved on a century or so and what's happened to the characters you'd just got to know? Not always as well written or fleshed out as I'd like but still interesting.
[ 26. May 2016, 19:08: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.
I find her enormously believable. And I agree - very much to be pitied. She's not likeable, of course, and I don't enjoy reading her parts of the story, but she provides a necessary contrast, and the book would be much poorer without her.
I wonder if Sayers based her on a real person.
Maybe not on an individual, but certainly on an important human condition.
And spiteful though she is, from her point of view, it is the women dons who are limited, with the leisure to study prosody and not having to bring up two girls and keep a fulltime manual job.
--------------------
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I've just picked up another Edward Rutherfurd doorstop-size multi-generational epic at the railway station, where they have a book swop area. (Everything goes really quickly, no matter what it is.)
This time, it's "The Forest", set in and around the New Forest in England. I quite like his books but he does have the irritating habit of half developing a scene and plot, then you abruptly find he's moved on a century or so and what's happened to the characters you'd just got to know? Not always as well written or fleshed out as I'd like but still interesting.
Mm, I agree, but I did think it one of his better ones when I read it some time ago.
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
And spiteful though she is, from her point of view, it is the women dons who are limited, with the leisure to study prosody and not having to bring up two girls and keep a fulltime manual job.
I think that, since she believes that a woman's job is to serve her husband and children, she detests the woman and the system that drove her husband to suicide. I don't think she envies the female dons their leisure to study; she is outraged that she has been deprived of what was important to her by people whose value system is different.
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Yes, that was put together truly well. All parties had a solid case to be made, that could be rationally and morally defended. It was a clash of worlds, not just a purse-snatching. Necessarily, because of the mystery form, the female dons and their world (through the viewpoint character of Harriett) are delineated in far more detail and with much more sympathy. But I don't see how she could have told it from the other point of view, and still keep it a mystery.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I've just picked up another Edward Rutherfurd doorstop-size multi-generational epic at the railway station, where they have a book swop area. (Everything goes really quickly, no matter what it is.)
This time, it's "The Forest", set in and around the New Forest in England. I quite like his books but he does have the irritating habit of half developing a scene and plot, then you abruptly find he's moved on a century or so and what's happened to the characters you'd just got to know? Not always as well written or fleshed out as I'd like but still interesting.
I'm going to get that - I enjoy his stuff
--------------------
My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
|
Posted
I'm afraid I don't feel a lot of sympathy for the man who committed suicide in Gaudy Night - because his work was judged fairly. He wasn't ruined because of those terrible women dons, but because his work wasn't good enough.
By the way, I'm about half way through Brenda Clough's How Like a God at the moment, mostly because it's one of those "just one more chapter before I go to sleep" books. But at the beginning, there's a bit that I'm positive I've read before - where the main character convinces all his work colleagues he's in the building when he's actually taken the day off, and he comes back to find there's been a fire, and everyone thinks he's still inside. I have no idea where I read it, but it's just that bit!
--------------------
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doone:
Mm, I agree, but I did think it one of [Edward Rutherfurd]'s better ones when I read it some time ago.
The first one I read was London, which I still think is the best of the ones I've read so far. Dublin was a disappointment and Paris is going back to a charity shop, only half read. I don't think I've read Sarum yet but the preview pages look like something I'd want to read.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
The only Rutherford I've read is Sarum which I enjoyed, but it felt as if he got bored, or had reached his maximum allowed wordage, for the last hundred years, as they were sped through unseemly fast compared to the rest of the millennia.
The perpetrator in Gaudy Night was also a deliberate contrast against all the dons doing their own unwomanly thing rather than being proper married women. A salutary lesson of some of the dangers of marriage and motherhood. Sayers was at Cambridge in the time when women were allowed to study but before they could receive degrees and she was 55, nine years before her death, before women could become full members of the university.
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
Surely she was at Oxford?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
My bad - she was at Oxford, but Sayers still wasn't allowed to graduate when she first studied, as women weren't awarded degrees in 1912.
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
True. She had to wait until 1920 to get her MA.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Hmm. I can't recall any similar incident in a book. But now that I think about it there are at least a couple not dissimilar occurrences in the old Superman comic books, usually moments when Clark Kent is trying to hide his super powers.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
I've just reread A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute, which is an incredible story based around WWII in the East (Singapore / Malaysia / Indonesia) and the aftermath. I first read it as a teenager and rereading is a real education as to how far language usage has changed in not very long, particularly the nomenclature for Aborigines and Malaysians.
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Drat, not quite right for my research. I am ISO an identical novel set one century earlier.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
I was browsing the opening of an Amazon suggestion - since it was by a writer I'd quite enjoyed as a holiday read. Period, late 19th C, heroine young single woman: early scenes involve a conversation with a vicar and his wife - who is referred to throughout as 'the vicaress'. We are also given to understand the heroine has been taking unaccompanied trips abroad since she was 18, on each of which she has had one or more affairs - but it's fine, because she has totally worked out failsafe contraception.
I call fraud. Why even pretend to be writing historical fiction if you can't be bothered to introduce a scintilla of believability into the attitudes or experiences of your characters?
I suppose there is a market for the modern-woman-in-fancy-dress chicklit, but you're not chiselling 7.99 out of me for anything less that a genuine attempt at imaginative recreation. And no 'Him? Sits in that corner drinking every night. Edgar Allan somebody-or-other' either.
[ 30. May 2016, 13:41: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Happens all the time, alas. Which is why research should always be done with the source documents and never with novels. The question is always whether your readers are knowledgeable enough to spot your errors, and whether they will care. There are certain areas (guns, horses, fashion) where mavens are fanatical, and will call you on it. But with a lot of stuff, either nobody will know that Dante Alighieri never went to Paris in 1304, or not enough people will care to make any difference. At least I hope so...
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
There are sufficient lacunae in the records of the lives of most historical figures that you can slip in any feasible incidents you please. And even more do, with an invented character.
What irritates me is making the character totally anachronistic in language, beliefs and attitude, plus totally immune to the social conventions of the day. In fact, those are invoked - usually in a highly cariacatured form - just so the writer can say through the heroine 'what silly attitudes! See how much more liberated and enlightened we are today!' Never any suggestion that sexual promiscuity, for example, might have its downside in any era.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Well, that's just bad writing. And evil, because it fosters the dimwitted notion that everybody in the past was just like us. Why didn't Abraham Lincoln's doctors do CPR on him, when he was shot in Ford's Theater? Why was there no YouTube video of the crime? Did John Wilkes Booth take a selfie?
The briefest tour through the historical record reveals to you that people in the past were both different, and the same as us. A properly written novel set in the past will balance this, but never perfectly. Because all authors carry with them their own culture and time, and this inevitably colors the work.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
There are sufficient lacunae in the records of the lives of most historical figures that you can slip in any feasible incidents you please. And even more do, with an invented character.
What irritates me is making the character totally anachronistic in language, beliefs and attitude, plus totally immune to the social conventions of the day. In fact, those are invoked - usually in a highly cariacatured form - just so the writer can say through the heroine 'what silly attitudes! See how much more liberated and enlightened we are today!' Never any suggestion that sexual promiscuity, for example, might have its downside in any era.
I've only read a few of the Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily series of crime novels, but she uses the fact that the heroine's detective work is not an acceptable occupation for a Society Lady in Victorian times to drive the story forwards in really clever ways.
That seems a far more sensible approach. But that involves doing some research and who's got time for that ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Tubbs
--------------------
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
|
Posted
I have just finished Book 5 of the Reading Challenge - "A book you should have read in school". I chose The Silver Darlings by Neil M. Gunn, and it was a good choice. Set in Caithness c. 1810-30 as the herring industry was taking off, it is about a people in transition from an old world to a new one. It was beautifully written with likeable characters, and although there is no 'plot' as such, it is full of both tragedy and adventure. The descriptions of the seas and the storms are wonderful.
Men are true heroes in Gunn's book - noble, pure, and immensely strong mentally as well as physically. The women are likewise noble and pure, though they are obviously some holy mystery to Gunn. (Mind you, all his characters are holy mysteries to some extent.) His male lovers have a habit of overpowering their feebly-protesting women, who then melt in glad surrender. (I'd have liked a faint 'Yes yes' in among the faint 'No no's.) But the sea is the main character, to be loved and fought and overcome by the men, and yet to compel them and overcome them in return ... a bit like the women, really.
--------------------
"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
|
Posted
I'm hoping to kill several birds with one stone during my holiday reading, including Jane Eyre as the 'book you should have read at school'. Everyone else seems to have read it as a teenager.
--------------------
'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
|
Posted
I read Jane Eyre at school - but I never realised what a feminist book it is until I saw it on stage last year! Charlotte Bronte presented her heroine with all the choices available to a young woman in her position (starting with becoming a governess, then the option to become Rochester's mistress, or marry St John to be his helpmeet) and she sticks to her principles and comes through to what she wants in the end.
--------------------
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
And she poured all of her personal life into the work. So vividly, that when the book came out the unfortunate proprietor of Lowood School (which really exists under another name, and was neither worse nor better run than any other boarding school in Britain of the period) was excoriated and pilloried in the press.
It is fun to read the critiques of JE from the day. People complained bitterly of how passionate and stubborn Jane was, totally unwomanly and an inappropriate example for young minds. 'Coarse' was the favorite epithet. When you read it, see if you feel it is coarse.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
|
Posted
I've just finished William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" (yes, *that* Princess Bride). The film's much better - I found Goldman's frequent asides in the book increasingly unnecessary and annoying. When he just stuck to the story it was great, and I loved that I had the image of the cast in my head as I read. But if you're just going to do one or the other, watch the film.
Next up, a new book: Melissa Hastings' "Rain: Four Walks in English Weather". Looking out of the window (granted, in Scotland, but still) I can't help feeling it's very apt reading for now.
--------------------
"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
Next up, a new book: Melissa Hastings' "Rain: Four Walks in English Weather". Looking out of the window (granted, in Scotland, but still) I can't help feeling it's very apt reading for now.
Mm, it's raining here as well, and poor Glastonbury is not far down the road from us ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
[ 25. June 2016, 16:51: Message edited by: Doone ]
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I've just finished William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" (yes, *that* Princess Bride). The film's much better - I found Goldman's frequent asides in the book increasingly unnecessary and annoying. When he just stuck to the story it was great, and I loved that I had the image of the cast in my head as I read. But if you're just going to do one or the other, watch the film.
The Princess Bride is not only one of my all-time favourite movies, it is the one shining example that I, a book-lover, can think of where the movie really WAS better. The movie is gentle and sweet, and while it's very funny, it's never a mean-spirited kind of funny. The book (particularly Goldman's narrative voice with, as you say, the frequent asides) has a cynicism and an underlying meanness that's entirely lacking in the film. I can see how it would be to some people's taste, but I'm so glad the filmmakers made the movie they did, rather than one that echoed the book in tone.
--------------------
Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I've just finished William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" (yes, *that* Princess Bride). The film's much better - I found Goldman's frequent asides in the book increasingly unnecessary and annoying. When he just stuck to the story it was great, and I loved that I had the image of the cast in my head as I read. But if you're just going to do one or the other, watch the film.
My thoughts exactly. I got increasingly fed up with the supposedly 'real life' bits and frankly didn't care about the guy and his messed-up life at all.
--------------------
*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Interestingly, on some level Goldman must have been aware that these interpolations were self-indulgent and not successful. He wrote the screenplay for the movie, you may recall. And he knew exactly what to bob out. (Possibly also the director and the other suits insisted on a more focused story line.)
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
|
Posted
Yes, I've thought a lot about the fact that he did a much better (for my tastes) job of writing the screenplay than he did of the novel. I feel like the general sweetness of the tone (the nice framing story of Grampa Columbo and the little boy as opposed to Goldman's rather less nice frame story) might have been a suggestion of the movie's producers rather than Goldman's idea. But I may be judging the man too harshly.
--------------------
Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls
At the moment I'm in a smallish African city without a book store
Have you read Shakespeare in the Bush?
and Scoop by Evelyn Waugh which can be bought online?
[ 28. June 2016, 04:42: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
|
Posted
Has anyone else read any Jasper Fforde? I've just started The Eyre Affair (under 'a book recommended by a best friend'), and I am not sure yet if it is very good, or too-clever-by-half. I'm not loving it yet ... I think that will depend on whether the characters and the story are strong enough to overcome the cleverness. Which they may be.
--------------------
"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
I loved it. See if the ending does not make you shout with joy.
But he went on to write a number of sequels, which are more annoying.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
You have to be in the mood (and possibly on holiday). The Tuesday Next ones were tolerable, but I started on one of the Nursery Crimes and found I couldn't be arsed.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Printer-friendly view
