Books, Movies and Random Thoughts

It’s odd that although these are two of my favourite Bujold books, I always skip the first few chapters of each of them when I am re-reading. It’s because I know the main character is going to make an absolutely enormous mistake, and I just can’t stand seeing it happen. So I tend to pick up Mirror Dance at Chapter 12, when Mark arrives on Barrayar (after everything that could possibly have gone wrong has done so); and Memory at Chapter 7, when Miles is discharged. I know in both cases there is good stuff in the earlier chapters (not to mention things highly relevant to the plot!) but I just can’t subject myself to the pain of watching Mark and Miles dig their own graves.

Once the mistakes are made, though, and the books move into “recovery” mode, I love them. In fact, both of these are books that I will occasionally get off the shelf just to read one of the “good bits”. (I also do this with A Civil Campaign – which I also can’t re-read the first few chapters of.) They seem to have more depth than the earlier books in the series, though you probably need to have read at least some of the earlier books in order to fully understand these ones.

Mirror Dance is the first Miles book where there is a non-Miles perspective character. And I actually find the Mark sections of the book (after the excruciatingly painful first few chapters) far more interesting than the Miles bits. In fact, I find the Miles sections pretty dull.

I’m not totally convinced that Mark is the same character I first met in Brothers in Arms – he seems much more brisk and efficient there than he does in Mirror Dance. However, that’s more of an issue when I’m re-reading Brothers in Arms – the Mark of Mirror Dance is the same as the one in Civil Campaign. And I guess you can justify the change partly by saying that you only see him from the outside (Miles’ perspective) in Brothers in Arms, and also that he has spend the intervening time hiding out, and without Galen driving him, so it does make sense that he’d seem a bit more adrift than he did in the earlier book.

I think one of my favourite scenes in the book is the one where Mark overhears Cordelia and Aral talking – I particularly love Cordelia’s analysis of Ivan as only playing the fool, and Aral pointing out that Ivan has been like that all his life, and her interpretation would make him “a fiendishly Machiavellian five-year-old”. And the bit earlier in the book where she points out that “Miles thinks he’s a knight-errant. A rational government wouldn’t allow him possession of a pocket-knife, let alone a space fleet.” Cordelia really enriches this book, even though her part is relatively small (though still bigger than in any of the earlier books except Cordelia’s Honor).

Memory is my absolute, all-time favourite Vorkosigan book. The detective story and Miles’ personal growth are really well woven together, so the book is neither too depressing nor too lightweight. Fun minor characters are either introduced for the first time (Martin, Ma Kosti and Zap the Cat), or developed from earlier books (Duv Galeni, and also Illyan – not that he was previously underdeveloped). And it has so many wonderful scenes: Ivan taking over and moving into Vorkosigan House, the trip back to Silvy Vale, Illyan’s illness and Miles’ management of it, the “wrestling with temptation” scene, the Assault on Cockroach Central, and the confession to Gregor. Some of these scenes are fun, some moving, some powerful – all of them really good to read and re-read.

I think Sin City is the most violent movie I have ever seen. How on earth did it have an “MA” rating rather than an “R”? The violence wasn’t redundant – it was an important part of the kind of world the film was presenting – but that didn’t make it less shocking.

In some ways, the main male characters were reminiscent of Raymond Chandler. Marv, in particular, was very much descended from Moose Molloy (by way of The Maxx, with a bit of input from Wolverine), but all three of them had elements of the chivalric, protective approach towards women that is the foundation of Phillip Marlowe’s character. But they also had a sadistic side that just isn’t present in Chandler. Marv didn’t just kill people – he revelled in the slaughter and ultimately performed horrific acts of torture. And Hartigan gave way to a berserker fury when he killed the Yellow Bastard. Dwight didn’t do anything as extreme in the film, but he did casually mention that he was a murderer who had been given a new face.

Chandler said “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. … He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor – by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.” In Sin City, the streets were mean, but the men were not untarnished. In a way, they were men of honour, and they might even have been the best men in their world, but they were certainly not good enough for any world. Not even Hartigan, and certainly not Dwight or Marv.

The men were definitely the centre of the film. The women were all decorative – and mostly incredibly lethal – but they were objectified. The men were doing what they did for, or because of, the women. A somewhat misogynistic world view – but, again, very Chandler.

The visuals in this film were just amazing. On the black and white film, the splashes of colour had a stunning impact. And the script and performances more than matched this. In the excerpts I’d seen on At the Movies, Clive Owen’s lines had seemed stilted and unrealistic, but somehow in the context of the film they worked. Nevertheless, Dwight was the least complex of the three main characters, or, at least, the one you gained least insight into. His part of the film was more plot-driven, which made it less interesting than the other sections – though probably also less disturbing. You got a much better idea of what was driving – and I do mean driving – Hartigan and Marv, so there was a much closer connection with their stories. Also, they both had creepier villains – amazing performances from Nick Stahl and especially Elijah Wood. The women had less to work with in terms of either character or menace, but insofar as it was possible, they all gave strong performances.

One of the reviews I read described it as “style over substance”. I don’t think this is fair. Certainly, without the visual style the film would have had far less impact, but this doesn’t mean that it was without substance, in the way that, say, Kill Bill was. In fact, it probably would have been an easier film to watch if this had been the case. Rather, the visuals combined with the writing to give a powerful and disturbing picture of a world in which everything is corrupt: in which men can have chivalric ideals yet at the same time perform – and revel in – quite horrific levels of violence. The world of Sin City was morally bankrupt. Unfortunately, I’m not totally convinced that the the film wasn’t as well.

I was distinctly underwhelmed by this production. I didn’t like the mix of Roman and modern dress, I didn’t like the “staginess” of it all, the actors were singularly lacking in charisma and Brutus seemed to spend the whole play in an unchanging cloud of gloom. Rather disappointing, since this was the first time I’d ever seen Julius Caesar live. When Michael was in New York for a conference earlier this year, he saw a production starring Denzel Washington – he said it was a lot more accessible than this production.

Ethan of Athos is not one of my favourite Bujold books set in the Vorkosigan universe – it doesn’t have Miles in it, and I’m not particularly grabbed by Ellie Quinn. Allowing for that, however, it’s a reasonably fun adventure story, with enough twists to keep you on your toes. But even the most plot-driven of the Miles stories seem to have extra depth to them, because of Miles’ personality (or maybe it’s just because he’s so hyper, whereas Ethan, although a well developed character, is very staid). Also, although the settings (Athos and Kline Station) are not uninteresting, they’re both a bit conventional – unlike, say, Cetaganda.

Brothers in Arms is also more plot-driven than character-driven – unlike the next few in the series. It’s more sophisticated than, say, Warrior’s Apprentice, but I don’t think it even comes close to the depths of Memory. Though because it introduces the characters of Mark and Duv Galeni, it’s pretty crucial to the series as a whole. I find it hard to make up my mind how much I like it for itself, and how much because it’s setting up the later books that I really like.

I find the concept of a mercenary fleet having an accountant totally bizarre, and yet at the same time completely logical.

Someone on Girlsown posted a link to a book meme at Online Learning. (If you follow the links back from the site, you may find where the meme originated. Or you may not – I gave up after a while.)

The instructions are:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

The closest book is Tops and Bottoms by Noel Streatfeild. Since I am writing my Uni treatise on Streatfeild, all her books are handily shelved on the bookcase nearest my desk, and this one happened to be at the end of the shelf. The fifth sentence on page 123 is the rather uninspiring “Beaty looked ashamed of herself -“.

Tops and Bottoms is definitely not one of the better Streatfeilds, and I’m not actually referring to it in my treatise, but it was the closest book to hand. At least, it was the closest book to my left hand. The closest book to my right hand was the Dreamweaver 3: Using Dreamweaver, but I’m not sure that a several-versions-old software guide really counts as a book; and, in any case, it was about four centimetres further away than Tops and Bottoms. Amazingly enough, at this precise moment in time there are actually no books lying on my desk – the ones that were there about an hour ago are currently in a pile on the floor. Had I not cleared off the desk, you would have got a sentence from Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception – or maybe Booktalk: Occasional Writing on Literature and Children.

This was such a fun book!

I think I first heard it described as “Jane Austen meets Harry Potter”. Well, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was also described that way, and I found it turgid to the point of unreadability. Sorcery and Cecelia was anything but. It’s a series of letters between Kate, in London, and her cousin Cecelia, in Essex. In both locations, Evil Doings are Afoot, involving a stolen chocolate pot, a beautiful neighbour, a missing brother, a charm bag … and two dashingly handsome (if frustratingly enigmatic) young men.

Coincidentally, just after I finished it, I discovered it was the Galaxy Bookshop Fave Rave in their April 2005 Nexus. Stephanie, who wrote the review, said it was “Jane Austen with magic”, and even considered whether or not you have to be familiar with Austen to appreciate it (which you don’t). I can only assume that Stephanie has never come across Georgette Heyer, since anyone who has will recognise her influence on the writing. I can’t really see any significant Austen connection beyond the time period (and it’s much more Heyer’s Regency than Austen’s), and maybe the epistolary format (which Heyer never used – the only published Austen that uses it is Lady Susan, but the first drafts of both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were apparently written in this style).

The book is actually dedicated to Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and J. R. R. Tolkein. I would say that while Austen and Tolkein have given the authors much joy and general influence, the most direct connection is with Heyer. It’s not as good as Heyer – it’s a sort of “Heyer-lite” (with magic). It’s actually being marketed as a Young Adult title, and I think this is the right call, although I can’t put my finger on exactly why it feels YA in a way that Heyer doesn’t.

I have a nasty feeling Heyer wouldn’t have approved of this book. In The Private World of Georgette Heyer (Jane Aiken Hodge, 1984) there is an extract from a letter to her publisher about an imitator:

I feel compelled to protest against the injustice done me by the author in omitting my name from her list of the works to which she declares herself to be indebted. It might well take the place of Jane Austen’s, for while no one would suspect [the author] of owing anything to Jane Austen it must be obvious to many besides my unknown informant that she owes to me plot, incidents, character, several surnames, and such examples of Regency slang as she has used.” (p. 145)

Sorcery and Cecelia does owe a couple of names and a great deal of Regency slang – plus a general Regency world view – to Heyer. On the other hand, the authors do acknowledge her (though I gather this wasn’t the case with the first edition of the book). Also, of course, the magic component means that it’s not actually a Regency Romance.

Another factor is that it wasn’t originally intended for publication. The two authors were simply playing the “letter game” – writing to each other in character, and making up the plots (without consultation) as they went along. It was only after it was finished that they realised it might be publishable. This makes the Heyer pastiche aspects of it more understandable – and it’s such a key part of the writing style, that I honestly don’t see how it could have been excised when they were preparing it for publication.

So maybe Heyer wouldn’t have objected to it. I’d like to think so, anyway.

Having read this book from the library, I have now ordered my own copy of the book, and of its sequel, The Grand Tour, which I’m really looking forward to reading.

* Actually, the full title is Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country

Another good night at the theatre, though again I didn’t get quite what I was expecting. The concept is that Steven Berkoff chats to the audience about a number of Shakespeare’s villains, interspersed with acting significant scenes from each. The villains include most of the usual suspects – Iago, the Macbeths, Shylock and Richard III – along with some more controversial selections such as Hamlet, Coriolanus and Oberon.

The talk (which I gather is unscripted, but probably covers the same general areas each night) was partly psychological analysis of the characters, partly an actor’s perspective of playing them, partly theatrical traditions surrounding the plays and a bit of general “actor’s life” chit-chat (and bitchiness). This was more or less what I had expected (well, maybe not the chit-chat/bitchiness) and it was interesting, enjoyable and amusing.

I was a bit surprised, though, that when he was actually giving excerpts from the parts he did a lot of them over the top for laughs. This was particularly apparent with the Macbeth bit (where he did both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) and with Hamlet (Hamlet, Gertrude and Polonius). I guess he has been doing this for a lot of years, and knows what will work for the audience. And it was undeniably funny. But I was glad he chose to do Coriolanus straight.

I had never read any Janet Evanovich before, and I found these two books a lot of fun. Not knowing anything about her background, I first thought that the detailed descriptions of what Stephanie is wearing at all times, and what she eats, were a link to Raymond Chandler (right from the first paragraph of Chandler’s The Big Sleep, you are given a detailed description of Philip Marlowe’s clothes). However, I later discovered that her background is in romantic fiction, so it’s possible that writing these descriptions is now completely second nature to her. It’s interesting that two such completely different genres can have this kind of overlap.

As detective stories, the plots weren’t anything special (but then, neither are Chandler’s), but I enjoyed the comedy and the slightly surreal nature of the minor characters. Though I hope Stephanie does become slightly more competent as the series progresses – obviously, she’ll never be as good as Morelli or Ranger (doesn’t have their training or background) but it would be nice if just occasionally they could mess up and need her to rescue them.

I had been planning to slowly re-read all of Bujold’s Vorkosigan books in (internal) chronological order. I had not been planning to read these three all in a bunch, but an infected blister, that resulted in two days in hospital on intravenous antibiotics, changed that.

When I set off for the medical centre, knowing that I might spend quite a while in the waiting room, I grabbed Warrior’s Apprentice, knowing that it was engaging, but not too cognitively demanding. (The alternative, which I had just started, was Children’s Literature – An Issues Approach. I decided this would not be ideal under the circumstances.) In the event, Warrior’s Apprentice lasted me not just 40 minutes in the Medical Centre, but also several hours in casualty at the hospital, with a foot that was becoming increasingly painful. The Vor Game and Cetaganda (which Michael brought in for me, along with my laptop and some DVDs) carried me through the next two days in the ward.

These three books have never been among my favourites in the Vorkosigan series. On re-reading, however, they do all have some good stuff in them – Warrior’s Apprentice in particular, since this is the book in which she sets up Miles’ personality. Even in these early books, Miles is an interesting and complex character, and Ivan is a wonderful counterbalance to him. In general, however, I find all three books pretty lightweight when compared to later books in the series.

I’ve just finished re-reading this, the first in Bujold’s series about Miles Vorkosigan (although this book is actually about his parents, with Miles himself only being born at the very end).

Before reading any of Bujold’s books, I had been vaguely aware of seeing her name crop up now and then in the Galaxy bookshop newsletter, but didn’t really know anything about her. Then one day I came across a website that mentioned that her then most recent book (A Civil Campaign) was dedicated to “Jane, Charlotte, Georgette, and Dorothy” – by which, the site explained, she meant Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Georgette Heyer and Dorothy L. Sayers. Wow, I thought, this is one author I have to read.

Confronted with a range of titles at Galaxy, I wasn’t sure where to start. I had gathered that A Civil Campaign was about Miles Vorkosigan, so I thought it would be better to start at the beginning of the series than with the most recent book. A helpful assistant told me that Cordelia’s Honor was the first book (by internal chronology): he warned that it starts out a bit like “Mills and Boon in space” (and this is a problem? I thought), but to stick with it, as it gets much better. Well, it does, and it did. Bujold has since become one of my favourite SF/fantasy writers.

Cordelia’s Honor is actually two separate books – Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Shards of Honor is essentially a romance, although I think to call it “just” M&B in space is doing Bujold a gross disservice, as it deals with a number of thought-provoking issues. Of course, the M&B aspects (though I think they are more like Georgette Heyer) are good as well! It was the first book Bujold wrote, and I find it interesting that in her Afterword she says that she “already knew, at this early date, that Aral and Cordelia would have a physically handicapped son in Barrayar’s intensely militaristic culture”. I wonder if she realised that this physically handicapped son would be her major ongoing character?

Barrayar is both more eventful and richer in detail than Shards, dealing with politics and civil war, as well as with Aral and Cordelia’s relationship, and Cordelia’s connection with her unborn child. The first time I read them, I enjoyed Shards, but was absolutely gripped by Barrayar. On subsequent re-reads, Shards has risen in my estimation, but I still think Barrayar is more consistent. You can tell that Cordelia’s Honor was written by a woman (and a mother), as the whole concept of motherhood is central to both halves of the story. And yet, it’s also an action packed and exciting story, set in an interesting world.

Due to difficulties in getting hold of the books, I unfortunately read most of the rest of the Vorkosigan series out of order. However, I’m glad I started with Cordelia’s Honor. As well as providing a context for Miles (which original readers wouldn’t have had, as Barrayar wasn’t published until after the first couple of Miles books), I find it a thoroughly enjoyable book in and of itself. In fact, it’s probably one of my favourites in the series – behind Memory, Mirror Dance and A Civil Campaign, but definitely ahead of all the early Miles books up to (and maybe even including) Brothers in Arms.