I started revising

And I'm quite pleased with myself. I think I have ToK down pat if I'm honest, I think by next week Moral Philosophy will be in the same boat too. It's just that bloody Political and Mill. I'm sure will get it. Was looking forward to the exam on Friday, now not so much.

posted by danny @ 13:08, ,


beowulf

They made Beowulf into a film? Why wasn't I told until now?



What's next? Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? Everyman? Perhaps Mel Gibson will get his paws on them and insist that they be filmed only in Old English. Pass it off as a reminder of the terrible life of the pagans and the importance of finding Christ. Get lost Gibson. I like how I actually feel angry about Mel Gibson doing this even though there is no indication that he will do as much and I merely drafted him in from my imagination.

Just as well it wasn't released here.

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posted by danny @ 07:26, ,


♣ Dead Man's Shoes

I have read a fair amount of bad press for this film, saying it's not up to scratch. Lewis Beale of the Film Journal International says it, 'Isn't a mess, but it's sure no competition for Winchester 73, Once Upon a Time in the West or even Kill Bill, films in which payback really is a bitch.' I think he somewhat misses the point however. In my mind (and others dispute this) Dead Man's Shoes is more than a simple slasher movie. It is affecting and disturbing, and, led by Paddy Considine, the actor who plays Richard, it manages to pull it off with a fair amount of panache. In short, it has a great deal of depth, paticularly psychological depth which the others simply don't have to the same degree.

As for plot: Richard returns home from military service to a small town in the Midlands. He has one thing on his mind: revenge. Payback for the local bullies who did some very bad things to his brother Anthony. (These bad things are gradually explained in flashback, and with increasing ferocity, making for a climatic realisation of the reason for Richard's killing spree). At first his campaign employs guerrilla tactics, designed to frighten the men and put them ill at ease. But then he steps up his operation, and one by one the local tough guys are picked off by the terrifying angel of vengeance that Richard has become. In the final flashback we come to understand that Richard's brother is actually dead. This is something of a revelation as we see his brother following him in various scenes, with direct dialogue between the two, leading to a Sixth Sense style realisation that he is a part of Richard's memory now. This aspect of the film was an excellent addition. No explanation is made for the brother, the film is too slick for that, it merely expects the audience to understand Anthony is now an intrinsic part of Richard's revenge-set mind. Similiarly, we do not really understand the reason for Richard's vigilante attacks until the final flashback when we see his brither die at the hands of those he now kills. It's something of an ask for the audience to keep up with the action not really understanding the motive, and I appreciate the film not dumbing down for the sake of easy watching. The mysteriousness of Richard's vendetta is a useful device; it echoes the vengeful and animalistic nature of Richard's revenge, implicating the audience in Richard's psyche (as he later says, "Now I'm the monster.")
Richard: [to Mark] You, you were supposed to be a monster - now I'm the fucking beast. There's blood on my hands, from what you made me do.

There is a small but appreciable element of humour noir here as well. At one stage, Sonny, one of the main persecuters of Anthony attempts to kill Richard by shooting him, but only manages to shoot his colleague Big Al in the head. This kind of darkly macabre slapstick only enhances the surreal ambiance of the film. In another scene, Richard meets the wife of his final victim Mark, and she accuses him of giving a knife to her son, which of course he did. Richard's reply is the telling, 'but it was blunt' and here we see Richard at his most childlike; he fails to understand how this is 'irresponsible.'

This was the first film I had seen from Shane Meadows, though his name had been bounded about a lot in front of me, and I thought his direction was actually very good. The film seemed to rise above the simple killings of several men to deal with grander themes: revenge, mercy, the point at which man becomes animal, and the squalid decadance of the bourgeoise pretenders in little England; shifting drugs like small kings. Cinematically, there are some fantastic shots; a good use of filters, perspectives etc lend the film an uncanny air throughout much of it, giving a slightly surreal atmosphere. The film as it's whole is a wonderful package. Film and sound come together incredibly well, complimenting one another perfectly. The harsh electronic sounds of the score provide a chilling backdrop to the murders, and sum up the dystopian view of life in their cacophony.

The film comes in at just 120 minutes. It's short by any standard, but by the end we feel that to have carried on any longer would have been an indulgence. All credit must be given to Meadows for producing a film quite bare bones in terms of production, but so much grander in execution and thematic content. Meadows also has an excellent eye for locations, something reflected in his cinematography. Even in the first opening shots we see a picture of Midlands suburbia, bland in all senses of the word, and yet, in the very distance the powerful silhouetteed intrusion of a castle on a hill. This Gothic incursion into the ordered and banal life of suburbia gives us immediately an impression of the untapped power, the looming threat of more primal elements coming to power. This certainly reflects the cast: in a town of big fish in a small pond, it's the agressive nomad, the troubled outsider who wreaks revenge on his former friends. In one of Richard's early attacks on his victims (at this point he is more concerned with firhgtening and humiliating them rather than actually killing them) there is a terrific shot of two fat men sprawled on couches; near-empty pizza boxes strewn about the room, decorated in the most tasteless way possible. When Richard comes to the scene and spray paints their clothes and hair, we can't help but feel a certain empathy with him. If this life portrayed is what Richard stands against, is it any great loss? There are a number of great scenes showing the contrast between the victims indulgent, stagnant lifestyles, cooped up in dark, drug-filled dens with Richard's own vagrant lifestyle. He stays for the majority of the film outdoors, seeking shelter in an abandoned outbuilding of a farm. There's obviously a great deal of imagery here in terms of the raw strength of nature's fury (Richard's revenge) and his victims weakness, having succumbed to the easy life, a life which is emasculating in it's removal of dignity. There is more than a hint of the Romantic Byronic hero here as well; the nomadic Richard has a definite power, wandering through, seeking something, which allies him even more to the audiences sympathies.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the film is in Paddy Considine's rendition of Richard. It is rare to find in film an anti-hero of such tremendous psychopathic tendencies, and yet one capable of such endearment. Though Richard's murders are graphic and uncompromising, Meadows allows for a look at his complex psychology and allows us to feel more than a little pathos for the man under the mask. (Literally 'the mask' - for a good portion of the film Richard wears an old gas mask to kill his targets, showing not just his military background, but his faceless, driven focus for murder).



Penguin from Penguin's verdict? 4 1/2 Artic Penguino's

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posted by danny @ 06:24, ,


Kent struck by earthquake!

My oh my, looks like Kent is the new OC. Mind, the damage seems to ahve been fairly limited, and the locals seem to have blown it up in the way that only old aged tory-voting Brits can do. Here is the link from the Beeb.

Makes for fairly hilarious reading. Here are some of my favourite responses to this, what a Sky Newscaster claimed today as 'a national emergency.'

Paul Smye-Rumsby, who lives in Dover, said: "It was about 08.15 when suddenly the bed shook violently. "I thought my wife had got cramp or something but then I saw the curtains were moving and the whole house was shaking.

And thanks to Ben Macphee in Canterbury for the following startling display of elementary logic. I was woken up by the bed shaking, my first thought was 'this feels like an earthquake' but then I thought 'this is Kent, we don't get earthquakes'. Apparently we do.

Karol Steele from Dover probably gives the most honest account of (the very little) that happened:
"The seagulls went crazy and in parts of Dover the electricity is off."

Need I say more?


posted by danny @ 04:56, ,


♣ Easy Rider

from wikipedia:

Along with Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider helped kick-start an artistic renaissance in Hollywood during the late sixties and early seventies. The major studios realised that money could be made from low-budget films made by directors with artistic intentions. Heavily influenced by the French New Wave, the films of the so-called "Hollywood Renaissance" came to represent a generation increasingly disillusioned with their government and the world.

This film was something of a mixed bag for me; better overall than I expected it would be, but a lot more self-aware, as well, which I found to be quite limiting. Some good performances, this 1969 film is all about that great American preoccupation: the road. Journeying down the road, Billy and Captain Jack head off on initially a financially-provoked basis, but find by the end that there journey has had a more important, spiritual aspect, and one that they have not truly embraced or learnt from. In all honesty, the plot is fairly inconsequential, the film is far more concerned with the problems faced by the two men, their solutions, and the relationships they build up on the way. In this respect it's quintessentially 60's. There is perhaps a little bit too much hippy-style preaching for the modern watcher, and the whole film is certainly a child of it's time. Billy and Captain America very early on pick up a stranger who they dutifully return to his commune. It's actually quite a pathetic scene for the flower-power brigade in all honesty. The commune the scene is set at is populated by 'city kids' according to the stranger, and we watch them futiley spreading seed in the thin, dusty soil of a dry earth. The two motorcycle riders see the absurdity of their quest, but nonetheless hold a certain respect for the group.
No, I mean it, you've got a nice place. It's not every man that can live off the land, you know. You do your own thing in your own time. You should be proud.
However, it is quite easy to feel that, in a way these individuals, searching for some kind of plug to fill their lives have not quite understood the ethos of living your own way, of ethical libertarianism which the two bikers seem to have found. Instead for them is a kind of going through the motions facade of freedom. The commune seems to have swallowed the image of the hippy itself as free-living, and rather overlooked the spiritual ramifications. When they ask for, 'simple food for simple people' it is hard not to think that they too have taken up a stereotypical role in society quite like the corporates and yuppies they claim to despise. The unavoidable reference to the overpowering tyranny of the state comes in the form, of all things, a float parade. The two protagonists join in and are promptly arrested for not having a liscence. The message clearly is that even in a time of celebration, the government can't allow for the free-spirited and non-conformists to do as they please. Whilst frankly I am too tired to write about the entire story, let's just say Jack Nicholas has a ver convincing and charming role, though sadly is beaten to death in his sleep when sleeping rough with the other two (note, not copulating with them, merely engaging in the act of sleep nearby for all you slight perverts). This mindless brutality of the conformist masses (we are led to beleive that a group seen earlier threataning the travellers are responsible, one of whom is a policeman) is shown to me violent and counter-productive; the only person who survives is a fairly conservative Nicholas, so conservative he very doggedly tries to avoid smoking grass by the campfire in an earlier scene, saying, 'it leads onto harder things.' The ending of the film is the triumph. Having sucessfully transported drugs and as a result made a small fortune, Billy brags of their voctory, whilst Wyatt (Captain America) merely wonders at where they went wrong:

Billy: We did it, man. We did it, we did it. We're rich, man. We're retirin' in Florida now, mister.
Wyatt: You know Billy, we blew it.

In the final scene, both men are presumed to be dead after a drive by shooting and an explosion. It's a fairly pessimistic note to end on, but at least an honest one. Travelling the road or living in communes itself is not simply enough. Without the spiritual consideration of man, all these acts are hollow. Plus I love any movie which doesn't make me want to drink epicac and run screaming for the doors with optimism. Overall, it's a good movie, an interesting movie, but perhaps a bit too pretentious for it's own good. Subtelty is not this film's strength, but the messages it does get across are often well considered and powerful. One final note must be made concerning the cinematography of a number of drug-based scenes. Shot on 16mm, and using harsh, dischordant sound and sudden cuts, the screen envelops us in the madness of the trip; arguably a paradigm of the far longer lasting 'trip' the pair of bikers take, with all its twists and turns. Good stuff, and very effective.

Fezwearer's verdict? 3 1/2 Feztastic cymbal-clapping monkey butlers

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posted by danny @ 17:34, ,


Ch-changes

I've been thinking lots about how to make the site as good as it can be, and how to integrate more media into it. So, all I will say is something is in the works, but I can't say what. Hopefully it's going to be something fairly graphically intensive though, I want to present something really worth looking into. But there will be no more info on it for now. I have to say, the flickr thing at the moment is pretty sexy, I might keep that in the next iteration.

I have done nothing wothwhile today. Again. Sob sob sob. Turrah for now.

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posted by danny @ 10:50, ,


♣ The Conversation


I started watching this film completely on a whim, and it paid off hugely. I had heard mention of the film before, but Gene Hackman (who plays the main protagonist Harry Caul) had never been one of my favourite actors, and the idea of a film based around the adventures of an audio surveillance expert seemed a little bit to techno-focused and dated for my liking.

Obviously I learnt nothing from the revelation that was
Blow Up, a film which incidentally I think The Conversation shares a great deal with. Where Blow Up was concerned with the medium of the still photograph, The Conversation is focused on the medium of audio. The film, which appeared post-Watergate Scandal examines the conflict between the modern intrusions of privacy afforded by the rapid advancement of technology. As a result, a number of postmodern conditions are touched upon. Claustraphobia and isolation, voyeurism, betrayal, paranoia and transcience are all commented upon to greater or lesser effect. But enough of the themes for now, lets move on to the plot proper.

The haunted surveillance expert (Caul) pursues a case (seemingly of marital infidelity) and in doing so discovers that he has become the victim of his own technological profession and intrigue by film's end. (His last name, 'caul', literally means the protective, embryonic membrane that sometimes covers the head of a child at birth.) Well that's it in a nutshell. The film itself is as binary in structure as the polarity of it's themes might suggest. The first half is slow and deliberate, reflecting Harry's own impotence in taking the course of action he feels is needed by the information he finds buried deep on his audio recording. The second half is charachterised by its decision, its assertiveness and its questioning. Harry only realises that he himself is being bugged in the second half, even though a great deal of the first half is spent showing just how protective and closed he is socially and in his work.


At roughly half way, Harry resolves to prevent the murders he believes will inevitably occur as a result of his surveillance attempts. He takes a room next door to the one the couple he first recorded said they would meet at. He listens, as he always does, and crucially, he makes no real move of action, but remains passive. A series of disturbing scenes follow, with Harry seeing blood in a number of different places; though it is never made clear to the audience whether this blood is a result of his paranoia or part of an elaborate deception.

This transition from more deliberate, brooding tones to frenzied neurotic ones works as more than just a charachter development however. It's also an effective device to draw the audience into Harry's own neuroses. As the scenes become increasingly more frantic, we find ourselves questioning our own presumptions about the film, and in a dramatic and even shocking climax, must admit, just as Harry does, that our own perceptions cannot always tell us everything. Even with the best surveillance in the world, we can be duped by ourselves. This is an important message, and one the film shows off quite tastefully. Harry destroys his equipment, searching for the bug we know is in the room, and yet finds nothing. He returns finally to playing his saxophone, a return to the most human part of himself, away from the constructs and artificiality his work afforded him.


We know that you know, Mr. Caul. For your own sake, don't get involved any further. We'll be listening to you. (He hears a playback of his own saxophone playing)


In an expanse on this idea, one of my favourite scenes occurs at the hotel Harry goes to, trying to determine the fate of the couple he recorded. In a series fo shots Harry is filmed through a number of different mediums; a shower curtain, the mottled glass of a patio window, and a mirror. Inviting the audience, no, forcing the audience into a direct involvement with Harry's paranoia of being watched, it works fantastically.

I like to always examine the dimension between charachters in films and texts, and The Conversation, though not presenting a great number of human dynamics, nonetheless has a great deal of thematic content.
The subject of relationships are touched upon, in exactly the same way we would expect Harry to deal with them. Harry falls out with his co-worker Stan over the fairly minor issue of blasphemy, and as for more sunsual relationships, we see only two examples. In the first, we see Harry in what seems to be a genuinely tender but rather stifled relationship with a woman he pays the rent for called Amy. Though we never see there relationship develop to a physical extent, there is a warmth between the two which suggests there might be. However, angered by Amy's qestioning, Harry makes his exit. The second encounter with a woman shows Harry eventually consenting to a friend's (Meredith's) pleas that he 'trust her.' He relates the stroy of Amy and him, and asks Meredith's advice. Harry is hurt when he finds his private conversation has been recorded, and still later when after spending the night with Meredith he finds his tapes have been stolen. These relations show the paradox of Harry's human relations. In the first, there is a willing and genuine concern for him his shown by Amy , but he resents this, and cannot keep his guard down, eventually finiding himself unable to trust her. In the second, on realising his mistake with Amy, he breaks down into tears and wears his heart on his sleeve, only to be double-crossed by Meredith. No wonder he puts these boundary's up in front of him. It is a strength of the film to portray a man of such seemingly irreconcilable work and social ethics. For a man whose job it is to become so intimate with other's conversations and relations, he is remarkably inadequate in his own love life.

Meredith: Something is on your mind. I wish you'd tell me. I do, I wish that, I wish that you'd feel that you could talk to me and, and that we could be friends, I mean, aside from all of this junk.
Harry: (after a long pause) If you were a girl who waited for someone...
Meredith: You can trust me.
Harry: ...and you never really knew when he was gonna come to see you. You just lived in a room alone and you knew nothing about him. And if you loved him and were patient with him, and even though he didn't dare ever tell you anything about himself personally, even though he may have loved you, would you..would you, would you go back to him?
Meredith: How would I know - how would I know that he loved me?
Harry: You'd have no way of knowing.


So then, a verdict. Masterfully shot by Coppolla, this relatively low budget film makes an important move forward; tending to focus on the internal struggles of man, rather than focusing more on the battle between social obligation and personal conviction shown so eloquently on The Godfather II. Special mention must be made to the music within the piece. Utilising the squeals and burbles of audio recording eqipment, it really draws you into the paranoi and obsession of Harry, and works remarkably well.

Tintin's Verdict? 5 Mass-hypnotised Gallic Catoon charachters

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posted by danny @ 15:29, ,


A Dull Day

Well, it has been another dull day. To be honest, I'm starting to look forward to revising next week, it will at least prevent boredom. I woke up today at 2 after watching The Conversation. I think I will stick in a review perhaps. Today what I mainly did was plan what I was going to do tommorow. Which is tragically short-sighted, and hardly progressive, but there you are. When I finish I will write a new review for sure, it's been pretty good.

Also have been thinking about what I will do at university a lot and have to say I am really excited at the prospect of fencing, I watched loads of it on YouTube, and it was bloody brilliant. Also checked out The Cheesegrater, UCL's alternative publication, and have to say if I get in, I want a piece of that pie. Check it out.

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posted by danny @ 13:21, ,


♣ To A Fault

I freely admit that Nick Laird's first collection of poetry was only partly read on my part out of intellectual and cultural curiosity. A much larger part was I wanted to get to know my future rival in vying for the attention of the beautiful Zadie Smith. Alright, so they are married already, but a guy's gotta dream. But I digress. How was his poetry?

Really quite well. Unfortunately, it's hardly the largest volume of poetry I have ever seen in my life, but then, its quality and not quantity that's important. The collection deals with a number of different situations, but is rooted in the obligatary conflict of Laird's Northern Irish upbringing. Much of the rest of the poetry maintains the kind of binary conflict of Northern Ireland; love : hat; man : woman, and the like.

The first poem set me up for a good read. Cuttings weaves a thread of sectarian conflict into a nostalgic trip, and contains some really excellent imagery.

Methodical dust shades the combs and pomade
while the wielded goodwill of the sunlight picks up
a patch of paisley wallpaper to expand steadily on it.

As a fan of very evocative, image filled poetry, this start seemed a good start. There was a fair amount of variety in the collection, but on the whole, it was just a little bit continuously dark for my liking. I almost want to say to Mr. Laird, please, have fun with it. Nonetheless, despite being fairly dark, his poetry is good, and technically diverse. Dare I say it, in places, too diverse. When Laird tackles Layered he takes on (and here he is criticised more than any other part of his collection) the role of the third-way / new labour dialect of the modern everyman.

I remember poncing a fag off some guy at the bar, Then downing the dregs of my last pint of stout,
It's just not effective though, and has such an air of artificiality that it rather ruins this section of the poem. Perhaps this is just to be put down to a first time poet experimenting with his voice though. Certainly there are some excellent moments. Aubade is one of my favourite poems of the collection. Combining a remarkable perception into the contradictions of love, yet still maintiaing a fluid and exquisitely readable style, it's a triumph.
Go home. I haven't slept alone in weeks and need to reach across the sheets to find not warmth but loss.
Overall, an impressive debut, if a little clumsy and morose in places.

Tintin's rating?




posted by danny @ 13:05, ,


French Elections

With an almost 90% turnout. It really makes you a little bit embarrassed with the UK voting statistics.

Good luck to
Ségolène Royal incidentaly.

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posted by danny @ 09:54, ,


♣ Lucky Jim

What first attracted me to Lucky Jim was not only it's reputation as one of the first Campus Novels, but also because of it's legendary humour. From the back of my edition (Penguin Classics) I can see that Helen Dunmore of The Times liked it enough to call it, 'a flawless comic novel.'

Well, flawless it isn't, but nonetheless, it was an exceptional read, albeit a slightly dated one. The story follows the eponymous Jim Dixon, a temporary Medieval History lecturer at an unnamed provincial university (though there are hints that it may be Leiscester.) After a number of undisclosed 'incidents' within the department, Jim recognises his likely dismissal at the end of the year. As such, much of his time is spent pursuing a publisher for his paper, 'The Economic Influence of the Developments in Shipbuilding Techniques, 1450 - 1485,' and trying to please his eccentric old-guard mentor, Professor Welsch. Increasingly however, Jim finds it hard to cope with the pretention he sees in the cliques of the University, suffering untold misery at a university ball, and sheer horror at the frankly wierd social he finds himself thrust into at a weekend away at Mr. Welsch's house. Here, trying to cope with the high society of rural England, he copes with choral recitals and the Welsch family. Perhaps symbolic of the people Jim finds himself cast against is Bertrand Welsch, the bohemian-styled, yet conservatively-minded painter; son of Professor Welsch. In trying to avoid blending into the pompous social circles of the decaying intellegentsia, Jim troops onwards and symbolically manages to nab Bertrand's girlfriend from him.

Within this framework is a quite powerful focus on relationships, both friendship and more sensual in tone. Dealing very much with the power plays of colleagues, friends and lovers, the book develops charachters (notably the neurotic Margaret) that can seem all too familiar.


Despite the archaisms in the courting, the book for me stands up best in it's observation, and in it's accuracy. On a precursory page to the main text an old song is written, 'Oh lucky Jim, how I envy him.' This is quite apt, because Lucky Jim represents the common man. He's rarely referred to by anything other than his last name, disassociating him from any corporeal indentity and emphasising his everyman quality, but most importantly, it's his attitude to the dire lifestyle he must endure, quite outside his comfort zone that will raises so many chuckles of recognition from readers.

What then of the humour? That is, afterall, what this book is supposedly famous for. Jim is in the habit of making absurd faces throughout the book whenever something demands his paticular displeasure, my personal favourite the, '
Sex Life in Ancient Roman face.' It's also in Jim's designs to violently attack those who annoy him, and hyperbolically relate the smallest frustrations into the most epic of problems. At one point Jim wakes up at the Welsch's house after their weekend get-together to find that whilst drunk (he has a habit of turning to alcohol for escapsim) he burn the sheets of his bed with a cigarette. In a fit of hysteria, brought on by fear and desperation, he decides the best course of action would be to cut the holes out. Then realising his fatal error, that the holes no longer look natural, but part of some pre-ordained attack on bedlinens, he further rips them apart with a pair of scissors. It really is funny stuff, and something I continually enjoy is how many of the comedic situations are referred to repeatedly in the book. It allows for the physical comedy to be restored, but also savoured in a very different way. We find ourselves moving from the pure belly laugh of slapstick to a guilty, dramatic-irony laden chuckle we get everytime Mrs. Welsch starts to ask pressing questions about her bed sheets.

To give you a flavour, here is a snippet from one of my favourite passages where Jim is desperate to reach the train station in order to meet his object of desire. With time ticking slowly away, frustration leads Jim into insane ramblings:

Just then the bus rounded a corner and slowed abrubtly, then stopped. Making a lot of noise, a farm tractor was laboriously pulling, at right angles across the road, something that looked like the springs of a giant's bed...Dixon thought he really would have torun downstairs and knife the drivers of both vehicles; what next? what next? What actually would be next: a masked hold-up, a smash, floods, a burst tyre, an electric storm with falling trees and meteorites, a diversion, a low-level attack by Communist aircraft...?

As the traffic thickened slightly towards the town, the driver added to his hypertrophied caution a psychopathic devotion to the interests of other road-users; the sight of anything between a removal val and a junior bicycle halved his speed to four miles an hour and sent his hand, Dixon guessed, flapping in a slow-motion St Vitus' dance of beckonings and wavings-on.

He never airs these feelings however, until his lecture on
Merrie England' and I for one certainly can relate to the kind of high drama and comic basis Jim lend his everyday life.

A quick mention should also be given to the pace of the book. In short, it's done extremely well. Torturous scenes and dialogue really do bring that same feeling to the reader with their slow, innane structure, and scenes of a faster nature, paticualrly those scenes where Jim takes the charge with people can move at a staggering rate. The scenes of Jim's drunkeness are the best-wrought however; they impart that slow-moving feeling we all know, coupled with the horrific realisation that there is nothing you can do but wait to see how your own actions will pan out. The device of cigarettes is also used to measure out periods of time, always bringing us back into the monotony of Jim's life, refusing to let us go with Jim on flights of fancy. Jim claims that he cannot afford more than a strict ration of cigarettes a day, and so any whims he might care to pursue are brought back down by the pragmatism of Jim's habit. (Oddly, it seems everyone in the novel smokes.)

As noted, there are a number of archaisms in the text, but these are easily looked over. Those looking for a novel dealing with the nuances of courtship might well be pleased however, there is more than enough depth to charachters dynamics to confront readers. I do wish however that, as honest as the text is, the ending had not been quite so flagrantly optimistic. With respect to spoilers I shan't go into anything, but I did think the conclusion a tad arbitrary, and not really in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book.

Overall however, this is a great read. The subtlety and the strength of the observational humour inside astounds, and yet, being of a very frank, and in some places, dark tone, does not overwhelm. Charachters are well-realised and easily-recognised, and the book as a whole deserves all the praise it gets.

Tintin Verdict? Four Tintin's of Fury

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posted by danny @ 02:32, ,


Knuckling down

I'm really bored. First of all, I have made myself a promise that I am going to really start knuckling down after next week; zone in on some philosophical goodness. Hopefully it's all going to pay off, because I have been so worried about not getting into UCL. Twice lol.

Been reading a fair old bit though.
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis was excellent and a little dark-hearted, but very comic in a kind of macabre way. I will stick a book review up soon. Still making my way through The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov though, it's something of an epic read. Pretty sure it will be worth it though; very honest writing. Anyway, hitting the hay now, so turrah!

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posted by danny @ 13:18, ,