Coincidentally, my husband is also in France, in Paris, with work. This is also unfair but as he doesn’t like my posting pictures of him on my blog I won’t try to find one of him looking bored and constrained by clothing. He tells me he tried snails today for the first time. Lucky him.
Meanwhile, I’m still in Reading.
I wrote this morning and then spent the afternoon doing laundry and reading Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. I’m enjoying the book thoroughly; it’s a novel based on the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one particular incident where he sought to clear the name of a wrongly-accused man. It hits on several of my (obsessive) interests: Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes), Victorian England, and 19th-century spiritualism. Originally I had quite a bit of stuff about the history of spiritualism in my novel Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak, but I had to cut it for the sake of pacing, and I’m wondering, inspired by Barnes, if I could use it in another, wholly different type of story. The wheels are turning, though when I’d have time to write that book, I have no idea.
Then I went to see The Da Vinci Code which was pretty much the stupidest story I’d ever seen in my life but I went with a good friend (who assures me the book is much better) and the company more than made up for the film’s deficits.
I thought the book was pretty good. I keep hearing bad stuff about the movie, so I’ll probably skip the theater and wait for the dvd.
Have fun with the story planning!
My ds went yesterday. He said that the ending was overly long and tedious.
The book is a page turning thriller, full stop.
Dan Brown’s books (particularly his early ones) should be read because the bones of his craft are so clearly on display.
The book is full of exposition of the “You didn’t know that? Sit down I’ll tell you all about it…” (which personally I found patronising and tedious as well as being a load of mendacious old tosh).
According to the reviewers on Radio 4, that didn’t translate well to film. Well, no… obviously.
Sigh. Stupid film. But was it FUN? I’ve long ago given up going to the cinema for any reason other than entertainment…
I do hope you can find a way to recycle that stuff – would be most cool.
Yes but why read a bunch of old crap about Catholic conspiracies to subjugate women when Jane Austen’s and Charles Dickens’s and Val McDiarmid’s and Stephen King’s and John Irving’s and Jennifer Crusie’s and {insert other novelist without stupid story} craft bones are ALSO so clearly on display?
My friend really did enjoy the book–she was disappointed because the movie was so different–so maybe I will give it a try, but I have to say the movie put me off completely. I mean, these characters are supposed to be historians, and the logic and methods they apply are the sloppiest thing ever. “Somebody said this once and so it’s this TOTAL CONSPIRACY, and look, Mary Magdalene in 1 AD connects directly with witch burnings in the 16th century because we say so and we happen to have a copy of Malleus Maleficarum hanging around in paperback!”
Apparently the book is more believable, but I’m telling you, there were NO craft bones on display in that movie. The only distinctive character was Paul Bettany as the killer albino. He was interesting.
As you can see, it was worth seeing because of the pleasure I’m getting from ranting about it. Plus it means that Jenny has to go see X-Men 3 with me next week, and that is bound to be a good movie, also with Ian McKellan.
I’d watch anything with Paul Bettany…
You should see this then. He actually gets naked quite a bit. Though it’s for quite an unsavoury purpose.
Still, it’s better than the rather frightening glimpse of Tom Hank’s naked torso that appears in the penultimate scene of the film.
God, I am so shallow. You should all take my film reviews with a pinch of salt.
Nope, that’s me out. The sloppy historian-isms in Time Team make me scream at the TV – I’d get thrown out of the cinema in the DVC.
Although X-Men… YEAH BABY!
Actually the killer albino was one of the most interesting characters in the book too–him and the museum curator who dies in the first scene.
The characters are completely flat, cardboard cutouts stuck in because, well, you have to have characters to carry your marvelous story along, right?
And as someone else said, the book is filled with history lessons that are rather boring in print and must be deadly on screen.
Spiritulism. Now there’s an interesting subject (says she who’s a member of the Spiritualist church).
Haven’t seen the film or read the book and don’t intend to do either. I very rarely read books that have been hyped up the way the DaVinci Code has.
I liked it. I’d read the book, but about 2 years ago, so of course forgot a ton. The characters were cardboard in the book, too, though.