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Recently read books
I'm not sure what's most embarrassing: that an English professor reads so few books outside of her job these days, that I've already forgotten the names of characters in two of the three novels I read, or that I already can't easily lay hands on the first of the three novels I'll mention. It's somewhere in the house. We have hundreds of books. Maybe thousands.
I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum in my reviews, but I make no promises about comments.
Neuromancer by William Gibson
You may recall that I was not pleased at all with The Difference Engine, cowritten by Gibson and Bruce Sterling, so I was a little reluctant to read Neuromancer. Yet I wanted to read Neuromancer because a) I'm told it's a classic and b) someone said I should read it before Mona Lisa Overdrive, and I kind of have to read a book titled Mona Lisa Overdrive, if only for the title.
I found Neuromancer much better than The Difference Engine and mostly enjoyed it. It had more violence than I expected; I like to be prepared for violence, at the least. I have heard people say that The Matrix rips off this novel, and it's true (though in Stargate we call it "homage"; in Medieval Studies, we call it standard practice). I wasn't entirely engaged by the characters, but I was very much drawn into their world: a future where people hook into the 'net and where all kinds of unsavory practices exist: lots of drug use; surely some foundational ideas for Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, though I haven't seen anyone mention that; and filthy rich, excessively powerful people who consider themselves beyond the law. I found this future well-imagined (and, at moments, scarily accurate). The plot really gripped me, even though I was never entirely sympathetic to the characters. I think Gibson doesn't write women awfully well, but he was writing third-person limited from the point of view of a male character, and what we saw of the female characters made sense. (I didn't feel it was outright sexist, as I felt Difference Engine was.)
It was a good read, and I think it has held up amazingly well for a book published in 1984 (although I did find myself visualizing the Net in ways that looked like the original Tron—that may have been because I knew how old the book was).
At some point, I'll have to read Mona Lisa Overdrive. I'll have to find it first, however. I think it's around here somewhere. . . .
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Sadly, this book made me remember why I gave up reading Clarke many years ago. He makes Gibson look like a master of the psychological novel. HAL has as much personality as most of these folks, and I think I had more sympathy for poor HAL. There was a couple who had marriage contract that was limited to X years and the fact that at least the husband had another relationship, about which he did mean to tell his wife, because in the future people are open to that. Despite those characteristics, in my head they sounded and looked (and even dressed) like characters from a 1950s tv show, probably because their dialogue could mostly have fit into a 1950s tv show. The characters I liked best disappeared from the story (though one returned later), but "liked best" was a relative thing.
I'm very character-oriented. That's why I watched Monk even as the mysteries got terrible and I watch all kinds of implausible tv (and complain about the implausibility). Clarke lost me on characters. I was still very curious about what was happening, though, so I kept reading. Speaking of rip-offs: as Clarke notes in his preface to the updated edition, the mini-series V totally ripped off his scene of alien saucers suddenly appearing all around earth. So did the updated series.
I read all the way to the end because I wanted to understand, and then I wanted all those hours of my life back! I won't tell you how I think it went wrong, because that would spoil the ending, but seriously? I think that's why I liked the movie of 2001 better than the book: the visuals so entranced me that I didn't care that the ending either didn't make sense, or I didn't like what sense it made.
One last point: this book does feel really dated, which is not surprising, because it was first published in 1953. The chapter he added to update it a little does nothing for it. The part that really made my eyes bug out was when he described a racist term as having become no worse than "Republican" or "Democrat," because black people were so accepted in all countries that it had lost the power to hurt. Would that it were true. I can't blame him for being an optimist (and I must credit him for having a major character be an educated black man in a 1953 novel), but things like that threw me out of the novel.
I wouldn't recommend it.
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Boy, it took a lot longer last time I read this book! I was in grade school then.
Here's what I didn't like: unless I lost track of someone somewhere (which is possible given the conditions under which I read), there are no named female characters. Seriously. I won't count as a character that relation of Bilbo's who is mentioned negatively but never actually appears. Thirteen dwarves, one hobbit, a wizard, trolls, elves, humans, goblins, and one dragon. No women. Srlsy, J.R.R.? Dude! (Yes, I am hoping Peter Jackson will fix this, if only a little. There's not a lot he can do, but he can include some female elves and human beings. Maybe one or two might even get a name.)
I enjoyed it anyway. It's like a fairy tale (or medieval literature): I can only get my back up so far about the sexism (and probably racism—but couldn't Peter Jackson have cast some non-white dwarves?). That may be a defect in me, but it's very helpful in my line of work. I love Bilbo. I enjoy Gandalf, and I had virtually forgotten Beorn, whom I really liked upon rereading. I had forgotten crucial plot details, so I could be surprised again. I laughed; I cried; I said, "When's the movie coming out?" (IMDb now says "2012." I swear it said 2011 for a time. Yeah, right.)
I did read with the movies very much in mind (LOTR, which I've seen, and of course the forthcoming Hobbit, which I haven't seen, but whose casting I have followed with tremendous interest). I heard Ian McKellen's voice every time Gandalf opened his mouth, but that's rather to be expected at this point. I'm afraid I didn't always hear Martin Freeman when I read Bilbo. Partly, I'm trying to picture him with brown, curly hair, and funny clothes, and funny ears, and funny feet. I get as far as funny clothes (I've seen photos of him and Ben Cumberbatch turning up at premieres, so "funny clothes" is no stretch at all), but I think a bit of Ian Holm might have been creeping into my head a little (which makes no sense, because we hardly saw him in LOTR!). My bad. Of course I had little trouble with Elrond. I couldn't keep the dwarves straight, so no luck there. (I couldn't be bothered to look them up on IMDb. I knew Aidan Turner played one of Kili and Fili, but they had so few lines it hardly mattered.)
Despite my failure to envision Martin Freeman as Bilbo consistently, I am now convinced that Freeman is the perfect actor to play the character. He spent much of Sherlock suffering in ways comparable to Bilbo, so he has had plenty of practice! (Also, he made a great Arthur Dent. Arthur is also a decent man who seems to suffer far more than he deserves.) I should probably make a separate post* about why John Watson and Bilbo are nearly the same person—apart from furry feet, the hair, the ears, and the clothes. (No, the woolly jumpers don't count at all as funny clothes. They're wonderful. I love them. I hope he wears them throughout the second series of Sherlock; I fear they will be filming in warmer weather, and I won't get to see the jumpers so much!)
* ETA: I made that post already. (Go me!)
I'm not sure what's most embarrassing: that an English professor reads so few books outside of her job these days, that I've already forgotten the names of characters in two of the three novels I read, or that I already can't easily lay hands on the first of the three novels I'll mention. It's somewhere in the house. We have hundreds of books. Maybe thousands.
I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum in my reviews, but I make no promises about comments.
Neuromancer by William Gibson
You may recall that I was not pleased at all with The Difference Engine, cowritten by Gibson and Bruce Sterling, so I was a little reluctant to read Neuromancer. Yet I wanted to read Neuromancer because a) I'm told it's a classic and b) someone said I should read it before Mona Lisa Overdrive, and I kind of have to read a book titled Mona Lisa Overdrive, if only for the title.
I found Neuromancer much better than The Difference Engine and mostly enjoyed it. It had more violence than I expected; I like to be prepared for violence, at the least. I have heard people say that The Matrix rips off this novel, and it's true (though in Stargate we call it "homage"; in Medieval Studies, we call it standard practice). I wasn't entirely engaged by the characters, but I was very much drawn into their world: a future where people hook into the 'net and where all kinds of unsavory practices exist: lots of drug use; surely some foundational ideas for Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, though I haven't seen anyone mention that; and filthy rich, excessively powerful people who consider themselves beyond the law. I found this future well-imagined (and, at moments, scarily accurate). The plot really gripped me, even though I was never entirely sympathetic to the characters. I think Gibson doesn't write women awfully well, but he was writing third-person limited from the point of view of a male character, and what we saw of the female characters made sense. (I didn't feel it was outright sexist, as I felt Difference Engine was.)
It was a good read, and I think it has held up amazingly well for a book published in 1984 (although I did find myself visualizing the Net in ways that looked like the original Tron—that may have been because I knew how old the book was).
At some point, I'll have to read Mona Lisa Overdrive. I'll have to find it first, however. I think it's around here somewhere. . . .
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Sadly, this book made me remember why I gave up reading Clarke many years ago. He makes Gibson look like a master of the psychological novel. HAL has as much personality as most of these folks, and I think I had more sympathy for poor HAL. There was a couple who had marriage contract that was limited to X years and the fact that at least the husband had another relationship, about which he did mean to tell his wife, because in the future people are open to that. Despite those characteristics, in my head they sounded and looked (and even dressed) like characters from a 1950s tv show, probably because their dialogue could mostly have fit into a 1950s tv show. The characters I liked best disappeared from the story (though one returned later), but "liked best" was a relative thing.
I'm very character-oriented. That's why I watched Monk even as the mysteries got terrible and I watch all kinds of implausible tv (and complain about the implausibility). Clarke lost me on characters. I was still very curious about what was happening, though, so I kept reading. Speaking of rip-offs: as Clarke notes in his preface to the updated edition, the mini-series V totally ripped off his scene of alien saucers suddenly appearing all around earth. So did the updated series.
I read all the way to the end because I wanted to understand, and then I wanted all those hours of my life back! I won't tell you how I think it went wrong, because that would spoil the ending, but seriously? I think that's why I liked the movie of 2001 better than the book: the visuals so entranced me that I didn't care that the ending either didn't make sense, or I didn't like what sense it made.
One last point: this book does feel really dated, which is not surprising, because it was first published in 1953. The chapter he added to update it a little does nothing for it. The part that really made my eyes bug out was when he described a racist term as having become no worse than "Republican" or "Democrat," because black people were so accepted in all countries that it had lost the power to hurt. Would that it were true. I can't blame him for being an optimist (and I must credit him for having a major character be an educated black man in a 1953 novel), but things like that threw me out of the novel.
I wouldn't recommend it.
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Boy, it took a lot longer last time I read this book! I was in grade school then.
Here's what I didn't like: unless I lost track of someone somewhere (which is possible given the conditions under which I read), there are no named female characters. Seriously. I won't count as a character that relation of Bilbo's who is mentioned negatively but never actually appears. Thirteen dwarves, one hobbit, a wizard, trolls, elves, humans, goblins, and one dragon. No women. Srlsy, J.R.R.? Dude! (Yes, I am hoping Peter Jackson will fix this, if only a little. There's not a lot he can do, but he can include some female elves and human beings. Maybe one or two might even get a name.)
I enjoyed it anyway. It's like a fairy tale (or medieval literature): I can only get my back up so far about the sexism (and probably racism—but couldn't Peter Jackson have cast some non-white dwarves?). That may be a defect in me, but it's very helpful in my line of work. I love Bilbo. I enjoy Gandalf, and I had virtually forgotten Beorn, whom I really liked upon rereading. I had forgotten crucial plot details, so I could be surprised again. I laughed; I cried; I said, "When's the movie coming out?" (IMDb now says "2012." I swear it said 2011 for a time. Yeah, right.)
I did read with the movies very much in mind (LOTR, which I've seen, and of course the forthcoming Hobbit, which I haven't seen, but whose casting I have followed with tremendous interest). I heard Ian McKellen's voice every time Gandalf opened his mouth, but that's rather to be expected at this point. I'm afraid I didn't always hear Martin Freeman when I read Bilbo. Partly, I'm trying to picture him with brown, curly hair, and funny clothes, and funny ears, and funny feet. I get as far as funny clothes (I've seen photos of him and Ben Cumberbatch turning up at premieres, so "funny clothes" is no stretch at all), but I think a bit of Ian Holm might have been creeping into my head a little (which makes no sense, because we hardly saw him in LOTR!). My bad. Of course I had little trouble with Elrond. I couldn't keep the dwarves straight, so no luck there. (I couldn't be bothered to look them up on IMDb. I knew Aidan Turner played one of Kili and Fili, but they had so few lines it hardly mattered.)
Despite my failure to envision Martin Freeman as Bilbo consistently, I am now convinced that Freeman is the perfect actor to play the character. He spent much of Sherlock suffering in ways comparable to Bilbo, so he has had plenty of practice! (Also, he made a great Arthur Dent. Arthur is also a decent man who seems to suffer far more than he deserves.) I should probably make a separate post* about why John Watson and Bilbo are nearly the same person—apart from furry feet, the hair, the ears, and the clothes. (No, the woolly jumpers don't count at all as funny clothes. They're wonderful. I love them. I hope he wears them throughout the second series of Sherlock; I fear they will be filming in warmer weather, and I won't get to see the jumpers so much!)
* ETA: I made that post already. (Go me!)
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*hugs you*
I noticed that about the Hobbit. Also, I could read anything as a child and the Hobbit bored me to bits. Much prefered the Disney animated movie (still do).
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Best quote from a post ever. *dies laughing*
It's been years since I've read The Hobbit, so I'm not sure what Me-Of-Current-Time's thoughts would be, but I'm horrendously bad at 'spotting' the -isms in books. The obvious stuff, yeah, I usually see it, but still like - there wasn't any girls in the Grand Adventure? Totally pass me by! If Bilbo (or someone) had said, "You can't come, because you're a girl." Then I'd've been, "Oh Hell No!" But the subversive? implicit? -isms? I'm a lost cause.
2001: A Space Odyssey - I read (and loved) the book first. I hated, with the passion of a thousand firey suns, the film. In fact, I don't think I saw past the first half hour. I've never been so disappointed in a film in my entire life. (And I've had some disappointments...) Caveat: It has been some years since I read the 2001 series.
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Then I reread the book, and I still couldn't. I enjoyed it anyway.
I saw the movie 2001 before I read the book, which may have shaped my reaction. (You have to get past the first half hour. It isn't really good until after that! Borrow the DVD and skip the first thirty minutes!)
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