BTW, I have Insomnia and The Outsider on my bookshelf and the 11.22.63 hardcover was on sale on Amazon so I ordered that as well. Any recommendations among those three?
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,569Chief of Staff
11.22.63 is the only Stephen King novel I’ve ever read…and I didn’t know he’d written it 🫣😳
So, while I can’t recommend any of his others - I can recommend that one…I absolutely loved it…although I did read it after watching the the tv series based on it…which I thought excellent 🍸
Just having my little joke. It's not his best IMHO, but it's perhaps his biggest*; unputdownable and unforgettable, I've read it twice and hope to do that again someday.
The film I think is no more than okay. The cast (including our very own Barry Nelson!) do fine and the story's not been altered beyond recognition but (and I know this is sacrilege) Stanley Kubrick never did much for me as a director here or in other films.
* not in actual size, he's written longer books, but in fame, sales, public name value, etc.
Thanks for the comments on 11.22.63; might tackle that next but the 1000 page length is a little intimidating.
@barbel, my cable company recently added the Peacock streaming service to my subscription and I was able to check out Mr. Mercedes. To be honest, I didn't care for what I saw. The story is all there but so much new stuff has been added that it diluted the experience for me. For example Ida, who was a very minor character in the first book, is tuned into Bill's nosy next door neighbor who is always trying to get into his pants, going so far as to show him nude pictures of herself. Bill himself seems quite different from the image I got from the literary version. I got thru four episodes and had to stop. Might give it another go down the road at some point.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,569Chief of Staff
I started the Gray Man series of books the other day. These are by Mark Greaney and essentially cover that whole 'ultra assassin at large' genre of books that is so popular right now. My brother has been begging me to read these so I started them just to shut him up.
First book, THE GRAY MAN, is pretty fun in a 'turn your brain off' kinda way. It's the perfect book to read while you're killing time on an airplane or in a hotel room. Courtland (Court) Gentry is a freelance assassin who was trained by the CIA and now undertakes missions that meet his own personal moral code. He finishes a mission but then gets thrown under the bus for a prior mission, resulting in a ton of assassins from other countries trying to take him out while he makes his way back to France in order to rescue his handler. Action, action, action, action, action.
I started the second book, ON TARGET, the other day. More of the same so far.
There was a Netflix movie called THE GRAY MAN which is essentially the first novel intermixed with elements from several of the other novels. It was ok for what it was but it also exposed the underlying problem with the book series in general: it's really thin in terms of character and plotting. If you just want to see stuff blow up, you'll be fine. If you want anything nuanced, you're flat out out of luck.
Both book and television series are absolutely stunners. I think 11.22.63 will go down as the perfect pairing of both mediums in King’s long repertoire.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I am currently reading and very much enjoying Quentin Tarantino's recent book on 1970s cinema, Cinema Speculation.
It's a selection of essays; the films it covers are: Bullitt,Dirty Harry, The Getaway, Deliverance, The Outfit,Daisy Miller, Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder, Paradise Alley, Escape from Alcatraz, Hardcore and grind house movie The Funhouse.
There's also a chapter devoted to the New Hollywood of the 70s and the young directors of the time, an appreciation of the LA film critic Kevin Thomas, an essay on what would have happened if Brian de Palma had done Taxi Driver as first offered... the book is bookended by two great essays, the first on what it was like for a 7-year-old kid (Quentin himself) in 1970, seeing lots of movies, and closing with a eulogy to one of his single mom's friends whom he hung out with, a fellow movie fan.
I tell you this so you can avoid spoilers by avoiding the films you haven't already seen - for some impish reason the author has chapter headings but no Contents, nor are the titles of the chapters at the top of the pages either. Perhaps he is mimicking the style of some cherished book on cinema he has long admired, not bothered if he's making it hard for us. It's the sort of thing he'd do.
He also dances around all kinds of other movies, namedropping obscurities that make you curious to see them.
The opening chapter is terrific stuff and an eye-opener. Because of the way the ratings work in the US - and some our our American members can vouch for this or dispute it if I've got this wrong - kids can go into see any movie bar an X certificate (and there weren't many of those around) so long as they were accompanied by an adult.
So a 7-year-old Quentin could get into see films with his tolerant and cool mom such as The French Conneciton, Women In Love, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Vincent Price horror flicks, The Godfather, Deliverance, MASH, The Wild Bunch and Patton.
In the UK, when I was 7 I had to settle for stuff like The Sound of Music, The Sting and The Spy Who Loved Me.
This is because of course our ratings were U (Disney and other kids' films), A (later PG) - family films, sometimes cosplaying as grown-up movies (James Bond, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and so on), AA (later 15) - like family films but with a bit of swearing and bare breasts, films your older sibling got to see, and X (later 18) - violent, sexy, sleazy films, really out there.
Tarantino is dismissive of 1970s Bond films and you can see why frankly, given the smorgasbord on offer for him. If you'd seen the cream of black exploitation flicks, Live and Let Die might not be that big a deal. Golden Gun we generally don't rate anyway - these two movies area almost Disney films with a bit of sex. Spy is good stuff for sure but by then Tarantino's tastes would be more sophisticated and even more by the time of the childish Moonraker - a film I love, incidentally.
But beyond all that, you get the idea that Quentin is a fan of movies, of cinema. Where the movie is the star, not the leading man, not the director... He is a fan of pure cinema and he doesn't discriminate in favour of big name releases. He likes it wherever he finds it.
So you can see why Bond isn't a big deal for him, necessarily. In James Bond films, the star isn't the movie. It's not the director (usually they're journeymen, very proficient but not auteurs) and not the leading man (most don't really make their mark away from Bond, I know Connery did but only really once he's physically moved beyond the part of Bond, in the late 1980s). No, the star of the James Bond film is... James Bond. Nothing else.
In contrast, take a film like Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't love this movie. I've enjoyed it a bit over the decades and maybe as it's a slice of cinema, I should have seen it once on the big screen, at least. But the star isn't Indiana Jones. It's not Harrison Ford, who mumbles in a monotone and really only comes alive while sparring with Karen Allen or Sean Connery). It's not even Lucas or Spielberg. No ,the star of Raiders of the Lost Ark is.... Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's the movie.
Same goes with Star Wars. The star isn't Luke Skywalker, or Han Solo, or Princess Leia... Or George Lucas. The star of Star Wars is... Star Wars.
It may explain why when we have a leading man as Bond we can't get behind it, we can't go along with it. I don't care for Dalton, and his two films fall flat. They have nothing cinematic really going on there imo. Otherwise, I might be okay with them. And the same goes if you can't take to Roger Moore.... the films are about the guy. Without getting behind him, well, it's a dead duck.
It may also explain why OHMSS - one of the more cinematic films - may be at the expense of the leading man, Lazenby. Another on this board has pointed out how the director doesn't quite set him up as a leading man the way others did with Connery. Maybe to get around the idea that he wasn't Connery, to fudge the issue? It explains why I love the film at the cinema but not on telly. Fans don't love the star, they don't love James Bond in it imo - they love OHMSS! The movie is the star.
It may even explain why the likes of Raiders or Star Wars didn't have many successfully spin-offs - the magic is hard to replicate. The Bond films' imitators were two a penny, you just got a handsome leading man, put in some action and sex and witty one-liners and bingo! (That said, I guess Jaws had plenty of spin-offs like Piranha and The Deep.)
Tarantino does praise Connery's Diamonds are Forever, the first Bond he ever saw - saying it had along with Dirty Harry it had the best audience cinema reaction he'd ever seen, albeit on the way to praising a blacksploitation film's response far more. He says he later saw a Bond triple bill - From Russia with Love, Dr No and Goldfinger - he lists them in that order, and says he found the first two boring spy movies, but when the third one dropped, he immediately thought 'This is more like it!' (He doesn't say that's his opinion now.) It shows that a film like DAF, not highly rated among many fans, was a real game changer for its time, the way GoldenEye was in its day, and that the first two movies weren't always regarded as the Holy Grail.
(It's worth recalling that Tarantino once put himself in the frame to direct Pierce Brosnan in Casino Royale, set after the events of OHMSS, though really how far that got along the line I don't know.)
Quentin's films are it occurs to me, eulogies to cinema. As with eulogies at a funeral, it's easy to overwrite and hard to edit them down - you're saying goodbye. What should you leave out? You can't. You have to settle more for getting the tone right. This may explain why his films are so long - he doesn't like to say goodbye. It's sometimes at the expense of the overall tone. It may explain why his films don't get much of a way of spin-offs - they are for films they just don't make anymore.
Double bills he mentions have you salivating... that may also explain why his films are so long. he wants to replicate that sense of being at the movies for an entire afternoon. He did it with Grindhouse of course, which is never shown on telly nor even at the Prince Charles in London.
There's another reason why the director may be at odds a bit with Bond films - the point of cinema is that it can tip into amorality very easily. The action goes where the camera wants, to excite, to get a reaction. It's visceral. Many of these films don't have a hero. There's no guiding moral principles. The director hated the 1950s movies, and most of the 1980s films too, he says because everything was strait-laced and goody two shoes. Of course, with Bond, everything has to turn out alright in the end, and it usually does. It does perhaps point to a growing amorality in Tarantino's films I can't dig - they seem to go off on a tangent too, as if a different movie altogether. There is sometimes what feels like a lack of heart... I love Pulp Fiction but you don't feel that Samuel L Jackson's religious conversion is keenly felt by him or the director, rather it's a gag to have him and Travolta spa off each other.
I'v got this book out on loan from Surrey libraries and I thoroughly recommend it. The writing is great fun - read it before you go to bed and it's like drinking an espresso. For all that, one does get the sense that the films he espouses are a bit corrupting.... on the other hand he reasons that the big thrill of a horror like Halloween - lost on the critics - is seeing them in contact, with a packed cinema of teens hollering and cat-calling, reacting to it so it's like a participation event, a communal event.
Anne Billson gave this a snippy write-up in the Times in November 2022 - she - or the sub-editor - describes it as 'opinionated' which is a word you use when you don't agree with the opinions. I guess it's gamekeeper turned poacher territory as Tarantino is assuming the role of a critic in this book, though really it's clear he's a fan, an enthusiast, and I found his enthusiasm very catching.
I got that book too, and I also sort of stalled because I havent seen half the films he's discussing. I might read those chapters anyway, because I the ones I did read he's talking about the backgrounds of the creative team, and other related issues, as much as the actual film, so its sort of a nonlinear random film history from his own warped perspective.
That first chapter is incredible! my mom didnt take me to see any of those films either. I think I need to see Joe now, if only to better understand Tarantino.
on youtube somewhere is Tarantino reviewing Moonraker, which he assumed he was going to trash before watching it fresh, then goes on to praise all the Ken Adams stuff and the stunts.
Re how Tarantino's films seem to be eulogies to cinema - they don't imo always stand up in their own right, but are referencing other films - it does seem the same comment can be directed at the Bond films since GoldenEye. They all seem to be referencing other Bond movies quite knowingly, as if saying goodbye to the series, a kind of valedictory.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,690MI6 Agent
It could also be that, as well as nostalgia, they've ran out of new ideas and are following trends rather than setting them. It's not a great place to be creatively, to be honest.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Even though I agree the references speak of a lack of new ideas, I have to remind you that the most controversial parts of NTTD are new ideas: Matilde, all of SPECTRE getting killed, M making a horrible mistake, Bond dying. Like them or not, they are new ideas.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,690MI6 Agent
That's true, though I was referring more to the constant looking back to the Aston Martin DB5, the reimagining of Blofeld and Spectre etc. You are right in asserting that NTTD had many original ideas that hadn't been used before and that's to be welcomed. However, the idea of all of SPECTRE getting killed was from an old TSWLM draft script by Richard Maibaum from about 1976 so even that idea wasn't new either.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Jake Epping finds a bubble in time in the storeroom of a diner belonging to his friend Al Templeton. It allows him to travel back to a specific point in time - September 30, 1958 - and, though he can freely change things, every visit to the past resets the timeline. At the urging of Templeton, who was using the time portal himself and is now dying of cancer, Jake plans to go back in time and try to change the future by preventing the assassination of John F. Kenned, hoping it will alter subsequent events like the death of Martin Luther King and the Vietnam war, thus ushering in a better future where all the tragedies of the following decades might be averted. Along the way Jake takes on the identity of George Amberson, using his knowledge of the future to aid him in his mission. He also meets and falls in love with Sadie Dunhill, a librarian with a troubled past. But the past is obdurate and does not want to be changed; it fights Jake at every turn and even if he succeeds, will the future he envisions come to pass? Will he be able to remain with Sadie? Or will he be the unwitting instrument of doom for the very future he is trying to save?
11/22/63 is not your typical Stephen King novel. It's rooted squarely in a classic science fiction trope, while also sprinkling in more than a dash of horror and a few callbacks to another classic King novel. It's also very much a love story; a man out of time finding love and a sense of belonging he'd never felt before in the most unexpected of places and the profound effect that has on him and his mission.
The story makes use of many classic time travel tropes and if I were to offer any criticism of the book, it's that in the end King respects those tropes a little too much. I thought I saw the ending coming pretty early in the book and was disappointed that I got it so right. It would have been more daring and maybe even more satisfying if King thew expectations out the window and really pulled the rug out from under the reader at the end. Instead, I think he plays it a little too safe. Amusingly, my brother and I recently saw The Flash and while the characters in play were different I was kind of stunned at how similar the overall plot and even the resolution were to 11/22/63.
In spite of these reservations, I enjoyed my time with 11/22/63. King's writing is at top form here and despite it's length the book is an engaging read, sagging only a little bit during the middle passages when Jake is following Lee Harvey Oswald's movements in order to be 100% certain that he acted alone. The inevitable confrontation at the book repository in Dealey Plaza is riveting and heart-wrenching and those final pages will wring every emotion out of the reader. Really glad I decided to take it on.
An effective realist observation from acclaimed Indian author Mulk Raj Anand which concentrates on a day in the life of Bakha, a young man of the lowest caste in Hindu society who begins, through a series of encounters, to appreciate the fundamental flaws in the traditional cultural system. Phenomenally well described, Bakha’s story resonates because he is both intelligent, inquisitive and sympathetic. A strong and good looking man, he is fated to spend his days cleaning streets and toilets and begging for food from wealthy households. People do not associate with him or his family and they are blamed even when innocent as they have no place to argue back. His situation is one of permanency – questioning his fate leads him to an encounter with Mahatma Ghandi and a peaceful vision of a utopian future.
Politically and societally, the novel remains relevant as so much simply hasn’t altered, even if the ‘untouchables’ of the title are outlawed. It is flawed in its simplistic ideals, but has emotional and intellectual impact thanks to the embittered prose of the author, who shares in his character’s pain and also the moments of extreme pleasure. As injustice piles on injustice, you sense the order needs to change, but the solutions are never as clear cut as the rhetoric. If anything, Anand overdoes the intellectual sections – towards the end a debate between two poets feels entirely superfluous – as the story has greater success reflecting on the physical and mental strains of Bakha’s working day, how the slightest fault, often not even personally erroneous, can prove a disaster for his family. Strong on detail, the novel reflects an approaching time of change for India, exemplified in its dignified central personality who makes peace with the world while resolving to reform the lot of the sweeper through industrial progress. Anand may be suggesting that civilisation hasn’t yet touched Indian society, which would be debateable, but he clearly believes cultural change is afoot and it is being led by the underclasses who stood most to gain from Ghandi’s political popularity.
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,990Quartermasters
edited February 19
I recently had the opportunity to listen to unabridged audiobook versions of the first two Richard Hannay novels by the long-late Scotsman John Buchan: The 39 Steps (1915) and Greenmantle (1916). The former, as most film buffs will know, was loosely adapted into a film made by Alfred Hitchcock in the earlier (UK era) part of his career. Apparently, the latter was a BBC-TV film in the early 2000s? (🤷♂️) ...but that's apparently impossible for a Yank to put his eyes on.
I will definitely be reading the rest of the Hannay books. They are cracking good old-school espionage/adventure stories - the first set in the run-up to WWI; the second one climaxing in the heat of the action on the Turkish front. Granted, Buchan takes full advantage of happenstance, coincidence, contrivance and serendipity as these stories unfold - stuff one can't get away with when writing these days! - but they are so much fun that it's very difficult to throw stones at them. There is no doubt in my mind that Fleming read these books in his youth. Highly recommended. Cheers! 🍸️
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I had been thinking about Greenmantle when I read this post, for me it was an oddball book, sort of thrilling and also total nonsense, he makes his way across Europe and just happens to run into a certain guy he knows at the same time, then again not unlike Bond and Nomi arriving in Cuba at the same time. Another odd thing was a reference to 'that circus at Loos' or some such thing - that's the Battle of Loos in WWI, scene of usual butchery, brushed off in clipped English fashion. Then the showdown, a Flashman-style battle on horseback if I recall, where the character opines that it's those who have never really lived who are lily livered when it comes to battle, it's remarkably unsympathetic but those were the times. Finally, the hero lets slip that he's never had any experience with women so is easily spooked by a femme fatale, I don't know, you get the sense Holmes never did much either but unlike The 39 Steps it does drive it home these are different times with different values. You can't see Donat doing this as a sequel esp with Hitchcock helming because in Greenmantle he's very much a State agent whereas in the first he's seen as an Enemy of the State and it has those hallmarks, not only that but he did cop off with Madeleine Carroll in the film, one of those few old-style actresses who have contemporary hotness (tbf there are a few, Veronica Lake for instance).
Robert Powell of The Thirty-Nine Steps - the sort of Timothy Dalton of the films - did reappear in a Richard Hannay series some years later, not sure how based on the books it was.
Anyway, I came to write about Jeeves and the Leap of Faith by Ben Schott, a follow-up to Jeeves and the King of Clubs, which came out a few years ago during the Brexit kerfuffle. This one came out in 2020. Both are, of course, continuation novels carrying on from PG Wodehouse.
JATKOC is a comic masterpiece that I highly recommend. I kept meaning to do a review of it but never did and it went back to the library. What Schott is very good is those witty turns of phrase at which Wodehouse excelled, they are hilariously funny. The book is not short stories however, but it's a novel so the dynamic is different and Jeeves doesn't quite make an appearance for long stretches whereas in the short stories he must appear frequently to bail out our hero, Bertie Wooster.
Eventually the book even touches on a kind of freemasonry - in a way it is highly accurate in its depiction of how the State works, namely that some collaborators are knowingly corrupt, others are on the fence and see what way the wind is blowing, and a third can be described as 'useful idiots' who serve the State unquestionably and don't know the higher purpose. It is testimony to the book's charm that it describes this in a way that one gets behind it unquestionably; you are on their side, having been let in on it. The enemy in this is a far-right buffoon called Spode who is a send-up of Mosely and the Black Shirts. This does seem a spoof on Brexit, in particular the obsession with Union flags, which makes it odd that Daily Mail scribe Quentin Letts recommended this book.
Anyway, King of Clubs is killingly funny and I wish the Bond continuation novels were as good, I thought they didn't write them like this any more? That said, Bertie Wooster fans are not so thrilled because, to be fair and this occurred to me too, the Bertie Wooster here is not that of Wodehouse, he is too smart. Wodehouse's knack was to depict a chump as a central character yet still imbue him with these witty turns of phrase that would be beyond a bloke like him, but of course not that of the author. I guess the 'man child' over privileged world of Wodehouse's Wooster is not so charming these days, particular to women. The Wooster depicted here might be more a Boris Johnson type (Gove would be a typical Wooster 'pal' of dubious integrity), or David Cameron or Tony Blair, posh boys who can get outside their comfort zone but not thick at all, he could almost be played by Roger Moore in Brett Sinclair mode. He dabbles in a flirtation with a highly estimable young lady/spy who is on the level and is even recruited by the State for high-end espionage - the original Bertie never would have, but there you go, the hapless fools of the Will Hay era we don't see quite so much these days.
This follow-up is okay but a bit watered down. It's inessential. Some phrases are there - re a sticky situation in his mind, Wooster says he 'just couldn't find the cool side of the pillow' and when asking for a beverage he requests 'a whisky and soda, and let the whisky win' - there are funnier lines than that but it feels wrong to go back and look for them, they fly off the page. I began this maybe two years ago and then put it down and lost it, I found it again in a clear out recently and finished it - suffice to say it's not unputdownable by any means. I am really not sure what the plot was - in my second stint 100 pages went by and I'm not sure it was mentioned or back referenced, something about Wooster having to pretend to be a vicar at Oxford for some reason. The characters were thinly drawn compared to the first one. Once again, the slightly prominent role of Jeeves as the hidden hand behind events some might find off-putting. I should have bought King of Clubs and got this one out of the library instead. But I finished it, it had its moments but comnpared to the hilarious set-pieces of the first, including a taxi chase across London where our hero takes refuge in his gentleman's club from an apoplectic Spode - it's the best kind of public school humour - or the detailed definition of the different kinds of gentleman's valet, which rather called to mind PM assistants like Alistair Campbell or Dominic Cummings - this is a wafer thin mint.
Not the last book I've read, but I thought I'd post something on Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Most of us have seen the film which tends to be only shown once a year on telly - possibly to ration a bona fide classic, like The Sound of Music - but maybe because its racist undercurrents.
Now, if you've tolerated the film generally over the decades, I'd advise giving the book a go because the writing is brilliant, sort of warm and enveloping - they don't write them like that anymore, for reasons I'll also touch on later. It's brilliantly observed, you can pick up any paragraph and it speaks to you. You can see why they had to make a movie out of it. Plot points that seems a bit soapy in the film make better sense in the book, which feels epic whereas the film is epic as much due to the length.
You notice on reading the book how well cast the film was. Mannerism you read - in particular Scarlett O'Hara - you recognise from the actress in the film doing it perfectly.
That said, as with Connery as Bond, or Michael Caine as Alfie, as good as you may think it is in casting, upon reading the book you realise the character is not quite the same, not that well cast.
Start with Scarlett O'Hara. Vivien Leigh is great in this, the precursor to these English vixens like Joan Collins in Dynasty. A real minx. Smart, calculating. But Mitchell's character is not quite like like that. Leigh's character, if you believe in astrology, might be a Scorpio or a Pisces. The one in the book is more fiery, more animal, she'd be a Sagiattarian, Aries or Leo. The one in the book is in fact emotionally simplistic and quite thick when it comes to such matters. You don't feel the one in the film is.
For instance, it is clear to the reader that Rhett Butler is actually smitten with the heroine and is finding ways to be around her. O'Hara never quite picks up on this. It is also clear that while she is besotted with posh and effete Ashley Wilkes, she really doesn't stand a chance with him. An early scene in which she hears someone talk of the Borgias, and she says 'Oh, do they live near to us?' which elicits a look of pity from Wilkes directed at O'Hara's new husband, in one instance sums it up. For all that, in the new era that unfolds, O'Hara has the smarts to make it while Wilkes does not.
There is obviously something Irish about the O'Hara in the book - tempestuous, I mean - but you don't get that in the film. You can, reading the book, see why Bette Davis was considered for the role.
Now, Clark Gable is not perfect casting as Rhett, for reasons I've alluded to. There would be no actor better, don't get me wrong, but he plays him as a devil may care chauvinist, a precursor to Connery's Bond, who also doesn't care, therein lies his strength. He plays it that way because, in the trope of the times, bad girls who get taken advantage of a) Want it and b) Deserve it. But in the book, he plays it that way because it's a ruse - he knows if he lets on he's smitten, he won't stand a chance with the hellcat - in his own way, he's playing hard to get. This may also play better with a female readership - that the handsome piratannical guy is really longing for her all along.
All the while, O'Hara is pointedly pining for Ashley Wilkes - a bit of interesting insight is offered at the end, explaining that this fool's errand is what gets her through the trials of the US Civil War, so it had its uses. Leslie Howard is okay in this role but as the actor feared, it's a bit of a rough part. Why? Because in a way, Wilkes doesn't really exist, save in O'Hara's imagination. Parallels could be made with Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd in which the lead character Bathsheba - despite being a smart cookie - falls for Sergeant Troy simply because he's a dashing blade in a uniform. The two settings aren't too different, given that one is America in the 1860s or so, while the other is the West Country, when, around the same time? It's all rural, so the decades don't pass so fast. Maybe @Hardyboy could comment on this, and the different attitudes to the lead character and the sympathies afforded them, the contrasting way their fates play out. You do get the sense that Mitchell is more sympathetic and enjoys the character's femme fatale tendencies, whereas in Hardy's world, such a woman must be punished, downtrodden or made to see the error of her ways.
One accounting for the difference in the film treatment is this - audiences do not like to feel they are smarter than the lead characters, they don't like to be tipped off that Butler is smitten with O'Hara - in film terms, it makes him look a sap. Likewise, if it's made clear that she doesn't stand a chance with Wilkes, the whole thing becomes a daft love triangle, easy to test one's patience. The director Michael Apted cut an early scene in The World Is Not Enough, saying audiences shouldn't know more than James Bond does about what is going on - I think it was to do with Renard. I can see his point, notwithstanding a film like From Russia With Love, which is out of character anyway.
It's different with a book - your friend is the author. In a film maybe the director keeps you company, this can happen, but generally you are meant to side with the lead to some extent. And the audience does not want to side with an obvious fool, or even someone smart doing something foolish for the duration.
Olivia de Havilland is good casting as Melanie but the character really is hopeless in the book, even if she is regarded by friend and foe alike as a truly good person. I think de Havilland tried to break that typecasting in her subsequent roles, to play a few bad girls!
The reason I would not have this book in the house so to speak is because it does seem to be racist propaganda. It may seem plausible and it may be true that while Southerners had black slaves, they got on with them well and would have them in the house, whereas Yankees were all for freedom but didn't like black folk and didn't want them in the house. But it feels after a while Margaret Mitchell is writing to make a point. At one point we read that Rhett Butler shot a negro who was rude to a white woman - and it is made clear we are meant to approve of this action. The film eschews this stuff and tones down the rest of it but though the book is nicely written, you are faced with this stuff. So it's maybe one to have on loan from the library, but as I say, it does give a useful alternative perspective on the big budget soap opera of the much-celebrated film.
Thanks for the mention, NP, but I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, having never read GWTTW... In FFTMC, Troy is a complete cad and you always know that Bathsheba made a huge mistake in falling for him (he basically tells her to marry him or he'll dump her)... If the Ashley character in Mitchell's novel is like his equivalent in the film, he's a spineless drip who only looks good. That's as far as I can take it...
Well, that sums up Ashley Wilkes - but you've seen the film, surely? It's a hard part to play because, yes, he can't make up his mind to ditch his lovely wife - to be fair, I'm not sure we want him to or that he ought to. Howard is okay but because of his other associations he seems more heroic than he is, I think Owen Wilson of today's actors could pull it off. Maybe a comparison could be made as Troy's real love - he later says - is Fanny who also comes a cropper. I'm stretching a point, though yes it's Troy's moral weakness that surprises; maybe he is also not unlike that other handsome rogue in uniform, in Pride & Prejudice. Wilkes is however of superior breeding and the new era finds him wanting. While Troy is more deliberately cruel and feckless.
I am enjoying an instalment in CJ Samson's Shardlake series, set in the Tudor era of Henry VIII, Lamentations. It's the latest one for me, I think there's only one after that to go so far. He may be working on another.
It's highly readable - it's odd though, I could only pick this up and start it the week after my Dad died, somehow with all the pressure of caring for him full-time I just struggled to turn myself to it; it's sort of escapist stress but you don't want that when you really are stressed, it's double helpings. The idea is the lead character Shardlake is a lawyer who is oft called upon to do the Govt's murky work and has to navigate with his own conscience at a time when last years' religious convention is this year's heresy. Often each instalment is set around a significant historical event and each one is a murder mystery, or mystery at least, which the antihero has to resolve.
This one is so far a bit McGuffin heavy - Shardlake is called into investigate the theft of a book written by the latest Queen Catherine Parr which has mildly heretical content that could see her burnt at the stake or beheaded if revealed to the increasingly corpulent, ill and mean-spirited king. But it's all very enjoyable and you feel the horribleness of Tudor London while not actually having to be there.
Angela Carter introduces a political aspect to the fairy tale through her empowerment of heroines and their emancipated sexual outlook. She is consciously occupied with Freud and the implications of dreams and the ‘father figure’ as monster.
So, when comparing her updated version of Perrault’s Bluebeard, while there are many similarities to the original it is the addition of Carter’s political drive which takes over. She draws allusions to mythical heroines of the past, including the warrior mother Boudicca, as well as the eunuch consort [the heroine’s ‘lover’ is a blind man] – unable to assess the heroine physically he becomes sexually mute to her. Perrault’s moral seems to be that of Eve or Pandora, “the knowledge you looked for is not worth the cost.” He also strongly hints that the master-servant marriage expected by the Marquis is not an ideal one for a ‘modern’ 17th Century marriage. Carter meanwhile has an unclear moral stance. The Bloody Chamber, and in particular the titular opening story, becomes a series of realist fairy tales where fantasy, fiction and authenticity interact throughout the narrative. The reader must draw their own conclusions. It feels as though Carter has decided Perrault’s heroines lack sensuality and she must reinstall it. However this ignores the cultural context of the Salon Français and its resulting atmospheres which would not have allowed Perrault to be so blatantly pornographic as Carter manages.
There are similar issues in her rereading of Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood / Little Red Cap. Carter’s three versions reinterpret the wolf as hunter-gatherer-man and Red Riding Hood as a pubescent, curious woman, unafraid and sexually aware. Whether these imaginings are worthwhile is open to debate. They are difficult themes because while Carter claims to make a political and feminist point, she also opens the window to accusations of pandering to male preserves: for instance in The Company of Wolves, Red Riding Hood seduces the Wolf-Man. So, Carter embraces her stories under an umbrella of human perspective, not the fantastic. Figures like the wicked stepmother become archetypes of the human psyche with all their inevitable symbols. Beasts like the abhorrent bridegroom are suddenly granted a more positive status, defying established rules of sexual and social conduct and transforming fairy tales into feminist fables.
However, this has had the effect of immediately dating them as sexual tastes have altered. Carter was erring in the late seventies, the elope of free love, the pill, Health and Efficiency, pornography, page 3, etc; it was pre-AIDs, pre-transgender, pre-internet, pre-social media, pre-global society, pre-MeToo, where now the boundaries of behaviour, expectation and morality have become established along confrontational and often blurred political and social lines. For such a recent work The Bloody Chamber’s difficult themes of sensuality and empowerment no longer feel particularly relevant.
Quite a departure from Ian Fleming but all in all on par with all the other "new breed" James Bond writers. I have to say that it was very refreshing after burning through all the James Reece books by Jack Carr (not a bad read either) with all their carnage and overt product placement (Fleming has nothing on Jack Carr!!!).
I do have to say, I am a bit on the fence about the way the old characters are portrayed by Sherwood and if the chips were down right now, I'd probably would say I didn't like it. I have the next one on the pipeline (A Spy Like Me) and will make up my mind after that one. I did have trouble putting it down after I started, and would say that it is way better than most of the other post Fleming Bond novels. When compared for example to Pearsons "Authorized Biography" the take by Sherwood on Bonds' character itself is much more human and refreshing. Whereas Pearsons Bond is a superhuman in his 60's that is saving the world again from a supervillain, Sherwoods Bond has gone missing, is professed having made mistakes and being vulnerable.
I don't want to spoil anything, this being a quite fresh trilogy, but I do recommend that you go and "Meet the new generation of spies…Johanna Harwood, 003. Joseph Dryden, 004. and Sid Bashir, 009."
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
I eventually have got around to reading the first Jack Reacher book by Lee Child, Killing Floor. I don't know why it's called that yet. I picked it up from the library yesterday and within a couple of hours I got to page 100 which shows how good it is.
It is written in the first person, like the Shardlake novels set in Tudor times (Think that's the only similarity!) The thing with that is, it helps give the impression the leading character is in over his head and is trying to puzzle out wha tis going on from a disadvantageous position. There are no cut aways to clue in the reader what the villains are up to. Some Bond movies might almost have that first-person perspective where it's all on Bond - OHMSS and CR are prime examples, Goldfinger and DAF maybe, but most cut away from him at times to show the villains up to their tricks and to advance the plot
The book employs the usual dualism- if that is the right word - for most action heroes. Reacher is a 'hobo' of sorts, on his Tod. Like The Futiive or Banner in The Incredible Hulk, he goes from town to town. But he seems not to be a loser, we learn - he is arrested in the book's, well, arresting opening scene and we see how he is able, Jason Bourne-style, to assess the capabilities of the officers making the arrest. Reacher seems to have no ties or responsibilities, but he's an ex-military man of some knowledge, rank and relevant capability to the predicament he finds himself in. So he has an 'in' with State organisations. This perspective helps, because he can converse with the authorities on their level and even above their level, we are given to believe in the 'bad apple' theme of the local police, where if you speak to the right guy you will be treated well and not fitted up. Anyway,, as with the likes of Clark Kent/Superman, or the bookish Indiana Jones and his whip-cracking alter ego, even Bond the office flirt and the agent out in the field, we identify with one aspect of the hero, then let the fantasy take over and do the heavy lifting!
By about page 100 I did get to thinking, okay, even I couldn't fantasise about doing that and I can see why Reacher fans couldn't get on with Tom Cruise being cast - of course Liam Neeson pre-Taken would have been the guy but he was deemed too old. The violence is a lot nastier than you get in any film too. These novels don't necessarily put me in a happy mood before bedtime - if anyone can suggest a happy and uplifting piece of fiction rather than 'escapist stress' I'd be grateful but I will crack on with this stonking good read.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,569Chief of Staff
I’ve read all of the Reacher novels - bar the last one yet - and they do vary in quality, but are on the whole decent reads. Since Lee Child’s brother took over though 🫣 they have gotten more violent - as in, Reacher kills more often now…and that just isn’t the character 👀
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT – Simon Armitage (2007)
An excellent modern translation of the Middle English Arthurian classic with the Fitts, stanzas, double alliterative, hop-and-wheel rhyme and rhythm retained to an immaculate and thoughtful degree. If the story and its moral legacy is rendered obsolete by a more modern blurring of right and wrong, it is still thoroughly enjoyable, extremely descriptive and laced with lashings of humour, much at the expense of the French chivalric tradition of the setting, something the original [unnamed] author saw fit to satirise. Extremely visual, Armitage’s translation easily takes us to this mythical England of knights, ogres, beautiful women and fantastic happenings. The tropes of the folk and fairy tale are present, in particular the three time repetitious occurrences and the enchanted people and objects. The poetic nature of the piece is wholly successful and brilliantly evokes the time, place and behaviour some 600 years gone. A short and very pleasurable read.
Comments
@Barbel, you're cant' be serious .... or can you?
BTW, I have Insomnia and The Outsider on my bookshelf and the 11.22.63 hardcover was on sale on Amazon so I ordered that as well. Any recommendations among those three?
11.22.63 is the only Stephen King novel I’ve ever read…and I didn’t know he’d written it 🫣😳
So, while I can’t recommend any of his others - I can recommend that one…I absolutely loved it…although I did read it after watching the the tv series based on it…which I thought excellent 🍸
Just having my little joke. It's not his best IMHO, but it's perhaps his biggest*; unputdownable and unforgettable, I've read it twice and hope to do that again someday.
The film I think is no more than okay. The cast (including our very own Barry Nelson!) do fine and the story's not been altered beyond recognition but (and I know this is sacrilege) Stanley Kubrick never did much for me as a director here or in other films.
* not in actual size, he's written longer books, but in fame, sales, public name value, etc.
I loved that one, too. Haven't seen the TV version.
If you can find it to watch - do. 🙂
Thanks for the comments on 11.22.63; might tackle that next but the 1000 page length is a little intimidating.
@barbel, my cable company recently added the Peacock streaming service to my subscription and I was able to check out Mr. Mercedes. To be honest, I didn't care for what I saw. The story is all there but so much new stuff has been added that it diluted the experience for me. For example Ida, who was a very minor character in the first book, is tuned into Bill's nosy next door neighbor who is always trying to get into his pants, going so far as to show him nude pictures of herself. Bill himself seems quite different from the image I got from the literary version. I got thru four episodes and had to stop. Might give it another go down the road at some point.
Is that how long the book is? I didn’t think it was that long…but honestly…it FAR too short 🤗
I started the Gray Man series of books the other day. These are by Mark Greaney and essentially cover that whole 'ultra assassin at large' genre of books that is so popular right now. My brother has been begging me to read these so I started them just to shut him up.
First book, THE GRAY MAN, is pretty fun in a 'turn your brain off' kinda way. It's the perfect book to read while you're killing time on an airplane or in a hotel room. Courtland (Court) Gentry is a freelance assassin who was trained by the CIA and now undertakes missions that meet his own personal moral code. He finishes a mission but then gets thrown under the bus for a prior mission, resulting in a ton of assassins from other countries trying to take him out while he makes his way back to France in order to rescue his handler. Action, action, action, action, action.
I started the second book, ON TARGET, the other day. More of the same so far.
There was a Netflix movie called THE GRAY MAN which is essentially the first novel intermixed with elements from several of the other novels. It was ok for what it was but it also exposed the underlying problem with the book series in general: it's really thin in terms of character and plotting. If you just want to see stuff blow up, you'll be fine. If you want anything nuanced, you're flat out out of luck.
Based on what you say, I'm not sorry to have missed it and I don't think I'll chase it up. Thanks, @TonyDP
Both book and television series are absolutely stunners. I think 11.22.63 will go down as the perfect pairing of both mediums in King’s long repertoire.
I am currently reading and very much enjoying Quentin Tarantino's recent book on 1970s cinema, Cinema Speculation.
It's a selection of essays; the films it covers are: Bullitt, Dirty Harry, The Getaway, Deliverance, The Outfit, Daisy Miller, Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder, Paradise Alley, Escape from Alcatraz, Hardcore and grind house movie The Funhouse.
There's also a chapter devoted to the New Hollywood of the 70s and the young directors of the time, an appreciation of the LA film critic Kevin Thomas, an essay on what would have happened if Brian de Palma had done Taxi Driver as first offered... the book is bookended by two great essays, the first on what it was like for a 7-year-old kid (Quentin himself) in 1970, seeing lots of movies, and closing with a eulogy to one of his single mom's friends whom he hung out with, a fellow movie fan.
I tell you this so you can avoid spoilers by avoiding the films you haven't already seen - for some impish reason the author has chapter headings but no Contents, nor are the titles of the chapters at the top of the pages either. Perhaps he is mimicking the style of some cherished book on cinema he has long admired, not bothered if he's making it hard for us. It's the sort of thing he'd do.
He also dances around all kinds of other movies, namedropping obscurities that make you curious to see them.
The opening chapter is terrific stuff and an eye-opener. Because of the way the ratings work in the US - and some our our American members can vouch for this or dispute it if I've got this wrong - kids can go into see any movie bar an X certificate (and there weren't many of those around) so long as they were accompanied by an adult.
So a 7-year-old Quentin could get into see films with his tolerant and cool mom such as The French Conneciton, Women In Love, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Vincent Price horror flicks, The Godfather, Deliverance, MASH, The Wild Bunch and Patton.
In the UK, when I was 7 I had to settle for stuff like The Sound of Music, The Sting and The Spy Who Loved Me.
This is because of course our ratings were U (Disney and other kids' films), A (later PG) - family films, sometimes cosplaying as grown-up movies (James Bond, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and so on), AA (later 15) - like family films but with a bit of swearing and bare breasts, films your older sibling got to see, and X (later 18) - violent, sexy, sleazy films, really out there.
Tarantino is dismissive of 1970s Bond films and you can see why frankly, given the smorgasbord on offer for him. If you'd seen the cream of black exploitation flicks, Live and Let Die might not be that big a deal. Golden Gun we generally don't rate anyway - these two movies area almost Disney films with a bit of sex. Spy is good stuff for sure but by then Tarantino's tastes would be more sophisticated and even more by the time of the childish Moonraker - a film I love, incidentally.
But beyond all that, you get the idea that Quentin is a fan of movies, of cinema. Where the movie is the star, not the leading man, not the director... He is a fan of pure cinema and he doesn't discriminate in favour of big name releases. He likes it wherever he finds it.
So you can see why Bond isn't a big deal for him, necessarily. In James Bond films, the star isn't the movie. It's not the director (usually they're journeymen, very proficient but not auteurs) and not the leading man (most don't really make their mark away from Bond, I know Connery did but only really once he's physically moved beyond the part of Bond, in the late 1980s). No, the star of the James Bond film is... James Bond. Nothing else.
In contrast, take a film like Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't love this movie. I've enjoyed it a bit over the decades and maybe as it's a slice of cinema, I should have seen it once on the big screen, at least. But the star isn't Indiana Jones. It's not Harrison Ford, who mumbles in a monotone and really only comes alive while sparring with Karen Allen or Sean Connery). It's not even Lucas or Spielberg. No ,the star of Raiders of the Lost Ark is.... Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's the movie.
Same goes with Star Wars. The star isn't Luke Skywalker, or Han Solo, or Princess Leia... Or George Lucas. The star of Star Wars is... Star Wars.
It may explain why when we have a leading man as Bond we can't get behind it, we can't go along with it. I don't care for Dalton, and his two films fall flat. They have nothing cinematic really going on there imo. Otherwise, I might be okay with them. And the same goes if you can't take to Roger Moore.... the films are about the guy. Without getting behind him, well, it's a dead duck.
It may also explain why OHMSS - one of the more cinematic films - may be at the expense of the leading man, Lazenby. Another on this board has pointed out how the director doesn't quite set him up as a leading man the way others did with Connery. Maybe to get around the idea that he wasn't Connery, to fudge the issue? It explains why I love the film at the cinema but not on telly. Fans don't love the star, they don't love James Bond in it imo - they love OHMSS! The movie is the star.
It may even explain why the likes of Raiders or Star Wars didn't have many successfully spin-offs - the magic is hard to replicate. The Bond films' imitators were two a penny, you just got a handsome leading man, put in some action and sex and witty one-liners and bingo! (That said, I guess Jaws had plenty of spin-offs like Piranha and The Deep.)
Tarantino does praise Connery's Diamonds are Forever, the first Bond he ever saw - saying it had along with Dirty Harry it had the best audience cinema reaction he'd ever seen, albeit on the way to praising a blacksploitation film's response far more. He says he later saw a Bond triple bill - From Russia with Love, Dr No and Goldfinger - he lists them in that order, and says he found the first two boring spy movies, but when the third one dropped, he immediately thought 'This is more like it!' (He doesn't say that's his opinion now.) It shows that a film like DAF, not highly rated among many fans, was a real game changer for its time, the way GoldenEye was in its day, and that the first two movies weren't always regarded as the Holy Grail.
(It's worth recalling that Tarantino once put himself in the frame to direct Pierce Brosnan in Casino Royale, set after the events of OHMSS, though really how far that got along the line I don't know.)
Quentin's films are it occurs to me, eulogies to cinema. As with eulogies at a funeral, it's easy to overwrite and hard to edit them down - you're saying goodbye. What should you leave out? You can't. You have to settle more for getting the tone right. This may explain why his films are so long - he doesn't like to say goodbye. It's sometimes at the expense of the overall tone. It may explain why his films don't get much of a way of spin-offs - they are for films they just don't make anymore.
Double bills he mentions have you salivating... that may also explain why his films are so long. he wants to replicate that sense of being at the movies for an entire afternoon. He did it with Grindhouse of course, which is never shown on telly nor even at the Prince Charles in London.
There's another reason why the director may be at odds a bit with Bond films - the point of cinema is that it can tip into amorality very easily. The action goes where the camera wants, to excite, to get a reaction. It's visceral. Many of these films don't have a hero. There's no guiding moral principles. The director hated the 1950s movies, and most of the 1980s films too, he says because everything was strait-laced and goody two shoes. Of course, with Bond, everything has to turn out alright in the end, and it usually does. It does perhaps point to a growing amorality in Tarantino's films I can't dig - they seem to go off on a tangent too, as if a different movie altogether. There is sometimes what feels like a lack of heart... I love Pulp Fiction but you don't feel that Samuel L Jackson's religious conversion is keenly felt by him or the director, rather it's a gag to have him and Travolta spa off each other.
I'v got this book out on loan from Surrey libraries and I thoroughly recommend it. The writing is great fun - read it before you go to bed and it's like drinking an espresso. For all that, one does get the sense that the films he espouses are a bit corrupting.... on the other hand he reasons that the big thrill of a horror like Halloween - lost on the critics - is seeing them in contact, with a packed cinema of teens hollering and cat-calling, reacting to it so it's like a participation event, a communal event.
Anne Billson gave this a snippy write-up in the Times in November 2022 - she - or the sub-editor - describes it as 'opinionated' which is a word you use when you don't agree with the opinions. I guess it's gamekeeper turned poacher territory as Tarantino is assuming the role of a critic in this book, though really it's clear he's a fan, an enthusiast, and I found his enthusiasm very catching.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I got that book too, and I also sort of stalled because I havent seen half the films he's discussing. I might read those chapters anyway, because I the ones I did read he's talking about the backgrounds of the creative team, and other related issues, as much as the actual film, so its sort of a nonlinear random film history from his own warped perspective.
That first chapter is incredible! my mom didnt take me to see any of those films either. I think I need to see Joe now, if only to better understand Tarantino.
on youtube somewhere is Tarantino reviewing Moonraker, which he assumed he was going to trash before watching it fresh, then goes on to praise all the Ken Adams stuff and the stunts.
Re how Tarantino's films seem to be eulogies to cinema - they don't imo always stand up in their own right, but are referencing other films - it does seem the same comment can be directed at the Bond films since GoldenEye. They all seem to be referencing other Bond movies quite knowingly, as if saying goodbye to the series, a kind of valedictory.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
It could also be that, as well as nostalgia, they've ran out of new ideas and are following trends rather than setting them. It's not a great place to be creatively, to be honest.
Even though I agree the references speak of a lack of new ideas, I have to remind you that the most controversial parts of NTTD are new ideas: Matilde, all of SPECTRE getting killed, M making a horrible mistake, Bond dying. Like them or not, they are new ideas.
That's true, though I was referring more to the constant looking back to the Aston Martin DB5, the reimagining of Blofeld and Spectre etc. You are right in asserting that NTTD had many original ideas that hadn't been used before and that's to be welcomed. However, the idea of all of SPECTRE getting killed was from an old TSWLM draft script by Richard Maibaum from about 1976 so even that idea wasn't new either.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Jake Epping finds a bubble in time in the storeroom of a diner belonging to his friend Al Templeton. It allows him to travel back to a specific point in time - September 30, 1958 - and, though he can freely change things, every visit to the past resets the timeline. At the urging of Templeton, who was using the time portal himself and is now dying of cancer, Jake plans to go back in time and try to change the future by preventing the assassination of John F. Kenned, hoping it will alter subsequent events like the death of Martin Luther King and the Vietnam war, thus ushering in a better future where all the tragedies of the following decades might be averted. Along the way Jake takes on the identity of George Amberson, using his knowledge of the future to aid him in his mission. He also meets and falls in love with Sadie Dunhill, a librarian with a troubled past. But the past is obdurate and does not want to be changed; it fights Jake at every turn and even if he succeeds, will the future he envisions come to pass? Will he be able to remain with Sadie? Or will he be the unwitting instrument of doom for the very future he is trying to save?
11/22/63 is not your typical Stephen King novel. It's rooted squarely in a classic science fiction trope, while also sprinkling in more than a dash of horror and a few callbacks to another classic King novel. It's also very much a love story; a man out of time finding love and a sense of belonging he'd never felt before in the most unexpected of places and the profound effect that has on him and his mission.
The story makes use of many classic time travel tropes and if I were to offer any criticism of the book, it's that in the end King respects those tropes a little too much. I thought I saw the ending coming pretty early in the book and was disappointed that I got it so right. It would have been more daring and maybe even more satisfying if King thew expectations out the window and really pulled the rug out from under the reader at the end. Instead, I think he plays it a little too safe. Amusingly, my brother and I recently saw The Flash and while the characters in play were different I was kind of stunned at how similar the overall plot and even the resolution were to 11/22/63.
In spite of these reservations, I enjoyed my time with 11/22/63. King's writing is at top form here and despite it's length the book is an engaging read, sagging only a little bit during the middle passages when Jake is following Lee Harvey Oswald's movements in order to be 100% certain that he acted alone. The inevitable confrontation at the book repository in Dealey Plaza is riveting and heart-wrenching and those final pages will wring every emotion out of the reader. Really glad I decided to take it on.
UNTOUCHABLE – Mulk Raj Anand (1935)
An effective realist observation from acclaimed Indian author Mulk Raj Anand which concentrates on a day in the life of Bakha, a young man of the lowest caste in Hindu society who begins, through a series of encounters, to appreciate the fundamental flaws in the traditional cultural system. Phenomenally well described, Bakha’s story resonates because he is both intelligent, inquisitive and sympathetic. A strong and good looking man, he is fated to spend his days cleaning streets and toilets and begging for food from wealthy households. People do not associate with him or his family and they are blamed even when innocent as they have no place to argue back. His situation is one of permanency – questioning his fate leads him to an encounter with Mahatma Ghandi and a peaceful vision of a utopian future.
Politically and societally, the novel remains relevant as so much simply hasn’t altered, even if the ‘untouchables’ of the title are outlawed. It is flawed in its simplistic ideals, but has emotional and intellectual impact thanks to the embittered prose of the author, who shares in his character’s pain and also the moments of extreme pleasure. As injustice piles on injustice, you sense the order needs to change, but the solutions are never as clear cut as the rhetoric. If anything, Anand overdoes the intellectual sections – towards the end a debate between two poets feels entirely superfluous – as the story has greater success reflecting on the physical and mental strains of Bakha’s working day, how the slightest fault, often not even personally erroneous, can prove a disaster for his family. Strong on detail, the novel reflects an approaching time of change for India, exemplified in its dignified central personality who makes peace with the world while resolving to reform the lot of the sweeper through industrial progress. Anand may be suggesting that civilisation hasn’t yet touched Indian society, which would be debateable, but he clearly believes cultural change is afoot and it is being led by the underclasses who stood most to gain from Ghandi’s political popularity.
I recently had the opportunity to listen to unabridged audiobook versions of the first two Richard Hannay novels by the long-late Scotsman John Buchan: The 39 Steps (1915) and Greenmantle (1916). The former, as most film buffs will know, was loosely adapted into a film made by Alfred Hitchcock in the earlier (UK era) part of his career. Apparently, the latter was a BBC-TV film in the early 2000s? (🤷♂️) ...but that's apparently impossible for a Yank to put his eyes on.
I will definitely be reading the rest of the Hannay books. They are cracking good old-school espionage/adventure stories - the first set in the run-up to WWI; the second one climaxing in the heat of the action on the Turkish front. Granted, Buchan takes full advantage of happenstance, coincidence, contrivance and serendipity as these stories unfold - stuff one can't get away with when writing these days! - but they are so much fun that it's very difficult to throw stones at them. There is no doubt in my mind that Fleming read these books in his youth. Highly recommended. Cheers! 🍸️
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I had been thinking about Greenmantle when I read this post, for me it was an oddball book, sort of thrilling and also total nonsense, he makes his way across Europe and just happens to run into a certain guy he knows at the same time, then again not unlike Bond and Nomi arriving in Cuba at the same time. Another odd thing was a reference to 'that circus at Loos' or some such thing - that's the Battle of Loos in WWI, scene of usual butchery, brushed off in clipped English fashion. Then the showdown, a Flashman-style battle on horseback if I recall, where the character opines that it's those who have never really lived who are lily livered when it comes to battle, it's remarkably unsympathetic but those were the times. Finally, the hero lets slip that he's never had any experience with women so is easily spooked by a femme fatale, I don't know, you get the sense Holmes never did much either but unlike The 39 Steps it does drive it home these are different times with different values. You can't see Donat doing this as a sequel esp with Hitchcock helming because in Greenmantle he's very much a State agent whereas in the first he's seen as an Enemy of the State and it has those hallmarks, not only that but he did cop off with Madeleine Carroll in the film, one of those few old-style actresses who have contemporary hotness (tbf there are a few, Veronica Lake for instance).
Robert Powell of The Thirty-Nine Steps - the sort of Timothy Dalton of the films - did reappear in a Richard Hannay series some years later, not sure how based on the books it was.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Anyway, I came to write about Jeeves and the Leap of Faith by Ben Schott, a follow-up to Jeeves and the King of Clubs, which came out a few years ago during the Brexit kerfuffle. This one came out in 2020. Both are, of course, continuation novels carrying on from PG Wodehouse.
JATKOC is a comic masterpiece that I highly recommend. I kept meaning to do a review of it but never did and it went back to the library. What Schott is very good is those witty turns of phrase at which Wodehouse excelled, they are hilariously funny. The book is not short stories however, but it's a novel so the dynamic is different and Jeeves doesn't quite make an appearance for long stretches whereas in the short stories he must appear frequently to bail out our hero, Bertie Wooster.
Eventually the book even touches on a kind of freemasonry - in a way it is highly accurate in its depiction of how the State works, namely that some collaborators are knowingly corrupt, others are on the fence and see what way the wind is blowing, and a third can be described as 'useful idiots' who serve the State unquestionably and don't know the higher purpose. It is testimony to the book's charm that it describes this in a way that one gets behind it unquestionably; you are on their side, having been let in on it. The enemy in this is a far-right buffoon called Spode who is a send-up of Mosely and the Black Shirts. This does seem a spoof on Brexit, in particular the obsession with Union flags, which makes it odd that Daily Mail scribe Quentin Letts recommended this book.
Anyway, King of Clubs is killingly funny and I wish the Bond continuation novels were as good, I thought they didn't write them like this any more? That said, Bertie Wooster fans are not so thrilled because, to be fair and this occurred to me too, the Bertie Wooster here is not that of Wodehouse, he is too smart. Wodehouse's knack was to depict a chump as a central character yet still imbue him with these witty turns of phrase that would be beyond a bloke like him, but of course not that of the author. I guess the 'man child' over privileged world of Wodehouse's Wooster is not so charming these days, particular to women. The Wooster depicted here might be more a Boris Johnson type (Gove would be a typical Wooster 'pal' of dubious integrity), or David Cameron or Tony Blair, posh boys who can get outside their comfort zone but not thick at all, he could almost be played by Roger Moore in Brett Sinclair mode. He dabbles in a flirtation with a highly estimable young lady/spy who is on the level and is even recruited by the State for high-end espionage - the original Bertie never would have, but there you go, the hapless fools of the Will Hay era we don't see quite so much these days.
This follow-up is okay but a bit watered down. It's inessential. Some phrases are there - re a sticky situation in his mind, Wooster says he 'just couldn't find the cool side of the pillow' and when asking for a beverage he requests 'a whisky and soda, and let the whisky win' - there are funnier lines than that but it feels wrong to go back and look for them, they fly off the page. I began this maybe two years ago and then put it down and lost it, I found it again in a clear out recently and finished it - suffice to say it's not unputdownable by any means. I am really not sure what the plot was - in my second stint 100 pages went by and I'm not sure it was mentioned or back referenced, something about Wooster having to pretend to be a vicar at Oxford for some reason. The characters were thinly drawn compared to the first one. Once again, the slightly prominent role of Jeeves as the hidden hand behind events some might find off-putting. I should have bought King of Clubs and got this one out of the library instead. But I finished it, it had its moments but comnpared to the hilarious set-pieces of the first, including a taxi chase across London where our hero takes refuge in his gentleman's club from an apoplectic Spode - it's the best kind of public school humour - or the detailed definition of the different kinds of gentleman's valet, which rather called to mind PM assistants like Alistair Campbell or Dominic Cummings - this is a wafer thin mint.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Not the last book I've read, but I thought I'd post something on Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Most of us have seen the film which tends to be only shown once a year on telly - possibly to ration a bona fide classic, like The Sound of Music - but maybe because its racist undercurrents.
Now, if you've tolerated the film generally over the decades, I'd advise giving the book a go because the writing is brilliant, sort of warm and enveloping - they don't write them like that anymore, for reasons I'll also touch on later. It's brilliantly observed, you can pick up any paragraph and it speaks to you. You can see why they had to make a movie out of it. Plot points that seems a bit soapy in the film make better sense in the book, which feels epic whereas the film is epic as much due to the length.
You notice on reading the book how well cast the film was. Mannerism you read - in particular Scarlett O'Hara - you recognise from the actress in the film doing it perfectly.
That said, as with Connery as Bond, or Michael Caine as Alfie, as good as you may think it is in casting, upon reading the book you realise the character is not quite the same, not that well cast.
Start with Scarlett O'Hara. Vivien Leigh is great in this, the precursor to these English vixens like Joan Collins in Dynasty. A real minx. Smart, calculating. But Mitchell's character is not quite like like that. Leigh's character, if you believe in astrology, might be a Scorpio or a Pisces. The one in the book is more fiery, more animal, she'd be a Sagiattarian, Aries or Leo. The one in the book is in fact emotionally simplistic and quite thick when it comes to such matters. You don't feel the one in the film is.
For instance, it is clear to the reader that Rhett Butler is actually smitten with the heroine and is finding ways to be around her. O'Hara never quite picks up on this. It is also clear that while she is besotted with posh and effete Ashley Wilkes, she really doesn't stand a chance with him. An early scene in which she hears someone talk of the Borgias, and she says 'Oh, do they live near to us?' which elicits a look of pity from Wilkes directed at O'Hara's new husband, in one instance sums it up. For all that, in the new era that unfolds, O'Hara has the smarts to make it while Wilkes does not.
There is obviously something Irish about the O'Hara in the book - tempestuous, I mean - but you don't get that in the film. You can, reading the book, see why Bette Davis was considered for the role.
Now, Clark Gable is not perfect casting as Rhett, for reasons I've alluded to. There would be no actor better, don't get me wrong, but he plays him as a devil may care chauvinist, a precursor to Connery's Bond, who also doesn't care, therein lies his strength. He plays it that way because, in the trope of the times, bad girls who get taken advantage of a) Want it and b) Deserve it. But in the book, he plays it that way because it's a ruse - he knows if he lets on he's smitten, he won't stand a chance with the hellcat - in his own way, he's playing hard to get. This may also play better with a female readership - that the handsome piratannical guy is really longing for her all along.
All the while, O'Hara is pointedly pining for Ashley Wilkes - a bit of interesting insight is offered at the end, explaining that this fool's errand is what gets her through the trials of the US Civil War, so it had its uses. Leslie Howard is okay in this role but as the actor feared, it's a bit of a rough part. Why? Because in a way, Wilkes doesn't really exist, save in O'Hara's imagination. Parallels could be made with Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd in which the lead character Bathsheba - despite being a smart cookie - falls for Sergeant Troy simply because he's a dashing blade in a uniform. The two settings aren't too different, given that one is America in the 1860s or so, while the other is the West Country, when, around the same time? It's all rural, so the decades don't pass so fast. Maybe @Hardyboy could comment on this, and the different attitudes to the lead character and the sympathies afforded them, the contrasting way their fates play out. You do get the sense that Mitchell is more sympathetic and enjoys the character's femme fatale tendencies, whereas in Hardy's world, such a woman must be punished, downtrodden or made to see the error of her ways.
One accounting for the difference in the film treatment is this - audiences do not like to feel they are smarter than the lead characters, they don't like to be tipped off that Butler is smitten with O'Hara - in film terms, it makes him look a sap. Likewise, if it's made clear that she doesn't stand a chance with Wilkes, the whole thing becomes a daft love triangle, easy to test one's patience. The director Michael Apted cut an early scene in The World Is Not Enough, saying audiences shouldn't know more than James Bond does about what is going on - I think it was to do with Renard. I can see his point, notwithstanding a film like From Russia With Love, which is out of character anyway.
It's different with a book - your friend is the author. In a film maybe the director keeps you company, this can happen, but generally you are meant to side with the lead to some extent. And the audience does not want to side with an obvious fool, or even someone smart doing something foolish for the duration.
Olivia de Havilland is good casting as Melanie but the character really is hopeless in the book, even if she is regarded by friend and foe alike as a truly good person. I think de Havilland tried to break that typecasting in her subsequent roles, to play a few bad girls!
The reason I would not have this book in the house so to speak is because it does seem to be racist propaganda. It may seem plausible and it may be true that while Southerners had black slaves, they got on with them well and would have them in the house, whereas Yankees were all for freedom but didn't like black folk and didn't want them in the house. But it feels after a while Margaret Mitchell is writing to make a point. At one point we read that Rhett Butler shot a negro who was rude to a white woman - and it is made clear we are meant to approve of this action. The film eschews this stuff and tones down the rest of it but though the book is nicely written, you are faced with this stuff. So it's maybe one to have on loan from the library, but as I say, it does give a useful alternative perspective on the big budget soap opera of the much-celebrated film.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Thanks for the mention, NP, but I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, having never read GWTTW... In FFTMC, Troy is a complete cad and you always know that Bathsheba made a huge mistake in falling for him (he basically tells her to marry him or he'll dump her)... If the Ashley character in Mitchell's novel is like his equivalent in the film, he's a spineless drip who only looks good. That's as far as I can take it...
Well, that sums up Ashley Wilkes - but you've seen the film, surely? It's a hard part to play because, yes, he can't make up his mind to ditch his lovely wife - to be fair, I'm not sure we want him to or that he ought to. Howard is okay but because of his other associations he seems more heroic than he is, I think Owen Wilson of today's actors could pull it off. Maybe a comparison could be made as Troy's real love - he later says - is Fanny who also comes a cropper. I'm stretching a point, though yes it's Troy's moral weakness that surprises; maybe he is also not unlike that other handsome rogue in uniform, in Pride & Prejudice. Wilkes is however of superior breeding and the new era finds him wanting. While Troy is more deliberately cruel and feckless.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I am enjoying an instalment in CJ Samson's Shardlake series, set in the Tudor era of Henry VIII, Lamentations. It's the latest one for me, I think there's only one after that to go so far. He may be working on another.
It's highly readable - it's odd though, I could only pick this up and start it the week after my Dad died, somehow with all the pressure of caring for him full-time I just struggled to turn myself to it; it's sort of escapist stress but you don't want that when you really are stressed, it's double helpings. The idea is the lead character Shardlake is a lawyer who is oft called upon to do the Govt's murky work and has to navigate with his own conscience at a time when last years' religious convention is this year's heresy. Often each instalment is set around a significant historical event and each one is a murder mystery, or mystery at least, which the antihero has to resolve.
This one is so far a bit McGuffin heavy - Shardlake is called into investigate the theft of a book written by the latest Queen Catherine Parr which has mildly heretical content that could see her burnt at the stake or beheaded if revealed to the increasingly corpulent, ill and mean-spirited king. But it's all very enjoyable and you feel the horribleness of Tudor London while not actually having to be there.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THE BLOODY CHAMBER – Angela Carter (1979)
Angela Carter introduces a political aspect to the fairy tale through her empowerment of heroines and their emancipated sexual outlook. She is consciously occupied with Freud and the implications of dreams and the ‘father figure’ as monster.
So, when comparing her updated version of Perrault’s Bluebeard, while there are many similarities to the original it is the addition of Carter’s political drive which takes over. She draws allusions to mythical heroines of the past, including the warrior mother Boudicca, as well as the eunuch consort [the heroine’s ‘lover’ is a blind man] – unable to assess the heroine physically he becomes sexually mute to her. Perrault’s moral seems to be that of Eve or Pandora, “the knowledge you looked for is not worth the cost.” He also strongly hints that the master-servant marriage expected by the Marquis is not an ideal one for a ‘modern’ 17th Century marriage. Carter meanwhile has an unclear moral stance. The Bloody Chamber, and in particular the titular opening story, becomes a series of realist fairy tales where fantasy, fiction and authenticity interact throughout the narrative. The reader must draw their own conclusions. It feels as though Carter has decided Perrault’s heroines lack sensuality and she must reinstall it. However this ignores the cultural context of the Salon Français and its resulting atmospheres which would not have allowed Perrault to be so blatantly pornographic as Carter manages.
There are similar issues in her rereading of Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood / Little Red Cap. Carter’s three versions reinterpret the wolf as hunter-gatherer-man and Red Riding Hood as a pubescent, curious woman, unafraid and sexually aware. Whether these imaginings are worthwhile is open to debate. They are difficult themes because while Carter claims to make a political and feminist point, she also opens the window to accusations of pandering to male preserves: for instance in The Company of Wolves, Red Riding Hood seduces the Wolf-Man. So, Carter embraces her stories under an umbrella of human perspective, not the fantastic. Figures like the wicked stepmother become archetypes of the human psyche with all their inevitable symbols. Beasts like the abhorrent bridegroom are suddenly granted a more positive status, defying established rules of sexual and social conduct and transforming fairy tales into feminist fables.
However, this has had the effect of immediately dating them as sexual tastes have altered. Carter was erring in the late seventies, the elope of free love, the pill, Health and Efficiency, pornography, page 3, etc; it was pre-AIDs, pre-transgender, pre-internet, pre-social media, pre-global society, pre-MeToo, where now the boundaries of behaviour, expectation and morality have become established along confrontational and often blurred political and social lines. For such a recent work The Bloody Chamber’s difficult themes of sensuality and empowerment no longer feel particularly relevant.
Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood as recommended by the JBLS ( https://www.jamesbondlifestyle.com/product/double-or-nothing )
Quite a departure from Ian Fleming but all in all on par with all the other "new breed" James Bond writers. I have to say that it was very refreshing after burning through all the James Reece books by Jack Carr (not a bad read either) with all their carnage and overt product placement (Fleming has nothing on Jack Carr!!!).
I do have to say, I am a bit on the fence about the way the old characters are portrayed by Sherwood and if the chips were down right now, I'd probably would say I didn't like it. I have the next one on the pipeline (A Spy Like Me) and will make up my mind after that one. I did have trouble putting it down after I started, and would say that it is way better than most of the other post Fleming Bond novels. When compared for example to Pearsons "Authorized Biography" the take by Sherwood on Bonds' character itself is much more human and refreshing. Whereas Pearsons Bond is a superhuman in his 60's that is saving the world again from a supervillain, Sherwoods Bond has gone missing, is professed having made mistakes and being vulnerable.
I don't want to spoil anything, this being a quite fresh trilogy, but I do recommend that you go and "Meet the new generation of spies…Johanna Harwood, 003. Joseph Dryden, 004. and Sid Bashir, 009."
-Mr Arlington Beech
I eventually have got around to reading the first Jack Reacher book by Lee Child, Killing Floor. I don't know why it's called that yet. I picked it up from the library yesterday and within a couple of hours I got to page 100 which shows how good it is.
It is written in the first person, like the Shardlake novels set in Tudor times (Think that's the only similarity!) The thing with that is, it helps give the impression the leading character is in over his head and is trying to puzzle out wha tis going on from a disadvantageous position. There are no cut aways to clue in the reader what the villains are up to. Some Bond movies might almost have that first-person perspective where it's all on Bond - OHMSS and CR are prime examples, Goldfinger and DAF maybe, but most cut away from him at times to show the villains up to their tricks and to advance the plot
The book employs the usual dualism- if that is the right word - for most action heroes. Reacher is a 'hobo' of sorts, on his Tod. Like The Futiive or Banner in The Incredible Hulk, he goes from town to town. But he seems not to be a loser, we learn - he is arrested in the book's, well, arresting opening scene and we see how he is able, Jason Bourne-style, to assess the capabilities of the officers making the arrest. Reacher seems to have no ties or responsibilities, but he's an ex-military man of some knowledge, rank and relevant capability to the predicament he finds himself in. So he has an 'in' with State organisations. This perspective helps, because he can converse with the authorities on their level and even above their level, we are given to believe in the 'bad apple' theme of the local police, where if you speak to the right guy you will be treated well and not fitted up. Anyway,, as with the likes of Clark Kent/Superman, or the bookish Indiana Jones and his whip-cracking alter ego, even Bond the office flirt and the agent out in the field, we identify with one aspect of the hero, then let the fantasy take over and do the heavy lifting!
By about page 100 I did get to thinking, okay, even I couldn't fantasise about doing that and I can see why Reacher fans couldn't get on with Tom Cruise being cast - of course Liam Neeson pre-Taken would have been the guy but he was deemed too old. The violence is a lot nastier than you get in any film too. These novels don't necessarily put me in a happy mood before bedtime - if anyone can suggest a happy and uplifting piece of fiction rather than 'escapist stress' I'd be grateful but I will crack on with this stonking good read.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I’ve read all of the Reacher novels - bar the last one yet - and they do vary in quality, but are on the whole decent reads. Since Lee Child’s brother took over though 🫣 they have gotten more violent - as in, Reacher kills more often now…and that just isn’t the character 👀
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT – Simon Armitage (2007)
An excellent modern translation of the Middle English Arthurian classic with the Fitts, stanzas, double alliterative, hop-and-wheel rhyme and rhythm retained to an immaculate and thoughtful degree. If the story and its moral legacy is rendered obsolete by a more modern blurring of right and wrong, it is still thoroughly enjoyable, extremely descriptive and laced with lashings of humour, much at the expense of the French chivalric tradition of the setting, something the original [unnamed] author saw fit to satirise. Extremely visual, Armitage’s translation easily takes us to this mythical England of knights, ogres, beautiful women and fantastic happenings. The tropes of the folk and fairy tale are present, in particular the three time repetitious occurrences and the enchanted people and objects. The poetic nature of the piece is wholly successful and brilliantly evokes the time, place and behaviour some 600 years gone. A short and very pleasurable read.