One Day
So the thing is, there are two film reviewers whose opinions I trust. One is the late Roger Ebert, the other is irrelevant because he's not available in any language most of you speak. They both gave "One Day" positive reviews - not praise, but "charming and good for a night out"-kind of thing, and this is interesting because the film was mostly negatively received at large.
This is also interesting because the novel left me largely underwhelmed. I'm not sure what I expected, anyway: I don't really read contemporary fiction, but made an exception for this one because it was 1) for free, and 2) apparently it was going to give me some sort of life-changing revelation? (it didn't really)
Brief summary: Here's Emma and Dexter who graduate in 1988 and spend the night together in bed, not having sex but talking about the future. They don't really become a couple, but they enjoy each other's company, and the book describes what they are doing on this exact day - July 15th - for the next twenty years. That is a fascinating narrative device right there, and I love fascinating narrative devices. I also love nineties nostalgia and am a bit of an Anglophile, so shouldn't this be thrilling?
Thing is, it was mostly kind of boring until ca. the halfway point. Emma and Dexter remain friends as they stumble through their twenties and into their thirties, trying to find direction in their lives shrugging at the other in sympathy if their roads happen to intersect. They aren't a couple but the cover says "friendship and love", so the logical conclusion is of course that come the final chapter on July 15th 2007, they'll fall into each other's arms and spend middle age togehter.
Well, here's a happy spoiler: that's not quite how it goes. The story avoids ending up a romcom cliché, but that's not to say that it doesn't thread very, very close to being one in the setup alone, and in fact crosses that ugly line at some point, too. Talking about things this novel isn't: funny. This, I suspect, is the translation. Even the people who didn't like the book seem to laud it for being funny, but I never even cracked a smile at it, so I can only assume that there was a lot of wit lost in the gap between the languages. This, of course, might also explain why it was such a bore to read about Emma and Dexters twentysomething adventures, and why I only got interested in reading onwards when they hit the point where things are supposed to be cooling down, but then somehow it didn't.
It's the end that saves the book, by a small revelation that changes nothing of what happened but changes a bit about how we see it all in retrospect. I liked that. I'd have liked it even better, however, if this revelation had been... stronger, somehow. As it is, it's mostly just like a bittersweet shrug. And in the sum of it, that shrug doesn't contribute a whole lot. I was left with a book that was kind of boring to read (prolly the translator) and a story that was kind of fascinating but also never becomes great. I feel as if some fairly small changes might have made me really, really like this book, instead of just think of it as "okay, sure, whatever".
And the film's up on youtube, and there was that strange feeling of watching the early few minutes of characters walking down streets that I walked two months ago - leaving the city not on July 15th - but the 13th.
ETA: I enjoyed the film more than the novel, as probably the only person on Earth. Wahey!
This is also interesting because the novel left me largely underwhelmed. I'm not sure what I expected, anyway: I don't really read contemporary fiction, but made an exception for this one because it was 1) for free, and 2) apparently it was going to give me some sort of life-changing revelation? (it didn't really)
Brief summary: Here's Emma and Dexter who graduate in 1988 and spend the night together in bed, not having sex but talking about the future. They don't really become a couple, but they enjoy each other's company, and the book describes what they are doing on this exact day - July 15th - for the next twenty years. That is a fascinating narrative device right there, and I love fascinating narrative devices. I also love nineties nostalgia and am a bit of an Anglophile, so shouldn't this be thrilling?
Thing is, it was mostly kind of boring until ca. the halfway point. Emma and Dexter remain friends as they stumble through their twenties and into their thirties, trying to find direction in their lives shrugging at the other in sympathy if their roads happen to intersect. They aren't a couple but the cover says "friendship and love", so the logical conclusion is of course that come the final chapter on July 15th 2007, they'll fall into each other's arms and spend middle age togehter.
Well, here's a happy spoiler: that's not quite how it goes. The story avoids ending up a romcom cliché, but that's not to say that it doesn't thread very, very close to being one in the setup alone, and in fact crosses that ugly line at some point, too. Talking about things this novel isn't: funny. This, I suspect, is the translation. Even the people who didn't like the book seem to laud it for being funny, but I never even cracked a smile at it, so I can only assume that there was a lot of wit lost in the gap between the languages. This, of course, might also explain why it was such a bore to read about Emma and Dexters twentysomething adventures, and why I only got interested in reading onwards when they hit the point where things are supposed to be cooling down, but then somehow it didn't.
It's the end that saves the book, by a small revelation that changes nothing of what happened but changes a bit about how we see it all in retrospect. I liked that. I'd have liked it even better, however, if this revelation had been... stronger, somehow. As it is, it's mostly just like a bittersweet shrug. And in the sum of it, that shrug doesn't contribute a whole lot. I was left with a book that was kind of boring to read (prolly the translator) and a story that was kind of fascinating but also never becomes great. I feel as if some fairly small changes might have made me really, really like this book, instead of just think of it as "okay, sure, whatever".
And the film's up on youtube, and there was that strange feeling of watching the early few minutes of characters walking down streets that I walked two months ago - leaving the city not on July 15th - but the 13th.
ETA: I enjoyed the film more than the novel, as probably the only person on Earth. Wahey!