Reading/Watching Log
Well, I start with some good news. You may or may not be familiar with the David Gemmell Morningstar Award, a competition that celebrates newcomers in the fantasy genre. Among the other nominees was my friend Helen Lowe for her novel The Heir of Night (which I spoke about a few weeks ago), and ... she won! This is a big deal, not just because of the obvious honour that it entails, but because this is the first time a female writer has won. So, if you need another reason to read this book, there it is! *shameless plug*
Poison by Chris Wooding
This is a fun little book that centres on a girl called Poison (she gives herself that name, which should tell you all you need to know about her character) whose little sister is kidnapped by the phaeries and a changeling left in her place. Leaving her father and home in the swamplands, Poison begins the search for Azalea, learning that in order to leave the Realm of Man and enter the Realm of Phaerie, she must go to one of the passing-places between the two worlds: in this case, the home of the Bone Witch. Poison must enter the house and stay there for a day and a night, at which point the boundaries between the worlds will fade and she can slip from one to the other...so long as she can avoid the witch. And that's just the first handful of chapters.
Why You Should Read This Book: Poison is a dyed-in-the-wool fantasy-adventure story - or is it? As you read, you can't help but feel a growing sense of self-awareness in the narrative when it comes to certain storytelling tropes and cliches - and what's more interesting, Poison picks up on them too. In the third act Wooding introduces a twist that turns the entire book around on its head, opening up several fourth-wall-breaking questions about the nature of stories and the agency of book characters.
There's also a unique blend of settings at work throughout the story. It's difficult to pin-point just what time-period all of this is taking place in, and though it starts in a medieval-esque village in a swamp, various other locations seem to come from a hodge-podge of different times/places, whilst still managing to fit together smoothly as Poison continues her journey. The lack of "narrative pointers" to indicate exactly where and when all this is happening is actually quite unique and almost exhilarating, and goes hand in hand with Wooding's ability to take familiar fairytale lore and put his own creative spin on it.
Great Expectations
I'd known about this adaptation for a while, and was curious to see what Gillian Anderson would do with the role of Miss Havisham. (Of course, even people who haven't read Great Expectations know all about Miss Havisham). I've seen some people complain that she's far too young for the role, though Dickens is never definitive about her age in the text. In fact, her contemporary Compeyton is described as reasonably young-looking, and so logic dictates that Miss Havisham is the same - though naturally, a role like this inevitably calls to mind an ancient and embittered old hag. Not so, and I think that Anderson may well be closer to Dickens's original vision than most people realize.
Her performance may divide viewers though. Dressed in cobwebby clothes, a white wig, and bare feet, this Miss Havisham is almost childlike in her mannerisms and lispy speech patterns. She also adds a habit of pinching the skin at the back of her hand to the point where it's covered in lesions, suggesting that Havisham had some sort of disorder long before she was jilted on her wedding day. There are a few moments of sharp and cunning clarity, such as when she whispers to Estella: "practice on him...," but for the most part, one gets the sense that her mind is too undeveloped for her to really be held accountable for her actions.
The rest of the cast is everything from excellent to passable, perhaps most amusingly with Oscar Kennedy and Douglas Booth. Kennedy as the young Pip is pitch-perfect. He's naive, sweet-natured, curious, vulnerable and totally adorable. Booth on the other hand, looks and acts like a Calvin Klein model. His face is way too modern (I would not have been surprised if he'd whipped out a cellphone), his acting is kinda average, and his passing resemblance to Robert Pattison means there's only one reason behind his casting; something I like to call "twilightification." Urgh.
Which in a sense was odd, considering the production ultimately seemed to favour Magwich's story over the love story with Estella. Maybe it was the script, maybe it was the performance, but Estella somehow got lost in this particular retelling. Yes, the unforgettable Ice Queen raised and trained by Havisham to entice and destroy men got overlooked and is one of the most uninteresting parts of this adaptation. How does that even happen? Much like the entire first season of Robin Hood, the whole thing seems to have been shot entirely through a blue filter in order to give it that "edgy" quality. Personally I think that the past (whether it be the Middle Ages or Dickensian London) was just as colourful as the present day, so this technique wore a little thin with me, but other than that, it's beautifully shot.
Why You Should Watch This: Well, Gillian Anderson puts on a good show, and despite some of the flaws in the characterization and pacing, I don't think any adaptation of a famous novel is ever a waste of time. There will always be something inherently intriguing about how a new production visualizes such famous characters, and this is no exception. Plus, Great Expectations is my favourite Dickens novel (at least of the ones I've read); not only does he subvert several of his own oft-used tropes and archetypes, but it is essentially, a rather fascinating story. A mysterious benefactor, a mad-woman in a crumbling estate, an emotionally stunted ice-queen, a convict on the loose - you'd be hard-pressed to fail at adapting a story as rich as this one.
Oh, and Harry Lloyd is in it. For those who were a little disheartened by his roles as utter jerkasses in Game of Thrones, The Devil's Whore and Doctor Who, you'll be pleased to know that he's loveable Herbert Pocket here. D'awww.
Once Upon a Time "The Return"
Oddly, I don't have much to say about this even though it was a fairly pivotal episode. At last we find out what happened to Baelfire and why Rumplestiltskin made the curse for Regina in the first place: it was in an attempt to get his son back!
For a few weeks I had been playing with the idea that August was Baelfire, and yet when they began telegraphing this at the beginning of the episode, it felt too obvious. But if not Bay, then who? Still, the scenes involving him in the fairytale realm were rather heartrending. Other children are too terrified to play with him and he can see his father sliding down the slippery slope; initially using his powers to do good, but then becoming more corrupt. And kudos to Robert Carlyle for keeping track of his character's development: this was not the avengeful Dark One, but it wasn't the giggly Rumplestiltskin either. He's clearly pacing himself.
And what's up with the Blue Fairy? I kept thinking that maybe she has some sort of agenda of her own, and this seemed compounded by the fact that she (seemingly) played along with August's cover-story that he was a man looking for his father. Could it be that her nun persona remembers the fairytale world? I'd think to think that there's a third contender up against Gold and Regina for the role of "master manipulator", and it would be cool if it was in fact a harmless looking nun/fairy.
But oh, Sidney. Why?
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Quote of the Week:
This one comes from Poison, and I think that it's a rather interesting writing technique. At the beginning of a new paragraph, we get this:
There was a certain tree that grew in the marshes called the clubroot tree, whose leaves were famed for their elastic quality. Poison had got hold of some as a child, nailed one end to the planking of a platform and pulled it out to see how far it would go. She was fascinated by how the leaf thinned as it became longer and longer, and finally, when she had pulled it too far, it snapped and sent her tumbling. It was as good an analogy as any for the sensation that had been growing in her all afternoon. Within an hour, the wraith-catcher's slow-moving cart had carried her as far away from her home as she had ever been; by the time evening set in, the world had become unfamiliar. She felt her connection with Gull like that leaf of the clubroot tree, stretching thinner and thinner, straining harder and harder to pull her back as she got further away. Then, as dusk fell, the link snapped.
I thought it was a great use of analogy, and presented in such an original way as well; first describing a seemingly unrelated event, and then connecting it with the situation at hand and the internal conflict of the protagonist. Plus it's also a neat little bit of world-building, what with the use of the entirely fictional clubroot tree as a plant unique to Poison's home. I'll have to log this away...
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Next on the reading list, I get started on T.A. Barron's Merlin series. Yes, more bloody Merlin, but this series has been on my reading list for a while, and it'll be interesting to get another take on a young "before he was famous" Merlin. Plus there are rumours of a TV adaptation. On the watching front, I'm slowly working my way (backwards) through the Doctor Who Specials, which are the final episodes of David Tennant's run. So far I've seen The Waters of Mars and The Planet of the Dead (in that order) and hopefully The Next Doctor will turn up at the library before The End of Time (heh, you see what I did there?)
And before I go, is anyone else having trouble uploading pictures to LJ at the moment? I had some images I wanted to share, but I kept getting rejected.