(no subject)
I read my first Sharpe book approximately August 20, and in the proceeding month and five days, have now read 17 Sharpe novels. I'm looking forward to finishing so that I can focus my brain elsewhere.
Brief thoughts on the most recent:
"Sharpe's Prey" - Sharpe goes to Copenhagen. This one has a cool beginning; Sharpe goes back to the orphanage where he was raised and coldly murders the man who runs it. I like that Sharpe's an orphan-saving hero and a cold-blooded killer.
This one also begins with the tragedy that should have ended the previous novel, "Sharpe's Trafalgar," in which Sharpe and Lady Grace begin their star-crossed romance. But perhaps it's a favor to the reader that we don't actually have to slog through Grace's death and the legal battles that leave Sharpe destitute.
So this one begins well, because a miserable and enraged Sharpe is always the most interesting.
But then he goes to Copenhagen and nearly forgets Grace as he starts drooling over the first skinny young blonde thing he can find. *sigh* So predictable. Also, the most memorable action sequence involves Sharpe stripping naked and getting stuck in a chimney, which is just ... weird.
Good things in the book: the descriptions of Copenhagen, which are wonderfully vivid and almost make you cry when the British start destroying it; the fact that Cornwell is very hard on the British in this one, and doesn't hesitate in showing how cruel their actions are; the introduction of Lord Pumphrey, apparently the only canonically gay character in the series, whose effeminate appearance hides a cynicism that makes him even more ruthless than Sharpe; and the fact that Sharpe spends most of the book wanting to escape the future that we know he'll eventually embrace (he tries to sell his commission and then wants to run away to Denmark). Oh, and the fact that the love interest that Sharpe spends the whole book protecting gets killed at the end, and Sharpe doesn't even know about it. (Cornwell is usually too obvious and tends to do the soap opera "every secret is eventually discovered" thing, so it's nice when he leaves something for the reader to enjoy with the characters knowing. Same with Hakeswill killing McCandless and Sharpe thinking it was Dodd (*crosses fingers that that isn't revealed in one I haven't read yet*)).
"Sharpe's Rifles" This is an older one, written before its prequels, so felt out of place. The writing style was very different (focused almost entirely on Sharpe, instead of of the vast array of supporting characters that the more recent novels delve into). And it was particularly jarring in its failure to mention anything that happened before, especially Grace (whose absence from his memories is hilariously retconned later as "it was just too painful for Sharpe to think about," uh huh). Sharpe's naivety doesn't make sense; he marvels over the rich people and the educated women, to which he's been exposed plenty in the prequels. It's also weird to adjust to Sharpe in Portugal again.
And I'm bored to tears by the spunky young things Sharpe inevitably finds himself drooling over.
The fun part of this one is how much Sharpe and Harper start out despising each other. I suppose the course of true love never did run smooth.
"Sharpe's Havoc" Not much happens in this one. The more recent novels are just filling in the gaps of the original series, so no huge character development can take place. This makes them increasingly formulaic and dull. The amusements are Cornwell's incorporation of elements from the TV series (Harris! "Over the Hills and Far Away" etc) and references to the prequels that don't exist in the original series taking place in the same period of time.
"Sharpe's Escape" - This one was a little better, since it had some good fist-fight scenes, and the female characters were somewhat more interesting (after spending a bit of time with Sharpe and Harper, the English governess and Portuguese teenager end up in men's clothes, running around with the guys and fighting the French with rifles and bayonettes). Lawford was pretty repulsive in this one, though. Oh, and Sharpe attempting to murder his pathetic, drunken rival was fun, since it was pretty unjustifiably rotten, and the result hilarious (Sharpe accidentally gets credited with saving his life).
I also watched Sharpe's Challenge, the new episode of the TV series. I liked it; Sean Bean looks good, and all the usual elements are there: creepy villain, pretty girl in need of rescue, big battle, Sharpe half-naked and being tortured, daring escape, scheming sergeant, Simmerson being incompetent and rotten, Wellington being cold and giving orders, and of course the True Love between Sharpe and Harper, which was pretty much the point of this one. Sharpe rides off to save Harper, gets saved by Harper instead, they spend the whole thing rescuing each other and worrying about each other, and then they ride off into the sunset together with barely a glanced at the supposed female love interest.
Two flaws: the parallels between Sharpe and Dodd (who both have reason to be bitter about the army's unfair promotion practices) were largely underplayed in order to make Dodd just another nasty villain, and the scene with the sick general lamenting about how he'd focused on his career and ignored his daughter, who should have been the most important thing in his life, left me howling with laughter. Sharpe stands there listening sincerely and then goes off to rescue the daughter, apparently never once even remembering that he has a daughter off in Spain somewhere that he abandoned to god knows what so that he could pursue his career. Sheesh. And him being an orphan who grew up in horrible circumstances himself! (Yeah, he left her with Teresa's family, but who knows if they even survived the war, or where the daughter might be now.)
But on the plus side, the bigger budget was quite nice. Good to see more than five people fighting in the battle scenes. And having read the three India novels from which its adapted, I'm impressed with how well the writers combined the three and finagled events around to fit the fact that the actors have all aged.
Brief thoughts on the most recent:
"Sharpe's Prey" - Sharpe goes to Copenhagen. This one has a cool beginning; Sharpe goes back to the orphanage where he was raised and coldly murders the man who runs it. I like that Sharpe's an orphan-saving hero and a cold-blooded killer.
This one also begins with the tragedy that should have ended the previous novel, "Sharpe's Trafalgar," in which Sharpe and Lady Grace begin their star-crossed romance. But perhaps it's a favor to the reader that we don't actually have to slog through Grace's death and the legal battles that leave Sharpe destitute.
So this one begins well, because a miserable and enraged Sharpe is always the most interesting.
But then he goes to Copenhagen and nearly forgets Grace as he starts drooling over the first skinny young blonde thing he can find. *sigh* So predictable. Also, the most memorable action sequence involves Sharpe stripping naked and getting stuck in a chimney, which is just ... weird.
Good things in the book: the descriptions of Copenhagen, which are wonderfully vivid and almost make you cry when the British start destroying it; the fact that Cornwell is very hard on the British in this one, and doesn't hesitate in showing how cruel their actions are; the introduction of Lord Pumphrey, apparently the only canonically gay character in the series, whose effeminate appearance hides a cynicism that makes him even more ruthless than Sharpe; and the fact that Sharpe spends most of the book wanting to escape the future that we know he'll eventually embrace (he tries to sell his commission and then wants to run away to Denmark). Oh, and the fact that the love interest that Sharpe spends the whole book protecting gets killed at the end, and Sharpe doesn't even know about it. (Cornwell is usually too obvious and tends to do the soap opera "every secret is eventually discovered" thing, so it's nice when he leaves something for the reader to enjoy with the characters knowing. Same with Hakeswill killing McCandless and Sharpe thinking it was Dodd (*crosses fingers that that isn't revealed in one I haven't read yet*)).
"Sharpe's Rifles" This is an older one, written before its prequels, so felt out of place. The writing style was very different (focused almost entirely on Sharpe, instead of of the vast array of supporting characters that the more recent novels delve into). And it was particularly jarring in its failure to mention anything that happened before, especially Grace (whose absence from his memories is hilariously retconned later as "it was just too painful for Sharpe to think about," uh huh). Sharpe's naivety doesn't make sense; he marvels over the rich people and the educated women, to which he's been exposed plenty in the prequels. It's also weird to adjust to Sharpe in Portugal again.
And I'm bored to tears by the spunky young things Sharpe inevitably finds himself drooling over.
The fun part of this one is how much Sharpe and Harper start out despising each other. I suppose the course of true love never did run smooth.
"Sharpe's Havoc" Not much happens in this one. The more recent novels are just filling in the gaps of the original series, so no huge character development can take place. This makes them increasingly formulaic and dull. The amusements are Cornwell's incorporation of elements from the TV series (Harris! "Over the Hills and Far Away" etc) and references to the prequels that don't exist in the original series taking place in the same period of time.
"Sharpe's Escape" - This one was a little better, since it had some good fist-fight scenes, and the female characters were somewhat more interesting (after spending a bit of time with Sharpe and Harper, the English governess and Portuguese teenager end up in men's clothes, running around with the guys and fighting the French with rifles and bayonettes). Lawford was pretty repulsive in this one, though. Oh, and Sharpe attempting to murder his pathetic, drunken rival was fun, since it was pretty unjustifiably rotten, and the result hilarious (Sharpe accidentally gets credited with saving his life).
I also watched Sharpe's Challenge, the new episode of the TV series. I liked it; Sean Bean looks good, and all the usual elements are there: creepy villain, pretty girl in need of rescue, big battle, Sharpe half-naked and being tortured, daring escape, scheming sergeant, Simmerson being incompetent and rotten, Wellington being cold and giving orders, and of course the True Love between Sharpe and Harper, which was pretty much the point of this one. Sharpe rides off to save Harper, gets saved by Harper instead, they spend the whole thing rescuing each other and worrying about each other, and then they ride off into the sunset together with barely a glanced at the supposed female love interest.
Two flaws: the parallels between Sharpe and Dodd (who both have reason to be bitter about the army's unfair promotion practices) were largely underplayed in order to make Dodd just another nasty villain, and the scene with the sick general lamenting about how he'd focused on his career and ignored his daughter, who should have been the most important thing in his life, left me howling with laughter. Sharpe stands there listening sincerely and then goes off to rescue the daughter, apparently never once even remembering that he has a daughter off in Spain somewhere that he abandoned to god knows what so that he could pursue his career. Sheesh. And him being an orphan who grew up in horrible circumstances himself! (Yeah, he left her with Teresa's family, but who knows if they even survived the war, or where the daughter might be now.)
But on the plus side, the bigger budget was quite nice. Good to see more than five people fighting in the battle scenes. And having read the three India novels from which its adapted, I'm impressed with how well the writers combined the three and finagled events around to fit the fact that the actors have all aged.