mental miscellanea

[skellorg]

i am: sitting here when i should be in the kitchen cooking
listening to: an ambitious neighbor mowing his lawn
drinking: green tea, hot

• son returned from his "underway" last weekend for a brief visit to dryland. very brief. he'll be leaving on friday for a two-month jaunt this time. at least i got one good meal in him before he's submerged beneath

Comments

[goingofthings]

are you enjoying Girl in Hyacinth Blue?

[skellorg]

I finished it last night, and yes I did enjoy it very much. Thanks so much for sending it. I can foresee needing to read it again sometime in the future because when I reached the last chapter I realized I'd read it so fast I couldn't remember all of the hands the painting had gone through.

[goingofthings]

Oh good! You didn't say much about it so for a minute there I had fears you didn't like it, but I'm glad you did; I had that problem, too. There were one or two stories I didn't remember, but I will always remember the boy in Nazi Germany and the woman the finds the baby and the painting in a boat. For some reason I thought the latter was the most powerful. Anywho, glad you enjoyed and that I owned an extra copy I could send :)

[skellorg]

Yes, I remember those too, and the woman who had the pearls painted on because she thought it would look nice. And of course, the first and last. I amused myself by thinking, as I finished each one, "That was the best one yet." (Other than the haughty Frenchwoman, though it had its moments too.)

[goingofthings]

yeah I wasn't a fan of the Frenchwoman either - I didn't get emotionally involved in that plotline at all. Now I feel I should read it again - I forget the first and last ones.

[skellorg]

Well, the first and the last were simply (though not so simply) the creation and the destruction ... in reverse.

[goingofthings]

oh!! I forgot about the destruction part. It's been awhile since I read it. Well, only a year, but I read too many books in between that I forget some things; but it makes it interesting because when I re-read books it's sometimes like reading it for the first time, lol. Sometimes I get memories of the book confused with a version they made for TV - which usually makes me cringe, but this version they made portrayed the book very well. And the painting was not destroyed in the movie.

[skellorg]

I noted that whether or not the painting was burned was left up to the reader to decide, or ponder on anyway. I don't usually like ambiguous endings, but that one was very well done. I didn't realize the book was made into a movie - or mini-series? I don't watch much TV. I watch even less movies. I still have a mini-series DVD set I bought myself back in November that I haven't watched yet (because I've already seen it, enjoyed it enough to buy, but keep telling myself I can watch it any time - no rush.) There are so many more I'd like to own, but I think I've learned my lesson about buying them from the one that's gathering dust. At least it wasn't expensive. I really want the A&E version of Ivanhoe. I think I'd actually watch that one. ;)

Uh-oh, my caffeine obviously hasn't worn off and it's almost time to go to sleep.

[goingofthings]

it was just a movie made for TV. I don't really watch much TV, but I had heard about the movie right after I read the book, so I had to watch it to compare. It was very, very well done though - Glen Close played the part of the owner of the painting I think. I'm a movie addict though, GOOD movies - I'm very picky lol. But they can be like a book, a good escape mechanism.

I saw the A&E version of Ivanhoe after reading the book and I really liked it - I didn't think I would because I had tried watching it before I read the book and was very confused as to what was going on. And the beginning was a bit slow so I didn't give it much chance. You must have a talent for catching me with extra-copies of stuff, because my parents I guess forgot they had the VHS version of Ivanhoe and bought it on DVD. I can ask them about it if you want, but if you are a DVD-only person I can understand lol.

[skellorg]

Ah, well I appreciate the offer to ask them, but yeah ... I've pretty much switched over to DVDs. (I actually have it on VHS recorded off the A&E channel when they were airing it, but I screwed up the taping and recorded the last hour or so over top of the first hour or so. Duh.) I'll get around to buying it some day (or year) - maybe after I watch the ones I already bought that I haven't watched yet. ;)

[goingofthings]

It's okay, I have too for the most part. Although if I see a VHS at Walmart for 1.50 that I really want then I've been known to cave in. I thought about selling my parents VHS tapes on ebay for them (they are clueless, I don't think they even know what ebay is, but they have some like Ivanhoe and the A&E version of P&P and they are always complaining about how much space mini-series on VHS take up). But then I figured it was a waste of time because while whatever money they made might be a lot in my eyes, it'd probably be pocket change to them. Which is why I thought I'd offer it to you but I completely understand wanting only DVDs. I still remember when DVDs came out and people scoffed because they thought it was just a fad. lol.