Memes...Merlin and other stuff

1. Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer

Again don't really have a favorite writer. There's writers I've read a lot of stuff from but not quite the same thing.

So...Jane Austen? Pride and Prejudice (I'd say Sandition but only the first five chapters were written by Austen.), James Joyce? Ulyssess, I love the Molly Bloom chapter and the chapter about the guy trying to piss with the Clap. Joyce was a master stylist, he could jump from clear precise narrative (Dubliners) to stream of consciousness.
Sort of the Irish equivalent of Proust, except more happens and he's less snooty. I appreciate a good stylist - since I jump writing styles on a daily basis. This is not the writing style I use at work. (I've admittedly never read Proust in original French and you sort of have to - to appreciate it. But I suck at languages. I had enough troubles understanding Georges Simenon in French.)

For Minette Walters? The Ice House - which also had a BBC tv movie made from. For Arturo Perez Reverte? I'm going with The Flanders Panel (I know, I know, everyone loves The Seville Communion, but I can't remember it. The Flanders Panel was great - it was a chess match combined with painting forgeries. I tried to write something similar and failed miserably.)

( rest of the days )

2. Day 17 - Favorite mini series

Let's face it - people don't really do them any more. I was going to go with Lonesome Dove based on Larry McMurty's incredibly long novel of the same name, which was televised in the late 1980s. But who am I kidding? I own only one miniseries and that is A&E's/BBC's 1990s adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett. That is definitely my favorite and it's flawless. Adds to the book, without detracting from it.

( rest of the days )

3. About 4% of the way into Dance of Dragons...or four chapters in. And it's already confusing. The White Wolf or Snow's wolf counts five wolves still alive, out of six. And I'm thinking wait...I know two are dead. Did Martin lose count? Or am I confused?

Also Martin takes far too long to get to the point - the last five pages of each chapter is the most interesting. Far too much time is spent on describing everything people are eating, what they are wearing, and their residence. Martin? I do not need to know what the table looks like. Or the difference between wines in Myrh, Lyrh, Pentos and Westeros. Still better than the other books I've read this year so far, but considering what I've read, that's admittedly not saying all that much.

There's a review of Storm of Swords on Amazon, where the reviewer comments that Martin takes too long to get to the point. It's not the number of pages or words, but the fact that he wastes time building and building and building for about 3000 pages. And he's talking about Storm of Swords. The writer is insanely obsessed with the small details of his world. The reviewer also states that the good characters are portrayed as somewhat dumb, or too willing to be nice to the villians...and as a result enable the villains to succeed. This is not completely wrong. Although I see the characters as far more complex than the reviewer did and more interesting. I think he did a lot of skimming? I'd hunt the review down for you, but don't feel like it. It's not really worth it.

4. Merlin - Season 5 - The Hollow Queen

Weirdly there are good bits in this episode. The good bits have to do with Merlin and to a degree Morgana/Gwen - the episode goes a long way to explaining why Morgana did what she's done and how she convinced Gwen to side with her.

( eh spoilers )

I tried Zero Hour - gave up fifteen minutes into it, just didn't hold my attention.
Right now TV has an uphill battle to grab my attention - there's too much of it. I'm not sure I want to add more.

Oscars?

I watched the middle section, so missed the best supporting actor, the inappropriate song about topless female actresses (thank ghod, sounds horrid), and the animation awards (which I wanted to see, dang-it) and two of the best song nominees - although the song nominees this year were admittedly not that memorable. They haven't been for a while - Disney is falling down on the job.

* Was pleased Brave, Paperman, and Ang Lee all won. The first two for best animated film and best animated short, respectfully. (Granted haven't seen any of the other nominees). And was quite happy Ang Lee got it for Life of Pi over Spielberg, because I think Lee is better director overall, and he blew my socks off with what he did with Life of Pi. That's hard to do well.

Everything else was pretty much predictable. The musical presentation was done better than usual - although I wish they'd picked "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Miz. Bonheme-Carter and Sascha Baron aren't singers - their voices were lost behind the others.

And didn't mind the Bond tribute. Shirley Bassy and Adele do sound alike. Although I think I like Skyfall better than Goldfinger, even if I remember Goldfinger better. (There's a great rendition of James Bond themes on the Trainspotting soundtrack). And yes, Jennifer Hudson upstaged Adele. But she had the better song. Skyfall has nothing on the songs sung in the musical presentation.

I didn't stay up. I was bored and tired. So I went to bed. The last three awards pretty much went as predicted: Jennifer Lawrence (who appears to be the new Ann Hathaway), Ann Hathaway, Daniel Day Lewis, and Argo.