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shadowkatWent to urgent care this morning to get antibotics to deal with my chronic cough - which instead of getting better, has gotten worse, dang it. Got the dreaded antiboitics and cough syrup (laced with codeine) and came home. So today was fairly low-key. (I type as I hack. Hate chest coughs.)
Yesterday, we wandered about Beaufort, SC which has changed a great deal. Not one but two of our beloved book stores have closed. One was in an old firehouse. They want to put a restaurant or bar in it, as if they don't have enough already. But we had a nice gumbo at the historic Plums, a rollicking laid-back seafood joint, and candy cane ice cream at an old fashioned ice cream parlor. Well, I had the candy cane ice cream (because peppermint ice cream is my fav), Momster had chocolat and Popster Vanilla/Orange Sorbet. And we took a quite stroll along the Broad River, which included sitting in a wooden swing, just soaking in the sunshine. It was a lovely day - in the mid-sixities. Once we returned home, I sat outside for a bit and read.
Tuesday - we saw the musical Hello Dolly. An old style Broadway musical, based on a farce, The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder. Have seen both movie versions - the farce, starring Shirley Booth and a young Anthony Perkins, as well as the Barbara Striesand production with Walter Matthew. The later garnered several oscar nominations but unfortunately ended Striesand's friendship with Carol Channing who originated the role on Broadway. The story goes, according to Momster, that Channing was starring in Hello Dolly at the same time Streisand was in Funny Girl on Broadway. They were best buds. And both nominated for a Tony. Channing won it. Striesand went out of her way the next year or so to get the rights to Hello Dolly and deliberately cast herself in the title role, publicly snubbing Channing who had owned it on Broadway.
All gossip aside? The version I saw down on Hilton Head was fairly good. The guy who played Cornielus Hackle hammed it up a bit. But Richard Wright, who was the voice of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast - was quite good. The musical itself feels a tad sexist and cliche nowadays, and a bit dated. But there are some great Jerry Herman songs: Before the Parade Passes By, It only Takes a Moment, Putting on Your Sunday Clothes, and well the title number Hello Dolly.
Am charging up the old Kindle, so taking a break from the page-turner that Catching Fire book two of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games triology has become. I rather like the new characters - Finnick and Johanna, and Beetee.
Peeta unfortunately still feels underdeveloped and difficult to care too much about. What's interesting about Peeta - who is the "proposed" love interest or who the characters in the book are pushing the heroine to love is just that she's being told to love him, shown why she should, but ...while she cares deeply for him, she does not "love" him in that way. And there's this sense of irritation you feel, being in her pov, that she's being manipulated by everyone to love him. It's a great commentary on "marketed romance" or "what we are told it should be". It could be a bit sharper in places...I suppose. What's also interesting about Peeta is that he is clearly in the traditional female role here. He's definitely the "damsel" - the one everyone keeps saving. It's ironic - because he volunteers to go in to save Katniss, who clearly would be better off if he stayed home, since she's saving his butt all the time. Although, his presence provides her with allies - who want to help her save his butt, because he's pure, not a killer, and not a hunter...the painter, the innocent. There's also a role reversal with Finnick and Johanna, Johanna is the fighter, killer, sarcastic, while Finnick is the sweetheart and quick to emotion and tears. JK Rowlings, Meyer, Gaiman, CS Lewis, Butcher, et all would have done the opposite here. But Collins neatly flips the gender roles. Yet, I don't find myself rooting for Peeta and Katniss to end up together - there's something about their romance, about Peeta himself that does not work for me - and I think it is deliberate. It's "too" romantic, too melo-dramatic, too heightened. It's clear he doesn't truly know Katniss. What he knows of her is somewhat limited to the Games, to the game they are playing. Their entire relationship is based on role-playing games. And Peeta himself seems to care little for anyone outside of Katniss in his town or Village or District. His world is just her. While Katniss cares about her mother, her sister, Gale, Madge, Rue, everyone, she's not trying to impress anyone, love or romance as she tells Gale? She has no time for. She's too busy trying to keep everyone alive and has been from the start. And here - is yet another theme emerging. Peeta - the more social of the two, has never had to worry about hunger or being the provider, he's had time to paint, to frost cakes, to make friends, to daydream about the pretty girl and try to help her - by giving her, what exactly, charity? While Katniss' world is all about survival, providing for her mother and sister, worrying about Gale's family and the others. It is a divide that I don't think Peeta can cross or understand. Having spent time with people who were dirt poor, who were starving, and got "charity" - I think Collins gets it. She gets what it does to people. Poverty. Just living hand to mouth. And what war and violence do. Katniss' father died in the mines - it is a loss I'm not sure Peeta can imagine. His purity in contrast to her's is that born of privilege, a Baker's son, who may not have lived a perfect life with a jealous mother and a less than attentive father..his life is still one where he is not terrified. His nightmares are of losing Katniss, while Katniss' nightmares are far more complex. In some respects he's far too simple for her, and she may be far too damaged for him.
The entwining themes in this story regarding class, poverty, war, violence and their effects on children alone are rather astonishing, but add to this the over-arcing theme of celebrity, of image, of how we try to paint these things in a romantic light to make ourselves feel better about their existence ...the reality shows about "survival" or "wife-swapping" or "dating" are all harpooned here and taken to the extreem.
My one complaint is Collins writing style is not deft enough, clever enough to garner the notice of those who praise works far less substantive in theme and allegory. Often the eye is attracted by the beautiful phrase the rhythm of the words floating across the page, yet fails to notice the lack of substance, while it ignores a far simplier work stylistically, but far more substantive in the ways that truly matter.
Off to read more, I'm about 89% of the way through.
Yesterday, we wandered about Beaufort, SC which has changed a great deal. Not one but two of our beloved book stores have closed. One was in an old firehouse. They want to put a restaurant or bar in it, as if they don't have enough already. But we had a nice gumbo at the historic Plums, a rollicking laid-back seafood joint, and candy cane ice cream at an old fashioned ice cream parlor. Well, I had the candy cane ice cream (because peppermint ice cream is my fav), Momster had chocolat and Popster Vanilla/Orange Sorbet. And we took a quite stroll along the Broad River, which included sitting in a wooden swing, just soaking in the sunshine. It was a lovely day - in the mid-sixities. Once we returned home, I sat outside for a bit and read.
Tuesday - we saw the musical Hello Dolly. An old style Broadway musical, based on a farce, The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder. Have seen both movie versions - the farce, starring Shirley Booth and a young Anthony Perkins, as well as the Barbara Striesand production with Walter Matthew. The later garnered several oscar nominations but unfortunately ended Striesand's friendship with Carol Channing who originated the role on Broadway. The story goes, according to Momster, that Channing was starring in Hello Dolly at the same time Streisand was in Funny Girl on Broadway. They were best buds. And both nominated for a Tony. Channing won it. Striesand went out of her way the next year or so to get the rights to Hello Dolly and deliberately cast herself in the title role, publicly snubbing Channing who had owned it on Broadway.
All gossip aside? The version I saw down on Hilton Head was fairly good. The guy who played Cornielus Hackle hammed it up a bit. But Richard Wright, who was the voice of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast - was quite good. The musical itself feels a tad sexist and cliche nowadays, and a bit dated. But there are some great Jerry Herman songs: Before the Parade Passes By, It only Takes a Moment, Putting on Your Sunday Clothes, and well the title number Hello Dolly.
Am charging up the old Kindle, so taking a break from the page-turner that Catching Fire book two of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games triology has become. I rather like the new characters - Finnick and Johanna, and Beetee.
Peeta unfortunately still feels underdeveloped and difficult to care too much about. What's interesting about Peeta - who is the "proposed" love interest or who the characters in the book are pushing the heroine to love is just that she's being told to love him, shown why she should, but ...while she cares deeply for him, she does not "love" him in that way. And there's this sense of irritation you feel, being in her pov, that she's being manipulated by everyone to love him. It's a great commentary on "marketed romance" or "what we are told it should be". It could be a bit sharper in places...I suppose. What's also interesting about Peeta is that he is clearly in the traditional female role here. He's definitely the "damsel" - the one everyone keeps saving. It's ironic - because he volunteers to go in to save Katniss, who clearly would be better off if he stayed home, since she's saving his butt all the time. Although, his presence provides her with allies - who want to help her save his butt, because he's pure, not a killer, and not a hunter...the painter, the innocent. There's also a role reversal with Finnick and Johanna, Johanna is the fighter, killer, sarcastic, while Finnick is the sweetheart and quick to emotion and tears. JK Rowlings, Meyer, Gaiman, CS Lewis, Butcher, et all would have done the opposite here. But Collins neatly flips the gender roles. Yet, I don't find myself rooting for Peeta and Katniss to end up together - there's something about their romance, about Peeta himself that does not work for me - and I think it is deliberate. It's "too" romantic, too melo-dramatic, too heightened. It's clear he doesn't truly know Katniss. What he knows of her is somewhat limited to the Games, to the game they are playing. Their entire relationship is based on role-playing games. And Peeta himself seems to care little for anyone outside of Katniss in his town or Village or District. His world is just her. While Katniss cares about her mother, her sister, Gale, Madge, Rue, everyone, she's not trying to impress anyone, love or romance as she tells Gale? She has no time for. She's too busy trying to keep everyone alive and has been from the start. And here - is yet another theme emerging. Peeta - the more social of the two, has never had to worry about hunger or being the provider, he's had time to paint, to frost cakes, to make friends, to daydream about the pretty girl and try to help her - by giving her, what exactly, charity? While Katniss' world is all about survival, providing for her mother and sister, worrying about Gale's family and the others. It is a divide that I don't think Peeta can cross or understand. Having spent time with people who were dirt poor, who were starving, and got "charity" - I think Collins gets it. She gets what it does to people. Poverty. Just living hand to mouth. And what war and violence do. Katniss' father died in the mines - it is a loss I'm not sure Peeta can imagine. His purity in contrast to her's is that born of privilege, a Baker's son, who may not have lived a perfect life with a jealous mother and a less than attentive father..his life is still one where he is not terrified. His nightmares are of losing Katniss, while Katniss' nightmares are far more complex. In some respects he's far too simple for her, and she may be far too damaged for him.
The entwining themes in this story regarding class, poverty, war, violence and their effects on children alone are rather astonishing, but add to this the over-arcing theme of celebrity, of image, of how we try to paint these things in a romantic light to make ourselves feel better about their existence ...the reality shows about "survival" or "wife-swapping" or "dating" are all harpooned here and taken to the extreem.
My one complaint is Collins writing style is not deft enough, clever enough to garner the notice of those who praise works far less substantive in theme and allegory. Often the eye is attracted by the beautiful phrase the rhythm of the words floating across the page, yet fails to notice the lack of substance, while it ignores a far simplier work stylistically, but far more substantive in the ways that truly matter.
Off to read more, I'm about 89% of the way through.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 12:02 pm (UTC)BTW, I posted your package today, I guess it's not going to make it this year, but should hopefully come early next year.
There was room left so I put on Moffat's Jekyll series as an extra. :)
Happy Holidays!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 09:57 pm (UTC)Thanks for the package! Looking forward to seeing it when I get home.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 04:10 pm (UTC)And the triangel is an odd one. Gale's barely in the books, yet we know him better because Katniss tells us everything about him. She knows Gale. Peeta who is physically present through most of Hunger Games and Catching Fire - Katniss doesn't really know. She can't figure out if she can trust him. Then she's not sure if she should. And finally she feels overwhelmed with guilt and self-hatred for not feeling as he does, for feeling as if she's using him. Peeta's love is in a way a "weapon" that is used against her repeatedly.
Yet at the same time...it's also what aids her and gives her comfort. But it is clear that she doesn't know him, while she knows Gale and as an extension so do we. The triangel that Collins forms is used more as a weapon against the heroine - it makes it harder for her to figure out what to do.
And it's also a nice satire on Twilight and others of that ilk.
Yeah, I agree - they are missing so much of what Collins is doing here.
[I linked Mark Reads for a friend of mine who rec'd the books to me, but haven't read him myself. Didn't want to be spoiled. ;-) Just started Mockinjay today.]
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 07:54 pm (UTC)Hell, Katniss barely understands or cares about her emotions, they're hardly the thing she's going to be thinking about.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 09:47 pm (UTC)It's also annoying how they keep saying that Katniss has the emotional content of a teaspoon or something like that. It's like they miss all her emotions because they keep expecting Collins to spell them out instead of showing them through her actions as she's been doing.
Odd. She seems fairly emotional to me, and a bit traumatized - as a 16/17 year old who had been forced to kill people, watch people she cared for, and choose between people she cares for would be. Perhaps they prefer the more simplestic and easier reading level of Meyer? ;-)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-25 12:44 am (UTC)Mark himself isn't as bad, but there's times I really hate to read the comment section, because so many of them seem to entirely miss the point.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 06:00 pm (UTC)Well Mark (of Mark Reads) decided to call Katniss and Peeta either 'Peenis' or 'Katpee'
I thought you would want to know.
lol
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 09:59 pm (UTC)