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shadowkat1. Still working my way through Breaking Bad episodes, which you can thank or blame my co-worker for convincing me to attempt again. [We had various discussions about quality tv serials, and he managed to convey that Breaking Bad had a flawless structural narrative and character arc that intrigued me. So decided to give it another crack.] AMC is marathoning the series - so all I have to do is DVR it and watch the episodes when I find the time. It's easier now than it was the last time I tried it. Nothing else on to compete with it. And I've nearly burned myself out on romance novels. Last time, I'd nearly burned myself out on violent literary novels and sci-fi. Like all things, this too, depends on my mood.
Walt does not improve as we move forward, he just digs himself deeper and deeper into the hole he's in, and everyone else with him. What's interesting though and in a way makes this series more compelling than various similar series before it, is that we get to see each of his choices, we watch him choose this path. It is an existentialist tale, one of free will, not determination. Walt White makes his own choices. He had other options.
And the choices he makes while understandable are not justifiable, yet we watch he wrestle to do just that.
At any given point, he can get out of the drug biz. But he doesn't because of pride. Walt's greatest flaw is his pride. He allows his pride to drive all his actions.
I feel more sympathetic towards Walt's protegee/partner/student Jesse Pinkman...who is trapped from the beginning and unable to find a way out. When he does appear to find one,
Walt, in well-meaning fashion, rips the rug out from under him. Which in turn, and this is somewhat hilariously melodramatic, causes a series of events to unfold that there is no way on earth Walt could possibly have foreseen.
My main difficulty with the series...which is amongst the reasons I initially gave up on it, is there are no likable or sympathetic female characters. If this is a requirement, you'll hate this series. If it's not? No problemo. It's unrelentingly male, and it becomes obvious by the end of S2, that Vince Gillian doesn't understand women and can't write women to save his life. This writer has serious Mommy issues. But...considering we are in a white male pov throughout, that can be forgiven. In this respect, Sopranoes, Mad Men, and The Wire are far better series, merely because they can handle both genders. But this is true of some tv series that unrelentingly female as well...such as Girls, Bunheads,
Grey's Anatomy, where often the male characters feel boilerplate or non-existent. You just have to go into BB with the view that this is a story about Walt Whiteman.
That said, it's still an entertaining and brilliantly written piece of television. Tight.
Darkly humorous and satiric in places. The characters fully developed.
An example of a tight plot structure - depicting an insane causal turn of events? Throughout the second season we get glimpses in black and white of people cleaning up Walt's pool area, carrying out items in evidence bags, including two body-bags, in a truck.
We get more and more snippets as the season progresses. In real time, Jesse has hooked up with the manager of his apartment complex. She is an artist and a former heroine addict.
As they get more and more involved, Jess and Walt finally sell their meth, and each gain 480,000 dollars. Jesse's girlfriend, Jane, blackmails Walt into giving it to Jesse now,
not holding it for him until he gets cleaned up. Meanwhile she's managed to convince her father to wait until the next day to take her to rehab, the father threatened to call the cops. Her Dad portrayed by the brilliant John De Lancie, stops off at a bar for a drink where he has a friendly chat with Walt, who is worrying about Jesse. Jane's Dad, not knowing who Walt is, convinces him to stick by Jesse. Walt goes back to the apt, lets himself in and finding Jane and Jesses in a heroine daze, tries to shake Jesse away, inadvertently pushing Jane onto her back - where she vomits into her mouth and dies. Walt does nothing to stop it. Just leaves. Effectively killing her. Jesse wakes up, finds her dead, freaks out, and rages in grief and sorrow. Her father is also freaked and grief-stricken. She was his only child. 27 years of age. Her father goes back to work and turns out to be an air-traffic controller. On that same day, Walt's wife, Skyler has finally realized that Walt has been lying to her about everything for months now and decides to leave him. Grief-stricken the controller misdirects a flight...which crashes and burns near Walt's swimming pool, dislodging bodies and debris into the pool. The snippets of the white suites in the black and white footage are related to the plane crash that was inadvertently caused by a sequence of events placed into motion by Walt and Jesse. There's more to the plot than what I mentioned, it's very detailed and intricate. This was just a quick synopsis.
As I said, I wouldn't call Walt or any of the people on Breaking Bad likable.. But they are compelling. As is the story. Although the plane crash was a bit over the top. Absurd in the extreme.
2. Finished Laura Kinsalle's Flowers from the Storm finally, while it is well written in places, it sort of fizzles out in the middle and becomes frustrating to read.
The Quakers are bit too pious and unrelentingly superior in their views and their cloistered existence, rendering them distasteful and unlikable in the extreme. Maybe they were like that in early 19th C England. The novel takes place between 1820-1830, during the reign of King George the IV. But they are portrayed as pious nitwits. The aristocracy comes across as much more favorable, which I have difficulty believing. Clearly the writer is placing judgement on the time period and on religious individuals within that time period.
As a result, I found it difficult at times to either relate to or even like the heroine, Archimedia Timms at times. She comes across as a self-centered dolt. I just wanted to kick her. Jervaulx or Christian Langland, the Duke of Jervaulx is more interesting and sympathetic, even though he's a bit of rake.
What worked for me was The Duke's stroke or cereberal hemorrage, which is mistaken for dementia. It results in an aphsia that makes it difficult for the Duke to speak, write or read well. The writer does a deft job of describing the frustration of dealing with aphasia, or the inability to access certain words, the tendency to say the wrong words, and how dependent we are on our ability to communicate - not to mention the intolerance and impatience of others regarding our ability to do so in a manner that they can understand. This portion of the book was interesting and did not fall into cliche. And I recommend the book for it, alone.
The sex scenes were serviceable. The supporting characters under-developed and rarely seen.
The main one's are suitably complex. There's little humor in the novel, and it is not so much dark as grim or melodramatic in places. Although not quite as melodramatic as the Brontes.
Overall...it was okay, better than most, but also disappointing. The writing held promise but fizzled out halfway through.
ETA: I've come to the conclusion that the much-maligned romance genre (including paranormal, sci-fi, YA, historical, contemporary) is well-deserving of the criticism.
Seriously, the purple prose and melodrama in these novels is staggering.
Walt does not improve as we move forward, he just digs himself deeper and deeper into the hole he's in, and everyone else with him. What's interesting though and in a way makes this series more compelling than various similar series before it, is that we get to see each of his choices, we watch him choose this path. It is an existentialist tale, one of free will, not determination. Walt White makes his own choices. He had other options.
And the choices he makes while understandable are not justifiable, yet we watch he wrestle to do just that.
At any given point, he can get out of the drug biz. But he doesn't because of pride. Walt's greatest flaw is his pride. He allows his pride to drive all his actions.
I feel more sympathetic towards Walt's protegee/partner/student Jesse Pinkman...who is trapped from the beginning and unable to find a way out. When he does appear to find one,
Walt, in well-meaning fashion, rips the rug out from under him. Which in turn, and this is somewhat hilariously melodramatic, causes a series of events to unfold that there is no way on earth Walt could possibly have foreseen.
My main difficulty with the series...which is amongst the reasons I initially gave up on it, is there are no likable or sympathetic female characters. If this is a requirement, you'll hate this series. If it's not? No problemo. It's unrelentingly male, and it becomes obvious by the end of S2, that Vince Gillian doesn't understand women and can't write women to save his life. This writer has serious Mommy issues. But...considering we are in a white male pov throughout, that can be forgiven. In this respect, Sopranoes, Mad Men, and The Wire are far better series, merely because they can handle both genders. But this is true of some tv series that unrelentingly female as well...such as Girls, Bunheads,
Grey's Anatomy, where often the male characters feel boilerplate or non-existent. You just have to go into BB with the view that this is a story about Walt Whiteman.
That said, it's still an entertaining and brilliantly written piece of television. Tight.
Darkly humorous and satiric in places. The characters fully developed.
An example of a tight plot structure - depicting an insane causal turn of events? Throughout the second season we get glimpses in black and white of people cleaning up Walt's pool area, carrying out items in evidence bags, including two body-bags, in a truck.
We get more and more snippets as the season progresses. In real time, Jesse has hooked up with the manager of his apartment complex. She is an artist and a former heroine addict.
As they get more and more involved, Jess and Walt finally sell their meth, and each gain 480,000 dollars. Jesse's girlfriend, Jane, blackmails Walt into giving it to Jesse now,
not holding it for him until he gets cleaned up. Meanwhile she's managed to convince her father to wait until the next day to take her to rehab, the father threatened to call the cops. Her Dad portrayed by the brilliant John De Lancie, stops off at a bar for a drink where he has a friendly chat with Walt, who is worrying about Jesse. Jane's Dad, not knowing who Walt is, convinces him to stick by Jesse. Walt goes back to the apt, lets himself in and finding Jane and Jesses in a heroine daze, tries to shake Jesse away, inadvertently pushing Jane onto her back - where she vomits into her mouth and dies. Walt does nothing to stop it. Just leaves. Effectively killing her. Jesse wakes up, finds her dead, freaks out, and rages in grief and sorrow. Her father is also freaked and grief-stricken. She was his only child. 27 years of age. Her father goes back to work and turns out to be an air-traffic controller. On that same day, Walt's wife, Skyler has finally realized that Walt has been lying to her about everything for months now and decides to leave him. Grief-stricken the controller misdirects a flight...which crashes and burns near Walt's swimming pool, dislodging bodies and debris into the pool. The snippets of the white suites in the black and white footage are related to the plane crash that was inadvertently caused by a sequence of events placed into motion by Walt and Jesse. There's more to the plot than what I mentioned, it's very detailed and intricate. This was just a quick synopsis.
As I said, I wouldn't call Walt or any of the people on Breaking Bad likable.. But they are compelling. As is the story. Although the plane crash was a bit over the top. Absurd in the extreme.
2. Finished Laura Kinsalle's Flowers from the Storm finally, while it is well written in places, it sort of fizzles out in the middle and becomes frustrating to read.
The Quakers are bit too pious and unrelentingly superior in their views and their cloistered existence, rendering them distasteful and unlikable in the extreme. Maybe they were like that in early 19th C England. The novel takes place between 1820-1830, during the reign of King George the IV. But they are portrayed as pious nitwits. The aristocracy comes across as much more favorable, which I have difficulty believing. Clearly the writer is placing judgement on the time period and on religious individuals within that time period.
As a result, I found it difficult at times to either relate to or even like the heroine, Archimedia Timms at times. She comes across as a self-centered dolt. I just wanted to kick her. Jervaulx or Christian Langland, the Duke of Jervaulx is more interesting and sympathetic, even though he's a bit of rake.
What worked for me was The Duke's stroke or cereberal hemorrage, which is mistaken for dementia. It results in an aphsia that makes it difficult for the Duke to speak, write or read well. The writer does a deft job of describing the frustration of dealing with aphasia, or the inability to access certain words, the tendency to say the wrong words, and how dependent we are on our ability to communicate - not to mention the intolerance and impatience of others regarding our ability to do so in a manner that they can understand. This portion of the book was interesting and did not fall into cliche. And I recommend the book for it, alone.
The sex scenes were serviceable. The supporting characters under-developed and rarely seen.
The main one's are suitably complex. There's little humor in the novel, and it is not so much dark as grim or melodramatic in places. Although not quite as melodramatic as the Brontes.
Overall...it was okay, better than most, but also disappointing. The writing held promise but fizzled out halfway through.
ETA: I've come to the conclusion that the much-maligned romance genre (including paranormal, sci-fi, YA, historical, contemporary) is well-deserving of the criticism.
Seriously, the purple prose and melodrama in these novels is staggering.