very short reviews

[derien]

I think I forgot to mention when I finished "Mirror, Mirror."  (Or maybe I did.  I can't remember.)  It was conceptually interesting, but the Snow White character suffered from lack of development.  But the Wicked Queen character (Lucrezia Borgia) was obviously the one Maguire found interesting.  The bit where she was intending to seduce her (adult) son, and saw it as a necessary step in child-rearing (you introduce them to the adult world) reminded me of daegaer's Schwartz-fic. :)  The dwarves as rock spirits were interesting, but I was surprised how often their mutable house seemed to take on aspects that really reverberated of Disney.  Also, I thought he went out of his way to make things be 'gritty,' although he made no attempt at realism, and the two don't seem to go together.  With more realism the grit would have worked better; it would have made sense. 


I finished "Thank you, Jeeves" day before yesterday, I think, and yes there's masses of subtext, but tootsiemuppet already covered most of that when she gave us the lyrics to "What Is This Thing Called Love", and when anima_mecanique passed on her quotes (one of Nature's bachelors / doesn't like finding girls in his room / sighs wistfully about Jeeves).  *loves tootsiemuppet's quote compiling and research skills* <--which was what made me read this book right now.  Cool book, really.  I especially liked the realization Bertie has, in the midst of all the comedy, that it's not so easy walking around with black skin. 


Now I'm reading Jules Verne, "the Mysterious Island."  Thus far he suffers from overuse of exclamation points, and certain improbabilities (a dog climbing rope netting in a high gale, people loitering in a city square in the middle of a storm and not being noticed).  However, slashy subtext seems inevitable, with all these Mary Sue-esque characters.  Especially the freed slave who insists on remaining a servant to the leader dude and tracks him down at great peril to his own life to join him inside the besieged confederate capital during the Civil War.  (All that happens before the book begins, just to exemplify the good-looking, intelligent, physically fit and 'graceful' Neb's devotion to the good-looking, intelligent and physically fit Cyrus.)


I've had the CD daegaer sent me in my car for weeks, now, and I woke up in the mornings with different songs off it running through my head. :)  (*hums* "I've got a pretty little bungalow...")  I decided yesterday it might be a good idea to listen to the radio a bit, to get exposed to something different.

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Sounds like it's time for another CD :-)

[derien.livejournal.com]

*grins* I would have said that "Buried in the Suburb" was my favorite song on there, only I couldn't find the track listing. But, just as I was opening this comment box I spotted my CD folder, hiding under those unpaid bills! :) (uh...)

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

I loved that bit in the middle of TOJ. Plum doesn't moralise very often, so when he does it, it's doubly effective. I've heard people voice complaints over his use of the word 'nigger', which has only gained its pejorative connotation faily recently, I believe. Plum wouldn't have used it if he'd known of a more neutral term (that could be believably employed by Bertie). He's a nice guy, Plum is, and so, by extension, is Bertie. But that passage, that just made the entire book for me. I'm glad you mentioned it.
I'm trying to remember, but I think the only other thing Plum's ever really come out stongly against that I can think of was Mosley's Black Shirts in Britain, wasn't it? By letting Spode parodise them and having Bertie tell him off in his entire "footer bags" monologue.
I like that actually, how when anybody's got to be the voice of morality, it's Bertie and not Jeeves. Having Jeeves do it would sound preachy, anyway, and Bertie's able to do it with a twist of humour, but enough sincerity to make you stop and think. And agree.

Have I ever mentioned Plum Wodehouse is my God? Because he really is.

^_^ The only Jules Verne book that I ever read was 'Around the World in 80 Days' which I rather liked. Slash ahoy! (anima_mecanique bullied me into reading it.) Eheh. I've got '5 Weeks' lying here, too, but it's in Dutch so I'll probably have to find a translation first. I've become allergic to reading Dutch books for some reason.