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Artist, Scarlet, Bluebear
Jan. 15th, 2012 05:22 pmThe Artist:
Possibly not quite as good as I had been led to believe by enthusiastic reviews, The Artist was still beautifully made and highly enjoyable. The silent format was carried off brilliantly, with excellent performances all round (particularly from the very charismatic Jean Dujardin, the always watchable James Cromwell, and the very appealing dog), strong characters that were easy to relate to, and an engaging storyline. The plot wasn't exactly original or complex, but it went well with the format and was satisfying in its structure. There were some cleverly orchestrated and staged moments, a few light laughs, some pathos, and a likeable central pair - definitely recommended for a couple of hours of enjoyment.
Scarlet by Stephen Lawhead:
This was the sequel to Hood, which I listened to not so long ago. It told the story of King Raven's continuing battle against the oppressive Normans in a rural area of Wales, this time mostly from the point of view of Will Scarlet, a recent addition to Bran's band of outlaws, who narrated the tale to a monk scribe whilst languishing in a prison cell, awaiting execution. The plot was exciting and well told, the good guys eminently likeable, and the bad guys suitably despicable. Yet, once again, the narrators accent was very off-putting - more so this time, since the narrative was first person from the point of view of an Englishman. In general, some words jarred with their odd pronunciation, but in particular place names were horribly mangled, and the sections of Latin and French really execrable. Still, I'm going to forge on with the last in the trilogy because I want to find out what happens next, and the mispronunciations can't possible get worse than the outlaws sailing down the Taymes to see the Earls of Lychester and War-wick.
The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers:
I spotted this on a shelf in Edinburgh at New Year and immediately snaffled it - I'd been keen to read it ever since finishing The City of Dreaming Books by the same author. It opened with an awesome fake quote - "Life is too precious to be left to chance," attributed to Deus X. Machina - genius! However, unfortunately, the rest of the book didn't live up to expectations.
Moers obviously has an incredible imagination, and has come up with tons of interesting creatures and places with which to populate his fantasy world of Zamonia. He doesn't have much skill in the way of coherent plots, though. The book is essentially just a series of bizarre explorations, discoveries and encounters that the title character experiences in his totally arbitrary travels. What makes it all the more arbitrary is that Bluebear is rarely an active participant in his lives, at least for more than the first half - he just meanders about and things happen to him, propelling him from one life to the next with little or no input from him. He does decide upon an actual course of action in the second half, which made me think there might be some plot after all, but my hopes were raised for naught. When he actually arrives at his desired destination (admittedly through actually orchestrating some transitions between lives), instead of plot we get a list of 34 different creatures that inhabit the city, followed by several more pages of different aspects of the city - transportation, monetary system, government, etc.
The title of the book is a bit of misnomer, as well. Bluebear is never actually the captain of anything, and his so-called thirteen and a half lives are not really different lives at all, just different stages of one life - the transition to the next on occurs every time he changes geographical location. He says at the beginning that every bluebear has 27 lives, but that he will only relate 13.5 of them - which begs the question, if he's still alive to be writing the book, and he "starts a new life" every time he moves to a different place, how can he know how many lives he will have?
I'm afraid I really lost interest towards the end, and mostly skimmed the last 250 pages.
Possibly not quite as good as I had been led to believe by enthusiastic reviews, The Artist was still beautifully made and highly enjoyable. The silent format was carried off brilliantly, with excellent performances all round (particularly from the very charismatic Jean Dujardin, the always watchable James Cromwell, and the very appealing dog), strong characters that were easy to relate to, and an engaging storyline. The plot wasn't exactly original or complex, but it went well with the format and was satisfying in its structure. There were some cleverly orchestrated and staged moments, a few light laughs, some pathos, and a likeable central pair - definitely recommended for a couple of hours of enjoyment.
Scarlet by Stephen Lawhead:
This was the sequel to Hood, which I listened to not so long ago. It told the story of King Raven's continuing battle against the oppressive Normans in a rural area of Wales, this time mostly from the point of view of Will Scarlet, a recent addition to Bran's band of outlaws, who narrated the tale to a monk scribe whilst languishing in a prison cell, awaiting execution. The plot was exciting and well told, the good guys eminently likeable, and the bad guys suitably despicable. Yet, once again, the narrators accent was very off-putting - more so this time, since the narrative was first person from the point of view of an Englishman. In general, some words jarred with their odd pronunciation, but in particular place names were horribly mangled, and the sections of Latin and French really execrable. Still, I'm going to forge on with the last in the trilogy because I want to find out what happens next, and the mispronunciations can't possible get worse than the outlaws sailing down the Taymes to see the Earls of Lychester and War-wick.
The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers:
I spotted this on a shelf in Edinburgh at New Year and immediately snaffled it - I'd been keen to read it ever since finishing The City of Dreaming Books by the same author. It opened with an awesome fake quote - "Life is too precious to be left to chance," attributed to Deus X. Machina - genius! However, unfortunately, the rest of the book didn't live up to expectations.
Moers obviously has an incredible imagination, and has come up with tons of interesting creatures and places with which to populate his fantasy world of Zamonia. He doesn't have much skill in the way of coherent plots, though. The book is essentially just a series of bizarre explorations, discoveries and encounters that the title character experiences in his totally arbitrary travels. What makes it all the more arbitrary is that Bluebear is rarely an active participant in his lives, at least for more than the first half - he just meanders about and things happen to him, propelling him from one life to the next with little or no input from him. He does decide upon an actual course of action in the second half, which made me think there might be some plot after all, but my hopes were raised for naught. When he actually arrives at his desired destination (admittedly through actually orchestrating some transitions between lives), instead of plot we get a list of 34 different creatures that inhabit the city, followed by several more pages of different aspects of the city - transportation, monetary system, government, etc.
The title of the book is a bit of misnomer, as well. Bluebear is never actually the captain of anything, and his so-called thirteen and a half lives are not really different lives at all, just different stages of one life - the transition to the next on occurs every time he changes geographical location. He says at the beginning that every bluebear has 27 lives, but that he will only relate 13.5 of them - which begs the question, if he's still alive to be writing the book, and he "starts a new life" every time he moves to a different place, how can he know how many lives he will have?
I'm afraid I really lost interest towards the end, and mostly skimmed the last 250 pages.
