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Double bill of resurrections...
Mar. 27th, 2022 11:23 amThe Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is a love story that spans centuries.
The unnamed protagonist is horribly burned in a car accident. While he is slowly recovering in hospital, a patient from the psychiatric ward comes to visit him, claiming they have been lovers in a previous life. Over the course of the book, the burn victim's medical progress is described in detail, while Marianne Engel gradually relates their previous love story to him.
There's quite a lot of fairly icky moments in this book, and its sprawling narrative isn't always successful. But I was certainly engaged by both the present-day storyline and main historical one (Germany in the 1300s). The protagonist's progression, both in terms of physical recovery and discovery of how to be a better person, was compelling. And I loved Marianne Engel as the enigmatic, likely crazy, sculptress.
It lost me a bit in places (some of the other historical narratives were a bit long, dry or remote and the prolonged voyage to hell didn't really interest me at all) but overall, I enjoyed the book.
Also, this week, we finally got around to watching Matrix: Resurrections - and all I can say is, ummmmm, wut???
There were aspects of the film that I really liked (the presentation of the relationship between Neo and Trinity, and its significance and power - especially Trinity's all-important contribution near the end - and the exploration of making the distinction between reality and not), but it was rather more like watching a fictional documentary than an actual story. The film swung wildly between action scenes that were either dull or too frantic to follow, and long scenes of dense exposition that made less and less sense as it went along.
Right at the end, the main bad guy gave a speech about how the heroes' victory wouldn't achieve anything, and I totally agreed with him, which made the overall message of the film very muddled.
I have no idea what we were supposed to take away from this over-long, incoherent retread of the Matrix mythos. Hey ho.
The unnamed protagonist is horribly burned in a car accident. While he is slowly recovering in hospital, a patient from the psychiatric ward comes to visit him, claiming they have been lovers in a previous life. Over the course of the book, the burn victim's medical progress is described in detail, while Marianne Engel gradually relates their previous love story to him.
There's quite a lot of fairly icky moments in this book, and its sprawling narrative isn't always successful. But I was certainly engaged by both the present-day storyline and main historical one (Germany in the 1300s). The protagonist's progression, both in terms of physical recovery and discovery of how to be a better person, was compelling. And I loved Marianne Engel as the enigmatic, likely crazy, sculptress.
It lost me a bit in places (some of the other historical narratives were a bit long, dry or remote and the prolonged voyage to hell didn't really interest me at all) but overall, I enjoyed the book.
Also, this week, we finally got around to watching Matrix: Resurrections - and all I can say is, ummmmm, wut???
There were aspects of the film that I really liked (the presentation of the relationship between Neo and Trinity, and its significance and power - especially Trinity's all-important contribution near the end - and the exploration of making the distinction between reality and not), but it was rather more like watching a fictional documentary than an actual story. The film swung wildly between action scenes that were either dull or too frantic to follow, and long scenes of dense exposition that made less and less sense as it went along.
Right at the end, the main bad guy gave a speech about how the heroes' victory wouldn't achieve anything, and I totally agreed with him, which made the overall message of the film very muddled.
I have no idea what we were supposed to take away from this over-long, incoherent retread of the Matrix mythos. Hey ho.
