Abigail and Jesus
May. 15th, 2024 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Rivers of London novella - What Abigail Did That Summer - by Ben Aaronovitch has been sitting on my shelf for quite a few years without me getting around to reading it. My reading of the main series has always been a bit patchy (prior to this year, I listened to the previous two books in March 2019 and April 2022) but I listened to the next one in the series in January this year.
Since I recently embarked upon a massive book I didn't want to try and read in bed, I decided to select the shortest book on my shelf to read before bed - and that was this novella. Fortuitously, the placement of this story in the timeline of the series is precisely after the instalment I most recently read, which was weird, but lucky.
Anyway, it tells the tale of Abigail (Peter's 14-year-old cousin, who has appeared multiple times in the main books and is always awesome) getting involved in a magical house that's luring kids into its memory illusions. Because it's Abigail, she of course takes it upon herself to solve the issue (mostly) without the assistance of any adults, though she does get assistance from quite a few talking foxes.
Abigail's voice throughout is very clear, very distinctive and very cool. And I enjoyed the story (though the house thing wasn't particularly compelling). It did have a common problem I've come across lately, though, in that the footnotes written by another character identified it as some kind of official report Abigail had written - and not only is it full of direct action scenes and whole reported conversations (which nobody puts in reports), but it also contains views, opinions and information Abigail would never reveal in a report.
Hey ho - that aside (and it was quite easy to ignore, since the report format wasn't important to the story), it was good fun to read and recommended to anyone who enjoys the main series.
Today, we also went to see Jesus Christ Superstar on stage in Wimbledon - which was unexpectedly very short, but unfortunately did very little for me in terms of enjoyment. It (very reasonably) relied on the audience already knowing the ins and outs of the story, so it was more selected highlights than an in-depth exploration. The problem for me, though, was that there wasn't enough background, depth or development for me to connect to the characters as people, so the show didn't have any emotional impact.
It was well staged, though I found it hard to make out the words to a lot of the songs, and bits of it were pretty good. I wasn't sure about the optics of Judas being the only black apostle (though thinking about it, he was the only sympathetic character, in my view). I liked the Last Supper gag in the second half, when they recreated the famous painting, I liked the silver paint that represented Judas' payment being Jesus' blood on his hands. I thought Pilate was pretty awesome. And Jesus had one fantastic song that was really well performed - though, again, it didn't hit me emotionally in the way it was intended (he actually mostly came across as a whiny little bitch). I obviously knew where it was going to end up - but the extended crucifixion scene went on a bit too long and a bit too brutally for me.
So, overall, not a success. Ah well.
Since I recently embarked upon a massive book I didn't want to try and read in bed, I decided to select the shortest book on my shelf to read before bed - and that was this novella. Fortuitously, the placement of this story in the timeline of the series is precisely after the instalment I most recently read, which was weird, but lucky.
Anyway, it tells the tale of Abigail (Peter's 14-year-old cousin, who has appeared multiple times in the main books and is always awesome) getting involved in a magical house that's luring kids into its memory illusions. Because it's Abigail, she of course takes it upon herself to solve the issue (mostly) without the assistance of any adults, though she does get assistance from quite a few talking foxes.
Abigail's voice throughout is very clear, very distinctive and very cool. And I enjoyed the story (though the house thing wasn't particularly compelling). It did have a common problem I've come across lately, though, in that the footnotes written by another character identified it as some kind of official report Abigail had written - and not only is it full of direct action scenes and whole reported conversations (which nobody puts in reports), but it also contains views, opinions and information Abigail would never reveal in a report.
Hey ho - that aside (and it was quite easy to ignore, since the report format wasn't important to the story), it was good fun to read and recommended to anyone who enjoys the main series.
Today, we also went to see Jesus Christ Superstar on stage in Wimbledon - which was unexpectedly very short, but unfortunately did very little for me in terms of enjoyment. It (very reasonably) relied on the audience already knowing the ins and outs of the story, so it was more selected highlights than an in-depth exploration. The problem for me, though, was that there wasn't enough background, depth or development for me to connect to the characters as people, so the show didn't have any emotional impact.
It was well staged, though I found it hard to make out the words to a lot of the songs, and bits of it were pretty good. I wasn't sure about the optics of Judas being the only black apostle (though thinking about it, he was the only sympathetic character, in my view). I liked the Last Supper gag in the second half, when they recreated the famous painting, I liked the silver paint that represented Judas' payment being Jesus' blood on his hands. I thought Pilate was pretty awesome. And Jesus had one fantastic song that was really well performed - though, again, it didn't hit me emotionally in the way it was intended (he actually mostly came across as a whiny little bitch). I obviously knew where it was going to end up - but the extended crucifixion scene went on a bit too long and a bit too brutally for me.
So, overall, not a success. Ah well.
