Books
The Grey Wolf, Louise Penney
This was not my favorite of her Surêté Chief Gamache, Three Pines novels. The idea that a group of well-meaning or nefarious people could contaminate a large city’s water supply is certainly plausible. Just from living the past two decades we know anything once unheard of could happen where governments are concerned. She unraveled the story just fine, although I weary of the focus changing every two pages. She used to write paragraphs of descriptions that were too long and that was boring as well and almost caused me to stop reading the first of her novels. She has changed up her style to be more snappy, and this time the inciting incident happens right away instead of 40 or so pages in as so often happens in her novels. There really wasn’t any story or character development of the folks who live in Three Pines this time. And the intrigue continues into the next novel coming out next year, The Black Wolf.
James, Percival Everett
This is a book that after I read the first page I knew was going to be good and I wouldn’t put it down until I was done or fell asleep, whichever came first. It was done and dusted in two days! Percival Everett is the one who wrote Erasure, from which the film American Fiction was taken. He is a writer who makes the reader think and also makes the reader look up vocabulary words as well. I had to look up a literary term, “proleptic irony,” I’d forgotten over the years. This is the re-telling of the Huck Finn novel from the slave Jim’s viewpoint. He has Jim speak one way, what he calls “the slave way” to whites, and in educated English to fellow slaves who also speak in an educated manner except around the overseer or their masters. The whites in the novel become very afraid when Jim forgets to speak the slave way around them. Jim also has read quite a few of his master’s books, so is knowledgeable, more so than most whites. At one point, Jim wants a last name, and chooses “Golightly,” which seems to be a direct reference to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. This novel follows the Hero’s Journey path, so by the end Jim accomplishes his goal of finding wife and daughter, changes Huck’s life by telling him a truth he’d kept hidden which causes him some existential angst, and has achieved his freedom both physically and mentally. He turns into James.
Plainly said, James is a very good book giving the reader lots to think about.
Now for the videos, series, etc.
“Emilia Perez”
I was surprised when characters broke out into song, because I hadn’t realized this was a musical, a very dark musical. It’s shot mostly in dark lighting to match the mood and the storyline. As it went along, I decided to embrace the idea of dark story matter and music. The gist of the story is that a horrible crime boss, Manitas del Monte, kidnaps a lawyer because he feels she can give him what he wants, which is to change into a woman. He knows it will change his entire life and he’s been preparing for the change for several years. This does happen despite him, now she, or they, having to lose his wife and children. He becomes Emilia Perez. The story is like A Clockwork Orange in that as the story moves along the reader can see that even though Emilia tries to undo as much of what she did as a gangster, at the end her true nature as a human being regardless of gender cannot be undone. She loses everything important to her, including her life. I suppose one could say this is a Hero’s Journey gone sour at the end. I don’t think the film is saying that one shouldn’t change gender to become who one really is, however. Maybe its saying the change comes with another whole set of problems, and boy hooey, don’t we see that today! The acting in this film is fantastic, done by a transgender female, Karla Sofia Gascón, Selena Gomez (who was so different from how she is in “Only Murders”), and Zoe Saldana. This tragic film gives the viewer much, much to think about.
I learned there was a movie, “The Breakup Season,” filmed in my hometown of La Grande, OR, so I watched it, of course. I enjoyed seeing various locales of my youth in the background. It actually looked quite wintery pretty instead of windswept, bleak, and cold. The landscape was better than the film, which was “meh.” The story was about a young man bringing his fiancée home to meet his family at Christmas time. However, she realizes they have drifted apart and she doesn’t want to marry him after all. This is right when they arrive, and they are snowed in so she can’t leave to go visit her family in Chicago. Everyone has to endure this unpleasant situation for days. I don’t think the film was awful, just not good.
Series and individual shows
There are new seasons of Shetland, Beyond Paradise, Death in Paradise, All Creatures Great and Small, Miss Scarlett, Vera and others to be watched! I’ve been enjoying Kathy Bates in “Matlock.”
One really interesting series a friend of mine recommended is “Somebody, Somewhere.” This year is the third and final season and I’m right now in season two. The characters are all oddballs with serious issues who have found one another and truly I feel like these are people I might know and love. The main character has a lovely singing voice and I like hearing that every episode. These are people apart from the norm. I wonder why most people decide to hold themselves from those who aren’t like them? Society is awful to those who already have so much to deal with. It’s always been so as far as I can tell. Why is it so hard to accept and love those who are judged “different?”
I probably forgot a whole lot of other good things to watch, but that should get a person through January!
And stop hating and hoarding your love!