Growing on me...

I read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall when it came out (who didn't?), and I liked it well enough. Then recently I was finally edging to the front of the wait list for the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies (Bringing up the Bodies? Sh*t, you'd think I'd know since I'm reading it right now), so I checked out Wolf Hall to re-read so I'd remember what was going on in the story.

Helpful, since it's a dense story, and especially since after watching The Tudors, my view of that period, and the major players, is always going to be colored by the BBC / Showtime (not that I'm complaining; God, but I sweat Jonathan Rhys Meyers - have since I was a teenager - and Henry Cavill is not too hard on the eyes, either). Turns out that Bring Up the Bodies (or whatever - that sounds more like one of Mantel's chapter titles from Wolf Hall, so it's probably right, but Bringing sounds more like Bringing Up Baby, so obviously I love it...someone should do a screwcap [screwball + madcap = how is this not a real thing?] version of Henry VIII! Genius!) has a lot of explanatory stuff in the end, so I probably didn't need to.

But I still enjoyed it. Too much probably, because I'd curl up with it in bed and then go to sleep way too late (there were also only like, seven chapters in a huge book, so it was hard to find a natural stopping point). I didn't love the way it was written in so far as it wasn't always clear who was talking, or what was being said out loud versus thought, or who the "he" was in ever other sentence (generally Cromwell, not always), but I get that the kind of dense, occasionally crude text was a deliberate choice, and I can respect that.

Did make me wonder though, as most things about Henry VIII and his wives do - Anne always ends up coming across so badly, like a shrewish wh*re. Which, maybe she was, but there had to be more to it, no? I mean, Henry may have been king, but he was no prince. Everyone seems pretty clear that he screwed around on her. Then again, everyone seems pretty clear she did to, and possibly with her brother... I don't know. She probably was a huge raging b*tch, but when EVERYONE dumps on her, it makes me want to stick up for her, or read someone that does... I mean, was she just the Hilary Clinton that everyone got mad at because she wasn't a "nice" lady? And did crazy things like go after what she wanted and insist on being treated with the respect given to other leaders?

Anyhow, it was good, and i actually think I like it better than I did last time, which is very cool.

Movie Adaptations: Serena

So, apparently they are making a movie of Serena, by Ron Rash. Not sure how I feel about this (not sure how I felt about the book, honestly; see 11/9/2011 notes), but I think...good? It's a very dramatic book, and the landscape-setting is awesome, so I think you could film it just wonderfully - lots of possibilities for drama and power. As far as the casting, I really have no opinion on either of the two main characters they've named. Interesting, using a relatively young actress to play Serena, given that a lot of impetus of the story surrounds her power and strength, particularly as she lords it over a bunch of rough loggers, and her drive to get pregnant. Might make for a compelling conflict of expectations, as well as recognizing that women often married younger then...

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2012/01/bradley-cooper-jennifer-lawrence-reteam-for-serena.html

Not too much going on...

...in my reading life - or real life, for that matter!  Quiet week, which I think I needed, so that was good.  Didn't get all that much reading done, though, since I mostly just curled up with my overstuffed DVR and old episodes of The Wire (new life goal: to be able to say "sheeeeeeeee-it" convincingly).

Library is making me return The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, by David Armitage, which is a bummer, since it's wicked interesting.  It also, at the same time, totally puts me to sleep, which is weird.  So I've been enjoying reading it for 20 minutes or so before bed - it's thought-provoking and fascinating, and then suddenly I'm out like a light.  Perfect-o!  Plus, I think Armitage is married to Joyce Chaplin, who is my academic girl-crush, so that's just kinda cool.

But I guess someone else at Harvard must be having trouble sleeping, and doesn't want to rely on melatonin, because it's been recalled.  Oh, well - more time to plow through Season 4!





Finished Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, which I've been meaning to read for a year or two (two, I think?), since it was listed in a "great books for Halloween" piece in Real Simple.  Finally got around to it, and I guess it was fine, but I really didn't find it very compelling.  The introductory notes said that it's been made into a movie twice (The Haunting and then House on Haunted Hill - although the author of the introduction said not to bother with the 1999 version, but I'm looking now, and it's got Taye Diggs, so, can you go wrong?) and that kind of makes sense - it seemed like a very visual book, but I just wasn't feeling the atmosphere, and was having a hard time picturing the setting.  But a haunted house is definitely appropriate for Halloween, so it was a good book for cuddling under my down comforter, heating pad at my feet, and reading with the faint sounds of little kids shrieking coming through the windows...
I also hadn't realized that Shirley Jackson is the same person who wrote that short story "The Lottery" which I read in middle school or high school (high school, maybe?) - AND which was a tv movie or something with Keri Russell, who I kinda loved because when I first saw her in something it was some God-awful teen soap (it was basically the O.C. before the O.C. was created, I think), but she had gorgeous, crazy curls.

So, yeah - that was Sunday, Monday I drank and thought about fun books, and on Tuesday or Wednesday I actually "sold" some paperbacks to the Harvard Bookstore, earning me a whopping $9 and change in store credit.  Totally worth it, even if it wasn't super lucrative: I'm sure to use the credit sooner rather than later (like on the days when I end up buying books because I'm waiting for Hong Kong to cook my take-out spicy green beans), and it got a stack of "never going to read again" books off my floor).  And now it's Friday, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through my other "scary" book that I started in the week before Halloween, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd.  I don't know exactly why I keep reading these Merrily Watkins books by Phil Rickman.  The mysteries aren't that mysterious, the literature ain't exactly great, and each time I finish one I think "huh, well, hmm" or something along those totally damned with faint praise lines.  They're really pretty much microwave popcorn.  Fills you up and kills some time, and at least it's not total junk, but it's not really great for you either.  But I am rather fond of the characters - and in this one we're dealing with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a group calling itself The White Company, so that's fun.  Except the real White Company is so much better!