Still I think something is happening to where I don’t need to be obsessing over books I do not possess right now. It could be due to my little actor crush so that my focus is zeroing in on films instead of books. This may mean that my rabid attentions will move to following the film community and allow my bibliophile tendencies to receive a respite. It’s probably the best thing really because I am reading what I have on my own shelves with more determination.

I think I shall try the Marquis de Sade’s Justine again and see if I can make it through the book this time. I like Donatien’s short stories, but I confess that I have found his novels a challenge.

I have even found the books on my e-reader to be an enticing prospect lately. Fitzgerald is just one temptation on my handheld device. And I have given serious thought to purchasing a Kindle so that no e-book would be out of my grasp. Loki still tempts me and also Loki & Sigyn: A Love Story caught my attention. Although through information gleaned from the review on a blog I read and the cover art at the Amazon page my first thought is “Marvel fanfiction”… but for the moment I plan on concentrating upon the books that I see behind me.

BOOK SYNOPSIS

In this sequel to The War at Troy, the trademark lyricism, lucidity, and mythic power is present in this novel that offers a timely interpretation of one of the world’s great stories. After ten years of war, Troy has fallen, yet the gods have turned against the victorious Argives—and their ordeals have only just begun. Agamemnon sails back to Mycenae, where Clytaemnestra has nursed a vengeful fury over his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenaia. Meanwhile, Menelaus must decide the fate of Helen, over whose incomparable beauty the war was fought. Odysseus, traumatized by the slaughter his own ingenuity unleashed, no longer believes himself fit to return to his wife and son. Driven both by tempests and torment, he embarks on a voyage that will take him to the margins of the world and deep into the shadows of his own heart.

WHAT I THOUGHT ABOUT IT . . .

This is the sequel to The War at Troy and if you’ve read my review of it you are aware that I enjoy that novel immensely. I’ve had the sequel for some time now, but I kept putting off reading it. However, I find February to be a difficult month to read anything to completion. However, I know how much I fancied Clarke’s prose and a book that features a heavy dose of Odysseus? How could I resist?

I found it easy to be lost in this book. Clarke continues to use that lyrical prose that I enjoyed so much from The War at Troy. At least for the first half of the novel. It seems that once Agamemnon dies the story kind of loses interest for me. Not that I have any great love for the King of Men (I couldn’t wait to see the man die to be honest), but the narrative just doesn’t seem to hold the steam that it had earlier. I think the fact that the bard of Ithaca also becomes more of a distinct character and not just an omnipotent narrator may have something to do with it. It brings to mind the question of how he could possibly know all of the thoughts that were racing through everyone’s heads and also of the most intimate scenes. In The War at Troy nine years of the greatest war the world had ever seen was summed up in the course of a page or two. So that left the long and drawn out narrative of Odysseus’ time spent with the Lotus Eaters and then Circe feel like it took ages to get through. I expected time spent with Calypso to be equally grueling, but it maintained the earlier simplicity of a brief overview.

Odysseus spends a good portion of this story haunted by the carnage that his brilliant mind unleashed at Troy. Tormented by the ghost of Priam’s daughter Polyxena whose murder he witnessed and failed to stop on the grave of Achilles, he roams to find atonement before returning to his island. It was these portions that held my interest best in the latter half. Essentially The Return from Troy is a quest for self discovery that Odysseus undergoes to determine if he is truly the monster who ensured the destruction of Troy and unfit for civilized company or he can find the healing he needs

Overall I would say that I did like this sequel, but it wasn’t quite as good as its predecessor. I think I would just rather read The Odyssey to be honest.

MY RATING

My latest film addiction is Midnight in Paris. It reignited my desire to really delve into the man’s writings. Flappers and Philosophers was a file that I had added to my e-reader some time ago. So I spent the better part of the past week reading through it. I was surprised to discover that I had read a Fitzgerald short story back in school and that was the one titled “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”. The only classic author whose short stories I remember reading in school would be Mark Twain and that was because I was a big Mark Twain fan growing up. There were elements in Fitzgerald’s short fiction that I liked, but ultimately I feel that I would enjoy his novels more since there could be heavier doses of that prose style that captivates me so.

Perhaps I can read through his books and see if there’s one that captures my heart. I also have This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and Tales of the Jazz Age downloaded for my e-reader. I know that my local library branch has Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon in their stacks so there’s a few more that I could read when the mood struck me.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my favorite books. As much as I cheer for Sir Percy, I also have a great affection for his arch nemesis Citizen Chauvelin. I’m not sure how it started, but I confess that the books in the Baroness’ series I liked best were the ones that involved Chauvelin. Not that the rest weren’t good, but they lacked a certain something.

Chauvelin’s sanity is shown to be very loosely gripped in subsequent books. The lengths that he goes to in order to trap that elusive Pimpernel! Despite his attempts to wear down Percy, the Englishman shows that he’s more than a match for Chauvelin. While Percy is a master of disguise Chauvelin uses a practical method of telling to difference between the real person in question, yet he couldn’t realize to what lengths that the Pimpernel would go to accomplish his own objectives. However, it is interesting to see that by this point in the books Chauvelin has grown extremely paranoid. A far cry from the arrogant agent in the original novel. He is the anti-thesis to Percy’s chivalry and heroics… and for some reason I find myself liking the character a great deal. It’s been a long time since I’ve read The Scarlet Pimpernel so I might make that one the title of “reread a classic of your choice” for the Back to the Classics reading challenge.

As I said earlier this week, Tom Hiddleston is now my dream cast option for the role in a film adaptation. Time to explain. I’ve seen some of the versions out there. I know that it’s hard to reconcile a film adaptation to be a perfect match to every reader’s perceptions, but I haven’t been happy with the Chauvelins in the versions that I have seen. Someone told me that the musical Chauvelin was wonderful, but I doubt I’ll get to experience that stage production so I must rely on film. However, during my recent viewing of Thor it occurred to me that Hiddleston might be able to pull Chauvelin off for me. And thanks to YouTube I know he can speak French so everything’s good!

As much as I hate to admit it, Sean Bean is the epitome of the typecasted actor. How often do you see him playing in the role that is other than villainous? However, with this comes the fact that the man is a walking spoiler (if I can borrow a phrase from a Game of Thrones parody). The only movie I can think of off-hand where he’s a bit of a bad boy and doesn’t die is National Treasure.

My first serious exposure to his acting (at least that wasn’t overshadowed by a horse) was when he played Lord Fenton in the miniseries adaptation of Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett. It’s been so long since I read the novel that I can’t really comment on the character in that version, but Fenton in the film seems to inspire a mixture of attraction and revulsion. Maybe that’s a staple of most baddies?

Although it wasn’t that long ago where I went on some kind of insane binge for Sean Bean films that I hadn’t seen, which was frankly quite a lot. I ordered them all from the library’s loan system and in my fervor my next trip to the library involved me picking up 20 movies on DVD and VHS (but that’s not to say that I ended up watching them all). Some of them I wish I had not watched. Brain cells committed suicide from the absolute horror of some films. Others I fast-forwarded to see if he made it, or stopped altogether once he died because there wasn’t anything else to keep my interest. Like Essex Boys.

Yet there was one movie that keeps the viewer guessing and I highly recommend it. If you can get Extremely Dangerous, watch it! It offers a wonderful spectrum of the man’s acting abilities. I wouldn’t mind owning that on VHS or DVD. (Yes, I still love my VCR.)

You know what my problem with the “ending too terrifying for theaters” of The Hitcher is? This is going to be spoiler, or perhaps not so much considering whom we are talking about on this post. Okay, if you’ve seen the regular ending of the film you know he dies. He always dies, you think it would get old after awhile. The girl shoots him in the face. Now this alternate ending that is supposed to be so much scarier merely shows her killing him by beating his head in with the shotgun once their bullets run out in their respective pieces. How is this supposed to be so terrifying? Is it because the general public can’t conceive of a woman engaging or enjoying such savage brutality, even against such a vile individual that Bean does a great job portraying? Perhaps I have been spoiled on horror movies with the cliche of allowing the villain to not really die, but come back for one more scare before cutting off what happens next for the closing credits. I think allowing the serial killer to live would have made for a more terrifying ending. Not for me, but as a general rule to most people.

And if anyone even dares to call Boromir a villain I have the following to say to you: GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY BLOG!!!

I’m not quite sure of the exact moment when villains started to become really appealing for me. Somewhere along the way of crushing on Prince Philip, I started to realize the true awesomeness of Maleficent. Somewhere in my extensive film study, I started rooting for the bad guys to win. As much as I adore the hero there are times where I didn’t want his adversary to die.

I think that Vladimir Nabokov sums it up best from his novel Pnin with the following:

Some people—and I am one of them—hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically.

Heroes have certain moral standards and behaviors that fall outside of that are not acceptable. Antagonists are not held up to such high values. They don’t have to be necessarily evil, but you must admit that they do have more fun. They’re so very good at being so very bad.

Is there a girl out there who didn’t fall head over heels in love with David Bowie as the Goblin King?!

It seems that horror movies are bipolar about letting the bad guys (or monsters depending on what you like to watch) survive or not. It seems that a lot of them used to allow the monster to somehow make it. And then I watch a lot of horror/suspense films now where the villain is truly and clearly dead. Seriously? Have you seen a lot of the movies coming out with that scenario? I’m in utter pain when the protagonists don’t die in the film. How bad is a movie when you feel that way?

I was watching one of those movies in my big Sean Bean marathon (I can explain) when I seen something unexpected. Now I was never set definitely on an actor to be in the role of Sauron if the Fates would show pity on us Silmarillion fans and make a television series (because it’s just too damn epic for movies). I toyed with dream cast options of Cillian Murphy, but only half-heartedly. However, while I was watching Outlaw and seen Rupert Friend? I think I have my dream Sauron. Is it bad that the thought of him making a good Sauron was the first thought that crossed my mind the moment I laid eyes on him? I swear that I don’t spend all my time thinking about Arda… just most of it.

American Psycho is one of those things where I’ve been meaning to read the book for ages, but somehow it keeps getting put on the back burner. I’ve watched the movie several times, and own the Killer Collector’s Edition. Like a good book that never gives up all its secrets at once, I glean more from the film each time that I watch it. And Christian Bale should do more antagonist roles.

I am a huge fan of classic movies. If you ask me what my favorite scary movie is, I’ll probably say House on Haunted Hill. My mother bought me the cassette tape of it when I was about eight or nine years old and it has been watched so many times. I’ve seen it available on DVD as a color version but the thought of that just seems so very wrong to me. I love a good ghost story and Vincent Price is such a good actor. You can’t quite decide what to make of him in this film. I was disgusted when seeing the remake of this film a few years ago. Now don’t misunderstand me. I do like remakes and I’m not one of those snobs who refuses to watch them, but some of them make me want to weep with how epic they fail. Children of the Corn, anyone?

So what attracts you to the dark side, dear reader?

Now I know that the mythological Loki isn’t truly a villain, merely the Trickster. However, I confess that I rather fell for the Marvel-Loki in the movie Thor. I seen the film in theaters and just recently watched the movie again. Unlike Iron Man 2 where I skip to the good stuff involving Black Widow and Whiplash, I have very little screen time that doesn’t feature either Tom Hiddleston’s Loki or Natalie Portman’s Jane so it’s a movie I can watch in full. Although it is pretty fun to see in general, and definitely my favorite of the Marvel films released so far.

Although I hesitate to call Loki a true villain. Granted all I know of this fandom is what I’ve seen in a single movie, but he seems more of a mere antagonistic force in the story. I don’t see him as really evil in this film, still just something of a mischief maker overall. Loki wants to be Thor’s equal, but in what way? The love and affections of their father? The brutal strength of a warrior? Both? Is it funny that Loki sees more wisdom than Odin about how Thor isn’t ready to be king, hence the little prank of letting in the frost giants? But of course, in this version Odin doesn’t lose his eye in exchange for wisdom, so maybe that has something to do with it. Blindness of a father’s love and it takes a brother to point it out. If you watched the little epilogue after the credits, you know that Loki survived and we’re going to be seeing him again in The Avengers.

BecauseHiddles is becoming my favorite stop for Loki and Tom Hiddleston stuff.

P.S. I think Tom Hiddleston would be my dream cast option for Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel. I will comment on this later.

BOOK SYNOPSIS

Iceland, AD 1000
Freya knows that her people are doomed. Warned by the Fates of an impending disaster, she must embark on a journey to find a magnificent gold necklace, one said to possess the power to alter the course of history. But even as Freya travels deep into the mountains of Iceland, the country is on the brink of war. The new world order of Christianity is threatening the old ways of Iceland’s people, and tangled amidst it all are two star-crossed lovers whose destiny draws them together-even as their families are determined to tear them apart.

WHAT I THOUGHT ABOUT IT . . .

I seem to have traded my obsessive reading of Greek mythology for the Norse pantheon. I discovered this book while looking for someplace to talk about Runemarks. It wasn’t very long compared to other books I’ve put on my wish-list from the library so I figured that I would give it a try. I thought that something from Freya’s perspective might be interesting.

This novel is an easy pace to read and even at 350 pages it doesn’t really seem to take that long to read. Tobin has written a tale where the gods walk and even live among the mortals, which I confess was one of the reasons that I wanted to read this book. She didn’t seem to want to revision many of the myths, just the ones dealing with the characters she was concerned in this particular tale. I could see how this book might appeal to the older teen audience.

I was under the impression that this entire book would be told from Freya’s point of view, but this was not the case. A portion of it was through her eyes, the only first person narrative in this novel, yet it only totals for about a third of the entire book. Another portion follows Fulla, the young woman who falls in love with the son of the man that murdered her father. A second third person point of view involes Dvalin the dwarf-man. It alternates between the three. A few chapters do follow what happens with other characters. Although I think I may have enjoyed it a bit better on this part if it had just been Freya and Fulla alternating the narrative between them.

I wanted to like this book better than I did. It started out promising, but I quickly lost interest in all of it except for the forbidden romance between Fulla and Vili. I usually don’t like forbidden romances because they just don’t appeal to me, but that’s the only thing I looked forward to reading after awhile. Not that it was particularly good. The other characters didn’t really intrigue me, even Freya herself. When it came to payment for the gold necklace, Freya explains that the Vanir are a practical people. Does that make her any less a whore by trading her body to the dwarves in exchange for the necklace? It didn’t endear me to her in the original myth and Tobin’s take on it fails as well. And I couldn’t help thinking about Idun’s golden apples. Who keeps them now if she is no longer in Asgard? But since in this retelling of the Aesir, the gods live on the earth alongside humans and not the realm apart as Freya informs the reader, such things no longer apply. It is a tradition that the Norse gods are not immortal, so perhaps it is fitting that they live alongside humans.

It almost seemed to me that Tobin is trying to destroy the beliefs held about the gods while elevating Freya to be a sympathetic character to point out all their lies and deceit, but I must admit that it wasn’t working so well for me. I really wanted to like this more, but ultimately I cannot claim to. The characters and the overall story itself just wasn’t grabbing me despite an interesting premise.

MY RATING

We always celebrate the heroes and the good guys. But what about the black hats? The bad apples in the bunch? Those bad boys and girls need love too. Let’s show them some by joining the Blogs Gone Bad Blog Fest 2012.

From February 12th thru the 18th, bloggers will write short stories, articles, musings, reviews, and more about the darker side; the characters we love to hate or the evil things that scare us the most.

I just couldn’t resist deciding to take part in this event on the blogsphere. And it has Joker on the graphic… my fate was sealed. I’m not sure what I shall do, but I’m sure it’s also going to be the perfect excuse to taint this blog even further with my film devotion. My blog, my rules, ha! I have a few ideas on posts to compose for this event.

BOOK SYNOPSIS

Maddy Smith was born with a rusty-coloured runemark on her hand – a symbol of the old gods and definitely cause for suspicion. For magic is dangerous. Or so everyone thinks. But Maddy enjoys working magic. Even if it is just to control some pesky goblins. And every time her friend, One-Eye – a good-for-nowt Outlander – comes by, he teaches her more and more about the gods and the runes. Now he wants Maddy to open Red Horse Hill and descend into World Below to retrieve a relic of the old gods. Otherwise it is likely to be the End of Everything.

WHAT I THOUGHT ABOUT IT . . .

This book follows mythology from the Norse region. It’s not strictly necessary to be familiar with the legends, but if you’re like me you will want to know about the legends before tackling the novel. Some of the myths of the Norse gods are explained in some detail in the novel when they are deemed important enough to elaborate upon such as the reason for the scars on Loki’s mouth. As much as I enjoy stories that center around the Greek and Egyptian mythologies, I find myself a bit excited by the Norse pantheon as I am still new to it. I found myself becoming enraptured by the story and really enjoying it as I listened.

It’s been 500 years since the Tribulation, or Ragnarok as One Eye informs Maddy. I think it’s interesting that this book takes place after the world has ended. I think I skimmed over a review somewhere that mentioned this book was confusing, but I didn’t find myself confused. Perhaps that means that I have chaos inside me like Salvador Dali advises? One could see the pagan versus Christianity at times. Still it seems plausible since the Order seeks to banish all traces of magic and the old gods from the world to impose it’s own theology in service to the Nameless.

The characters are a delight. I rather like Maddy Smith and I found myself intrigued to see what she would do throughout the story. Although there were times where it seemed like Maddy should have known about things from One-Eye’s stories of the old gods, like the fact that Hel and the World Serpent were the children of Loki. However, I suppose that it goes without saying that I liked seeing Loki in this story and couldn’t wait to see what tricks he would be up to. Just a little bit of a crush there. I wasn’t sure whether I would fancy the goblins, but oddly enough it didn’t bother me. Sugar started to grow on me actually. I like how Harris doesn’t focus on one or two characters, but rather jumps around so that we get the perspective of the key players in the situations. Even if we don’t like them.

For the most part I would agree that Sile Bermingham is a decent narrator for this audio production. Although there were some of her voice inflections that simply grated on my nerves as in the case of the Examiner. I think I’d almost rather have her not try to distinguish the speaker so much in that case. It seemed like Hel should have had a different sounding kind of voice. being the guardian of Death. Now I don’t mean that I wanted Christopher Lee style Discworld Death voice, but something more regal as befits the guardian of death. Something more like what was given to Frigg. I wasn’t sure I would fancy the voice she created for Loki, but it seemed suitable for the trickster.

So the real question is whether this book is worth reading and I think that it most assuredly is and I’m glad that there was someone out there in the blogsphere to bring it to my attention. I would very much like to purchase a copy of this book (in paperback, of course) for my own collection. How can this be? I’m supposed to be trying to reduce books on my shelf and avoid buying more to add to the chaos of finding a place to keep them! I would really like to read the sequel, Runelight, but the library system doesn’t have one so I will have to buy it if I want to read it and that means I need to wait with my current restrictions in place.

MY RATING