Middlemarch - George Eliot

Finally, something that actually makes me look like a literature student! Okay to be fair, I only read this because a friend challenged me to read it in less time than him, and my competitive streak can be pretty fierce when aggravated. Five days later (I win), I think it's got to be on my favourites list.

TV Tropes and goodreads both seem to agree with me.

The strength of the characters are what the entire book hinges on, and oh my, what characters. Each and every one is engaging, nuanced and extraordinarily real. It's never just as simple as good guy/bad guy; each individual character has their flaws and their redeeming qualities, and none can be written off as anything even approaching a stereotype.

Stories with lots of criss-crossing narratives can either be brilliant or irritating; brilliant for their cleverness, or irritating for the 'But I don't CARE what's happening to him, go back to her!' Again, George Eliot expertly handles a massive cast of characters and a story in which nothing uber-dramatic ever actually happens, to keep you intrigued almost all the time.

Endings are probably something I shouldn't comment on, since they are - by nature - hugely subjective, but I thought Eliot did such a smooth job of wrapping up all of the mini-stories, it had to be mentioned.

Buuuuut, there is definitely an attitude of 'why use five words when five hundred will work?' And whilst I understand that Eliot was trying to extensively explore character etc etc, she didn't half go off on tangents. You'd just be settling into the groove of the scene, then there'd be an EPIC explanation of how this character felt this way, which has historically been felt in situations such as XYZ, and this is similar in circumstance to how that would feel......and it goes on for about four pages, until when she gets back to the juicy stuff, you've kind of forgotten what was happening.

****

Fifty Shades of Rage

So I thought I'd express my opinion on this book in a method more articulate than the BLIND RAGE I've employed thus far.

Here are your TV Tropes and goodreads pages - incidentally, the average rating on goodreads is cause for deep, deep concern. I TRUSTED YOU PEOPLE.

On the off-chance you're unaware, Fifty Shades of Grey was a Twilight fanfic, in which the author swapped the main characters' names and replaced vampires with sex. Then she got a book deal.

And the thing is, I don't dislike this book (or really, the concept behind this book) with that kind of 'oh, haha, yeah isn't it terrible!' attitude. I hate it with the kind of passion I typically reserve for misogynists, the Daily Mail and the word 'spiritual'.

But right, I'm always telling people off for judging a book without giving it a fair chance, so I got my hands on a free (that's important) Kindle version and gave it a shot. In the section I actually read properly, the obnoxiously drippy protagonist meets a gorgeous but arrogant businessman who - after spending maybe an hour with her - finds out where she works, and shows up supposedly by coincidence. Right, fair enough, we're all a bit guilty of Facebook stalking; some have branched into minor actual stalking, to only a little judgement. Shortly afterwards, she drunk dials him (who hasn't done that?) to tell him to leave her alone (perfectly sensible), at which point he tracks her mobile phone (...creepy), turns up at the bar she's at (crossing the line), takes her home, undresses her and replaces her pukey clothes with expensive alternatives (straight-up scary). The next day he shows her a room in his house full of torture equipment. Repeat: man you met three days ago tracks your location, takes your incapacitated self to his home and strips you, then shows you various and sundry methods of hurting people. The Appropriate Reaction involves running, screaming and a restraining order. But this particular protagonist instead decides to have sex with him. WELL THAT'S LOGICAL. At this point I was so full of rage my hands were shaking, so I kind of twitch-skimmed through the rest of the book - which was essentially increasingly weird (I'm not sure they'd actually qualify as kinky) sex scenes - with the occasional episode of stalking, quasi-abuse and whining. Basically, after about an hour of reading I felt like this:


I could go on about the plagiarism issues, the antifeminism/worryingly unhealthy representation of relationships or disturbing qualities of both protagonists, but those have all been discussed with more control and less blind anger than me at various other internet sources.

And it's not like I want the author to go die; I think it's good that she spent her free time writing and not, like, actually watching porn, and it's great for her that her project got published. What pisses me off is that The Writers Coffee House entirely abandoned their responsibility to literature (not to mention their dignity) by publishing it, it has dragged the reputation of e-books through the dirt, and People In General made it the fastest-selling paperback of all time. Read that again. This is THE FASTEST SELLING PAPERBACK OF ALL TIME. Aside from massacres and poverty, that is without question the most depressing statistic I have ever come across.

Reading the protagonist's train of thought is a bit like how I imagine having your brains fed through a meatgrinder would feel. For instance, did you keep a diary when you were about 13? Do you ever read it back and wonder how you ever reached maturity (or at least learned how to fake it)? Fifty Shades of Grey is like a porny version of that, except published. *mind boggles*

A particularly thorough goodreads reviewer compiled a list of actual quotes from the fastest selling paperback of all time. I swear to you, these are real:

"My mouth goes dry looking at him... he’s so freaking hot."

"He’s my very own Christian Grey flavor popsicle."

"My inner goddess has woken and is paying attention."

"Not taking his eyes off mine, he scrunches my panties in his hand, holds them up to his nose, and inhales deeply."

"He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string... what! And... gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet."

I mean...

When I was on holiday, everywhere I looked, I saw women by the poolside reading this book and it was really difficult to resist the urge to shout, "I KNOW YOU'RE READING PORN! You should at least have the decency to look ashamed for reading that in public! YOU ARE WHAT IS WRONG WITH READERS EVERYWHERE!"

Now that was an overreaction, but I abide by the sentiment.

So to summarise; porn Twilight becomes bestselling paperback ever, there's no justice in the world and if it wasn't for last night's Olympics opening ceremony I would have lost all faith in humanity.

Done.

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

For a geek, I've come into surprisingly minimal contact with Neil Gaiman, and wasn't that compelled by what I knew of - I thought Stardust (book) was weird, Coraline (film or book) has never appealed to me and his Doctor Who episode was deeply disappointing. That said, I thought the idea behind Neverwhere was so interesting that it was worth trying anyway, and it made me finally understand what all the Neil Gaiman fuss is about.

It's been a good couple of weeks since I finished it, so my memories of it are a touch rustier than I would like, though I tried to refresh them with a goodreads and TV Tropes fest.

The kind of imagination that just pulls a load of creativity from nothing is absolute genius, but I have a soft spot for that other kind of imagination; the one that takes completely ordinary and mundane things and elevates them to a level of Awesome. The more boring and everyday the root, the better the result. The entire concept of London Below is basically Neil Gaiman doing this with a London Tube map.

I love me a good twist, and I particularly love a good ooh-there's-a-traitor-but-who-amongst-the-Motley-Group-is-it? I may simply be losing my touch with predicting twists, but I was completely thrown off Twist Number One by a cleverly-executed red herring, and Twist Number Two came so far out of left field, I hadn't even considered it.

I have a soft spot for Mr-Normal-Everyman-accidentally-lands-in-craziness stories; I once watched a documentary where a very astute person said that all the best tales are about an Ordinary person thrown into an Extraordinary situation, or an Extraordinary person dumped somewhere Ordinary. Neverwhere is a perfect example of the former.

But on to the stuff I didn't like... Psychic dreams. *blows raspberry* Neil Gaiman's subtlety is otherwise way beyond this, but there are a lot of teasers in which various characters have a dream that heavily hints at what may happen later on in the book.

This is kind of clutching at straws, but I prefer bad guys who are evil for a reason, rather than just evil because they are evil. That said, there is a new level of bone-chilling-ness about this particular straight-up evil.

****

(Side-note: this is a thoroughly charming review of Neverwhere which I completely agreed with: http://impossibletosay.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/neil-gaimans-neverwhere-the-reality-of-imagination/)

Film: Easy A

American high school movies are like Doctor Who episodes; you watch them because you feel you should, but every now and again, one of them comes along that is so awesome, it makes you realise how painfully average all the others have been. Easy A is one of those high school movies.
For your delectation, here is the IMDb page, and the TV Tropes page.

(Disclaimer: mainly I liked/loved/had a massive girl crush on Emma Stone, but that's not really relevant to the story. Possibly worth bearing in mind though.)

Again, the brilliance of this film lies in the fact that it shamelessly takes the piss out of all the other cheesy high school romances with searing wit. John Hughes, Judy Blume and Mark Twain are all sacrificed on the alter of Funny, and it's the combination of shrewd observation and clever satire that makes this film brilliant.

The main character, Olive Penderghast, aside from having a vampire-romance-novel name, is a perfect example of a Teenage Everygirl. Loads of stories try to achieve this, so that the reader can 'connect' to their protagonist, but painfully few actually succeed. So often the Everygirl is secretly lusted after by all the beautiful men (not a feeling most real-life Teenage Everygirls are probably familiar with), are actually really popular and just don't know it, or are so perfectly Girl-Next-Door-esque that you actually just want to punch her. But Olive genuinely isn't very cool (see the "I've Got A Pocketful of Sunshine" sequence), and we like her all the more because of it.

The actual romance scenes, disappointingly, managed to be every bit as cheesy as the stories the film was taking the piss out of. In particular, any scene with Woodchuck Todd is eye-rollingly predictable. I think it's really hard to have your audience support a romance without making it cringe-inducingly corny, and I was a bit gutted that this film didn't manage it.

****

Initially I wanted to start my film reviews with some burningly intelligent, intense, indie flick that would make you think I was clever. But then I had a bad day, and I thought Easy A would cheer me up. But you know, it definitely worked.

Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

First thing's first; if you initially read the post title as Fifty Shades of Grey, then I want you to go sit on the naughty step, and think about what you've done.

I admit, I timed my reading of this book badly; I asked my parents to buy it for my birthday, which led to the horror of my dad Googling it, awkwardly knocking on my bedroom door and asking, "...do you mean the porn one?" So thank you, Fifty Shades of Grey, for that moment.

Anyway, to business. I have linked you up to the goodreads page of JASPER FFORDE'S (fifty-less) Shades of Grey, because it probably provides the most comprehensive summary of the story, and the TV Tropes page, for the lulz. (I promise to never use that phrase again. Even cyberly, I can't pull it off.)

Fforde immediately broke what I had believed to be one of the Cardinal Rules of writing - never, ever start a novel with a long, nonsensical explanation. I didn't have a bloody clue what was going on for the first two chapters, which just threw in phrase after phrase of Stuff I Did Not Understand. This was really annoying, until I realised that the cleverness lies in the fact that - after only a few chapters - you realise that you actually get it now. Nevertheless, it's a risk I don't think unestablished authors should take - if I hadn't known Jasper Fforde by reputation, and had picked Shades of Grey off Waterstone's shelf, I would've read the first paragraph and probably lobbed it straight back.

Fforde's one of those writers who's imagination is so ridiculously abundant, you can spend paragraphs at a time thinking 'that's just showing off'. He goes into minute detail to describe things we don't really care about (i.e. a breakdown of the features in a fictional magazine) for little purpose other than to demonstrate that he has Thought It Through. Having noticed it, I will be heavily predisposed to Think It Through from now on - Shades of Grey was a masterclass in creating a new (or different) world.

I also loved the female protagonist, Jane. Even though at the beginning you should probably hate her, you don't, partly because you're seeing through the eyes of Eddie Russett (who feels anything but hatred for her), but also partly because she's just awesome. Jane is what Katniss Everdeen would have been if she hadn't spent so much time whining.

Finally, for plus points; the sheer wittiness. Granted, I think the ability to make funnies that often is probably God-given as much as it is rehearsed, but dammit I can try.

Buuuut, one of the things that repeatedly pissed me off was every single characters' repeated failure to React Appropriately to the possibility of death. I mean, I've never been in a near-death situation, but I would imagine that my reaction would be stronger than mild annoyance, and my parents' reaction would definitely not be amusement. The tone Fforde takes in these bits is more appropriate to a comedy, but less appropriate to....like, life.

There was a character, Tommo, who I really wasn't sure whether I was supposed to like or not. Now, don't get me wrong, I love characters who aren't really on anyone's side - they're usually funny, interesting, unpredictable, and the most three-dimensional. However, I think this only really works well when you like the character, and I never really decided whether I liked Tommo or not.

 ****

Also, the ending. From a reader's perspective, it seriously pissed me off, but from a writer's perspective I thought it was brilliant. Funny that, isn't it? But generally, it was like Fforde managed to find a balance between George Orwell and Douglas Adams, which - let's be honest - is kind of genius in itself.