Another year in books has flown by. After my book challenge in 2015, I've been keeping lists of all the books I read through 2016 and this year. As in previous years, I'm always surprised to find which books I read not even half a year ago; amazing how quickly you forget when it was that you read something. On the other hand, some novels I feel like I've just finished them while that turns out to have been more than a year ago.
No reading goals, just keeping up the numbers. I read 23 books this year, which is 2 up from last year. Mainly, I think, because I didn't tackle any big literary reads (like Anna Karenina last year) and there were some rereads, which are always faster. As always, some books have already been discussed at length, while others may have their first mention on this blog right below.
The complete list for 2017:
1 The High Mountains of Portugal
2 The Sellout
3 Juliet, naked
4 Black Swan Green
5 The Outrun
6 Last Orders
7 The Handmaid's Tale
8 How to be good
9 The Jane Austen book club
10 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
11 Hag-Seed
12 The Joy Luck Club
13 England and other stories
14 Mijn Meneer
15 The Light Years
16 The North Water
17 Marking Time
18 Here I am
19 Confusion
20 The Best of Adam Sharp
21 Cloud Atlas
22 Exit West
23 Casting Off
So, five rereads; Juliet, naked, Black Swan Green, The Jane Austen bookclub, Harry Potter, and Cloud Atlas, two of which are by the ever-popular David Mitchell. The Joy Fowler and JK Rowling were because there was a bit in the summer where I wanted to read but not invest actual brainpower into the reading, so I went back to some really easy rereads. Only one Dutch book, which is also the only non-fiction title on the list (although it is partly fictionalized, it is the autobiographical account of Ted van Lieshout's youth). Technically only one short story collection (England and other stories), although one could count The Joy Luck Club as short stories (I read one of the chapters as a 'separate' short story during my studies). No classics at all. I was going to say 'no Americans' until I realised both The Sellout and Here I Am are written by Americans; somehow they both disappeared from my mind pretty quickly. No new novels by Ian McEwan, or David Mitchell, or any of my other popular authors, simply because there weren't any. Actually, now that I think of it: no Ian McEwan at all this year. After the triple McEwan there may have been a slight overdose, but still; this must be the first time in about 10 years that I read no novel by Ian McEwan for a whole year. This will surely be rectified in 2018.
Let's break the novels that I did read down into some lists:
Best English novel
1 Exit West
2 Last Orders
3 The Handmaid's Tale
A difficult choice this year! Exit West is clearly the winner; another Mohsin Hamid novel that I dearly loved. It is a very contemporary novel, featuring a couple from a unspecified Middle Eastern country fleeing through one of the mysterious doors that keep opening up all over the world, leading to other places. It is both mystical and very realistic, and I'm sad it didn't make Man Booker this year, as it would have been a deserved winner (I've just started reading the novel that did win, and Exit West would beat it with its hands tied behind its back at this point). Do read something by Hamid!
Last Orders is Graham Swift's Man Booker 1996 winning novel, which gave me the combined emotions of a WWII novel and The Full Monty, with it's 'band of brothers'-like bantering and the emotions simmering under a surface of beer and beautiful language. Same goes for The Handmaid's Tale; it's old, it's great, I've written all you need to know when I read it. Funnily enough, both Last Orders and The Handmaid's Tale could count as my 'classics' this year; they are both over 20 years old, and still very current.
Best Dutch novel/classics
Non-existent this year. Strange, as I did get lots of new novels, and have a pretty long backlog in both these categories. They must never have been at the top of the to-read list.
Best non-fiction/best short story collection
Only one novel in each of these categories this year, so not really lists to speak of.
Best fantasy/scifi novel
1 Exit West
2 The Handmaid's Tale
3 The High Mountains of Portugal
Not a lot of these to go around either, but I would of course have put in Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green if they hadn't been rereads. Two of these also feature in my Best English novel list, but The High Mountains of Portual deserves special mention. Yann Martel, like Mohsin Hamid and David Mitchell, can capture you with a world that is very much like ours, but than turns out to be slightly unlike ours in a magical way, and your suspension of disbelief just goes with that until you find yourself in their made-up world still fully believing that these things could really happen here and now. Realistic fantasy, a true escape into literature.
Best 'new' author
1 Elizabeth Jane Howard
2 Graham Swift
3 Margaret Atwood
Only Elizabeth Jane Howard is really a 'new' author for 2017, and I've written enough about her novels in my previous blog post. But Graham Swift and Margaret Atwood are some of my recent discoveries of whom I want to read more. I'd read my first novel by Swift, Mothering Sunday, as one of my last novels in 2016 and this year I continued with Last Orders and his short-story collection England and other stories. I'd have wanted Wish you were here on the list as well, but it went into reprint just as I ordered it, so that will have to go for 2018 (when I wrote about Last Orders in March it had also disappeared from view in the bookshop, so I'll have to look into that...). Margaret Atwood is not really a 'new' author for me, as I read Oryx & Crake during my English studies, but she is one of the authors I've put on my 'must read more' list. This year I read The Handmaid's Tale and Hag-seed, both of which are great in their own way. I got The Heart goes Last a couple of weeks ago, so she will also feature in the 2018 list.
Most disappointing novel
1 How to be good
2 The Sellout
3 The Outrun
(4 The Best of Adam Sharp)
Wow, this was really the easiest category to fill this year. Not a good sign. I was looking forward to How to be good, one of the few Hornby novels I'd never read, but it was thoroughly disappointing. Moralistic, full of angry relationship issues, with a wavering plot and unlikeable characters. The Sellout was the Man Booker winner of 2016, so naturally I read it, but I didn't like it at all. It is supposed to be a funny social commentary on contemporary America, but I can't remember finding any bit of it funny. The main character struck me as pathetic, his backstory was unbelievable and the plot even more so. The Outrun appeared to be good at first; girl returns to small town Orkney life after her big-city London life blows up in her face, but in the end it didn't really go anywhere, the character didn't come to life for me as in so many of these 'woman retreats to find herself' novels. Special mention for The Best of Adam Sharp, again a novel by Graeme Simpsion that disappointed. It felt like a slight do-over of The Rosie Project, with some High Fidelity elements thrown in. He really turned out only one good novel, his first, and I will now stop reading whatever else he writes until the recommendations tell me it really is too great to miss.
Authors I read more than once
- Elizabeth Jane Howard (4x)
- Margaret Atwood (2x)
- Graham Swift (2x)
- Nick Hornby (2x, one reread and one new)
- David Mitchell (2x, both rereads)
Sunday 31 December 2017
Wednesday 27 December 2017
Elizabeth Jane Howard
My 'books of 2017' list will be coming up shortly, and I'll already give a sneak peek at one of my absolute favourites this year: Elizabeth Jane Howard. Or more specifically; her series of novels about the Cazalet family. The first of these, The Light Years, was only this year translated into Dutch, even though the original novel stems from 1990. Due to the raving review of the translation, I decided to buy the original. Talk about hidden treasure!
The first novel is set in 1937 and follows the Cazalet family on the brink of WWII. "The Cazalet family" is not easily described, but in essence we follow two generations; the Cazalet brothers and sister, Hugh, Edward, Rachel and Rupert and their spouses, and the generation of their children. I'm now in the fourth novel of the series, Casting Off, which is set in the post-war time of 1946-1947. I don't know about the fifth part, which was published much later than the first four, but so far I've seen the 'junior' generation grow from 4-16 years of age to 14-26, which means some of them have children of their own now. The Cazalet family is ever-expanding, through marriage and child-birth, and some of the family friends have also become part of the Cazalet clan. As in any good novel, some of these characters have found their deaths, too.
The 'older' generation, having lived through yet another great War, have had their own fair share of developments, but it is really the younger one the first novels focuses on, especially the cousins Louise, Polly and Clary. And after having been with them for four novels and ten fictional years, it really feels as if I've gotten to know these characters, as if they are people who might live just down the street. Even though they are close in age, and clearly have inherited some of the more persistent family traits, the cousins are three very distinct personalities. They have each made some difficult life choices that have got them where they are now. It can get a bit chick-flicky (lots of relationship talk, lots of affairs), but there is more to these novels than that.
Apart from the characters, which are very well-developed and written, there is the language. Long, drawn-out sentences full of description, which perfectly set the atmosphere. Some of the characters are focused on interior design or clothes, and their chapters contain detailed descriptions of all the rooms and garments they see around them. In other chapters, a few sentences set the scene. The dialogue is also very well done, you can actually hear the characters talk, and even though there is very little 'she said sulkily' or 'he said pointedly', you can get the gist of the emotions simply from the writing.
Then there is the interesting fact that the author was actually born in the same year as the aforementioned cousins. She actually lived through these times. And it is in the small details that this becomes clear; having to get by on rations, getting creative with the small amount of food or clothes coupons that one had, the information about the Cazalet family's business in hard woods, and most importantly; the way people interacted with each other. The verisimilitude is very strong. The discovery of this series of novels coincided with my discovery of the tv series The Crown, which is set in roughly the same time. Both really let you drown in a time seventy years gone, making the past come alive.
Most surprisingly about the interaction between people is the position of women. Already, some of these characters who had maids and cooks and 'dailies' before the war, are having to fend for themselves in the post-war times, when young girls didn't 'go into service' anymore. You can see the class differences disappear before your eyes, you can see women try to carve out a position for themselves, either in a job, in their marriage, or in the new-found possibilities of divorce or emigration. The social change that the war brought about is really the overarching theme of the novel, starting with the Victorian attitudes of the grandparents, through the elder Cazalet brothers' defining experiences in WWI, and the upheaval WWII brought about.
But don't let these heavy themes fool you; these novels are really about people, people trying to find their way, in the light years, marking time, in confusion, and casting off, as the novels are so aptly named. They are one family, but apart from the family business they don't share all that many common goals, until the outside world starts to press in. It makes you feel privileged that you have been allowed to have a peek at their lives for so long.
As I said, I'm almost done reading novel number four. I could have finished all of them ages ago, but these are the kinds of novels you want to draw out, to read one or two other novels between subsequent parts of the series so you can go back and reconnect with these characters, so you won't gobble it all up in one go. I'm very curious about the last part in the series, All Change, but I won't get to that until we're some way into 2018. Hopefully, the best will have been saved for last. And otherwise, there are some more novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard to discover!
The first novel is set in 1937 and follows the Cazalet family on the brink of WWII. "The Cazalet family" is not easily described, but in essence we follow two generations; the Cazalet brothers and sister, Hugh, Edward, Rachel and Rupert and their spouses, and the generation of their children. I'm now in the fourth novel of the series, Casting Off, which is set in the post-war time of 1946-1947. I don't know about the fifth part, which was published much later than the first four, but so far I've seen the 'junior' generation grow from 4-16 years of age to 14-26, which means some of them have children of their own now. The Cazalet family is ever-expanding, through marriage and child-birth, and some of the family friends have also become part of the Cazalet clan. As in any good novel, some of these characters have found their deaths, too.
The 'older' generation, having lived through yet another great War, have had their own fair share of developments, but it is really the younger one the first novels focuses on, especially the cousins Louise, Polly and Clary. And after having been with them for four novels and ten fictional years, it really feels as if I've gotten to know these characters, as if they are people who might live just down the street. Even though they are close in age, and clearly have inherited some of the more persistent family traits, the cousins are three very distinct personalities. They have each made some difficult life choices that have got them where they are now. It can get a bit chick-flicky (lots of relationship talk, lots of affairs), but there is more to these novels than that.
Apart from the characters, which are very well-developed and written, there is the language. Long, drawn-out sentences full of description, which perfectly set the atmosphere. Some of the characters are focused on interior design or clothes, and their chapters contain detailed descriptions of all the rooms and garments they see around them. In other chapters, a few sentences set the scene. The dialogue is also very well done, you can actually hear the characters talk, and even though there is very little 'she said sulkily' or 'he said pointedly', you can get the gist of the emotions simply from the writing.
Then there is the interesting fact that the author was actually born in the same year as the aforementioned cousins. She actually lived through these times. And it is in the small details that this becomes clear; having to get by on rations, getting creative with the small amount of food or clothes coupons that one had, the information about the Cazalet family's business in hard woods, and most importantly; the way people interacted with each other. The verisimilitude is very strong. The discovery of this series of novels coincided with my discovery of the tv series The Crown, which is set in roughly the same time. Both really let you drown in a time seventy years gone, making the past come alive.
Most surprisingly about the interaction between people is the position of women. Already, some of these characters who had maids and cooks and 'dailies' before the war, are having to fend for themselves in the post-war times, when young girls didn't 'go into service' anymore. You can see the class differences disappear before your eyes, you can see women try to carve out a position for themselves, either in a job, in their marriage, or in the new-found possibilities of divorce or emigration. The social change that the war brought about is really the overarching theme of the novel, starting with the Victorian attitudes of the grandparents, through the elder Cazalet brothers' defining experiences in WWI, and the upheaval WWII brought about.
But don't let these heavy themes fool you; these novels are really about people, people trying to find their way, in the light years, marking time, in confusion, and casting off, as the novels are so aptly named. They are one family, but apart from the family business they don't share all that many common goals, until the outside world starts to press in. It makes you feel privileged that you have been allowed to have a peek at their lives for so long.
As I said, I'm almost done reading novel number four. I could have finished all of them ages ago, but these are the kinds of novels you want to draw out, to read one or two other novels between subsequent parts of the series so you can go back and reconnect with these characters, so you won't gobble it all up in one go. I'm very curious about the last part in the series, All Change, but I won't get to that until we're some way into 2018. Hopefully, the best will have been saved for last. And otherwise, there are some more novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard to discover!
Thursday 7 December 2017
Blueberry cake
So I've had my birthday in October, and of course I did some birthday baking. Normally I plan this pretty far in advance, but this year that somehow didn't happen, so I had to make a rather on-the-spot decision about what to make. For some reason (because they were on sale) I had lots and lots of blueberries. So naturally, I made a blueberry cake.
Looking for recipes for a blueberry cake, I came to the conclusion that you can either make:
- a plain cake with added blueberries
- a blueberry cheesecake
As my other cake was a mon chou cake, I didn't want to go for the cheesecake option, but just a plain cake with added blueberries sounded dull. So my solution was basically to make one giant blueberry cupcake, and call it a blueberry cake. And it was quite the hit!
Ingredients:
175 g butter
175 g sugar
3 eggs
225 g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon lemon zest
blueberries (I can't remember how many, but quite a lot. I think about 200-250 grams? Use fresh blueberries, not frozen ones)
For the frosting:
150 g mascarpone (I'd use cream cheese, but we don't have proper cream cheese here)
50-75 g icing sugar (depending on how sweet you want the frosting to be)
some blueberries to decorate
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease a sandwich tin and line with baking parchment.
Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the eggs one by one, the lemon zest, and the self-raising flour. Finally, use a spoon to stir in the blueberries (if you do this by electric mixer they will get mashed up). Spread the mixture in the cake tin and bake for about 50 minutes.
Let the cake cool completely, turning it out onto a plate or wire rack about 5-10 minutes after opening the oven.
Make the frosting simply by combining the mascarpone or cream cheese with the icing sugar. Add the icing sugar in small lumps and taste in between. The cake is not very sweet, so the frosting shouldn't be too sour if you like a sweet cake. Spread the frosting over the cake in any way you like and decorate with the remaining blueberries.
Final judgement? What works for small blueberry cupcakes unsurprisingly also works for large(r) blueberry cakes. The cake was very moist and not too sweet, the blueberries went well with the mascarpone, basically all was well with the world. A perfect cake for late summer or early autumn, when blueberries are actually in season (one of the perks of having your birthday early autumn: all kinds of nice fruity things are plentily available).
In the future, I will try more of these cupcake-turned-into-real-cake experiments!
Looking for recipes for a blueberry cake, I came to the conclusion that you can either make:
- a plain cake with added blueberries
- a blueberry cheesecake
As my other cake was a mon chou cake, I didn't want to go for the cheesecake option, but just a plain cake with added blueberries sounded dull. So my solution was basically to make one giant blueberry cupcake, and call it a blueberry cake. And it was quite the hit!
Ingredients:
175 g butter
175 g sugar
3 eggs
225 g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon lemon zest
blueberries (I can't remember how many, but quite a lot. I think about 200-250 grams? Use fresh blueberries, not frozen ones)
For the frosting:
150 g mascarpone (I'd use cream cheese, but we don't have proper cream cheese here)
50-75 g icing sugar (depending on how sweet you want the frosting to be)
some blueberries to decorate
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease a sandwich tin and line with baking parchment.
Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the eggs one by one, the lemon zest, and the self-raising flour. Finally, use a spoon to stir in the blueberries (if you do this by electric mixer they will get mashed up). Spread the mixture in the cake tin and bake for about 50 minutes.
Let the cake cool completely, turning it out onto a plate or wire rack about 5-10 minutes after opening the oven.
Make the frosting simply by combining the mascarpone or cream cheese with the icing sugar. Add the icing sugar in small lumps and taste in between. The cake is not very sweet, so the frosting shouldn't be too sour if you like a sweet cake. Spread the frosting over the cake in any way you like and decorate with the remaining blueberries.
 |
| Blueberry galore (I kept the most gigantic ones to decorate). |
Final judgement? What works for small blueberry cupcakes unsurprisingly also works for large(r) blueberry cakes. The cake was very moist and not too sweet, the blueberries went well with the mascarpone, basically all was well with the world. A perfect cake for late summer or early autumn, when blueberries are actually in season (one of the perks of having your birthday early autumn: all kinds of nice fruity things are plentily available).
In the future, I will try more of these cupcake-turned-into-real-cake experiments!
Fluently flu-ish
Wow, time flies! This reads like one of those obligatory "I'm not dead!" posts after a long period of blogging silence, but it is also honestly how I feel. The last couple of days I've been under the influence of a very violent and persistant virus, having what is euphemistically called 'stomach flu', but which I like to rename 'a snake writhing around in your intestines trying to rearrange som organs'. It wasn't pretty. I won't go into more detail.
But! Lots of other stuff happened, since my last post and before I got the bug. I've been promoted, meaning I am now no longer a generic-sounding 'project manager' but rather a 'publisher'. Sounds posher, is significantly more tricky to fill in on an entry-card to exotic holiday destinations (the first time I went to Africa the steward on the plane suggested we were creative with our job descriptions, putting 'artist' if you were a photographer, or 'writer' when you were a journalist; it would save us lots of time at customs. Sadly, I'd forgotten that by the time I went to Morocco in 2016, and I put in 'publisher' as my profession as 'project manager' wouldn't fit in the teeny-tiny space, and the customs official grilled me for 5 minutes about what I did, who I worked with, what kind of books I published, until he decided that school books must have something to do with the government, I wasn't a radical self-publishing element, and could safely be let into the country).
Also, I had my birthday (more on birthday baking in a next post), I visited London for a week, staying at a great Airbnb and enjoying it more than I'd expected from a city I've already visited six times, and of course I did lots of reading (birthdays always mean more books!). All of that and more, still to come, when I feel more like a human being than home to an intestinal snake!
But! Lots of other stuff happened, since my last post and before I got the bug. I've been promoted, meaning I am now no longer a generic-sounding 'project manager' but rather a 'publisher'. Sounds posher, is significantly more tricky to fill in on an entry-card to exotic holiday destinations (the first time I went to Africa the steward on the plane suggested we were creative with our job descriptions, putting 'artist' if you were a photographer, or 'writer' when you were a journalist; it would save us lots of time at customs. Sadly, I'd forgotten that by the time I went to Morocco in 2016, and I put in 'publisher' as my profession as 'project manager' wouldn't fit in the teeny-tiny space, and the customs official grilled me for 5 minutes about what I did, who I worked with, what kind of books I published, until he decided that school books must have something to do with the government, I wasn't a radical self-publishing element, and could safely be let into the country).
Also, I had my birthday (more on birthday baking in a next post), I visited London for a week, staying at a great Airbnb and enjoying it more than I'd expected from a city I've already visited six times, and of course I did lots of reading (birthdays always mean more books!). All of that and more, still to come, when I feel more like a human being than home to an intestinal snake!
Friday 29 September 2017
Rocky road
Rocky road, one of those fabulous things you are sure must be American (who else throws so many calorie rich things into melted chocolate and calls it dessert?) but actually turns out to be European (or not; the origins remain unclear). Wherever it came from, it is definitely here to stay, and to my surprise I realised I'd never made it myself. While it is one of the easiest recipes to make, one of my colleagues actually had his 8 year old daughter make it for his birthday treat.
So, for a quick (but very rich) and easy (no baking involved) treat:
Ingredients
400 g chocolate (I used 200 g milk and 200 g dark)
250 g butter
100 ml golden syrup
Melt all these in a heatproof bowl over boiling water, until well combined. Then, you can add whatever you like, but classic ingredients include:
- crushed digestive biscuits
- raisins/sultanas/dried cranberries
- marshmallows
- nuts
For mine, I added:
200 g digestive biscuits (crushed)
100 g dried cranberries
about 10 marshmallows sliced into smaller bits
I left out the walnuts because I was planning to put in M&Ms, but then I forgot about the M&Ms, so the chocolate/filling ratio was not ideal. Will have to try again.
Anyway, line a tray with baking parchment. Stir the biscuits into the chocolate mixture, and then stir in any other ingredients you have until they are well covered in chocolate. Pour the mixture into your prepared tray and leave to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight. Slice into small cubes (veeeery small cubes, it is very rich). The recipe makes quite a lot (depending on how small you cut them) so you could halve the ingredients for a more modest amount.
I wouldn't consider it a dessert myself, more something you have with a cup of tea after a long day (or during a film festival, which is where I handed out most of mine to grateful friends and other festival goers). Easy, quick and delicious!
So, for a quick (but very rich) and easy (no baking involved) treat:
Ingredients
400 g chocolate (I used 200 g milk and 200 g dark)
250 g butter
100 ml golden syrup
Melt all these in a heatproof bowl over boiling water, until well combined. Then, you can add whatever you like, but classic ingredients include:
- crushed digestive biscuits
- raisins/sultanas/dried cranberries
- marshmallows
- nuts
For mine, I added:
200 g digestive biscuits (crushed)
100 g dried cranberries
about 10 marshmallows sliced into smaller bits
I left out the walnuts because I was planning to put in M&Ms, but then I forgot about the M&Ms, so the chocolate/filling ratio was not ideal. Will have to try again.
Anyway, line a tray with baking parchment. Stir the biscuits into the chocolate mixture, and then stir in any other ingredients you have until they are well covered in chocolate. Pour the mixture into your prepared tray and leave to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight. Slice into small cubes (veeeery small cubes, it is very rich). The recipe makes quite a lot (depending on how small you cut them) so you could halve the ingredients for a more modest amount.
I wouldn't consider it a dessert myself, more something you have with a cup of tea after a long day (or during a film festival, which is where I handed out most of mine to grateful friends and other festival goers). Easy, quick and delicious!
Sunday 17 September 2017
Devil's food cake
So after making my apple cake last week, I came to the horrible realisation that I'd never actually made a chocolate cake. Not a proper one, I have made cakes in which I added a load of cocoa powder, but that doesn't make it an 'official' chocolate cake. So I dove into Mary Berry's recipes, and decided to make one that was called 'Devil's food cake'. I'd never heard of this cake before, but after making it, I have an idea of why it's called that way. Read on, and you will know too.
To manage expectations; this cake did not turn out well. It must be Murphy's law, because just a couple of days earlier someone (my mom) told me that my cakes always turn out great and that I've never had a bad bake. Well...
I've put the recipe below, adding in italics the points where something went wrong with my cake, and how you could avoid making my mistakes in the future. And also how I could avoid making my own mistakes again, as I will be making this cake again, to do it properly.
Ingredients
for the cake:
50 g cocoa powder
255 ml water
100 g butter
275 caster sugar
2 eggs
175 g flour
teaspoon baking powder
teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
for the frosting:
175 g caster sugar
1 egg white
2 tablespoons hot water
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease two 20 cm sandwich tins and line the base with baking parchment.
Ah, yes. I went wrong on the first step. Now I usually don't include the 'grease and line your tin' bit, because it is so obvious that it is second nature. However, as it turned out I did not have two 20 cm sandwich tins. I had one 20 cm sandwich tin, and one 20 cm loose-bottomed tin. I did however have two 24 cm sandwich tins. So I used those, figuring that with all those raising agents, the cakes would come out pretty big anyway. I was wrong there.
Second, I had lots of little bits of baking parchment left over, and was too lazy to cut out one big piece to line the bottoms. Usually with cakes, if you have a small bit you can pull on, the rest comes out easily too. As you can probably guess now, I was wrong there too.
Blend the cocoa and water together until smooth and set aside.
Have you ever tried to blend cocoa and cold water? It is weird. Somehow the cocoa is extremely hydrophobic and wants to stay on top of the water, or in clumpy bits at the bottom. It looks pretty horrible:
Luckily, this bit resolves itself once you blend it together.
Mix the butter and sugar by adding the sugar gradually and beating well in between until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one until you have a smooth mixture.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Yes, I went wrong here. How? How could one possibly mess up this bit, you wonder? Carefully read the first word: sift. I never sift. I am a quick and easy baker, who does not sift her flour. Usually I get away with this, because you mix the flour in the with the rest, and the lumps get beaten to death. However, this cake was of the 'fold in' variety, so that did not happen. Also, the flour was pretty old and hard. So I had lumps. A lot of lumps.
Fold the flour mixture and cocoa-water mixture alternatively into the butter-sugar mixture until well blended. Divide the mixture between the tins and level the surface.
So at this point, I could see it would be a lumpy thing. I tried breaking up the flour lumps, but you cannot really put any force on the mixture, as 'folding' means 'try to work as quickly and lightly as possible or the air will escape from your cake and leave you with a horrible flat pancake'. So I managed to get a few of the larger lumps broken up, but most medium-sized lumps just bided their time at the bottom of the bowl. The irony is of course, that I still ended up with a pancake, because it could not rise properly. Anyway...
Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until well risen (hah!). Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack.
My cakes were not well risen. One had stayed exactly the same size, the other had somewhat doubled in height, but not nearly as much as one might expect with this amount of raising agents. Most likely because the tins I used were too large and because the lumps made the cake quite heavy. Also, all the lumps had gone to the bottom, so once I turned them out you could clearly see the cratery landscape I'd produced. And as you can probably guess from the first mistake I made; it was almost impossible to get the cakes out of the tins without breaking them. They stuck to the un-parchmented parts of the tins like frosting to a spoon. I incurred several breaks before I had them both out.
The frosting, on the other hand, was a breeze. Put the sugar, egg white and water into a heat-proof bowl and set over a pan of hot water. Whisk for about 10-12 minutes until thick, then sandwich the two cake halves together and put the rest on the top and sides. This stuff hardens out quite quickly, so work fast. Leave to set 'in a cool place, but not in the fridge' (apparently this is not a summer cake).
So, how did it turn out? Surprisingly good on the looks, but as predicted, very stodgy on the taste. The lumps (luckily!) did not turn into powdery flour explosions in your mouth, but were rather just hard chewy bits. If they'd been made of chocolate sprinkles, it might have been quite nice. As it is, my guinea pig friends were all pretty positive, but that may have been because I'd down-played it so much it could only be better than expected.
So, learning points:
- use the correct size tin as stated
- properly line your tins with baking parchment
- sift your flour before you add it.
Conclusion: the devil's food cake is devilish because it pretends to be a very easy run-of-the-mill cake, but then it tricks you into making all kinds of basic rookie baking mistakes that make your cake come out like a lumpy pancake.
To manage expectations; this cake did not turn out well. It must be Murphy's law, because just a couple of days earlier someone (my mom) told me that my cakes always turn out great and that I've never had a bad bake. Well...
I've put the recipe below, adding in italics the points where something went wrong with my cake, and how you could avoid making my mistakes in the future. And also how I could avoid making my own mistakes again, as I will be making this cake again, to do it properly.
Ingredients
for the cake:
50 g cocoa powder
255 ml water
100 g butter
275 caster sugar
2 eggs
175 g flour
teaspoon baking powder
teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
for the frosting:
175 g caster sugar
1 egg white
2 tablespoons hot water
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease two 20 cm sandwich tins and line the base with baking parchment.
Ah, yes. I went wrong on the first step. Now I usually don't include the 'grease and line your tin' bit, because it is so obvious that it is second nature. However, as it turned out I did not have two 20 cm sandwich tins. I had one 20 cm sandwich tin, and one 20 cm loose-bottomed tin. I did however have two 24 cm sandwich tins. So I used those, figuring that with all those raising agents, the cakes would come out pretty big anyway. I was wrong there.
Second, I had lots of little bits of baking parchment left over, and was too lazy to cut out one big piece to line the bottoms. Usually with cakes, if you have a small bit you can pull on, the rest comes out easily too. As you can probably guess now, I was wrong there too.
Blend the cocoa and water together until smooth and set aside.
Have you ever tried to blend cocoa and cold water? It is weird. Somehow the cocoa is extremely hydrophobic and wants to stay on top of the water, or in clumpy bits at the bottom. It looks pretty horrible:
 |
| Weird lumpy cocoa-water mixture. |
Luckily, this bit resolves itself once you blend it together.
Mix the butter and sugar by adding the sugar gradually and beating well in between until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one until you have a smooth mixture.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Yes, I went wrong here. How? How could one possibly mess up this bit, you wonder? Carefully read the first word: sift. I never sift. I am a quick and easy baker, who does not sift her flour. Usually I get away with this, because you mix the flour in the with the rest, and the lumps get beaten to death. However, this cake was of the 'fold in' variety, so that did not happen. Also, the flour was pretty old and hard. So I had lumps. A lot of lumps.
Fold the flour mixture and cocoa-water mixture alternatively into the butter-sugar mixture until well blended. Divide the mixture between the tins and level the surface.
So at this point, I could see it would be a lumpy thing. I tried breaking up the flour lumps, but you cannot really put any force on the mixture, as 'folding' means 'try to work as quickly and lightly as possible or the air will escape from your cake and leave you with a horrible flat pancake'. So I managed to get a few of the larger lumps broken up, but most medium-sized lumps just bided their time at the bottom of the bowl. The irony is of course, that I still ended up with a pancake, because it could not rise properly. Anyway...
 |
| Lumpy lumpy cake mixture. |
Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until well risen (hah!). Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack.
My cakes were not well risen. One had stayed exactly the same size, the other had somewhat doubled in height, but not nearly as much as one might expect with this amount of raising agents. Most likely because the tins I used were too large and because the lumps made the cake quite heavy. Also, all the lumps had gone to the bottom, so once I turned them out you could clearly see the cratery landscape I'd produced. And as you can probably guess from the first mistake I made; it was almost impossible to get the cakes out of the tins without breaking them. They stuck to the un-parchmented parts of the tins like frosting to a spoon. I incurred several breaks before I had them both out.
The frosting, on the other hand, was a breeze. Put the sugar, egg white and water into a heat-proof bowl and set over a pan of hot water. Whisk for about 10-12 minutes until thick, then sandwich the two cake halves together and put the rest on the top and sides. This stuff hardens out quite quickly, so work fast. Leave to set 'in a cool place, but not in the fridge' (apparently this is not a summer cake).
So, how did it turn out? Surprisingly good on the looks, but as predicted, very stodgy on the taste. The lumps (luckily!) did not turn into powdery flour explosions in your mouth, but were rather just hard chewy bits. If they'd been made of chocolate sprinkles, it might have been quite nice. As it is, my guinea pig friends were all pretty positive, but that may have been because I'd down-played it so much it could only be better than expected.
 |
| Frosted devil |
So, learning points:
- use the correct size tin as stated
- properly line your tins with baking parchment
- sift your flour before you add it.
Conclusion: the devil's food cake is devilish because it pretends to be a very easy run-of-the-mill cake, but then it tricks you into making all kinds of basic rookie baking mistakes that make your cake come out like a lumpy pancake.
Sunday 10 September 2017
Apple cake
It is that time of the year; schools have started again, the days are shortening, and Heel Holland Bakt is back on tv. HHB is the Dutch version of The Great British Bake-Off (which has also started again, but on one of the commercial British channels, so I can no longer watch it) and although not as good, it still gets you back into the baking spirit. So that is what I did, last weekend.
I'd made my family's apple cake recipe a while back (in 2014, even!), but this one came from a more distinguished source: Mary Berry herself. If she can't be on Bake-Off anymore, I can at least channel her baking spirit at home!
Ingredients
225 g butter
225 g muscovado sugar
225 g self-raising flour
(I just love this about cakes, just put the same amounts of butter, sugar and flour together, add some eggs, and ta-da: a cake!)
3 eggs (I used 4, but they were really small)
(baking powder)
100 g chopped walnuts
100 g raisins
400 g apples, cut in small pieces (I always keep the peel on, but you can take it off)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
As ever, mix the butter, sugar, flour and (if you're using it) baking powder together in a bowl. I always mix the 'dry' stuff (flour, sugar and baking powder) together first, before I add the softened butter in small lumps. Then add the eggs, until you get a fairly standard cake mixture. Mix thoroughly for about two minutes. Finally, add the chopped walnuts and raisins, and give it a final mix. I also added some cinnamon at this point, but it's not in the 'official' recipe.
Pour half of the mixture into your prepared (buttered and lined with baking parchment) cake tin. Then pour the apples and cinnamon in a layer on top, spreading it out evenly. Finally, pour the rest of your cake mixture on top. Make sure the edges are made of cake mixture, not apple, or you will have apples poking out of the side of your cake (as I did).
To finish off, sprinkle the top with more walnuts and muscovado sugar. You can leave some lumps in the sugar, but not too big, as it will just give you a mouthful of rock hard sugar when you eat it.
Bake for about an hour and a half, until golden brown and firm (mine was done in an hour and 20 minutes).
Looking good, right? It tasted good, too! Very autumny, with the soft juicy apple and the chopped nuts. If I were to make it again, I'd add some more spices (maybe the 'speculaaskruiden', or just some cardamom and nutmeg), but other than that it was a good start to the baking season!
I'd made my family's apple cake recipe a while back (in 2014, even!), but this one came from a more distinguished source: Mary Berry herself. If she can't be on Bake-Off anymore, I can at least channel her baking spirit at home!
Ingredients
225 g butter
225 g muscovado sugar
225 g self-raising flour
(I just love this about cakes, just put the same amounts of butter, sugar and flour together, add some eggs, and ta-da: a cake!)
3 eggs (I used 4, but they were really small)
(baking powder)
100 g chopped walnuts
100 g raisins
400 g apples, cut in small pieces (I always keep the peel on, but you can take it off)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
As ever, mix the butter, sugar, flour and (if you're using it) baking powder together in a bowl. I always mix the 'dry' stuff (flour, sugar and baking powder) together first, before I add the softened butter in small lumps. Then add the eggs, until you get a fairly standard cake mixture. Mix thoroughly for about two minutes. Finally, add the chopped walnuts and raisins, and give it a final mix. I also added some cinnamon at this point, but it's not in the 'official' recipe.
Pour half of the mixture into your prepared (buttered and lined with baking parchment) cake tin. Then pour the apples and cinnamon in a layer on top, spreading it out evenly. Finally, pour the rest of your cake mixture on top. Make sure the edges are made of cake mixture, not apple, or you will have apples poking out of the side of your cake (as I did).
To finish off, sprinkle the top with more walnuts and muscovado sugar. You can leave some lumps in the sugar, but not too big, as it will just give you a mouthful of rock hard sugar when you eat it.
Bake for about an hour and a half, until golden brown and firm (mine was done in an hour and 20 minutes).
 |
| Pretty pretty apple cake |
Looking good, right? It tasted good, too! Very autumny, with the soft juicy apple and the chopped nuts. If I were to make it again, I'd add some more spices (maybe the 'speculaaskruiden', or just some cardamom and nutmeg), but other than that it was a good start to the baking season!
Monday 10 July 2017
Hag-seed
To make good on my promise to myself to read more from certain lovable authors, I ditched the John le Carré novel and started in another Atwood novel; Hag-Seed. Now this is not just any novel; Hogarth is doing a series of Shakespeare-retellings by contemporary authors in contemporary settings, and Hag-Seed was inspired by The Tempest. Or rather, not just inspired by, it is basically the story of The Tempest, including a thwarted theatre director, who aims at getting revenge through staging The Tempest. This sounds very forced, and it probably could have been in the hands of a lesser author, but the novel is actually brilliantly constructed.
Before we get into that, let me get this out of the way; I have never read The Tempest, nor have I ever seen a staging of it. It was one of those 'we won't go there' plays during my studies, and it isn't one of the plays that ever shows up at the local theatre (or not-so-local Shakespeare theatre). There is apparently a film version with Helen Mirren as 'Prospera', but I managed to miss that too.
So, no prior knowledge of the play or the story, although I did read up on the main plotlines and themes on Wikipedia (I found out in the end that there is a short synopsis at the back of the novel, but I'm one of those people who stays very far from the final pages of any novel). Also, the main theme is pretty obvious from the get-go; revenge. The main character, Felix/Prospero, has been thwarted out of his profession as artistic manager of a Shakespeare festival, and now that he has fallen low, he wants his revenge. After an exile of twelve years (not unexpectedly the same amount of time elapses in The Tempest), he finally sees his chance when his former enemies visit the prison in which he now works in a Literacy through Literature programme. It isn't hard to persuade the juvenile delinquents to work with him to get his revenge, and the end result is somewhat disturbing, but also a very entertaining read.
The 'actors' are asked to add their own thoughts, scenes and songs to the play, resulting in some very nice raps (I never thought I would ever write the phrase 'very nice raps'), which gives a triple layer to this retelling (the original play, the novel-as-the-play, and the 'modernized' version they perform). Again, this might have been very forced, but even though you can see what will happen way in advance, the plot never gets in the way of the story. One funny thing that happened was that I kept thinking the play was set in England, and it took about a third of the book to realise it was actually set in the US. Somehow, 'Shakespeare festivals' feel like something Britain-only, and the whole novel oozed Britishness to me. (And then it turns out that Margaret Atwood is actually Canadian, so I have been putting her novels on the wrong shelf of my bookcase for years!)
Anyway, it's a great read, maybe less so if you're not a Shakespeare/theatre geek like me, but even then the whole development of the main character and his young actors will still bring a smile to your face. Amazing, how something that should have been very heavy and deep with Literary Meaning, can still be so very light and pleasant.
Before we get into that, let me get this out of the way; I have never read The Tempest, nor have I ever seen a staging of it. It was one of those 'we won't go there' plays during my studies, and it isn't one of the plays that ever shows up at the local theatre (or not-so-local Shakespeare theatre). There is apparently a film version with Helen Mirren as 'Prospera', but I managed to miss that too.
So, no prior knowledge of the play or the story, although I did read up on the main plotlines and themes on Wikipedia (I found out in the end that there is a short synopsis at the back of the novel, but I'm one of those people who stays very far from the final pages of any novel). Also, the main theme is pretty obvious from the get-go; revenge. The main character, Felix/Prospero, has been thwarted out of his profession as artistic manager of a Shakespeare festival, and now that he has fallen low, he wants his revenge. After an exile of twelve years (not unexpectedly the same amount of time elapses in The Tempest), he finally sees his chance when his former enemies visit the prison in which he now works in a Literacy through Literature programme. It isn't hard to persuade the juvenile delinquents to work with him to get his revenge, and the end result is somewhat disturbing, but also a very entertaining read.
The 'actors' are asked to add their own thoughts, scenes and songs to the play, resulting in some very nice raps (I never thought I would ever write the phrase 'very nice raps'), which gives a triple layer to this retelling (the original play, the novel-as-the-play, and the 'modernized' version they perform). Again, this might have been very forced, but even though you can see what will happen way in advance, the plot never gets in the way of the story. One funny thing that happened was that I kept thinking the play was set in England, and it took about a third of the book to realise it was actually set in the US. Somehow, 'Shakespeare festivals' feel like something Britain-only, and the whole novel oozed Britishness to me. (And then it turns out that Margaret Atwood is actually Canadian, so I have been putting her novels on the wrong shelf of my bookcase for years!)
Anyway, it's a great read, maybe less so if you're not a Shakespeare/theatre geek like me, but even then the whole development of the main character and his young actors will still bring a smile to your face. Amazing, how something that should have been very heavy and deep with Literary Meaning, can still be so very light and pleasant.
Friday 7 July 2017
The Bridge
The wonderous world of Netflix means that people who otherwise would only watch tv for very special moments (New Year's Eve, The Great British Bake-Off, and Sherlock) can now follow tv series they wouldn't usually be able to fit in their time or daily routine. For me, a great example is The Bridge, a Swedish/Danish series that is now in its third season. This season has been shown on Dutch telivision about half a year ago, but I only found out around episode 4, and there was no 'rewatch' online. But, the first two seasons were on Netflix already, so it was just a matter of waiting until the third would appear too.
Now I am not usually a detective/crime series person. And The Bridge is very detective-y, and with lots of blood splattering around to boot. The first season starts when a dead woman is found on the bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo (this American-made website doesn't let me put accent marks on letters), exactly in the middle, so half of her is in Denmark and the other half in Sweden. As it turns out, she is actually two women; half of her is Danish and the other half Swedish. The image of the two policemen pulling her body apart is one you get in the first ten minutes of the series, and it is just a small example of stuff to come.
What follows, of course, is a search for the killer. Because the bodies were found in both countries, the Swedish and Danish police have to work together. The Danish detective is Martin, a lovable man with an equally sweet wife and couple of kids. The Swedish detective is somewhat less lovable: Saga Noren is a distant, highly analitic, socially awkward stereotype of the mentally unstable detective. Only she isn't unstable. She has come to deal with her personal quirks in a very good way, and her superior, Hans Petterson, knows exactly how good she is, and what he can ask of her. Only Martin, warm and sociable, cannot quite cope with her at first. But inevitably, they become a great duo, and Saga Noren has become somewhat of a cult hero.
So why do I watch The Bridge, and not for example The Killing or Midsummer Night's Murders or Law&Order or CSI (although I did watch that for a while, about ten years ago). Well, partly because it isn't flashy American. They don't have a grainy photo of part of a fingerprint which they then enlarge 100 times to get a perfectly pixel clear image to run through their database to find the killer. They use their brain, they discuss theories around their photoboard, and they talk to a lot of people. Sometimes half of an episode is made up of Saga talking to possible suspects without them actually getting anywhere. But then, three episodes later, a small, seemingly insignificant detail during that conversation will move them in the right direction.
So, it's a social, intellingent series. But on the other hand, it is very modern. It is set in the here and now; they do use modern technology, and people behave in a way normal people would. It isn't the small, isolated world of British villages, this is big cities we're talking about, with homeless people, drug dealers, and all sorts of dark secrets. Added to that, this series isn't afraid to kill off it's main characters, so the fear you feel when people start shooting is genuine. This puts it smartly between the sleepy British detectives and the flasy American ones, in the middle of the real world.
I've just finished watching season 3, which I won't tell you too much about as it would inevitably contain spoilers. The overall theme though, is 'family', which is quite unusual for a detective (we generally get a bit of the detective's family life just to know why they are so distant/cold/tired/depressed, but not more than that), and it introduces a couple of great new characters which I have come to love. They're already busy developing season 4, so I hope we will see more of them, then.
The only downside is that there are only 10 episodes per season (still a lot more than in a regular Sherlock season, but still). Although, as they say, less tends to be more.
Now I am not usually a detective/crime series person. And The Bridge is very detective-y, and with lots of blood splattering around to boot. The first season starts when a dead woman is found on the bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo (this American-made website doesn't let me put accent marks on letters), exactly in the middle, so half of her is in Denmark and the other half in Sweden. As it turns out, she is actually two women; half of her is Danish and the other half Swedish. The image of the two policemen pulling her body apart is one you get in the first ten minutes of the series, and it is just a small example of stuff to come.
What follows, of course, is a search for the killer. Because the bodies were found in both countries, the Swedish and Danish police have to work together. The Danish detective is Martin, a lovable man with an equally sweet wife and couple of kids. The Swedish detective is somewhat less lovable: Saga Noren is a distant, highly analitic, socially awkward stereotype of the mentally unstable detective. Only she isn't unstable. She has come to deal with her personal quirks in a very good way, and her superior, Hans Petterson, knows exactly how good she is, and what he can ask of her. Only Martin, warm and sociable, cannot quite cope with her at first. But inevitably, they become a great duo, and Saga Noren has become somewhat of a cult hero.
So why do I watch The Bridge, and not for example The Killing or Midsummer Night's Murders or Law&Order or CSI (although I did watch that for a while, about ten years ago). Well, partly because it isn't flashy American. They don't have a grainy photo of part of a fingerprint which they then enlarge 100 times to get a perfectly pixel clear image to run through their database to find the killer. They use their brain, they discuss theories around their photoboard, and they talk to a lot of people. Sometimes half of an episode is made up of Saga talking to possible suspects without them actually getting anywhere. But then, three episodes later, a small, seemingly insignificant detail during that conversation will move them in the right direction.
So, it's a social, intellingent series. But on the other hand, it is very modern. It is set in the here and now; they do use modern technology, and people behave in a way normal people would. It isn't the small, isolated world of British villages, this is big cities we're talking about, with homeless people, drug dealers, and all sorts of dark secrets. Added to that, this series isn't afraid to kill off it's main characters, so the fear you feel when people start shooting is genuine. This puts it smartly between the sleepy British detectives and the flasy American ones, in the middle of the real world.
I've just finished watching season 3, which I won't tell you too much about as it would inevitably contain spoilers. The overall theme though, is 'family', which is quite unusual for a detective (we generally get a bit of the detective's family life just to know why they are so distant/cold/tired/depressed, but not more than that), and it introduces a couple of great new characters which I have come to love. They're already busy developing season 4, so I hope we will see more of them, then.
The only downside is that there are only 10 episodes per season (still a lot more than in a regular Sherlock season, but still). Although, as they say, less tends to be more.
Wednesday 28 June 2017
Books to go
A couple of months ago, I read an interview (I can't remember with who, or where) that has been haunting me ever since. It was with someone aged around 60, who had decided to only read new books, and about once or twice a year reread a book that he already knew he loved. Because, as he reasoned, he read only about 20 books per year, and as he had only about 20 more years to live (at least, that was the number he was aiming for) that made a grand total of 400 books left to read in his entire lifetime. He felt sorry that he hadn't read more great novels when he had the time (in his teens, twenties, and generally before he had a job or children) and now he wanted to make every book worthwhile.
Imagine that! I mean, it is a noble idea, of course, and great planning on his side, but the whole depressing thought of knowing how many books you're still going to read in your life, basically means saying 'no' to a lot of books, and closing the door on so many reading experiences. And when you read a new novel that you absolutely love, you automatically go 'aw, but I won't ever read you again, because I don't have enough slots left for rereads!' Horrible thought.
But still, the man had a point. I mean, my situation is not nearly as dire, as I am only 31, read 40 books per year, so with his projected life expectancy I would still have 2000 books to go, but I too have spent time reading novels I didn't enjoy, didn't think were going anywhere, or just read out of politeness to the person who lend it to me. I am terrible at not finishing a novel; once I've started, I feel like I am committed to finish it, no matter how awful I think it is. (Non-fiction is different, by the way, I have about 10 non-fiction books laying around with bookmarks stuck somewhere in the first 50 pages that I'm not sure I will ever finish.) But all those non-enjoyable books take up a lot of time. Even more time than the good ones, respectively, because I automatically read less when I don't like what I'm reading, so it takes more time to finish them.
So, time for a change.
In 2015, I gave myself the challenge of reading 52 books, and of only reading books I hadn't read before. I didn't make the number, but I did read all new novels. This is a great idea in principle, but some of those novels I did not enjoy. Still, I kept reading, to reach my goal. New rule from now one: if I don't like a novel, or feel myself avoiding reading, I will stop reading that novel and start something else.
Next up; rereads. I like rereads, especially during busy periods when my mind is too distracted to dive into a complex new novel; rereads are like a familiar warm bath that relax my brain and don't care if I miss out on some smaller details because I already know the main plot. During the renovation and move, I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, for example. Which is great, but too many rereads get in the way of new novels. So; rereads are only allowed when needed.
Finally, I have several authors who are my absolute favourite and whose every new novel that comes out I read immediately. Examples include Ian McEwan and David Mitchell. There are also some authors who would probably make it onto that all-time-favourite-have-read-everything-will-read-every-new-novel-that-comes-out list, but who I keep forgetting about, until I by accident read another one of their novels, go 'this author is great, I should read more by them!' and then forget about them again. Examples include Margaret Atwood and Graham Swift. So, third new rule; read more novels by potential to-love authors.
As always with literature, I will probably break any rule I make within half a year, but they do give me some comfort with the depressing 'the end is neigh!' feelings I have been walking around with for a while. And if you'll excuse me, I will now get back to my John le Carré, a novel that I felt was sagging a bit in the middle, but did not put down, for, er... reasons.
Imagine that! I mean, it is a noble idea, of course, and great planning on his side, but the whole depressing thought of knowing how many books you're still going to read in your life, basically means saying 'no' to a lot of books, and closing the door on so many reading experiences. And when you read a new novel that you absolutely love, you automatically go 'aw, but I won't ever read you again, because I don't have enough slots left for rereads!' Horrible thought.
But still, the man had a point. I mean, my situation is not nearly as dire, as I am only 31, read 40 books per year, so with his projected life expectancy I would still have 2000 books to go, but I too have spent time reading novels I didn't enjoy, didn't think were going anywhere, or just read out of politeness to the person who lend it to me. I am terrible at not finishing a novel; once I've started, I feel like I am committed to finish it, no matter how awful I think it is. (Non-fiction is different, by the way, I have about 10 non-fiction books laying around with bookmarks stuck somewhere in the first 50 pages that I'm not sure I will ever finish.) But all those non-enjoyable books take up a lot of time. Even more time than the good ones, respectively, because I automatically read less when I don't like what I'm reading, so it takes more time to finish them.
So, time for a change.
In 2015, I gave myself the challenge of reading 52 books, and of only reading books I hadn't read before. I didn't make the number, but I did read all new novels. This is a great idea in principle, but some of those novels I did not enjoy. Still, I kept reading, to reach my goal. New rule from now one: if I don't like a novel, or feel myself avoiding reading, I will stop reading that novel and start something else.
Next up; rereads. I like rereads, especially during busy periods when my mind is too distracted to dive into a complex new novel; rereads are like a familiar warm bath that relax my brain and don't care if I miss out on some smaller details because I already know the main plot. During the renovation and move, I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, for example. Which is great, but too many rereads get in the way of new novels. So; rereads are only allowed when needed.
Finally, I have several authors who are my absolute favourite and whose every new novel that comes out I read immediately. Examples include Ian McEwan and David Mitchell. There are also some authors who would probably make it onto that all-time-favourite-have-read-everything-will-read-every-new-novel-that-comes-out list, but who I keep forgetting about, until I by accident read another one of their novels, go 'this author is great, I should read more by them!' and then forget about them again. Examples include Margaret Atwood and Graham Swift. So, third new rule; read more novels by potential to-love authors.
As always with literature, I will probably break any rule I make within half a year, but they do give me some comfort with the depressing 'the end is neigh!' feelings I have been walking around with for a while. And if you'll excuse me, I will now get back to my John le Carré, a novel that I felt was sagging a bit in the middle, but did not put down, for, er... reasons.
Wednesday 14 June 2017
A return to Postcrossing
With a new home comes a new address, and new possibilities for mail (snailmail, that is). While we've been receiving lots of letters in recent days (energy/telecom/governmental and move related), this flow of envelopes usually tends to dry out after the couple of weeks, when everybody actually knows you've moved and everything has settled down. Wasn't there some sort of solution to this... I pondered. That's right, Postcrossing!
So I went back to the website I'd visited so many times just a short while ago, and then it turned out that that 'just a short while ago' was actually a hiatus of three whole years. The last time one of my sent postcards had arrived was the 30th of August 2014. The last time I'd registered a postcard had been the 10th of October of that same year. If my Postcrossing stats were a heartbeat, my account had died a good while back:
Time flies when you're, err, to busy to have fun?
Time to rejoin the Postcrossing community, and get those postcards flowing again! My first three cards went, predictably, to Russia, Germany, and the USA. This was fine by me, als the last two countries have short travelling times, and cards are thus quickly registered, freeing up space for me to actually receive a card (I was at 858 sent and 860 received, strangely, so I needed two of my sent cards to be registered to actually receive a card from someone). Luckily, the person to draw my address for the first time in three years was also a German, so my mailbox was indeed happy for the first time in almost three years!
But sadly, that person immediately wondered why I hadn't been active on the website for so long, and was afraid I had quit. 'For so long' was at this point a mere two weeks, but it did make it very clear that active participation is a key ingredient to Postcrossing; you cannot just draw a couple of addresses, send the cards, and then forget about the whole project for a month. You need to stay at least a little bit active, otherwise, or people will wonder whether you will actually register their card, and then maybe not put as much energy and enthusiasm in what they'll send you.
So since then, I've drawn 5 more addresses, and I now have cards travelling to Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, China, and the USA. It brought back all the old thrills of trying to find the perfect card, trying to match it with the perfect stamp, and then trying to squeeze in as many words as possible to give the receiver a nice long message.
It's fun, but also quite a lot of work. I think I'll stay around 5 travelling cards at any time (my maximum is 26 at the moment, but that would mean actually setting aside a whole afternoon just to draw addresses and writing cards!), which lesses my chance of sending any to rare countries, but what is wrong with Germany, Russia, China and the USA anyway? And hopefully I will still receive great cards from all corners of the world.
So I went back to the website I'd visited so many times just a short while ago, and then it turned out that that 'just a short while ago' was actually a hiatus of three whole years. The last time one of my sent postcards had arrived was the 30th of August 2014. The last time I'd registered a postcard had been the 10th of October of that same year. If my Postcrossing stats were a heartbeat, my account had died a good while back:
 |
| Sad Postcrossing stats... see the little rise all the way to the right? |
Time flies when you're, err, to busy to have fun?
Time to rejoin the Postcrossing community, and get those postcards flowing again! My first three cards went, predictably, to Russia, Germany, and the USA. This was fine by me, als the last two countries have short travelling times, and cards are thus quickly registered, freeing up space for me to actually receive a card (I was at 858 sent and 860 received, strangely, so I needed two of my sent cards to be registered to actually receive a card from someone). Luckily, the person to draw my address for the first time in three years was also a German, so my mailbox was indeed happy for the first time in almost three years!
But sadly, that person immediately wondered why I hadn't been active on the website for so long, and was afraid I had quit. 'For so long' was at this point a mere two weeks, but it did make it very clear that active participation is a key ingredient to Postcrossing; you cannot just draw a couple of addresses, send the cards, and then forget about the whole project for a month. You need to stay at least a little bit active, otherwise, or people will wonder whether you will actually register their card, and then maybe not put as much energy and enthusiasm in what they'll send you.
So since then, I've drawn 5 more addresses, and I now have cards travelling to Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, China, and the USA. It brought back all the old thrills of trying to find the perfect card, trying to match it with the perfect stamp, and then trying to squeeze in as many words as possible to give the receiver a nice long message.
It's fun, but also quite a lot of work. I think I'll stay around 5 travelling cards at any time (my maximum is 26 at the moment, but that would mean actually setting aside a whole afternoon just to draw addresses and writing cards!), which lesses my chance of sending any to rare countries, but what is wrong with Germany, Russia, China and the USA anyway? And hopefully I will still receive great cards from all corners of the world.
Wednesday 31 May 2017
Springwatch revisited
Spring is a time of renewal, and in the month of May I underwent one of the bigger forms of renewal one can get; I moved house. Or to be more precise; we moved house, in which 'we' also includes my boyfriend and 4 cats. Before the big move, we actually had to renovate quite a lot (removing the ceilings, putting in new ceilings, putting in a new stair, and what have you), so it was a bit of a hasty building/packing/moving scramble. But now all my stuff has been moved (if not unpacked or organised) and I can focus on other things again. Such as: spring! While we were busing inside, the world around us erupted into an explosion of leaves, insects, singing birds, and weeds. I could enjoy this by sitting outside in my garden (I now have a garden again! There are actual trees in it! And grass!), but apart from that one of my favourite ways of enjoying spring is by watching Springwatch.
To my horror I just found out I've only written about Springwatch once before, in 2012. It really has been too long. The format has stayed basically the same in those 5 years; a couple of biologist and non-biologist presenters, a setting in one of England's most beautiful wildlife preserves, lots of cameras on nests and nestboxes, and lots of natural drama. This year so far, one of the trending Twitter topics has been #fledgeorfall, concerning a jay nest that was sloping precariously downward (the relief came a day later; one chick fell and survived, the three others actually fledged). Also happening, in a tree or barn not close to you; peregrine falcons loosing their eggs, a woodpecker checking out a blue tit nest, stoats playing about in the sun, and kestrel snot on one of the camera lenses.
But it's not just pretty pictures. In between all of this great imagery, loads and loads of biological and conservational facts are dispersed at a high rate. As always, lots of the more 'general' biological stuff are things I start explaining to the person next to me, right when one of the presenters is actually saying about the same thing. But there is quite a lot of new research being preformed too. How many species of newt live in this pond? Do hedgehogs/mice/stoats live in this wall/hedgerow/barn? Peregrine falcon feed their chicks with an amazing 98 different species of bird, but where do they catch them?
Generally, this research involves catching the animals in question, weighing and tagging them, sometimes with a geolocator, and then releasing them again. This may disturb the animal in question for a short while, but in the end, I always think the disturbance is worth it, for every new bit of information we get about the natural world is an extra piece in the puzzle of trying to protect it. If we know that the peregrine falcons on Salisbury cathedral visit a nearby copse of wood to catch their food, we know we cannot just chop down all those trees, or the peregrine will suffer (lots of other animals will suffer too, but generally you need the 'poster child' animals to get conservation working). If we know that three different species of newt live in a pond, we cannot just fill it in to put a housing estate there. We need to protect what little of nature we have left, and knowing more about it will make it easier to do so.
I know I'm a bit of a nature fanatic, but if you're even the slightest interested in the natural world around you, do watch Springwatch. You can find it either on the BBC or one one of the many live feeds online. You will see a side of nature that is relatively close, but very unknown. Also, actually trying to name the bird or animal in view before the voice-over tells you what it is will make it more of a challenge, and will make you realise actually how many species of bird and insect and mammal are out there, and how much there is left for us to discover.
To my horror I just found out I've only written about Springwatch once before, in 2012. It really has been too long. The format has stayed basically the same in those 5 years; a couple of biologist and non-biologist presenters, a setting in one of England's most beautiful wildlife preserves, lots of cameras on nests and nestboxes, and lots of natural drama. This year so far, one of the trending Twitter topics has been #fledgeorfall, concerning a jay nest that was sloping precariously downward (the relief came a day later; one chick fell and survived, the three others actually fledged). Also happening, in a tree or barn not close to you; peregrine falcons loosing their eggs, a woodpecker checking out a blue tit nest, stoats playing about in the sun, and kestrel snot on one of the camera lenses.
But it's not just pretty pictures. In between all of this great imagery, loads and loads of biological and conservational facts are dispersed at a high rate. As always, lots of the more 'general' biological stuff are things I start explaining to the person next to me, right when one of the presenters is actually saying about the same thing. But there is quite a lot of new research being preformed too. How many species of newt live in this pond? Do hedgehogs/mice/stoats live in this wall/hedgerow/barn? Peregrine falcon feed their chicks with an amazing 98 different species of bird, but where do they catch them?
Generally, this research involves catching the animals in question, weighing and tagging them, sometimes with a geolocator, and then releasing them again. This may disturb the animal in question for a short while, but in the end, I always think the disturbance is worth it, for every new bit of information we get about the natural world is an extra piece in the puzzle of trying to protect it. If we know that the peregrine falcons on Salisbury cathedral visit a nearby copse of wood to catch their food, we know we cannot just chop down all those trees, or the peregrine will suffer (lots of other animals will suffer too, but generally you need the 'poster child' animals to get conservation working). If we know that three different species of newt live in a pond, we cannot just fill it in to put a housing estate there. We need to protect what little of nature we have left, and knowing more about it will make it easier to do so.
I know I'm a bit of a nature fanatic, but if you're even the slightest interested in the natural world around you, do watch Springwatch. You can find it either on the BBC or one one of the many live feeds online. You will see a side of nature that is relatively close, but very unknown. Also, actually trying to name the bird or animal in view before the voice-over tells you what it is will make it more of a challenge, and will make you realise actually how many species of bird and insect and mammal are out there, and how much there is left for us to discover.
Sunday 23 April 2017
Teen flicks not suitable for teens
So one of the biggest relationship challenges these days is finding a Netflix series that you both like, and both haven't seen yet. For the past week, this was 13 reasons why (which has only 13 episodes, so we'll have to look for something else now...). I didn't realise how popular the series is until the memes and articles started to appear on my Facebook timeline; clearly, this series struck a note with more people.
So what is it about? A high school teenager, Hannah Baker, has killed herself. But before she did, she recorded 13 tapes with 13 reasons why she committed suicide. And those 13 reasons are 13 people, the 13 people who get the tapes, listen to them, and then send them to the next person on the list. The story starts when Clay Jensen receives the tapes, because he is one of Hannah's reasons. Clay is amazed that all the other people on the tape haven't bothered to come forward with some compelling evidence of crimes (minor and major), but of course, he too listens to the tapes in order or there would have been no series.
This series was pretty mesmerising; the first tapes are about some minor things, and you start to wonder whether Hannah is just a big drama queen if she killed herself for some stupid teenage mishaps. But there are references to bigger, more serious things, and with each tape the reasons get heavier and heavier. The images are pretty graphic (the last 4 episodes come with a viewer warning), and at some point I found myself wondering whether what I was watching was still actually suitable for teenagers. Despite the graphic material it most definately is, for it serves as one big warning against the destructive behaviour teenagers can wreck amongst their peers; slut shaming, gay shaming, sending nude pictures around, but also more serious crimes as assault, theft, and rape. The school ('Liberty High') is one of the most stereotypical American high school since Grease; the jocks and cheerleaders are at the top of the pecking order, and everybody else is a loser, a nerd, a weirdo, or a combination of all three. But finding themselves in a perilous situation draws kids from several groups together, and the series gives great insight into the thought processes of these characters; will they be loyal to the group, or will they throw somebody under the bus just to save their own skin?
In a similar vein, but of much lower quality (both in plot and acting) was the film I saw last week; Before I fall. This could best be described as 'Groundhog Day set in yet another stereotypical American highschool'; one of the most popular girls does nothing as one of her classmates is bullied and ultimately commits suicide, and as penance she has to relive the day over and over again, until she realises how she can get out of it. Yet again, almost every character except for the main character was pretty unlikeable; the popular girls are mean backstabbers, the popular guys are entitled drunks, and the unpopular kids are so weird and desocialized that it is almost impossible to feel sorry for them. On the bright side; both stories do contain a likeable friend character who stands by the protagonist even when things get tough.
(On a sidenote; both 13 reasons why and Before I fall are based on books. It feels like it is almost impossible to find a film or series based on an actually original story anymore; to play it safe, to be assured of good returns, production companies seem fixed on only pouring money in projects in those projects that have already been successful on paper.)
So looking back on both, I am in doubt; is this good watching material for teens? The message is pretty clear, but does it work out that way? If I had watched these series when I was around 15, I would probably have identified with the nerdy smart kids, mainly because there are no 'normal' teenagers in these series. Everything is black-and-white; you are either a very popular sporty type, or a non-popular loser type. Most teenagers will identify with the second category. What these stories tell us, is that you can only act and influence the story line when you are with the popular crowd, or when you are prepared to make yourself very unpopular and break all social norms. Helping someone and just being a 'normal' person is practically impossible. So most characters stay on the sideline, knowing what is going on but not acting, afraid of being called out, of becoming a loser, of losing their reputation. The main characters in both the series and the film do act, of course, or they wouldn't be the protagonist, but it has pretty devastating consequences for both of them. Easier to be an onlooker, to not get involved, to stay safe. Not really the message angsty teens should be getting, in my opinion.
Let's hope that the overly stereotypical depiction of high school will help teenagers who watch this stories realise that the characters, their actions, and the results are overly black-and-white too, and that in real life it is possible to help someone without falling down the social ladder into loser-zone. Otherwise, series and films like these generate exactly the opposite effect of what they intend to do.
So what is it about? A high school teenager, Hannah Baker, has killed herself. But before she did, she recorded 13 tapes with 13 reasons why she committed suicide. And those 13 reasons are 13 people, the 13 people who get the tapes, listen to them, and then send them to the next person on the list. The story starts when Clay Jensen receives the tapes, because he is one of Hannah's reasons. Clay is amazed that all the other people on the tape haven't bothered to come forward with some compelling evidence of crimes (minor and major), but of course, he too listens to the tapes in order or there would have been no series.
This series was pretty mesmerising; the first tapes are about some minor things, and you start to wonder whether Hannah is just a big drama queen if she killed herself for some stupid teenage mishaps. But there are references to bigger, more serious things, and with each tape the reasons get heavier and heavier. The images are pretty graphic (the last 4 episodes come with a viewer warning), and at some point I found myself wondering whether what I was watching was still actually suitable for teenagers. Despite the graphic material it most definately is, for it serves as one big warning against the destructive behaviour teenagers can wreck amongst their peers; slut shaming, gay shaming, sending nude pictures around, but also more serious crimes as assault, theft, and rape. The school ('Liberty High') is one of the most stereotypical American high school since Grease; the jocks and cheerleaders are at the top of the pecking order, and everybody else is a loser, a nerd, a weirdo, or a combination of all three. But finding themselves in a perilous situation draws kids from several groups together, and the series gives great insight into the thought processes of these characters; will they be loyal to the group, or will they throw somebody under the bus just to save their own skin?
In a similar vein, but of much lower quality (both in plot and acting) was the film I saw last week; Before I fall. This could best be described as 'Groundhog Day set in yet another stereotypical American highschool'; one of the most popular girls does nothing as one of her classmates is bullied and ultimately commits suicide, and as penance she has to relive the day over and over again, until she realises how she can get out of it. Yet again, almost every character except for the main character was pretty unlikeable; the popular girls are mean backstabbers, the popular guys are entitled drunks, and the unpopular kids are so weird and desocialized that it is almost impossible to feel sorry for them. On the bright side; both stories do contain a likeable friend character who stands by the protagonist even when things get tough.
(On a sidenote; both 13 reasons why and Before I fall are based on books. It feels like it is almost impossible to find a film or series based on an actually original story anymore; to play it safe, to be assured of good returns, production companies seem fixed on only pouring money in projects in those projects that have already been successful on paper.)
So looking back on both, I am in doubt; is this good watching material for teens? The message is pretty clear, but does it work out that way? If I had watched these series when I was around 15, I would probably have identified with the nerdy smart kids, mainly because there are no 'normal' teenagers in these series. Everything is black-and-white; you are either a very popular sporty type, or a non-popular loser type. Most teenagers will identify with the second category. What these stories tell us, is that you can only act and influence the story line when you are with the popular crowd, or when you are prepared to make yourself very unpopular and break all social norms. Helping someone and just being a 'normal' person is practically impossible. So most characters stay on the sideline, knowing what is going on but not acting, afraid of being called out, of becoming a loser, of losing their reputation. The main characters in both the series and the film do act, of course, or they wouldn't be the protagonist, but it has pretty devastating consequences for both of them. Easier to be an onlooker, to not get involved, to stay safe. Not really the message angsty teens should be getting, in my opinion.
Let's hope that the overly stereotypical depiction of high school will help teenagers who watch this stories realise that the characters, their actions, and the results are overly black-and-white too, and that in real life it is possible to help someone without falling down the social ladder into loser-zone. Otherwise, series and films like these generate exactly the opposite effect of what they intend to do.
Sunday 16 April 2017
The Handmaid's Tale
I loved The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, which I read for some of my medieval literature classes. They are funny, to the point, highly descriptive of the society he found himself in; like a window on life as it was 700 years ago.
My most recent read, The Haindmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, could well be a lost Canterbury tale, only not set in a distant past, but in a strangely familiar parallel present. The US as we know it no longer exists, but has been overthrown in a religious rebellion during which the government was shot, the Constitution suspended, and ordinarily life made impossible. Although this is not true for everybody; it is mostly the women who suffer. They are not allowed to have jobs or property (including money) anymore, and must function as breeding machines or servants for the Commanders, the leaders of this group of religious rebels. From the flashbacks the main character has, this must all have taken place some time during the nineties, which in a weird way always gives me some sort of relief; the time described has already passed, so this will not come to pass.
Which is of course nonsense; the whole rebellion as it is described is thought out very carefully, and with a few smartly planted attacks and actions, the whole system collapses. And nobody really riots, or resists. And those that do resist are hanged publicly. So people fall into place, and into step, and try to forget the memories and ideas they used to have, and try to become the automated robots they have to be in order to survive in this new world.
To avoid any confusion, let me be clear on one thing; this religious group is in no way islamist. They are a Christian group, calling themselves the Sons of Jacob, who follow the Bible to the letter (the letter that they find suits their purposes best, of course, as the book has some internal conflicting passages). So no more abortions, alcohol, etc. Breeding is a woman's main purpose, and the protagonist (Offred, who is owned by Fred, thus Of-Fred) is kept as a Handmaiden by one of the Commanders, as his own Wife cannot conceive anymore. Monthly, he tries to impregnate her, to bring the declining population numbers up to scratch. This reads as awful as it sounds. But strangely enough, this is not the bit about the book that is most disturbing. What haunted me the most, apart from how easily everything changed, was the way the main character tried to brainwash herself, how much she tried to fit in in a society that she despised. Because there was no other way, except suicide, which she of course contemplates on several occasions.
Just as The Canterbury Tales shed light on daily life in the Middle Ages, so does Margaret Atwood analyze our society, and how little is needed to change it. The protagonist's mother was an avid feminist, but Offred took many things for granted, things that the generation before her had to fight to gain. The central message to us may be; if you don't know what you stand to loose, you won't fight as hard to keep it. It is a fascinating read, I was surprised to see it written in 1985, for it could be written yesterday given how relevant its themes still are. It is a thorough analysis and warning to us all.
My most recent read, The Haindmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, could well be a lost Canterbury tale, only not set in a distant past, but in a strangely familiar parallel present. The US as we know it no longer exists, but has been overthrown in a religious rebellion during which the government was shot, the Constitution suspended, and ordinarily life made impossible. Although this is not true for everybody; it is mostly the women who suffer. They are not allowed to have jobs or property (including money) anymore, and must function as breeding machines or servants for the Commanders, the leaders of this group of religious rebels. From the flashbacks the main character has, this must all have taken place some time during the nineties, which in a weird way always gives me some sort of relief; the time described has already passed, so this will not come to pass.
Which is of course nonsense; the whole rebellion as it is described is thought out very carefully, and with a few smartly planted attacks and actions, the whole system collapses. And nobody really riots, or resists. And those that do resist are hanged publicly. So people fall into place, and into step, and try to forget the memories and ideas they used to have, and try to become the automated robots they have to be in order to survive in this new world.
To avoid any confusion, let me be clear on one thing; this religious group is in no way islamist. They are a Christian group, calling themselves the Sons of Jacob, who follow the Bible to the letter (the letter that they find suits their purposes best, of course, as the book has some internal conflicting passages). So no more abortions, alcohol, etc. Breeding is a woman's main purpose, and the protagonist (Offred, who is owned by Fred, thus Of-Fred) is kept as a Handmaiden by one of the Commanders, as his own Wife cannot conceive anymore. Monthly, he tries to impregnate her, to bring the declining population numbers up to scratch. This reads as awful as it sounds. But strangely enough, this is not the bit about the book that is most disturbing. What haunted me the most, apart from how easily everything changed, was the way the main character tried to brainwash herself, how much she tried to fit in in a society that she despised. Because there was no other way, except suicide, which she of course contemplates on several occasions.
Just as The Canterbury Tales shed light on daily life in the Middle Ages, so does Margaret Atwood analyze our society, and how little is needed to change it. The protagonist's mother was an avid feminist, but Offred took many things for granted, things that the generation before her had to fight to gain. The central message to us may be; if you don't know what you stand to loose, you won't fight as hard to keep it. It is a fascinating read, I was surprised to see it written in 1985, for it could be written yesterday given how relevant its themes still are. It is a thorough analysis and warning to us all.
Friday 31 March 2017
Last Orders
As I am a big fan of Man Booker Prize winners, and discovered I really liked the writing of Graham Swift (I was sure I'd written a blog post about Mothering Sunday, but it turns out I only mentioned that novel in my 'Books of 2016' list, where it came second), reading Last Orders, the novel that won Swift the Man Booker in 1996 seemed like the most logical next step. It took me a while to get it, because apparently the Groningen book shop is not that big on Swift (I've been waiting for Wish you were here to come in for about 3 weeks now). But there it was at last, pint glass featured prominently on the cover. I'd already read somewhere that the Booker win was a bit controversial, as Swift seemed to have borrowed the main plot line from William Faulkner, but since I've never read As I Lay Dying (although now I want to), this didn't really bother me too much.
So, Last Orders. It's about beer, a lot of it, but it's mostly about men. Their relationships (friendships, fathers and sons, wives), their professions, their lives, their pastimes. The main plot takes place in one day, as Ray, Lenny, Vince and Vic drive from London to Margate to scatter the ashes of their friend and father; Jack. During the drive, each of them has a series of flashbacks to earlier events, mostly concerning the other three, Jack, their children, or their wives. It is as if Jack's death has brought upon them the need to take score of their lives, to see what life (and Jack) has brought them.
Now the perspective screwed me up a bit in the beginning. Some chapters are titled after the point of view character (Ray, Vince, Mandy), and some are named after the location the group is in. But all of those 'location' chapters are also voiced by Ray. It took me a while to figure that out, also because I tend to remember characters by the first letter of their name, and I kept mixing up Vic and Vince (same thing that happened with Jude and JB in A Little Life). Because of this, it took me a while to get into the novel. However, it feels as if Swift was prepared for that, because the relationships are confusing in the beginning, but gradually become clearer and clearer as we get to know the characters, their stories, and their relationships better. And there is a lot to know.
This is a very heavy, multi-layered novel, although it doesn't feel that way when you read it. However, I felt not everything was developed to the fullest. There are some interesting parallels; Jack the butcher and Vic the undertaker, both 'used to handling bodies', who have their shops on opposing sides of the same street. But this is merely a statement, something said in passing, but not taken any further. The same is true for all the children Jack seems to 'adopt' in his life; Vince is his true adoptive son, but he adopted Ray during WWII, and Lenny's daughter Sally in her childhood. But the connections between these people, or what they meant to Jack, are never really worked out. We get glimpses, and other characters' thoughts on it, but that's that.
Nevertheless, it is a great novel to read. The plot is pretty predictable, but that is not what such a novel is about. It's about the language, the hidden meanings, the short chapters in between that throw a whole different light on a scene, a person, or a memory. The whole story can tilt or shift with just one sentence. However, compared to Mothering Sunday, Swift had not fully developed the style of writing that I loved so much in the latter novel. This felt familiar, as Ian McEwan won the Man Booker with Amsterdam in 1998, which is also great, but no where near his masterpieces Atonement and Saturday in style and plot and nuance (I know I keep blabbing on about McEwan, but he just happens to be my favourite author). So in a way, this felt like discovering the roots of Swifts writing style, and I will now try to follow his development through to his last novel. That is, if the book shop decides to cooperate.
So, Last Orders. It's about beer, a lot of it, but it's mostly about men. Their relationships (friendships, fathers and sons, wives), their professions, their lives, their pastimes. The main plot takes place in one day, as Ray, Lenny, Vince and Vic drive from London to Margate to scatter the ashes of their friend and father; Jack. During the drive, each of them has a series of flashbacks to earlier events, mostly concerning the other three, Jack, their children, or their wives. It is as if Jack's death has brought upon them the need to take score of their lives, to see what life (and Jack) has brought them.
Now the perspective screwed me up a bit in the beginning. Some chapters are titled after the point of view character (Ray, Vince, Mandy), and some are named after the location the group is in. But all of those 'location' chapters are also voiced by Ray. It took me a while to figure that out, also because I tend to remember characters by the first letter of their name, and I kept mixing up Vic and Vince (same thing that happened with Jude and JB in A Little Life). Because of this, it took me a while to get into the novel. However, it feels as if Swift was prepared for that, because the relationships are confusing in the beginning, but gradually become clearer and clearer as we get to know the characters, their stories, and their relationships better. And there is a lot to know.
This is a very heavy, multi-layered novel, although it doesn't feel that way when you read it. However, I felt not everything was developed to the fullest. There are some interesting parallels; Jack the butcher and Vic the undertaker, both 'used to handling bodies', who have their shops on opposing sides of the same street. But this is merely a statement, something said in passing, but not taken any further. The same is true for all the children Jack seems to 'adopt' in his life; Vince is his true adoptive son, but he adopted Ray during WWII, and Lenny's daughter Sally in her childhood. But the connections between these people, or what they meant to Jack, are never really worked out. We get glimpses, and other characters' thoughts on it, but that's that.
Nevertheless, it is a great novel to read. The plot is pretty predictable, but that is not what such a novel is about. It's about the language, the hidden meanings, the short chapters in between that throw a whole different light on a scene, a person, or a memory. The whole story can tilt or shift with just one sentence. However, compared to Mothering Sunday, Swift had not fully developed the style of writing that I loved so much in the latter novel. This felt familiar, as Ian McEwan won the Man Booker with Amsterdam in 1998, which is also great, but no where near his masterpieces Atonement and Saturday in style and plot and nuance (I know I keep blabbing on about McEwan, but he just happens to be my favourite author). So in a way, this felt like discovering the roots of Swifts writing style, and I will now try to follow his development through to his last novel. That is, if the book shop decides to cooperate.
Sunday 12 February 2017
Juliet, Naked
Whenever I stand in front of my bookcases thinking 'I have nothing to read', I feel a bit like one of those stereotypical women who have tried out a dozen outfits and decide that they have 'nothing to wear'. I have over 200 books in my house, surely, I have more than enough to read? The point is, of course, that I don't have the book that I want to/need to read right at that moment. About once or twice a year I get into a weird mood, book-wise; a mood in which I just cannot find the book that fits. Usually, I then reread novels I have already read. Getting started in a new book would only spoil the new book because I will invariably not 'get into it', and throw it aside after a couple of chapters. Rereading familiar stories is a safer bet.
After finishing The Sellout, which put me in a bit of a gloomy mood, I was looking for something lighthearted. Interestingly, I do not own many lighthearted novels. Even the ones that I do have, such as the Jasper Fforde novels, or anything by David Nicholls, have a serious literary undertone. I usually take to rereading Bridget Jones's Diary, but the new film has put me somewhat off. So my safest bet was Nick Hornby.
I love almost everything Nick Hornby has written, be it novels, short stories, reviews, or screenplays. You have probably seen a movie adaptation of one of his novels (High Fidelity or About a Boy) or one of the films he actually wrote (An Education, Wild, Brooklyn). I own all of his novels with the exception of How to be Good, for reasons I cannot explain. This time, I settled on Juliet, Naked.
Now I mentioned that I was looking for something lighthearted, and Nick Hornby may not be the first person that comes to mind. Almost all of his novels are populated by characters that are lonely, suicidal, depressed, and generally unsure what direction their life is supposed to take (A Long Way Down, one of my other favourites, is a good example: four people meet at the top of a building because they all planned to commit suicide by jumping off it). So why call it lighthearted? Because he brings these subjects with a funny note, not ha-ha funny but with a lightness and an irony that cannot help but bring a smile to your face. His novels deal with very heavy subjects, but they do not feel heavy, they feel light and manageable.
Juliet, Naked centers around Duncan and Annie, a couple in their late thirties living in a small seaside town in the north of England. Duncan is a great fan of Tucker Crowe, a has-been singer from the eighties who has mysteriously disappeared after his last album, Juliet. Annie is not that big of a fan, but for the past fifteen years she has let herself being dragged along in Duncan's obsession. However, when Tucker suddenly releases a new album, Juliet, Naked, their opinions clash and they both have to reconsider what it is they want out of life. Needless to say, things don't end that well between them. Breaking up a fifteen year relationship because of a music album? This is all very real in a Nick Hornby novel.
However, the Duncan/Annie story is just half of the novel. The other half is about Tucker himself. And this is where the novel got a bit more personal than Nick Hornby's other novels. Tucker, by now, is in his late fifties, no longer an alcoholic, no longer an artist, and basically living off the latest wife that thinks she will be able to sort him out and put him back to rights. He has a six year old son, who is constantly worried that his father will suddenly drop dead on him. This existential angst somehow creeps into Tucker's mind too, especially when more and more of his forgotten children try to find their way back into his life. Tucker Crowe is by far the oldest main character a Nick Hornby novel has ever had, and the whole feeling of 'my youth is now truly over' permeates throughout the novel. When he wrote it, he was nowhere near sixty, but he is advancing upon that age pretty quickly now. The Tucker Crowe storyline felt, upon rereading, as one of his most realistic and heartfelt in all of his novels.
So did I get my lighthearted distraction novel? In a way, yes. But somehow, the 'I don't know what I want to read' mood hasn't been lifted, so I will continue to reread until I find myself looking for something new. I may end up diving into The Hunger Games or Harry Potter just to snap out of it, but for now I'll stick to one of my favourite David Mitchells. Desperate times...
After finishing The Sellout, which put me in a bit of a gloomy mood, I was looking for something lighthearted. Interestingly, I do not own many lighthearted novels. Even the ones that I do have, such as the Jasper Fforde novels, or anything by David Nicholls, have a serious literary undertone. I usually take to rereading Bridget Jones's Diary, but the new film has put me somewhat off. So my safest bet was Nick Hornby.
I love almost everything Nick Hornby has written, be it novels, short stories, reviews, or screenplays. You have probably seen a movie adaptation of one of his novels (High Fidelity or About a Boy) or one of the films he actually wrote (An Education, Wild, Brooklyn). I own all of his novels with the exception of How to be Good, for reasons I cannot explain. This time, I settled on Juliet, Naked.
Now I mentioned that I was looking for something lighthearted, and Nick Hornby may not be the first person that comes to mind. Almost all of his novels are populated by characters that are lonely, suicidal, depressed, and generally unsure what direction their life is supposed to take (A Long Way Down, one of my other favourites, is a good example: four people meet at the top of a building because they all planned to commit suicide by jumping off it). So why call it lighthearted? Because he brings these subjects with a funny note, not ha-ha funny but with a lightness and an irony that cannot help but bring a smile to your face. His novels deal with very heavy subjects, but they do not feel heavy, they feel light and manageable.
Juliet, Naked centers around Duncan and Annie, a couple in their late thirties living in a small seaside town in the north of England. Duncan is a great fan of Tucker Crowe, a has-been singer from the eighties who has mysteriously disappeared after his last album, Juliet. Annie is not that big of a fan, but for the past fifteen years she has let herself being dragged along in Duncan's obsession. However, when Tucker suddenly releases a new album, Juliet, Naked, their opinions clash and they both have to reconsider what it is they want out of life. Needless to say, things don't end that well between them. Breaking up a fifteen year relationship because of a music album? This is all very real in a Nick Hornby novel.
However, the Duncan/Annie story is just half of the novel. The other half is about Tucker himself. And this is where the novel got a bit more personal than Nick Hornby's other novels. Tucker, by now, is in his late fifties, no longer an alcoholic, no longer an artist, and basically living off the latest wife that thinks she will be able to sort him out and put him back to rights. He has a six year old son, who is constantly worried that his father will suddenly drop dead on him. This existential angst somehow creeps into Tucker's mind too, especially when more and more of his forgotten children try to find their way back into his life. Tucker Crowe is by far the oldest main character a Nick Hornby novel has ever had, and the whole feeling of 'my youth is now truly over' permeates throughout the novel. When he wrote it, he was nowhere near sixty, but he is advancing upon that age pretty quickly now. The Tucker Crowe storyline felt, upon rereading, as one of his most realistic and heartfelt in all of his novels.
So did I get my lighthearted distraction novel? In a way, yes. But somehow, the 'I don't know what I want to read' mood hasn't been lifted, so I will continue to reread until I find myself looking for something new. I may end up diving into The Hunger Games or Harry Potter just to snap out of it, but for now I'll stick to one of my favourite David Mitchells. Desperate times...
Monday 6 February 2017
The Sellout
I don't read a lot of American novels. This is not a genuine hardline decision or anything, it just happens to be that almost all of my favourite authors are British writers. This is probably a style thing, or maybe a culture thing. When I took American literature classes in university, I was told the early American writers tried to radically break away from the British style of writing to create their own cultural legacy (same is true for theatre, painting, music, etc). And while reading something, I usually have a pretty good idea whether the author is a Brit or an American (in my opinion: too much show, not enough tell). And 'American' doesn't mean I'll automatically dislike it; I have read some American classics that I liked, and Richard Yates is one of my favourite authors. But to be honest, I never would have read The Sellout if it wouldn't have been the first American novel to win the Man Booker Prize. I always read the Man Booker Prize winner, so I simply had to read this novel too.
The Sellout was written by Paul Beatty, as he said in interviews, because "he was broke". This is probably meant satirically, as every scrap of text I've ever read about The Sellout mentioned the word 'satire' in one of the first three lines. However, I didn't really get all of the satire. Or in other words; I found this book to be more dark and sad than satirical, probably because I don't live in the US and missed a lot of the cultural references. But to me, it felt like a seriously dark novel, with a dark message.
So what is it about? In the prologue we meet the protagonist, who faces trial in the Supreme Court because he has been keeping a black man as a slave. The 'satirical' part of this is that the protagonist himself is also a black man. And that his father has been indoctrinating him on black history and black rights all his life, and that he has been 'resegragating' his hometown of Dickens (and keeping the slave) to enforce black rights. This is basically what the novel deals with; a black man, living on a farm in the middle of a city, resegragating busses and schools and painting a white line around where his hometown used to be to make everything better for everyone. Sounds like a tragic hero to me, but apparently, it was all meant to be satirical. I don't think I had one proper laugh while reading this novel, I just felt sorry for almost every single character in it, but most of all for the protagonist.
Some reviewers have compared Beatty to Mark Twain, but that must just be because of the racial thing, because Mark Twain's writing had a sharpness and a wit to it that I failed to see in The Sellout. But again; maybe I'm just missing a lot of cultural references and subtext an American reader would get.
It's funny, I've visited the US twice now, and the thing that struck me most both times is how different it is from Europe. When I visited China or Jordan or Mozambique, I noticed the similarities, the things that connect us, even though our cultures are so very different. In the US, where you somehow expect things to be very similar, it's the differences that stand out. I think I can group The Sellout with those differences; this is a novel I as a European don't understand in the way an American would. And that is probably why I didn't like it very much. This was only the second novel I've read this year, and it took me a really long time to get through. Not because the reading was hard or because the subject matter was so heavy, but because it didn't grip me. I couldn't really be bothered to find out what would happen next. And that must be a death sentence to any good story.
For the first American novel to win the Man Booker it is an apt choice, because this is by far the most 'American' American novel I've read in a long time. But in a way, that made it less like a Man Booker winner to me.
The Sellout was written by Paul Beatty, as he said in interviews, because "he was broke". This is probably meant satirically, as every scrap of text I've ever read about The Sellout mentioned the word 'satire' in one of the first three lines. However, I didn't really get all of the satire. Or in other words; I found this book to be more dark and sad than satirical, probably because I don't live in the US and missed a lot of the cultural references. But to me, it felt like a seriously dark novel, with a dark message.
So what is it about? In the prologue we meet the protagonist, who faces trial in the Supreme Court because he has been keeping a black man as a slave. The 'satirical' part of this is that the protagonist himself is also a black man. And that his father has been indoctrinating him on black history and black rights all his life, and that he has been 'resegragating' his hometown of Dickens (and keeping the slave) to enforce black rights. This is basically what the novel deals with; a black man, living on a farm in the middle of a city, resegragating busses and schools and painting a white line around where his hometown used to be to make everything better for everyone. Sounds like a tragic hero to me, but apparently, it was all meant to be satirical. I don't think I had one proper laugh while reading this novel, I just felt sorry for almost every single character in it, but most of all for the protagonist.
Some reviewers have compared Beatty to Mark Twain, but that must just be because of the racial thing, because Mark Twain's writing had a sharpness and a wit to it that I failed to see in The Sellout. But again; maybe I'm just missing a lot of cultural references and subtext an American reader would get.
It's funny, I've visited the US twice now, and the thing that struck me most both times is how different it is from Europe. When I visited China or Jordan or Mozambique, I noticed the similarities, the things that connect us, even though our cultures are so very different. In the US, where you somehow expect things to be very similar, it's the differences that stand out. I think I can group The Sellout with those differences; this is a novel I as a European don't understand in the way an American would. And that is probably why I didn't like it very much. This was only the second novel I've read this year, and it took me a really long time to get through. Not because the reading was hard or because the subject matter was so heavy, but because it didn't grip me. I couldn't really be bothered to find out what would happen next. And that must be a death sentence to any good story.
For the first American novel to win the Man Booker it is an apt choice, because this is by far the most 'American' American novel I've read in a long time. But in a way, that made it less like a Man Booker winner to me.
Sunday 29 January 2017
Sherlock
As mentioned a while back, Sherlock is one of only a handful of programmes that I actually watch on TV. For those not in the know; Sherlock is a television series about Sherlock Holmes, a detective living at 221B Baker Street and solving crimes together with John Watson. If that all sounds familiar, that is kind of the point. The episodes are 1.5 hours and three a season, after which we have to wait two years for the next season. Why so long? The main characters are played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and they have been quite busy over the past few years, traipsing around New Zealand pretending to be hobbits and dragons, for one thing.
So it is rather a long wait. But it is worth it. The makers (Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss) have really brought the nineteenth century Sherlock Holmes to life, with all his weird habits and personality, but in a very modern coat. Watson's diary has become a blog, where the old war veteran (still Afghanistan, ironically) gives his accounts of Sherlock's work (who likes to communicate more by mobile phone). The opium addiction is still there, in a modern sense, as is the ignorant police detective and the busy landlady, with a sharp feminist touch. The episode titles refer to Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories, but often with a twist. A Study in Scarlet becomes A Study in Pink, The Sign of Four becomes The Sign of Three, etcetera. Plot-wise the episodes are only very losely based on the originals, but that's fine. We have the proper characters in a modern-day setting, it wouldn't do to keep everything else the same.
There are many Sherlock Holmes adaptations around these days, so what makes this one special? The big obvious thing is the Cumberbatch-Freeman connection. They have an undeniable chemistry, not just in character, but they clearly get along very well (the Internet has found enough material for slash fiction to last us at least a decade). But the rest of the cast is well-picked too. Gatiss himself plays an elitist, arrogant Mycroft, while Martin Freeman's real-life girlfriend plays Mary, his kick-ass wife in the series. They just work together. Apart from the great cast, the storylines are just brilliant. It is one of those series that takes its viewers extremely seriously. The cases are difficult and mysterious (and we only get the difficult and mysterious ones, because all the mundane ones are waved aside with a 'boring!' by Sherlock), and there are several plot lines spanning multiple seasons, so characters keep resurfacing where you don't expect them. The images are grey and dark and a bit gritty, but not in an overdone way. This is still very much modern day London.
Now all of this sounds great. And all of it is true, for the first three seasons. The fourth season came out on the first of January, and I am sad to say that episode 4.01 was the worst I have ever seen. It didn't grip me in any way, even with the harrow plot twist at the end. I won't spoil too much, as this is a series easily spoiled, and you won't see what is coming until it is right in front of you.
But what went wrong? In my opinion, the BBC fell into the trap it set for itself when it marketed Sherlock, amongst many other series, as "Real drama". The BBC has been producing a lot of drama series over the past few years, and now they've thrown them all (costume drama, Dr Who, Eastenders and the rest) on one big piled and marketed themselves as the drama channel. But Sherlock has been wonderfully drama-free so far. Sherlock can be an absolute ass to Watson, but he doesn't go moping about that to someone else. He just lets it slide, or has a good comeback. But in the fourth series, everything became very soap seriesy. Including 'I never want to see you again!' shout-outs in the middle of dark streets. Luckily, in the second and third episodes, things got back to normal a bit, but still; somehow it doesn't feel the same anymore. It is as if the world of television has creeped into this nice little cocoon that Sherlock has always been, as if the laws of drama series have imposed themselves upon the script.
Moffat and Gatiss have announced that the fourth season will be the last for now, but that they keep the possibility of a fifth season open. I hope they take a nice long break, generate new ideas for the fantastic characters they have created, and bring back the old Sherlock in style; drama-free, intelligent detective work. Until then; the first seasons are on Netflix, ready for (re)watching!
So it is rather a long wait. But it is worth it. The makers (Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss) have really brought the nineteenth century Sherlock Holmes to life, with all his weird habits and personality, but in a very modern coat. Watson's diary has become a blog, where the old war veteran (still Afghanistan, ironically) gives his accounts of Sherlock's work (who likes to communicate more by mobile phone). The opium addiction is still there, in a modern sense, as is the ignorant police detective and the busy landlady, with a sharp feminist touch. The episode titles refer to Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories, but often with a twist. A Study in Scarlet becomes A Study in Pink, The Sign of Four becomes The Sign of Three, etcetera. Plot-wise the episodes are only very losely based on the originals, but that's fine. We have the proper characters in a modern-day setting, it wouldn't do to keep everything else the same.
There are many Sherlock Holmes adaptations around these days, so what makes this one special? The big obvious thing is the Cumberbatch-Freeman connection. They have an undeniable chemistry, not just in character, but they clearly get along very well (the Internet has found enough material for slash fiction to last us at least a decade). But the rest of the cast is well-picked too. Gatiss himself plays an elitist, arrogant Mycroft, while Martin Freeman's real-life girlfriend plays Mary, his kick-ass wife in the series. They just work together. Apart from the great cast, the storylines are just brilliant. It is one of those series that takes its viewers extremely seriously. The cases are difficult and mysterious (and we only get the difficult and mysterious ones, because all the mundane ones are waved aside with a 'boring!' by Sherlock), and there are several plot lines spanning multiple seasons, so characters keep resurfacing where you don't expect them. The images are grey and dark and a bit gritty, but not in an overdone way. This is still very much modern day London.
Now all of this sounds great. And all of it is true, for the first three seasons. The fourth season came out on the first of January, and I am sad to say that episode 4.01 was the worst I have ever seen. It didn't grip me in any way, even with the harrow plot twist at the end. I won't spoil too much, as this is a series easily spoiled, and you won't see what is coming until it is right in front of you.
But what went wrong? In my opinion, the BBC fell into the trap it set for itself when it marketed Sherlock, amongst many other series, as "Real drama". The BBC has been producing a lot of drama series over the past few years, and now they've thrown them all (costume drama, Dr Who, Eastenders and the rest) on one big piled and marketed themselves as the drama channel. But Sherlock has been wonderfully drama-free so far. Sherlock can be an absolute ass to Watson, but he doesn't go moping about that to someone else. He just lets it slide, or has a good comeback. But in the fourth series, everything became very soap seriesy. Including 'I never want to see you again!' shout-outs in the middle of dark streets. Luckily, in the second and third episodes, things got back to normal a bit, but still; somehow it doesn't feel the same anymore. It is as if the world of television has creeped into this nice little cocoon that Sherlock has always been, as if the laws of drama series have imposed themselves upon the script.
Moffat and Gatiss have announced that the fourth season will be the last for now, but that they keep the possibility of a fifth season open. I hope they take a nice long break, generate new ideas for the fantastic characters they have created, and bring back the old Sherlock in style; drama-free, intelligent detective work. Until then; the first seasons are on Netflix, ready for (re)watching!
Saturday 21 January 2017
Survival mode
So these last two weeks I've been running on what I call 'survival mode'. This sounds very dramatic, but what it basically means is that I've been busy. Really busy. Not just with work stuff (although I do go quite a bit over the amount of hours agreed to when I was employed) but also with a lot of social things. Late nights, little sleep, lots to do, and not a lot of time to just sit back and relax.
So at some point during such busy times, my 'survival mode' kicks in. This means shutting down of all processes not strictly necessary, and focusing on the 'essentials'. During this time, I turn into the most efficient planning machine known to man ('efficient' seems to be a word people use a lot to describe me at any time, but it may be a bit disconcerting during survival mode): doing the things that need doing in the most logical and least time consuming order, delegating when possible, and letting everything else just fall by the wayside. This can take extreme forms: I find myself not taking off my shoes because I know I have to leave the house again in an hour's time, and taking them off and putting them back on again just takes too long. Or I will ask people to do the most mundane things for me (throw away used coffee cups) because it saves me a trip. Usually, when I catch myself doing those things, I can laugh at myself and tell myself I'm taking things a bit too far.
But the scarier part of this goes on inside my head, and I usually don't realise that until it's over. What happens is that I can only think in terms of actions. What do I need to do? How much time does it take? How important is it compared to the other things I still have to do? Is it dependent on the outcome of something else? Can I delegate it? What will people think if I don't do that thing? It's all about planning the next step, the next move. Things such as feelings or ideas, creative processes or general opinions just disappear from my head all together. I can look at angry people in amazement: who can waste time and put energy into something as mundane as being angry or annoyed? I waste no time in idle chit-chat, and talk about work stuff even during lunch breaks, because why would I spend time talking about someone's private life? When people ask me what I think of something, I can make up an opinion off the top of my head, but it's generally a then-and-there thing, not something I've been mulling over for a while. And even when I sleep, my head doesn't waste any time; I basically stop dreaming. Now I usually dream a lot, and quite vividly too, but I know I've entered survival mode when that stops.
Reading back the above, this sounds quite scary, but when I'm in survival mode, I don't realise that. I just keep on going. It's when I get out of it, and start having opinions, discussions, dreams, and conversations about movies or politics or holidays again that I realise; I have been removed from the real world. I was there, I took part, but I in my head I was somewhere else.
Basically, what it boils down to, is that I've been too busy. Not too stressed, because I don't suffer from the situation and can get out if it pretty quickly, but just doing too many things in a too short period of time. I haven't taken enough 'me time' (oh, how brattish that sounds). Generally I'm pretty good at focusing on the here and now, and taking time to read or write or just sit and think, but there are times when this 'mindfull' state of being is just not possible. Yes, I just wrote about 'mindfullness', and to get really new-agey, I have a quote for you:
When you are depressed you are living in the past
When you are anxious you are living in the future
When you are at peace you are living in the present
This is by Lao Tzu, and it doesn't really completely apply to my survival mode, but I still try to remind myself of it every now and then.
This morning I woke up with my head full of dreams, intentions to be creative (write, bake, blog) and the energy to take a long walk. To be sure, I have left my survival mode and am back in the real world. And I don't think my survival mode is a bad thing per se, because it gets me through the (sometimes unavoidable) busy times, being able to do everything I want without forgetting essential things or actions or people, but I prefer the creative, active, opinionated me. And after such a busy period, in the sharp contrast to the survival mode me, I like this me even better.
So at some point during such busy times, my 'survival mode' kicks in. This means shutting down of all processes not strictly necessary, and focusing on the 'essentials'. During this time, I turn into the most efficient planning machine known to man ('efficient' seems to be a word people use a lot to describe me at any time, but it may be a bit disconcerting during survival mode): doing the things that need doing in the most logical and least time consuming order, delegating when possible, and letting everything else just fall by the wayside. This can take extreme forms: I find myself not taking off my shoes because I know I have to leave the house again in an hour's time, and taking them off and putting them back on again just takes too long. Or I will ask people to do the most mundane things for me (throw away used coffee cups) because it saves me a trip. Usually, when I catch myself doing those things, I can laugh at myself and tell myself I'm taking things a bit too far.
But the scarier part of this goes on inside my head, and I usually don't realise that until it's over. What happens is that I can only think in terms of actions. What do I need to do? How much time does it take? How important is it compared to the other things I still have to do? Is it dependent on the outcome of something else? Can I delegate it? What will people think if I don't do that thing? It's all about planning the next step, the next move. Things such as feelings or ideas, creative processes or general opinions just disappear from my head all together. I can look at angry people in amazement: who can waste time and put energy into something as mundane as being angry or annoyed? I waste no time in idle chit-chat, and talk about work stuff even during lunch breaks, because why would I spend time talking about someone's private life? When people ask me what I think of something, I can make up an opinion off the top of my head, but it's generally a then-and-there thing, not something I've been mulling over for a while. And even when I sleep, my head doesn't waste any time; I basically stop dreaming. Now I usually dream a lot, and quite vividly too, but I know I've entered survival mode when that stops.
Reading back the above, this sounds quite scary, but when I'm in survival mode, I don't realise that. I just keep on going. It's when I get out of it, and start having opinions, discussions, dreams, and conversations about movies or politics or holidays again that I realise; I have been removed from the real world. I was there, I took part, but I in my head I was somewhere else.
Basically, what it boils down to, is that I've been too busy. Not too stressed, because I don't suffer from the situation and can get out if it pretty quickly, but just doing too many things in a too short period of time. I haven't taken enough 'me time' (oh, how brattish that sounds). Generally I'm pretty good at focusing on the here and now, and taking time to read or write or just sit and think, but there are times when this 'mindfull' state of being is just not possible. Yes, I just wrote about 'mindfullness', and to get really new-agey, I have a quote for you:
When you are depressed you are living in the past
When you are anxious you are living in the future
When you are at peace you are living in the present
This is by Lao Tzu, and it doesn't really completely apply to my survival mode, but I still try to remind myself of it every now and then.
This morning I woke up with my head full of dreams, intentions to be creative (write, bake, blog) and the energy to take a long walk. To be sure, I have left my survival mode and am back in the real world. And I don't think my survival mode is a bad thing per se, because it gets me through the (sometimes unavoidable) busy times, being able to do everything I want without forgetting essential things or actions or people, but I prefer the creative, active, opinionated me. And after such a busy period, in the sharp contrast to the survival mode me, I like this me even better.
Friday 6 January 2017
The High Mountains of Portugal
So, my first novel of 2017 is a proper start of any literary year. The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel, known to all because of his famous Life of Pi. Since that Man Booker prize, Martel has written several novels, of which I've only read Virgil and Beatrice. That left me so bewildered, with its religious commentary, its animal imagery, and its gruesome WWII references, that I haven't been tempted to pick up any of his new novels since.
Until The High Mountains of Portugal. This novel got lots of positive reviews, the main gist of which was that here we had a proper story again, not just religious ranting. The blurb was also promising:
A man thrown backwards by heartbreak goes in search of an artefact that could unsettle history. A woman carries her husband to a doctor in a suitcase. A Canadian senator begins a new life, in a new country, in the company of a chimp called Odo. From these stories of journeying, of loss and faith, Yann Martel weaves a novel unlike any other: moving, profound and magical.
And really, that says it all.
The first story takes place in 1904, in Lisbon. A widower sets off for the high mountains of Portugal to find a religious artefact. He will travel by his uncle new automobile. I really liked the story at first, because the protagonist is very likable, and the description of the journey and the world of that time is well done. But there was a point, when the car has almost burnt down, his supplies dwindle, he gets lost, and is at a tragic low point, that it felt like the tragic low point in a really desperate novel, something like Beyond Sleep, that I almost lost interest. There is only so much drama you can take before you become indifferent to it. But then he finally makes his way to Tuizelo in the high mountains of Portugal, and the story finishes strongly.
The second story takes place in 1938, in a larger city close to the high mountains. A pathologist working late on New Year's Eve is troubled first by his wife, who delivers a ranting monologue on Christ and Agatha Christie, and then a woman from Tuizelo, who carries her husband in a suitcase. This story was the most perplexing of all, especially in hindsight, when you realise how it all fits together; not just the allegories in the story itself, but also how the story fits within the two other stories in the novel. There are many links, but you don't see them at first.
The third story is set in Canada in 1981, and involves a senator whose wife has also just died. In a weird turn of events, he also ends up in Tuizelo, with a chimpanzee by his side. Chimpanzees also played an important part in the first two stories of this novel, but to explain how would be giving away most of the finer details that are best left to discover for yourself. This story is by far the best of the three; the plot is moving, the protagonist is the most likable and believable, and somehow the language seems to flow better. I was reminded of Life of Pi, where a human protagonist also finds himself living together with a strong, wild animal. Only this time, the human does so out of his own free will, of course.
The standard Martel elements are there; lots of animal imagery, lots of religious commentary, but also beautiful figurative language; "Loneliness comes up to him like a sniffing dog. It circles him insistently. He waves it away, but it refuses to leave him alone." And in the end, you're not really sure what to believe. Was this (again) all one big allegory? Was it another commentary on the way humans and animals live side by side on this planet? Or was it all about grief, and loss, and how that makes you see things that aren't there?
I've read some reviews, and people are split right down the middle on this one. Half of them love it, half of them hate it. Funnily enough, I don't really fit in either group but find myself somewhere in the middle, because I loved the last story, but the other two not so much. I do like how they are connected, how elements from the first story suddenly reappear in the most unexpected places in the other ones, but in some cases, it is a bit too obvious. You can see them coming for mile.s Also, it would be nice to have some sort of closure other than the relatively open ending we now have. It was beautiful, and moving, but it does leave you with the feeling of 'now what?'. What was the point of it all? And maybe that is exactly what Yann Martel intended, but even so, a novel of this magnitude deserves a better ending.
Until The High Mountains of Portugal. This novel got lots of positive reviews, the main gist of which was that here we had a proper story again, not just religious ranting. The blurb was also promising:
A man thrown backwards by heartbreak goes in search of an artefact that could unsettle history. A woman carries her husband to a doctor in a suitcase. A Canadian senator begins a new life, in a new country, in the company of a chimp called Odo. From these stories of journeying, of loss and faith, Yann Martel weaves a novel unlike any other: moving, profound and magical.
And really, that says it all.
The first story takes place in 1904, in Lisbon. A widower sets off for the high mountains of Portugal to find a religious artefact. He will travel by his uncle new automobile. I really liked the story at first, because the protagonist is very likable, and the description of the journey and the world of that time is well done. But there was a point, when the car has almost burnt down, his supplies dwindle, he gets lost, and is at a tragic low point, that it felt like the tragic low point in a really desperate novel, something like Beyond Sleep, that I almost lost interest. There is only so much drama you can take before you become indifferent to it. But then he finally makes his way to Tuizelo in the high mountains of Portugal, and the story finishes strongly.
The second story takes place in 1938, in a larger city close to the high mountains. A pathologist working late on New Year's Eve is troubled first by his wife, who delivers a ranting monologue on Christ and Agatha Christie, and then a woman from Tuizelo, who carries her husband in a suitcase. This story was the most perplexing of all, especially in hindsight, when you realise how it all fits together; not just the allegories in the story itself, but also how the story fits within the two other stories in the novel. There are many links, but you don't see them at first.
The third story is set in Canada in 1981, and involves a senator whose wife has also just died. In a weird turn of events, he also ends up in Tuizelo, with a chimpanzee by his side. Chimpanzees also played an important part in the first two stories of this novel, but to explain how would be giving away most of the finer details that are best left to discover for yourself. This story is by far the best of the three; the plot is moving, the protagonist is the most likable and believable, and somehow the language seems to flow better. I was reminded of Life of Pi, where a human protagonist also finds himself living together with a strong, wild animal. Only this time, the human does so out of his own free will, of course.
The standard Martel elements are there; lots of animal imagery, lots of religious commentary, but also beautiful figurative language; "Loneliness comes up to him like a sniffing dog. It circles him insistently. He waves it away, but it refuses to leave him alone." And in the end, you're not really sure what to believe. Was this (again) all one big allegory? Was it another commentary on the way humans and animals live side by side on this planet? Or was it all about grief, and loss, and how that makes you see things that aren't there?
I've read some reviews, and people are split right down the middle on this one. Half of them love it, half of them hate it. Funnily enough, I don't really fit in either group but find myself somewhere in the middle, because I loved the last story, but the other two not so much. I do like how they are connected, how elements from the first story suddenly reappear in the most unexpected places in the other ones, but in some cases, it is a bit too obvious. You can see them coming for mile.s Also, it would be nice to have some sort of closure other than the relatively open ending we now have. It was beautiful, and moving, but it does leave you with the feeling of 'now what?'. What was the point of it all? And maybe that is exactly what Yann Martel intended, but even so, a novel of this magnitude deserves a better ending.
Monday 2 January 2017
A year in the life
I think my readership will be split down the middle upon reading the title: half of you will know exactly what I'm talking about, the other half will be wondering, or maybe even thinking that this will be a New Year's resolutions post. Sorry to disappoint, but this will be about something a bit more prosaic: the television series Gilmore Girls.
Now I've only written about a tv series once before, and with good reason. I hardly watch any television (by which I also mean; I hardly watch any Netflix, as that has become the standard substitute for watching anything for my generation). The most notable exceptions are Sherlock (I was poised for the start of the forth season last night) and Wie is de mol? (a brilliant Dutch programme in which contestants have to complete assignments while rooting out the mole in their middle). Otherwise, I don't really watch tv; I'd rather read a book. Or go to the movies. Or better still; hang out with actual other people.
This used to be very different. When I was a teenager, I would know exactly which series aired each evening, and either plan to see them or record them. Dawson's creek, Roswell, Friends, Sex and the City, Everwood; I've seen them all as they first aired in the Netherlands. But the most important of all, the series I watched and rewatched (on dvd) the most, and the one most of my friends watched with me, was Gilmore Girls.
For those of you who know what I'm talking about, you can skip the next three paragraphs. For the rest of you: I find it almost impossible that people have gotten to this point in their lives without knowing what Gilmore Girls is, but here goes; Gilmore Girls is a tv series about Lorelai Gilmore, who got pregnant at 16, moved out of her (rich) parent's house to the small village of Stars Hallow, and raised her daugther Rory on her own. The tv show starts when Rory has just turned 16 and has been accepted into a very prestigious high school, which will surely catapult her into Ivy League spheres. Lorelai has by that time managed to work herself up from a maid to the manager of the hotel she works. All this sounds very dramatically 'rags to riches', but it is brought with a big dose of fun, quirky characters, high speed talking, and more (cult) references you could ever manage to look up.
The series ran for seven seasons, after which it was discontinued. The original writer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was somehow removed from the writing staff, and this caused an abrupt ending to the show, which is very noticeable in the last four or five episodes; everything is rushed along to a forced ending.
However, this was not the ending Amy had been planning for us all along, and as soon as the show had ended, people were muttering that it was sad to see such a brilliant show go in this way. Then, last year, there were rumours about a restart, with most of the original cast. Then, the show was bought by Netflix (hint: you can see all seven seaons there), and the rumours became reality: we would get four 1.5 hour episodes, written by Amy, with all the original cast, in a brand new series: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Right, now that we're all on the same page: as soon as they had annouced this for real, I had that weird combination of profound joy and bottomless anxiety. Joy upon getting another fix, another six whole hours of Gilmore Girls, and fear that they would mess it up. Because this is a series that is easily messed up. There is a certain tone, a certain way of communication and characterisation, that is very hard to get right. They missed it for a long chunk in the sixth season, and it was heartbreaking to watch.
Anyway, November 25th was a date underlined in my agenda, as I would binge-watch the entire season in one go, together with one of my best friends and fellow Gilmore Girls-rewatcher. And so we watched it. And we judged it. This was our baby, our Gilmore Girls experience, our many nights of sitting under a blanket, stuffing our faces with junk food, rewatching episodes we'd already seen five times. Had they messed it up?
The truth is; yes and no. There are many things I really liked about this new series, and many things I didn't like. I tried to put these into a pro/con list to come to some sort of final judgement (Rory does this a lot) but I don't think it really works that way; your overall opinion is more than just the longer list. So I'll describe some things instead. For those of you who haven't watched it, probably blantantly obviously, but better safe than sorry: there will be spoilers.
At first, it felt like slipping back into that familiar world again, like we'd never left. Lorelai gives Rory an update on everything that has happened in Stars Hallow, we meet some familiar faces (Lane! A super-thin Miss Patty! Kirk! Taylor! Michel! And he's married!), Lorelai has had a fight with her mother, Paris is still positively insane but good-hearted beneath it all, there is a weird Friday-night dinner, troubadours sing; all is well with the world.
Then, you realise what the main issue of the episode was; both Lorelai and Rory are searching. Still? At 48 and 32 respectively? Yes, they are still searching for what they want to do, who they want to be. Lorelai wondering whether she should have become a mother again, and Rory is an anchorless freelance writer, drifting between the US and London. Relationshipwise, Rory appears to have found a steady boyfriend, but she keeps forgetting him (seriously, they should have ended that joke after the first half an hour) and is also very much cheating on him. They are both still searching, still unhappy, but really, without any good reason. They should be happy. They're just full of their own first-world problems. They should get over themselves.
I realise that six hours of people who have cleaned up their lives and gotten their stuff together may have seemed tedious to the scriptwriters, but it wouldn't have been boring at all to the fans of the show. We just want to see all those characters happily settled in life, to peek in on how they're doing, and then silently move away again. Ironically, there is a very strong focus on Lorelai's and Rory's (forced) personal problems, and all those other characters we just get minute glimpses off, before they disappear again. I would have loved to know more about Lane, or Michel, or Jess, or Dean, or April, or any of them, really. Less drama, more story.
The only person whose life isn't going like they'd planned, but with good reason, is Emily. What I thought was really good about this series, is that they explicitly portray her as the third Gilmore Girl. Which she was all along, of course, but it somehow didn't really come across that well. But now, with Edward Herrmann gone, her character is also widowed. And searching. But Emily is the only one really willing to deal with the situation she finds herself in, to tackle her problems head-on, to invite new people into her life and share her grief with them. And in the end, I felt, she is the only one who truly finds happiness.
Speaking of the end, there is a bit of a bombshell there, of course. Those words were the exact words Amy had always wanted to end the series with, and they must have been really nice to hear at the end of season seven, but here they sounded hollow and unreal. Also, I was unaware of any mystery surrounding the father until a friend pointed it out to me: I was just assuming it would be Logan's. But she has that weird thing with the furry in the middle of the series, so it may well be a Wookiee baby. Which I just find annoying. What is with the open endings? Really, can't you let it go? To top it all off, Netflix posted a message referring to April's quest to find her father, hinting both at three possible fathers (but really, Paul?) and at new episodes. Let's hope they don't. Really, don't.
Like I said; an overall opinion isn't made up of only the number of good and bad things, and reading the above, you may well think I hated this new series. Which I didn't. There were many, many things I disliked about it, but the overall feeling it gave me was good. The atmosphere, the pacing, the characters, they all felt right. This truly was Gilmore Girls again, ten years later. The only sad part about it is; the main characters hadn't matured during those ten years.
And maybe that is the problem; we have. We have become ten years older. And where the drama of the original series is steeped in nostalgia, we see this series with our new, critical eye. And seen as such, it is lacking in some ways. Not all, obviously, and it is still a sibling of the original, but clearly the lesser sibling, the unsuccessful kid.
But in the end, I'm glad we now have this series, and have seen the ending Amy originally wanted, and had a chance to sneak a peek at all of their lives and the little town of Stars Hallow. After all, I've spend a lot of time there, and it's good to know it's still going strong.
Now I've only written about a tv series once before, and with good reason. I hardly watch any television (by which I also mean; I hardly watch any Netflix, as that has become the standard substitute for watching anything for my generation). The most notable exceptions are Sherlock (I was poised for the start of the forth season last night) and Wie is de mol? (a brilliant Dutch programme in which contestants have to complete assignments while rooting out the mole in their middle). Otherwise, I don't really watch tv; I'd rather read a book. Or go to the movies. Or better still; hang out with actual other people.
This used to be very different. When I was a teenager, I would know exactly which series aired each evening, and either plan to see them or record them. Dawson's creek, Roswell, Friends, Sex and the City, Everwood; I've seen them all as they first aired in the Netherlands. But the most important of all, the series I watched and rewatched (on dvd) the most, and the one most of my friends watched with me, was Gilmore Girls.
For those of you who know what I'm talking about, you can skip the next three paragraphs. For the rest of you: I find it almost impossible that people have gotten to this point in their lives without knowing what Gilmore Girls is, but here goes; Gilmore Girls is a tv series about Lorelai Gilmore, who got pregnant at 16, moved out of her (rich) parent's house to the small village of Stars Hallow, and raised her daugther Rory on her own. The tv show starts when Rory has just turned 16 and has been accepted into a very prestigious high school, which will surely catapult her into Ivy League spheres. Lorelai has by that time managed to work herself up from a maid to the manager of the hotel she works. All this sounds very dramatically 'rags to riches', but it is brought with a big dose of fun, quirky characters, high speed talking, and more (cult) references you could ever manage to look up.
The series ran for seven seasons, after which it was discontinued. The original writer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was somehow removed from the writing staff, and this caused an abrupt ending to the show, which is very noticeable in the last four or five episodes; everything is rushed along to a forced ending.
However, this was not the ending Amy had been planning for us all along, and as soon as the show had ended, people were muttering that it was sad to see such a brilliant show go in this way. Then, last year, there were rumours about a restart, with most of the original cast. Then, the show was bought by Netflix (hint: you can see all seven seaons there), and the rumours became reality: we would get four 1.5 hour episodes, written by Amy, with all the original cast, in a brand new series: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Right, now that we're all on the same page: as soon as they had annouced this for real, I had that weird combination of profound joy and bottomless anxiety. Joy upon getting another fix, another six whole hours of Gilmore Girls, and fear that they would mess it up. Because this is a series that is easily messed up. There is a certain tone, a certain way of communication and characterisation, that is very hard to get right. They missed it for a long chunk in the sixth season, and it was heartbreaking to watch.
Anyway, November 25th was a date underlined in my agenda, as I would binge-watch the entire season in one go, together with one of my best friends and fellow Gilmore Girls-rewatcher. And so we watched it. And we judged it. This was our baby, our Gilmore Girls experience, our many nights of sitting under a blanket, stuffing our faces with junk food, rewatching episodes we'd already seen five times. Had they messed it up?
The truth is; yes and no. There are many things I really liked about this new series, and many things I didn't like. I tried to put these into a pro/con list to come to some sort of final judgement (Rory does this a lot) but I don't think it really works that way; your overall opinion is more than just the longer list. So I'll describe some things instead. For those of you who haven't watched it, probably blantantly obviously, but better safe than sorry: there will be spoilers.
At first, it felt like slipping back into that familiar world again, like we'd never left. Lorelai gives Rory an update on everything that has happened in Stars Hallow, we meet some familiar faces (Lane! A super-thin Miss Patty! Kirk! Taylor! Michel! And he's married!), Lorelai has had a fight with her mother, Paris is still positively insane but good-hearted beneath it all, there is a weird Friday-night dinner, troubadours sing; all is well with the world.
Then, you realise what the main issue of the episode was; both Lorelai and Rory are searching. Still? At 48 and 32 respectively? Yes, they are still searching for what they want to do, who they want to be. Lorelai wondering whether she should have become a mother again, and Rory is an anchorless freelance writer, drifting between the US and London. Relationshipwise, Rory appears to have found a steady boyfriend, but she keeps forgetting him (seriously, they should have ended that joke after the first half an hour) and is also very much cheating on him. They are both still searching, still unhappy, but really, without any good reason. They should be happy. They're just full of their own first-world problems. They should get over themselves.
I realise that six hours of people who have cleaned up their lives and gotten their stuff together may have seemed tedious to the scriptwriters, but it wouldn't have been boring at all to the fans of the show. We just want to see all those characters happily settled in life, to peek in on how they're doing, and then silently move away again. Ironically, there is a very strong focus on Lorelai's and Rory's (forced) personal problems, and all those other characters we just get minute glimpses off, before they disappear again. I would have loved to know more about Lane, or Michel, or Jess, or Dean, or April, or any of them, really. Less drama, more story.
The only person whose life isn't going like they'd planned, but with good reason, is Emily. What I thought was really good about this series, is that they explicitly portray her as the third Gilmore Girl. Which she was all along, of course, but it somehow didn't really come across that well. But now, with Edward Herrmann gone, her character is also widowed. And searching. But Emily is the only one really willing to deal with the situation she finds herself in, to tackle her problems head-on, to invite new people into her life and share her grief with them. And in the end, I felt, she is the only one who truly finds happiness.
Speaking of the end, there is a bit of a bombshell there, of course. Those words were the exact words Amy had always wanted to end the series with, and they must have been really nice to hear at the end of season seven, but here they sounded hollow and unreal. Also, I was unaware of any mystery surrounding the father until a friend pointed it out to me: I was just assuming it would be Logan's. But she has that weird thing with the furry in the middle of the series, so it may well be a Wookiee baby. Which I just find annoying. What is with the open endings? Really, can't you let it go? To top it all off, Netflix posted a message referring to April's quest to find her father, hinting both at three possible fathers (but really, Paul?) and at new episodes. Let's hope they don't. Really, don't.
Like I said; an overall opinion isn't made up of only the number of good and bad things, and reading the above, you may well think I hated this new series. Which I didn't. There were many, many things I disliked about it, but the overall feeling it gave me was good. The atmosphere, the pacing, the characters, they all felt right. This truly was Gilmore Girls again, ten years later. The only sad part about it is; the main characters hadn't matured during those ten years.
And maybe that is the problem; we have. We have become ten years older. And where the drama of the original series is steeped in nostalgia, we see this series with our new, critical eye. And seen as such, it is lacking in some ways. Not all, obviously, and it is still a sibling of the original, but clearly the lesser sibling, the unsuccessful kid.
But in the end, I'm glad we now have this series, and have seen the ending Amy originally wanted, and had a chance to sneak a peek at all of their lives and the little town of Stars Hallow. After all, I've spend a lot of time there, and it's good to know it's still going strong.
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