Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Still reading "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - finished The Dark is Rising and now onto Greenwitch. It's striking me this time round that whilst the Dark is definitely worse then the Light, I'm not sure the Light are precisely "good", at the very least they are firm proponents of how you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, no matter how much that sucks for the eggs.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - and still reading about the horrors of the human cost of the sanctions against Iraq.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2 Scenes 5-6 - more comic relief from the servants, which I imagine works better when you don't have to refer to the notes to discover the double entendres, and Proteus deciding that to be true to himself he must betray both Julia & Valentine (what Silvia thinks of the matter is unknown thus far and irrelevant to Proteus).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 162-177 of The History of England - the Wars of the Roses & Warwick the Kingmaker in all his turncoaty glory.

Sunday Podcast: ep 25 & 26 of Living with the Gods - the co-existence of different faiths (using India as an example through some rather rose-tinted spectacles) and ruling by divine right.

Music: While running I listened to Scissor Sisters "Ta-Dah!".

Watching

Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story - my annual trip to the cinema ;) Liked this quite a lot, not especially deep but a fun watch. Like Rogue One it was a heist movie, but much lighter in tone. I would probably've preferred it if they'd made Han a bit more ambiguous and a bit less obviously "the good guy" but I don't think that was ever on the cards. The character I'd want to learn more about if there's a sequel is Qi'ra.

TV:

ep 3 of Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA - small town art, including things like murals in post offices and works by people who lived in small towns. Good series, a lot of the art was not to my tastes but I probably appreciate it more now I know more about it.

The Super Squirrels - a Natural World programme about why squirrels are so awesome, including facts like the brains of some species grow significantly each autumn as they remember where they've hidden each nut but then shrink again next spring.

Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered - another re-watch, this is Dallas Campbell looking at the possible ways Tutankhamun could've died. Reasonably good and fairly well argued (even tho I think everyone who's examined the mummy of Tutankhamun has a different opinion on it), does go off the rails towards the end with the surgeon who takes everything literally and so diagnoses Tutankhamun and half his ancestors with epilepsy on the basis of stelae telling about visions from/about gods.

World Cup Football - saw all three matches that were on on Sunday at Curtis & Kirsty's BBQ. So that's England vs. Panama (6-1, still astonishing), Japan vs. Senegal (2-2) and Poland vs. Colombia (1-3).

Comments

[magid]

I was thinking more about your reading, and why I didn't love the Dark Is Rising sequence more. As I get older, I'm less and less interested in stories where there are Bad People and Good People. Everyone is shades of gray, though some are darker than others. It feels too simplistic to just say "oh, they've always been Bad" instead of choosing a more complicated narrative.

[mousetrappling]

Yeah, I think that's definitely something that works better coming to it as a child, particularly as in this case the Light is good by fiat rather than by demonstration as such. And it's a very parent-like good - these things are done this way "for your own good" and you need to go along with it (as a normal human) even if it's all beyond your understanding and seems rather cruel. A bit like the fantasy equivalent of "eat your vegetables, they're good for you!" ;)

Having read it as a child tho, I do find it holds up as an adult - in part because I see more nuance now than I remember from then.

I was also wondering as I read the second book how well it would work if you were neither English nor Christian - it's very rooted in the fantasy of the perfect English Christmas from "ye olde days", with manors & wassailing and so on.

[magid]

I read a bunch of rather English books as a kid, and some even had traditional Xmas things. For me, that wasn't a barrier as a kid, and was even a safe level of exotic, plus gave insight into the world my uncle grew up in. (The vast majority of books I read were default white, Xtian characters. It was noticeable when someone was a darker tone, or a different religion. Even some of the fantasy books were default rather Xtian-ish.) Even as an adult, I admit nostalgia for English books.