Age or just time?
Jan. 2nd, 2019 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inanhourofdreamingI swear that I USED to remember shorthand all the ways to link and tag and insert things into LJ but wow have I forgotten all of them. I need to take a little time to look that all up again and make a quick-hand reference sheet or something.
Anyhow -- my apartment remains occupied, as it has been this entire vacation, so I suppose there went my chance at genuine aloneness. I read a bunch this week however. Here's a short rundown:
The Watchmaker of Filligree Street by Natasha Pulley: You guys, I CANNOT tell you how wonderful I found this book. I bought it a year and a half ago on a visit to a friend in DC but was never in the mood to read it. I finally picked it up this past week and it was exactly what I needed. It's a lovely late-19th century story about a man, Thaniel, who works as a telegrapher in the midst of the Clan na Gael bombings whose life is saved by a pocket watch that appeared in his room. He goes to investigate and meets the watchmaker, Keita Mori. It's delightful and subtle and absolutely surprised me with canon romance when I thought I was just reading subtext. I highly recommend it.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Vaughn: This one is a classic, but one I'd never actually read despite my deep love of both the stories that take place at British universities and British novels in general. I can't believe I'd missed it. So first off, I embarrassingly didn't realize Evelyn Waugh was a man. Ridiculous, but OK. Ultimately the writing was beautiful but I also could have done with a much longer Oxford youth part and significantly less of the lesson these books always seem to end with -- basically, that everything decays and everyone ends up kind of sad and past their glory days learning to live broken lives. Have none of these authors met older people who've actually enjoyed their lives and figured themselves out? Plus, of course, our lovely Julia being shoe-horned in as a romantic interest at the end to make the book less overtly gay. Still, this one is a classic, and very worth reading.
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett: This one is more a novella. A cute little thing about the Queen learning to get into reading. This was nice but nothing really special. If you want something short and cute about a woman learning to love books, it's not a bad way to go.
I'm also part of the way through Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night, which I've been picking up and putting down.
In addition, I watched Paddington and Paddington 2, which were both honestly as lovely as everyone has been saying. Beautifully done, sweet, funny, and with a great message.
Finally, I rewatched Skyfall and Spectre and got SUPER stuck on thinking about Q as ace and Bond as someone who is so used to using sex as a weapon or a manipulation that he doesn't equate it with any kind of real intimacy. There's something interesting happening there I'd like to play around with -- I could see Bond knowing he's going to honeypot his way in and out of cases and maybe enjoying sex as a purely physical thing, but he's got to be so fucked up in the head about intimacy given what he does for a living. And the only real lasting relationship he could have and still be 007 is someone who genuinely wouldn't care if he was sleeping with other people on the regular. So maybe he needs that constancy more than he needs anything else. And I just see that being such a cool dynamic. Both people who measure relationships and what they mean differently than other people do, just as a necessity, and how they'd fit together.
How were your holidays?
Anyhow -- my apartment remains occupied, as it has been this entire vacation, so I suppose there went my chance at genuine aloneness. I read a bunch this week however. Here's a short rundown:
The Watchmaker of Filligree Street by Natasha Pulley: You guys, I CANNOT tell you how wonderful I found this book. I bought it a year and a half ago on a visit to a friend in DC but was never in the mood to read it. I finally picked it up this past week and it was exactly what I needed. It's a lovely late-19th century story about a man, Thaniel, who works as a telegrapher in the midst of the Clan na Gael bombings whose life is saved by a pocket watch that appeared in his room. He goes to investigate and meets the watchmaker, Keita Mori. It's delightful and subtle and absolutely surprised me with canon romance when I thought I was just reading subtext. I highly recommend it.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Vaughn: This one is a classic, but one I'd never actually read despite my deep love of both the stories that take place at British universities and British novels in general. I can't believe I'd missed it. So first off, I embarrassingly didn't realize Evelyn Waugh was a man. Ridiculous, but OK. Ultimately the writing was beautiful but I also could have done with a much longer Oxford youth part and significantly less of the lesson these books always seem to end with -- basically, that everything decays and everyone ends up kind of sad and past their glory days learning to live broken lives. Have none of these authors met older people who've actually enjoyed their lives and figured themselves out? Plus, of course, our lovely Julia being shoe-horned in as a romantic interest at the end to make the book less overtly gay. Still, this one is a classic, and very worth reading.
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett: This one is more a novella. A cute little thing about the Queen learning to get into reading. This was nice but nothing really special. If you want something short and cute about a woman learning to love books, it's not a bad way to go.
I'm also part of the way through Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night, which I've been picking up and putting down.
In addition, I watched Paddington and Paddington 2, which were both honestly as lovely as everyone has been saying. Beautifully done, sweet, funny, and with a great message.
Finally, I rewatched Skyfall and Spectre and got SUPER stuck on thinking about Q as ace and Bond as someone who is so used to using sex as a weapon or a manipulation that he doesn't equate it with any kind of real intimacy. There's something interesting happening there I'd like to play around with -- I could see Bond knowing he's going to honeypot his way in and out of cases and maybe enjoying sex as a purely physical thing, but he's got to be so fucked up in the head about intimacy given what he does for a living. And the only real lasting relationship he could have and still be 007 is someone who genuinely wouldn't care if he was sleeping with other people on the regular. So maybe he needs that constancy more than he needs anything else. And I just see that being such a cool dynamic. Both people who measure relationships and what they mean differently than other people do, just as a necessity, and how they'd fit together.
How were your holidays?
