#kate austen post of all time actually

[heavenlymorals]

Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2: Realism Vs Romantacism

(Warning: Spoilers for RDR2 and RDR1 and that this is a long post.)

But first, let's get a better idea on what these genres and philosophies actually entailed.

During 19th century America, there were two famous genres of literature that became wildly popular- Romantacism and Realism. These genres shaped many philosophies and are interwoven into so many famous stories that it is kinda insane, but today, for this retrospective, I want to speak on how these two genres shaped both RDR1 and RDR2.

Romantacism came as a sort of critique of the Enlightment Era. The Enlightment Era was a period of reason and rejection of spirituality. It focused a lot on what was real and in front of a person rather than the experience and interpretation of an event or thing. Dutch represents this idea in this line to John where he says:

"Real. Oh how I detest that word. So devoid of imagination."

And to Arthur:

"We are dreamers in an ever duller world of fact, I'll give you that."

Romantacism is such a broad subject but there were generally three aspects of it that was generally consistent- the relationship between man and himself, man and nature, man and god, and how those experiences create the essence of life. The idea of the oversoul in Romantacism is a deep understanding of nature and spirituality that makes someone as equal to God himself, or that's the simplest way that I can explain it. Romantacism is also about the experience between man and man and ideas of hope, dreams, new beginnings, friendships, life, and love. (Dark Romanticism is way more gloomy, but many of the characteristics are still the same. For this post, though, we'll focus on just Romantacism.)

But what romantacism is about overall is the authentic experience of life and the personal interpretation of it- no matter how imaginative it is. This is where romanticisation occurs. Of war, of historical periods, of certain types of living, etc. etc.

Since that is romantacism, what is realism? Well, I'm sure you already know, but realism is supposed to be a representation of what life actually is and usually in a negative way. Realism isn't concerned with the imagination of an event as it is more concerned with what life is actually like and how it affects people. There really isn't much more to say then that. Realism is about real life and usually in a negative way. For context, realism became popular in the US after the Civil War as for the first time, a lot of people saw such intense pain and death and debauchery.

Like, If "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen is a romantacised story of a woman's love life during a historical time period, then Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a story soaked in the constructs of realism. This is just one comparison of the two genres.

So what does this have to do with Red Dead Redemption? Simple. Each game represents one of the genres as its main focal point for story telling.

RDR2 is a game that is all about romantacism, especially if you play it as it should be played as high honor Arthur Morgan.

Arthur's main storyline is about finding redemption, sure, but he finds that redemption through the authentic experience of life and his interpretation of it. Prior to his tuberculosis, Arthur saw himself as only a cog in the bad machine that was their life. He robbed, intimidated, and killed without much thought to what it actually meant for him because well, this is the way it is and how it always has been.

However, when he gets tuberculosis, his attitude changes. With the limited time he has left, he brings himself to ponder life itself and interprets it in a way that contrasts his previous thought process that the world is dark and gloomy and that he's just another part of it. In his limited time, he begins to see good. If not in him, than in others. In the love people have for others, in the strength that people have for others, in the passion that people have for others.

Arthur begins to appreciate life itself and that's also why the stranger missions in chapter 6 are so much more personal as a whole- Arthur's interpretation of life becoming better in the short time he has left makes him much more heartfelt and sentimental- a key component of romantacism. He helps a widow who could've died out there for no reason other than wanting her to live and live well. He becomes friends with a veteran and helps him out even though he knows that death is around the corner for him and his time with the man would be short. And of course, the debt missions and the helping of Edith. Arthur forgives the debts, gives money, and sees human life as far more valuable than the debt.

And in the end? Arthur saves John and dies knowing that he tried his best to not just survive but to live. That's his experience and his interpretation of it- becoming a better man and valuing people more than things. And then there is the epilogue- there is hope and happiness and a sense of accomplishment. All the pain feels over and a new light has been cast onto life.

In fact, this archetype in Romanticism, which is about finding redemption through the larger human experience, is quite famous overall. It's not unique to just Arthur Morgan. One of the most famous romantic stories of the era was Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", and Victor Frankenstein undergoes a similar journey, albeit more subdued than Arthur's.

In the beginning of the book, Victor starts out as a representation of realism. He's obsessed with science and doesn't really care about his family and friends. He goes on for long periods of time just thinking about science because of his own hubris and desire to become famous and accomplished. He rejects art, love, and all the things that constitute the human experience for the sake of science, which represents realism. As he begins to see the faults in his actions and the mistake of creating his monster, things begin to change. He becomes more interested in his friends, his fiancée, and life itself as a concept rather than what it is in front of him.

Yes, Mary Shelley wrote the book as a criticism of the unregulated pursuit of science, but if you dig deeper, it's not just about that. It's about keeping romance, ideals, and the human experience in your heart, because without them, things will be worse than they already are. Many ideas and philosophies aren't realistic, but we keep them to enrich the human experience. That is what Romanticism is about, and that is what Arthur Morgan's story is about. Like Victor, his story could be boiled down to a rejection of realism and an embrace of Romanticism.

And besides just the story being a love letter to Romantacism, there is the scenery too. As stated, one big part of Romantacism is nature and RDR2's nature is just gorgeous. It's bright and scenic and beautiful like a lot of romantic paintings. Arthur connects to nature by living in it and drawing it and experiencing it. Even the ambiance of the landscape is calm and relaxing, adding to the beautiful experience of the American wilderness.

So what about Red Dead Redemption 1? Red Dead Redemption 1 is all about realism. It doesn't care about ideals or hopes. Its story is one of realism, portraying the realistic end of an outlaw. Where Red Dead Redemption 2 ends with John and his family finally getting the life they've always wanted and possibly starting over again, Red Dead Redemption 1 rejects that. The Pinkertons find John, and he is set out to kill his brothers-in-arms. He can't escape his old life, even if he wants to—it will always come back to haunt him. John has killed and robbed and done so many terrible things that the dream of him being able to settle down and just be a farmer in the end is just that, a dream. Even when John does what Edgar Ross wants him to do, he gets shot down like a dog in the end anyway. He has to pay for his sins, and in a sick way, this is justice for all the men he has killed before in his outlaw life. There is no other end for John realistically than to be put down like a dog. It is his tragedy, his fate, and a realistic fate for an outlaw.

John's path is lonely. Most of the people he meets are people that he does not want to be associated with. Seth is a creepy grave robber, Irish is a drunk bastard, and West Dickens is just a scamming piece of s*** who doesn't scam the rich and people who already have too much, but he scams the poor, the working man, the person who is uneducated. They are all very realistic criminals, and John has to deal with it because all he wants is his family and the men that the Pinkertons sent him to capture. The people that he does respect, like Leigh Johnson and Bonnie McFarland, are professional relationships at best. John has to rely on himself and only himself, which is a very popular theme in realism. Unlike in Red Dead 2, he has no one to turn to, no one to watch his back. He has no family and no friends. He is alone, and he has to deal with his sins because the world will not forget, as he mentions time and time again.

Romanticism is dead. Ideals are dead. A young woman's pursuit of God leaves her dead in the desert, and John can do nothing to help her. The idea of the noble West is torn apart by violent gangs that do nothing but rape, kill, and steal. Men come to exploit the pain of colonialism. Eugenics is a thriving science. The most apparent example that ideals are dead is the Mexican revolution. Abraham Reyes makes the people believe that he will be better, that he will be the Messiah for these peasants, but the reality is that he turns out to be just as bad or even worse than the already established dictatorship in the country. And John doesn't care. He's not there to be a hero for the people; he's simply there to grab Javier and Bill and then go. That's why he is just as comfortable working for the dictatorship as he is working with the rebels. He does not care. All he cares about is his family, and anything bad that happens to others pains him, but it is not his problem. That is what realism is about. It's not the interpretation of life, but what life actually is, and a lot of times, life is cruel and bitter and terrible. Things are unfair, and sometimes people have to pay with their life and identity.

John dies in the end, and like a lot of children and wives of these outlaws and criminals, Abigail and Jack suffer. Abigail does not last long, as she dies just a couple of years later, and Jack has to bear the sins of his father on his back, like many children of outlaws and criminals did. Even when Jack kills Ross, there is no sense of triumph, no happiness or joy; it's just an empty feeling of "what now?" Where revenge in Red Dead Redemption 2 is idealized and romantic, even beautiful in a sense, revenge in Red Dead Redemption is empty and grotesque, leaving the player with nothing but emptiness. There's nothing left; everything is gone.

And just look at the scenery of Red Dead Redemption. Yes, it's beautiful, sure, but it's dull and dark. There isn't a lot of color, there aren't a lot of people or animals; it's drab. If RDR2 is a field with a pretty Instagram filter on it, then RDR1 is the field without the filter. The ambience of the game is also dark and weary, putting the player on edge as John cannot relax like Arthur can. John needs to find his family as he has to pay for the sins of his outlaw life.

Although Romantacism isn't a very popular genre today, often overshadowed by realism, both genres of literature and philosophy are paraded in these games.

Arthur is the romantic hero- someone who finds his own meaning of life and turns hopeful and idealistic because of it. RDR2 is a romantic game.

John is the realistic hero- someone who deals with the cards that life gives him and is exhausted from it as he knows his singular efforts won't cause an end to his pain. RDR1 is a realistic game.

And I just think that's very cool. Understanding those two genres of American literature allows the player to understand the games on a deeper level.

(I ain't reading allat)

[whenthegoldrays]

hiii elly <3

kinda bored lately and wanted to watch something so came here for recs :) could be of any kind btw like movies, tv shows (any language)

also maybe not something from your top ten kdramas post lol i've already watched most of the shows on there

also how're you doing?

hope you're doing well <33

Hey girl hey! Thank you for asking, I'm doing well! Terribly busy, but on the whole things are good. How about you?

Oooh okay this is quite a thing to ask me, I'm going to get decision paralysis dhdvdvdg but let me think of some less-common things I can recommend!

Available on Prime Video.

The Surprise (2015). Also available on Tubi. After inking their own death warrants, an eccentric millionaire and distraught woman fall in love and find voiding their contracts isn't an option. Romance! Dark humor! The k-drama truck of doom, except it's a Dutch movie! (Disclaimer: I do not recommend watching this film if one is suicidal)

From Prada to Nada (2011). A modern Mexican-American adaptation of Sense and Sensibility that surprisingly really works?? The title is woeful but the movie is pretty darn good.

The Lady Vanishes (2013). Iris Carr is traveling across Europe by train when she befriends Miss Froy, an elderly English woman. But when she wakes up from a few hours' sleep, Miss Froy has vanished. As fellow passengers claim the lady never existed, Iris fights to discover the fate of Miss Froy - and prove that she's not going mad.

Love and Friendship (2016). Adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan, starring Kate Beckinsdale. The main character is the definition of gaslight gatekeep girlboss, and the supporting characters are all just. so funny.

To Tell The Truth (1961). If you just want something to distract you that doesn't take a lot of thinking, old game shows are ideal. In this one, a celebrity panel tries to guess which of three strangers is the person they claim to be.

Masterpiece/PBS Passport Shows.

All Creatures Great and Small (since 2020). Season 4 currently airing. A feel-good (but unafraid to get real and sad) show about the misadventures of a country vet practice in Yorkshire.

Miss Scarlet and the Duke (since 2020). Season 4 currently airing. In 1880s London, the daughter of a private investigator decides to take over his detective business after his untimely death. Mystery series that also has just about the BEST opening titles ever.

Available on Tubi (which is free!)

Forever Young (1992). The movie where I realized that Mel Gibson was cute, actually. In 1939, a heartbroken Army pilot volunteers for a cryogenics experiment and wakes up in 1992, where he gets a second shot at love.

The Space Between Us (2017). On his first visit to Earth, a man born and raised on Mars bonds with a street-smart young woman while unraveling the mysteries of how he came to be. To quote my mutual Chris: "wanna cry? 🥰"

The Dick Van Dyke Show (1960s). Some of the stuff hasn't aged well, but this is still one my top favorite old sitcoms. All the characters are so fun and endearing. You probably won't want to sift through all five seasons, so my top episode recommendations are "The Curious Thing About Women" (s1 e16), "The Two Faces of Rob" (s2 e2), "That's My Boy??" (s3 e1), "Big Max Calvada" (s3 e9), "October Eve" (s3 e28), "My Mother Can Beat Up My Father" (s4 e1), "4 1/2" (s4 e7), "The Impractical Joke" (s4 e16), and "Coast to Coast Big Mouth" (s5 e1).

(I got a little too excited with those episode recs, oopsie 🤭)

The Surprise, like I mentioned.

I just found out that they have some episodes of The Flintstones and Tom and Jerry on Tubi, if you want some good nostalgic laughs.

Available on Netflix.

Love At First Sight (2023). Cute romance about taking a chance on a good feeling.

The Adam Project (2022). You've probably seen it, but I will mention it anyway! Time travel. Annoying and precocious 12-year-old child. Ryan Reynolds and Zoe Saldaña. Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo! FIVE STARS.

Trevor Noah: I Wish You Would (2022). The best Trevor Noah special, in my opinion. The curry story??? Iconic forever and ever.

The Full-Time Wife Escapist (2018). A woman takes a job as a housekeeper, but in order to stay in it, she and her boss agree to a contract marriage. If you've ever seen the k-drama Because This Is My First Life... This is the better version of that show, imo. The ML is suchhh a sweetheart.

Indian Matchmaking (since 2020). I never watch reality TV, so I don't know how I started seeing this show, but it's SO good and super bingeable.

Omg the Jurassic Park movies are on Netflix right now

Available on Hulu.

Wild Mountain Thyme (2020). It's a love story, and it's so silly and enjoyable. The resolution is just shdhfhshshsg

The Giver (2014). Jonas learns the secrets of the past, and the utopia he's grown up in begins to look more and more dystopian. Also, Taylor Swift is there for some reason.

Flamin' Hot (2023). It wasn't until I watched this that I realized how much I need movies about Mexican success stories in my life. File this under ✨inspirational✨

If you haven't yet watched The Artful Dodger (2023), you absolutely should. Come for the romance, stay for the absolutely bonkers, insane hijinks.

I barely started watching Timeless (2016), but it looks really fun and good. It's about time travel, unsurprisingly for me 🤭

Available on Disney+

Baby's Day Out (1994). A childhood CLASSIC of mine. The cuteness is just. so much. The humor is standard slapstick, but really fun, and the mom has some of the most gorgeous 90s outfits omggg

Hidden Figures (2016). I love this movie endlesslyyy. Awesome intelligent Black women overcoming the odds, space race setting, and even a side of cute romance.

The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019). Dare I say, best dog movie I've seen?

The Call of the Wild (2020). Another dog movie, with Harrison Ford. I don't remember much of it but I remember really enjoying it.

Milo Murphy's Law (2017–2018). Have you seen this follow-up to Phineas and Ferb? If you haven't, you need to. The comedy is so gold tier and the music slaps.

Delicacies Destiny (2022). I kind of stopped watching this c-drama about 1/3 of the way through, but I totally should pick it up again, and it's worth watching even if just for all the gorgeous food scenes.

And of course, anything from my top ten k-dramas that you haven't seen yet is an automatic recommendation 😌

This got. so long. I hope you find something here that you like and thank you for asking @milkteawithrusk!! This was so fun to put together! 🫶🏼

[mizkit]

new blog post: ICFA: the last two days

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/icfa-the-last-two-days/

ICFA: the last two days

Let’s see. Friday I had a 10:30am thing, which I know because I couldn’t have breakfast with the family. Oh, yes, it turned out to be what Geoffrey Landis said might have been the most fun he’d ever had at an ICFA panel! laughs

It was a panel with myself and Kate JohnsTon, moderated by Novella, and Kate read an incredibly funny piece from the point of view of a genetically engineered modern T-Rex who was very, very horny, followed by two more very funny pieces, after which I read from my Pride & Prejudice pastiche, Magic & Manners, which was not nearly as funny and yet led, ultimately, to what arguably became the theme for the panel, which was…ejaculation. o.o

(See, in Austen, people don’t ‘burst out’ with words when they speak enthusiastically. Sometimes they exclaim, but very often they ejaculate, and given the whole horny T-Rex part of the panel… yes, well, it was very funny and poor Novella was just sort of sitting there with a hand over her face while Kate and I howled with laughter. It was AMAZING.)

Seriously, though, it was a great panel; the audience had good questions, the whole thing was obviously incredibly silly, and we had a truly wonderful time. Kate and I felt like kindred spirits immediately, and just, my god, yeah, it was really fun. I’m sure I could come up with more details (actually, the Magic & Manners stuff led into a pretty good, if brief, conversation about decolonization of fantasy), and I know we made Kate read more of her T-Rex book (which is actually a post-apocalyptic story based in a lot of science, and I’m really looking forward to it), but yeah, overall, it was great.

I think we went straight to lunch after that, where Mame and his wife, Woppa Diallo, who was the other guest scholar but was unable to attend in person, gave plenary speeches that ended with me having an entire LIST of non-fiction books to read; Mame (suffering, as he was, from imposter syndrome) kept saying he hadn’t even realized he WAS a scholar, but my god, the man is incredibly well-read, well-spoken, and insightful. We should all ‘not be scholars’ like he is. He and Woppa both spoke about ‘whimsy’ in African cultures, which was so interesting I may break it out into a short blog post of its own, and just…yeah, it was great.

Friday afternoon all the GoHs had a student caucus thingy that we went to in order to be available to answer questions specifically from students. Mostly there weren’t students in attendence, but the moderator (Andrew, from yesterday’s post) was great, and we ended up having a really good discussion, some great audience questions, and hopefully some insightful stuff was said. (Mary did end up asking me if I’d considered the possibility that I’d been a shaman in a previous incarnation, so, you know, things went a lot of places in that conversation!)

Ellen (Kushner, yes yes I’m definitely name dropping) invited me out to dinner on Friday with herself and Delia, and a couple of other people, including Kate of the T-Rex story, MaryAnne Mohanraj, who ofc I knew OF (we own one of her cookbooks, in fact!) but whom I’d never actually met, and a charming man named Will whose last name I’ve forgotten but whose reading I’d enjoyed earlier in the conference. Ellen apparently has a thing about finding good places to eat that aren’t right on the conference site, and we ended up going out for an Uzbek/Turkish meal that was almost impossibly delicious. We were partway through ordering when it became clear we were going to order half the menu, and the guy taking our order said, more or less “ok but you’ve got to order the to’y osh, it’s the house special,” and upon being reassured that we intended to, we just hadn’t gotten there yet, was satisfied. :D It was a wonderful, funny, delightful evening with absurd amounts of truly delicious food, and I’m extremely grateful for it. wibbly smile

Saaaaaaturday…oh, I hung out with MaryAnne Mohanraj in the morning for a bit, and…at some point? I had another panel? I think? With the other GoHs? And it was–well, for one thing, we were asked to read, which literally none of us expected, but Mame had his award-winning short story on his phone and Mary had a copy of one of her books of poetry with her AND she had a copy of URBAN SHAMAN!!! that she plopped in front of me to sign and, as it turned out, read from. :D And after that it was a Q&A that ranged from use of time in our various pieces (AGAIN, some really INTERESTING STUFF about African perceptions of time in storytelling that could probably use a post of their own) to copaganda, which as I’ve become aware, my stuff is rife with.

I went for a little walk after that and came back into the hotel to sit down and play Pokemon in the lobby, and after a few minutes Mame came by from a walk of his own and sat and we chatted, and then MaryAnne dropped by just as he had to leave, and then just as she was leaving, someone else she knew stopped by, so I was introduced, and as SHE was leaving, someone SHE knew stopped by–it was great, I felt like I was holding court. :D

I met–ah, man, I met so many cool people. I was sitting with the head of the conference’s fairy tale division at dinner one night, and at the banquet reception on Saturday she introduced me to her fairy tale ladies, who included a real genuine fan of mine (the woman who had asked about the copaganda, which was such a good question, honestly), so we had a lovely conversation and then they invited me to be in their annual picture. Obviously I said yes, and my fan, who is short but happened to be standing right next to me, when I said, “Should the shorter people go in front?” said, “I am short but I am not going anywhere. I am never moving from this spot ever in my whole life,” which was pretty cute. laughs She kept saying she was trying REALLY HARD not to completely fall apart, and she didn’t, and she was adorable and sweet and I loved her. :)

The dinner and awards ceremony were lovely–I, as were the other GoHs, was given an honorary award from the BIPOC committee, which made me extremely emotional–and post-dinner we all went out to the pool for an after-party, where I went with the express goal of “I’ll say good night and goodbye and that’s it,” and which took longer than the 90 minutes I’d expected it to (quite a lot longer, actually), but was a wonderful way to end the conference.

I could honestly write more and more and more about it all, but post-con writeups are taking up my “ok I have no brain to write fiction with” time, and I think by tomorrow I’ll be back to Able To Write, so I probably can’t spend the rest of my life waxing lyrical about the conference. :)

Me, Mary & Mame (picture by Mame): We had a great time. :)

[biscuitboxpink]

Thanks for tagging me @brookezilla!

Post 10 GIFs of movies you loved as a child, then tag people. Optional: Tell us why you love(d) the films you picked.

In no particular order:

1. The Sound of Music (1965)

I’ve loved this movie since I was like 2. My grandma used to take me grocery shopping with her and make me sing the songs. And of course two year old me sang them all in an English accent, which according to my grandma made me sound like an actual British child. Probably the start of my love for theatre.

2. Ever After (1998)

Honestly, this is still my all time favourite movie. If anyone asks me what my favourite movie is, my mind automatically goes here. Like many of the movies on my list, this one was introduced to be by my mum and is very special to me.

3. The Harry Potter Series (2001-2011)

Harry Potter has always been a massive love for me, and always will. It’s helped me through so much. Honestly, so disappointed in JKR (I in no way support her or her actions).

4. The Anne of Green Gables Trilogy (1985, 1987, 2000)

I have loved Anne of Green Gables my whole life. It’s another one my mum introduced me to (and it’s her all time favourite). Took me a long time to watch Anne with an E because I love this one so much, but I quite like that now as well.

5. Annie (1982)

This movie is so funny, honestly. I used to watch this when I was sick (and Anne of Green Gables), and listen to the soundtrack on repeat and never get bored. There is going to be a theme to my favourite movies. Many are musicals lol.

6. Peter Pan (2003)

So I have such a love for this movie, and so many things to say about it (so much so that I will be teaching it in the fall alongside the original book and play). It does so many things so well, and I will always argue with people that it’s the best (and only) Peter Pan in my mind. Also, Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook 😮‍💨

7. Finding Neverland (2004)

On the same note as Peter Pan, Finding Neverland was one I found when I was quite young and fell in love with. I loved the story behind it. And the musical that came out about 10 years ago is absolutely perfect. Kate Winslet is so wonderfully tragic in it too.

8. Pride & Prejudice (2005)

This one is a bit of a controversial opinion in the Jane Austen fandom, but I love this version of Pride & Prejudice. It was my introduction to Jane Austen, and it’s just gotten larger from there. I’m now an English Lit professor focusing in the 18th century (and I very often teach Austen), so I think that tells you the impact this movie had on me.

9. Pollyanna (1960)

This movie is just so pure and sweet and lovely. Yet another my mum introduced me to haha.

10. The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

So there is a whole story around my love for Phantom, and the musical will always be massively special to me. This was the first version I got to see, and I was too young to see it when it came out but I begged my mum until she let me. Obviously by then I had already known the soundtrack so well. I no longer like the movie as much now that I’ve seen the stage show (and the Royal Albert Hall production which is my all time favourite), but it was my favourite as a kid.

And I guess honourable mention to the Royal Albert Hall Phantom because that came out just as I was finishing high school.

Tagging @mexicangela @deardarlingthings @roamwithahungryheart @mtfunkzoo and anyone else who wants to do this!

[simptasia]

What are some of your favourite lost theories? Like you said once, Jack could be the smoke monster, and I went and looked it up, and you did convert me holy shit makes sense so I'd love to hear what other theories you believe/really like

oooh, fun! thank you!

let's see here... here are some theories i've fond of

you already mentioned it but jack turning into a smoke creature post-finale. because like, yeah, his death is very fucking similar to what happened to turn smokey into... smokey

david shephard being david austen-littleton when he was alive. the theory that when kate and jack banged before coming back to the island, they conceived a baby. they had a son which kate and claire then raise. along with aaron (making aaron and david brother-cousins!). the limbo world just repurposed david's parentage for the sake of symbolism and stuff, since jack and juliet were a couple in that world. okay so, in limboverse, i believe jack and juliet were made a couple, who then divorced, because in real life they were divorcees but it was like, bad soul crushing divorces. in limbo world, the universe saw fit to be like "what if divorced but amicably? as a treat?" so yeah. and david was given to them to fit that narrative. that and it came across like juliet longed to be a mother in real life but it never happened. so yeah, the universe did some shuffling of david for emotional reasons. but in real life, kate was his bio mom. what helps this is that david is a mini-jack so either one of them could be mama kjhfsjhk. also also! the amount of time between jack and kate banging and the finale? two weeks. thats not enough time to even notice a missed period yet let alone know you're pregnant. so she's in for a surprise when she gets home. i love this because it's like beautiful and angsty. oh, as a side note, evie lilly was actually pregnant in season 6 so her noticeable bloating/pudging up is only helping me!

on this note, the theory that juliet was pregnant when she died. i know it's fucked up but it makes sense. i'm basing this on that one scene where bernard offers her tea with a knowing look on his face and juliet has her hand on her stomach. listen, in media language, a woman resting her hand on her tummy = pregnant

daniel was the one who programmed the looking glass code to be good vibrations. they said a musician did it and he was in dharma. it's not that deep, it's a natural leap to make

i've very fond of the idea that richard is daniel's real biological dad. i have done an essay on this, heres a link. this could never be the case in-universe or at least i wouldn't want it to be because jeremy davies is hella white. buuut in the version of lost in my head? i hold fast to it like it's a fact

it's so hard to reconcile the way eloise is in "flashes before your eyes" and the rest of the show, like they may as well be different characters. so to mildly patch this up, i imagine eloise is one of the people in lost who has powers and hers is to do with... time. or something. i dunno. and maybe the reason the others got her in the first place is because she was a Special Kid, like with walt

that's all i can think of right now

oh and theres all the people i consider bi, trans and/or autistic but that's less a theory thing than like, headcanons

thank you for your time

[girderednerve]

reading that very fun piece against queer presentism & thinking again about the idea of the literary canon

the main contentions in this piece are that queer writers ought to look for historical queer writing, and that there's a lot of it which is often & unjustly ignored, to our detriment. at least some of the problems the article writer is getting at seem to me to be historiographical, which is what i say about nearly everything. anyway it helpfully lists several things i'd never heard of, alongside some things i had. i am admittedly a lazy reader & as a result not at all well-read. most of my interesting or difficult reading was done in school, which i don't think is that uncommon.

you can kind of tell that this is common to some extent because on tumblr where there's a strong interest in evidence of historical gay people, there's a continual air of surprise around evidence of queer lives & a particular focus on arguing that certain people you've already heard of are gay (shakespeare was gay! fight your english teacher about it! keynes was gay! fight your econ teacher about it! they don't want you to know!!). i don't entirely disagree with this preoccupation—i spent my fair share of time arguing with teachers—but it seems kind of sad, honestly! as a dull & boring gay myself i like to hear about the less- and even non-famous historical gays. but more importantly there's more writing out there than they teach in school, & as various ongoing astroturf campaigns make unpleasantly evident, what makes its way into school libraries & onto school curricula is extremely political.

i guess this is the question i find most interesting. whence canons, wherefore canons, will we ever be done with them? probably the solution instead of long tumblr posts is to actually read a) more books and b) scholarship about those books, plus what other very clever people have said about canons, but i am simply not going to do that because my focus is shot & i am, anyway, a fool.

so a few things, i guess:

1. many people do most of their expansive reading & get a sense of what they like & what literary history looks like from school, which is a solid intention of high school & college literary survey classes.

2. these surveys tend to focus on a certain set of works, which are understood to be both good & influential or important, and are thus 'canonical.'

3. there's a lot of fighting about what goes or doesn't go in the canon or whether we ought to have a canon at all; the survey of literature with which one is usually presented in one's eleventh grade english class or one's required freshman english class or whatever tends to be eurocentric, white, male, & straight, which sucks

4. there have been various initiatives to open the canon, with mixed success; my own high school education was comparatively fairly wide-ranging (we read achebe, morrison, ondaatje, and wang wei, in addition to our shakespeare, steinbeck, and austen). but consider, e.g., 'the yellow wallpaper', which was not an enormous success in its own time but was successfully championed by feminist scholars of the 1970s, who argued that it reflects an important sort of 19th century women's writing. kate chopin, too, benefited posthumously from this activism. there are probably others whom i am failing to think of, due to knowing almost nothing about anything.

5. why not argue for expanding the literary canon? why not argue that some of these writers ought to be taught in school? i love the focus on the queer self-education, but why stop there? the piece includes a call to publishers (print these older works anew! make cheap editions, new translations, accessible anthologies!) but none to curriculum composers, who surely look for what is available but can also generate demand in a way which is miserably familiar to anyone who works in a library & abruptly finds themselves expected to produce >15 copies of some school book on no notice.

6. is it just passé now to talk about the canon? are we anti-canon? this seems kind of pointless to me because surely we are all still going to be (peripherally, at least) subjected to AP english & so on for several more years, & we may as well try to get the kids to read some interesting things. i don't really see how we could get out of The Canon, however limiting we find it; it seems kind of unavoidable to me that we should have some sort of list of widely-known, well-read literature which is generally understood to be good, useful, representative, or educational in some way.

but if you got this far please do feel invited to comment!

[grayintogreen]

LOST CHARACTERS AND D&D CLASSES

Welcome to posts that cater specifically to my brainrot, I'm your host, a girl who thinks too much about D&D classes and characters from her other fandoms because what is brainrot but something that infects every other possible interest.

Some notes before I begin:

I did not do every character. There are like 40 characters in this show of narrative significance. Some people have to be fucking commoners okay. If you're offended by who I left out, I don't know what to tell you. For the most part, the characters I left out were either not around enough or didn't have an arc significant enough for me to imagine their forward progression as a D&D character or who served such mad NPC energy that the speculation was pointless. Or the answer was really boring (most of the antagonists fall under this heading).

Jacob and Smokey are deities and therefore were not included for that reason.

I didn't include Walt because the only thing I could think of for Michael was Oathbreaker Paladin and while accurate, it requires a significant amount of DEEPER thought I didn't want to go into for something that's just for shits and farts. And including Walt but not Michael felt mean. That said, Walt is basically a conjuration wizard in canon, which means it's kinda boring because there's no fun speculation. it's right there.

There aren't a lot of arcane magic-users, not because I wanted to be boring and stupid, but because this is just not a bunch of people who lend themselves to fucking magic.

I'm putting this under a cut because it got long. SO LET'S GO.

Jack Shepherd, Cleric

Jack is a cleric in the same way Kingston Brown is (or the same way Zerxus is a paladin). There's no god here, just commitment to the practice. Tragically, there's no "science" domain, so I think the closest would be the Order Domain, which fits his control freak tendencies and leadership vibes. I mean Voice of Authority? That's his entire thing.

Kate Austen, Ranger

Kate is a weird one because I think what she is and what she values about herself kinda run at opposition sometimes. And "commiter of arson that one time that led to subsequent crimes" doesn't actually define you as a class. Ultimately, what Kate loves is running off into the jungle, so I went with Ranger (with the possibility of multiclassing into rogue for evasion/disengage). Subclass is a little iffy, especially because Kate isn't as much a murder machine as some of the other characters (ironic given she is the one billed as the murderer), but I think Fey Wanderer works best given a lot of the spells and bonuses it grants involve GETTING AWAY and that's her whole thing.

James "Sawyer" Ford, Fighter

Sawyer was hard because, like Kate, 'con man' is not a class, it's an occupation, but I also didn't want him to be a Mastermind rogue for reasons I'll get to later and also compared to the ACTUAL Mastermind rogue in the (massive, massive) party, he's penny-ante at best. Sawyer is, aside from that time he missed the marshal's heart at point blank range (anyone can crit fail), a gun guy. I feel like Gunslinger is the most appropriate option for him. High charisma and boosted proficiencies in deception and persuasion make up the con man stuff.

John Locke, Ranger/Paladin

John is such a fucking ranger, the island desires him carnally. I think I'd be remiss to suggest he be anything but a Hunter, but UNFORTUNATELY, Hunter is not good for John, like, at all. John's a Gloom Stalker, because John is hardcore.

That said, I think Locke multiclassed into Paladin of the Island pretty damn quickly to the point where his Ranger stuff is background to that. Oath of the Ancients, specifically.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Bard

Hurley is the most goddamn bardic character on this show besides Charlie. I, an audience member, get Bardic Inspiration every time he talks, he's just that fucking lovable. You cannot talk to Hurley and not feel empowered. He is a GOOD BOY.

I think ultimately his role as Island Guru and his propensity to talk to and see dead people makes him well-suited for College of Spirits.

Charlie Pace, Bard

Charlie almost didn't make it on this list because the answer would be so boring and he's a way more generic, traditional bard than Hurley, but then I had to think about what his college would be. I think given everything, he's hilariously suited to Tragedy Bard, and I don't think you can find a single reason to tell me I'm fucking wrong, especially given his ultimate ending.

Jin-Soo Kwon, Ranger/Rogue

Jin almost didn't make it on this list because like "ranger with an ocean favored terrain" is as far as I got. Also jesus there's so many rangers on this island already. But THEN I got to thinking about Jin's life as a thug for Sun's dad and was like could he have taken levels in assassin rogue that overwhelmed his humble fish ranger beginnings? Absolutely.

Sun Paik-Kwon, Rogue

Sun is a unique one in that I don't think she found her class until after she got off the island and then immediately went "I'm a Mastermind Rogue now" and we love that for her.

Sayid Jarrah, Artificer/Fighter

Sayid was a goddamn hard nut to crack, because his chief skills are "technology" and "torture." Initially, I thought he should be an assassin rogue, but Sayid's heavily tactical and plays too well with others to sell rogue, so I went with Battle Master. Also there is no goddamn Artificer class that suits "communications officer," so that's just gonna be up in the air.

Desmond Hume, Barbarian

Desmond is the only barbarian. No I will not be taking criticism. Subclass is funky because my first thought is Path of the Zealot with the electromagnetism oracle superpowers just being flavor worked in, but honestly what would be funnier if he was a Chaos Barbarian like Ashton and the mechanics are broken, since it fits his weird time travel bullshit.

Mr. Eko, Paladin

Eko is such a paladin, like oh my god. What I can't decide is if he's an Oathbreaker paladin working to reform himself or just an Oath of Devotion Paladin who speedran the whole process, but still feels he has much more to do.

Ben Linus, Rogue

Ben is a Mastermind Rogue. Ben is THE Mastermind Rogue. Ben is so good at being a Mastermind Rogue that he forgot his subclass doesn't have a great fight build and kills you anyway. With a nightstick.

Also I think he spends a lot of his time in later seasons with levels in Twilight Cleric since he was effectively Smokey's Richard. He didn't do anything with the power it was just "my evil god who looks like my dead ex-husband whom I murdered gave me these spells I guess."

Juliet Burke, Cleric

Like Jack, I think Juliet's faith goes into either people or abstract concepts, like idk Cleric of Women's Reproductive Rights. Personally, given everything, I think Life Cleric suits her best, which means she has the potential to make some of the funniest jokes ever during her villain era.

Charles Widmore, Warlock

Charles Widmore is 100% a Warlock of the Island, which makes Ben ousting him as President of Everything so much funnier, like bitch the island gave ME magic. I actually have no idea what subclass. I didn't get that far because I'm too busy imagining Alan Dale throwing eldritch blasts at Michael Emerson and still losing.

Daniel Faraday, Artificer

Can Dan be an artillerist simply because of his "i'm gonna detonate a hydrogen bomb line?" No? TOO BAD. i actually don't know about Dan, like artificer fits, but ya boy's a physicist and D&D doesn't care about physics. I don't know why I put him here. I think Dan should get to make magic bombs I guess.

Miles Straume, Cleric

Miles is a grave cleric who has never healed anyone in his life and will not start now, he just uses his Grave Powers to talk to dead people and find where the bodies are.

Richard Alpert, Cleric

It was a tough decision between cleric or paladin for Richard, but let's be real, since he gives off way more long-suffering energy, he might as well be the cleric. Paladins only suffer like that if their name is Zerxus. My suggestion is Light Cleric since Jacob is the being of light on the island. It's poignant.

[justanothergreb]

Icebreaker Review (or how Jackz wonders if some authors actually do research anymore)

Content warning - maybe some potential spoilers, but also talk of sex, namely the ridiculous sex in this book. Also this is all just my opinion, you can differ but no need to get nasty because I didn’t like the book.

Oh my god a book review! Well a review of a book so bad it needed a post. I’m really starting to believe that Booktok, while doing great things for getting people into reading, is a bloody menace for making terrible books popular. Spoiler - Icebreaker by Hannah Grace is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. 

It’s long so it’s going behind a cut...

Romance is not normally a genre I venture in to (unless it’s the Jane Austen-kind or Kate Cann-type books) but this book seemed like it would appeal to me. Ice skating - yes please. Ice hockey - yes please. People raving about the x-rated content - yes please indeed. My god was I reminded why I avoid this genre.

Let’s start off with the characters. Anastasia is so irritating. She’s whiny, she’s judgemental and just not likeable at all. Nathan is a wet blanket with a big dick. I’m sure some would be very excited by how much of a prince charming character he comes across but he’s so bland. Aaron was an attempt at the only child trope (a trope I as an only child despise) but was just a thoroughly vile character. Henry was blatantly written by a British person as he came across so thoroughly British in his nature I forgot he was American. I also lost track of when we discover JJ is gay and how many times Robbie is spoken about like he is able-bodied when he’s in a wheelchair. Far too many side characters for me which just burred into one mess of a cast. 

Now the setting and some of the plot points. I’m all for suspension of disbelief but do we really think a college in Los Angeles would be seemingly specialising in winter sports? Also the way most US sports work you are drafted into a team AFTER you graduate so how was Nathan already signed to a team? What was the purpose Nathan’s dad? Was he there just to be a pointless dick? Why all the side characters? Can you just swap from being a pairs skater to a solo skater? All the skaters I know went solo to pairs but never the other way round. 

Now the writing. It bothered me from the out because I could pick up this was written by someone not American. Too many phrases and ways of saying things which were so obviously British it drove me nuts. Was I shocked that the author made a joke about it in her little “About Me” bit? Nope, more shocked that her editors hadn’t pointed out just how blatant it was in places. If you’re going to write a book, at least also do some proper research on how things work in other countries. I’ve never heard an American student call it “a lecture” but that’s what college classes were referred to in this. The not understanding the basics of how the drafting systems work in sport. It might seem trivial but for me, it really bothers me when writers don’t make the effort for things to at least reflect the setting of their book. 

On the subject of things not being reflective of real life...that Uber scene. Sorry how was any of that plausible? A car with seven people including a wheelchair user (who from my imagination/understanding of the car layout would surely be in the position Nate/Stas are in??) and no one notices what you’re up to? Are they asleep? Ignorant? 

In fact this was one of my biggest problems with the book - the sex scenes. They were ridiculous. It was like reading instructions for porn scenes. I often wonder if authors who decide to make their male characters well endowed actually have experienced this themselves because if they had, they’d know that a lot of the stuff they write is nonsense. Painful, not comfortable, nonsense. I’m all for a bit of some of things going on in this but it was borderline ridiculous how much these two were at it and in the positions they were supposedly in. Athletes or not, I just wasn’t buying it. I often find first person sex scenes a bit cringe and these had me cringing. A lot. 

But my biggest problem - how was this over 400 pages? Nothing happened. It dragged on and on and on and it felt like absolutely nothing happened. 

This took me nearly a month to read. Eurgh. 

[a-queer-seminarian]

I am trying to read more theology and I would love to know what texts have been most important to you? I am not a super academic person so things that are modestly accessible would be great, but also I am trying to push myself to read more challenging texts! ty so much!

Oooh what a fun question -- I’ve offered people book recs before, but never one that’s specifically the texts that have been most important to me.

To start, i recommend my #books tag on my other blog for way more books than the ones I’ll list here -- not every post in that tag is relevant to your question here, but some are. Here’s a list of the posts that are relevant to your request -- you’ll see that on most of them, I note how accessible vs academic or dense a text seemed to me. 

a list of recs for theology that’s helpful in this 2020 climate of pandemic and protest.

a list of recs for books about being queer and Christian

And now for a list of theological texts that have been most important to me -- deeply impacting how I read the Bible, how I relate to God or to other humans or to creation, etc.:

The basics

I have to include Christian Doctrine by Shirley Guthrie on this list...

simply because it was the first book I read when trying to figure out what Reformed Protestants believe after growing up Catholic. It’s actually a fairly easy read -- it’s longish, and not like the most riveting book you’ve ever read, but dang it has great stuff in it. It made me way more excited to enter the PC(USA) denomination than I’d been before reading it -- before, I felt like i was mainly running from the crappy parts of the Roman Catholic Church; after reading it, i realized i could also be running to the beautiful parts of Reformed theology!

But yeah, if you’re looking for a book that helps solidify in your mind concepts like the Trinity, or sin, or divine inspiration....this is a great book for that! (Assuming you want to learn about those things from a(n LGBT affirming) Reformed Protestant lens.

If you wanna read tons of excerpts from this text before deciding whether you want to read the whole thing, I posted a lot of passages from it in this tag over here.

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

this is the best book I can think of for non-academics who want to learn about reading the Bible in a way that confronts rather than ignores/accepts its more disturbing passages.

If you need help figuring out how to read the Bible without a fundamentalist / literalist lens, this is the book for you.

Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others by Barbara Brown Taylor

Very important if you want to practice a Christianity that doesn’t pit you against people of other (or no) faiths -- and very easy to read

Books that helped me develop a liberationist + queer + disabled theology

Justin Tanis’ book Transgendered was super important to me when i was first getting into trans theology...

However, the language in it isn’t particularly accessible -- it’s not horribly dense but I would now recommend OtherWise Christian by Chris Paige instead. Paige quotes from Tanis -- and many other foundational trans theologians! -- and does a great job of making their scholarly language a lot more accessible to non-academics. Ach yeah, OtherWise Christian is what you wanna read to get deep into the academia of trans theology without having to wade through the denser older books yourself.

If you do want to read some of Tanis’ book, you can read my fave chapters as pdfs here.

I’d also recommend Austen Hartke’s Transgender and Christian YouTube channel and my website blessedarethebinarybreakers.com for more trans theology presented in simpler language!

Disability: The Inclusive Church Resource by John M. Hull

Nancy Eiseland’s The Disabled God is also, like, foundational to a lot of disability theology but it’s not the easiest read. The last two chapters are the best part in my opinion.

For more great resources on disability theology, including some of my own writing (which is, I hope, easy to read), see this Google Doc i compiled once and also my disability theology tag.

Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman.

It’s a bit more academic / written more formally than some of the books on here cuz it’s older, but it’s also short and if you can get through even just the first two or three chapters you’ll have absorbed material that i promise you’ll be thinking about for a long, long time to come.

God of the Oppressed by James Cone

So foundational. Another classic by him is The Cross and the Lynching Tree. These books are both more academic but yeah, foundational stuff.

The only full text I’ve read by Gustavo Gutiérrez is On Job but I’ve read a lot of excerpts from other stuff by him...

You’ve gotta read at least a little bit of this guy to help you understand liberation theology as it originated in Latin America. Unfortunately, I do think he’s much more academic so not an “easy” read at all -- you could try to find other authors who sum up his ideas and works and offer fundamental excerpts in his own words, if you try to dig into something he’s written and find it too tough

But yeah, his book On Job in particular really helped me start figuring out “theodicy” -- the question of why there is suffering in the world / what God’s role in suffering is. But I had a lot of trouble figuring out what Gutiérrez was saying at a lot of points in the book, and I’ve been reading academic texts for like a decade now!! So if you try to read it and find it’s just too much, don’t feel bad. I only was able to get a real handle on this book after discussing it in a seminary classroom with a teacher helping us.

If you wander through my #theodicy tag, you’ll find my own understandings of suffering as shaped by On Job without having to read the book yourself! You also might like Everything Happens by Kate Bowler for a great look on suffering. 

Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God by Kaitlin B. Curtice (progressive Christian + citizen of the Potawatomi nation)

This book is truly incredible in that its language invites you in and reads like a devotional while making powerful statements about settler colonialism and assimilation and stuff. So so so good. 

When it comes to books that have deeply enriched, like, my “personal” prayer life / relationship with God:

Learning to Walk in the Dark and An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor (Episcopal background)

This author’s books are all so easy to read, and so so so full of wisdom. If you want your theology served to you in a less “so this is theology” kind of way and more of a devotional kind of way, this is the author for you.

Also she’s super popular among non-academics and academics alike so it’s easy to find people to discuss her work with!

An Altar in the World is about finding God outside of church, in the everyday, in the “secular”...

Learning to Walk in the Dark is about forming a faith that can survive and actually nourish you during the struggles of life (as opposed to what she calls a “full solar Christianity”)

A Tree Full of Angels by Sister Macrina Wiederkehr (Catholic nun)

this one is a little bit more formal in style, but not bad if you read it like i did, which was as a devotional where i’d only read a section or two each evening. It focuses on finding the divine in the most mundane of things -- see here for some posts sharing short excerpts from it.

Wow this got long....sorry about that! And if you were hoping for more shorter works, like articles instead of whole books, let me know and I can dig through my seminary stuff and share my faves!

[literarypilgrim]

Read Like a Gilmore

All 339 Books Referenced In “Gilmore Girls” 

Not my original list, but thought it’d be fun to go through and see which one’s I’ve actually read :P If it’s in bold, I’ve got it, and if it’s struck through, I’ve read it. I’ve put a ‘read more’ because it ended up being an insanely long post, and I’m now very sad at how many of these I haven’t read. (I’ve spaced them into groups of ten to make it easier to read)

1. 1984 by George Orwell  2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon 5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 9. The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan 10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James 

11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 13. Atonement by Ian McEwan 14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy 15. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 16. Babe by Dick King-Smith 17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi 18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie 19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 21. Beloved by Toni Morrison 22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney 23. The Bhagava Gita 24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy 25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel 26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy 27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali 29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner 30. Candide by Voltaire 31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer 32. Carrie by Stephen King 33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 34. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White 36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman 37. Christine by Stephen King 38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse    41. The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty 42. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare 43. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell 44. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton 45. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker 46. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 48. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac 49. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 50. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber    51. The Crucible by Arthur Miller 52. Cujo by Stephen King 53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 54. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 55. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D 56. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 57. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 58. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol 59. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 60. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 61. Deenie by Judy Blume 62. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson 63. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx 64. The Divine Comedy by Dante 65. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells 66. Don Quixote by Cervantes 67. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv 68. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 69. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe 70. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook 71. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe 72. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn  73. Eloise by Kay Thompson 74. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger 75. Emma by Jane Austen 76. Empire Falls by Richard Russo 77. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol 78. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 79. Ethics by Spinoza 80. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

81. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende 82. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 83. Extravagance by Gary Krist 84. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 85. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore 86. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan 87. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser 88. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson 89. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 90. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein 91. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 92. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce 93. Fletch by Gregory McDonald 94. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 95. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem 96. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 97. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 98. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger 99. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers 100. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut 101. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler 102. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg 103. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner 104. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen 105. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels 106. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo 107. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy  108. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky  109. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell  110. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford 

111. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom 112. The Graduate by Charles Webb 113. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 114. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 115. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 116. The Group by Mary McCarthy 117. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 118. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling 119. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 120. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers    121. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 122. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 123. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare 124. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare 125. Henry V by William Shakespeare 126. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 127. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 128. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris 129. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton 130. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III    131. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 132. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer 133. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss  134. How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland  135. Howl by Allen Ginsberg  136. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo  137. The Iliad by Homer 138. I’m With the Band by Pamela des Barres  139. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote  140. Inferno by Dante 

141. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee 142. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy 143. It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton 144. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 145. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 146. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 147. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain 148. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 149. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito 150. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander 151. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 152. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 153. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence 154. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal 155. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 156. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield 157. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis 158. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke 159. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken  160. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

161. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 162. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway 163. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen 164. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 165. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 166. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 167. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson 168. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 169. The Love Story by Erich Segal 170. Macbeth by William Shakespeare 171. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 172. The Manticore by Robertson Davies 173. Marathon Man by William Goldman 174. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 175. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir 176. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman 177. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 178. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer 179. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken 180. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare 181. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 182. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 183. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson 184. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 185. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin  186. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor  187. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman  188. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret  189. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars 190. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 

191. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 192. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall 193. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh 194. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken 195. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest 196. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo 197. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 198. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 199. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 200. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 201. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin 202. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen 203. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson 204. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay 205. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 206. Night by Elie Wiesel 207. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 208. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan 209. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell 210. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

211. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (will NEVER read again) 212. Old School by Tobias Wolff 213. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 214. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 215. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 216. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan 217. Oracle Night by Paul Auster 218. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 219. Othello by Shakespeare 220. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 221. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 222. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson 223. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton 224. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster 225. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan 226. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 227. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious 228. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 229. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington 230. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 231. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain 232. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby 233. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker 234. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche 235. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind 236. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 237. Property by Valerie Martin 238. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon  239. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw  240. Quattrocento by James Mckean 

241. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall 242. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers 243. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 244. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham 245. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi 246. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 247. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin 248. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 249. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman 250. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien 251. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton 252. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King 253. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert 254. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton 255. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 256. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 257. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster 258. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin 259. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition 260. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi 261. Sanctuary by William Faulkner 262. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford 263. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James 264. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum 265. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne  266. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand  267. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir  268. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd  269. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman  270. Selected Hotels of Europe 

271. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell 272. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 273. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 274. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill 275. Sexus by Henry Miller 276. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 277. Shane by Jack Shaefer 278. The Shining by Stephen King 279. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse 280. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton 281. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut 282. Small Island by Andrea Levy 283. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway 284. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers 285. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore 286. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht 287. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos 288. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker 289. Songbook by Nick Hornby 290. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare 291. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 292. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron  293. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner  294. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov 295. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach  296. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller  297. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams  298. Stuart Little by E. B. White  299. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway  300. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust 

301. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett 302. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber 303. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 304. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 305. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry 306. Time and Again by Jack Finney 307. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 308. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway 309. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 310. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare    311. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 312. The Trial by Franz Kafka 313. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson 314. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett 315. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom 316. Ulysses by James Joyce 317. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath 318. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 319. Unless by Carol Shields  320. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann 

321. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers 322. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 323. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard 324. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 325. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett 326. Walden by Henry David Thoreau 327. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten 328. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 329. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker 330. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles 331. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell 332. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka 333. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson 334. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee 335. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire 336. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum 337. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 338. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 339. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

[randomfandom815]

Defending the women of LOST/Sexism in LOST

People say they don’t like Kate Austen because she’s “annoying” “can’t choose between Jack and Sawyer” “always wants to join every single mission”. Kate has way bigger things to worry about than sorting out her romantic feelings. Yes, she is developing feelings for both Jack and Sawyer, but she doesn’t have time to figure them out while trying to survive on the island. And the fact that people don’t like her because of the whole “I’m coming with you” thing is a little ridiculous, because they’re hating Kate for wanting to protect her friends and do whatever she can to help. You know who else does that? Jack. But plenty of people love him for those very same reasons. Yeah, a lot of Kate’s character was centered around the love triangle, but that isn’t the character’s fault, it the writers’s.

Then there’s Claire Littleton. People always complain about her “my baby!” thing, but... she only actually says that a few times, AND, if your child was taken from you or you thought your child was going to be hurt, wouldn't you be worried out of your mind? Wouldn’t you want to do anything to help them? People also criticize Claire for her entire Season 6 arc. She was alone, on the island, thinking everyone had abandoned her, with only the MIB for company. She was also tortured by the temple Others, who she thought had taken her child. Claire was a single mother who just wanted to keep her son safe, give her a break. 

Sun-Hwa Kwon is a character who actually doesn’t receive that much hate, but there is still the fact that people don’t like her because she left Ji Yeon to go back to the island for Jin. Here’s the thing: Sun had no way of knowing what was would happen on the island. She had no way of knowing that Jin had time traveled to the past, and she had no way of knowing what would happen with the MIB/Locke. She thought that she would be able to go to the island, bring Jin and the others back, and the two of them would reunite with Ji Yeon. And then in the submarine incident, Sun didn't want Jin to stay. She wanted him to live and take care of Ji Yeon. It was Jin who made the decision to die with her, not Sun.

Shannon Rutherford is a very unlikable character. Even I don’t enjoy her character, or Boone, and that is a view shared by many other people in the fandom. Many people call her selfish, spoiled, and just plain rude. And she was all of those things, but that wasn’t her entire character. Remember, they had all just been through a plane crash, landed on an island with no chance of rescue. Also, friendly reminder that she was only 20 years old. She was scared, and her way of coping with that was to try to do something normal. Let’s not forget, in Pilot, Part 2, she volunteered to go on the mission to fix the transceiver. She was constantly feeling useless, and it didn’t help that other characters, especially Boone, were constantly putting her down and mocking her. When she started to see Walt, she genuinely made an attempt to help him, even though she wasn’t sure if he was even there. Her death was untimely, and I wished we had gotten to see her grow more as a person. Also, her death was used for shock value and to further Sayid’s character development.

And now, one of the most hated characters of LOST, Ana Lucia Cortez. Now, while the characters I mentioned above were shit on and criticized, Ana Lucia was absolutely hated by the fandom. People hated her attitude, her toughness, her dislike of most of the people around her, and the fact that she killed Shannon (who, by the way, was just as disliked by many Ana Lucia haters). You know who else has a similar attitude? Who has that same toughness and dislike of people? Who else killed someone? That would be Sawyer, a fan-favorite, white male character who is beloved by the fandom. Now, for the last point, what I am comparing here is Ana Lucia killing Shannon to Sawyer killing the man he thought was Frank Sawyer in Australia, right before flight 815. Ana Lucia killed Shannon because she was trying to protect the people she was leading (including Sawyer!) from who she thought was the Others, and killing Shannon was an accident. Sawyer killed the man completely on purpose and out of revenge. Oh, and it wasn’t even the right person. Yes, I am aware of the man Ana killed long before flight 815 out of revenge, but if we can take her very small amount of character development, in which she refused to kill Henry Gale, a known Other at that point. Whereas Sawyer was still willing to kill a bunch of people in Season 6, the end of his character arc. And yet, Sawyer is still in most people’s top five characters lists (just to be clear, I do not hate Sawyer at all, and this is not anti Sawyer but pro Ana Lucia). You may argue that people love Sawyer because of his character development, which I do agree with. However, Ana Lucia was never given the chance to have Sawyer-like character development because she was killed off in the same season that she was introduced in. She wasn’t even allowed to be in the church in the flash-sideways, and she didn’t get to “move on.” Ana Lucia deserved way better than the death for shock value that she got.

Next up on the list is Juliet Burke. She, like Sun, also isn’t the target of a lot of hate, but there are still things that need defending. The first thing is, of course, her sudden change of mind when it came to detonating the hydrogen bomb in Season 5. Yes, it was selfish of her to endanger everyone on the island just because of the way Sawyer looked at Kate. But if the plan did actually work, which she thought it would, that meant she would lose everything she had gained over the past few years, including Sawyer. Juliet is incredibly kind and feminine while also being badass at the same time, which is amazing because you don’t usually see those two traits coinciding (usually a badass character isn’t very feminine and a “traditionally feminine” character isn’t a good fighter). As for all of her motives in Season 3, Juliet was trapped on the island for three years. All she wanted to do was leave and go home to her sister. Yes, she manipulated Sun, but right after that, she made things right by helping Jack make a plan to stop the Others. Her death was heroic, and I’m glad she was finally able to be happy in the flash-sideways. (I am declining to mention her whole relationship with Goodwin and all the drama with Ben, although I might dive into that in another post). 

Now, the character Rose Nadler has almost nothing that needs to be defended. She is a constant wise voice of reason who isn’t concerned with the drama of the rest of the survivors. Her relationship with her husband Bernard is very sweet, but she doesn’t let that stop her from doing the smart thing (like stopping his SOS sign idea). Not only that, but Rose has one of the best (and most meta) lines on the show: “If you say live together, die alone to me, Jack, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Another character who doesn't need much defending is Charlotte Lewis, but not for the same reason as Rose. Charlotte was done dirty by the writers. Of the science team, she is the least fleshed out and explored. She had a single flashback and a little bit of exposition information from Ben, but that’s pretty much it. Every significant thing she did was for the sake of other characters. She had a fake-out death so Ben would reveal that he had a spy on the boat. She was taken to the Barracks so that members of Jack’s group would have a reason to go there. Her going to the Barracks was also an excuse to get Miles and Kate there. And she only died/was dying for shock value, to up the stakes of the time flashes, to provide more questions to the characters and the audience, and to further Daniel’s character development. In the flash-sideways, all she did was go on a date with Sawyer and further his character development. She didn't get to go to the church and move on. Daniel and Miles, the other members of her team, on the other hands were given compelling backstories and centric episodes.

Penelope Widmore is similar to Charlotte in that there isn’t much to defend because she doesn’t do much that affects the plot. Nearly everything she does is about Desmond, and the writers barely even gave her a personality. I’m sure Penny was an actually interesting person, if they had bothered her to give her any storyline that didn't involve her love interest.

Danielle Rousseau is a character that kind of slides in and out of the story as needed. Now, Danielle isn’t the subject of a lot of criticism just because she isn’t very focused on, but from what I have seen, here’s what I have to say: Danielle was alone on the island for sixteen years. And for sixteen years, she had to live with the knowledge that she was forced to kill the man she loved and her team. Not to mention the fact that her daughter, Alex, was taken away from her when she was just a week old. Can you blame Danielle for being paranoid? Her death was not a fair end to the character, and it was only used to kill off Danielle quickly and provide shock value.

Her daughter, Alex Rousseau, is similar to Charlotte and Penny in that she doesn’t need to be defended because everything she does is to affect other characters. In this case, those characters are Ben and Danielle (especially Ben in the later seasons). Danielle’s entire character is centered around the fact that she lost Alex and has been searching for her, and Ben’s motivations after Season 4 are largely motivated by Alex’s death. She herself doesn’t have much of a character arc, and her death was only to provide shock value and further Ben’s character development.

Another character that falls into the category of not having much to defend because every action is for someone else is Libby Smith. Once the tailies and the main survivors joined together, she was almost immediately shoved in a relationship with Hurley. The only things we knew about her backstory were that her husband died, she was a clinical psychologist, she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley, and she gave Desmond a boat. That’s it. She didn’t have a centric episode, and she only appeared in other people’s flashbacks. Her death was only to provide shock value and further Hurley’s character development, as well to show that Michael betrayed the survivors. 

Notice how many of these women died for shock value and/or to further a man’s character development? Notice how many of these women are disliked for traits that other characters are loved for? Notice how many of them barely exist as their own character without a man? I love LOST, I really do, but their treatment of female characters needed a lot of improvement.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

The Critique of Manners, Part II

~Or~

A Candid Review of ITV's Emma (1997)

Disclaimer: I do know that both this and the Miramax version were released in 1996, but to avoid confusion, I refer to this one as the “1997 Emma” in reference to the US release date.

The bones of this review were written some six years ago after my initial viewing. I’ve watched it three or four times since then, two very recently (Within the past year). I’d started to soften on it in the most recent watch. So many people love it so much I thought surely maybe I’m just crazy or even wrong; until I found this blog post from 2008 (a year before my favorite version was released) that hit on almost EVERY SINGLE thing that skeeved me out about this version when I first watched it.

Like my previous review of Emma. (2020), I’ll be covering the cast and overall handling of the script in comparison with what I know from reading the book. I will also be commenting on my thoughts about the costumes (Whether they are attractive or accurate, or both, or neither) which will be a bit more in depth than it was for the 2020 version, and this will set a pattern for the costumes section going forward.

Directed by Diarmuid Lawrence with screenwriting by Andrew Davies (Or should I say “Written by Andrew Davies with direction by Diarmuid Lawrence”?), this version was  a fan-favorite among Janeites for many years for … well, reasons I’ve never been entirely certain of. I’ve read the book twice through and referenced pertinent passages MANY times besides, and really I don’t see what they’re raving about.

Let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

I’d known about this adaptation for a while, but I held off on watching it, largely for one reason: my apprehension about Mark Strong playing Mr. Knightley.

     I was concerned because when I watched this I had already seen Mark Strong as Sir John Conroy in The Young Victoria and as Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes, both very unpleasant characters. But there have been several occasions when I expressed displeasure with casting choices only to eat my words when I actually watched the movie. So I entered into watching this with an optimistic outlook, sure that Mark and Kate would surprise me with brilliant performances. And I would like to say that they did, but that would be an untruth.

My biggest fear about Mark Strong playing Mr. Knightley was that his rebuking of Emma was going to be a watered down version of ‘RAAAWWWRRR’ that I was familiar with, specifically because of The Young Victoria. It’s very hard for me to see Mark Strong point his finger in Emily Blunt’s face and shout at her, and then watch him do the same thing with Kate Beckinsale (only somewhat less aggressively) and expect to feel all warm and fuzzy about their romance. I expected that to be a tall order. And it was. Whenever he raises his voice, the right side of his face pulls up into a snarl. Now since it does this no matter what role he’s playing I’m guessing that’s just how his face is. It’s not his fault really and it’s almost certainly unintentional, but I’ve seen that snarl before and it does NOT belong on Mr. Knightley’s face.

   Don’t ever think I don’t LOVE Kate Beckinsale, and I don’t necessarily think that my problems with this interpretation of Emma are her fault; these things very rarely fall on the shoulders of the actual actors, but those of the screenwriters and directors who guide them. However – and I am aware that this might sound a bit harsh – I would say that at points, Kate Beckinsale’s performance in this movie (In my opinion) barely outstrips community theatre or even very good high school drama club level acting. It seems to me that there’s burden on her here to sound historical or period. This lends to this interpretation of Emma feeling at once both cold and childish (more on that later.)

Her best moments are when she runs into Jane as Jane is leaving Donwell and when she speaks with Robert Martin at the end of the film. I always like scenes where Emma tacitly apologizes to Mr. Martin, and her feeling when she invites him to Donwell is Kate’s finest moment in this movie.

I found Raymond Coulthard’s Frank Churchill insignificant at first, but on repeat viewings I really started to hate him. I don’t think Austen intended Frank’s caddishness (to use more modern vernacular I’d say he’s an utter “Douche”) to be quite this obvious on first glance. He’s a creep in this version and Raymond Coulthard is just not at all attractive to me, from his big nose to his little shark teeth.

Olivia Williams was a good, even great, Jane Fairfax, and in my opinion does a much better job of portraying Jane’s vexation than, say, Polly Walker did (more on that next time), while still quietly looking like she’d like to arm-bar Frank rather than take his vulgar teasing lying down.

She also has the distinction of being the only Jane Fairfax who’s singing REALLY blows Emma’s out of the water, and I like that all of the songs she sings are in languages other than English (primarily Italian I think?). This achieves the double whammy of showing how much more accomplished she is than Emma by emphasizing that not only does Jane sing and play better, but she knows languages too.

Samantha Morton is a superb actress whom I love and I was sort of appalled at how she looks in this movie. Is she dying of a wasting illness? She looks like a gust of wind will carry her away, although since she looked the same in the 1997 Jane Eyre (In which she played the title role under similarly appalling direction) perhaps that was just her look that year?

Dominic Rowan, as Mr. Elton, is… there’s a perfect word to describe it and I just can’t think of it right now. Like every other young man in this movie (other than Robert Martin) he’s got this feeling of skeeviness to me but it’s more than that. It’s a dweebie-ness as well. This is so dissatisfactory to me because Mr. Elton is supposed to have every appearance of charm and agreeableness, with his only obvious fault being his over-eagerness to ingratiate himself to Emma and some rather vulgar locker-room type talk about marrying for fortune. He’s just so… (I’ve hit upon it now after some discussion with my sister) dingy. He looks less like a “very handsome young man” who “knows the value of a good income” and more like the kind of guy that scrubs up okay, but still you can tell from the rumple of his clothes and the pizzaroni odor wafting from him that he lives in his mom’s basement.

The shining star for me in this production was Alistair Petrie as Robert Martin. I love him as an actor and especially after watching him in Cranford, I think he was an excellent choice for Harriet’s Mr. Martin.

Davies wrote the character to be a little more romantic (Actually buying Anne Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest, where originally Mr. Martin was supposed to forget to – something Emma uses as a mark against him to prove how he will age into an “gross vulgar old farmer” who is “obsessed with profit and loss”.)

I especially like an inserted scene where Mr. Martin, working in his field, sees a distressed Jane Fairfax from afar as she is walking home (I think from Donwell). I thought it drew an interesting parallel between two emotionally wronged characters that otherwise would have no interaction.

What’s with Mrs. Elton (Lucy Robinson)? I don’t think nearly enough people question this. I’ve seen it explained away as her being from Bristol and trying to make herself sound more hoity-toity to hide the fact that she’s New Money. I’m not positive on what a Bristol accent sounds like (For that is where Augusta Hawkins is from) but… this sounds like an American trying to sound posh. At some points she almost sounds Texan. It’s all very confusing, because the actress is British.  

Prunella Scales lists among her achievements being an outstanding actress and comedienne, as well as bringing into the world Samuel West, one of my all time favourite British screen crushes. She's probably best known for her work on Fawlty Towers, so its interesting to see her range as much less inscrutable Miss Bates. Her performance is by the book, but so much more engaging than Constance Chapman's 1972 offering, although i find her perhaps a shade too placid. She lacks a certain nervousness that I associate with the character (for more information, see my previous review.)

As for Bernard Hepton as Mr. Woodhouse, I can only say I. Didn’t. Like. Him. I have every consciousness of this being a personal bias. I have seen him play too many insufferable characters in too many things to like him as Emma’s lovable if tiresome father. This isn’t a knock on him or his performance; his reaction to Mrs. Elton is some great subtle visual comedy, this is just a me thing.

Another one of the better characterizations, though a relatively small role, is John Knightley. Played by Guy Henry, he is shown to be a good father, and an “Gentleman-like man”, with just the right blend of good humor and caustic comments.

Sets & Surroundings

I’d never paid MUCH attention to or questioned the houses and interiors used for estates in Austen adaptations until the 2020 version of Emma used such ridiculously lavish houses for relatively provincial gentry it forced me to sit up and pay attention. I think the houses used in this version are mostly suitable.

The part of Donwell Abbey’s exterior is played by Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The Key words for Donwell from the text are “rambling and irregular” and while perhaps not as big as the Former Claremont House (Which, it is believed, was Austen’s inspiration for Donwell Abbey) it definitely is a suitable architectural style and situation and furthermore, having been purchased in the 19th century by a glove manufacturer and having been up to that point left in a little bit of a state of disrepair, fits the “neglect of prospect” Austen describes as well. Its interiors are a cobble-work of the Great Hall at Broughton Castle (Oxfordshire), various rooms at Stanway House (Gloucestershire), and the Strawberry beds at Thame Park (Oxfordshire)

(Top, left – Sudeley Castle; Bottom left – Trafalgar Park; Right – Dorney Court)

Trafalgar Park in Wiltshire and its interiors (a minty sage-green drawing-room fitting in perfectly with the mint-chocolate – primarily chocolate – color palette of the production) played the role of the Woodhouse’s home, Hartfield. A typical Georgian style house in red brick, I believe is consistent with Austen’s description of a “well built, modern house”.

Dorney Court in Buckinghamshire was used for Randalls, Mr. Weston’s recently purchased estate. It’s a Tudor style red brick house and it looks pretty on the mark from the front facade, but I think it’s still too big for a “small estate” with only two guest rooms (Although there’s no panic about the snow in this version – perhaps because it’s already snowing when they set out.)

My biggest problem is the lighting of this movie. I understand natural lighting and I LOVE it when you can even it out – but it is so dark in the evening scenes that it adds to the colorlessness of an already colorless production.

Fashion

Oh Jenny Beavan. You are a well-respected costume designer with good reason. However, I know that most of these costumes are rentals, but why is every-fucking-thing in this movie a shade of brown, beige or green?

As you can see, a rich tapestry of brown and beige. And this isn’t selective. this is (just about) every day-wear outfit in the movie (barring repeats and a few exceptions that I’ll give mention to below.)

Emma’s outerwear is brought to you by Hershey’s Chocolate. Also I’m not certain but I think  that her light brown redingote is the same one as Elinor’s in the 1995 Sense and Sensibility? If anyone can confirm, drop it in the comments.

Perhaps the evening wear will be more colorful?

Barely – Mrs. Weston in a brownish orange; Mrs. John Knightley in an orange-ish brown; Emma gets a dark blue? Or is that just the wintery glow from the window on a dark green velvet? Green (either so dark it’s almost black, or washed-out mint) appears to be the only color Emma is allowed to wear other than brown or ivory/white. Even her gown for the Crown Inn Ball (upper right) is an underwhelming and rather dingy ivory. The champagne number she wears for Christmas at Randalls is not only lack-lustre, but also sports what I’m now calling a “Bridgerton Bust” (where the Empire waist comes up too high, with the seam apparently resting across her bust rather than under it.)

The pink frock (seen properly only from the back) on Mrs. Weston is as close to real color as a main character gets in this production, and can be recognized as one of Jane Bennet’s dresses from the previous year’s Pride and Prejudice.

Even Jane Fairfax doesn’t get a break. Rather than putting her in Jane Fairfax Blue ™ (honestly, Jane Fairfax being costumed in blue is so consistent at this point Crayola should just name a crayon in her honor - this is gonna come back in future reviews) she gets a black-green evening number with no trim at all, and a succession of what the Ladies over at Frock Flicks like to call the “Dumpy Regency Little White Dress”, or drab gray-blues.

Some of the background dancers in the Crown Inn Ball scene get to wear pink! Why not put Harriet in a nice pink frock for this scene?! Why is this so difficult?!

Strawberry picking at Donwell is the only time main characters are consistently wearing identifiable colors that aren’t brown or green: Mrs. Weston in pink, Miss Bates in (oddly the most colorful dress of them all) a nice refreshing lavender blue; Jane gets grey/blue and Mrs. Elton, a pastel mint. Harriet is also given a little break in Mrs. Elton’s introduction scene in a (very) pastel blue frock, while Emma sports white (with a trademark green shawl.)

So how about the...

Similarly dull. I almost screamed for joy when I saw that Frank’s jacket was actually blue, and a vibrant blue at that. (The red is too close to brown, I’m sorry.)

So yes, in short the costumes, while perfectly technically accurate (I didn’t get a lot of caps of them but the trousers sufficiently tight, not that I care to look), are drab as a peahen.

As always I’ll outsource any dancing critique by linking Tea With Cassiane on YouTube, since I find her insights on the approach to dancing in Austen adaptations just fascinating and I would like to share such witty and informed reviews.

The Andrew Davies of it All…

*Strong Opinions Ahead*

There are so many reasons why this adaptation isn’t for me. First of all the very idea of making Emma, one of Austen’s most socially complex works (certainly her most vivid) into a sparse 107 minutes is baffling to me. Perhaps I can understand if it’s a Theatrical release but this is a TV production. Why not at least make it a two part special?

And besides the issue that, in order to make this fit the time frame, the story is severely truncated, there’s… the Andrew Davies of it all.

I have some issues with Andrew Davies’ screenwriting for this adaptation particularly. A LOT of issues. Where does one start? I think Knightley is a good place.

It’s not just the casting I don’t like here; but it does say something to me that they chose Mark Strong for this role. It’s a casting decision I discovered with disbelief when I first saw clips from this version in a Period Drama men compilation video on YouTube. I mentioned above that I know Mark Strong as unpleasant characters with man-handling habits. That’s the kind of role Mark Strong is associated with because that’s just what he does well. And I think this played into the casting here, because Davies’ interpretation of Knightley is a bit… fierce. He shouts SO MUCH in this movie and in scenes like the Harriet Smith debacle (where Mr. Knightley of the book even gets a bit angry with Emma) I can understand this, perhaps. But in the book Mr. Knightley takes many pauses to collect and calm himself, because his goal is not to quarrel with Emma but to argue a point. 97 Knightley takes no such pauses and spends the whole scene in what some might call an escalating rage.

Knightley’s cheerful arrival to Hartfield to tell Emma that Robert Martin intended to propose to Harriet is cut out so we start right off with his indignant exclamation of “She refused him?!” and it’s all go from there. To make matters worse, Emma’s own arguments are crippled by Davies’ editing. Many of her more (what might even latterly be considered “feminist”) arguments are cut out. In fact once Knightley gets going, he juggernauts his way through all of his rebukes and speeches from the book, but Emma hardly gets a word in edgewise after arguing that Robert Martin is not Harriet’s equal. What Austen wrote as a heated debate is turned by Davies into a one-sided tirade. (By don’t take my word for it, watch the clip.)

The final cherry on top is having Emma, after Knightley leaves the room with the last word firmly in his grasp, childishly pout “You are wrong Mr. Knightley, and you will see you are wrong and then you will be sorry.” I half expected her to cross her arms and stomp her foot. Worth noting is the fact that Davies adds an additional “It was badly done. Emma,” in this scene where there was none in the book. Rather overkill to my mind. Is this his catchphrase?

At Box Hill, Davies has Knightley begin his climactic rebuke of Emma’s insulting behavior by grabbing her arm and hauling her aside, and concludes by leading her, still holding her arm, to the carriage. Well at least he doesn’t shout at her in this scene; but again, all but one of Emma’s responses are cut out and she stands there, pouting until Mr. Knightley leaves and then she bursts into tears.

When Mr. Knightly proposes to Emma I was feeling good about this scene, until he dropped the “I held you when you were three weeks old” line, and I immediately felt uncomfortable. Maybe you DON’T want mention how you held her when she was a baby after you asked her to MARRY you. But perhaps worse is Emma’s response to the line: “Do you like me as well now as you did then?”

Bringing up holding Emma when she was three weeks old at the proposal (A line which was not in the book) is bad enough but there seems to be a peculiar repeated emphasis on Knightley recalling Emma as a baby. He dragged it up previously when he and Emma make up after the Harriet debacle, as he holds John and Isabella’s baby daughter (whose name, I would mention, is Emma.) In this instance too, the line is a Davies addition.

Let’s talk about Knightley’s strawberry line.

This is delivered in voice-over as a transition to the strawberry picking party at Donwell, and is portrayed as a formal invitation: “Mr. Knightley invites you to taste his strawberries, which are ripening fast.”

At first I was confident that I was reading too much into this (but I think at this point I can safely say that I’m not). I can’t help bursting out laughing every time I hear that line. It was a questionable way to word that if you ask me, especially considering that this is (once again) NOT the line in the book, and it was NOT a formal invitation. It was said to Mrs. Elton and intended to be a joke.  

“You had better explore Donwell then,” replied Mr. Knightly “That may be done without horses. Come and eat the strawberries; they’re ripening fast.”

   ‘ If Mr. Knightly did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so...’

   And here I thought Janeites hated adaptations that cut out “Miss Austen’s biting wit.”

To top it all off, we have Frank Churchill (Who I have already pointed out is a bit of a creep in this adaptation and even more detestable than he already was as Austen wrote him) praising Jane: this would be fine, if he wasn’t drooling into Emma’s ear about the turn of Jane’s throat, (He actually utters this line)

and how fine his dead aunt’s jewels will look against her skin. May I just be the first to say “Ehewhegaugh”.

I juxtapose this with the book where Frank's lines are almost exactly as Davies renders them, except Jane Austen never wrote the "have you ever seen such a skin?" Line. The difference i have highlighted in bold:

"... She is a complete angel. Look at her. Is she not an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes as she looks up at my father. --- You will be glad to hear that my uncle intends to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will it not be beautiful in her dark hair?"

Because talking about how pretty your fiancee's hair is, is normal and marginally less creepy than talking about what a fine skin she has or how lovely your (i cannot stress this part enough) dead aunt's jewels will look against it. Davies' script also makes no mention of having them reset, which makes me think he’s talking about the actual necklaces and bracelets Mrs. Churchill would have worn.

But hey, maybe its just a me thing.

Harriet Smith’s story suffers, primarily, I can with some candor admit, due to the time constraints. After Mr. Elton is married, we never see Harriet in any distress. It’s almost as though she’s forgotten all about it! Emma never has to appeal to her to exert herself or to move on. Perhaps this is better than Doran Godwin’s Emma gaslighting Harriet and manipulating her by constantly chastising her for… well general heartbreak (but that’s a bugaboo for a different review.)

My last complaint of note is that ludicrous harvest feast at the end of the movie. The whole concept of this scene just does not seem at all Janely to me. I was under the impression that I was meant to be watching an Austen. Not some bullshit Thomas Hardy knock-off. This is another Davies touch and I hate it more on the principal that it is one of his numerous, obsessive tweaks made solely to point out the existence of the lower classes.

If Davies wanted to show Mr. Knightley’s being an attentive landlord and gentleman farmer then I don’t see why he couldn’t just show Knightley actually running his farm?

“Okay’, you might say, “but I think the highlighting of the servants is to show how good Knightley is by treating them like real people compared to everyone else”, and I hear you. And in the situations where that is the case, like him greeting the Woodhouse’s butler and asking after his family I think that’s totally fine and in character. But things like the servants moving the knee cushions every time someone moves down the line at strawberry picking, to me, is AS ridiculous as the “servants clipping the lawn on their hands and knees with tiny scissors” trope. Like we get it, people took the lower classes for granted, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it would be easier and more realistic to have Mrs. Elton have to move her own knee cushion. I don’t think Knightley would instruct his servants, who he treats so well, to do that kind of thing, but you could write in Mrs. Elton’s expectation of it if you wanted. It seems like the kind of thing she would expect the landed gentry to do.

Screenwriter for some of the best loved Austen’s (including the sacrosanct 1995 P&P Mini-series and my favorite Sense & Sensibility), I thought of Davies for years as untouchable; until Sanditon happened and left everyone who knows anything about Jane Austen really wondering where this mess came from. I put it to you now that it was there in Davies all along.

Davies admitted, when talking about the drastic “Sexing Up” he did in Sanditon that he felt Austen’s works could have done with a bit more sex appeal. I can hardly disagree and additions like Darcy’s little swim in the pond and Edward Ferrars’ angsty wood-chopping are welcome and beloved. But it seems that what he really wanted all along was what he gave us in Sanditon; and finally, without actual source material to stand in his way, he had a chance let his dirty old man show and gave “Austen” the sexing up he thought it needed.

And it gets more troubling as you look back.

In my opening paragraph to this review I mentioned a 2008 blog post that not only agreed with me that there’s something very off about this screenplay, but gave me some possible insights as to why. It points out numerous things that I have always questioned in this version but have never seen anyone else criticize (though I am informed that more recently it has gained its’ share of critics). In fact the post itself actually points out that almost no one in the Austen Blog-sphere had (at that point) criticized this version’s faults in any meaningful way, but my favorite thing about it is that it points out what you find in Davies’ screenplay if you pay careful attention to it “Rather than sitting there and cataloguing what is “technically faithful and whatnot”.

Many Austen bloggers have kind of been playing Miss Taylor to Davies’ Emma for some two decades and change.

The most troubling thing of all is Davies own comments on Mr. Knightley (and other things, more inferred in his screen play). All of the aspects of this interpretation of Knightley that I mentioned earlier seem to stem from the fact that, as quoted in Sarah Caldwell’s book on his works, Davies thinks there’s “Something odd going on with Knightley.”

Davies clearly reads foul, or at least questionable, intentions in Mr. Knightley but I find it interesting that, rather than cutting out material he may have found troubling about Knightley in the book out of his screenplay, he doubled down by adding MORE troubling lines and situations (that were never in the book at all, and imagined solely by himself) in a romantic story with a happy ending.

Perhaps there’s not so much something odd going on with Knightley, Mr. Davies, but with you.

Final Thoughts

At this point I might ask what it is that everyone sees in this version that makes them think it’s so perfect, but that would be a bit pointless since all I’ve read since I discovered this version is people on elaborating on just that and I don’t care to hear much more.

“The lines are verbatim!” textually, perhaps, but it’s the ones that added that trouble me.

“The leads have so much chemistry!” I’m glad you think so, but I can’t find it.

“The costumes are damn near perfect!” And brown. So, so very brown.

As a 90's TV period drama, this version is pretty standard. It sticks to the book (except in those places where the screenwriter saw fit to dabble with some subtle but troubling suggestions about the characters.) And if it floats your boat, as always I'm glad it gives you what you want from the story.

I know I hold unpopular opinions on Jane Austen adaptations, and perhaps this is one of them, but every time I watch this version I feel the need to read the book as a cleanse. Perhaps Davies’s ferocious Knightley was simply a pendulum swing reaction to Douglas McGrath’s almost too laid back interpretation in the Miramax film from earlier in 1996, but even if that’s the case it’s just uncalled for and is my biggest turn off for this film.

Tone: 3

Ribbon Rating: Badly Done! (40 Ribbons)

Casting: 5

Acting: 6

Scripting: 4

Pacing: 2

Cinematography: 4

Setting: 3

Costumes: 5

Music: 2

Book Accuracy: 6

[blonde-of-sherwood]

Julia Quinn's books are my absolute favourite books which I never thought I'd ever see on screen tbh. Finally finished Bridgerton (who releases a show on a day you're actually required to spend with family, the one time I can't binge it all in one go!) so need to type out my thoughts about it all in no particular order then how I think it, possible spoilers ahead...

- Eloise was my favourite Bridgerton, her facial expressions were amazing. I'm actually not a big fan of her in the books but loved her in this.

- Eloise and Benedict's relationship was my fav sibling one, again not something I thought would happen coming into this.

- I loved and need more of the Bridgerton sibling content. There was already more than in the books but I just need more.

- I love Anthony in the books (older brother trying to do his best is apparently a thing I love) and I actually loved him in the series for the most part. I'm hoping when we get his main storyline this season can be used to show the difference and changes in Anthony.

- Anthony's book is probably my favourite and I loved all the little nods to what is to come. I can't wait to see him fall in love properly with Kate and see all the sarcastic back and forth that's involved.

- I know Benedict and Sophie are a lot of people's favourites and I could see a lot of the hints to that storyline. However, I did think that his storyline would a good one to change to a LGBT storyline without losing a lot of the essence of the story and am surprised that was not the way it was being hinted at.

- I'm still not a big fan of Daphne, and am shocked they kept that scene in and did not really think she understood what she did and why it was wrong and mainly blamed anyone but herself.

- I loved Simon and could easily watch him all day. I can't remember what I used to picture Simon as looking like but the show definitely improved x100% on that.

- I loved Lady Danbury and she was exactly how I imagined. I actually preferred Show Violet to Book Violet, you could see how much she loves her children and misses her husband.

I mean I could go on and possibly will make a second post of all my other thoughts once I've worked through them in my head. Overall I think they did really well and didn't loose the essence of the book whilst adding more detail which you need in an 8 hour series. I can't wait to see the next series (please give it us ASAP Netflix!). I also hope it means more books from this genre will be turned into films/tv show, Austen is good and all but there's so many stories out there and if you can make a bazillion superhero/action films you can make more of these. And now to digest it all, and find someone to talk to about all my feelings!

[crosbytoews]

january reading check in!

i have read a lot of books considering we’re only halfway through the month. my semester starts next week so i’m anticipating reading a lot less than i have been lol 

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

YA fantasy about a girl discovering she has magical abilities and joining a secret society. it’s classified as YA but it really felt more new adult to me despite the  main character being 16, probably because it takes place on a college campus. i am making an effort to read more books by authors of color this year, and both the author and main character are Black. i really enjoyed this one and can’t wait for the next one in the series! 

Verity by Colleen Hoover

a thriller about a woman who is hired to finish a series written by a famous author who is no longer able to write after a car accident. she realizes some... startling things after finding the author’s diary from before the accident. um this book was sooo addicting and fucked up. if you like gillian flynn (as you should) you will love this. i will add that there are some graphic sex scenes but they were really hot if you are into m/f. i’m not always a fan of sex scenes but these were STEAMY

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adam

perhaps the best book ever written? a professional baseball player finds out his wife has been faking it in bed and the argument that ensues results in the wife asking for a divorce. his teammate finds out and introduces him to a secret society of nashville elite who read romance novels and try to apply what they learn to their love lives. this book was so cute and fun! and steamy! i love this series!!!

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell 

i will probably be thinking about this book for the rest of my life. this book goes back and forth in time. one part is about a high school student being groomed by her teacher and having an affair with him. she views the relationship as consensual and empowering. the other part takes place in 2017 in the wake of the me too movement where she is forced to confront the real nature of their relationship. this was one of the books where i was constantly taking pictures of quotes that were meaningful to me. this was the author’s debut novel and i will read whatever she writes next trigger warnings for rape and underage sex! 

The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans

this is a collection of six short stories and a 100 page novella. the stories and novella deal with themes of race, identity, grief, and family. this was extremely well written. all the short stories were meaningful despite being, well, short. i’m going to be thinking about these stories for a long time. the author of this book is Black and wrote about aspects of racism i haven’t given much thought too before. i recommend this to everybody! 

Recursion by Blake Crouch 

i listened to the audiobook. this is a sci-fi thriller about a mysterious phenomenon called “false memory syndrome” where all of a sudden people will remember details of an alternate universe.  this book was sooo much more better than dark matter, which i actually kind of liked. there are a lot of plot twists and it was a total mindfuck. i’m kind of proud of blake crouch for actually writing a female character.

Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

the second book in the bromance book club series. this one is enemies to lovers! it’s delightful! sadly it is less steamy than the first one but i loved mack so much. this series is a must read. please read it!!!

i’m currently reading emma by jane austen and you have a match by emma lord. i’ll post an end of the month wrap-up... at the end of the month 

[simptasia]

kate austen has never had a job in her life

[inknerd]

*in no particular order and books are chosen from all books I read this year no matter the publication date (as in, there are not only 2020 releases on here)

⚬ The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune Very cute and funny standalone that brightened my week! I would describe it as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children meets Good Omens, and the whole thing was such a pleasant and nice read. This is my favourite book this year, for sure.

⚬ Saga, vol. 1-9 by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples Okay, so everyone has probably already heard how amazing these graphic novels are. I had too, and thought naively “but are they that good tho?” before I actually read the series, and I’m here now to tell you they are that good. Go read them.

⚬ Severance by Ling Ma I honestly thought I’d tired of the post-apocalyptic novel, but this one proved me wrong! It’s like a weirdly aesthetically pleasing end of the world, that’s both haunting and melancholic at the same time.

⚬ Loveless by Alice Oseman I’ve been looking for more ace rep in novels and this is probably one of the best, if not the best, I’ve found so far. Alice Oseman just never disappoints! I can relate to so much in this, the characters feel real and the plot, while not super engaging, is not boring.

⚬ Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata I don’t know how to feel about this book exactly... It just made me think a lot and feel a lot. It was relatable without me really understanding why.

⚬ The Little Library Cookbook by Kate Young Yeah... This year I’ve been reading cookbooks just for fun... This was a gift from a friend, and it looks so pretty and expensive? It’s quite minimalistic but the pictures in it are so pretty and fit so well with the look of this book. It’s also always fun to look at recipes from or inspired by some of you favourite books. This is perfect for the booknerd who likes to bake!

⚬ Emma by Jane Austen So I finally read this! And I don’t understand why I quit reading it the first time because this is so funny and romantic? The line “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more” has been living rent free in my mind for like 10 months!

⚬ Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro & Cornelia Funke I honestly think that most movie-to-books adaptions never quite succeed, but this was so good? It felt like Funke managed to honour the original movie while still making it her own.

⚬ Witch Hat Atelier, vol 1-3 by Kamome Shirahama I’m going to order the next volumes NOW, because this story is just so cool so far. I love the artstyle, the plot is mysterious but also fun and the worldbuilding and magic system are seriously SO COOL. I love it.

⚬  My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite This had been on my TBR for quite a while, and then one day I sat down at the library, picked it up, and read through the whole thing. It’s just so well-written and thought-provoking and...almost bizarre yet still weirdly realistic? Anyway, I really like it.