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Reading: Territory by Emma Bull. This is fantasy the way I really like it done: a very believable real world (the Tombstone of Wyatt Earp, in this case) with the magic darting through it like ominous lightning. I want a lot from writers, I know: a totally realistic but also incredibly imaginative world, echoing with associations from history and other stories, and at the same time, characters that catch at my heart and mind. I had read and loved War for the the Oaks a while back, and this one was possibly even better. The woman at the center worries that people will discover that she writes thrillers, that her partner won't know the current dance steps, and that magic is really there, in Tombstone--meanwhile the Earps turn out to be dangerous in a way we might not have considered...and some really delightful characters who need only a few appearances to reveal the anti-Asian prejudices of the time, and the courage of the nineteenth-century Chinese who survived that.
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh. Ghosh is so wildly various in his talents and interests: one of his earlier books recounts the miseries of Partition in India (The Shadow Lines); another is an historical tale of an Indian-Hindu slave who's taken to Egypt by a Jewish merchant in the 11th century In an Antique Land, and yet another, The Calcutta Chromosome,is a sci-fi winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award about a malaria cure that creates a personality transference on the recipients; perhaps the best The Glass Palace is the story of Indians in Burma. Clearly Ghosh does not tell the same story twice, nor visit again the same place or time--but throughout all these runs the same theme--the dislocation of the uprooted person, the unwilling traveler. This newest book (Hungry Tide), is set in the delta of the Ganga river, the Sundarban islands, and the people who encounter the Bengal tigers and Irawaddy river dolphins--interlaced with themes and quotes from Rilke's Duino Elegies.
Movie: Stardust was much better than the stage version I saw in Chicago a few years ago. I missed some of the lead-up to the discovery of the star, but Claire Danes and Michelle Phieffer were fine in their roles, and the Cloud Pirates were perfect. DeNiro is the one you'll remember...
TV: At last finished Season 1 of Veronica Mars. The last two episodes were perfect--all the mysteries neatly tied up, after being nicely spun out over the season--and a great cliffhanger, not cheesy, but evolved out of everything that's been happening. But like so many other shows, once the initial situation is resolved (or not, in the case of Lost), the remaining seasons can't seem to get any traction on a new mystery or whatever to keep the show at the same level. MASH is still the only TV series I can think of that got better over many seasons--well, Buffy of course, but even that didn't carry through to the very end at the same level. (And Angel and Firefly didn't get a chance). Have any other shows actually improved over a long run (or even several seasons)?
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh. Ghosh is so wildly various in his talents and interests: one of his earlier books recounts the miseries of Partition in India (The Shadow Lines); another is an historical tale of an Indian-Hindu slave who's taken to Egypt by a Jewish merchant in the 11th century In an Antique Land, and yet another, The Calcutta Chromosome,is a sci-fi winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award about a malaria cure that creates a personality transference on the recipients; perhaps the best The Glass Palace is the story of Indians in Burma. Clearly Ghosh does not tell the same story twice, nor visit again the same place or time--but throughout all these runs the same theme--the dislocation of the uprooted person, the unwilling traveler. This newest book (Hungry Tide), is set in the delta of the Ganga river, the Sundarban islands, and the people who encounter the Bengal tigers and Irawaddy river dolphins--interlaced with themes and quotes from Rilke's Duino Elegies.
Movie: Stardust was much better than the stage version I saw in Chicago a few years ago. I missed some of the lead-up to the discovery of the star, but Claire Danes and Michelle Phieffer were fine in their roles, and the Cloud Pirates were perfect. DeNiro is the one you'll remember...
TV: At last finished Season 1 of Veronica Mars. The last two episodes were perfect--all the mysteries neatly tied up, after being nicely spun out over the season--and a great cliffhanger, not cheesy, but evolved out of everything that's been happening. But like so many other shows, once the initial situation is resolved (or not, in the case of Lost), the remaining seasons can't seem to get any traction on a new mystery or whatever to keep the show at the same level. MASH is still the only TV series I can think of that got better over many seasons--well, Buffy of course, but even that didn't carry through to the very end at the same level. (And Angel and Firefly didn't get a chance). Have any other shows actually improved over a long run (or even several seasons)?
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