This one stuck with me. I read it last year and it wouldn't leave me for quite a while. Most of my literary adventures are very private at this point in life... having left classes and discussions behind 20ish years ago. I do have my sci-fi book group but it is as much, or more, social than any actual discussion. That's fine. But for some reason this book hung out in the folds of my brain for months and I had a desire (less than a year later) to re-read it. I cannily conjured a plan to ambush two of my more literate friends from movie club by gifting them the book, thereby creating a splinter book club from movie club!

Even after the second read I'm still not totally sure what it was/is about this one that moved me to re-read it so quickly... and also strong-arm some smart friends into a discussion with me at Skylark on a Tuesday.  TBH even after another read I'm not quite sure... its hard to pin down but at its most fundamental it is human and hopeful and hopeless all at once. So, you know, life. And it's a slice of history I had no idea about before reading (I was also in Mexico City for the first read...). It's lonely. It's sad. But I do I love the whiskey preist for all his flaws written so plain and heartbreaking. 

Graham Greene has always been a name I knew, and knew he was important in the "canon", etc. etc. but had never read a single thing. Then, IDK, two years ago I was eating lunch on a weekday and put on Anthony Bourdain. He's a comfort to me and was a true prince in life and I miss him. So anyhow, I had on Parts Unknown and he is bopping around somewhere in Asia, being in love with the locals as only he can, and then he quotes a passage from The Quiet American, because, of course he does. 

I breezed through that one, The Quiet American, one of Greene's serious novels. It is really great (maybe greater than this one?). Then I read Our Man in Havana, one of his entertainments. (he likes to make the distinction) It is also great in a more mad-cap kind of way. Those two beautiful and interesting books led me to The Power and the Glory. The scenes between the lieutenant and the preist are really what makes it all worthwhile, punctuated by cinematic weather, which I always love. Many of the characters are archetypes to move the plot along (if walking around evading anti-religious authority is a plot... It probably is... No. It is.). I think I do love this book but I'm unsure where the love comes from. I will read it again in a few years. Maybe I'll still love it in a confused way. Maybe I'll see why I love it. Maybe I'll see the flaws more and not love it as much but remember the love I had. Any of those things can happen and I will be elated. Life. Time marches on. Love remains.

Because i still don't know what to say about this book... I'll leave two passages here.

...he began formally to say his goodbyes to the world;

he couldndn't put his heart into it.

This was the last chapter, and in the last chapter things always happened violently.

Perhaps all life was like that -- dull and then a heroic fury at the end. 

Been meaning to watch this for a while. I know folks were pretty mixed on this when it came out. I suppose the folks still are, though I don't hear a lot of discourse about it lately. One of my friends had the experience of seeing a screening of it (maybe at Music Box?) right before or when it came out. My memory is that he saw it on 70mm but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sure that was a fun experience, the Music Box always is.  

Babylon is an incredibly pretty film with incredibly pretty people... with a sprinkling of revolting behavior and images. I suppose that is the point. Excess all around. Coming hot off of my Blood Meridian experience I was slightly surprised to have enjoyed this as much as I did; certainly more than i was expecting. Perhaps I am the demographic for this.... The demographic for the magic hour light filled indulgent pseudo-history of Hollywood that this film presents, and most other folks don't care(?). I don't know.

The first half of the film definitely gripped me more than the second half which turns into more of a depressing melodrama (not in the Douglas Sirk way) and includes the eventual and obvious decline of our (pro?)tagonists.

I'm happy I sat through it and it is definitely worth watching for the spectacle alone, especially if you enjoy Hollywood stories. Watching the technical wizardy of both the first party sequence and the next filming sequence in the desert was like discovering you enjoy getting slapped by your partner. Shocking, slightly painful, and thrilling. 

Oh god, what to say about this? Took me about half a year to read through it in bits and pieces. I'd get through a portion of violence (true and awful horror treated oh so casually) then not return to it for a few weeks or months until the bitterness subsided. But I was determined to see it through if only to knowingly and silently judge people who praise this book. 

I'm not even sure I engaged the book fully. It was awful (very awful) and beautiful (the prose only sometimes... not the awfulness). While reading, there were sessions that left my body exhausted and my brain blank. This is not my favorite condition to end up, being a husband and father of a five year old. 

I tried to describe my feelings to a friend what the experience of reading this book was like. It was a sunny afternoon and I was having a mezcal (which felt appropriate) and there were only 2 other patrons at the concrete bar. I excitedly compared the book to Link running around in the dark before he manages to wholly light up the dungeon. Just this little guy in green running around seeing only the horror his lantern can illuminate in front of his eyes knowing full well there are other horrors but he can't see them or even imagine them.... then moving on and forgetting the previous horrors to be only in the current horror always. 

He hadn't really ever played Zelda so he just nodded. SMH. I couldn't let it go though, so later I told another friend. He got it. Not sure its a perfect metaphor but feels right to me and I achieved the smug satisfaction of being seen.

So much has been written about this book and discussed. But this is just my personal book log so I don't think there is much more I have to say on it. 

Should you read this book? Probably no. Sorry.

Did I enjoy this book. I dont' know. Probably no. Am I happy I read it? Also probably no. LOL 

But at least now I get to be haunted by the image of the naked Judge forever. 

"He never sleeps. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."

We read (reread in most cases) Frankenstein for our Holiday book club choice. I read it in high school and again later in college. I think I was more used to reading " Western canon" at that stage of my life. I'm very glad I had that phase. It does a lot for a person... reading those things... in that period of development... but I am decidedly not in that phase now. And I'm pretty glad for it. So, I'm not sure I enjoyed the book as much this go-round. Guillermo del Toro's new version didn't help matters tbh. 

I digress (before I started). I think the "canon" thinking got me thinking about more contemporary Sci-Fi "canon" and what that looks like or could look like. I read enough and try to pay attention enough (or at least some) about what my blind spots are. Octavia Butler was and has been and is still a blind spot so I suggested  Dawn for book club. I didn't know much about her beyond The Parable of the Sower, which I haven't even read. I just know of it. But one of our book club members had already read it and I already had this sick edition of Dawn in my collection so I pushed for it to be our next read. 

After Frankenstein this was a breeze. I zipped through it faster than I have zipped in a while. It was tough in parts and fun in parts and, at least from our little book club limited view, wholly unique. An incomplete list of what we've recently read for book club:

• Methuselah's Children - Heinlein
• Frankenstein - already mentioned
• Dark Matter - no logical reason to be called this...
• Project Hail Mary - discussed here
• Altered Carbon - discussed here
• Scanners Live in Vain - (a personal favorite)
• The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
• Ringworld - Niven

I'm blanking on the others but there were some other stinkers in there too. Compared to the list above I think only the Cordwainer Smith story compares with actual novel storytelling, though, they are nothing alike in any way. Its tough to escape my lived experience of being a white dude and a lot of the stories above are basically white dude stories. I really loved Dawn for not being that which, of course it wouldn't be, but still I'm glad for it. 

Anyhow, quick synopsis. Earth is destroyed. At least people are destroyed. Few folks have been saved and put to sleep by aliens somewhere out in outer space, but not that far away by todays standards. Lilith, our heroine(?), is awakened by her captors and kept prisoner. This has happened many times before. She manages to endear herself to them so as to become their companion(pet?). She's being groomed to wake up others so they can repopulate earth. Then there's some genetic stuff. Some weird sex (sort of) stuff. Alien to human conflict. Human to human conflict in a fake jungle. It gets weirder from there. 

Recommend! 

I had been interested in watching this one for years. I'm not sure I have sorted my thoughts about it yet but I haven't posted in a bit so figured I'd at least mention it with some scattered thoughts. 

The opening of this film, in the dingy downstairs nightclub, with dingy downstairs people is truly one of the most beautiful sequences I've seen in a while. A hell of a way to open a movie, letting the audience know everything about the world these two mermaids inhabit. The music is hit or miss but absolutely service the film beautifully... and the literal translations are quite a bit of fun. The Polish title of the film is bit better but more on the nose, "Daughters of Dancing",  and has nothing to imply the aquatic motif so I guess thats why it was Americanized in the US release. 

I didn't adore the second half in the same way as the explosive opening but all the actors are perfect in their roles. The music and set design is flawless. Overall a really fun 92 minutes.