reading and watching
Apr. 18th, 2013 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI haven't done a Wednesday-ish reading post in a while, mostly because of stress. The main new thing I've read is Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, about a 1984 murder case and the culture of Mormon fundamentalism (i.e., not the main Mormon church but its offshoots that still embrace polygamy and mostly reject the 1979 [!!!] decision to admit black men to full LDS "priesthood") in which it occurred. It was very page-turning and disturbing.
But mostly I've been re-reading: lots of Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, some of the early Biggles books set during the First World War, and the first two of Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler books which remind me that the series started out well however infuriating it later became. And for some reason Val McDermid's I Heard the Mermaids Singing, which is just as torture-porn creepy-yucky as I recall and a lot more offensive. I stopped reading McDermid some time ago because her books struck me as deeply homophobic and misogynistic, which is kind of unexpected from a lesbian writer, and going back to Mermaids confirmed that I made the right decision.
At the moment I'm trying to read Ruth Rendell's latest written-as-Barbara-Vine, The Child's Child, but sadly I don't much care for it. I'm finding it flat and clunkily written, with off-putting characters (by which I don't mean Vine's usual cast of people who do horrifying things for painfully understandable reasons, but characters who come across as self-absorbed, irritating jerks but who aren't, I think, meant to). The book also seems preachy--the main character in the first section pontificates about the historical suffering of unmarried mothers, a secondary character does the same thing with gay men, the story-within-a-story is clearly going to illustrate both, and it's getting on my nerves even though I agree with the sentiments.
As much as I admire Rendell, one thing I've noticed about her is that when she puts gay men at the center of the narrative, she doesn't do nearly as well as when they're more peripheral and/or seen through someone else's eyes. She's also better at frustrated, repressed gay men than she is at unashamed ones, and better at men who experience inchoate sexual/romantic longing for other men than at men who explicitly identify as any flavor of queer. Hence the sucess, in my view, of Gallowglass and The Chimney Sweeper's Boy compared to the hot mess that is No Night Is Too Long or the so-far unengaging infodumpiness of The Child's Child and its cardboard gay male characters. In short, Rendell's better at Tragic Gay than she is at normal, ordinary gay.
Also, to be blunt, I think most writers have a peak period, and those with very long careers tend to keep on writing long after it. Reginald Hill, to keep the comparison within the same genre, had a long period of brilliance from 1980's A Killing Kindness through 1998's On Beulah Height, but nothing after that was quite as good and a sharp decline set in after Dialogues of the Dead in 2002. Rendell had two peaks--her best Wexford books were behind her when she started writing as Barbara Vine, but she was intermittently excellent as Vine--I don't like them all--at least through 2002's The Blood Doctor. In contrast, The Child's Child is so rough and poorly constructed that it hardly reads like Rendell at all.
Is it wrong to wish that creators whose work I admire would know when to stop? Seeing the decline, especially in series fiction where I've come to know and love the characters, makes me sad. It pains me that Terry Pratchett, for example, keeps churning out inferior Discworld novels, even though I can sympathize with how emotionally important it must be to him to keep writing despite his Alzheimer's disease. I'm sure that for anyone with decades of creative work behind them, it must be necessary to keep creating, but as a fan and for purely selfish reasons I do sometimes wish they didn't keep publishing.
Moving on: I've watched the pilot and the first S1 episode of Endeavour, the Inspector Morse prequel, and liked it a lot. I haven't seen much Morse so I've nothing to compare it with, but I like Shaun Evans as the young Morse and I especially like Roger Allam as the cautiously-supportive Inspector Thursday. The plots are silly and contrived, but TV mystery plots always are.
And recently, needing something light and unchallenging, I found myself watching the Christmas With the Stars special from 1994. It was hosted by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, featured some of my other old favorites like Alexei Sayle, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson of The Fast Show(doing "Suit you, sir" and a Ted and Ralph sketch I'd never seen before!!!!), and Sandie Shaw singing, and also had a fantastic routine by Felix Dexter, whom I'd never heard of before. Altogether it was exactly what I needed despite the fact that I was watching it in April. And did I mention Ted and Ralph! There was Ted and Ralph! Ted and Ralph are the best thing ever!
But mostly I've been re-reading: lots of Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, some of the early Biggles books set during the First World War, and the first two of Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler books which remind me that the series started out well however infuriating it later became. And for some reason Val McDermid's I Heard the Mermaids Singing, which is just as torture-porn creepy-yucky as I recall and a lot more offensive. I stopped reading McDermid some time ago because her books struck me as deeply homophobic and misogynistic, which is kind of unexpected from a lesbian writer, and going back to Mermaids confirmed that I made the right decision.
At the moment I'm trying to read Ruth Rendell's latest written-as-Barbara-Vine, The Child's Child, but sadly I don't much care for it. I'm finding it flat and clunkily written, with off-putting characters (by which I don't mean Vine's usual cast of people who do horrifying things for painfully understandable reasons, but characters who come across as self-absorbed, irritating jerks but who aren't, I think, meant to). The book also seems preachy--the main character in the first section pontificates about the historical suffering of unmarried mothers, a secondary character does the same thing with gay men, the story-within-a-story is clearly going to illustrate both, and it's getting on my nerves even though I agree with the sentiments.
As much as I admire Rendell, one thing I've noticed about her is that when she puts gay men at the center of the narrative, she doesn't do nearly as well as when they're more peripheral and/or seen through someone else's eyes. She's also better at frustrated, repressed gay men than she is at unashamed ones, and better at men who experience inchoate sexual/romantic longing for other men than at men who explicitly identify as any flavor of queer. Hence the sucess, in my view, of Gallowglass and The Chimney Sweeper's Boy compared to the hot mess that is No Night Is Too Long or the so-far unengaging infodumpiness of The Child's Child and its cardboard gay male characters. In short, Rendell's better at Tragic Gay than she is at normal, ordinary gay.
Also, to be blunt, I think most writers have a peak period, and those with very long careers tend to keep on writing long after it. Reginald Hill, to keep the comparison within the same genre, had a long period of brilliance from 1980's A Killing Kindness through 1998's On Beulah Height, but nothing after that was quite as good and a sharp decline set in after Dialogues of the Dead in 2002. Rendell had two peaks--her best Wexford books were behind her when she started writing as Barbara Vine, but she was intermittently excellent as Vine--I don't like them all--at least through 2002's The Blood Doctor. In contrast, The Child's Child is so rough and poorly constructed that it hardly reads like Rendell at all.
Is it wrong to wish that creators whose work I admire would know when to stop? Seeing the decline, especially in series fiction where I've come to know and love the characters, makes me sad. It pains me that Terry Pratchett, for example, keeps churning out inferior Discworld novels, even though I can sympathize with how emotionally important it must be to him to keep writing despite his Alzheimer's disease. I'm sure that for anyone with decades of creative work behind them, it must be necessary to keep creating, but as a fan and for purely selfish reasons I do sometimes wish they didn't keep publishing.
Moving on: I've watched the pilot and the first S1 episode of Endeavour, the Inspector Morse prequel, and liked it a lot. I haven't seen much Morse so I've nothing to compare it with, but I like Shaun Evans as the young Morse and I especially like Roger Allam as the cautiously-supportive Inspector Thursday. The plots are silly and contrived, but TV mystery plots always are.
And recently, needing something light and unchallenging, I found myself watching the Christmas With the Stars special from 1994. It was hosted by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, featured some of my other old favorites like Alexei Sayle, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson of The Fast Show(doing "Suit you, sir" and a Ted and Ralph sketch I'd never seen before!!!!), and Sandie Shaw singing, and also had a fantastic routine by Felix Dexter, whom I'd never heard of before. Altogether it was exactly what I needed despite the fact that I was watching it in April. And did I mention Ted and Ralph! There was Ted and Ralph! Ted and Ralph are the best thing ever!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 07:47 am (UTC)I have always found my own response to the Vine books is very variable - far more so than to the non-Wexford as RR.
There is also the thing whereby some authors' series work for me much better than their others. (I can't think offhand of any author whose stand-alones I prefer.)