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grlfriends · 3 years

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revolutionary girl utena review

ep 1-5

the plot is actually kinda different from what I thought ?? in my mind the plot was: utena was a girl in a princess school who each and every princess would be "conquered" (for a lack of better words rn) in a ceremonial duel by a prince who fancied them, maybe she didnt wanna wanna marry anyone or she liked Anthy already but anyway in my mind utena showed up in the ceremony with duel clothing and then, in a very brave tm like-scene, she would openly declare she refused to be conquered by anyone and tbh I'm not even sure how Anthy would come into the plot... but back into what actually happened in the episodes everything so far is very introductory and just showing what mechanics will be explored further down the line I think?? the op is really good too

also every boy so far reminds me so much of knights of the zodiac?? maybe it's just the design I guess...) and nanami can get these hands, jealousy is a disease and she's the sickest person on earth for all I know

dont ask me why bit I just feel like room of mirrors - gfriend has a very well fitting vibe for it but I'm not exactly sure why hm.... 🤔🤔

ep 6-12

ok so why does this school just have random animals around 😐 I could understand the horse but a bull and a kangaroo?? what ...

touga just says the most random dramatic things and then just casually says anyone who believes in friendship is a fool ?? the guy wouldnt last a day in the naruto universe tbh, he kinda irks me in some way but I'm not sure why so I'll live with this strange feeling for a while I guess

↳ okay so watching ep 10 made me especially kinda creeped out, I know I've watched only 10 eps so far but like can he fall downstairs and break a neck or something already ...

also haha what if I watched that bet on it fmv and gave myself a bunch of spoilers would that be funny or what 😍 this is why i cant have nice things yall.... hope my memory goes to shit when sleep so I dont remember about it this week while I finish it

I feel like the main thing on the episodes are parallels, one way or another I always feel like they're setting up parallels and giving me clues for a bigger picture and a deeper plot arc that is still to come and the bet on it fmv just made this impression stronger, also I wanna say it's done in a good way, one that is both mysterious (??) and "honey you've got a big storm coming" at the same time 🤔🤔 much to think about honestly

↳ just saw ep 11 and even though I already knew this was coming sooner or later it still felt like crap seeing utena lose to dick head, at the end of the episode when he says anthy was always just reflecting utena's own wishes for himemiya (in another way bc I dont remenber the exact words) it felt like 😐 bc yes I knew that (the way she was working her thoughts was simply a copy and paste of what utena was saying) at all time I kept those essays about anthy in my head, I dont think theyll be truly relatable to what I'm seeing rn but yeah anthy rights (even though I know you betray/cheat on utena down the line bc of the bet on it fmv but I'm sure you had your own motivation)

↳ saw ep 12 bc I just couldnt handle being in a cliffhanger and yeah it happened what I absolutely thought it would lmao not that it was that difficult to foresee but yeah, I kinda liked how utena did it for her instead of being like "oh I wanna save anthy from touga" and treating her like a damsel in distress (I know that's kinda her position as the rose bride for what I've been told so far and that this is a subject spoken about in many many essays on tumblr but yeah) bc so far she's been treated as a trophy and a way to get something else, for the green haired guy it was a way to see something eternal, for miki it was a way to hold on into his "shining thing" and for touga it seems (so far) like a way to manipulate (just like he does with nanami) and just mark his position as above everyone else as he seems to view himself?? man I might be saying random stuff rn but it kinda does makes sense in my mind with the information I've had to this point

ep 13-25

honestly 😐😐 through 9 whole episodes I felt like they were trying to make the side characters deeper and show their hidden face and motivations but it felt so shallow...... not even actually shallow, just not deep enough that it would make me care about these characters and the fact there was no actual build to showing us why we're getting to know these characters backgrounds was just kinda meh too, didnt really help that all episodes had all the same formula and the same timing just for the developers made in those episodes be forgotten at the end and also just that pink haired guy could be like "ah failure again", it felt like watching the same episode over and over again, it was really tiring and like?? girl help I do not care about these characters at all, I feel like it could have been done well (like the keiko ep in comparison to the furuba chapter that deals with the yuki appreciation (??) club president graduating.... the way this ep was done and setup didn't really bring me any emotions) overall not to my taste and tbh I feel like I could have skipped all those episodes except for maybe the miki and juri one so 😑

all nanami focused episodes are the worst so far, she's so boring and I cant stand now annoying she is, the diary episode?? the cow episode?? the episode when tsuwabiki fuels with utena?? honestly I know they're trying to show me a better and different side of her but it just doesnt!! work!! bc i feel no sympathy for her, my biggest wish rn is her and touga just disappearing and no more filler episodes🗣🗣

I thought akio was utena's prince?? but apparently he's just anthy's brother and like.. I'm do done with his little talks with utena and yadda yadda, I just wanna see their duel is that too much to ask I'm dying over here (if this lenga lenga continues until ep 25 i will be so mad bc why were so many episodes wasted on such boring and and not necessary side characters backstories?? idc about them at all man aaaaaaaaaa)

↳ ep 25 was good finally we got what we deserve boys 😭😭😭😭😭 can utena just beat up akio already I'm tired of his ass, he exhales both "I'm a feminist I even take women studies classes #herstory" and "if she breathes she's a thot" energy also he has 0 style that mullet is simply horrible I bet there's a hairstylist community who considers him a criminal bc like 😐 it is simply so bad (q bit less when it's tied up but when it's all lose jesus Christ)

also touga thinks he's suuuuch a genius, sooo smart like king, I do not care about you at all can you shut the fuck up please and can we tall about the pink haired guy episode?? wack. honestly thought it would be more emotional or something, I binge watched 12 episodes with his ugly haircut face and did not even feel a thing he can choke I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANTHY TAKING A SWORD OUT OF UTENA'S CHEST??? OSCAR WORTHY KINGS❗❗❗and then her lame ass brother being like "oh ho ho idk idk" shut up no one cares no one cares I swear to you no one cares shut uuuuup

ep 25-39

first of all, ep 25 was good but kinda reminded me of the nine episodes (13 until 21) where absolutely nothing interesting happened so I hope I'm wrong also can I just say just seeing the preview of the next episode made me roll my eyes so bad I almsot saw my brain?? bc yeah I'm fucking tired of nanami fosuced episodes she's so annoying oh my god nobody cares about a goddamn egg and much less one coming from her let her die or something pls she's so annoying there's nothing I've learned about her that was not against my own will I'm basically rotting over here 🤒

↳ ep 30 has me thinking Akio has a foot fetish or something 😐 bruh leave utena aloooooone I already know your plans and schemes you're not fooling anyone that's embarrassing for u and also... utena you're not very bright are you.... you start seeing every duelist you face with the same exact car and then when you see akio has the same car you didnt even stop to think about it that 1+1 equals 2 ... girl help yourself 😐

↳ yet again another nanami focused ep 😐😐😐😐😐 even though I do understand her better now I still don't find her particularly enjoyable to watch, call me a woman hater but like. idk she's still a bit annoying to me (but touga is straight up evil and is manipulating her so I feel bad for feeling like that tho.....)

↳ ok last 2 eps to go but listen. I thought the akio duel would have happened much sooner, maybe on ep 33 max but well didn't this age well lmao ngl, it did seem a bit too slow paced for my personal taste but also I feel like there's a certain level of drama that comes with slowing the pace down....

↳ aaaaaa yall I'm kinda 😢😭 over the ending omg........... even though it took the best of me to keep going in some parts I still enjoyed the ending aaaaa I thought i wouldnt really like it bc I just usually dont enjoy this type of ending but stil 😢😢😢😢 wait for me utena 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 girl I cried and then anthy walking in the end god utena and anthy holding hands 😭😭😭😭 akio can suck my dick

there's obviously many things I've missed or that I kinda didnt really pay attendance to so please dont take this serious, I was just writing as I watched the episodes so it's more like a thought compilation than anything, still I can see why there's many essays written about it and why it is held as a masterpiece by so many people

#g.txt

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sparda3g · 5 years

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Kingdom Chapter 605 Review

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Just when Riboku thought he got this win in the bag. If you mess with Ousen, you get the horns. The battle rages on with the mighty tactic that is the Great Crane Formation, putting a stop to Ousen Army; or so Riboku thought. None of the titans are willing to show a sign of being intimidated, but one is prepared for a surprise. This chapter escalated the hype and greatness meter higher with an enticing ending that let you know that things are about to get crazier.

I like how the chapter begins with a flashback scene with Sou Ou and Shiryou, so we can learn more of their character, as well as why these two are so thrill. Sou Ou has been growing on me with his layback attitude and how he plays his string of hair like he’s all cool. Even so, he’s still wise about his surroundings; not underestimating the strength of his enemy. As for Shiryou, she’s rather amusing with her bloodlust to kill. I would say she’s the opposite of Sou Ou, but they’re both aware and not simple-minded.

The amusing part is her possible motivation to kill with everything she got. It could be timing, but Sou Ou vows to win this war and celebrate in his bed. This guy is the man. Fast forward to the present, she goes head-on, killing men with ease; a little too fast. Hey, that’s a hell of a motivation if you ask me. Shin should learn from that. I did find it funny how her men were like, “Ah crap, not again. Let’s catch up to her as always.” It must be another day working under her lead. It’s a good thing for Riboku to recruit Kaine since she can tell a person’s gender apart. Not that it matters much, but it’s a benefit in some regards. A really good start to the chapter to make me like those two even more.

Once again, it’s seriously impressive to see the gap difference between different types of army in this series; in this case, Riboku Army. These guys are so well trained, they set up a wall of shields for Shiryou and she cannot push them down. The way how the battle sequenced got me believing she will eventually overcome it, but instead, they held on really well. I’m pretty amazed by this movement, yet annoyed because it reminds of me of a video game, where the shield is unbreakable and you have to pull a trick to win. It’s frustrating as hell, so I definitely can feel it from Shiryou.

The impressiveness of Riboku Army doesn’t end there. Not only they made a wall of shields, but they also make a wall to split the Qin’s factions apart, so they can overwhelm a top member alas Shiryou. The situation is so bad, even Sou Ou no longer remains cool, rather concerned and serious. Riboku must be doing something right for that to happen. In fact, he tops it by creating a shock for Qin; unable to pass through the tactic. Whenever there’s a reinforcement, Riboku’s men respond back instantly. It’s incredible; frustrating but incredible.

It’s a smart move of Hara to fill in the details on Ousen’s men and their style of combat. The reason is, it’s quite convincing to believe that Riboku has overwhelmed these guys in their own game. Everyone wasn’t exactly cocky, but they didn’t expect the tactic to be a serious challenge. Even Derimi, who was said to be professional at executing a new tactic on the fly, is having a hard time to outmaneuver the Great Crane Formation. I guess it is great after all; my bad, Riboku.

The only man who didn’t react is the one and only Ousen. Instead of shock and curious, he is intrigued by the tactic; largely indicates that he knows what’s really going on. If all of his men were dumbfounded and he’s not, then he’s truly on another level of intellect. The question remains, can he outsmart Riboku? It will be his greatest achievement. He still haven’t fought and yet, he’s winning me over big time. Speaking of winning, the next scene is badass.

Many fans would expect Ousen or Riboku to get themselves in the battlefield much later on, presumably after Hi Shin Unit deals with Gyou’un Army. What happens next is a big surprise. Ousen and his 10,000 Men Army have entered the battle. The hype is real and it’s only going to get better. I got goosebumps by looking at Ousen leading his core army like a legit badass; the double-page spread of greatness. A fan even colored it really early and it looks great. Kudos to that fan.

As intimidating Ousen Core Army is, Riboku is only amused and not fazed by his action. So far, none of them have reacted drastically to make their opponent look smarter. Earl Rai sends 10,000 men to clash with Ousen’s. My favorite part of this chapter comes at the end. Everyone is thinking thoroughly on what Ousen will do next. Futei and Kaine believe it’s futile to break Riboku’s masterplan, while Denrimi and Sou Ou believe Ousen will pull a brilliant tactic, including the Crane Wing he happens to be fond of. The answer: none.

Ousen Army is going in with no battle formation whatsoever. On the surface, it’s beyond baffling, like fighting a gun fight against modern guns with Revolutionary War rifles. However, in context, this is fantastic. The whole chapter got men playing with brilliance, carefully play tactical, and yet, Ousen is there doing nothing but marching forward in a lined-up fashion. Clearly, he knows what he’s doing; how he will do it is yet to be answered.

This chapter was really interesting and hype all around. Hara is doing a really good on portraying these characters and their personality. The battle continue to be filled with brilliance and clever maneuvers. The artwork is solid and the double-page spread with Ousen and his men got me goosebumps. The chapter almost ended with Riboku on top, but once Ousen made his move that stunned the field, the real winner is about to be presented. Seriously, is he saying, “No tactic can easily defeat Riboku?” I don’t know, but Riboku did react with a small shock. Reaction, huh. Well then, let the downfall begin.

#kingdom #chapter 605 #review #spoilers

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therealkn · 5 years

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David’s Resolution: Day -3

Day -3 (December 29, 2018)

It Happened One Night (1934)

“Do you love her?” “A normal human being couldn’t live under the same roof with her without going nutty. She’s my idea of nothing!” “I asked you a simple question! Do you love her?” “YES! But don’t hold that against me. I’m a little screwy myself.”

I had decided on this resolution just after Christmas 2018, and I decided “Screw it, let’s get an early start on it.” One of my Christmas gifts was a jigsaw puzzle that showed a bunch of old movie posters, so being in that old movie mindset after finishing the puzzle with my mom (who loves jigsaw puzzles), I decided to watch an old movie. And I picked this one.

This was basically the film that made Frank Capra the name he is today. We remember Capra as one of the big-name filmmakers of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with films like this, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (which was later remade as an Adam Sandler film in 2002...), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (one of many awesome movies to come out of the “golden year” of 1939), and It’s a Wonderful Life (one of the all-time classic Christmas movies). And this film, like those, is also classic. And really good.

This movie, however, falls into a category of movies that a lot of people know one scene from and literally nothing else. A lot of people only know this movie as “the one where Claudette Colbert pulls up her skirt and shows some leg to hitch a ride”, and to be fair, it is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, enough that countless people have done parodies/homages/etc. to it over the decades. There’s plenty of other movies like this: I put the 1959 Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston in that category, as well as From Here to Eternity and Scanners. So what’s the movie actually about, then?

Here’s what it’s about: Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled socialite who’s tired of dealing with her father, Mr. Andrews, and his controlling/overprotective behavior. He’s especially unhappy because Ellie has eloped with airplane pilot King Westley, and he’s so pissed off at this that he’s actually trying to get the marriage annulled. Granted, he wants it annulled because King Westley is more interested in the money than in Ellie, but try explaining that to a woman who wants to spite her father by doing what he hates. And that’s why she decides to literally jump ship, leaving her father’s yacht and swimming to shore so she can go cross-country to be with King Westley.

And then we meet our other star of the show: Peter Warne, played by Clark Gable, a recently-fired newspaper reporter who meets Ellie on a bus travelling from Florida (where Ellie’s father’s yacht was) to be with King Westley. He soon figures out who Ellie is and the two end up cutting a deal: he’ll help her travel to be with her beau, and in return she’ll give him exclusive rights to tell the story in the papers. What follows is one hurdle in their travels after another as they bicker and snipe at each other all the way, and love blossoms between the two, while Ellie’s father is desperately scouring the country in hopes of finding his runaway daughter.

There’s not really a whole lot to spoil, since it’s a mid-1930s romantic comedy, so it’s pretty clear that these two stars are gonna get together in the end. Seeing how it happens is the interesting part, and Gable and Colbert have great chemistry together. They play off each other well, and it feels very natural, none of it’s contrived or forced. It makes me care more about them because you go “Ooh, this will be interesting to see.” instead of “Oh joy, this shit again.” when you see them sticking to formula. Then again, you could say this movie helped establish that formula, so seeing how it was originally before so many imitated it may be part of the reason I feel this way.

It’s interesting to watch old movies from a modern perspective, and I find it fascinating to see where tropes and ideas originate. It Happened One Night basically introduced, or at least popularized, things we’ve seen in many romance and road movies since. For example, there’s the issues that lead to Ellie and Peter taking different modes of transportation (from bus to hitchhiking to walking), which would later be experienced by Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Or the idea of separating a sleeping area by hanging a blanket on a clothesline to act like a “wall of Jericho”, something that would be repeated in later works like the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. There’s others as well, but I’ve seen a lot of things that did what this film did and it’s hard to filter out more specific examples.

That said, watching old movies with a modern perspective can be a problem because in some way you’re comparing this movie with what came after it and you can end up going “Why is this film a big deal?” It’s what TV Tropes calls “Seinfeld is Unfunny”: the phenomena of something being innovative, groundbreaking, revolutionary, etc. in its time, but as time passes and people take what it did and improve on it, build on it and all that, the original ends up seeming like it’s stale and dated and derivative.

A word of advice for people who watch older movies: to get in the right mindset to appreciate the movie and to avoid the “Seinfeld is Unfunny” effect, just tell yourself “Fuck everything that came after this. Don’t compare it to what came after it. Compare it to what came before it.” At least don’t compare it to what came after it or you’ll just disappoint yourself by thinking it’s not as good as what came afterwards.

Actually, it’s interesting to have something like a road movie in 1934, right in the middle of the Great Depression, since this was a time when not everyone owned a car, so buses were a principal form of transportation. Trains were too, but those were more expensive to ride. The movie also gives a little glimpse of what life was like in the Depression. This was a time when ten dollars could get you through a cross-country trip (I know, crazy, yes?), when motels had community showers and the rooms were all detached like little cabins, and when newspaper editors all sounded the same for some reason.

This actually reminds me of something I really liked about the film, and it regards two characters in the film: Ellie’s father Mr. Andrews, and the newspaper editor who was Peter’s boss. Both characters are introduced as somewhat belligerent and have their reasons to be, but over the course of the film, both are shown to actually be good people. Mr. Andrews is clearly worried sick about his daughter running off and like I said, it’s established that his major problem with Ellie’s marriage to King Westley is that King is basically more interested in her money than in her. He even tries to “buy off” King and compensate him for the annulment.

As for the editor... at first he’s your typical 1930s newspaper editor in the movies: fast-talking, not willing to take lip, and not really a sentimentalist. The first time we see him, he’s arguing with Peter over the phone and ends up firing him over the phone. As the film goes on, Peter talks to the editor about the Ellie Andrews story and that he’s following it, even convincing his editor to pay him right away for the story so he can get married to Ellie because he’s in love with her. His editor is initially dismissive at Peter saying he’s in love, but it’s suggested that after he reads Peter’s story, he realizes that he really does love Ellie and, when Peter feels like he’s lost Ellie and returns to his editor, drunk from his sorrow at losing Ellie and returning the money to the editor, the editor gives him some money and tells him to come back once Peter’s sobered up so they can talk about hiring him again. I just like seeing these tired tropes get twisted and seeing more dimensions to these stock character types, you know?

The third-act misunderstanding, by the way, is also well-done in this film. It plays very naturally, never feeling like it’s sticking strictly to formula and all the character interactions and emotions feel genuine, complete with more bickering and what may be one of the first instances of a runaway bride in film. Mr. Andrews, after meeting with Peter and realizing that Peter really does love his daughter and doesn’t care about the money (he didn’t even know that Mr. Andrews had put out a $10,000 reward for information on her whereabouts), even helps get the two together in the end, which is great to see.

I would recommend this movie. Ignoring the fact that it’s a classic that birthed a lot of things we’ve seen countless times in countless works afterwards, it’s a very solid romantic comedy with great chemistry between its leads, some really funny jokes and memorable moments, and a standout film from one of the Golden Age’s finest directors.

Next time: Robert Mitchum is a scary motherfucker.

#David's resolution #It Happened One Night

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bakechochin · 5 years

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The Book Ramblings of May

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

[apologies for the delay with this one: I was binging Good Omens and contemplating spending 200 quid on a pair of shades to match Crowley’s sweet pair]

Falstaff - Robert Nye I’ll admit that I was ready to embrace this book as fucking great right from the word go, because it seemed so up my alley; Falstaff is a titan of the carnivalesque and one of my very favourite Shakespeare characters, and so from the very premise I figured that there was very little that could go wrong. The book takes the form of the memoirs of Sir John Falstolf (no, I don’t know about the ever-changing name spelling nonsense) told over the course of a hundred days, and becomes a journey through history told from the perspective of the fat drunk knight and interjected with lengthy insults to his cook or scribes and even lengthier songs of praise for his own cock or his innumerable sexual exploits. Everything about this is fucking great. In the course of the book you’re given incredibly evocative descriptions of carnivals or tavern debauchery, followed by hilarious anecdotes on fantastically crude subjects, and holding it all together is a narrative voice that can effectively handle both the grandiose reminiscing and the tales of shagging and farting. I also want to praise this book’s fantastic blending of the characters of Shakespeare and other popular fictions of the time with the characteristic Falstaff flare, including one fucking genius link between the character of Bardolph and the stories of the pig-faced woman Tannakin Skinker. Shakespeare’s characters probably are not that difficult to adapt, or at least not inasmuch as adapting the character traits that I perceive as responsible for making Shakespeare’s characters great - you’ll inevitably get some people arguing that Falstaff is Shakespeare’s greatest character because of his complexity, but for me the fact that he is a corpulent tanked-up knight bloated at the seams with sack and fabricated tales of grandeur is enough to make him a quality guy. The archetype is captured splendidly by Nye, but the book doesn’t half remind us of how fucking amazing Shakespearean dialogue is by comparison to Nye’s attempts at Falstaffian humour, and thereby highlights the difference between Shakespeare’s Falstaff and the basic character shape. The book delves into numerous specific events of I Henry IV (and a couple from 2 Henry IV), often quoting lines from Shakespeare’s play verbatim, much to the deficit of the rest of the text that has to string it all together with writing that obviously is not up to snuff with Shakespeare’s amazing writing. The dedication to the plays from which Falstaff was spawned seems at times odd, when a good few chapters are dedicated to extrapolating on one minor event in Part 1, which, to my understanding, was but one of the jests that Hal pulled on Falstaff, and but one of the instances that he was called out for his obvious bullshitting. If Falstaff was repeatedly made a fool of by Hal, he wouldn’t have directly addressed only one of said instances as if it was a big deal, but of course, it was a scene in the play and so it had to be adapted in this book. Whether this was down to Nye not having faith in his own ability to make up more pranks that Hal pulled on Falstaff, or simply because he knew that he had to write in this sequence because he needed a direct link to the play, is a question that I can’t really answer. But let’s talk about Falstaff’s bullshitting, and the complexities that arise from it. Falstaff’s whole shtick is that he is a mighty bullshitter, spinning yarns of heroic exploits and trying to talk his way out of trouble, and thus it stands to reason that his memoirs would reflect this, right? As I first went into the book, I was fully taken in by what I was reading, for although it was dumb, the story was centralised within a world of farce and Rabelaisian carnival, a world in which French armies can be defeated by drunken Englishmen brandishing hogsheads for weapons, men can eat enough food for seven men and still demand dessert, Irishmen will stab you up the arse from below while you sit on the bog, and every woman is inexplicably attracted to a fat drunken knight. It also mythologised Falstaff’s character, that he was conceived atop the knob of the Cerne Abbas giant and that his father died from laughing at nothing in particular. Is this not enough to make the story worthwhile? Would second-guessing Falstaff’s words at every turn, cross-referencing them with what we know of the truth from the Shakespeare plays, not only render the reading experience a pointless trudge, but demystify this world of carnivalesque absurdity? Falstaff’s overblown postulating on whether or not he is lying, or indeed his reasons for lying, are enough to satisfy me without contemplating the book from a meta perspective. There is also the character Scrope, who acts as one of Falstaff’s scribes and uses his position to call out Falstaff’s fabrications for us in a dramatic way, but a) there are discrepancies in his so-called truths and b) he’s a colossal dickhead, so regardless of Scrope’s presence in the story, we’re given the option to still side entirely with Falstaff and his comical version of reality. This is my perspective, but it is worth considering that I am a vacuous fool incapable of complex thought, so adopt my opinions with caution. I do, perhaps, have a few criticisms about Falstaff’s gratuitous descriptions of sexual escapades, not because I’m a prude who can’t stand the mention of the secrets of our own sinful bodies, nor even because it is unjustified in the narrative (because of course Falstaff is going to brag and give too much detail, if not for the sake of posterity than to make his servant scribes uneasy), but because I don’t feel that it fits the comedic tone of the text. Shagging is a staple of fabliaux and folksongs, but the comedy comes from who’s doing the shagging, or where they’re doing the shagging, or the extraneous circumstances surrounding the shagging. This book just describes shagging, which is funny when considering, as mentioned above, the fact that Falstaff within the story is including such titillating or sensational tidbits to vex his scribes (a strand which reaches its high point when Falstaff makes his amanuensis transcribe his words WHILE he is in the act of shagging), but taken as it is, it doesn’t seem in line with the rest of the book and its comedy. When this story has to plod on without its Falstaff-centric source material (or indeed, even from 2 Henry IV, in which Falstaff doesn’t really do a whole lot), it can get rather tedious as it becomes a mere listing of historical events and Falstaff’s minor parts in them, but at that point the book is rather winding down anyway, so perhaps I can’t complain too much. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: HELL YEAH, IF YOU’RE INTO SHAKESPEARE

The Hike - Drew Magary I picked this book up because I’d heard it compared to The Third Policeman in terms of it being a journey narrative, and I had a hankering for a book in which the story is not driven by the actions of the character, but rather the situation that they were thrown into, mainly because I’m interested in seeing how different authors go about doing this and not making the resulting narrative crap. Immediately upon going into this book, the acerbic narrative voice reminded me of John Dies at the End, and as the book continued and began to unveil other similarities, most egregiously the technique of using the bizarre weird reality-warping and monster-centric nonsense as a means of juxtaposing or disguising the book’s true content, that of the heinous DMC (that is, the deep meaningful conversation), I thought that I was in trouble. The reason why this is a book ramble, and not just a flat-out review, is that at this point I feel like I’m just rambling about the broad genre of contemporary American horror-centric weird fiction, and so to go through the book point-by-point may be a tad redundant when we already know exactly what to expect from the genre; a review would in all probability just devolve into quibbling about minor semantics. The story follows a man who, getting lost on a hike, stumbles into a world of nightmares and oddities, half of which were presumably inspired by the author’s obscure fears and the rest being absurd non-sequiturs to amp up the kookiness. It is nothing if not memorable, with its foul-mouthed crabs and murderous men wearing the faces of Rottweilers and whatnot. The book eventually develops to be smarter and more twisty-turny than such a randomly-selected clusterfuck of ideas might suggest, but these moments become transitory stops scattered amidst the rambling improvisational D&D campaign that is the main narrative. The story does have a habit of periodically bringing us to a formative experience in our protagonist’s life in the form of dream visions, with some interesting blurring between reality and fiction that doesn’t detract from the sheer fucking ludicrousness of the amount of shit that our protagonist has gone through, or at least the sensational self-reflective tone of these events’ retellings. This put me in mind of John Dies at the End, as did an ineffable sense of self-importance that the protagonist of this book seems to impart. I can’t properly word it, but there’s something to our protagonist’s narration, in that we see the world through his eyes but the retelling seems embellished somewhat to make him seem better off, and the fact that I noticed this at all speaks to me of shoddy characterisation. That’s not to say that the character is an unflappable badass the whole way through the story; it just seems like the character beats are cookie-cutter and that his moments of weakness or breakdown only occur because they have to, in order to make us feel sympathy for him. Both this book and John Dies at the End utilise new nomenclature on the fly for the horrors they find, but in all cases it just seems so pre-meditated, and the insistence on using these terms makes it seem like we ought to be on board with them as well, regardless of how stupid they are. Some of these terms are also tinged with an element of our narrator’s feelings of repulsion or standoffishness, in a manner similar to a downtrodden kid trying to stand up to a bully by referring to him with an insulting nickname. It’s all just rather tonally dissonant, the fact that we have to align with and appreciate our protagonist juxtaposed with the reality of our protagonist not really being that likeable. John Dies at the End (or at least its sequel) attempts to obfuscate the angst of its protagonist by admitting at the end to having a retrospective ghost writer, attributing the changes to the story and relatively inconsistent character fuckery to an unreliable narrator and details being altered in post, but this book lacks this safety net. What this book does have at the end is a bit of life-affirming reality-changing nonsense, and more importantly a fucking sweet twist at the end which, whilst not having much to do with the rest of the story (being dependent on memories and characters who didn’t have much to do with the overall narrative), leaves the story on a bittersweet note. In all my time spent reading classic literature, I’ve really missed experiencing twists that a) I didn’t already know about or wouldn’t have predicted, and b) actually have some fucking oomph. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: PROBABLY

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court - Mark Twain The question of authorial intent loomed over me as I begun reading this book. The introduction places the story firmly within the framework of Twain’s own righteous vengeance at the age he lived in, whereas I was under the impression that the book was naught but a dumb burlesque of middle English romances with some fun anachronisms thrown in for comedic effect. I thought that Twain’s ‘dream of being a knight errant in armour’ was funny as shit, but according to this introduction writer geezer Justin Kaplan (who apparently knows a better way of enjoying the book than myself), Twain’s dream ought to be interpreted as ‘a nightmare of being swaddled in iron, confined and helpless, just as Mark Twain was often to feel confined and helpless in his way of life’. As such, I sought advice from my friend, who told me to just go in with my unsophisticated cap on and I’ll be fine, and also took solace in Twain’s squib 1601, his exercise emulating my main man Rabelais in which famous Elizabethans hit the shit about shit and shagging, to adopt the mentality that Twain is just fucking about and that I don’t need to think too much about what I’m reading. Now I’ve sat through enough seminars of medieval literature to have heard every imaginable inane comment from every single vacuous shitwit grabbing at the lowest hanging fruit possible when it comes to pointing out the silliness of Arthurian romances; I’m a dab fucking hand, albeit unwillingly, at recognising all of this shit, and at suppressing my groans when slack-jawed fuckheads go over the same empty points about how middle English romances are ever so daft. “I mean, what’s up with all these knights running around attacking each other for no reason?!? That doesn’t make much sense!!” they all opine to each other, confident that they’re bringing something original and nuanced to the conversation, to jolly plaudits and insufferable guffaws. (No I’m not bitter about this, I have no idea what you’re talking about). Twain of course touches on all the usual points that you’d expect in a romance parody, but I needn’t have braced myself for an onslaught of unoriginality, as he does so with fantastic wit and evokes an actual comedic image rather than just commenting on the world’s lack of logic. He paints a delightful picture of naive and foolish knights howling with laughter at slapstick and ooo-ing and ah-ing at one another’s exaggerated tales, which is not only a great representation of Arthurian knights to explain their questionable behaviours, but justifies how they are so easily swayed and led by our protagonist Hank Morgan, the eponymous Yankee. I’m also a great fan as to how far they take the delusions of the Arthurian chaps to, believing with complete conviction that a swine pen is an ogre’s castle and that the pigs within are kidnapped noblewomen; there’s a lot of fun to be had with this, and as absurd as it seems, I’m glad that the explanation isn’t any more complex than it just being a result of everyone’s unyielding belief in everything. Our protagonist sets out to whip this century into something resembling nineteenth-century society, and putting aside the suspension of disbelief we must have in Hank’s apparent knowledge of every-fucking-thing imaginable required to accomplish this transformation (from building phone lines and electric fences to a ludicrously precise knowledge of the timing of eclipses), the story is a great romp of technology trumping magic and the grim realities of an unfair world, with some fantastic memorable scenes here and there. The plot somewhat meanders, the stories of Arthurian legend being rather directionless beyond the overarching call for adventure, and so we get a bit of that and we get a bit of blending in with peasant life, but overall the book is made up of a series of encounters and problems to overcome, which is fine to read for the most part (for some adventures are more fun than others). Though I want to pooh-pooh the idea that the story is a castigation or attack on the political structures and struggles of the time, and indeed can continue to pooh-pooh it so long as such content is if not subliminal than overshadowed by the story’s fun content, this unfortunately bubbles to the surface in an overt form when the book draws to a close, with a swift arrival of reality and sudden need for a bloody war. The mask of fun burlesque is stripped away to give us a galling look at a stubborn England, the denizens of which would rather die than change their faulty unfair ways. It’s not enough to tarnish the rest of the book, but it did leave a sour taste in my mouth, not because it’s an objectively bad thing but because scathing attacks of that calibre and of that level of overtness seemed to come rather out of left field. The transformation of the book from one thing to the next is dependent on a swift plot progression that occurs in a short period of time and is conveyed by a massive exposition dump which rushes through the last chapter of the Morte D’Arthur and plunges us into a fight between the Church and our protagonist, a fight that the story, apparently now being a treatise on the inability for people to change and our helplessness in altering the state of things, must regrettably end with our hero losing. But now I’m prattling on about an approach to the text that I was adamant I was not going to take. Don’t let it tarnish the rest of the book; that’s all still good shit. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: YEAH PROBABLY

Tales of the German Imagination (trans. by Peter Wortsman): - ‘The Singing Bone’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, and ‘The Children of Hameln’ (the Brothers Grimm) - I struggle to place the Grimms fairy tales in terms of an analytical approach, and so it’ll suffice to say that these stories are exactly what you’d expect from the Grimms, in that they’re short and dark and make for easy reading - ‘Rune Mountain’ (Ludwig Tieck) - a proper romanticism story with a fantastic dream-like storytelling tone and incredibly evocative imagery throughout - ’St Cecelia or the Power of Music’ (Heinrich von Kleist) - a well-written actualisation of a cool suspenseful horror story concept with a few nice spooky bits, albeit with a rather slow middle and generally anticlimactic end - ‘Peter Schlemiel’ (Adelbert von Chamisso) - an amazing idea for a story that, while bogged down with unexplained magical objects straight out of Hoffmann’s fairy tales popping up every now and then to take the story in weird directions, and based on a social ostracisation that really does not seem like as big a deal as the story makes it out to be, is still very enjoyable - ’The Marble Statue’ (Josef von Eichendorff) - another story that brings to mind Hoffmann’s fairy tales (which I should perhaps instead just consider the archetype for German romanticism?), this time in terms of its romantic setting and soppy protagonist, and indeed its dumb allegorical dream-quest nonsense ending - ‘My Gmunden’ (Peter Altenberg) - so short that I didn’t really know what I was meant to be laughing at - ‘The Magic Egg’ and ‘A New Kind of Plaything’ (Mynona) - absolutely amazing little snippets of madness and laughter at oddity, the first story being an absurdist exercise in stupidity with a cast-aside veneer of meaning to the story, and the second being a jolly examination of a ludicrous idea - ’The Seamstress’ (Rainer Maria Rilke) - a compelling and vaguely unsettling story with fantastic character descriptions of the titular seamstress and an ending that casts our narrator adrift - ‘The Island of Eternal Life’ (Georg Kaiser) - a short and enjoyable story of rapid cartoon-like escalation, albeit with an ending more befitting a cynical satire on humanity - ‘In the Penal Colony’ (Franz Kafka) - a story I’ve read before and my favourite of Kafka’s writings; it’s dark and compelling (if a bit long-winded at point when describing the intricacies of the machine), and has a fantastic culmination (specifically the fate of the Officer) with elements of regret and serious fucking brutality - ‘The Blackbird’ (Robert Musil) - possesses a narrative voice that, while philosophical and high-minded, was not enough to embellish the story’s rather boring content (or at least seemed a tad misused when utilised to describe warfare) - ‘The Lunatic’ (Georg Heym) - over-the-top and gruesome and overall fucking hilarious; godspeed to ridiculously hyperbolic depictions of madmen in literature - ‘A Conversation Concerning Legs’ (Alfred Lichtenstein) - a conversation on one absurd subject, with dialogue that possesses all the necessary elements to make the humour work; it’s matter-of-fact and occasionally stupidly verbose to juxtapose the oddity of the subject matter, there’s rapid escalation from one train of thought to the next, and the conversation ends as abruptly and pointlessly as it had begun - ‘The Onion’ (Kurt Schwitters) - one of the first surrealist stories that I’ve read that has properly made me consider the ineffable and indescribable genius of the minds that concocted it, as well as having a pretty fucking sweet premise even before the text starts getting properly surreal and fragmented - ‘A Raw Recruit’ (Klabund) - a very funny story with a satirical premise I’m well used to - ‘The Time Saver’ (Ignaz Wrobel) - a story with an interesting abstract premise that is continuously built on in a manner that put me in mind of Krzhizhanovsky, but with an ending that didn’t seem very connected to the plot that preceded it (though perhaps that was somewhat the point) - ‘The Tattooed Portrait’ (Egon Erwin Kisch) - perhaps the funniest story in the collection, possessing the satire of people in power and absurd turns of fate to knock esteemed people down a peg as to be found in Gogol or my favourite Leskov short stories - ‘The Experiment or the Victory of the Children’ (Unica Zurn) - a story that takes the same general steps as Mynona’s ‘A New Kind of Plaything’, but seems less tongue-in-cheek and satirical and more like it’s trying to make some sort of grand statement - ’The Secrets of the Princess of Kagran’ (Ingeborg Bachmann) - purportedly a modern day fairy tale (albeit set in a mythologised past full of names for places and people I’m unfamiliar with), with the influence of modernism presumably being evident by the nonsense anticlimactic ending WOULD I RECOMMEND?: HELL YEAH

#book reviews #book ramblings #book rambles #the hike #drew magary #falstaff #robert nye #a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court #mark twain #i won't pretend that i don't still struggle to properly spell the word 'connecticut'#like that second 'c' shouldn't fucking be there #no but seriously everyone go and read that german imagination anthology #it's like my favourite anthology of this year #my yearly amazing anthology #for last year i had Calvino's Fantastic Tales #which was also great #i have in fact been doing other reading this week but it's all been non-fiction on areasof study that interest me #just an absolute shit load on bruegel the elder and netherlandish proverbs #it's in research for my essay on Labyrinth's goblins #an essay which is ten thousand words long at present and has spiralled into an idea for a story of which i've done six thousand words #busy busy

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