Favourite Romance Book // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 20

Today is the twentieth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite romance book".

I am currently in self-imposed quarantine after being potentially exposed to COVID-19. This is not an ideal situation for my health, but it has been a net positive for this blog, which has been receiving much more attention since I've been confined to my flat. So, in the interest of preserving the momentum we've had going for the last two posts, let's move swiftly into the topic of this entry: my favourite romance book.

As with several other posts I've written for this challenge, preparing for this one involved a lot of time spent thinking about how I could find a loophole in the prompt. I don't read a lot of books that I would class specifically as 'romance', so I was finding it difficult to choose a book that fit that category. Even the few books in which I particularly enjoyed the romantic element have already either been written about (Carol) or earmarked for a later post (Fingersmith). I thought that I could pretend to have misinterpreted the prompt as meaning a book from the Romanticism period of literature and chosen something like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a result. Or I could act like it meant Romance as in 'Romance languages' and thus be able to pick any book written in Italian, French, Spanish, and so on. Thankfully, I ended up not having to use either of these slightly deceitful approaches, as I remembered the perfect romance book for this post at the last minute.

In the end, the book I chose was Penguins Poems for Love, edited by Laura Barber.

This book, as the title suggests, is a collection of poems by various authors on the subject of love. The poems are split into categories named as adverbs, in response to the famous question 'How do I love thee?'. In order from first to last, they are:

• Suddenly
• Secretly
• Nearly
• Tentatively
• Haplessly
• Incurably
• Impatiently
• Superlatively
• Persuasively
• Passionately
• The morning after
• Greedily
• Truly, madly, deeply
• From a distance
• With a vow
• Happily ever after
• Treacherously
• Brutally
• Bitterly
• Finally
• Forsaken
• Regretfully
• Fatally
• Indifferently
• After death
• Eternally

As you might have guessed from the sheer number of sections listed above, the book is rather large. It numbers about 400 pages in total, and that is while it's in a large-paged hardback edition. It's a physically beautiful book, the kind of thing you could imagine keeping for years, giving as a present for a special occasion, or perhaps passing on to a younger generation. The original hardback version, pictured above, has the word LOVE spelt out in big letters on a red spine, with the words "love, lust, life, loss, love" written in smaller print between the characters. This edition even comes with two red ribbon bookmarks sewn in - the height of luxury. There's something rather romantic - in the sense of being idealised or extravagant - even in the book's outer appearance.

What I really like about this collection, and what makes it my favourite romance book, is its variety. As you can tell from the many categories of poems and even the words on the spine, Penguin's Poems for Love illustrates both the breadth and diversity of love, from the selfless to the toxic, from the fleeting to the immortal. As someone who often feels that people's varied experiences of love are too frequently flattened into one universal feeling, I appreciated this book's attempt to depict romance in its many forms. 

Besides thematic variety, I also enjoyed the diversity of the book's featured poets. While there are plenty of classic, famous love poems in the collection, like several of Shakespeare's sonnets, there are also some lesser-known poems as well. Likewise, they vary in length, style, and origin. This variety was deliberate; Barber even states this intention in the introductory notes, writing: 'my aim has been to range as widely as possible, historically and geographically.'

All in all, Penguin's Poems for Love is a lovely book with a beautiful design, a great variety of poems, and a charming way of displaying them. It might be impossible to find a single book that encapsulates the vastness of romantic love, but you could do a lot worse than this one.

Favourite Book Turned Into a Movie // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 19

Today is the nineteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite book turned into a movie".

As I mentioned in my other post about a book-to-film adaptation which I decidedly did not enjoy, I don't watch that many movies that are based on a book I've already read, mostly out of fear that they won't do the original story justice. However, there are a few which I've seen and found pleasantly surprising. Even if they are rarely better than the original (if such a comparison is even possible), such film versions can complement, add to, or provide a refreshing interpretation of the story they get their inspiration from. While I could name a couple of films like this - one of which I exempted because I want to talk about it in a later post - the one I have chosen for this prompt is Carol, the 2015 adaptation of The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith.

For the sake of clarification, I should add that although this novel was originally published with the title The Price of Salt, it was later republished by Bloomsbury under the name of Carol. This is why my edition of the book, the same as the paperback pictured above, is also labelled as such.

As book-to-film adaptations go, Carol's screen version is rather more well-known than the novel, although the latter is by no means obscure either. I first found out about the book when the film was nearly due to be released and hotly anticipated by many queer women's websites as a landmark in seeing our stories represented in mainstream media. I read the book with the primary intention of watching the film soon afterwards, but then predictably got distracted by other things and didn't see the movie until some time later. When I did, I wondered why I'd put it off for so long.

Before I go any further, you should probably have some idea of Carol's plot - assuming that you haven't already heard about it from the internet (spoiler alert: 'Harold, they're lesbians'). As a change from our usual Goodreads plagiarism, in this post I'm going to share a summary courtesy of IMDB:

In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to question her competence as a mother as her involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) come to light.

In my opinion, a film adaptation of a book needs to do two things to be considered 'good':

1. do the original book justice
2. be a good film in its own right

The first point doesn't mean that the film has to adapt the book completely faithfully; I feel that sometimes slight adjustments can both make a story suit the medium of film better as well as bring in an interesting new element. One of my favourite adaptations, The Handmaiden (which I will discuss more on a later day), dramatically changes multiple elements of the story, from setting to plot, but it does so in such a way that it remains respectful of the original.

If a film tries not to change anything in adapting a book to the screen, it will always fail, as it is working from a blueprint created for an entirely different form of media.

All that said, Carol doesn't actually change very much of its plot in its transition from book to film. The crucial elements remain the same, but tweaked slightly so as to best suit the new form and our current times. As an example of the former, the film changes Therese's aspiration in life from being a theatre set designer to becoming a photographer. Not only is this easier to depict on-screen, it also allows for a number of poignant moments when we see the events of the film through Therese's camera lens. This is particularly valuable as the book is written from Therese's perspective, whereas the film spends some of its runtime focusing on Carol alone. With regard to slightly modernising the story, the film omits the book's mention of Therese's neglectful mother - a detail which can be read as having 'caused' Therese's lesbianism in the book, an unfortunate implication for a modern audience.

All of the changes made to the story feel carefully considered and mindful of the source material. Rather than disrespecting the book, these alterations are done in service of depicting its narrative in the best way possible. The minor differences also mean that lovers of the book get to experience something new in seeing the film, instead of simply watching the exact same story play out in a cinema as opposed to on the page.

So, Carol fulfils the requirements of my first commandment for adaptational film success, but what about the second? Is Carol a good film in its own right? My answer is absolutely, definitely yes. It is one of my all-time favourite gay films, and possibly one of my top ten films ever. Despite being straight, Cate Blanchett (who I'm convinced is only heterosexual due to a glitch in the matrix) and Rooney Mara give brilliant performances as the cool, confident Carol and the lovestruck Therese, respectively. They have great chemistry and manage to convey the significance and intimacy of many of the small, crucial moments that take place over the course of their characters' relationship. The film is also beautifully shot and directed, with city scenes like those of an Edward Hopper painting in motion. Adding to these are the costumes, gorgeous 1950s outfits designed by Sandy Powell that look beautiful while also illustrating the personalities of their wearers. Finally, the score composed by Carter Burwell gives the film a sense of grand, sweeping romance and drama, as its story rightfully deserves. If you haven't yet heard the opening theme for the Carol soundtrack (the first song on the tracklist, named 'Opening'), I urge you to do so now.

In short, Carol is a beautiful film and a worthy adaptation of an important book. Women who love women and people who love films alike were blessed the day this film arrived in the world.

A Book That Disappointed Me // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 18

Today is the eighteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book that disappointed you".

WARNING: I suppose this post might include some minor spoilers for The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, but also I remember it so poorly and care about it so little that I'm likely to get parts of this wrong anyway. You have been warned.

After another few days off from posting, we're back once again. It feels a little strange to be writing about books right now, when the world is in a collective panic over the COVID-19 outbreak. Still, if it seems flippant for me to be doing a post like this during a pandemic, I can only say this: writing is providing a much-needed distraction for me during a time of worldwide crisis, and I would like to think that maybe reading this post could do the same for at least one person. So, I am going to try to continue writing and posting as normal - if perhaps a little more regularly than I have been.

When I was a child, I used to think that the worst emotion in the world was disappointment. I'm not sure I'd make the same statement now, but I still believe there's something uniquely tragic about the way the pain of disappointment follows previous hopefulness. Disappointment of the bookish variety might not seem the worst of these at first - it is not as though, in expecting a book to be good, I had prepared myself for something obviously, tangibly life-changing, like a dream job opportunity or a cure for a pandemic (ahem). Still, in my experience book-related disappointment can be as saddening or annoying as many other kinds. I learnt this lesson the hard way, in around 2009, when I read The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart.

I hope you can see, from the picture above, why I was initially so intrigued by the look of The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart. Its cover design is gorgeously Tim Burton-esque, for one, but even the little of the book's concept conveyed in its title struck me as enchanting in a gothic sort of way. It was originally published in French as La Mécanique du cœur, written by Mathis Malzieu, lead singer of the rock band Dionysos. So far, so charming. The plot description only intrigued me further:

Edinburgh, 1874. On the coldest night the world has ever seen, Little Jack is born with a frozen heart and immediately undergoes a life-saving operation. But Dr Madeleine is no conventional medic and surgically implants a cuckoo-clock into his chest. Little Jack grows up different to other children: every day begins with a daily wind-up. At school he is bullied for his 'ticking', but Dr Madeleine reminds him he must resist strong emotion: anger is far too dangerous for his cuckoo-clock heart. So when the beautiful young street-singer, Miss Acacia, appears - pursued by Joe, the school bully - Jack is in danger of more than just falling in love... he is putting his life on the line.

Add to this fascinating plot the fact that I first encountered the book via a glowing review by a book blogger I trusted, and I was guaranteed to read this book. I ordered a copy and soon received a pretty hardback edition with the cover you see above. Everything looked promising and I was excited to dive into this seemingly magical little book.

Unfortunately, the reading experience itself turned out to be utterly disappointing. 

As always, I feel the need to state that I read this book in translation, so there is a degree of uncertainty as to how much of my dislike of the book is owed to the original writing versus the way it was translated. However, I think it would be a disservice to both Malzieu and Ardizzonne (the translator), to assume that a book could so easily be ruined purely by translation. So in order to avoid insulting both of these people, I must assume that The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart was simply terrible to begin with.

Perhaps terrible is an exaggeration, but if my expectations for the book were high to begin with, that just means its fall seemed that much further. To begin my complaints, let's start with the writing itself. I'm not a fan of incredibly poetic books in general, as I find it can be a challenge for the writer to balance prose and pretention. Malzieu, sadly, tips the scales firmly in the latter direction. For every one occasionally genuinely-poetic line, we get ten others with painfully stretched metaphors and weird anachronisms:

For example: 'I watch as she hides her huge eyes under the parasols of her eyelids.' (If I remember correctly, this parasol-eyelid comparison is made more than once).

Or, another one: 'Eyes wide open, I spot Dr Madeleine with her arms in the air, like she's just scored a penalty in a World Cup final.' (as far as I know, the first football World Cup took place in 1930, while this book is ostensibly set in the late 19th century)

And, for one final example: 'Our lips take over, in the softest relay race in the world; they mingle, delicately and intensely. It feels as though her tongue is a sparrow gently landing on mine; curiously, she tastes of strawberries.' (ew)

These are not even the most flowery lines in the book, but they are a few samples of its cringey writing. Barely a page goes by without this aggressive floweriness. But, if you will briefly direct your attention back to the third quote (if you can bring yourself to do so), then I would like to mention my second gripe with the book: it's weirdly sexual.

The emphasis here is on the 'weirdly' part. It wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the book was sexual - lots of books are - but the way this book is seems, quite frankly, a little odd. First of all, perhaps I am alone in thinking this, but the book initially struck me as a story for children. Combine the Tim Burton aesthetic with the many reviews referring to it as a 'fairy tale' or 'fable', and I just assumed that the book was created with a younger audience in mind. Apparently not. While the main character in the book starts as a baby and spends much of the story as a teenager, I can only presume the book was going for a 'fairy tale for grown-ups' angle, because of how things take an oddly adult turn partway into the book.

Besides random allusions to sexual topics that are present from near the beginning of the book - like the fact that Jack names his pet hamster Cunnilingus after learning the word (but not its meaning) from his two sex worker friends, Luna and Anna - things get suddenly more intense about halfway through the story, when Jack begins a relationship with his childhood crush Acacia. I say that as though there is a big gap between his childhood and when they start seeing each other, but in reality they start their sexual relationship when Acacia is about 14 or 15 years old.* I don't know about anyone else, but I find that highly uncomfortable to read.

The author didn't even have the decency to make Jack and Acacia's intimacy implicit; instead we are confronted with drawn-out scenes that, in my opinion, could have been real contenders for the Literary Review's Bad Sex Awards. To make all this worse, we are also treated to the frequent use of Jack's clock as a phallic symbol. It's all very awkward and unnecessary.

My third and final problem with The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is that it didn't make me care at all about the characters. Malzieu might have a few whimsical ideas and an addiction to metaphor, but he doesn't have the literary skills needed to make us actually invested in the characters and their stories. Jack himself is at a disadvantage, being the voice of the book's first-person narration and thus likely to experience second-hand annoyance from the reader whenever they get fed-up with the book's painfully overdone writing. Yet even the other characters, like Dr Madeleine and Acacia, are flat and uninteresting. My only motivation in continuing to read the book was not a desire to see how it concluded or what happened to my favourite characters - it was that I couldn't wait for the book to end and release me from my misery.

Perhaps the message here is in line with that old adage: don't judge a book by its cover. Or maybe it's to not get your hopes up too much over a book you haven't yet read, although I would argue that I'd find this book irritating even if I hadn't heard anything about it beforehand. 

One other thing: I haven't seen the film adaptation of the book, Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart, that came out in 2013. I actually think it may be better than the book, partially the bar isn't terribly high, but also because I think it would benefit from a clear target audience (the film being PG) and the book's little gimmicks (cuckoo clock heart, eccentric doctor in a house on a hill, etc.) would possibly come across better on-screen. 

To end this post on a positive note, I will say this: the existence of disappointment necessitates the existence of hope, and even if that hope is disappointed, it still means we saw the potential for something to be better than it was. Perhaps this hope can be something that drives us to do better and to create better things, sometimes by building on the flaws of the work that came before. I think that the film adaptation may have the potential to be better than the book. Maybe there will be those who write similar but better books than this in the future as well.

*I no longer have my copy of the book so I can't confirm the exact age, but I remember finding this weird and uncomfortable when I read it the first time. 

Favourite Quote from My Favourite Book // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 17

Today is the seventeenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite quote from your favourite book".

Welcome back to the 30-day book challenge. Today we will be featuring some of the classics you all know and love, including: Mary-tries-and-fails-to-pick-favourites and outrageously-delayed-posts. Rather than give you all the details of my indecisiveness this time, I'm going to skip all of that and get to the point of this post. My chosen book for today's prompt is Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, one of my favourite books of all time.

In specific, this post is meant to focus on my favourite quote from the novel. The quote I remember the best and appreciate the most just so happens to be one of the most well-known from the book, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful to me:

'She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxicabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.'

I won't go into great depth regarding the plot of Mrs Dalloway, as that will be necessary in a later post. However, I will say that this scene comes near the beginning of the book, when the titular Clarissa Dalloway has set out into London in search of flowers for her party later. These sentences, typical of the book's stream-of-consciousness style, appear when she is in the midst of the bustle of the busy city.

One of the reasons I chose this quote is because it accurately represents a feeling which is common to me at the moment, as I am living in a city for the first time in my life: urban isolation. It's both a great and terrible thing about being in a crowded urban environment, that even when you are surrounded constantly by people, noise, and activity, you can still personally feel very alone. 

This quote encapsulates that feeling, but more than that, it also illustrates another divide that is deeper than simply personal/urban: the contrast between our inner and outer lives. This is a major theme in Mrs Dalloway, which often blends Clarissa's real-life experiences with her thoughts and memories, in a way that simultaneously shrinks and draws attention to the disconnect between them. 

Finally, in the last phrase of this quote - indeed the one which I see most frequently quoted alone - Clarissa reflects on the precariousness of life. I like this phrase partially for its ambiguity; what exactly is the danger in living? Is it simply the danger of death? Or is it something else, any of the myriad threats we open ourselves up to just by engaging with the world around us - not physical harm, but emotional. 

Clarissa is a woman who feels things deeply, but as we have already discussed, she is also a person who struggles to balance her internal and external lives. Perhaps her interpretation of 'danger' is literal or perhaps it has a subtler meaning. If you (like me) are not certain of her meaning, I would guess that Clarissa isn't entirely sure which she is referring to either.

Favourite Female Character // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 16

Today is the sixteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite female character".

So. Once again I have failed to get back on track with these daily instalments, despite my promise in the previous post that I would. At this point, I'm sure none of you will take me seriously if I say that this time I genuinely will get back to doing a post each day, so I'm going to refrain from stating that here. However, I will say that I hope that the post for Day 17 will be less delayed than this one was. You'll just have to check back to see if my hope was justified (or subscribe by email - hint hint).

I had originally planned to upload this post on Galentine's Day, i.e. the day before Valentine's Day, when women around the world celebrate their female friends and other women in their lives. It would have been the perfect conclusion to a day I had spent sending e-cards and soppy messages to real-life women, to then come online and write about a fictional woman who I adore. Sadly, it was not to be. For various reasons, the post was delayed, with the result being that you are now getting to read it approximately one month later than was initially intended. Sorry about that.

However, my own tardiness does not mean that the topic of this post is any less important. In fact, the prompt of "favourite female character" is one that's very close to my heart. I love female characters, so much so that I had the reverse problem with this prompt as I did in the previous "favourite male character" challenge: there were simply so many great women to choose from.

In the end, I settled on a female character who not only do I love and find inspiring, but who I also think is less well-known than the likes of Elizabeth Bennet or Anne Shirley, and thus deserving of a little extra attention. My choice is Mame Dennis, the title character of Patrick Dennis's 1995 novel Auntie Mame.

As is tradition, let's start this post with a Goodreads summary of what this book is about:

When shy young heir Patrick is orphaned at the tender age of ten, the only family he has is his wealthy and eccentric aunt, a fabulous New York socialite named Mame. While prone to dramatic costumes, flights of fancy and expensive whims - not least her lives as a muse and a Southern belle - Auntie Mame will raise Patrick the only way she knows how: with madcap humour, mishaps, unforgettable friends and lots and lots of love. 

Based on that first sentence alone, you already know a little about Mame. She's rich, she's eccentric, and she's undeniably fabulous. But there is more to know about her, and specifically why I love her so much, than can be gleaned purely from this summary. So, let's do this in semi-list format. Why do I love Mame Dennis? Let me count list the ways.

She's glamorous and unapologetically decadent

I knew that I would love Mame's character from page eighteen, in my copy of Auntie Mame, when our narrator Patrick is summoned for his first proper meeting with his aunt. He enters her room to find her still in bed, wearing a "bed jacket made of pink ostrich feathers" and "reading Gide's Les Faux-Monnayeurs and smoking Melachrino cigarettes through a long amber holder". This meeting, referred to by Mame as being in the morning, takes place at 1pm. Patrick writes, "Morning, I soon discovered, was one o'clock for Auntie Mame. Early Morning was eleven, and the middle of the night was nine."

This isn't even Mame's first appearance in the book, but as the first scene where we and Patrick are properly introduced to her, it makes a hell of an impression. We can see here that she is a woman who does what she wants, even if that means her perception of the world is slightly divorced from the common view (more on that in a minute). She's glamorous and perhaps a little endearingly self-indulgent - rather how I've always imagined Princess Margaret to be. Although Mame comes without the association of enjoying all this decadence at the taxpayers' expense, so that's a bonus.

She's a unique thinker

Following on from my previous point that Mame's ideas and behaviour are often at odds with wider society, I'd go so far as to say that she is even something of an iconoclast. Besides her unusual personal behaviour, the first great display of Mame's unconventionality comes when she alarms Mr Babcock (the trustee of Patrick's inheritance and ever-present adversary of Mame) by sending her nephew to a school she describes as "revolutionary", which turns out to be more or less a coeducational nudist institution.

This is hardly the only instance of Mame's unique sensibilities causing trouble. Her taste in fashion and art ("more with the Bauhaus of Munich than with the rocaille and coquaille of Versailles"), for example, is unconventional enough to cause conflict a number of times, but even if she briefly appears to change to accommodate others' expectations, Mame always returns to her same unorthodox self in the end.

She never gives up

In his narration of the book, Patrick admits that, looking back on when he first came into Mame's care, she was no doubt "just as terrified [...] as I was" but, he adds, "Auntie Mame was never one to admit defeat." Mame throws herself into raising Patrick, doing everything she can to bring him up well. In other areas of life, Mame shows determination as well. When she loses all of her money in a financial accident, she hops from job to job trying to make ends meet. Even when her aforementioned eccentricities lead to her being fired more than once, she still refuses to give up and continues to move on to different opportunities. 

She's loving

Mame's approach to raising Patrick is definitely controversial, but for all of the slightly questionable decisions she makes, it is always clear that Mame truly loves and cares about her nephew. She gives him her time, attention, and affection, with the result that they develop an incredible bond. Even if there are times when they are pulled apart, by external forces or personal conflicts, the familial love they share for each other is enough that they always end up forgiving each other in the end.

She stands up for what she believes in

As we've already established, Mame Dennis is not one to change herself for others' comfort. Nor is she willing to compromise her beliefs for the same reason. The most obvious instance of this comes when Mame is taken to meet the parents of Patrick's fiancée, who turn out to be virulently anti-Semitic. Not wanting to upset Patrick by openly fighting with his wife-to-be's family, Mame begins by gently questioning the father's comments about Jews. When this fails and the man begins to voice even more violently prejudiced opinions, Mame finally snaps. She lets the anti-Semitic father have it, telling him exactly what she thinks of his harmful views. The result might be that Patrick's engagement fails to remain unscathed, but he and Mame leave the meeting both feeling that Mame did the right thing in speaking up.

***

Mame Dennis is definitely one of the memorable characters I've encountered in literature, and she remains one of my solid favourites. She is seen by some to be eccentric and perhaps slightly frivolous at first, but underneath her wonderfully glamorous exterior is a determined and caring woman. She doesn't do anything by halves, and she always does everything in her own unique way. She is a devoted aunt, an inspiring woman, and (most of all) a brilliant book character.

PS: Although I highly recommend reading the original novel if Mame's character appeals to you, in the case that that's not possible I can also suggest watching the 1958 film adaptation of the same name, starring the great Rosalind Russell. It might not capture 100% of the humour and glamour of the book, but it comes pretty close.

Favourite Male Character // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 15

Today is the fifteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite male character".

I know that I have complained about these challenges being difficult every day since I started (almost as if they were meant to be challenging or something), but I genuinely think this is the hardest prompt I've attempted so far. I tend to read more books by and/or about women than those which have male authors or protagonists, so I had somewhat fewer options to choose from than I will for tomorrow's prompt, "favourite female character". That said, I think I have finally settled on a character I am happy to select for this challenge. He might not be my all-time favourite male character, although I'm not sure who would be, but I think he is worthy of having a post dedicated to him all the same. The character I have chosen is Mercutio, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

While I'm sure most of you reading are familiar with at least the basics of Romeo and Juliet's plot, you may not be familiar with how Mercutio fits into things. As you are probably aware, the story of Romeo and Juliet focuses on two teenagers who fall in love despite coming from two warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Mercutio appears as one of Romeo's two best friends, along with his boyfriend the significantly less-memorable Benvolio.

To me, Mercutio is without a doubt the best character in Romeo and Juliet. He's at times moody and rude, at others fun and jovial, but he's always witty and humorous, sometimes inappropriately so. This is the person who, while dying from a stab wound, took the opportunity to make a pun about being a "grave man", after all.

Mercutio has little patience with Romeo's pining or the Montague/Capulet feud, and he's often found winding his friends up with his sassy but facetious comments. However, he also has a short temper, one which ultimately leads to his death.

Mercutio brings some much-needed levity and wit to Romeo and Juliet, and his charisma and theatricality remains iconic whether he is acting grumpy or funny. It's no wonder that many of the actors who've portrayed him appear to be having such fun with his character, like Harold Perrineau in the scene below, from Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.

More than being a great character in his own right, Mercutio represents for me some of my favourite and yet most frequently side-lined aspects of Shakespeare's plays: their wit, their humour, and their infectious, campy theatricality.

Book Turned Movie and Completely Desecrated // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 14

Today is the twelfth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book turned movie and completely desecrated".

Quick note: I would like to apologise for the rather large delay between this post and the previous one. I've been feeling unwell recently and had to take a break from the challenge, but hopefully from this point onwards I will be able to get back on track. Now let's get on to the post.

This prompt is somewhat difficult for me. Although I've read more than enough books that have been turned into movies, I often end up avoiding the film adaptations of them out of fear of them being, as this prompt phrased it, "completely desecrated". The problem is so bad that even when I read a book for the sole purpose of seeing the movie (because everyone knows you should always aspire to read the book first), I often end up not seeing the movie afterwards, or at least seeing it much later than I had intended. Then, those few that I do end up seeing after reading the book are those that have been recommended to me on their own merits as films, so they tend to be fairly decent. All this to say, I was fairly stumped for an answer to today's challenge.

So, I decided to cheat. The film I've chosen for this post's prompt is not based on one specific book, but rather what might be defined as a broad genre of literature: Greek mythology.

While Greek mythology itself does not have one specific text, I am going to focus on one specific adaptation of its stories in this post, the 2010 film Clash of the Titans.

Before I get into what I dislike about this film, let me give you a quick summary. Clash of the Titans is an action-adventure film that stars Sam Worthington as Perseus, a demigod adopted by humans who is drawn into a huge conflict that pits gods against humans. Apparently it's loosely based on a film of the same name that was released some 30 years prior, but I know nothing about that one and thus will conveniently ignore its existence.

Now, let's get into my issues with this film. First of all, it's just not very good. It's hardly the only bad film in the world, but it doesn't even have the decency to be amusingly bad. Mostly, it's just boring. Its poor quality is even more offensive given the source material. There's a reason Greek mythology has had a massive influence on popular culture, and why people still enjoy reading about it today; it has some brilliant stories. The fact that Clash of the Titans is based on these stories gives it an advantage from the start, but it somehow manages to bring these legendary tales down to the level of the rest of the film - which is to say, quite low.

As a whole, the film is basically your typical action-adventure young-man-goes-on-a-quest tale, just with the allure of Greek mythological references thrown over the top. It's a jumble of sepia tones, eyeliner, and muddled accents, in which neither the actors nor the characters ever seem to know what they're trying to achieve. Many choices in the film are questionable, but they could be redeemed if it was steered in the direction of something fun and pantomime-like. Instead, it simultaneously acts over-the-top and takes itself too seriously. The result is awkward and decidedly not entertaining to watch.

So, we shall move on to my issues with the way this film has adapted the mythology it's based upon, but first, a couple of disclaimers. I am not an expert on mythology; I'm just someone who has enjoyed reading about Greek myths and legends for a long time, and I have some strong feelings about them. I also don't think it's impossible to do a good Greek mythology film - Disney's Hercules and the classic 1963 version of Jason and the Argonauts are both films that I adore, for example. The reason I chose Clash of the Titans to write about is it hits several of the points that I see recurring in movies based on mythology, so a lot of the criticisms I make of this film can be applied to other adaptations of Greek myth as well.

The first problem I have with Clash of the Titans concerns the scope of the plot. Most Greek myths do not, typically, deal with world-altering conflicts. They might involve some heroes, some monsters, maybe a god or two, but they don't generally involve something on the level of, for example, an all-out war between humans and the Olympian pantheon (as Clash of the Titans does). Greek mythology is not one story, but rather a collection of interconnected ones - the trouble is that often filmmakers bite off more than they can chew and attempt to incorporate every little myth into one single film, with the result being a messy and contrived plot.

This brings me to the second thing that bothers me about this movie. It tries to cram too many mythological references into the plot, in a way that is perhaps meant to appeal to mythology nerds but just ends up seeming (like so much of the film) a bit messy. On top of a plot that bundles as many elements of the Perseus mythology together as it can (Medusa, Pegasus, Andromeda, etc.), we are also given random additions such as Io, who appears in this film not as a cow as she normally does in mythology, but as some kind of immortal-oracle-slash-love-interest. We get random allusions to the Hydra and Nemean lion, plus single-scene appearances of creatures that appear to be a cross between the Furies and harpies, as well as.... djinn?

If you're thinking, "hold on a minute, djinn are from Islamic mythology, not Greek", then you're not going to like what I have to say next. My third gripe with the film is that its main draw, the origin of its most iconic line ("Release the kraken!") completely clashes with the rest of the story. Now, I know that there is no one conclusive canon of Greek mythology, and anyone who wants to create media based on it needs to make decisions as to which versions of the stories they're going to follow. I know this. But. The. Kraken. Is. Not. Greek. It is Norse. It's entirely the wrong mythology, and furthermore it doesn't even look like the Norse description of the kraken, which is usually something along the lines of a giant squid rather than whatever Cloverfield knock-off we ended up with here. Why the filmmakers decided to include this bastardised kraken instead of any of the plethora of Greek monsters that would have worked just as well - or even, you know, the monster Cetus that exists in the original story - is beyond me.

Lastly, there is one issue in Clash of the Titans which is a real pet peeve of mine when it comes to adaptation of Greek mythology: the depiction of Hades. I wrote a piece some time ago about why this seems to happen so often, and why it annoys me so much. My theory was that since our Christianity-centric society has become so used to the idea of a benevolent, monotheistic god opposed by the unambiguously evil Satan, depictions of gods as flawed, complex characters who are not wholly good or bad is sometimes difficult for people work with. The result is that we get characters like Zeus and Hades repeatedly flattened into the roles of Good God and Bad Demon, with little room left for the nuance that made their characters so fascinating in the myths.

Granted, the version of Zeus depicted in Clash of the Titans is not entirely good. He's arrogant, vengeful, and also rapes a woman to get revenge on her husband. So yes, not exactly your typical good guy. Still, he ends up presented as the good deity in contrast to the villain, his brother Hades.

The depiction of Hades in Clash of the Titans is a travesty that even the great Ralph Fiennes couldn't salvage. This Hades is unambiguously the Bad Guy. He hates humans and the other gods for the vague reason that Zeus once betrayed him, and his grand plan in the film is to pit the two groups against one another as a way for him to eventually get his own back on Zeus. He swirls around in clouds of black hostility, popping up uninvited at events looking like a hungover Tim Minchin doing his best Maleficent impression. It's not enough that the filmmakers had to make Hades - who, I would argue, is actually one of the least problematic members of the Greek pantheon - into a villain; they didn't even have the decency to make him into good one.

Now, I know that Greek myths (and perhaps mythology in general) are not easy to adapt for the screen, but nor is it impossible. My issue is that so many of the things that make Greek mythology special - the interconnected stories, their absurdity, the deeply flawed characters - are too often diluted in favour of creating generic, family-friendly popcorn films, of which Clash of the Titans is one of the worst examples.