The DnD Sanctuary

Sometimes they make both a book and a film out of the same story, such as all Michael Crichton or all Stephen King...

This thread is to share and discuss literature and cinematography as art forms and personal passion, not as mere entertainment. List your favourites and discuss :)


MY BOOKS TOP 5

Mika Waltari, Sinuhe
Milan Kundera, Immortality
W.S.Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Ghazali, Niche of Lights
Vidyaranya, Panchadasi


MY FILMS TOP 5

Miyazaki, Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi
Chaplin, City Lights
Kromanov, Põrgupõhja uus vanapagan (1964)
Nair, Salaam Bombay
Petersen, Das Boot (1981 original, not the lengthened director's cut)


COMMENTS

In my list, the books Sinuhe and Of Human Bondage have made it to film. I have seen the films Sinuhe by Michael Curtiz, 1954, and the British Of Human Bondage from 1934. While re-written well into self-contained films, they are necessarily limited compared to the books. The novels are true epics and cannot be properly transferred to film (unless one is ready for lengthy soap-operatic TV series).

Among films in my list, I have heard that Das Boot was originally a novel, but I haven't read it. Põrgupõhja uus vanapagan is a novella by the most celebrated Estonian author Tammsaare, based on Estonian folk tales. The film version is by one of the very few Estonian directors who is worth to be called a director at all. Estonian cinematography in general never was worth watching, but Kromanov almost has a touch of Ingmar Bergman. Estonian writers are generally recommendable though.

Some Stephen King movie adaptations are really quite good, such as Stand By Me (The Body), Apt Pupil, and Secret Window. I hear The Shawshank Redemption is good as well, but I've only read the novella.

I'm not entirely sure what "mere entertainment" is. Certainly Stephen King could be subjected to literary analysis, although I have my doubts about Chrichton. Perhaps mere entertainment is the reason I don't have a TV. :)

Among Stephen King stuff, I overwhelmingly prefer Misery. Shawshank the movie is non-different from the French Le comte de Monte Cristo (1961) which I am very familiar with. Both are decent productions, but the dramatic points of suspense are utterly predictable and the films mirror each other perfectly in dramatic essence. Shawshank looks like a copy.

Another film I intensely like cinematographically is Kubrick's The Shining, but I have heard Stephen King himself wasn't too fond of this one. I read somewhere that in King's book there were tons of well-elaborated creepy ghost characters, but Kubrick dropped them all and only left humans. I happen to prefer the way Kubrick did it. I can clearly see how Kubrick displays the human characters as puppets pulled around by their own subconscious motives until only shadows and wrecks are left, and this definitely works better for me than actual ghosts and fairies in the walls of the house.

Any book that can be turned into a 90 minute movie without losing much probably isn't worth it :right:

That said, most books I like tend to be unfilmable ( in my opinion at least ) anyway - things like Eco's Focault's Pendulum or The Prague Cemetery - you'd end up with 5 or so 3h monstrosities, each,  that would be incomprehensible unless watched in order and in quick succession. And even then, it's still Eco :left:

Among Stephen King stuff, I overwhelmingly prefer Misery.

Oh, that's a good one. But in that case you might want to check out some of the Bachman books.

Shawshank looks like a copy.

I didn't have a Monte Cristo déjà vu while reading the novella — Tolstoy, on the other hand… ;) For that matter, I have no idea how true that 1961 movie was to the novel either.

I read somewhere that in King's book there were tons of well-elaborated creepy ghost characters, but Kubrick dropped them all and only left humans.

That sounds like nonsense to me. Kubrick kept most of the manifestations and whether you interpret them as Jack's own madness or as actual ghosts is up to the reader/viewer either way. I actually thought the movie was more susceptible to a ghostly interpretation because of the changes made to the Grady character as well as stuff like windows magically moving around, on top of mostly ignoring the effects of Jack's destructive alcoholism. Then again, in both the book and the movie Grady is the one who lets Jack out of that pantry. In both cases you could dismiss that as yet more unreliable narration, but one wonders how Jack managed to get out if he only imagined Grady.

Any book that can be turned into a 90 minute movie without losing much probably isn't worth it :right:

That said, most books I like tend to be unfilmable ( in my opinion at least ) anyway - things like Eco's Focault's Pendulum or The Prague Cemetery - you'd end up with 5 or so 3h monstrosities, each,  that would be incomprehensible unless watched in order and in quick succession. And even then, it's still Eco :left:

That's why the King movie adaptations I mentioned are based on short novellas of no more than a hundred pages.

Umberto Eco is quite lively, but I've been most impressed by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, an essentially non-narrative allegory. Unfilmable text animates imagination most effectively.

Who would have thought that "The French Lieutenant's Woman" was filmable.

I think that one of the most difficult books to film was Patrick Suskind's Das Parfum.
It was done and the film was not too much bad but at an infinite distance from the book's quality.

In a book "a beautiful woman" is each reader's idea, the mental representation each reader has about what is a beautiful woman.
In a movie it's that particular woman and nothing else.
Some goes with all the rest, there's no way a movie to be better than a good book.

But there are many more things to watch in a movie than how it reproduced some book story/argument.

I think that one of the most difficult books to film was Patrick Suskind's Das Parfum.
It was done and the film was not too much bad but at an infinite distance from the book's quality.

In a book "a beautiful woman" is each reader's idea, the mental representation each reader has about what is a beautiful woman.
In a movie it's that particular woman and nothing else.

Was the book more about the perfume or about the beautiful woman? :) (I have neither seen the film or read the book.)

Was the book more about the perfume or about the beautiful woman?  :)  (I have neither seen the film or read the book.)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=516.8;msg=28289)

About capturing the perfume of beauty, the perfume of a beautiful woman.
It's an astonishing book that describes odor as never before making the reader actually smell it.

It's an astonishing book that describes odor as never before making the reader actually smell it.

I hope this is not the only idea of the book. I look for many things in books. I want to see something distinctive and unique, even though usually I end up finding similarities with what I am already familiar with. At the same time I think about what is not being said and I think how it fits with what is being said. In short, I want to see a complete universe, nothing less. Some books manage to outline a universe in a small page count, even though I am not afraid of multi-tome epics either.

Films, on the other hand, should be properly captivating, visually and story-wise. Film moves at its own pace, there's no turning back pages when watching a film (well, there is rewind, but if I am forced to use it, it's either not a good film or there's no good environment for watching). Films represent thinking and feeling done for the viewer, whereas with books there's always the opportunity to think things through from many angles. Of course there are literary genres that get totally ruined when approached too analytically, e.g. crime or adventure, but these are very film-like and this is precisely my point.

Maybe I should have included theatre too in the title? Has anyone here been to theatre this century?

The last year was better than ever for Estonian film. I am only mentioning the most prominent one: Tangerines (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2991224/), a both Golden Globe and Oscar nominee this year. These nominations have never happened to an Estonian film before.

The film is a collaboration with Georgia (as in Gruzia, Sakhartvelo). The director is Georgian. The lead actor is Estonian. The language is mostly Russian.

The story is about an Estonian village in Abkhazia during the war of Abkhazia, a conflict between Georgia and Russia during the breakup of the Soviet Union. The themes are loyalty, morale, and ethnic pride in an armed conflict, and doing the right thing while being caught in between.

My verdict: The themes are very well developed in the script (dialogue-wise) and sensibly enough paced in the film. I would have preferred better coordinated choreography in staging the critical battle. Gives you some nice scenes of the country, if you dig the paysage genre, along with a hint of the essence of humanity in general.

The film was made cheaply, just to get the script enacted at whatever cost because everybody involved was convinced it was brilliant. Unexpectedly it has become a commercial success too. All in all a good watch, though nothing too original.

I will have a look for it. And yes, the Estonian minority in Abkhazia was news to me, that a century ago 1% of the population was Estonian. Interesting.

Surely you knew that Russia was an actual empire. Even Norway still retains some possessions that qualify as colonies, such as Finnmark and Svalbard. With Russia, similarly, there's a heartland, and then there are possessions with different indigenous ethnicities, different climates, and different laws to provide either a sense of autonomy to the locals or incentive to people to populate sparsely inhabited areas. Different degrees of autonomy were enacted in e.g. Czarist Finland, Baltic countries, and Tatarstan, while there were at various times incentives declared to move to Siberia and some areas of Caucasus, including Abkhazia. That's how the Estonian villages cropped up in Abkhazia.

For a literary geopolitical overview of Czarist Russia perhaps Jaan Kross' Keisri hull (The Czar's Madman) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Kross#Synopses) is worth reading. As I earlier said in this thread, Estonian writers are generally worth reading. Kross happens to be one of whom nobody says a bad word, a writer known best for epic well-researched historical novels.

@jax, in Soviet Russia the government decides where you want to live.
Sad but true, and as noted by ersi it was not a novum, but continuation of previous methods for repressing subjects (related (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybirak)).

On topic, some of my favorite books:

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four), by Orwell,


• The Invincible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible), by Lem,


• Limes inferior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_inferior), by Zajdel,


• The Trial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial), by Kafka,


• Under the Dome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Dome), by King.

I also like some other books written by Lem and Zajdel (all of them, although best ones have common leitmotif) and other authors of that genre, I've added Under the Dome more like filler, to have five entries with unique authors. ;-)

On Czarist Russia, I can also warmly recommend Chaadaev's A Journey from St. Peterburg to Moscow, which I have read. It's a travel-book with plenty of humanist critical sociopolitical commentary. This book was banned in Czarist Russia. Another interesting work about Russia that I have unfortunately not read is Zamyatin's We, an anti-Bolshevist dystopia, a precursor of both Brave New World and 1984. Naturally, Zamyatin was also banned, published in Soviet Union only in 1988.

Censorship is something weirdly dear to Russian administration of any era. They cannot live without it even now.

Chaadaev is an interesting figure. While he was routinely cited in Soviet Union as a critic of the Czarist regime (which is true), having read him, I noticed something more. He is a visionary fatalist who observes that Russia has a mere reactionary role in the world. Russia is forever doomed to backwardness in comparison with other nations. Attempts to emulate and achieve a greatness similar to other nations will always either fall short or miss the mark. At failures and dissatisfying incomplete successes, Russians indulge in wallowing in self-pity and finger-pointing. The positive role Russia has in the world is to serve as an example what not to be like.

Pretty harsh view about one's own nation, isn't it?

I've travelled from Moscow to St Petersberg (by train) but not the other way round - a story in itself that one.

Anyway the reason to reply to your note is to defend the Russians in what I thought an endearing aspect which is to be able to laugh at themselves. When I first went there it was at the time when depreciation of the rouble was at its worse, the rouble being significantly less at the end of a 4 day trip than at the beginning, and  when paying in US Dollars was more or less the norm for a foreign visitor and $20, for example,  would buy you the most wonderful meal with all the food and drink you could sensibly consume.  Also at that time it was so sad to see lines of people standing at the side of roads trying to sell their second-hand clothes, all the more so because those people were clearly the middle class whose financial world had collapsed and had previously been used to relatively better times.

In all of that, the humour I encountered amongst the Russians I worked with was normally about (topically) queues, scarcity of items in shops, and in fact the things which most of us would not really joke about in front of foreigners.

I'm sorry to see their world collapsing again.

Looks like there was recommendation of sorts of 13th Warrior (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=481.msg36013#msg36013), a movie that I let pass by around the time of its release. Now I saw it and, eww, what a load of garbage. On every level. Not only is it plotless and pointless, it doesn't even momentarily provide anything to look at, a pretty landscape, anything culturally insightful or at least correct about Vikings. Nothing at all. You can only like it if you like to see battles (very poorly coordinated in this film) or laugh at silly manners and beliefs of ancient times (all details of which are grossly false in this film, perhaps deliberately, to no artistic effect).

Some amazing features of the film include:

• No character development whatsoever


• The main character is totally irrelevant to the plot, but this doesn't matter, because there's no plot development either, just battles and threat of battles at regular intervals


• Vikings live next to Neanderthals


• Neanderthals have superior numbers, superior culture (advanced religion with elaborate system of sacrifices) and superior strategy (horses for war, while Vikings only have horses for transport), but they get annihilated anyway


• There are feeble hints to the Beowulf myth (the Viking leader's name sounds approximately like Beowulf, the Neanderthal cavalry looks like a dragon from afar), but this is irrelevant too, because there is no occasion for any of the themes that the myth is about, so no real connection

13th Warrior is not just a film, but apparently also a book by Michael Crichton, which makes it topical to this thread. Michael Crichton is in good terms with the film industry. Every novel of his gets consistently filmatised in a big way, by a big studio, with some big star actors and directors involved. IMDB presents around hundred projects with his involvement. In the cinema arena, but only Jurassic Park looks like a notable achievement among those.

EDIT: For a decisively better handling of Nordic-Arab contact, I recommend Mika Waltari's Mikael Hakim, a novel about a medieval Finnish character wandering around in Ottoman/Arab lands, making observations and stumbling upon adventures.

Looks like there was recommendation of sorts of 13th Warrior (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=481.msg36013#msg36013)

Yes, an absolutely adequate film to the average poster, it shows them well what it is supposed to show, never to be considered as some seventh art's masterpiece.
Anyway, applying your criteria, I'm afraid you have to refrain yourself from watching 99,5% of Hollywood movies... :)

Quote from: ersi on 2015-03-27, 10:20:50

Looks like there was recommendation of sorts of 13th Warrior (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=481.msg36013#msg36013)

Yes, an absolutely adequate film to the average poster, it shows them well what it is supposed to show, never to be considered as some seventh art's masterpiece.

What was it supposed to show, in your opinion? For me it didn't work even as a parody of anything. Parodies are supposed to be funny to some extent. This one wasn't funny to any extent.

Anyway, applying your criteria, I'm afraid you have to refrain yourself from watching 99,5% of Hollywood movies... :)

It's about this much I haven't seen, yes. Ever since Independence Day I am deliberately (and pretty successfully) avoiding movies, particularly modern ones. I only occasionally seek out golden oldies.

What was it supposed to show, in your opinion?

One civilized man amongst barbarians. It could show it better, but what can one expect from barbarian movies...
As an American production, the objective is to level by the lowest possible level, so at the end they all get very friendly.

As an American production, the objective is to level by the lowest possible level, so at the end they all get very friendly.

If it were so simple that the objective was to dumb everybody down to the lowest common denominator, they should all have become Neanderthals, but instead they slaughtered the Neanderthals. For that particular movie, I think the only aim was to make a movie because Michael Crichton had written a book and Michael Crichton's books are always made into movies.

Looks like there was recommendation of sorts of 13th Warrior (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=481.msg36013#msg36013), a movie that I let pass by around the time of its release. Now I saw it and, eww, what a load of garbage. On every level. Not only is it plotless and pointless, it doesn't even momentarily provide anything to look at, a pretty landscape, anything culturally insightful or at least correct about Vikings. Nothing at all. You can only like it if you like to see battles (very poorly coordinated in this film) or laugh at silly manners and beliefs of ancient times (all details of which are grossly false in this film, perhaps deliberately, to no artistic effect).

The irony is that Crichton set out to disprove the claim that Beowulf is fundamentally dull, as the plot is (spoiler alert!) hero kills monster, hero kills monster's mother, hero becomes king and ultimately kills and is killed by a dragon. This incidentally is an inversion of the traditional Hollywood arc where the hero ultimately triumphs through adversity.

Retelling Beowulf seems a particular exercise, 13th Warrior is, if anything less weird than average. It has Vikings and Arabs (an anachronism, Vikings are later than Beowulf), even the "Neandertal" has a background. It was popular for a while to "naturalise" trolls, that trolls were folk memories of meeting Neandertals. Unrelated, in Dance of the Tiger (http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Tiger-Novel-Ice-Age/dp/0520202775) Neandertals were called "white trolls" by some of our dark-skinned, slightly built, ancestors. A few years ago Beowulf was retold with Vikings, space travellers, and space aliens. Otherwise, since the 60's it has been popular to reimagine Beowulf from the viewpoint of Grendel.

Vikings have fared little better, including the current underwhelming Vikings TV drama. My favourite is When the Raven Flies, as an Icelandic Western/Samurai thriller setting works fine.

For Jaybro's viewing pleasure Angelina Jolie in her favourite role as monster mother,

[video]https://youtu.be/mTByGNUToyc[/video]

they should all have become Neanderthals, but instead they slaughtered the Neanderthals.

I don't know why you are constantly mentioning Neanderthals.

Quote from: ersi on 2015-03-30, 03:36:41

they should all have become Neanderthals, but instead they slaughtered the Neanderthals.

I don't know why you are constantly mentioning Neanderthals.

You saw 13th Warrior without noticing Neanderthals?

You saw 13th Warrior without noticing Neanderthals?

Well, I remember an Arab being taken by Vikings. There were also Neanderthals? I must have fallen asleep.
There are movies that get better if you sleep. :)

Well, you did say Neandert(h)al... </python>

No thread is complete without a Neandertal. And a map. And another map. And some stunt poetry from rjhowie.

No thread is complete without a Neandertal. And a map. And another map. And some stunt poetry from rjhowie.

lool.
Whatever.

And without some disdainful denouement by Belfrager before it dies. :P

Last week I saw this film, Spy Sorge (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316665/). It's a Japanese film with an international cast, as the story demands.

In real life, Richard Sorge was a Soviet spy who, infiltrated into the Nazi embassy in Japan, had a near-direct access to Nazi plans and policies regading the Soviet Union. And he was no average spy, but the network organiser on location. Many authors with different backgrounds mention him, citing various reasons, as the archetypal master spy, the spy who is more James Bond than James Bond himself, because Sorge is a historical real-life character, not a figment of imagination.

Richard Sorge recruited Hidemi Ozaki to his network. Ozaki was at the time of his first encounters with Sorge a journalist, but later an advisor to the Japanese prime minister, a most valuable contribution to Sorge. The film had a near-equal focus on both Ozaki and Sorge.

The film fails artistically on many counts. Loose story, overlong runtime, uneven acting, unsettling overuse of obvious CGI, pointless ending. It does not work as a wholesome work of art. However, when you zoom in to some scenes, there are a bunch of masterful moments in terms of staging and camera angles.

The artistically meaningful moments apply to a sufficient number of scenes so I'd say it's an okay film all in all. It is most definitely an okay film as a history lesson. The historical details are well researched. There seems to have been a particular effort in the script to stay true to historicity. As such, Spy Sorge (2003) by Masahiro Shinoda has enough merit.

I saw it on Estonian so-called Central TV channel. If anyone is interested, I can explain the concept of Central TV :)

I saw it on Estonian so-called Central TV channel. If anyone is interested, I can explain the concept of Central TV  :)

Isn't that simply the Soviet name for public television?

Quote from: ersi on 2015-04-30, 07:32:25

I saw it on Estonian so-called Central TV channel. If anyone is interested, I can explain the concept of Central TV  :)

Isn't that simply the Soviet name for public television?

Central TV was THE CENTRAL, i.e. the centralmost, TV from the centralmost capital, i.e. Moscow, broadcast all over Soviet Union. There could have been places in Soviet Union that didn't see (or have) a local TV channel, but the Central TV was seen everywhere.

In Estonia, we have this party called the Center Party. It's commonly implicated, due to its immortal leader's past (the party's leader is immortal because he's been the irreplaceable leader all along ever since the party emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union), with loyalties to Russia, Putin, backdoor Sovietism, Stalinism, whatever.

It so happens that throughout this century, the Center Party has ruled the capital city of Estonia (as in mairie), while the parties in irreconcilable opposition to it have ruled the country (as in national government). We always had a national TV. Being in irreconcilable opposition with the national government and ruling the capital city for so long, the Center Party thought they also deserve their own TV like the national government had. Thus was born Tallinn TV (the official name) a.k.a. Central TV of Estonia (the popular mock name for the same).

This was the channel that presented the Estonian people with the film Spy Sorge last week. And I mean the people of the entire country because, despite its name (Tallinn TV), the channel is broadcast in every little corner of the country.

Central TV was THE CENTRAL, i.e. the centralmost, TV from the centralmost capital, i.e. Moscow, broadcast all over Soviet Union. There could have been places in Soviet Union that didn't see (or have) a local TV channel, but the Central TV was seen everywhere.

Well, sure. I hardly meant Soviet public TV would have the pluralistic character of Dutch public TV. ;) That it was a mocking name for some channel — I figured as much given the USSR's demise. How odd that they called it Talinn TV, though.

Richard Sorge

I have his memories book. Read it instead of watching mental manipulation television.
Maybe the last of romantic spies.

If you like the theme, I recommend you Schelemberg's memoirs, the man that created the third Reich secret services. Fundamental.

Then you have all the three homosexual British traitors, spying for the Soviets, Burguess and the others. Boring.

You may like to read the only traitor that was loyal to his beliefs until the end, Kim Philby.

Be aware ersi, how much can we believe about a spy/traitor writings? :)

Be aware ersi, how much can we believe about a spy/traitor writings? :)

Believe in what sense?

In history, art, and demonstrations of human nature, I don't believe. I observe.

In history, art, and demonstrations of human nature, I don't believe. I observe.

Then, you'll be never part of history, art or demonstrations of human nature, you're doomed to be the external, independent, distant, non engaged, kind of almost robotic Observer.
We need to believe a little bit in mankind.

...you're doomed to be the external, independent, distant, non engaged, kind of almost robotic Observer.

This is how I tend to be viewed, indeed. But I maintain that even the Observer type is a manifestation of human nature.

But I maintain that even the Observer type is a manifestation of human nature.

Fear of risking, that's what it is. :)
Deep connections are the only thing we live for, some will put us in paradise, some will put us in hell, that's what a full life is about, there's nothing more in this life.
That's why I get irritated with the Buddhist seek for total detachment.

Books (fiction) and films are very much a refuge for not risking to live it's content.

Citizen Kane, anybody?
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2LTo4SIsZE[/video]

Meh, it's okay. Gimme something like Double Indemnity instead. :P

Going to start on this one soon:

Miekkailija (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2534634/) was the Foreign Language Academy Award nominee from Finland this year, but it's in Estonian, its cast is Estonian, it's about Estonia and the filming took place in Estonia, so it's Finnish only in terms of production. Just saying. Haven't seen it.

Two good places to grab material from for your digital reading, with proper metadata:

- World Digital Library https://www.wdl.org
- eBooks@Adelaide https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/

I've been reading HHhH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHhH) (in French). I'm liking it so far. It's somewhat similar to What a Carve Up! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Carve_Up!_%28novel%29)

I've been reading HHhH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHhH) (in French). I'm liking it so far.

There's this film on the same topic http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/ Not gruesome/incisive enough, but fairly effective anyways.

There's apparently also a movie coming out soon based on the novel: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3296908/

I've been reading (and re-reading) Georges Simenon, Erle Stanley Garden, Ellery Queen, Mickey Spillane and the such that I buy for 50 centimes each at the weekend street market.
For ten euros I get twenty fabulous books, the perfect way to fall at sleep. Well, besides sex of course.

George Simenon's Maigret it's good, very good.
Such is crisis.

I picked up an autobiography on sale for €3 or so yesterday, Juliette Gréco's Je suis faite comme ça. I have no idea what to expect, but I hope it'll be good. I quickly checked for some reviews on my phone while pondering whether to get it, but they were all written by her greatest fans.

I also picked up Home by Toni Morrison. In my experience with the author, it should be anything from quite decent to amazing.

Is Kraftidioten (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2675914/) Nordic noir?

Sounds like it's in the same neo-noir subgenre as Fargo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_%28film%29)?

One of my weekend reads resulting from perusing the OAPEN Library (http://www.oapen.org) was Temptation in the Archives. I liked it. A lot.

The fashionable thing to do these days would probably be to write a graphic novel based on the epistolary contacts of the Huygens family. Heck, I’d read it. But Lisa Jardine shows that just plain good writing is more than enough to keep you glued to the pages in this page-turner essay collection about archival science. Yes, you read that right, and no, there’s no irony hidden between the lines. Download the open-access book right now (clickety-click (http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=548010)) and read chapter 3: “Never Trust a Pirate: Christiaan Huygens’s Longitude Clocks.” You can thank me later.

[…]

Commuters who can read a book while walking to work are far better people than those who can't, Londonist can exclusively reveal.

I wonder if this also applies to texting while walking. And while driving.

Heh.

Have you ever had to give up on a book because it was too difficult? Last year I mentioned that I wanted to read Pietr-le-Letton. I'd given up on it in 2015 because it was a touch too difficult. I should be able to read it much the same as a Dutch, English or German simple detective novel now.

That reminds me, I should get around to reading Pietr-le-Letton.

Probably the most challenging book I've since read is Memoirs d'Hadrien, and I'm currently reading La vie: mode d'emploi, which isn't exactly easy either. Last month I even read a French academic book on Herodus Atticus (https://www.librarything.com/work/18796250/book/136863949) just for fun, but academic works are much easier than literature. Nevertheless I thought nothing in French was beyond my reach now. But I borrowed a nice 1912 copy of Là-bas (Down There (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A0-bas_(novel))) by Joris-Karl Huysmans and I had to give up on it after a twenty-some pages because its vocabulary was just beyond my ken. You just can't read if it feels like you have to look up 50 words every page. Perhaps I'll return to it someday.

You just can't read if it feels like you have to look up 50 words every page

It turns reading irritantly slow.
A bit like video,I don't have the patience for so much time watching something that could have been said in just a paragraph.

Agreed. I occasionally watch or listen to a documentary while washing the dishes (usually I prefer a more relaxing silence) but otherwise who has the time for video?

...page-turner essay collection about archival science.

Roughly in the same nerdy category, "Why Don't Mediaeval Logicians Ever Tell Us What They're Doing? Or, What Is This, A Conspiracy? (http://pvspade.com/Logic/docs/Conspiracy.pdf)" From Paul Vincent Spade's page (http://pvspade.com/Logic).

Thanks, that was interesting. Here's a counter-argument:

P. King (2004). "Opposing and responding: comments on Paul Spade." http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/presentations/Spade_Comments.pdf

I'll read that with more time. For know, it seems to have the typical perfume of Northern ignorance.

Yet another bookmark reminder for myself: knihi.com contains pretty much everything ever written in Belarussian.

you watch "Who Am I – Kein System ist sicher" ? film on hacker for lulz (prototype of real hacker group "lulz security" ) 

The government of the republic of Estonia threw money at a host of culture project throughout the centennial celebrations (about a third year in a row now) and, in this broader context, the Tõde ja õigus movie (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5593384/) got made. It is running now and a bunch of people have gone to see it and have praised it, even children. Very shockingly I caught flu this year, which has prevented me to go see it thus far, even though my definite plan was to see it asap.

Tõde ja õigus, translated into English as Truth and Justice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Justice), was originally a series of novels, written and published by the Estonian writer Anton Hansen Tammsaare starting in mid-1920's. Now, Tammsaare is the archetypal writer for Estonians and Tõde ja õigus is his most monumental work. The first volume is compulsory for every kid in school. In my opinion, it is forced on kids too early so they cannot appreciate. I personally near-hated the book, as did everyone else I knew back then.

So it is surprising to see that the modern generation of children like this movie version now. Must be a good movie. I must stop writing and go see it now this weekend because my flu has pretty much subsided.

best road movie (eurotrip) and
relationship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIP9PJx9S98

So I saw the Tõde ja õigus movie (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5593384/). As a minimum, it represents the novel well, but I think it works independently too, particularly for foreigners. It is a strong epic drama by itself. A Singaporean said after seeing it that it's very Shakespearean. I gues it is a compliment. Yay, Estonian Gone With The Wind has been born, finally.

The comparison is not too good. Most people take Gone With The Wind to be a romantic story, whereas I take it to be an epic panorama of an era. The Tõde ja õigus series (of novels - a pentalogy - the movie covers just the first part) is very much an epic panorama of eras over generations. And the movie does lots of good truth and justice to it, which is a pretty impressive achievement by itself. I thought I would find something to quibble over some things that got left out, but they had made all the right choices and the almost three-hour monster of a movie (longest Estonian movie ever) stays quite concise and focused, something that Estonian movies do not usually do. Applauds.

Twice I almost went to see Christopher Nolan's Tenet (because it was partly filmed in Tallinn), but didn't go. Not sure if I will ever go to the movies again.

The Guardian: Tenet didn't just fail to save cinema – it may well have killed it for good (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/06/tenet-didnt-just-fail-to-save-cinema-it-may-well-have-killed-it-for-good)

I haven't seen Tenet yet, and wouldn't watch it on cinema anyway. Cinemas don't appeal to me, and neiither do the vast majority of movies around.

I liked the cinema concept I saw in Beijing. Instead of the regular multiplex with maybe a dozen or half-dozen screens playing a dozen or half-dozen current movies of marginal interest, it had a number of VIP-like rooms with a varying number of comfortable chairs (range 2-12), and you could pick from a couple hundred movies, mostly old (and, I suspect, unpaid for) with a home cinema setup.

I liked the cinema concept I saw in Beijing. Instead of the regular multiplex with maybe a dozen or half-dozen screens playing a dozen or half-dozen current movies of marginal interest, it had a number of VIP-like rooms with a varying number of comfortable chairs (range 2-12), and you could pick from a couple hundred movies, mostly old (and, I suspect, unpaid for) with a home cinema setup.

Sounds like an enhanced concept of Japanese VHS borrowing shops where there were private watchrooms directly in the shop.

Russian Roulette (https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Roulette-Inside-America-Election/dp/1538728753/) by Michael Isikoff and David Corn is a very good read, if you are interested in how global diplomacy works. I have read the first four chapters by now and it has been a tight fact-intense ride about recent events with lots of bearing on the present.

It's particularly nice that the authors remember everything the way I do :) Not only are they aware of Estonia's existence, they also know its geopolitical position and exactly when I thought "Ok, now you have the opportunity to mention what happened in Estonia at the time, because it's perfectly illustrative," they did just that!

Russian Roulette (https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Roulette-Inside-America-Election/dp/1538728753/) by Michael Isikoff and David Corn is a very good read, if you are interested in how global diplomacy works.

It kept its grip and drive to the end, even though it had a few bumps along the way. Nothing wrong, just a few signs of rushing.

The focus is the Hillary vs. Donald presidential campaign with its Russian meddling. Plenty of contacts between Trump (or his entourage) and Russians are disclosed. Some of them have always been out there in the open, e.g. https://youtu.be/iuZUNjFsgS8?t=205 This video was made in Russia. The main dude in the video is the son of a Russian-Azerbaijani oligarch. So, of course Trump has been to Russia (already prior to his presidency), held a beauty pageant there, wanted to get a Trump Tower up in Moscow (even when campaigning for presidency), worships Putin (according to his tweets), his sons and son-in-laws had shared messages while meeting Russian diplomats and spies etc.

Useless to deny that USA gave a full term to a treasonous president who right now refuses to leave office. At least the intelligence service knew that he was treasonous before he took office, but failed to react and act properly. If USA pulls through this, it may speak of the strength of American institutions - or of such inert stagnation that the collapse follows after a considerable delay.

Just finished watching The Serpent (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7985576/) series about real-life serial killer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sobhraj) of (mostly) hippies in Bangkok and elsewhere in South-East Asia. It was very likeable, good production design, well directed, well plotted, no overly promiscuous sex scenes, and tossing the timeline around made it more interesting than it otherwise would have been. Amazing to see how high crimes were accomplished with low tech at the time.^[1] So let's see what negatives I can find.

- The Indian/Nepali scenes do not feature any Indian languages while otherwise there was a good mix of languages (extensive English and French, some Dutch and Thai)
- Wristwatches, while possibly authentic to the era, are occasionally way too prominent a la product placement
- Some signs of rushing, possibly because the director, while having a good pacing for self-contained scenes, had little grasp of interim exposition and parallel events. This was particularly noticeable in the last episode that tried to cram in absolutely all of the rest of the history and background of the main villain and other characters involved that had not been shown yet. This last point is particularly regrettable because in the earlier episodes there was repetition (to a good effect - I happened to enjoy a lot seeing earlier scenes again from a new angle or with an added tonal flavour), so reduced repition could have possibly avoided later rushing, but for a better artistic result all of the rushed material could have been simply omitted and repetition could have been used consistently.

Overall, this is mere quibble, because my foremost preference is to get informed and that's what I got out of it.

Det stora pensionsrånet (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Det_stora_pensionsr%C3%A5net_-_miljardsvindeln_i_Falcon_Funds) is a reportage (as in investigative journalism) on a scandal in the Swedish pension system. I usually dislike when real-life people are made into thriller-book characters with narrow roles appropriate to the thriller genre. And I dislike it here also.

I approach all books, including belle-lettres, with the purpose of getting informed, of learning something. This approach is fully justified when I see the subtitle miljardsvindeln i Falcon Funds, a well-publicised real-life scandal. So please don't start the story with a series of background descriptions of minor cast, some side character involved in this way, someone else involved in that way, when we do not know yet the main characters and what exactly they were involved in, when we do not know yet what the larger story is.

However, once I got past this silly beginning and once the overall setting and stakes became clear, I did get well informed about the stupid ways Swedish bureaucratic thinking and doing operates. And exactly how the scam was pulled off. A very brutal and ruthless scam, mind you, and quite shocking how unprepared Swedish bureaucracy was for it. In fact the state pension institution can be deemed complicit by way of astonishing incompetence in setting up their funds platform. The happy detective-story ending (spoiler!: the criminals get caught) is arrived at some dumb luck of the authorities. The heroes of the story are mostly just doing the job they are getting paid for, as distinguished from the all-too-common state official getting paid for putting on a thin pretension of doing something.

On the good side: Well researched events and explaining the technical concepts in a proper way to the general public. And if you are into the thriller genre, you may like the manner of the story-telling already from the first pages.

PS. I read this one for work/job, not for myself.

Sergei Guriev recommended Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro in his latest (or perhaps penultimate) livestream. The little book club of my colleagues at work took it on.

I'm halfway through now and I guess I can recommend it too, even though I don't know what the final turn will be. The only other work I know from Kazuo Ishiguro is The Remains of the Day (the movie, not the book) and judging from that, no sharp turns are expected.

Klara and the Sun qualifies as science fiction. The first-person narrator Klara is an "artificial friend," preoccupied and constantly concerned with serving its human. In this sense the novel is similar with the main theme of The Remains of the Day. Also similar is the class society and the focus on mannerisms and etiquette.

But I'm expecting a science-fictiony turn in Klara and the Sun. Perhaps artificial intelligence sinking into abuse mode while failing to sense anything out of the ordinary?

As said, I'm only halfway through. Hope I did not spoil anything for anyone. Really lovely piece of literature it is.

But I'm expecting a science-fictiony turn in Klara and the Sun. Perhaps artificial intelligence sinking into abuse mode while failing to sense anything out of the ordinary?

It was a different twist. Probably better, because it was something I did not expect.

I have a relatively minor discontentment about it, but let me stay silent about it. I am rather happy that great humanist fiction continues in 21st century.