Spontaneous Musings

I found a review that I sort of agree with? (One never quite agrees completely with others reviews, because we see things so differently, at different times, locals, and often venues.)

Here's the NY Times "professional" critic's review on the final episode and takeaways from the series as a whole - it's spoilery, so don't read if you are "avoiding" spoilers. [Also it may or may not be behind a pay-wall.]

I did not read any reviews prior to seeing the series - outside of the blurbs I saw here and there on my DW correspondence list. Also, I watched the series - completely unspoiled, outside of what I had seen in the Jackson films, and my memories of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - which I've not re-read in any form since the 1980s.

So a few caveats:

1.) I am by no means a purist. I've never read nor have any intention of reading any works by Tolkien outside of the ones that I already have, which are : The Hobbit, Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and Return of the King. I find Tolkien kind of grueling after a bit, and I grew tired of the meticulous attention to detail he applied. I did not bother with the appendices, I'm not even sure they were included in the editions that I read or that I was aware of them when I read them.

2.) While I loved The Hobbit, enjoyed the Lord of the Rings, and visited an impressive and extensive exhibition of Tolkien's art, correspondence, journals, work, and scholarship - I am by no means a fan. This means, I have no clue who half of these characters are, and was oblivious to any major changes or alterations from the books. I only know that there were alterations because I found them online after the fact.

I think as is true with most adaptations, if you memories of the source material are rather vague, you'll enjoy them more. Or if you don't care and see it as adaptation - you'll enjoy it more. It is after all called an adaptation for a reason.

**

Review

It is among the better fantasy series that I've seen to date. The characters are compelling, and it answers various lingering questions that I had after seeing the films. It stays, for the most part, true to Jackson's film verse. I don't know how to true it is to the book verse - it didn't jar me any, I didn't notice anything off about the story, but keep in mind the above caveats. I'm casual fan of Tolkien, I'm by no means an obsessive one.

Also, it didn't have some of the problems that I had with Jackson's The Hobbit. This is either because I was more familiar with The Hobbit, or Jackson was more into long-unending battles.

Rings of Power meanders a bit, and takes a while to get to the point. Some might say, too long to get to the point. There is fun to be had along the way, however. There are also more diverse characters in this fantasy series than most. The lead is female, here, and she's a warrior. Adept at battle, and rather powerful. Her weakness is that she's a bit myopic, and too focused on her mission - to the point that she often fails to see what is right in front of her. Galadriel arc is by far the best arc in the series. She is the titular lead in this series - and her arc kind of sits at its center.( Read more... )

1. While reading the NY Times this morning at the laundramat, which was a nice and warm, so much so the windows were literally sweating, I discovered that the Catholic church near me - been to Mass there five or six times, was where Al Capone got married. Its called St. Mary Star of the Sea and the congregation is made up of mostly Italian and Irish residents.

2. Again in the NY Times - this time the letters column, got even more information on the Transit Strike, causing me to realize this is not a black and white affair, not something you can really be definitive about.
Both sides were wrong and both sides were right. The Transit Union was right to want to keep their pensions, to have that security. Especially since they put money towards them at certain point. Although, I'm somewhat confused about that - since one group says they never put money towards their pension and don't think they should have to, and another says they have and don't want to lose that money. I can understand the desire for a pension and the fear of losing one - have that fear myself, having just joined a company that had one, which is merging with a company that does not and appears to be contemplating the idea of doing away with it completely.
On the other hand, I'm not sure that fear justifies walking off a job and endangering thousands of souls livilihoods, safety, health during a period in which those three things would be at greatest risk. Should a cop walk off a job if his pension is done away with? Yet - should we expect civil servants to be slaves for the public good? IS that what they do when they choose this line of work? Should we treat those we depend on and really cannot live without less well than movie stars and celebrities, who we most definitely can survive without? Why does the baseball player or movie star make 14 million a year and live in the mansion and the person who puts him or herself in danger each day making less than 60,000 if that? I don't know. The world makes very little logical sense most of the time, methinks.

3. Just read a lengthy article on Philip Pullman in the International Writers Edition of The New Yorker. Pullman is an oddity. I agree with half of what he says and half of it has me rolling my eyes. But I think part of that discrepancy has to do with dissimilar backgrounds. Pullman believes you story doesn't begin until you think or realize you've been born to the wrong family. But what about those of us who did not have dysfunctional families and feel we fit with ours? Are we instantly less creative, less artistic than those who had parents who more likely than not should have never had children? And what about Pullman's children - does he believe they should come to that realization about him? I do to a degree agree with this comment though - that while truth may not be a tangible object, if you think of it like an imaginary number - like the square root of minus one - you can use it to calculate all manner of things without it. I also agree with some of his criticism of Tolkien and CS Lewis. Did not realize he disliked Tolkien as much as he does. He considers "The Lord of The Rings - a fundamentally infantile work" - "Tolkien is not interested in the way grown-up, adult human beings interact with each other. He's interested in maps, plans, languages and codes." Yes, but what is wrong with that? Why should a story be only about the interaction? And I'm not completely sure this is true - how do you account for the father/child relationship/friendship between Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins, which keeps spinning about until you can't really tell who is which? Or the relationship between Frodo and Sam? Or Gollum, a character who is in an eternal struggle with his own baser instincts? Yes, the mythology on its surface may seem a tad simplistic, but
there are items within that which do provide depth. Tolkien wrote the story as an anti-war allegory. How can Pullman miss that? On the other hand, the books are a tad dense with language, maps, plans, codes and battle sequences that I can see how some readers may become a bit lost in them. But perhaps that was part of Tolkien's point? That we lose a bit of ourselves and our ability to interact by becoming far too distracted with the intricacies of what was originally created to make that interaction possible. Pullman does address this himself - stating his frustration with adult contemporary literature and preferring children's stories: "In adult literary fiction, stories are there on sufferance. Other things are flet to be more important:technique, style, literary knowingness...The present-day would-be George Eliots take up their stories with a pair of tongs. They're embarrassed by them. If they could write novels without stories in them, they would. Sometimes they do." Is this true though? Or is it a condemnation of style over substance found in some works notably William Gaddis' novels? You could say the same I suppose about Cormac McCarthy, except I found a beautiful story well-told in All The Pretty Horses. And same with James Joyce - whose tale of Leopold Bloom does not become buried by the technique so much as enriched by it. I guess it all depends on how you view story, how you see it.
Then there's his criticism of CS Lewis' Narnia series, which in some ways I always felt Pullman's own triology "His Dark Materials" was a counter to - even though it is based on Milton's Paradise Lost. I can't say I completely disagree, but I find it oddly interesting that as child I was completely unaware of the negative messages I see in the series as an adult, or if aware, I dismissed them and concentrated on the portions of the tale I wished to concentrate on. I think that's what people do actually - see what they want to see, push aside what they don't. So much information - you know. Impossible to take in all of it. Even now, here, I am taking bits and pieces of a ten page article - remembering what I wish from it, ignoring the rest. Interacting with it.
I agree with Khalad Hosseni's comment on Book TV a while back - "Reading fiction is an interactive experience." But I'd extend that to all reading. We superimpose our own views and experience and understanding on to that which we read, taking from it what is useful to us, and disposing of the rest. That said, I do agree with the criticism of Lewis, a criticism I'd extend to a few other children's novelists here and there - "The idea of keeping childhood alive forever and ever and regretting the passage into adulthood - whether it's gentel, rose-tinged regret, or a passionate, full-blooded hatred, as it is in Lewis - is simply wrong." Yes, agreed. It was the problem I had with Lewis' later novels in the series and why I barely made it through some of them, even as a child who liked being a child and was in no hurry to grow up, I saw this as troublesome.

4. The above paragraph reminds me of a comment Wales made over the weekend - she was quoting her film professor, Wales has been taking film analysis courses: "Every film made is about the men struggling with their father and eventually becoming their father or the very thing they struggled with." After watching three episodes of La Femme Nikita yesterday and The Outsiders, can't say I disagree. So many of our stories are about the relationship between parent and child and the fear the child has of becoming the parent or either losing childhood or the desire to escape it as quickly as possible. In La Femme Nikita - the series ends with Nikita becoming more or less her father, metaphorically. Cool and distant, running his organization, as he has molded her to do. And in Angel the Series, we see Liam/Angel grapple with the fact that he in effect is no different than his own father - in his need to control his son's life and his struggle with that awareness. On the female side of the fence - depending on the writer - it tends to be more about not becoming or becoming one's mother.
That struggle. And watching each show unfold, I find myself wondering if only those who came from dysfunctional families are the ones that get their stories told? Or if we feel those are the only stories worth telling?
Perhaps not...I do see exceptions to that rule. Not all tales are about that. Nor all stories. So I'm not sure Wales' professor's generalization holds. But then that's the problem with generalizations, isn't it?

Now off to eat lunch and debate whether to see a movie - four to choose from: Memoirs of Geisha, Narnia, Brokeback Mountain, and Syriana at my local theater. Or sit home, veg, and watch DVDs. Nice to have options.
Need money though - laundry sort of took a good portion of it. Three loads - 12 dollars. Sigh.