Sunday, March 28, 2010

Avalon... and Shutter Island

Disclaimer:  I am not trying to compare the two following novels, but books like the second are all I can come by in the area where I live right now.  I mention the first novel because I do plan to review it in full on the blog once I:  1. get a hold of it again, and 2. re-read it.  That said, stay tuned in April for a review of Bradley's Priestess of Avalon, which is currently in my possession.  Now...

The Mists of Avalon-Trade Two to Conquer (Darkover: The Hundred Kingdoms)

If this post is your very first experience of Marion Zimmer Bradley's books, drop everything you're doing, run to the nearest bookstore, and get yourself a copy of The Mists of Avalon, a beautiful Celtic myth-inspired re-imagining of King Arthur's tale, chock-full of twists and turns, complex and loveable characters and magic that will find its way into your night-dreams and day-dreams.  However, if they're sold out for the very reason that the book is awesome, you may want to hold off on Bradley's Darkover novel Two to Conquer.  And that is the book portion of this post because incidentally I am reading the book in German, and cannot get past pg 115 - partly because it's in German, and partly owing to the terrible boring-ness of the protagonist and description of a war scene that has taken up at least half of those pages.  However, I understand that the story gets better and the guy changes from an unoriginal misogynistic prick to a more enlightened human being, so I will update this post accordingly later on.

Shutter Island 

Instead of reading the latter book, take both a break from reading and some friends to see Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island.  I'm not in the states, so tell me if I'm way too late and you already missed this in theaters, because this one's a movie-theater movie.  At the credits, I knew I was going to like it, but I ended up loving it for completely different reasons.  At that point, I was of the mind that this would be a detective-mystery, a la Sherlock Holmes (see my March 23rd post), although my husband thought that it was supposed to be a horror film.  And in fact one of the awesomest things about it, I found, was the genre ambiguity.  One minute you're wrapping your mind around a mystery, the next you're jumping out of your seat with real fright and horror, and the next you're teary-eyed.  Bloody war flashbacks, dead children and wives, betrayal, insanity, and conspiracy grace the screen, and buried in all of it are beautiful scenes and moments where you won't quite know what you're watching anymore.  So I'll let Leo take you through the rest because I know everybody's already told you to see it, but instead of saving up for majorly expensive tickets, you'll see it on vid sometime soon.

That's all right now, 'cause that's really all I've done this week, so have a relaxing Sunday evening, and we'll see each other next with an update of this post and my new review of Priestess of Avalon.  All this fantasy talk has me craving some Arthur and Lancelot swordfights...

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