“The Long Patrol” by Brian Jacques

I decided that I should return to the Redwall series this summer and read some of the books that I haven’t yet. I own them all up to “The Long Patrol”, so this is where I’m starting.

This book is a little different from the typical Redwall books up until now. Usually the Redwall mice find a riddle and go on a quest and defeat some vermin and return to Redwall. Here the group far from home is the Badger Lady Cregga Rose Eyes, who is hunting down the vermin Rapscallions with their leader Damug. Of course, the vermin decide that they want to defeat Redwall, and the hares and badger all get involved in an epic battle between them.

The main plot isn’t that exciting, there’s only one battle and most of the story is the characters travelling around. There is an interesting part where Tammo and Midge disguise themselves as Seers and infiltrate the Rapscallion camp to lead their leader to the site of the battle that they picked out. I thought it was a little strange for him to go to the site after the two of them fled the camp, but I never really understood rats to begin with.

The main riddle is also pretty short, but it ties into the ending of the story nicely. Overall, it’s pretty much a simplistic version of the typical Redwall story.

There is potential in the sideplot that takes place physically at Redwall. The south wall is sinking because it’s located on top of the north wall of Kotir, a wildcat fortress that dates from the time before Redwall was built. It’s also a nod to the plot of “Mossflower” which is always fun to spot. But other than the characters getting trapped underground in Kotir and finding treasure (that’s just treasure instead of long lost relics) nothing’s really done with this.

Oh and a bunch of characters from “Pearls of Lutra” (which is one of my favorite Redwall stories) are present here as well! Tansy is the Abbess, Craklyn is the Recorder, and Arwen is the Champion of Redwall. There’s never a ton of overlap between these books, so it’s nice to see old characters that you’ve already fallen in love with reappear.

Overall, I wouldn’t say that this is as good as the typical Redwall story. Usually there’s more riddle-y stuff and action involved. However, the ending was very good, and encourages the reader to continue if nothing else. Onward to “Marlfox”!

“Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey” by Ed Sheeran + Phillip Butah

I’ve been a huge fan of Ed Sheeran’s work for years, since before “+” came out. What’s always impressed me is how true he’s stayed to himself, he’s not perfect, but he’s always been open about that and it shows.

So when I saw that he wrote a book with the help of a childhood friend of his, I figured that I’d check it out.

It’s a nice read, gives a good overview of all of his influences and experiences from when he started making music at 13 to making “+” and “x” more recently. I find that it’s nice to hear right from the artist what they’re thoughts are, gives you the feel of their voice (Ed’s involves some swears, haha). You also get to see what his influences are and the process of him developing his own sound. It also includes how he started using the loop pedal, which is pretty cool and unique for an artist like him.

There’s not much about his personal life, he keeps it focused on the music primarily. I appreciated that, it shows that he wants to maintain some privacy, and if you aren’t interested in his music then why on earth would you want to read the book anyways?

Of course, there’s also numerous drawings of Ed done by Phillip Butah, his childhood artist friend. He’s also done the art for many of Ed’s album covers, so recognizing his handiwork was pretty cool. He has a gorgeous style, very raw. Seeing the drawings of Ed was nice, and gives a different perspective on him than just the paparazzi photos that you could find on Google.

It’s very much a joint effort between the two of them, Phillip includes a section on his life and work at the end of the book, which is also a nice read by itself. And I think it’s really cute that the two of them grew up together and are now writing about their art and work. Good job guys.

So yeah, it’s not the most intense novel, but it’ll probably be more rewarding and interesting than “The Wiggles Sing About Vegetables” or whatever.

“The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula K. Le Guin

I don’t often read science fiction, but I was intrigued by this book. Really all that I knew about it was that it’s about an alien species that’s androgynous. And that’s really all that it’s about, a human on a planet with all these androgynous aliens trying to understand their life.

Basically these aliens are asexual until they reach the point in their cycle where they enter kemmer, then they could either develop the organs of a man or a woman. At this point, they could swear kemmer to other beings and reproduce. It’s an interesting concept, although there is no mention of homosexuals (but the narrator does say that multiple people could swear kemmer, haha).

The most intriguing part of the novel is how this sexuality affects their outlook on the world. There’s a lot more about unity than duality, and there are no gender-based stereotypes, for starters. And since it’s all through the eyes of an Envoy, a person like us, the reader explores the world as he does.

Besides that, the plot centers around the Envoy trying to convince the planet to join in this alliance of other humanoids in the universe. But it’s mostly the driving force instead of the focus. Not much happens on that front other than the Envoy talking to people briefly about it.

Not that you would realize that in the first couple of pages, Le Guin throws you right into the politics of the planet, and I’m not sure I completely understood it all. It serves to both completely immerse and confuse you, like many things. (My advice is if you don’t understand something, just keep going. Odds are it isn’t terribly important.) This is probably one of those books where you pick up more about the characters on the second reading, the first is just to wrap your head around it.

I know that this is definitely a book that I’ll be coming back to, but for first timers, if you’re primarily interested in what the human race would look like without genders, be sure to check this out.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Uhhh, I didn’t love this book.

The author’s main point here seems to be that life is cyclical, that there are repeating instances that have occurred and will occur again. And the way he shows this is by documenting the story of a family, the Buendias, over one hundred years.

Seems like an interesting premise. But it’s the little things about this book that really bother me.

All of the characters have the same names. You think I’m kidding, the boys cycle between Jose Arcadio and Aureliano. There is a little more variety with the girls, but it’s mostly Amaranta and Remedios. There is a family tree at the beginning of the novel, but honestly unless you read it in one sitting (which I don’t recommend) you’re going to get mixed up about who is the child of who and all that. Which adds to the cyclical nature of the story, so you cannot say that the author didn’t know what he was doing.

But you never have the time to get to know any of these characters. There are chapters where people are born and die and you never get to know any of them, or really effectively care about them. Sure, there are some chapters that focus on one character more than the other, but that just results in characters popping out of the woodwork later on and vying for your attention. Again, the author calls himself out of this, saying in later chapters that time passes more quickly than it used to, as kids appear out of nowhere.

That’s what really bothered me, the fact that as a reader we were never given a good reason to care about these characters or the time to get to know them. The structure seems more like a history book showing a dynasty than anything else.

The glimpses of characters that we do see didn’t leave me very happy either. As I mentioned, it’s the history of the family, so most of the stories that we hear about them have to do with who’s having sex and kids with who. And of course, every male gets with at least someone at some point while Amaranta dies a virgin. Nice. Ugh.

Overall it is a very male centered view of the house, despite the fact that Ursula manages to live almost throughout the entire book and runs the whole place. In spite of this, it’s the men who are always portrayed as the smart, strong continuers of the family line. Which irritated me, even though it’s probably the author being true to the culture. Still bothers me.

You cannot deny that the writing is nice, even though the subjects of it are irritating. The way that Marquez just casually drops in supernatural effects on the town is pretty nice. And gives the feel that everything is an ancient tale being passed down and slightly modified. But then there’s also random instances of it (such as when the men kill a devil-like creature in town) that just seem like they were inserted for the heck of it without having any real purpose.

I might have enjoyed this more if I read something else by Marquez first (although I don’t know what book that would be), but as it is, I was not a huge fan of this work, despite the fact that millions everywhere have heralded it as amazing and all.

“The Beatles Lyrics” edited by Hunter Davies

I’m a huge Beatles fan, so I really liked the idea of this book. What it basically consists of is a collection of Beatles lyrics written by the Beatles themselves. And also a discussion of their lyrics in general and how they progress. I had already read “A Hard Day’s Write” (which I highly recommend) that talks about the inspiration for every song that the Beatles ever wrote, and the two books go nicely together.

Seeing the words written out in their own hand is pretty interesting, you can see what their handwriting’s like, what parts are John and which are Paul’s, and can tell that Ringo was not the best speller.

What could have made the book a little better was focusing on the lyrics entirely, and not getting sidetracked by the history of the Beatles (although to some extent that does play into it, which I understand) or what the editor of the book was doing at the time (which was sometimes a little annoying, even though the author was the biographer of the Beatles towards the end of their career).

I would highly recommend this for any Beatles fan, it’s illuminating and keeps the focus on the music, which is the most important aspect of them, in the end.

“Postmodernism” by Kevin Hart

I picked this book up more or less on a whim. I’ve read a lot of “postmodern” literature, or literature that pushes the boundaries of literature (think If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino or House of Leaves) but I couldn’t really tell you what postmodernism is. This book cleared up some of it, and also left some confusion (which it’s bound to do, it’s postmodernism after all).

Hart tries to give a brief overview of postmodernism and who the major people in postmodernism are. He opens with the reader taking a tour of postmodernism from this French guy. No sooner does the reader leave the tour when he’s set on by another tour guide saying that everything he learned was wrong and offers to give another tour. And so on and so forth. This is a pretty cute way of showing how even the people in the middle of postmodernism argue amongst themselves and cannot agree on a chronology or set of ideas. It’s pretty amusing, and a good way to draw you in. It could have been more formal and flow better with the work as a whole, but I think this worked fine.

As for the more difficult stuff, Hart does a decent job giving the main points of most major scholars. There are times where more clarification and elaboration would have been nice, but the undeniable fact is that you will probably have to read their own works in order to completely understand what is going on. Having said that, I think that Hart did the best with what he had to work with.

In case you’re interested, here’s the basics of postmodernism. According to Hart, it revolves around three central concepts. First there’s anti-essentialism, or the idea that we are all a product of our situation. If you stripped away everything around us, everything inessential, there would be nothing left. Then there’s anti-realism. Realism is the idea that words can accurately depict the world around us. Philosophers eventually realized that there’s no way that this can be true, since there are so many different languages in the world. There’s also a side argument that ties in here about everything in the world is made up of an image of the thing (what we see) and the being-in-itself (to use a Kantian term) of the object (this portion we can never truly know). As a result, language can never fully express the being-in-itself since we can never know it. And finally there’s anti-foundationalism, or the idea that there is nothing at the basis of the world. Think about it similarly to this story about an old lady who thought that the whole world was the back of a turtle. When asked what was beneath the turtle, she said that there was another turtle below that one and “it’s turtles all the way down!” Anti-foundationalism is the belief that there are no turtles, that the universe has nothing at its basis. With these three concepts, postmodernists then apply them to various fields and argue about all sorts of different things.

It’s hard to say whether this book is for beginners or scholars of postmodernism. For beginners it’s probably a good introduction, but scholars will probably get more out of it from previous exposure to the ideas and people in it. It is a short book though, so give it a shot if you’re interested!

“Tabloid Shakespeare” by Nick Page

There’s not many things that I like more than taking Shakespeare’s plays and making fun of them in clever ways. This book does just that. All of Shakespeare’s plays and some poems are turned into tabloid articles in this book!

The end result: it’s hilarious! Page definitely has a good sense of humor. Even the advertisements are related to Shakespeare and it’s very funny. There are also published apologies from the rag for publishing lies after characters spread around rumors about one another.

The best one is definitely “Romeo and Juliet” since the story is basically from a tabloid anyways.

There are also some comments from the original Bard himself, but I won’t give it away since it’s pretty clever and amusing.

This was definitely written by a Shakespeare fan, and brings a new twist to his stories.

“Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Here’s another ground breaking comic book, the authors use the format to show the story and stuff behind the story. Literally nothing is an accident here. Fun fact: Chapter V “Fearful Symmetry” is symmetrical (check p.14-15). There’s a lot here, so I’m going to be bouncing around and looking at different aspects of the story that I found interesting.

It’s written in a way where we’re bouncing from one perspective to another, through time and flashbacks, even through Rorschach’s journal and random snippets of books and newspapers at the end of the chapters. Which can be disorienting, but I didn’t have too much of a problem with it since it’s pretty clear who’s talking when. It’s just putting it together that can be difficult.

A special case is a comic book that a kid’s reading. It’s presented in parallel to the novel and about a guy shipwrecked that then rides back to his town on the backs of his dead shipmates and goes wacko. It’s cleverly used to reflect the story.

Other stories of minor characters are also present and tie in, like the psychologist or the couple by the newspaper stand. Also, the recurring Hiroshima lovers that foreshadow the ending.

What’s really fascinating about this way of narrating is that this is how Dr. Manhattan perceives time. Not from all of these different perspectives, but the bouncing from past to future to present sure. The way the other characters see time is also screwed, they’re all old, more parodies of superheroes than anything else. And they aren’t super, just good at kicking butt. Most of them are living in the past.

To take a closer look at the characters, Dr. Manhattan is basically a god among men. He’s altering atoms, seeing time all together, teleporting, he essentially is god. He wants to help man, but grows tired of it eventually since we are so clearly lost.

Rorschach wears a mask that is a Rorschach blot, always changing. Showing how he thinks that life is random and the only meaning is what we impose on it. He believes in fighting for what’s right, but still thinks that it’s all pointless in the end.

The Comedian is an amoral adventurer who sees the truth about the world and doesn’t really care. He knows that it sucks but has 0 desire to make it better and just keeps on keeping on.

Names are also central to this story. Superheroes have their real name, their super name, their nicknames, it’s impossible to keep it all straight! They’re all living with different identities and personalities, testing their limits. One goes mad, others die, how can these humans keep it up?

Of course, the title comes from the phrase: “Who watches the watchmen?”

Watchmen are never named as a crime fighting group, but this quote and concept are central. The story starts with people wanting the masked adventurers to step down, deciding that they want only the police to take care of it. Since they don’t trust the superheroes anymore (the “watchmen” in this case) they want a body that they trust (the police) to take care of crime fighting.

Later on, Ozymandias’ plan goes unchecked, until the Nite Owl and Rorschach find out. But even then, it’s decided that it has to be kept under wraps in order to preserve the peace. How do we know that peacekeepers are following the same rules they hold everyone to?

At the end, we find out that Ozymandias wanted to unite the world, comparing himself to Alexander the Great. But Dr. Manhattan reminds him that nothing lasts forever, in the end, it will just go back to how it’s always been.

The arms race is also very present here, there’s a statement about the atomic clock being close to midnight at some point, and indeed every chapter has a clock that ticks down from 11 to 12. Spoiler alert: 12 is the end.

Then the story ends ambiguously, Ozymindias’ plan could go swimmingly, or Rorschach’s journal could go public.

“Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel

What initially drew me to “Fun Home” was the fact that it was recently turned into a Broadway musical. And the fact that I had never read a graphic novel memoir before. I was pleasantly surprised by it! The combination of the two is pretty genre breaking. Adding the images did help to visualize it, especially when discussing how the father would restore the house, since I know nothing about architecture. And it didn’t feel like a comic book since it was the text accompanying the images instead of the dialogue. This changes the flow slightly, makes it more of a third-person narration than anything else.

The story is a little hard to keep track of since she backtracks a lot, but that’s the way that memory goes. She has a few different storylines going through her book: her father, herself, variations on this theme. It’s also difficult to tell the characters apart in the drawings since she went through a few different haircuts and I could never keep her siblings straight. The rest of them aren’t that important really, you can just skip over any details that aren’t apparent.

There’s also a lot of literary references used in the book. It opens with the comparison of her and her father to Daedalus and Icarus and other characters from Greek legends. It then goes on to talk about other literary comparisons between them. It even includes how his father admired Fitzgerald while courting her mother and how her realization that she’s a lesbian coincided with her taking a class on “Ulysses”.

Overall, this was a great book to try something new. I’m a little confused how they turned it into a musical, but we’ll see if I ever get around to checking it out.

“Letter from an Unknown Woman” by Stepan Zweig

This is an insanely depressing collection of short stories, all dealing with forgotten or unknown loves. Let me explain.

-“Letter from an Unknown Woman”-featuring a guy who gets a letter from a woman that he doesn’t know saying that she has worshipped him from afar for years and has met him a few times and sends him flowers every year on his birthday and has had his son. Of course, the only reason he is getting this letter now is because her son just died and she is about to die herself. I’m definitely not crying.

-“A Story Told in Twilight”-everyone in this story is an idiot and that’s really all you need to know. This boy is out for a walk when some girl starts making out with him (without consent I might add) and he thinks it’s the wrong girl and messes up the whole situation.

-“The Debt Repaid Late”-this one was ok, a woman runs into an old beggar that she idolized as a girl and tries to improve his life. It was actually pretty cute.

-“Forgotten Dreams”-short and sad, about a woman telling an old lover of hers that she’s marrying for money and not love.

Why don’t people tell each other that they love them? I mean I know why, I tend to observe quietly from a safe distance, but that’s not real love, that’s just stupid. Real love is letting them know and taking a chance. (But what so I know, I never do that, I’m just as bad as the rest of them.)

Also the real thing about “Letter from an Unknown Woman” that bothers me is that could be happening to anyone and they wouldn’t know it! We could all have secret loves and never hear about it until they’re dead and I want to know because I would probably love you back or at least be friendly or something.

People make me mad. And sad. That’s all. Which I guess means that this collection made me think, which is the whole point of art after all.

“The Prisoner of Heaven” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

So after that last rant you’ll probably be surprised to hear that I actually liked this book, and probably would have liked “The Angel’s Game” more if I read “The Prisoner of Heaven” before reading that.

This book goes back to the characters of “The Shadow of the Wind” and this time focuses a lot on Fermin. (Which is a winner in my book because who doesn’t like that guy, honestly.) It sort of takes the events of the other two books in the trilogy and ties them together even tighter.

It also made the ending of “The Angel’s Game” a little bit better for me to deal with because it reveals that the book itself was written by Martin and he was a little loony at the time. So Cristina reappearing (she’s never mentioned in “The Prisoner of Heaven” so this is just the way I’m choosing to interpret it) was probably symbolic for him and didn’t ‘really’ happen. Or something.

I don’t know why, but this book felt a lot shorter to me, and the plot definitely isn’t as intense as the other two books. It’s more of a wrap-up than anything else.

So yeah, final judgement call is that this doesn’t come anywhere near “The Shadow of the Wind”, but it makes “The Angel’s Game” better and I say that makes reading “The Prisoner of Heaven” worth it.

"The Angel’s Game" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Oh. Um. Ah.

I was pretty disappointed by this book. Maybe it’s because “The Shadow of the Wind” is amazing and all that, but this just felt like a letdown to me.

I didn’t even realize how much of a prequel it was until I read online that Sampere the son from “An Angel’s Game” is Sempere the father of “The Shadow of the Wind”. Before that I thought that Zafon had completely messed up who married who and all that. But really, he could have made it clearer.

It’s just, the main character isn’t nearly as likeable as Daniel is in “The Shadow of the Wind”. Same goes for the rest of the characters, no one has the intense personality of Fermin. In fact, characters drop like flies throughout the novel until we’re left with a narrator who seems to be increasingly more unreliable as time goes on.

As a result I didn’t really give a fuck about him and his little struggles. He could have seen this coming really.

A nice touch is the idea that books contain part of our souls, and reflect the author. David, the narrator, first literally sells his soul to the devil (yeah Corelli=the devil with all his deals and such) and then writes a book about religion with a warrior Messiah coming (pretty Marxist) which indicates that his soul is probably in hell somewhere. And since the book has his soul he gives it to the devil as a method of payment. Then at the end all of the “Lux Aeterna” books are there, showing just how many people sold themselves to Corelli.

The plot is again hella complicated, but does get simpler as characters die (haha).

And then there’s all of these loose ends that are never tied up, either for artistic purposes or otherwise. Who is in Mascala’s grave? How did Corelli get Cristina (when she was like 9 no less)? How was David wearing the angel brooch the entire time? Literally what did I just read?

So yeah, this isn’t as good, but I guess it’s an interesting read if you like companion books set similarly and all that. I guess I’ll attempt the next one in the trilogy, we’ll see how that goes.

“The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Let me start this off by saying that this book was so freaking good!

The main plot is about a boy who finds a book and tries to find the author and anything else that he has written, but turns out that someone has been destroying all of his books and they are impossible to find. What I find amusing is that it’s essentially a story about a book and where it’s been (for more information on how I feel about this, see my other post about secondhand books). It’s got love, mystery, adventure, reading, it’s basically a book for enthusiastic readers.

The writing is gorgeous and very descriptive. Reminds me of Umberto Eco in a way. The characters are also hilarious and very original (see: Fermin).

Of course a recurring theme is books and the power that the written word has. Here they are shown as different worlds that readers can be transported through, particularly to the past.

Another theme is the connection between the main character, Daniel, and the author he is tracking down, Julian. This includes the pen that they both loved, their love lives are remarkably similar, and comments from characters in general comparing the two. There’s also lots of circle imagery to show how time always repeats itself, for wars, economic situation, or people in general.

Books are shown to be a constant force though, despite everything else, either as a source of knowledge or entertainment.

Side note: Happy 50th anniversary of the Beatles playing at Shea Stadium for the first time!
(I'm getting way too much of a kick out of this decade...)

It really was an important concert, the audience was record-breaking (60,000!!) and it started the whole rock-concert-in-stadiums thing that is still going strong today!
The fact that the audience was screaming so loud that you couldn't hear them play and that they only played for about 30 minutes is obviously irrelevant.

“The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories” by Susanna Clarke

So having read and raved about “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” I thought that I’d check out her only other book, which is a collection of short stories set in the same universe.

Boy is that universe a doozy, it’s very elaborate and comical, a perfect setting for a bunch of short stories. What’s nice about this collection is that it focuses more on female magicians, which is a nice change from the male-centric “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell”. Similarly, two of the stories involve embroidery magic type occurrences, which I found pretty funny.

Overall it’s a bit more confusing than “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” because there’s a bunch of different narrators with their own style which can get irritating since as soon as you get used to one it changes.

One story is even set in the village of Wall from “Stardust” by Neil Gaiman which was interesting. I liked it, the two universes work well together, same sort of realistic fantasy. It doesn’t hurt that I love both of them as well.

I hope she writes more, apparently she’s working on another book, but it can’t come out soon enough for me!

“An American in Paris”

I went to go see the Broadway show “An American in Paris” about a week ago. I quite liked it honestly, although a lot of people apparently didn’t. But I’m a little biased since the music and dancing is very good.

It’s based on the 1950s movie of the same name, which starred Gene Kelly. The stories are kind of similar, but the characterizations are slightly different which is a little strange. They also try to bring in WWII a little more and make it funnier. The endings for the characters are also different and in a few cases I think the movie wrapped it up better, but you can watch and judge for yourself.

The important point is that all of the songs used are Gershwin tunes! This includes (same as the movie) an entire ballet sequence set to the piece “An American in Paris”. The dancing in the musical is spectacular as nearly everyone in the cast is a professional ballet dancer. So those aspects are gorgeous and amazing.

One other aspect that I liked is that the set design was very well done. It consisted mostly of blank panels (there were also some mirrors and actual set pieces) that were moved about the stage by the actors. Images are then projected onto the pieces, which looks really cool and can add animations in. This adds a nice touch since the backgrounds can be “drawn on” as it’s being set up. Since one of the characters is also an artist, it can also show what he’s doing in a clear manner.

I think I prefer the movie, but if song and dance is your thing, then definitely go see the musical as well.

50 Years of “A Spaniard in the Works”

Seeing how it was recently the 50^th anniversary of “Help!” I thought I’d also look at the 50^th anniversary of John Lennon’s second book to be published “A Spaniard in the Works”.

I don’t know why, but “In His Own Write” seems to be much more well-known than “A Spaniard in the Works”. Probably because they’re essentially the same nonsense with funny little pictures.

I’ve always wondered whether this would actually sell if he wasn’t a Beatle. I bet many people wouldn’t have bought it if he wasn’t, and there isn’t a ton of literary merit to it.

Personally, I find it hilarious. There’s a lot of wordplay, and he mocks pretty much everything from Sherlock Holmes to Snow White in this book. I’m sure that I don’t understand half of the jokes made, but the stories are short so if you don’t like one it doesn’t last long.

I don’t know, I think it’s a funny little book. Can’t hurt to give it a try.

“Mr. Holmes” and the Power of Fiction

“Mr. Holmes” is a movie starring Sir Ian McKellon about Sherlock Holmes’ last case. It’s very clear from the beginning that this is a different Sherlock from “Elementary” or BBC’s “Sherlock”. This is an older Sherlock, one who is struggling and has retired to his bees already.

This story is based on the pastiche “A Slight Trick of the Mind”, which I haven’t actually read. From what I’ve seen though, it seems very similar to the movie. There seems to be a greater focus on Sherlock’s mind in the story though. I would say that’s just due to the medium, you can get into someone’s head a little deeper with a story than with a film since you’re seeing things from the third-person out of necessity in a film.

Anyways, there are three main storylines in this movie that all get woven together. The first is Sherlock in his retirement with his housekeeper Mrs. Monroe and her son Roger (and the bees) struggling with his health and memory. The second is Sherlock’s recent trip to Japan to find prickly ash, a plant that is supposed to give your health a boost. The third is Sherlock’s final case before retiring, one involving keeping an eye on his client’s wife.

The three tales are woven together beautifully as the viewers go through the story and watch Sherlock struggling to recall what happened during his final case and what took place in Japan that resulted in the final Sherlock that we see.

The original stories are used masterfully in this work. It’s almost like seeing the man behind them, as the stories are acknowledged as being something that Watson used to write, and things like the deerstalker and pipe that have appeared in the illustrations are included as well. It’s pretty amusing for Sherlock fans, who know that the famous deerstalker and pipe are never actually mentioned in the story, to see Sherlock deny ever having worn them.

The characters of the stories are also included, but never actually seen. Watson’s face is never shown, but he is still a powerful force behind the story, being the author of the books about Sherlock. Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson are also mentioned, but they similarly don’t play into the tale. This is truly a Sherlock who is out of this time.

One aspect that links together all of the three storylines is the power of fiction. Sherlock in his retirement is struggling to remember his last case and write it down for Roger to read, and trying to teach him about bee-keeping. In Japan, his friend turns out to have read the stories about Mr. Holmes and wants to meet the man behind the legends. And during his last case, he finds out the truth of the situation, but lays out all of the facts instead of deciding how to deal with the situation, and in doing so is unable to prevent the tragic ending. Each story reveals how fiction can be more useful than the truth, something that Sherlock never really considered before, being a man of science and logic. In the end, he learns from his last case and with his “first foray into fiction” sets things right with his friend in Japan.

Sir Ian really gives a powerful and authentic performance as an aging Sherlock, it was a pleasure to see him work.

This was a wonderfully crafted movie that is sure to entertain you and make you think. If you’re sick of the other Sherlock Holmes movies out there, give this one a shot because it really is unlike any other one that I have seen.

Busking in Boston

So I tried busking in Boston last week for the first time with my ukulele. It was pretty cool! Went much better than I expected. I was out there for about 2 hours and made $5 which seems pretty good for a mediocre ukulele/singer.

Boy do my fingers hurt though! Watch out if you’re a string player, my left hand is pretty sensitive right now.

What I found interesting about the whole experience was that I felt most awkward at the beginning and the end of the experience. I guess it’s because while I’m walking around I feel like a spectator, and don’t want to leave that role in order to start playing. And then at the end I’m comfortable as a player and don’t want to go back to being a spectator.

Anyways, it was a cool time, I think I’ll do that more often now that I have a ton of free time.

“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman and Childhood

This book was surprisingly good. Not that I didn’t expect a Gaiman book to be good, but almost every book that I’ve read about childhood never really “got” my childhood, and this one happened to come close in a kind of strange way.

It’s just the way that memory and the supernatural play into the story. Characters often have trouble remembering things or how when you’re a child you’re so convinced that the supernatural is everywhere, but later on find out that it’s something else. Or even how as a child you just accept everything that happens without questioning it all.

Books also play a vital role, and I was always that kid with a book not wanting to talk to anyone so that I could relate to.

One detail that I could probably relate to more than others is how I also moved away from my childhood home, and it really makes a difference (I would imagine) looking back on that time. It seems more distant and unfamiliar rather than if you stayed and saw yourself changing instead of the area around you. It’s also a device for the author to show how the characters are growing up, but it stays true to real life.

You also never get to know the narrator’s name, which is a nice touch of ambiguity, it let’s you put yourself in his position easily.

It’s a short book, but very powerful.

Random Complaints about Windows 10 From a Non-Tech Perspective

Well the internet still sucks, but at least it’s not an “app” type thing anymore, it’s just a browser again. Also it won’t let me change the lock screen photo for some odd reason.

And the start screen went back to its rightful place in the lower left hand corner, which messed me up for a ridiculously long time (pro tip: the power settings are now over there instead of appearing when you swipe from the right of the screen).

They seem to be taking a leaf out of Apple’s book for this, now you can have multiple desktops set up (just like the macs, hmmmm).

That’s really all I’ve noticed so far, doesn’t seem to be that much improvement, like the last update, it’s just different.

Organic Chemistry Sucks

So I spent the past seven weeks taking both semesters of organic chemistry. And it was one heck of a time had by all.

Having gone through all that, I think I would recommend taking it over the summer for other people. You manage to get the class over with fairly quickly, and you learn it all so fast that you can’t forget most things in that short amount of time. It probably means that there are less tests as well.

But that also means that you have a test every week and are doing a lot of work packed into a short amount of time, especially if you’re taking the lab as well. Honestly, there isn’t really a point unless you take the lab with the course because that’s really what grad schools and med schools are looking for.

(A word about the lab: I have yet to hear of a chem department anywhere that actually does a decent job of integrating the lab with the lecture and managing it well and all that. As far as I can tell, they always cover different material and the lab portion takes up an absurd amount of time relative to how much that grade is actually worth. Ugh.)

I was worried that missing out on a summer internship would be bad for my future endeavors and all that, but I have been working in a lab during the year and have worked in a few labs over previous summers, so I don’t think it’ll hurt too much.

I ended up here mostly because I’m going abroad and didn’t have the room in my schedule for it during the year, but it turned out ok and I survived, so there’s that. See if it works for you!

“The Secret Place” by Tana French

The most recent novel from Tana French focuses on Stephen Moran. If you don’t remember him, he was a floater back in “Faithful Place” that Frank Mackey bribed to help him out a little. In this book, he tries to solve a case with Conway, a tough-as-nails murder detective. This case involves a murder that took place at the school that Frank Mackey’s daughter, Holly, goes to.

The thing about having this book take place as a school is that the social politics that inevitably get involved alternatively make the story interesting and frustrating. Since, you know, it’s high school. Of course it’s a pretty complicated story as a result, so take a seat and stay there. It’s not too hard to follow along with, French makes it pretty clear where the characters stand with each other with continual reinforcement as the detectives learn about it.

There’s a nice mix of new and old characters, it’s no surprise that Frank Mackey shows up. He’s a bit of a favorite of mine now. There are also plenty of references to the case from “Faithful Place” since that’s the one that made Stephen more than a floater and the one that he knows Mackey from. It’s pretty cool the way the two books work well together, but also can stand alone.

I guess as far as its portrayal of teenage life goes it’s pretty good. Most of the boys are shown as 100% dick which in my experience isn’t necessarily true. But I also did not go to a boarding school so…

This story is structured in an interesting way, chapters alternate with what the detectives are doing and what Holly’s friends were doing in school leading up to the incident. Of course the info that the detectives collect reflects what’s shown with the girls so the two narratives work together well. I really liked it, as a departure from the way she and other mystery writers usually write, focusing solely on the detectives. Another way in which French is taking the mystery genre and turning it on its head in new ways.

The only aspect that I didn’t really like was that there was this supernatural element thrown in that didn’t go with the rest of the story. About halfway through the girls discover that they can turn the lights in their dorm on and off without touching the switch. It’s never explained as anything other than that, and doesn’t really contribute to the story other than some small instances. I’m not quite sure why it’s there…

Having said that, like everything else that French has written, this is enjoyable and a good read.