Getting Back Into The Saddle

Okay then.  Let’s see long I remember to do this ;D

It’s been a rather weird week.  I cleaned as much as my creaky body could stand last week because on Friday my mum and her sister came for a visit for the first time in months. That was fine, it wasn’t too bad - until Friday when I sat on a hard chair while we had a rather scrummy lunch at our local pub. That set off my lower back, but unfortunately I had forgotten that I still had to start my mum’s mower (mine was having a time out at the local repair place) so they could show me how to get it going. Big mistake. The awkward pulling position, plus the low handles really chucked a spanner in the works. I spent Saturday with back spasms around the waist area, and it has only slightly improved since then. I’m using my Nurofen frequently, and if I didn’t have to do other things I might have considered cracking open the Panadine Forte for this.

But physical health aside, I was able to enjoy quite a few rereads - as well as discovering that one of my favourite shows has finally made it’s streaming debut on a platform I use! On the book front, I’m rereading the Kitty Underhay Mystery series by Helena Dixon. It’s an engrossing cosy mystery series set back in the 1930s. The characters are fun, and I just adore the setting of the Dolphin Hotel. A great series to curl up with on a chilly winters day. Then I made the mistake of starting to watch the remakes of Blithe Spirit and Rebecca yesterday and OMG, what a train wreck those are. I love the originals of both movies, plus the book/play, and I can’t believe how they screwed them up! So, I ordered the 80th anniversary edition of Rebecca (it was on special, and I couldn’t find my paperback) which should arrive by the end of the week *fingers crossed* for a reread. Thankfully I didn’t have to shell out anything for Blithe Spirit because when I moved my massive bookcase last week I remember tucking the small blue paperback of Blithe Spirit onto the shelf so I must dig that out (and my old dvd of the Rex Harrison adaptation) as a palate cleanser. The remake characters were not only totally over the top and cliched. It was truly a shock to watch these actors striving to recapture the magic of Rex Harrison, Margaret Rutherford, Kay Hammond and Constance Cummings and completely missing the mark! If you can’t improve on the original, then don’t touch it! Which then led me back down the rabbit hole that is YT as I searched for old videos I’d watched years ago as members of the booktube community ripped these to shreds - and rightly so. I honestly miss the days when Hollywood actually had original content and wasn’t full of shitty remakes, reboots or crappy sequels that nobody asked for *sigh*.

So that has been my week in a nutshell. Nothing exciting, just day to day life. Hopefully when I can get my butt organised and get a new desktop/laptop so I can start venturing back into making my little bookish videos. I do miss that interaction. And on that note, it’s late (for me) and my eyelids are just about dragging on the floor. So it’s goodnight, and until I see you next time,

More Stephen King bookmail

When I went up to the post office this morning, I didn't expect to get a pile of Stephen King stuff.  It makes me so happy when I can add more Kingly items to my collection ;-D

Although some of the items mentioned in the video were bought from Amazon (US), they were actually ordered through Amazon AU as Amazon still won't let Australians order from any of the international Amazon sites.  I've got to say, being geoblocked from all the other Amazon sites sucks severely.  The small pool of items Australia has access to from overseas on the site is very frustrating - especially when an item is available on just about every other site, but Australia's!

Anyway, that's a rant for another day.

Of the film adaptations that arrived in the mail today, I'm most excited to watch 'Salem's Lot (1979), and Silver Bullet (with Corey Haim).  I've now read both the books that these movies are adapted from and I'm intrigued to see how the adaptations used the source materials.

There are still more items winging their way to me, but I just couldn't wait to tear into the packages so there will be another haul towards the end of October, early November.

So that's it for today.  Let me know what your favourite Stephen King movie is, or what book would you most like to see adapted.  I always love to hear what fellow Constant Readers think about any screen adaptations.

Thank you for watching, and until I see you next time...

Review: The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides
Jeffrey Eugenides

First published: 1993 (my edition 2002)

Bloomsbury, paperback (format B), 249p.
ISBN: 978-0-7475-6059-3

The haunting, humorous and tender story of the brief lives of the five entrancing Lisbon sisters, The Virgin Suicides, is Jeffrey Eugenides' classic debut novel.

The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date in their lives.  Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshiped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

I read this book over the course of perhaps 3 hours last night, and to say I was left feeling unsettled is an understatement.  In The Virgin Suicides, we span the course of a year as we follow the narrator  as he reflects on the memories he has of those fragile Lisbon sisters some 20 years later, and the implosion of their family as the sisters all commit suicide that year.

Now that sounds a bit trite, but the way this book is written - through the eyes of a man reflecting on his adolescent crush on these girls, and how he - and the other boys who adored them, too - have seemingly spent 20 years gathering evidence and taking witness statements from as many people who knew the sisters as possible, gives you a real insight into this families dramatic decline.

After the first sister, 13 year old Cecilia, tries to take her life, you get a hint of things to come in the way this family is structured.  So when Cecilia finally succeeds in killing herself, it sets in motion a chain of events that still leaves the narrator, and reader, wondering. . . why?

Mrs Lisbon rules her house.  She is not demonstratively affectionate (and seems to carry no sense of blame in later interviews) and does not seem to see the withering of her daughters under the iron fist she uses to keep them under control.  They are not allowed to have boys in the house, no makeup, and she even went so far as to pull them out of school.  But was that for their sake as she claimed, or rather for her own selfish reasons?  You never really see a softer, loving side of this mother.

Then we have their father.  He is just lost.  He wanders around in a fog, escaping the house only to teach at the school, never seeming to see the isolation and ostracism his daughters encounter at school - and how they cleaved together in support of each other (or looking back, was it?).  Even the attitudes of the community were amazingly destructive. 

While reading this book I didn't see this as a story about adolescent teenage boys fantasizing over the sisters in general (i.e., didn't matter which sister, they were all beautiful and fragile), but rather as a window into this families destruction witnessed through the eyes of young observers who were baffled, scared, and angry at the treatment the girls endured at the hands of their parents, friends, and community.

Note: I also found the symbolism of a dying elm tree as well as the house and yard falling into disrepair and decline wonderfully reflective of the decay of the family as the year went on.  From suburban paradise, or at least no different to any other house in the neighbourhood, to an almost abandoned shell of a home when it was eventually sold.  Broken, just like this family.

If you are reading this book in the hopes that you will discover answers as to why they died, then you will be disappointed - but I think that is the point.  There are no answers.  You can't possibly know what is going through someones mind as they contemplate this course of action.  You can try to puzzle it out, try to use logic to fit all the evidence together, but there will still be key pieces missing, and the picture will never be complete.

Now it has been at least 10 years since I've seen the movie adaptation with Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett, but I think I'll try to find a copy as this book is something I wish we had read in high school as it is an amazing piece of social commentary about a very taboo topic.  It invites discussion, which is a wonderful thing, and a great way to broach this subject matter.

Will try another Eugenides in the future I think as I found his writing style easy to get through, and well written.  

I hope you enjoyed my thought on The Virgin Suicides.  I'd love to hear what you thought of the book, or movie, did you like it, hate it.  Let me know ;-D

Until next time,