found_drama

1. [tag]Brokeback Mountain[/tag]. Very average. Maybe just hyped to the point where it couldn’t possibly deliver? I must say that I walked away pretty numb. Acting performances were in the “good” to “excellent” range and it certainly started well enough. (The first 30-45 minutes are brilliant.) Unfortunately, it can’t keep its own pace and slows down after about 45-60 minutes, hindered by its at times awkward transitions. That and I didn’t find anything particularly original about the story. New contexts are nice but by the end of the film I found myself numb at Twist’s ambiguous demise and Ennis’ stoic perseverence.
2. [tag]Beggars and Choosers[/tag]. [tag]Nancy Kress[/tag]‘ second book in this trilogy. I recently finished up the first (Beggars In Spain) and having enjoyed it thoroughly on my re-read decided to continue with the series. It moves off in an interesting direction both stylistically and thematically. I was surprised to see Kress move into a multi-narrative 1st person mode but she pulled it off rather well - - I couldn’t see this story being any more successful in an omniscient POV like …Spain had used. She enters into some head-scratcher territory (re: “Choosers”) moves beyond the largely-political ethics broached in the first novel to embrace a more holistic view. And considering that the writing is a little bit sharper … a definite recommendation.

currently playing: KMFDM “R.U.OK?”

Last night I finished re-reading [tag]Nancy Kress[/tag]‘ novel [tag]Beggars in Spain[/tag]. I’d read it once before when I was quite a bit younger. (High school, maybe?) An interesting [tag]sci-fi[/tag] read, it toys with a near-future scenario where genetic modifications are relatively commonplace and an arguably separate race of [tag]Sleepless[/tag] are created as a consequence of our genetics experiments. Combine Sleeplessness with the revelation that their bodies are essentially immortal and take it from there.

The novel plays a lot with themes of what it means to be free - - creatively, intellectually, politically, economically… It explores these spaces from a distinctly (and admittedly) American (where “American” is “United States”) perspective, playing with juxtapositions of the American Revolution and the American Civil War thoughout the text.

There’s also a curious subtext that follows the protagonist, Leisha Camden, that can be a bit hard to pin down. There’s a struggle between personal philosophies that are very Randian/Objectivist and more secularly humanist ethics that seem common to the genre. As implied from the title, this struggle revolves around the question of the what responsibility the strong have to the weak? What is the balance and currency in the economy of trade? The subject is approached from many angles throughout the novel and fortunately its done artfully to keep it from being too pedantic.

That said, the only major criticisms I have are two. First, although the novel admits several times to being Amerocentric, it seems to cut the rest of the world out too readily. Second, while you don’t necessarily need to be a scholar of Abraham Lincoln (or American history) to fully appreciate it, the novel’s balance between touching on that subject matter and really exploring those connections is sometimes tenuous (and maybe a little forced).

Onward to Beggars & Choosers!

currently playing: Frontside “Dammerung”