Easy Reader

I'm enjoying this book.

It is easy to read. The language is not overly academic. It is not set at intellectuals. It is warmhearted. It is honest. Chapters are introduced with an interesting photograph. The writing varies from narratives to jottings.

A bit like a blog really.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

Apostrophe Man has hit the poster for this the third and final episode of the television turned cinema trilogy
based on Stieg Larsson's best selling Millenium book trilogy. The poster has it as "hornet's" but I'll stick with "hornets'" which is how it appears on my copy of the book and for the film's entry on IMBd.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest follows on immediately from it's predecessor The Girl Who Played With Fire and anyone attempting to view it without either having read the first two books or seen the first two films will be baffled. There is little attempt to recap what preceded the film and almost no reintroduction of the many characters overlapping from the earlier events.

At the time of my viewing this final film (last Sunday) I had not yet started to read the equivalent final book but thankfully I had read the first and second books and seen the first and second films and therefore had in my mind the wealth of detail and background leading to the final events.

I assume that this last film, like the two predecessors, omits much of the sub-plots and related detail from the books. This film has the least action and tension in it of the three with the story focussing on the resolution of the injustices heaped upon Lisbeth Salander ('the Girl'). Seen in that light the film maintained my attention and interest throughout but viewed as a standalone film, the movie wouldn't have much going for it. The trial scenes lacked suspense.

Unfortunately the final scene is very down key and makes for a limp ending.

The three American versions of the films are due out later this year and next year directed by David Fincher (who made The Social Network) and starring Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth. It will be very interesting to see how these compare with the Swedish originals and with the books.

Tomorrow, When The War Began

I must confess that I was not familiar with the name John Marsden let alone his books which publicity in connection with 'Tomorrow, When The War Began' informs me have been best sellers and so I have no idea whether the film is faithful to the related book.

A group of seven teenagers from a small rural town make a camping trip over the Australia Day weekend and on their return find their homes deserted and electricity and communications systems shut down. They soon discover that a foreign force has taken control and as a group the teenagers begin a resistance.

The film contains a mix of stereotypes; for example, the camping group comprises conveniently diverse characters whilst the invaders are visibly 'different' and cruel.

The production is slick and on images alone could easily have been the product of the Hollywood system. I did like how the film is unabashedly Australian. The flag flutters strongly in various scenes and the country images are typically Australian too. Aussie accents abound, indeed Colin Friels in a small supporting role seems to have stretched his accent close to snapping point.

The film moves along at a snappy pace and maintained my interest throughout. I enjoyed it more than I was expecting although it was somewhat alarming to contemplate that Australia might be as easily and totally overrun as portrayed here. The ending (or rather non ending) clearly is designed to easily allow for sequels.

'When the Autumn weather, turns leaves to flame'*

*('September Song' by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson)

Whilst waiting for my car to undergo it's 'one hour express service' this morning - which actually took two hours - I kept looking up from the book I was reading, mesmerised by the sight (above) of Autumn leaves waving in the wind as seen through the sun screen which covered the third floor service centre window. I had the sense that I was viewing a screen painting at a gallery.

Art imitates my life

My current read is David Leavitt's book Martin Bauman written in 2000. The fictional Bauman is a young gay man struggling both to be a published author and to come out of the closet.

The novel contains a scene in which Bauman, reeling from a romantic disappointment, allows himself to be picked up by a stranger who takes him back to his apartment only to be mugged by the stranger on the stairway.

Other than that the fictional incident occurs in New York, it reads eerily similar to an actual mugging I experienced in 1974 within my first week of arrival to work in London.

It felt very strange indeed reading that scene.

God of Speed

My current read is Luke Davies' God of Speed.

Davies is the author of Candy which became a movie starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish. I attended a conversation with Davies at the Sydney Writers' Festival in May and was attracted to his honest and self effacing account of his drug addicted youth and his blossoming writing career.

In God of Speed, Davies delivers a fractured (drug induced?) first person narrative of reminiscences by the movie and industry mogul Howard Hughes.

I'm about two thirds of the way through the book and so far Hughes seems to have slept with every famous and quite a few wannabe famous actresses of his day. And David Duchovny thinks that he's a sex addict?

Chocolate

I took advantage of yesterday's rainy 'stay at home' type day to file a lot of paperwork that had been piling up for months. I feel virtuous now, not to mention that the apartment is back to its minimalist look now that the mountain of paperwork has been dealt with.

I discovered a number of documents in that pile that I thought had been lost as well as some my tax agent had asked me to search for before filing my latest tax return. Oh dear.

I also found buried in the paper tower two birthday gift cards I have yet to convert into presents that I had forgotten about. One is (yet another) Borders gift card. I have a queue of books waiting to be read so that card can wait a while longer. The other is a Lindt Chocolate gift card to the value of $50. The thought of $50 worth of rich chocolate is a bit scary even to a sweet tooth like myself. I better tread carefully there.

A Wolf at the Table

This is my current read, although the copy I purchased at Angus and Robertson in Bondi Junction has a completely different cover of a young boy.

I have read the earlier memoirs by Augusten Burroughs and found them interesting and funny. I also attended a session with Burroughs at the Sydney Writers Festival about three years ago.

I'm finding this book hard work to read. To my mind it doesn't have the same humour as the previous works and I'm not getting into it all. I'll struggle on a while longer but suspect I will not complete it.

Light reading

I'm currently reading Everyone Worth Knowing which as you can see is written by the author of The Devil Wears Prada. How gay!

The theme is similar to the Prada work and the book is a proving an easy bedside read as I keep my mother company in hospital.