Review: The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’ve deleted and rewritten this ‘review’ a couple of times now. In its previous incarnations, I’d waxed lyrical about classic novels and context, and whether Gatsby was sufficiently universally themed to transcend my asynchronous reading. I’d mused on the comparison of new vs. old money that Fitzgerald describes, on Gatsby’s accrual of wealth via shady means, on love, on revenge, until I suddenly got a whiff of what I was writing, and erased it permanently. What an ass! I was attempting to write a review in the manner of how I thought I ought to be writing a review of The Great Gatsby, when it suddenly struck me that I didn’t give a shit about all that nonsense. It occurred to me that I thought that the book was only, wait for it, OK, and that I ought to write that instead.

Now me labelling something as simply ‘OK’ isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I was lucky enough to find myself in Rome a while back and, searching for an amazing coffee (feel free to insert your own ‘When in Rome…’ gag here), we came across a little cafe near the Pantheon called Tazza d’Oro, which many of the guidebooks labelled as “the best espresso in Italy”, and other similarly ridiculous hyperboles. On a high after experiencing probably my favourite thing in Rome, maybe even the world, the Pantheon, we wandered around the corner and excitedly took a table at the cafe. Well, whilst we both took a table, I was the only one who did it excitedly; Kath hates coffee, so I was flying solo in my coffee giddiness. I ordered the obligatory, and awaited its arrival with bated breath. What was it going to be like? How different from the shit I got served in Starbucks back home could it be? Would it make me piss unicorn tears and shit rainbows, like I hoped? Well, the coffee arrived, looking so very conventional in its little china espresso cup. Lulling me in to a false sense of security, I assumed. Not wanting to reveal its splendiferous hand too early, I guessed. With a trembling hand (not really), I raised that little cup to my lips and, in the split second before tasting it, I inhaled deeply to get a spoiler of what wonderment I was just about to taste. It smelled like… coffee. Yup, coffee. OK, maybe not quite as pungent as the shit you get in Starbucks, but it didn’t smell like god’s farts. Which I assume are awesome.

The tasting soon followed. It tasted like… coffee. Yup, coffee. OK, maybe not quite as bitter and after-tastey as the shit you get in Starbucks, but it didn’t taste of god’s… well, you get the picture. It tasted like a really good espresso. But, crucially, it didn’t taste like I imagined the best espresso in Italy should taste. Oh, it was probably the best espresso I tasted that holiday, and better than any espresso you can get in high street coffee shops (though James would argue that Laynes has the best espresso around, and I’m quite a fan of Opposite), but there was no gustatory fanfare and ticker-tape parade, no choir of angels exalting this taste sensation. Kath eagerly (not really) asked me how the coffee was. “OK,” I replied. Which it was. It wasn’t the greatest espresso I could imagine, so it couldn’t be described as “amazing”, or “mind-blowing”, so I was left with “OK” when ascribing it a rating.

So now that I’ve calibrated my review-o-meter for you, back to The Great Gatsby. It was OK. For a book that’s been described as “the second best English-language novel of the 20th Century,” (thanks, Wikipedia), I was expecting fireworks and rainbows and “You’re The Best” playing in my head constantly whilst reading it. Nothing of the sort, unfortunately. I’m sure the old money/new money conflict is as pertinent today as it was then, but I didn’t really care. Much is made of the hedonistic and shallow nature of Gatsby’s partygoers, and maybe that was revelatory back in the ’20s, but ten minutes of any shit-bag celebrity reality TV show will tell you the same. Sure, Gatsby’s an enigma, and I was interested in the onion-like peeling away of his many layers, from confident and mysterious socialite to insecure and unhappy, to a love-struck puppy, but that’s a relatively well-told story, and this version didn’t tell me anything new. (Also, for some reason I couldn’t get the image of Terry-Thomas out of my mind when thinking about Gatsby, whose massive gap-between-the-teeth is quite off-putting when you’re trying to concentrate.)

I guess this is always a problem I’m going to encounter when reading old books, or watching old films. Without the ability to disregard all subsequent derivate works of art, the originals that inspired will never actually seem original. It’s a weird anachronism where the more recent interpretations become the gold standard against which the originals have to be measured. Maybe I’m just too lazy to try and appreciate the value and the original inspiration contained in the classics but hey, there’s only so many hours in the day, and I’m far to idle and apathetic to delve any deeper. So sue me.

Review: The Sign of the Four – Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of the Four – Arthur Conan Doyle

If you follow the link above to the Amazon page where you can buy this book in its Penguin Classic format, you’ll notice that book is listed under the title ‘The Sign of Four’. This should tell you all you need to know about this book. That the title can’t be universally agreed upon would usually be a good indicator that there’s no particular affection for it. The Amazon reviews, however, imply otherwise. Strange.

In my unrefined view, it’s a by-the-numbers detective story, with a healthy dollop of plot over-complication, and just a soupçon of Basil Exposition-esque thirty-pages-too-many at the end. Yes, it introduces the important character of Mary Morstan, Watson’s future wife, and yes, we get further example of Holmes’ brilliant deduction, but I had trouble maintaining interest for the entirety of the novel. And was it only me who was disappointed by the seeming cop-out of using a dog to do some detective heavy-lifting, half way through? Whilst Holmes professes that there are multiple ways to track the suspect in question, and the dog just happens to be the quickest, we’re never told what these other ways are, and I came away feeling a little short-changed.

And yes, I’ll say it, I found this book a bit boring. With no uncertainty in Holmes’ analysis, the process is very linear. There’s no trial and error; it’s always A to B to C and there’s the bad guy. I realise that’s the essence of Holmes, but it can make for unexciting reading.

But anyway, the Amazon reviewers all love it, so I’m obviously in the wrong. One positive I have taken away from the two novels so far is the relationship between Holmes and Watson. My main education in Holmes thus far has been the BBC show, and the Guy Ritchie movies. In the former, Holmes comes across as quite the dick most of the time, especially in his interactions with Watson. In the latter, the relationship is played with a more ‘buddy cop’ vibe. It’s pleasing to find the novels portraying the relationship as somewhere between those two – Holmes is a master at his craft and doesn’t suffer fools gladly (indeed, he treats substandard detectives somewhat mockingly), but he doesn’t seem to extend that douchebag behaviour to Watson. He never seems to get exasperated at Watson for not following the seemingly logical set of steps he took to reach a particular conclusion, and sometimes takes time to explain his reasoning (to us, in reality, via the medium of Watson). Additionally, there are knowing glances and in-comments between the two protagonists that Guy Ritchie has seemingly latched on to and exaggerated to form the basis of the relationship between his Holmes and Watson, no doubt to play to the strengths of his actors. Maybe.

Anyway, I think I’m going to have to tap the short stories next in my Holmes mission, as I can’t endure any more long-form disappointment right now. Onward and upward…

Review: A Study In Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study In Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle

I suspect like many people who are currently working their way through The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, my recent interest in Sherlock Holmes has partially come about as a result of the two Guy Ritchie Holmes movies, but mainly due to the Stephen Moffat/Mark Gatiss modern interpretation, Sherlock. So good is the Moffat/Gatiss Sherlock, especially series two, that I was driven straight to The Complete Stories to find out the origin story, if you will.

And boy, what a challenge. OK, so I’m in no way comparing my mission of devouring the Conan Doyle back catalogue as in any shape, way or form as monumental (for there is no better word) as my BFaM Matt’s The King Long Read epic, but still, The Complete Stories clock in at 1408 pages of relatively small print. Well, it’s a mission for me, at least.

So I start at the very beginning, which many consider a pretty average place to start, all things considered. The Holmes canon consists of four novels and 56 short stories. Chronologically, there’s two novels to start, then the other two interspersed amongst all the short stories. The book I’m reading (both hardback and Kindle – who says men can’t multitask?) has the novels up front, then the short stories afterwards. This is disappointing, as the consensus (including The Complete Stories editors’ notes) seems to be that the novels (at least the first two) are a bit crappy, and Conan Doyle only hits his stride with the short stories, defining the Holmes we know of today.

A Study In Scarlet is first up, then. It’s the origin story of Watson meeting Holmes: the characters are introduced and developed, detective and logic skills are thrown in, and personality quirks and idiosyncrasies quickly become entrenched; all this set against the backdrop of a particularly puzzling crime. And so it passes that clues are discovered, reasoning and deduction occurs, false leads are pursued (though mostly by the Scotland Yard detective buffoons who Holmes so likes to mock), all of which leads to the miraculous apprehension of the perp at the end of part one. Miraculous is the right word, as Holmes’ arrest of said criminal occurs out of the blue, with no real prior reference to him. Fortunately, part two of the book takes us 35 years prior to the setting of the story, to the frontiers of the West in America, a setting in to which Mormon frontiersmen are introduced, along with non-believers, forbidden love, and revenge, and fleshes the back story out quite nicely.

The weaving of the two parts of the story into a coherent whole is quite neat – at first the disjoint between the two seemed jarring, but I got on board with it quite quickly, and grew to enjoy it. I think I suffer from being too forgiving when reading, as I really quite enjoyed this. As an introduction in to the Holmes canon, consider me hooked. If the short stories are, as alleged, much better than this, I await them eagerly.

Review: Pantheon – Sam Bourne

Pantheon – Sam Bourne

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m a fan of trashy, Dan Brown-style, fiction. Anything with a slightly preposterous plot, involving a murder and/or a conspiracy and I’m in. When I first heard about Sam Bourne, he was sold as “the new Dan Brown!”, or “better than Dan Brown!” Tragically, this was enough to get my attention.

It was only after I picked up his first book that I realised Sam Bourne was the pseudonym of Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. Interesting. Whilst superficially his first four books are very much in the Dan Brown vein (albeit far better written), it was book number three, The Final Reckoning, that made me pay more attention to him. The basic premise of the book, that of a team of avenging Holocaust survivors traveling the world murdering Nazis, is apparently based in fact. This instantly renders the book, and the author, more interesting to me. Fact is always stranger than fiction, and fiction based on fact is surely the strangest of them all.

And so Bourne’s fifth book, Pantheon, appealed to me in the same light. The MacGuffin, a man travelling to America during World War II to search for his family, leads to a larger plot that, again, is based in fact, and makes for fascinating reading, of both the book, and the inevitable Wikipedia trawl afterwards. Sure, the fast-paced page-turning parts of the book are familiar, bordering on formulaic, but I don’t mind that when they’re building towards a bigger picture. It’s the stuff that’s rooted in truth that’s the most fascinating and unsettling.

So yeah, I liked this book. It’s contrived in places and ends poorly, but for a page-turner, it’s perfectly acceptable.

Cross-casting

I’ve been a software engineer for nearly 12 years now, and still I often manage to encounter C++ tricks or techniques that are new to me. This, by the way, is more often than not not down to the ever-evolving nature of the language; more that a lack of formal computer science education and no real propensity to read around the subject has left me with *ahem* gaps in my knowledge.

Yesterday’s neat1 new trick was cross-casting, which allows casting across inheritance hierarchies between unrelated classes. This sounds like it should be illegal, but as long as there’s a common sub-class of the two classes between which you’re trying to cast, and the object you’re trying to cast’s actual type is this sub-class, then the cross-cast will work. For example:

class A
{
    public:
        virtual ~A();
};
class B
{
    public:
        virtual ~B();
};
class C : public A, public B
{
};

A* ap = new C;
B* bp = dynamic_cast<b*>(ap);

An interesting2 use-case for this is highlighted in the Capsule pattern which, as the summary states, reduces coupling between application layers. For the uninitiated, reducing coupling is an important goal, and anything that can help achieve that is a useful tool. The example presented in the capsule pattern is the communication of error messages from low-level components to high-level components, without exposing to all the intermediate levels unnecessary details of those errors. It looks like a useful trick. I might just even use it.

1 – Warning: may not be neat.
2 – Warning: may not be interesting.

Review: The Muppets

The Muppets (IMDb)

There was no way I was not going to like this movie. Let’s look at the list of things I like:

I had a shit-eating grin on my face for most all of this flick. OK, so some of the best gags are given away in the trailer (“Hey, fart shoes!” – incidentally, that joke was one of the ones that the veteran Muppets puppeteers thought was too low-brow for the Muppets, too Apatow), but there’s still gold throughout the movie.
And it’s a cameo-fest, too. Dave Grohl plays to type as Animool, an alterna-Animal, Zack Galifianakis plays to type as a hobo, and Whoopi Goldberg plays, well, herself. Unfortunately, a Ricky Gervais cameo was cut, which is disappointing, but there’s a sneaky glimpse of him in the final song and dance routine.

If you like the Muppets, go see this and be happy. If you don’t like the Muppets, don’t go see this, as every time Miss Piggy opens her mouth you’ll be wishing she’s quickly and quietly made into sausages. In fact, I love the Muppets, and still wished that on her. No-one likes Miss Piggy. No-one.

Review: Chronicle

I set about seeing this flick with no preconceptions about it. I’d not seen a review on Ain’t It Cool, nor had I heard Kermode review it. I hadn’t even seen the trailer. The only thing I knew about it I’d read on the Odeon website when checking out the show times, which was nothing but a brief synopsis at best. Whilst this wasn’t a particularly convoluted or complex movie that benefited from not knowing the plot outline beforehand, it certainly was refreshing to go in to the flick completely oblivious to it. I didn’t know the cast or director, nor how well it had performed at the box office.

As a result, I loved it. Great performances, nicely shot (I suspect directing a found footage movie can be challenging), and great special FX on a relatively modest budget. The development of the relationship between Andrew and his family may have been a touch heavy-handed, but not detrimentally so. The only minor criticism I have is that the final act of city destruction was a bit whizz-bang-flash that wasn’t in keeping with the rest of the movie, but I suspect that was probably intentional. I dunno.
Anyhoo, I enjoyed it. Great performances from the leads, who I’d not come across before, but who I’d think are destined for bigger things. And to answer Matt’s question: yes, I do think it’s worthwhile seeing a movie knowing as little about it as possible. This time, for me, it was by accident rather than through good planning, but it felt good not having my opinion tainted before entering the cinema. Though given my insatiable devouring of gossip on Ain’t It Cool, I suspect this will be the last time for a while that that happens. 

The Bourne Legacy trailer

Trailer: The Bourne Legacy

So there’s a trailer for the latest movie in the Bourne franchise up, and you know what? It looks great. Sure, it’s not a Damon/Greengrass product, but Jeremy Renner seems to slot in to the highly-trained action hero role with particular ease.

Renner is hot at the moment, what with taking over the Bourne franchise, as well as being primed to take over the Mission: Impossible franchise once Tom Cruise has had enough. Credit where it’s due: the kid’s got some chops.

And special no thanks to Team America: World Police for not allowing me to speak, type, or even think, of Matt Damon without saying his name to myself in the style of his character in the movie. A refresher.

Just write, dammit

I’ve made it my aim this year to try and write more. Not through any misplaced sense of self-importance that what I have to say is interesting, more that any flexing of the creative muscles can only be good for you, and writing has a lower barrier of entry than, say, painting. For the record, I’m not taking up painting. Moreover, there’s few easier ways than blogging to get one in to the writing habit. So here we are. I’m going to do my utmost to commit my only-vaguely coherent thoughts to e-paper as often as is appropriate. I’m not setting myself an agenda or theme about which I should write; on the contrary, I have no extensive knowledge on any topic that would lend itself to a single-subject blog.

So, in lieu of not being able to write about what I know (as the old adage goes), given I don’t really know shit about shit, I’m going to valiantly attempt to write about what I’d like to know. A subtle distinction, one which will become all the more evident as I attempt to wax lyrical on a subject about which I know precious little. I suppose there’ll be posts reviewing films or books, posts about technology, and possibly posts about politics or sport (I’ll really be pushing the bounds of what I know with those last two), but most all of them will be written with the purpose of furthering my knowledge of the subject in question. And, of course, with providing all (both?) of you lucky readers with a witty, erudite, informative commentary. Lovely.

And after that well-meaning and intentioned introduction, I suspect I’ll disappear into months of writer’s block and not post again until this time next year. You’re welcome.

Books 2011

Weirdly, at 15 I read exactly the same number of books this year as I did last year, without having the interruption of a small child appearing in our lives, as happened last year. I can only assume that the books I read this were longer. Or maybe that I’m becoming a much slower reader in my old age. One of the two. Here’s those books in full, list fans:


Confessions of a Conjuror – Derren Brown
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ – Philip Pullman
The Grand Design – Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Nerd Do Well – Simon Pegg
The Terror Conspiracy – Jim Marrs
The Trouble With Physics – Lee Smolin
Dave Gorman Vs the Rest of the World – Dave Gorman
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality – Manjit Kumar
In Search of the Multiverse – John Gribbin
Lying – Sam Harris
The Psychopath Test – Jon Ronson
The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex – Mark Kermode
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography – Walter Isaacson
God, No! – Penn Jillette
The Final Reckoning – Sam Bourne


Of those, only two were fiction (I think the Pullman book counts as fiction), and I only read the Bourne/Freedland book as an easy page turner over Christmas. I was on a physics/pop. sci. bent this year, it would appear. I strongly recommend Manjit Kumar’s Quantum – on top of being a great overview of each of the major players in the early development of quantum theory, it’s also a fascinating record of the intellectual battle that Einstein and Bohr had for many years. A great read.

I guess it was a given that I was going to devour the Steve Jobs bio. Some think that Isaacson was the wrong choice for the book, and maybe he was – I’m not good enough to judge that – but it was a thoroughly riveting read nonetheless. It was also a thoroughly uncomfortable read – it’s never pleasant when the people whom you admire turn out to be someone entirely different.

I’m a sucker for a conspiracy book, and Jim Marrs does it soooo well. Crossfire is a tremendous chronicling of the JFK assassination, and The Terror Conspiracy, whilst a touch more cuckoo that Crossfire, is still fascinating.

A further data point – all but one of those books were ebooks, read on a Kindle. The only physical book I read was the Hawking/Mlodinow one, and that was only because someone bought it for me. It reminded me that hardback books are heavy.