Erssie Major

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I loved Thomas's last novel, I'll Stop The World. It had a time travel type theme and the 80s were perfectly described. But this novel feels just OK as it's really slow and doesn't get going until it's about 50% through and it's only at 64% that I feel like I want to finish it. I am listening to an audiobook version of it and I'm wondering if the narrator is making me feel that way. The narrator sounds great for female characters but her croaky male voices sound like something off scooby doo or other nerdy, pre-pubescent teen cartoon characters. The story has a mystery theme but you won't see the connection between the two timelines until you're half way through.

You Shouldn't be Here: A Novel

This has a sweet and light romance but with a Sci Fi dystopian undercurrent. There is the theme of memory and our sense of the past. Do we really enjoy and live every moment of our present? Or do we enjoy it only in hindsight and with nostalgia? As I'm upper middle aged I am beginning to have a new sense of memory conatantly travelling back to my youth and marvelling at how every second and minute was stretched out in front of me back then rather than hurtling past me now. And I kick myself that I didn't appreciate or experience every moment as I was then. Decades now flash by, less time left than there has been. Would I be tempted to experience things as someone in their twenties? I really don't know I would unless my loved ones could also regress to join me. This book invoked a strange feeling in me and I think the author would feel satisfied he'd achieved his aim with that. Out of the three books I've read - Broadcast, Skin and Evergreens - thus is my favourite of them.

Evergreens

Since we've had a pandemic, and some horrific things happened, this book's impact is a lot weaker. I found the splitting of the story into such fragmented parts shared between so many characters made me feel very distanced from the human aspects of the story. This book didn't fit the hype for me. It's competently written and thanks to accessing the audiobook was well narrated but I found myself wishing it would end sooner. It wasn't bad enough for me to give up reading it but not so good that I felt I cared about finishing it.

The End of Men

4 likes

This is quite a violent and visceral crime drama but the violence and gritty themes give out the feeling of being trapped in a never ending cycle of gangland syndicate life where there are no winners, no rules and no good guys. Relationships between different factions are complicated, political and the delicate ties are cobweb thin and hierarchies easily tumble. You could die any day, by anybody's hands, even one of your closest friends who are like brothers or sisters. The violence in this series is not gratuitous, its a grim warning that once you're in, there's no getting out. And you feel for each character when it's their segment of the story but before long you realise you can't pick a side, they're all bad. The writing and directing of photography was of a big screen quality. I loved this, it's still available on Sky Atlantic. I loved the fact there was a minimum of x dialogue in the scenes with action. And the special effects and make up were brilliant. The series didn't glorify violence and it showed how messy it is, No such thing as a clean shooting, stabbing, setting on fire when it comes to gangs. People who kill and torture are realistically terrified of being on the end of it. No wisecracks before getting killed, grown men and women beg for mercy, scared out of their wits that it might pour over into their family life too. I can't wait for a second series.

Gangs of London

16 likes

I loved the film McQueen as an inspiring and deliciously visual body of work from Lee Alexander McQueen. But it is also a very moving emotional film reflecting the 90s era of supermodels and genius designers with big budgets as well as the casualties of driven success. McQueen's life and work so perfectly represents the British Isles as well with all its quirkiness, spiky edges and darkness under the greenery. I wish he'd found more happiness when he'd made it, settled down and had a nice husband and stabilising home life, but what a ride he had. I wanted to find out how Minter, Juice and Callum coped without their Dad and who'd been appointed to look after them once their Dad had gone.

McQueen

I don't like Kanye for his politics or as a person, but this album is one if my favourites. So many good samples and collabs on the album including King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, Nicky Minaj, Bob Iver, JAY-Z and many others. I feel a bit sad that I am listening to albums from around 2010 in a nostalgic way and thinking there isn't anything from 2023 I prefer. Anyone got any suggestions? Trouble is that algorithms control which artists and music comes your way. I am not a rap, R & B hip hop Dan a I prefer indie rock and neo folk or 60s garage psychedelia or trance. But occasionally I will stumble across something like MBDTF and love it.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

2 likes

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