The eighty-third book: #70 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
I've previously said many good things about the television adaptation of this show, but also knew the book was still coming up. When reading it, the characters and visuals of that show come to mind, but there's a definite difference between the two. While humorous, the books don't aim for comedy as much as some of the characters on the TV show do, and by its nature feels a lot more introspective. It means it doesn't have the visual set pieces, but creates an even more natural growth of love, slower and with some more variation. It's still a fairly light book, but at times more subtle.
It feels like Austen's revelation, compared to many earlier novels, is that the stories stay as complex, but the writing feels more accessible. It's an easy read and I enjoyed myself, with some shorter letters and a focused storylines - we see a lot of the world, but in the end the digressions aren't major and it all feels relevant. It's a really fun book, with a different view form the tv series, but it's clear why this is a classic.
The eighty-second book: #1013 The Absentee - Maria Edgeworth
There are two sides to the Absentee. One is the by now known narrative of a family down on their luck through some fault of their own, having to deal with debtors and rebuild themselves, with shades of the author's earlier Castle Rackrent coming through - with a love story/scandal added in. That is mixed in with a commentary of Irish society some time after Great Britain took control. There's a lot of social commentary through the story, both on how the Irish nobility wants to align themselves with London and seem fashionable there, while draining the peasants working for them.
It's not quite that subtle about it, but it feels like the more interesting half of the novel, while the other side felt like a retreat with a slightly wondrous solution of the love story near the end. It's decent, but with Jane Austen around at this time, it fell flat for me.
The eighty-first book: #195 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Quite out of order, but that's down to the (for me) unusual way in which I experienced this book. Rather than reading it myself, I started listening to the Obscure podcast by Michael Ian Black about a year and a half ago. In it, he not only reads the novel (like an audiobook), but he comments on it as he goes along. It's a good way to experience the book. Michael Ian Black is, obviously, smart and quite well read, so his insights are quite valuable and add a lot of context to the book, but he also does enough to clarify the book where it's unclear, in part because he needs it. It's a good balance and I feel it made reading the book more enjoyable - I got a lot more out of it.
The book itself is, obviously, quite sad and tragic. Jude has a rough start in life and while he has lofty ambitions that he aims for, in the end it gets taken away from him. Love and marriage are to blame for a lot of it and it's clear Thomas Hardy had some issues there, but the tragic story works well, with a clear arc to positivity that gets cut down. It's flowery in places - having it read out helps - but it didn't try to put too much into its plots. It's possible and easy to track everything, which makes the impact of it that much greater. All in all, I enjoyed the experience of listening to the book, and I'm actually going to look for some more of these. It also means I'm more comfortable jumping around the book list, so expect to see more of that!
The one hundred twenty-fifth TV show: #738 Torchwood
After the modern Doctor Who, Torchwood is a good companion piece to complete the set. Again, I've seen the show before, multiple times, and have felt the urge to keep up with it even as the later special seasons turned into something different.
The first two, billed as a dark, mature Doctor Who succeed well at creating some interesting plots, not forced into the optimistic tone that Doctor Who has but still having an ultimate streak of good at its heart. The dark and edgy side probably goes wrong most often, with some misjudged episodes, but the show's bigger freedom in subject matter works well to have more serious stakes as well - there's no magic wand to fix things, people die and there are - often - consequences.
Sadly, this results in them killing off characters as well - necessary to maintain stakes but getting rid of the strength of the ensemble, which doesn't really have any weak spots. The second season's death of Owen and Tosh is bad enough - something the actors didn't want, but was done to heighten the suspense - but with Ianto having the same thing in the third season means that by that point, the core of the entire show seems lost. The mini series has a good plot, with a great role from Peter Capaldi before he got deeper in the franchise, but it doesn't seem to be the same while the others aren't there. It's certainly flawed, but I still enjoy watching the show.
The seventy-seventh comic: #353 Jenifer
Jenifer is one story in an issue of Creepy, a horror anthology series we've yet to get to, and it's incredibly effective. The story of this hideous girl, saved from murder by our protagonist, becomes haunting, and it feels like the obsession he feels with her comes through in the entire work as he tries to protect her for some unclear reason. It's a satisfying story, nothing entirely unpredictable at this point but it builds itself well. The art feels appropriately grotesque and adds to the feeling of horror in there. It does what it wants to do well, doesn't outstay its welcome but delivers a good, satisfying story.
The seventy-sixth comic: #438 The Nikopol Trilogy
Sometimes, you really need to look at different parts of a work to appreciate what it does well. The Nikopol Trilogy creates an interesting world, a grim near-future world where fascism has taken root, technology has changed lives, but many people are still suppressed. Your partial entry into this world is the titular Nikopol, who comes back from suspended animation thirty years later. He gets possessed by Horus, the Egyptian god, fighting the others. It's an odd story and while the first part of the trilogy makes some sense with it, later parts set up a plot that doesn't really go anywhere. There are no explanations - which is fine - or resolution - which can be fine - but I also felt there was no point to it, like the creator didn't bother with the plot and just wanted to draw nice images. It's an interesting world and I was happy to see it, but it would have been nice if we could have gone deeper.
The one hundred seventy-sixth album: #176 Derek & The Dominos -Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
On the other side of our rock developments, it feels like this is 1970s rock settling into its blues rock element. The Eric Clapton-fronted album is full of blues rock songs that sound good, with well written love songs (although the songs also draw on other topics - it makes for a catchier title though). It comes with some good ballads, as well as more powerful songs, although even the latter feels somewhat subdued and don't have the full rock impact. Instead, it works well as something to drift along on, rather than being in your face. It's pleasant and works well for the themes it's trying to set up, especially when the longer songs come in.
The eightieth book: #69 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
List-wise, this really enters the era of Austen, with a bunch of them clustered together interspersed with a few others. Having seen Pride and Prejudice, but not being familiar with the rest of her work, this was the work to partially tell me how I'd do on this one. In the end, I came away with this fairly well. I've sometimes struggled with these romantic novels and I'm glad Austen abandoned her planned epistolary format for this as the action made it a lot more readable. It kept me quite engaged, with good dialogue, some fun observations and a good set up for the full story. So far, this felt like a good introduction and I hope it will keep up.
The one hundred twenty-fourth TV show: #713 Doctor Who (2005)
Like so many, this version was the one that really introduced me to Doctor Who. Even now, by most measures, this is the more successful version and, indeed, one of BBC's biggest exports. Originally I started watching a few episodes on TV at random, after which I bought a DVD of the first season. The cast changes confused me and the the whole tone was a bit odd, but I enjoyed it and starting watching the other series after that. I've obviously stuck with it, even as Moffat's cleverness led to some less interesting episodes and not everything gelled. As with the original, the series is uneven, there are issues and it can get exhausting, but at the same time it's amazing what they end up doing.
One of the main things they still manage to get right is the casting of the main characters. They've not cast a bad Doctor yet - and introducing John Hurt as an in between Doctor is probably the best of them - and most of the companions work too.
Each episode still brings something new and that's still exciting. It works most of the time, looks good and the show still keeps drawing me in, even after the weaker bits.
The seventy-second classical recording: #120 Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
As always, when dealing with operas in a foreign language, it helps to know the story. Here, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is well known and the acts distinguish themselves quite well, the descent into Hades changing from the higher arias of the first act into something darker and deeper, away from the pure sopranos. The other settings have similar changes in music, which work well to create a setting rather than a theme.
The opera having almost only parts for sopranos or high tenors, with other voices limited to the choirs, appears to have been the Italian fashion o the time. Itl imits the character building a bit, but it starts working soon enough once you begin to learn the characters. Musically it doesn't matter much, and makes the piece flow well.
The other side are the ballets that were included in the version I listened to. They don't add much musically - in part because it seems they were added in later - but they work as a nice bridge between pieces.
All in all, this doesn't quite have the high flying moments of other pieces, but as a full performance it flows well, keeping consistent while setting up some good location building in its music.
The one hundred seventy-fifth album: #175 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory
Cosmo's Factory is a clear throwback, an album of old style rockers before the experiments that psychedelic rock brought in, before the Beatles did their thing and before it diversified. The blues elements are in here, the instruments are standard and it doesn't try to do things different. The songs are quite tightly crafted, with some good rock ballads in here and some good solo pieces. It sounds good, fulfilling its purpose well, which is what it does best fo rthe most part.