Book Reviews 10, 11, 12 and 13
Apr. 24th, 2011 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlight SO: here's what happens when I do not write a review of a book after I directly finish it. You get a triple, possibly quadruple review, depending on if I want to finish the book I'm reading right now in the middle of this review just to add it on. This probably would have taken until the end of the year had my email not reminded me that some of these books are due soon. So, without further ado:
10. Title: The Child in Film
By: Karen Lury
Summary: An exploration of the way children are protrayed in film, though not films exclusively made for a child audience.
One of the biggest things I did not like about this book, was how Karen Lury tends to write a lot about the co-staring adults of the films before she gets to the children. This happens mostly in the first two chapters (though out of four, I would say is not a good average), in which she dicusses Asian horror and the sexuality of an adult male (specifically black men) against young women (all, "dirty little white girls"). I think she was trying to do this as a way of pointing out the innocence, goodness or rightness of the child characters against their adult counterparts, but it still felt like she focused too much on the adults a lot of the time.
For instance, when she talks about the film Lolita (Kubrick), she spends most of the section talking about Humbert and Quilty. Grant it, she talks about their relationships with Lolita, however, it feels like she should have been talking about Lolita's relationship with them and not the other way around.
One thing I noticed was that when the child in the film was the film's focus, Lury was more acurately able to explore the child's role and struggles. This is the reason that I think makes the last two chapters much stronger in comparison to the first as most of the films in the A-Horror and White Girls section center around the adults and how they interact with the world around them (which in these situations happen to involve small children). But both of those chapters include at least one film in which the child is the central focus (Noboby Knows and War Babies respectively, and possibly Broken Blossums from the white girls).
So I don't think it's her inability to describe what's going on with the children in the categories she's outline, I think, instead, Lury picked some films which were perhaps not what she was looking for, though she says, "The films I focus on were not made for a child audience, at least not exclusively..."
That being said, I do feel that Lury does make a connection to the children in every film she discusses, no matter how round about, or adult oriented it may be. And some of these issues (like molestation and drug use) could not have been discussed without the adult. Still I feel like she could have focused more on the children, or picked different films to illustrate her point.
Overall: Still a Good Read if a little off topic
11. Title: Environmentalism in Popular Culture
By: Noel Sturgeon
Summary: A look out how envoromentalism affects the media we look at, and the wide range of topics it covers: from stereotypes, to children's cartoons.
All right, I admit it. I sort of picked this up so that I could feel smarter about myself. And well, because of the pop culture label. I like the environment, and I feel like I'm doing my part to not damage it and heal it even, but it's the pop culture that got me.
But the thing is, I feel like Sturgeon did a good job on both fronts of talking about environmentalism and pop culture. She divides the book into seven parts,
(1) talking about the way we view nature specifically as Western, United States Culture and it's "political" power,
(2) racism, specifically for Native Americans, and others of color who are auto-magically connected to the earth
(3) how expantion affect environmetalism,
(4) how it worms it's way into children's programing (that one's for you Nostalgia Critic)
(5) penguins .... (all right the full title of that section is: Penguin Family Value: The Nature of Planetary Environmental Reproductive Justices) which is really to say about how people use environmentalism for other campaigns
(6) violence, and
(7) which talks about the elitism of being "environmetally friendly," and also presents an interesting view on how ethnocentrism affects the mix.
I found Sturgeon's writing style flowing most of the time, and she made good examples, and did not feel like she needed to explain every one, but made mention of quite a few for most chapters. I also thought she was not repeating herself, but intertwining her topics many times to reach a conclusion. And because this is not a scholarly review, I don't have to tell you what that conclusion is. Go read the book.
Overall: Excellet Surprise
12. Title: The Countess von Rudolstadt
by: George Sand
Summary: The sequel to a book I haven't read yet, about a woman named Consuelo and her life and times as a singer whom everyone falls in love with.
I've already talked about this and how I like George Sand's writing style. I actually looked at another translation, and the style still felt easier to read than most of the texts I've read from around the same period.
The story was also slightly...unexpected. Yes, let's go with that word. I was certainly not expecting for Consuelo to consent to be locked away for months. But there was a part of the plot that I did suspect and I was right about it (her husband, whom she believes to be dead actually drank some dreamless sleep postion (JK) and was still alive), but how brave, and upstarty Consuelo was was also a bit of a surprise, even by Elizabeth Bennett Standards. I enjoyed her spirit, and though I had to go back and occationally reread certain parts (mostly due to the fact that I read a lot of this late at night, with only my reading light and laptop for light, but also partly due to the fact that this, like many books of this period, has exceedingly long paragraphs).
Overall: Delightfully 19th century
13. Title: The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books
Edited by: Jeff Matin & C. Max Magee
Summary: What it says on the tin, but in various ways you may not expect
WOW. I think I just realized, aside from the whole Jesus factor, why I want to be a writer. These people have some amazingly, funny and just amazingly amazing advice on writing and predictions on what books will look like in a couple of decades and of course the e-reader vs. paper debate. I have nine sticky notes denoting favorite lines to share in creative writing. There are more, I just forgot my sticky note book.
Overall: Epiphanially Fantastic
But see for yourself!:
The Child In Film by Karen Lury
Environmetalism in Popular Culture by Noel Sturgeon
The Countess von Rudolstadt by George Sand trans. by Gretchen van Slyke
The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books edited by Jeff Matin & C. Max Magee
10. Title: The Child in Film
By: Karen Lury
Summary: An exploration of the way children are protrayed in film, though not films exclusively made for a child audience.
One of the biggest things I did not like about this book, was how Karen Lury tends to write a lot about the co-staring adults of the films before she gets to the children. This happens mostly in the first two chapters (though out of four, I would say is not a good average), in which she dicusses Asian horror and the sexuality of an adult male (specifically black men) against young women (all, "dirty little white girls"). I think she was trying to do this as a way of pointing out the innocence, goodness or rightness of the child characters against their adult counterparts, but it still felt like she focused too much on the adults a lot of the time.
For instance, when she talks about the film Lolita (Kubrick), she spends most of the section talking about Humbert and Quilty. Grant it, she talks about their relationships with Lolita, however, it feels like she should have been talking about Lolita's relationship with them and not the other way around.
One thing I noticed was that when the child in the film was the film's focus, Lury was more acurately able to explore the child's role and struggles. This is the reason that I think makes the last two chapters much stronger in comparison to the first as most of the films in the A-Horror and White Girls section center around the adults and how they interact with the world around them (which in these situations happen to involve small children). But both of those chapters include at least one film in which the child is the central focus (Noboby Knows and War Babies respectively, and possibly Broken Blossums from the white girls).
So I don't think it's her inability to describe what's going on with the children in the categories she's outline, I think, instead, Lury picked some films which were perhaps not what she was looking for, though she says, "The films I focus on were not made for a child audience, at least not exclusively..."
That being said, I do feel that Lury does make a connection to the children in every film she discusses, no matter how round about, or adult oriented it may be. And some of these issues (like molestation and drug use) could not have been discussed without the adult. Still I feel like she could have focused more on the children, or picked different films to illustrate her point.
Overall: Still a Good Read if a little off topic
11. Title: Environmentalism in Popular Culture
By: Noel Sturgeon
Summary: A look out how envoromentalism affects the media we look at, and the wide range of topics it covers: from stereotypes, to children's cartoons.
All right, I admit it. I sort of picked this up so that I could feel smarter about myself. And well, because of the pop culture label. I like the environment, and I feel like I'm doing my part to not damage it and heal it even, but it's the pop culture that got me.
But the thing is, I feel like Sturgeon did a good job on both fronts of talking about environmentalism and pop culture. She divides the book into seven parts,
(1) talking about the way we view nature specifically as Western, United States Culture and it's "political" power,
(2) racism, specifically for Native Americans, and others of color who are auto-magically connected to the earth
(3) how expantion affect environmetalism,
(4) how it worms it's way into children's programing (that one's for you Nostalgia Critic)
(5) penguins .... (all right the full title of that section is: Penguin Family Value: The Nature of Planetary Environmental Reproductive Justices) which is really to say about how people use environmentalism for other campaigns
(6) violence, and
(7) which talks about the elitism of being "environmetally friendly," and also presents an interesting view on how ethnocentrism affects the mix.
I found Sturgeon's writing style flowing most of the time, and she made good examples, and did not feel like she needed to explain every one, but made mention of quite a few for most chapters. I also thought she was not repeating herself, but intertwining her topics many times to reach a conclusion. And because this is not a scholarly review, I don't have to tell you what that conclusion is. Go read the book.
Overall: Excellet Surprise
12. Title: The Countess von Rudolstadt
by: George Sand
Summary: The sequel to a book I haven't read yet, about a woman named Consuelo and her life and times as a singer whom everyone falls in love with.
I've already talked about this and how I like George Sand's writing style. I actually looked at another translation, and the style still felt easier to read than most of the texts I've read from around the same period.
The story was also slightly...unexpected. Yes, let's go with that word. I was certainly not expecting for Consuelo to consent to be locked away for months. But there was a part of the plot that I did suspect and I was right about it (her husband, whom she believes to be dead actually drank some dreamless sleep postion (JK) and was still alive), but how brave, and upstarty Consuelo was was also a bit of a surprise, even by Elizabeth Bennett Standards. I enjoyed her spirit, and though I had to go back and occationally reread certain parts (mostly due to the fact that I read a lot of this late at night, with only my reading light and laptop for light, but also partly due to the fact that this, like many books of this period, has exceedingly long paragraphs).
Overall: Delightfully 19th century
13. Title: The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books
Edited by: Jeff Matin & C. Max Magee
Summary: What it says on the tin, but in various ways you may not expect
WOW. I think I just realized, aside from the whole Jesus factor, why I want to be a writer. These people have some amazingly, funny and just amazingly amazing advice on writing and predictions on what books will look like in a couple of decades and of course the e-reader vs. paper debate. I have nine sticky notes denoting favorite lines to share in creative writing. There are more, I just forgot my sticky note book.
Overall: Epiphanially Fantastic
But see for yourself!:
The Child In Film by Karen Lury
Environmetalism in Popular Culture by Noel Sturgeon
The Countess von Rudolstadt by George Sand trans. by Gretchen van Slyke
The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books edited by Jeff Matin & C. Max Magee
