Door into Ocean / Prestige
Nov. 2nd, 2006 05:56 pmJoan Slonczewski, A Door Into Ocean
Feminist spec-fic, and quite good. Shora's an ocean planet occupied entirely by raft-dwelling women (yay parthenogenesis), who are in imminent danger of being absorbed by the Patriarchy (yes) of Korr. The first half of the book covers a young boy's absorption into the culture of Shora; in the second half, the war begins, and ends.
I don't really know how to write about this book; everything I think of to say is trite plot summary, nothing about the details or the ideas (and o are there ideas). Gandhi, and fear as the root of all evil actions, and forgiveness and a refusal to become corrupted. The interconnectedness of all things, the Shoran's lack of any distinction between (e.g.) the verbs 'I talk' and 'I listen.'
The more I think about it the more I can see the plot gears grinding. In places something's introduced solely so it can be used as a plot element ten pages later; despite their lack of curiousity the Shorans are required to have advanced biological knowledge and laboratories; if one of the women didn't fall in love / lust with the boy there wouldn't be the emotional connection needed to keep him there.
It works, though. At the moment of reading it's compelling enough that you overlook those flaws; afterwards there's enough interesting stuff that's gone on that they can be overlooked or handwaved. I'm not sure that it's any competition for Ursula K. le Guin, but it's a fine entry in the canon.
Christopher Nolan (dir.), The Prestige
Well. The bones of the story are still there, and a good deal of the musculature. But the skin and some of the shape have been bent and discolored out of recognition. What we have here is a book that's made the transition to movie by taking the neat things that work in print and changing them to a bunch of other, equally neat, things that work onscreen.
The character conflicts are a bit more melodramatic: Angier's wife, instead of miscarrying, dies herself, and Angier's vengeance on Borden starts an ugly escalation of a feud that more or less destroys them both. (But you knew that from the first few minutes of the movie.) (Digression: I could have stood to see a bit more emphasis of the parallels between the Edison/Tesla rivalry and the two magicians: there's some of that but not quite enough to make me happy. Or maybe I just want more Tesla.) In general the melodrama works well with the constraints of a movie, showing more in less time. It felt contrived to /me/ but then I knew more or less the whole story going in.
All the performers are of course excellent. Christian Bale and Michael Caine seem incapable of giving poor performances, and Hugh Jackman and Scarlet Johansen seem intent on becoming a Real Actor and Actress. (The woman playing Borden's wife also did a fantastic job. I feel kind of bad for having no idea who she is.) And David Bowie's Tesla steals every scene he's in. ("What you ask is not impossible; it is simply expensive." "Because exact science, Mr Angier, is not an exact science.")
The end of the movie has closure and resolution, unlike the book (at least on first read). I felt like a bit much was spelled out for the audience in the closing monologues but they still work. (I suspect I demand that my movies be smart enough that I don't get everything on first viewing, and complelling enough to watch again. Easier to do with books, I suppose.)
Like Memento and The Sixth Sense, certainly worth watching if you don't know the gimmick, and probably worth watching if you do know it to see all the ways it gets used.
Feminist spec-fic, and quite good. Shora's an ocean planet occupied entirely by raft-dwelling women (yay parthenogenesis), who are in imminent danger of being absorbed by the Patriarchy (yes) of Korr. The first half of the book covers a young boy's absorption into the culture of Shora; in the second half, the war begins, and ends.
I don't really know how to write about this book; everything I think of to say is trite plot summary, nothing about the details or the ideas (and o are there ideas). Gandhi, and fear as the root of all evil actions, and forgiveness and a refusal to become corrupted. The interconnectedness of all things, the Shoran's lack of any distinction between (e.g.) the verbs 'I talk' and 'I listen.'
The more I think about it the more I can see the plot gears grinding. In places something's introduced solely so it can be used as a plot element ten pages later; despite their lack of curiousity the Shorans are required to have advanced biological knowledge and laboratories; if one of the women didn't fall in love / lust with the boy there wouldn't be the emotional connection needed to keep him there.
It works, though. At the moment of reading it's compelling enough that you overlook those flaws; afterwards there's enough interesting stuff that's gone on that they can be overlooked or handwaved. I'm not sure that it's any competition for Ursula K. le Guin, but it's a fine entry in the canon.
Christopher Nolan (dir.), The Prestige
Well. The bones of the story are still there, and a good deal of the musculature. But the skin and some of the shape have been bent and discolored out of recognition. What we have here is a book that's made the transition to movie by taking the neat things that work in print and changing them to a bunch of other, equally neat, things that work onscreen.
The character conflicts are a bit more melodramatic: Angier's wife, instead of miscarrying, dies herself, and Angier's vengeance on Borden starts an ugly escalation of a feud that more or less destroys them both. (But you knew that from the first few minutes of the movie.) (Digression: I could have stood to see a bit more emphasis of the parallels between the Edison/Tesla rivalry and the two magicians: there's some of that but not quite enough to make me happy. Or maybe I just want more Tesla.) In general the melodrama works well with the constraints of a movie, showing more in less time. It felt contrived to /me/ but then I knew more or less the whole story going in.
All the performers are of course excellent. Christian Bale and Michael Caine seem incapable of giving poor performances, and Hugh Jackman and Scarlet Johansen seem intent on becoming a Real Actor and Actress. (The woman playing Borden's wife also did a fantastic job. I feel kind of bad for having no idea who she is.) And David Bowie's Tesla steals every scene he's in. ("What you ask is not impossible; it is simply expensive." "Because exact science, Mr Angier, is not an exact science.")
The end of the movie has closure and resolution, unlike the book (at least on first read). I felt like a bit much was spelled out for the audience in the closing monologues but they still work. (I suspect I demand that my movies be smart enough that I don't get everything on first viewing, and complelling enough to watch again. Easier to do with books, I suppose.)
Like Memento and The Sixth Sense, certainly worth watching if you don't know the gimmick, and probably worth watching if you do know it to see all the ways it gets used.