Personal Note: Last minute things

[nebroadwe]

Tomorrow I'm off for a week of Rare Book School, so today I need to finish packing, cleaning the house, and rereading the required preliminary articles. Which meant that yesterday was for making and freezing dinner for when I return, laundry, and catching up on some of 2008's entertainment acquisitions. I finally made it to the end of the animated version of Le Chevalier d'Eon, which stopped being secret history a little over halfway through to become alternate history, which was marginally less intriguing to me, though still entertaining. It also morphed from The Three Musketeers into Hamlet or The Duchess of Malfi toward the end, which was ... unexpected. Kind of a downer, really, but a beautifully animated and mostly well-told downer, so I can't complain (though I think I will throw Cardcaptor Sakura into the player next).

I also caught myself up on the English translation of Sugar Sugar Rune through volume 6, to make sure it's suitable reading for my goddaughter's sister (it is). Oh, who am I kidding? It's a charming little fairy tale, once you adjust to Moyoco Anno's unique art style and intensely busy layouts (which do make the "clean" panels really stand out, though). I'm enjoying the Wizard of Oz sensibility to the magic, both in the domesticity of the spell-objects (bubble makers! nail polish! candy!) and in the cross-connections between magic, economics, celebrity and salesmanship (very L. Frank Baum!). The story is pitched at a young audience and its coziness sometimes prevents its thematic points from resonating as archetypes, but I'm still hooked. The Japanese version makes great practice reading, too.

Also steamed through Garth Nix's Superior Saturday, the latest in his Morrow Days series. I'm keeping up with this one mostly to see how the whole plot ends. Nix loves to create alternate worlds with complex hierarchies of creatures and realms, but he really went gonzo nuts with the House and its Denizens, to the point where I'm hard put to it to remember who's who from book to book. It's the archetypal substructure, again, that I'm really reading for: the Arthurian/Promethean question of who's really the Rightful Heir among the contenders and by what right ... and to what end? The last installment is due out sometime in the coming year, IIRC, and I'll be interested to see whether Nix manages to make a greater whole out of the sum of his parts.

Now, back to pastedowns!

Comments

[juxtaposie.livejournal.com]

I had really hoped we'd get more flashbacks to Le Secret du Roi when it was Lia, Max, and Durand (dear god, I loved that man so much!) and instead we got... d'Eon in a dress. I think I would have preferred the flashbacks. Still, as you said, beautiful and well-told downer. My love for Robin really multiplied there at the end.

So... you've read the Old Kingdom Trilogy, right? Because no matter what Garth Nix writes, that one's still my favorite.

You mentioned two of my favorite things in this post, so I just had to comment! I'll go back to my little box now...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I had really hoped we'd get more flashbacks to Le Secret du Roi when it was Lia, Max, and Durand (dear god, I loved that man so much!) and instead we got... d'Eon in a dress. I think I would have preferred the flashbacks.

I loved Durand's death scene -- for a Japanese production, it managed a remarkably lovely use of Christian symbolism. (I pass right over the representation of Christianity in the rest of the piece -- right on par with an American depiction of Shinto ... ;-p). And I kind of slapped my forehead over the whole ONOEZ INCEST! thing at the end, which rather arrived out of nowhere in the wake of explaining why Lia could open the Royal Psalms. But, hey, you take the weird with the excellent. I loved all the fight choreography, and Cagliostro and Lorenzia kind of grew on me, to the point where I was rather pleased to see them survive.

So... you've read the Old Kingdom Trilogy, right? Because no matter what Garth Nix writes, that one's still my favorite.

But of course! I think Sabriel is the stronger of the bunch -- Lirael/Abhorsen shows distinct signs of being a project that grew in the telling and strains a bit at the seams. Mind you, I enjoy watching Lirael in the Library, but if I were Nix's editor, I'd probably have been on him to trim those introductory sections down considerably. (I carry a silver letter opener at work, but it's not enchanted in any way that I can use, confound it.)

[juxtaposie.livejournal.com]

I loved Durand's death scene -- for a Japanese production, it managed a remarkably lovely use of Christian symbolism.

Truefacts. He was my favorite character, and the time they spent in England was by far my favorite part of the series. I usually shed a few tears in the more touching parts of... pretty much every show I've ever watched, but I was almost sobbing during that scene. It just killed me. It was so lovely and sad. I think I may need to watch it again...

And Sabriel is, hands down, best book in the series. I also don't care to much for Lirael's charcter. She was a little too defeatist for me, whereas Sabriel was very... practical and driven, no matter what the odds. Also, she and Touchstone are flippin' adorable. And Mogget. We can't forget the greatness that is Mogget.

Of course, Lirael did have the Dog...

[juxtaposie.livejournal.com]

too, not to...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

... the time they spent in England was by far my favorite part of the series ...

On balance, I think I'm fondest of the Russian arc, for the secret history aspects, but I'm also a fan of the early France stuff, because the full cast gets to strut its stuff a bit more. (Teillagory and Durand on surveillance in the pub always cracks me up -- I was a bit bummed that there isn't more Teillagory/Durand snarking as the show moves on, but you can't have everything.)

And Mogget. We can't forget the greatness that is Mogget.

Oh, never. I love him grumping along with Nicholas over his shoulder toward the end of Abhorsen -- all don't-you-mistake-me-for-a-hero and heroic nevertheless.

And I pegged the Dog's identity quite early in Lirael, so I always preen a bit over that as I reread. :-)