Weeknotes 197

A whole week off work, a few days of which were gloriously brisk with bright blue skies, reddening my cheeks and ears as I cycled. As close to perfect as I can imagine.

What else? Some walks in the sunshine to nowhere in particular, a few coffees & beers & meals out, a bit of reading & watching, a lot of sleeping. I’m really good at doing nothing.

On Wednesday I went to a Cory Wong & Antwaun Stanley gig which made me smile with its sheer fun and showmanship even though the journey home from Hammersmith made me cross again.

And on Saturday I finished Wool after almost two months. That’s clearly too long for such a straightforward book, but for now I’ll take the win of having seen a novel through to its conclusion for the first time since — I think? — The Stone Sky three and a half years ago.

The book was okay. It certainly went down easily whenever I did manage to dedicate some time to reading, which (along with the glasses) kept the friction low. The opening short story is taut and effective, then the other four parts weaken as the plot threads draw out and the narration occasionally teases an interesting new setting instead of having the confidence to commit to adventure. But overall I enjoyed reading it and will continue on to Shift while I have enough momentum to try finishing another trilogy; hopefully this one will be more Broken Earth than Southern Reach.

Why am I so concerned with how many novels I read anyway? Is it a bit puritanical or elitist to assume that reading fiction is a more worthwhile leisure activity than doomscrolling or watching YouTube? It’s not like I ever try to read anything particularly literary, so what am I getting out of words on a page that I couldn’t get from performances on a screen?

It’s possible I’m trying to recapture the childhood feeling of getting completely lost in a book, but that might not be neurologically or logistically possible.

Anyway: I don’t understand this perverse goal, I’m not ready to give up on it yet, and so the pointless struggle continues.

Don’t worry, I watched some spooky stuff too.

First was Smile which hit just right for me. It’s conventional and some of its ideas are very familiar but it’s a relief to see something so well-made and actually a bit creepy. Early on I thought “this would make a great short film” — and it did!

Then a rewatch of The Others which holds up really well and still feels unsettling when you already know what’s going on. Nicole Kidman is just great in it.

(I’m a bit annoyed that I watched this in HD on Prime Video and only found out afterwards there’s a brand new 4K UHD restoration available.)

Another rewatch, The Mist, and this time I did splash out £4 for the excellent new 4K version. I like this film a lot — it’s nicely shot, it has great performances and the 15-year-old visual effects don’t look bad at all. I forgot how much I liked the ending.

Finally, inevitably, I watched The Fall of the House of Usher, which was decent and seasonally appropriate but ranks below Midnight Mass in the Flanaverse.

It’s another shot at the ensemble cast, one-episode-per-character anthology structure, and this time it doesn’t add up to anything particularly coherent or frightening. Mark Hamill is fun in full Ripburger mode and gets a good scene about the realities of enhancing video footage; Ruth Codd seems weirdly out of place all the way through, even though hers wasn’t the role that got recast; Pound Shop Shiv isn’t well-written enough to make the show feel particularly Succession-y; Mary McDonnell should know better than to try to create an artificial intelligence; there are lots of wink-wink meta bits; the dialogue is intermittently saucy but the plot is weirdly prudish.

Overall it worked okay but didn’t approach the potency of The Haunting of Hill House, which was actually scary and in Two Storms gave us one of the best episodes of genre TV I’ve seen. On the assumption that he’s not going to improve upon Hill House with this particular structure, I hope Mike Flanagan’s next project will see him tell a single story which invests properly in fewer characters instead of trying to cobble together lots of vaguely spooky bite-size pieces.

(Also, I wish he’d decide whether jump scares are good actually or bad actually. I don’t care, just pick a side!)

UNFINISHED PRIME VIDEO CORNER: I watched the beginning of The Continental but… nah, you’re alright. I also started The Void and Garth Marenghi’s Possum, both of which were too shite to stick with.

Back to work tomorrow.