Review: The Old Curiosity Shop (novel)

Even great authors have their not-so-good books. Usually those books are their early works. This novel proves even Charles Dickens wasn't immune to that problem.

The Old Curiosity Shop was Charles Dickens' fourth novel, first published as a book in 1841. Although it's not one of his more popular books, it's been adapted into at least four films, an opera, a musical, and two radio dramas.

The story revolves around Nell Trent, a young girl who lives with her grandfather in the shop the book is named after. The two of them run away from Quilp, an evil moneylender who takes over their shop, and spend the rest of the book avoiding his attempts to catch them. Also involved in the plot are Kit, Nell's friend who becomes one of Quilp's targets; Dick Swiveller, the not-entirely willing accomplice of Nell's scheming brother; Sampson and Sally Brass, the vile lawyer and his equally vile sister who work for Quilp; the Marchioness, the Brasses' abused servant; and the mysterious single gentleman who lodges above the Brasses. And that's not even mentioning the hundreds of background characters who appear for only a few scenes but leave a lasting impression.

From a modern point of view Nell is a Mary Sue, an impossibly perfect character with no obvious flaws. She's always good, always kind, always trying to keep herself and her grandfather safe on their journey. If you're used to Victorian heroines you probably won't mind her, but if you're not you'll almost certainly dislike her and think her dull. As for her grandfather, the only things I remember clearly about him are his selfishness and his love of gambling.

Luckily there are many characters who are much more interesting than Nell and her grandfather. Some of them are good, like Kit and the Garlands. Some are more ambiguous but turn out to be good, like Dick Swiveller and the single gentleman. And then there are the villains. Dickens excelled at villains, and this is no exception.

Daniel Quilp is possibly the most evil character Dickens ever created. Abusive to everyone, deriving a sadistic pleasure from tormenting people, capable of doing things that ordinary people would find dangerous or impossible, described in ways that make him sound like barely human... oh yes, and all but outright stated to be lusting after Nell, a thirteen-year-old girl. He's right up there with Fagin and Bill Sykes on the list of "Dickens' vilest characters". And unlike many other villains, there's nothing remotely humourous about him. The Squeers and the Smallweeds were the source of darkly comic moments, but not so Quilp. Every time he appears you know something horrible's going to happen to someone. It was a downright relief when he finally died.

Sampson and Sally Brass, Quilp's lackeys, aren't quite as monstrous as their employer. That doesn't mean they aren't repulsive in their own way. But unlike Quilp, the reader can laugh at them. Especially Sally; Dickens' skill for sarcasm is in full force every time she appears 😆

All of Dickens' works were serialised before being published in book form. It's especially obvious in this story. The first few chapters are narrated by an unnamed character who never learns the real plot and disappears never to be heard from again. Some of the scene changes are clumsily-handled, giving the impression Dickens had only just remembered to go back to one of the many subplots. Because of this I was never quite able to completely suspend my disbelief when I was reading. But if you can ignore that, you'll probably enjoy this book quite well.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 7/10.

Review: Anne of Green Gables (novel)

Real life has been pretty bad lately, so I reread one of my favourite novels to cheer myself up. Of course I decided to review it when I finished it.

Anne of Green Gables was L. M. Montgomery's first novel, published in 1908. It's the first in a series of nine books. Over the years it's been adapted into films, anime, cartoons, musicals, and TV series.

I'm sure everyone knows the plot. Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew decide to adopt an orphan boy. Instead they get an orphan girl: Anne Shirley, who'd rather be called Cordelia, who really doesn't like her red hair, and whose imagination baffles everyone and gets her in trouble frequently.

Words cannot describe how much I love this book 😄 It's so sweet and comical, yet there are sad moments too. Matthew's death breaks my heart every time I read it 😭

Anne herself is the sort of character I wanted to be like when I was a child. Her imagination is my favourite thing about her, closely followed by the consequences of imagination colliding with reality. Her midnight walk through the Haunted Wood is painfully relatable. I've experienced the same thing late at night after reading ghost stories 😨 And the incident of the hair dye is one of those scenes I love so much I read again and again 😄

It's easy to see which parts of this book L. M. Montgomery reused in her later works. Marilla is rather like Aunt Elizabeth from Emily of New Moon, but she undergoes character development much earlier and becomes much nicer than Aunt Elizabeth ever did. Matthew is very like Cousin Jimmy, and Miss Stacey is a much less peppery Mr. Carpenter.

Other characters aren't as immediately recognisable. Diana is much sweeter than Ilse. Gilbert has much more personality than Teddy, and his friendship and growing romance with Anne are shown much better than Teddy's and Emily's. Then there's the inimitable Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who reminds me a great deal of Miss Pole from Cranford, and who very quickly learns never to mention "carrots" around Anne 😆

Enduring popularity isn't always a sign that a book is good. But in this case, Anne of Green Gables absolutely deserves all its renown. Like all really good children's books it's not aimed only at children. No matter how old you are, you'll find something to enjoy in this book.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 10/10.

Review: The Hobbit (novel)

The Lord of the Rings books are better than the films. Is the book of The Hobbit better than the films? Unquestionably yes, in some respects. But in others, not so much.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is the prequel to The Lord of the Rings, and the first published part of Tolkien's Legendarium. It was first published in 1937. It's been adapted into several audiobooks, at least one stage version, an opera, a comic book, a cartoon, and a trilogy of films.

Unlike LOTR, The Hobbit is clearly a children's book. In some ways it reminds me more of Grimm's fairy tales than part of Tolkien's Legendarium. We're introduced to Bilbo Baggins, the title character, who reluctantly agrees to help a group of Dwarves reclaim their home and gold from Smaug the dragon. Along the way they have many adventures, both hair-raising and humourous (and sometimes both at once; the trolls would be terrifying if they weren't so stupid!).

From the very first page Bilbo was my favourite character. His exasperation with his uninvited guests, his reaction to all the perils he faces on the journey, his gradual character development from being an easily-frightened tagalong to facing Smaug twice and escaping unharmed... In some ways I actually like Bilbo better than Frodo.

Smaug, even though he's a monster who gets his richly deserved comeuppance shortly after his first appearance, is my second favourite character. Maybe it's because I just like dragons. Or maybe it's because of how he has an actual personality instead of being just a plot device.

There's no shortage of creepy characters and incidents in this book, but Gollum takes the cake. My heart was in my mouth the whole time I read his riddling contest with Bilbo 😨 And knowing what the Ring is makes it terrifying even when it isn't doing anything except turning Bilbo invisible.

As I mentioned earlier, the films improve on the book in some ways. Gandalf's random disappearances in the book serve no real purpose except to get him out of the way when his powers would solve a problem quickly. We're told at the end he was fighting a Necromancer, but this is basically an afterthought to explain where he was. I prefer the films' version, where we get to see him and the White Council fight Sauron. Also, Bilbo is unconscious for most of the Battle of Five Armies in the book. He hears what happened second-hand, which doesn't make for a very exciting conclusion. The films actually show the battle, and the events leading to Thorin's, Fíli's and Kíli's deaths.

Speaking of Thorin's death, I cried so hard I couldn't see the page 😭 Fíli's and Kíli's deaths don't have quite as much impact, because we don't get to know them well in the book.

The Hobbit suffers slightly from being much shorter than LOTR and not having nearly as much character development or world-building in it. The reader doesn't grasp how vast and amazing Middle-Earth is in this book. But I love it almost as much as LOTR even with those flaws 😄

Is it available online?: I doubt it.

Rating: 10/10.

Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

I was excited when I first heard about this film, but then I almost forgot it existed until I saw the DVD in a shop last year. When I finally did watch it I found it didn't live up to my expectations. Even after watching it several times I'm not sure what I think of it.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is something of a prequel to the Harry Potter series. Unlike Harry Potter, it isn't based on a specific book, but it's set in the same universe about sixty years before the main series begins.

This is mostly a (not very coherent) list of things I liked, didn't like, or just noticed. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

I recognised only two actors:
Eddie Redmayne (Marius in Les Misérables 2012) as Newt
Johnny Depp (Jack in Pirates of the Caribbean) as Grindelwald

The opening scene is frightening for how unexpected it is. One second a group of wizards are outside an evil-looking castle(?), the next a fireball kills them. The first time I watched the film I thought one of the titular fantastic beasts was responsible, and I didn't know why some random guy with spiky hair was lurking around. On subsequent viewings that scene still freaks me out. Though Grindelwald's hairstyle is so weird it detracts from the seriousness of what just happened 😖

I like the newspapers. It's fun to try to read them as they appear and disappear!

No matter how many times I watch this film I always grin like an idiot when Newt first appears 😃 LOL at the suitcase snapping open on the boat. I have to wonder how many times that happened on the journey over. The idea of Newt chasing his creatures around the ship is hilarious 😆

Newt... and his suitcase. (If he only knew the trouble that thing's about to cause!)

Newt in general is hilarious, actually. His answers to the customs officer's questions are so awkward it's a miracle he wasn't arrested on the spot 😆

The Obscurus's first appearance is scary because of how little we see of it/him 😨 The film's abrupt switch from "Graves" watching it to Newt sight-seeing is unfortunately jarring. That's one of the problems with this film: Newt's story and the Obscurial sub-plot don't always go well together. One plot is comical, the other definitely isn't. And then there's Mary Lou, who's so over-the-top it's often impossible to take her seriously.

The Niffler is the cutest thief ever to burgle its way on-screen 😆 I laughed so hard when Newt and Jacob got mistaken for bank robbers because of it! In fact, most the animals are utterly adorable. The newly-hatched Occamy makes me go "Aww!" every time I see it.

The Niffler

Really, how could Newt possibly expect Jacob would just stand there after he said he'd seen too much? *facepalm* Newt's one of the most awkward and socially inept characters I've ever seen. Which is probably why I like him so much 😄

I really don't like the film's decision to use "No-Maj" instead of "Muggle". It sounds incredibly silly 😒 Okay, so they try to explain it as the American word for Muggle, but why bother to fix what isn't broken? On the bright side, I like the interiors of MACUSA. They're suitably magical and impressive.

The chaos the creatures cause when they get loose is my favourite part of the film. I'm never sure who I feel more sorry for: Newt, who's technically responsible for the accident, or Tina, Queenie and Jacob, who get dragged into it by being nearby.

Tina

"Graves" is easily the most sinister character in the film. His manipulation of poor Credence gives me chills 😨 Knowing who he really is makes his scenes even worse.

Even in the rest of the film was rubbish, it would be worth watching for the creatures alone! Especially the Thunderbird. I shriek with excitement every time he appears.

Newt and Frank the Thunderbird

The Niffler continues to make Newt and Jacob look like robbers. Newt chasing it around the jewellery shop is one of the funniest scenes in the film. I laughed especially hard at Jacob's reactions as he watches this.

Every time the Obscurus appears the film suddenly stops being a comedy about escaped animals and gains elements of horror. As already mentioned the result is... uneven. One minute Jacob and Newt have just caught two of the escapees and unknowingly been caught themselves by Tina. The next, the Obscurus attacks a meeting and kills someone. After that the story takes a dark turn and doesn't go back to the relatively light tone of the first half. The darkest scene is where Tina is nearly lowered into something (acid?) that can burn through metal 😱

In the middle of the "rampaging Obscurus" sub-plot the film suddenly remembers about the search for the final missing creature. This is a cool scene, especially Tina jumping over the Occamy, but it feels out of place here.

Only in the film's climax do we get a good look at what the Obscurus actually looks like. Yikes! It's like something straight out of a horror film. The way it clings to the railway station wall and how it forms itself into shapes that look eerily like skeletons make it nightmarish to look at, and knowing it's slowly killing Credence makes it terrifying to think about.

The Obscurus

Credence's apparent death always makes me cry 😢 Though it's very nearly overshadowed by what happens shortly after. Why in the name of all that's holy was Gellert Grindelwald masquerading as Graves? What was he hoping to achieve? How did no one notice? That plot twist makes no darn sense 😑 His outlandish appearance (that hairstyle should be destroyed with fire!) and nonsensical remarks make this even worse.

At least the rebuilding of New York is cool to watch, and Frank makes it even cooler 😄 I wish we got to see more of him.

I'm honestly not that interested in Jacob and Queenie's romance (I want to see magical creatures, not yet another romance plot in a fantasy film! 😒), but the scene where they say goodbye is pretty sad 😢 Newt and Tina's romance also strikes me as unnecessary (why do people insist on shoehorning romance into stories that don't need it?), but their goodbye is so cute! 😍 And I love how Newt gives Jacob the money to finally open his bakery!

This film has two good ideas that belong to completely different genres: a suitcase full of magical creatures waiting to escape, and a monstrous parasite destroying its host. Put together, those ideas clash with each other until the film can't decide what it's trying to be. If it had focused on one story only, or if it had managed the shift in story-lines and tones better, this would have been a great film. As it is, it's good, but not the best film in the Harry Potter universe.

Is it available online?: I doubt it.

Rating: 6/10. (Newt and his creatures get 9/10; the rest of the film brings the rating down.)

Review: Princess Silver

Sorry for not posting yesterday. In my defence, it was my birthday, and writing a review was pretty low on my list of priorities. Here's a new post today instead!

I must admit I started this series only because it features several actors who were in Ice Fantasy. It made such a change to see so many familiar faces in a Chinese drama that I decided I had to watch it.

Princess Silver (白发, Bái Fā, literally "White Hair") is a 2019 series based on a novel by Yanshang Mo. It's set at some point of Chinese history, but (as with General and I) I don't know when.

This is the first time I've watched a Chinese drama and recognised half the cast:
Aarif Rahman (Li Zhi in The Empress of China) as Wu You
Yunxi Luo (Run Yu in Ashes of Love) as Rong Qi
Xinyu Chen (Chao Ya in Ice Fantasy) as Hen Xiang
Sha Deng (Consort Zhang in General and I) as Consort Yun
Ya Xin Shu (Shuo Gang in Ice Fantasy) as Wu Yu
Ke Xu (Xing Jiu in Ice Fantasy) as Ning Qian Yi
Canti Lau (the emperor in The Princess Wei Young) as the emperor of Northern Lin

The plot is fairly straightforward... at first. Our heroine wakes up after a battle with no memory of who she is. She's told that her name is Rong Le, she's the sister of Western Qi's emperor, and she's going to marry Prince Wu You of Northern Lin. Neither Rong Le nor Wu You are happy about this, until they meet and fall in love. Only problem is, Rong Le's going by an assumed name, so Wu You doesn't know the woman he loves is the woman he's supposed to marry. A complicated chain of events involving an impostor and a missing book lead to Rong Le being forced to marry General Fu Chou instead, and she discovers her new husband is plotting against the emperor of Northern Lin.

The story gets more convoluted as it goes on. I understood most of it, but a few plot points didn't make sense. Maybe they weren't explained properly. Or maybe they were explained and I forgot about them; I watched this series over a month, with long gaps in between the end of one episode and the start of the next. Anyway, this review will become a hopeless muddle if I talk about some of the plot twists. Let's move on to a less complicated subject: the characters.

Wu You and Rong Le

From the opening scene I liked Rong Le. (She fights off a small army alone! How can anyone not like her after that?) I think I liked her best during her time pretending to be a tea house owner; some of her later actions were just plain stupid. I was most annoyed when she went ahead and married Fu Chou. Of all the idiotic ideas! 😒 It turns out just as badly as I expected, and causes a lot of misery for Rong Le and several other people. I spent several episodes thoroughly unhappy with her, thanks to that. But eventually I came to like her again.

When Wu You first appeared, I thought, "There must be some mistake. This lazy, ill-mannered lout can't possibly be the main love interest!" He's such a spoilt brat during the early episodes that I briefly preferred Fu Chou to him. Thank goodness he finally grew up, and after a while I started to like him. And whatever else can be said of him, he never tries to manipulate Rong Le. That makes him miles better than certain other characters. (*glares at Fu Chou*)

Strangely, neither of the protagonists is my favourite character in the whole series. That honour goes to:

Rong Qi

My opinion of Rong Qi started out pretty high, then went down sharply after he apparently betrayed Rong Le's trust, then went up again in the last ten episodes or so. Even when I thought he was a villain I didn't actually hate him. It's hard to hate someone who spends almost their entire screen-time looking like a kicked puppy. Instead of being a murderous scumbag like Lin Shen or a revenge-driven lunatic like Fu Yuan, Rong Qi means well but has a talent for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. I hoped and hoped he'd get a happy ending as the series got closer and closer to the end. But I knew it wasn't likely 😢 His death reduced me to a sobbing mess for half an hour 😭

Fu Chou

Fu Chou was the one character whose death I was sure I wouldn't mourn. He spends most of the series as a treacherous plotter who wants revenge for how he and his adopted mother were treated. But once he learns who his real mother was, he undergoes a (quite abrupt, it has to be said) change of heart. By the time he dies he's almost a hero. I actually did feel sorry for him when he died. Not nearly as sorry as I felt for Rong Qi, but more than I expected to.

Now here are two characters whose deaths I didn't feel at all sorry about:

Fu Yuan

If Fu Yuan's quest for revenge had only been targeted at the emperor, I would have cheered her on. But she dragged countless innocent people into her schemes: Rong Le, Rong Qi, Fu Chou, the emperor's children, Hen Xiang... She's directly or indirectly responsible for almost every death in the entire series. Not even her tragic backstory can make me feel sorry for her after she made my favourite characters miserable.

Ning Qian Yi

My initial reaction to Ning Qian Yi was an excited squeal of "Xing Jiu!". I fully expected to like him as much as I liked Xing Jiu. Boy, was I in for a shock. Ning Qian Yi is one of this series' many manipulative plotters, and unlike Fu Yuan and Fu Chou he doesn't have the threadbare excuse of wanting revenge. He's just a power-hungry creep. My reaction to his death was an emphatic "Good riddance!".

Unfortunately the series has its implausible moments. The idea that Lin Shen could convincingly impersonate Fu Chou for an extended period of time, around people who know the real Fu Chou, just by wearing a mask is utterly ludicrous. (Hen Xiang impersonating Rong Le is marginally less ridiculous.) And Rong Le's hair randomly turning white in the middle of the series, then just as randomly reverting to black a few episodes later, makes no sense when you think about it.

As mentioned earlier, Fu Chou's redemption is very abrupt. He learns the truth about his birth and almost overnight goes from trying to kill Wu You to fighting alongside him. That's the least believable part of the story. Okay, so it's near the end of the series, so maybe the director thought there wasn't time to show Fu Chou's change of heart. But it still stretches my suspension of disbelief almost to breaking point.

Apart from those minor quibbles I generally enjoyed this series. It's quite good, if you don't try to make sense of certain plot twists.

Is it available online?: The whole series was on YouTube with English subtitles when I first started watching it, but now most of the episodes have been deleted. You can probably still find all the episodes somewhere; I'm just not sure where.

Rating: 7/10.

Review: Anna Karenina (novel)

Some books are classics because they have memorable characters, intriguing plots, and timeless themes. Others, I'm convinced, are considered classics because they are so boring, such a chore to read, and generally just so awful that someone decided reading them made the reader look smart. Guess which category this falls into.

As with Emma, I found many odd cover designs when looking for one to put here. By far the strangest used a picture of Empress Maria Feodorovna, one of the least Anna-like women imaginable. (I can only assume whoever designed it chose an Imperial Russian picture at random, and in the process made themselves a laughing stock for people who know better.)

Anna Karenina (Анна Каренина in Russian) is an 1878 novel by Leo Tolstoy. It's been adapted into dozens of films, series, stage plays, and even a ballet. I really wish I knew what made it so popular. I would have thought it was the sort of book to lapse into obscurity shortly after being published.

I had no interest in this book until I watched that travesty of a film adaptation. Even afterward I wasn't truly interested in it; I just wanted to see how badly the film had butchered it. Verdict: ...actually, the film didn't butcher it too much after all. The book is just as bad.

Now, I know the Cyrillic alphabet and I can muddle through some basic Russian (with the aid of a dictionary). But reading anything as long and complicated as a novel in Russian is completely beyond me. So I have no idea what sort of writer Tolstoy was. I assume he must have been good or he wouldn't be so lastingly popular. But the translation I read was as interesting as watching paint dry.

There were times when I read only a sentence per hour, and could barely remember what the narrator was nattering on about. Eventually I gave up and skim-read the rest of it. Words cannot describe how mind-numbingly, atrociously dreadful this thing is.

Like so many stories (including, I have to admit, some of the ones I've written), Anna Karenina falls into the trap of having no characters for the reader to like or sympathise with. There are maybe four characters who weren't utterly awful: Karenin, Dolly, Levin, and Kitty. The first two were more pitiable than likable, and the last two got on my nerves with the sheer length of time Tolstoy dedicated to their philosophy. A mark of underwhelming writing is when a character exists just to preach the author's own philosophy, and Levin is that sort of character.

 As for Anna herself and Vronsky, I have only one thing to say: ugh. This book is a study in vile, loathsome characters being portrayed as heroes. I can cope with vile, loathsome characters being portrayed as what they are. A story about such characters can actually be fascinating. (Vanity Fair, anyone?) But when we're supposed to see them as the heroes? Double ugh.

Apparently Tolstoy himself regretted writing this book when he finished it. I share his opinion on that, at least. I just wish he'd regretted it a bit sooner. Before he published it, for example.

Is it available online?: On Gutenberg, if for some reason you want to bore yourself to tears.

Rating: 1/10.

Review: Nicholas Nickleby (novel)

I'm back, my computer's fixed, and posting will be back to normal (I hope). So I'm going to start with a review of one of the books I reread while my computer wasn't working.

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, more commonly called Nicholas Nickleby, is Charles Dickens' third novel. It was first published as a book in 1839. It's been adapted into at least two films, four series, and a stage version.

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

As the title indicates, it's about Nicholas Nickleby. But not just about Nicholas. It's also about his sister Kate, his cousin Smike, his employers the Cheerybles, and a host of other characters.

The already-reviewed 2001 version is pretty faithful to the book, so there's no need to talk too much about the plot. Instead I'll talk about the characters. Nicholas and Kate are rather flat characters, who don't change much throughout the book, but for once that's not really a bad thing. They're likable as they are, and I don't think I would have enjoyed the story as much if they'd changed by the end. Smike is utterly heartbreaking. I came close to throwing the book at the wall when he died. As it was I had to put it down for a while until I stopped crying. Why, Dickens? Why did he have to die?

On the other end of the spectrum are the Squeerses. These fine specimens of filth are some of the most comically monstrous villains Charles Dickens invented. Fanny Squeers' "love" for Nicholas provides the only humour while he's at Dotheboys Hall. The whole family is loathsome and utterly horrifying, in spite of or maybe because of their ludicrousness, and their ultimate downfall is one of the most satisfying scenes I've read.

Less comical but just as despicable are Ralph Nickleby and Sir Mulberry Hawk. In some ways Ralph Nickleby is a foreshadowing of Ebeneezer Scrooge, but without the redemption and change of heart. From beginning to end he's a cruel miser who, among other things, tries to force Madeline to marry his decrepit co-conspirator so they can steal her money. Not even the circumstances leading up to his death can make him at all sympathetic. As for Sir Mulberry... ugh. That's all I can say about him. Thank goodness he dies at the end, though I really wish he had died sooner.

Believe it or not, this is actually one of Dickens' lightest novels. It has plenty of humour, long scenes that have virtually nothing to do with the plot (the story-tellers on the coach and the theatre stand out), and more genuinely decent people than can be found in Oliver Twist, the book that preceded it, or The Old Curiosity Shop, the book that followed it.

Nicholas Nickleby's main flaw is that Dickens was still a very young author, with less skill than he'd develop later, and it shows. The aforementioned long scenes unconnected to the plot are the main example of this. I'm sorry to say I found them boring, and hurried on to the more interesting parts of the story. But in spite of that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 9/10.