Review: Jennings Novels

 Nothing like some comedic novels to brighten your day! (Especially when there's nothing humorous to be seen in the real world...)

Cover of the first novel

Jennings is a series of twenty-four novels by Anthony Buckeridge, published between 1950 and 1994. Apparently the series (renamed "Stompa", for reasons that probably made sense to the translators) is very popular in Norway and has inspired several Norwegian films. The books were also adapted into two English series, both of which are now lost.

All of the stories have the same basic premise. Jennings and his friend Darbishire get into trouble of some sort, usually involving their short-tempered teacher Mr. Wilkins. Jennings thinks of a way to get out of trouble. Inevitably he gets further into it, or gets entangled in a whole new problem. At last he finds an unexpected solution. Rinse and repeat several times in each novel. Sometimes it's Jennings' friends who get into trouble instead, and there'll usually be at least one person who's completely misunderstood everything with hilarious results. (Case in point: the confusion about the doctor and the vet in The Jennings Report.)

I first discovered some of these books as a child. Last year a friend was kind enough to give me several more, and I had a great time reading them and roaring with laughter over them. It's impossible to choose my favourite book in the series. Anyone who thinks school stories are just for children are sadly missing out on some of the funniest books ever written.

If you want a series of fairly short and absolutely hilarious books, try this one!

Is it available online?: Not as far as I know.

Rating: 10/10.

(Not Really a) Review: First Impressions of Mulan (2020)

When will Disney learn to stop making unnecessary remakes?

Mulan is the latest in Disney's sorry saga of so-called remakes. It pretends to be based on the 1998 animated film of the same name. At the same time it also pretends to be more accurate to the original story of Mulan. It fails at both, and also at being a good remake of any sort.

I haven't watched the film, but I saw the trailer and read its TVTropes page. From what I've seen I have no intention of ever watching the film.

Some of the best things about the original Mulan were its music and its villain. The remake isn't a musical and it completely changed the villain. When I read the plot summary I was left wondering if this was actually meant to be a version of Mulan at all. Why didn't the director just change the names and make a completely new film?

Remakes in general are on very shaky ground. Stay too close to the original film and they might as well never have been made. Stray too far from it and they stop being the same story at all. And when the original film was so good that a remake can't possibly improve on it, why waste all that time and money?

Disney remakes are notoriously terrible. Maleficent, although a badly-flawed film, is somewhat pardonable because it at least offered a completely different take on the original Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella and The Lion King... the best I can say for them is that they're just mediocre. The remake of Beauty and the Beast was unbearably awful. So is Mulan. And judging by Disney's current obsession with endless remakes, they'll make many, many more unbearably awful films 😒

Review: Ivanhoe (novel)

As a historical novel this is one of the least accurate around. If nothing else it's proof that occasionally -- very, very occasionally -- a historically inaccurate novel can still be good. Very good.

Ivanhoe is an 1819 novel by Sir Walter Scott. It's one of the Waverley novels, which aren't a series in the modern sense but have similar themes and (sometimes) settings. It's one of his most popular novels, and has been adapted into multiple films, operas, and miniseries.

Despite what you'd think, the main character is not Wilfred of Ivanhoe. In fact he's injured for almost the entire novel, and only becomes important in the beginning and at the end. There are two "main" plots, which overlap to a degree but have separate main characters. One is loosely based on history and is about Richard the Lionheart returning to reclaim his throne from his vile brother John. The other is entirely fictional and is about Bois-Guilbert's obsession with Rebecca, and how he almost gets poor Rebecca killed.

It's amazing how much of the modern-day Robin Hood stories come from this novel. Sir Walter was the first author to place Robin Hood in the same time period as King Richard and Prince John, and the first person to associate him with Locksley. So in a way all the modern Robin Hood adaptations are indirect Ivanhoe adaptations. Of course, none of it's historically accurate. Neither is the feud between Saxons and Normans. Or Rebecca almost being burned as a witch. Or anything else, really.

This book is set in a completely fictional version of the Middle Ages. Yet it's such a great story that I can't bring myself to care. Would a historically accurate novel have such dramatic moments as the tournament, the attack on Front-de-Boeuf's castle, or Rebecca's "trial"? No, and it's hard to imagine any historically accurate events that would make a story half as compelling.

Honestly, the only thing I'd change if I could is Bois-Guilbert's death. That's one of the most disappointing anti-climaxes I've ever read.

Ivanhoe has a well-deserved spot on my list of favourite books. I've read it so many times that I know everything that's going to happen. But not even knowing can make it any less exciting.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 10/10.

Review: War and Peace (2016)

This is the third version of War and Peace I've tried. The others are the book itself and a sadly boring opera. This is the only one I've finished -- which says more about how short it is than about its quality.

War and Peace is a 2016 miniseries based on the novel of the same name. BBC period dramas are usually good. This is a notable exception.

I recognised several actors:

Lily James (Ella in Cinderella 2015) as Natasha

Tuppence Middleton (Amelia Haversham in Dickensian) as Helene

Stephen Rea (Inspector Bucket in Dickensian) as Vassily

Callum Turner (Theseus in The Crimes of Grindelwald) as Anatole

Kenneth Cranham (Wegg in Our Mutual Friend 1998) as a minor character whose name I can't remember

Gillian Anderson (Lady Dedlock in Bleak House 2005) as Anna

When I gave up on trying to get through the book I wondered why Tolstoy is considered a good author. This series made me wonder even more. From what I've seen he's only notable for writing very long, very boring novels in which nothing ever happens.

Like the book itself the series suffers from a complete inability to decide who the main characters are and what the plot is. One minute the story follows the start of Pierre's disastrous marriage to Helene, the next it's about Napoleon's invasion, and the next everyone's at a party. None of these subplots ever feel like they belong in the same book/series. It's like someone -- either Tolstoy or the director -- tried and failed to imitate Dickens by thinking up as many subplots as possible.

One of the worst things are the costumes. Very few of them bear even the slightest resemblance to what people would actually have worn in the early nineteenth century. That alone makes it clear the series-makers just didn't care. Just as bad is the nudity and incest. I find it very, very hard to believe Tolstoy wrote about either, so for once the blame is entirely on the director/scriptwriter/whoever thought of that.

It wouldn't be so bad if I cared about the characters. Just one sympathetic character would be enough to keep me interested. But all of them are either dull or disgusting, and it was a real struggle to get through the whole series. Honestly I wish I hadn't bothered. It wasn't worth the time or effort.

Is it available online?: Who cares?

Rating: 1/10.

Review: Love and Destiny

Usually it's easy to tell if something is a spin-off or a remake of a previous work. This is one of the few times when a series is technically both.

Love and Destiny (宸汐缘; Chén Xī Yuán) is a 2019 Chinese series. It's not actually based on an existing work, but it's somehow related to Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms. In essence it's the same story but with different characters and a slightly different plot.

I only recognised one actress:
Ni Ni (Feng Zhi Wei in The Rise of Phoenixes) as Ling Xi

Ling Xi, our heroine, stumbles upon a man frozen in ice and accidentally wakes him. Turns out he's Jiu Chen, the god of war, and he's been there for ten thousand years. Ling Xi starts working for him, and ends up falling in love with him. Obstacles in the path of their romance include secrets about Ling Xi's parents and Jiu Chen's crazy stalker.

Ling Xi

Jiu Chen

This is a very odd series. It's too different from Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms to be a remake and it's too similar to be a spin-off. Basically it's an AU fanfic of TMOPB, starring the author's OCs. (That sentence probably makes no sense at all unless you've read and/or written plenty of fanfiction.) Like far too many AU fanfics starring OCs, it's nowhere near as good as the original.

My first problem with it is how the story drags. Whole subplots and at least three characters could be removed and the story would still make sense. My second problem is that Jiu Chen and Ling Xi simply aren't believable as a romantic couple. Their interactions are much more like a teacher or an older relative dealing with someone who means well but has more enthusiasm than common sense. It doesn't help that Jiu Chen is obviously years older than Ling Xi. Connected to this is my third problem: very few of the characters are interesting. When I don't care about the characters or the romance, there's not much to make me keep watching a series.

Somewhat reluctantly I stuck with it to the end. The best I can say about it is that the costumes, sets, and OST are all beautiful. Everything else is decidedly underwhelming. Certainly it'll never take Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms' place as one of my favourite C-dramas.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Viki. It's also on YouTube, but last time I checked not all of the episodes had English subtitles.

Rating: 4/10.

(Not Really a) Review: First Impressions of Poirot

When I looked for period dramas I haven't seen yet, this series appeared in almost every list. At first I was reluctant to start a series where every episode is a different story. Now I've finally got around to starting it, and I wish I'd done it earlier.

Poirot (also called Agatha Christie's Poirot; apparently someone thought there are so many characters named Poirot that viewers might think it's based on some other author's works) is a long-running series that adapts all of Agatha Christie's stories about the title character. Yes, all of them. Unsurprisingly it lasted over twenty years, from 1989 to 2013.

I've never read any of the Poirot novels, and my only previous knowledge of the character was from Murder on the Orient Express. So while I know every episode is about Poirot solving a mystery, I don't know anything about the cases. Turns out that's a good thing. I've watched the first four episodes of the first series, and every time I waited with bated breath to learn whodunnit and why they did it. Only once have I correctly guessed who the criminal is before the case is solved.

I love almost everything about this series. It's unexpectedly funny; Hastings' obsession with tennis and the running joke about Poirot's uncomfortable shirt collars are just two of the things that made me laugh. The cases themselves always end with an unexpected solution. And of course for period drama fans there's the 1930s setting. So I can safely say that this is one series I'll keep watching.

Review: The Hunger Games (novels)

 I'm back at last! And I finished my novel 😊 Now for a review of a series I reread recently.

Why do dystopian novels always feel the need to shoehorn in a romance (or "romance") subplot? Not even 1984 was exempt from this. There are some genres where romance is just plain out-of-place. This is one of them.

The Hunger Games is a trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins, published between 2008 and 2010. The books have been adapted into a series of films. A prequel was published this year. I haven't read it yet, and after reading the summary I'm not sure I want to.

Almost everyone knows the basic story by now. A dystopian government forces teenagers to fight to the death for the people's entertainment. It's done this for years, and finally someone does something to stop it.

My opinion of this series has changed every time I read it. When I first read the books shortly after they were published I loved them. Reread them a few years later and I was amazed at how boring they were. Now I've reread them for the third time, and I'm torn between both past opinions.

On the one hand, the depictions of the dystopian world of Panem and the fight to overthrow its evil government are riveting. On the other, every few chapters the plot grinds to a halt because Katniss can't decide which of her love interests she likes best. And that's the real problem with this series -- and with far, far too many others. Not only do many authors believe books have to include romance, they seem utterly convinced that there has to be a love triangle. Doesn't matter that hell has broken loose around the protagonists; they have to stop to angst over their romantic woes.

The Hunger Games isn't quite as bad an offender as certain other series. But it still has a pointless love triangle. Especially pointless because Gale and Peeta have virtually no distinguishing characteristics. There were times when I couldn't remember which of them I was reading about. By the third book I didn't even bother to read their scenes. This meant I didn't understand all of the plot, but it was that or be bored to death.

I like the books' world-building, plot, and (some of) the characters. If there was a version of the series that removed the love triangle and only focused on the story it would probably be one of my favourites. Unfortunately as it is, it's just average. I don't expect I'll reread it for a while.

Is it available online?: Not as far as I know.

Rating: 6/10.