Watching and Reading: The Last Stand and The Italian Secretary
Besides DVC, I also saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand. I liked it, but there was a noticeable difference in style with the new director. A few holes: new characters introduced, with little to no development. A striking contrast from the second film. Especially disappointing was the "Angel" character, which seemed wasted. Besides setting up a couple of plot lines, there was no indication as to what he was about. So, too much time spent on action, not enough on character. I give it a B-.
Needing to break into a novel after end of semester, I've broke open The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr. It's a new Sherlock Holmes mystery, and I'm quite enjoying it, at about 2/3 through. Carr is a good writer, and wrote one of my all-time favorites, The Alienist, and its sequel, The Angel of Darkness. I recommend all three. I'd give his sci-fi novel, Killing Time, a pass though. Some interesting things there, but ultimately a disappointment. Carr is a historian, so if you like books with careful attention to history, like I do, you'll enjoy his books. I even used The Alienist for my Philosophical Anthropology class a couple of years ago. The students really enjoyed it!
posted by Mark Mossa, SJ at 11:22 PM
6 Comments:
I got The Alienist a long time ago for my birthday and never read it. If you recommend it I will dig it back out and read it this summer on my vacation after my summer classes are over.
Maggie
Do it!
hahaha...mark, i read The Alienist in college when I was contemplating becoming a psych major. A month ago I went to an old bookstore in Harvard Square and bought it for $2. Now that everyone is reading it, I guess it's time I sit back and start flipping through the pages again. How is the sequel?
The sequel is good, but doesn't quite measure up to the first.
While Carr's Sherlock Holmes is enjoyable on its own...how would you compare it to the SCD stuff?
AMDG,
-J.
SCD?
Do you mean Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
Carr is a fine writer, and it's a good book, but I wouldn't expect it to measure up to the original.
However, there's a very interesting afterword by the US agent of the Conan Doyle estate which suggests the interesting possibility of a future novel which might include a meeting of minds between Holmes and Carr's own protagonist, Dr. Kriezler. That would be something!
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