Winter wonderland
Dec. 15th, 2005 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielDuty forced me to go to the Haunted Bookshop (a specialist children's bookshop), where I found Elizabeth Enright's Thimble Summer, a book I have wanted to read since I was... ooh, eleven or twelve, and read the summary of it in the back of one of her other books. I'm pleased as Punch.
Oh yes, anyone in this neck of the woods who wants to lay their paws on Doctor Who books should get themselves down to the Haunted Bookshop: a stack of Target novelizations, some New and Missing Adventures, a small pile of DWMs, and various other bits and pieces such as quiz books etc.
After a hard slog around the bookshop, it was time to go and see The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe. Well, of course I'm sentimental and easily moved, so I loved it to bits. I could probably pick out a few things here and there which were a bit clumsy or not as well realized as I would have liked, but overall I was enchanted.
The children were all very good (which I was worried might not be the case). I thought all of them were sympathetically handled: Peter and Susan struggling to be the adults and nowhere near old enough to be doing it. Edmund constantly getting it wrong and only earning the scorn of his older brother when he wants approbation. There really was a feeling at the end that this was an experience which alters them in such a way that leaving four children on the thrones of Narnia isn't a hideous tactical error that would be followed up in short order by a Calormene invasion.
The bit which I thought was going to be ghastly, but which was brilliantly realized, was the meeting with Father Christmas. Understated; very well played. One of my favourite bits.
Tilda Swinton was brilliant, and I thoroughly coveted her lion's mane battle wig. Not to mention the chariot and the ice palace and the minions, but let's not be greedy.
I thought it ended a little abruptly: there was a lot of set-up about the evacuation at the start (very well done), which didn't feel quite paid off at the end.
Most of all it felt completely Narnian. I think trying to compare it to the LotR films would be a mistake: they're just not the same thing. It conveyed the enchantment of the book to me. I'd happily sit through it again.
I got Turkish Delight in last night for my reading group, and I'm away now to finish off what's left (not much!).
Oh yes, anyone in this neck of the woods who wants to lay their paws on Doctor Who books should get themselves down to the Haunted Bookshop: a stack of Target novelizations, some New and Missing Adventures, a small pile of DWMs, and various other bits and pieces such as quiz books etc.
After a hard slog around the bookshop, it was time to go and see The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe. Well, of course I'm sentimental and easily moved, so I loved it to bits. I could probably pick out a few things here and there which were a bit clumsy or not as well realized as I would have liked, but overall I was enchanted.
The children were all very good (which I was worried might not be the case). I thought all of them were sympathetically handled: Peter and Susan struggling to be the adults and nowhere near old enough to be doing it. Edmund constantly getting it wrong and only earning the scorn of his older brother when he wants approbation. There really was a feeling at the end that this was an experience which alters them in such a way that leaving four children on the thrones of Narnia isn't a hideous tactical error that would be followed up in short order by a Calormene invasion.
The bit which I thought was going to be ghastly, but which was brilliantly realized, was the meeting with Father Christmas. Understated; very well played. One of my favourite bits.
Tilda Swinton was brilliant, and I thoroughly coveted her lion's mane battle wig. Not to mention the chariot and the ice palace and the minions, but let's not be greedy.
I thought it ended a little abruptly: there was a lot of set-up about the evacuation at the start (very well done), which didn't feel quite paid off at the end.
Most of all it felt completely Narnian. I think trying to compare it to the LotR films would be a mistake: they're just not the same thing. It conveyed the enchantment of the book to me. I'd happily sit through it again.
I got Turkish Delight in last night for my reading group, and I'm away now to finish off what's left (not much!).
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 09:04 pm (UTC)The Saturdays is the first of the books about the Melendy family; the others are The Four-Storey Mistake, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two. Are those the ones you had? (The editions I have are Puffin ones with beige covers.)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 09:22 pm (UTC)There used to be a fantastic second-hand bookshop in Bournemouth, an old church packed floor to ceiling with books, and they had an enormous children's book section. All my Tove Jansson books came from there, so did the Enright books and a few of the Antonia Forests. They knocked it down a few years back to build an ugly apartment block, and I've never found a bookshop I loved as much since.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 10:45 pm (UTC)How awful, to knock down a place like that :-(
Thimble Summer is turning out to be lovely, btw.