2018. augusztus 30., csütörtök

Traitor's Blade - Sebastien de Castell (2014)


„We’re going to get a terrible reputation if we just keep travelling across the countryside crying all the time.”

2018. augusztus 16., csütörtök

2018. augusztus 9., csütörtök

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking - Deborah Cadbury (2017)



 „His studious grandfather, as a young nineteen-year-old, had ventured to correct no less an authority than the pope on the finer points of Egyptian influences on Greek art.”


2018. augusztus 8., szerda

The Affair 4x08 Episode 8

  
 
If you feel as dumbfounded, devastated even, by the latest episode of The Affair, as I do, you might as well go ahead and blame me because didn’t I fervently wish for something like this to happen? Not exactly this, mind you. But watching the last two or tree episodes, while there were certainly things I enjoyed, I came to the realization that the show just doesn’t intrigue me anymore as much as it used to, and there’s a simple reason for that: The Affair, for all its complicated characters and ever-evolving relationships, became predictable in its outrageousness. Literally all the supposed-to-be-shocking moments in the last episodes could have been seen from a mile away: Cole deciding he wants to get back with Alison, Noah getting involved with his boss, Vik sleeping with Sierra, even Helen sleeping with Sierra (because God forbid we have one last remaining main character who’s not a cheater)– all were obvious from the beginning of their respective episodes, if not earlier. I’ve gotten to the point where I felt nothing could actually surprise me anymore. And then episode 8 happened, and it was a gut punch, there’s no other way to frame it. When it ended, and I had a little time to compose my feelings, I had to let a loud „wow” to my empty room, because I just had to say something, anything, and unfortunately that was all I could manage.
 

The Affair 4x03 Episode 3


Remember when I outlined my problems with season 3 of The Affair and one of the biggest one was the fact that they for some reason ceased to put any emphasis on the little (or not so little) differences between the characters’ recollections, which is essentially what made the show so unique and intriguing in the first place. Well, it’s almost as if someone heard my complaints, and instead of remedying them, decided to double down on them just out of spite. The two parts of this episode, Noah and Helen’s respective stories, had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Noah showed up for maybe five seconds in Helen’s bit, delivered the best line of the episode („Two fucking kids, coming right up”), and that was it. Otherwise they were completely self-conatined units that could have worked as individual episodes of any regular family drama series, and the funny things is, I actually liked it this way. I can’t even explain why, but this time the fact that there wasn’t any major conflict between any of the main characters somehow felt refreshing. Weird, huh.


The Affair 4x01 Episode 1


 

As far as I’m concerned, season 4 of The Affair only has one job: get back to the roots of what made the show so great and memorable in the first place. Okay, that’s probably more than one job. After all, there are several reasons why season 3 failed to live up to its predecessors. The clear absence of an overarching mystery (like ’Who killed Scotty Lockhart?” was in the first two seasons), the minimal emphasis on (and significance of) the differences between the characters’ memories, and some truly bewildering narrative choices alll contributed to season 3 being, well, less than satisfactory.

2018. augusztus 3., péntek

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry (2016)



  
„You told me once you forget you are a woman, and I understand it now – you think to be a woman is to be weak – you think ours is a sisterhood of suffering! Perhaps so, but doesn’t it take greater strength to walk a mile in pain than seven miles in none? You are a woman, and must begin to live like one. By which I mean: have courage.”