So as promised I devoured Normal People (Sally Rooney) in two formats. The book was intense, skipping between dates means there was never a need to pad; much like a book I loved but hadn't thought of in a long time, One Day. And while the book touches on class, mental health, and domestic violence it is largely a story about two people - Marianne and Connell - and their relationship.
It's actually impressive how well they managed to translate a book that is largely about thoughts, feelings, and inner dialogue into an emotional television show, particularly whilst sticking so closely to the source material. There's no loss to the intensity between the main characters and the situations, on the whole, actually feel more believable. The interactions with Jamie, or how naive Marianne seems in the first episode are the exceptions. Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones deserve all the success that comes off the back of it.
Talking of Paul Mescal I also saw Aftersun. After seeing a lot of hype online around it, I was slightly... not disappointed, but not completely satisfied. The film follows the holiday of Sophie and her father Calum, and as the film develops it becomes increasingly clear that Calum is suffering from depression. Sophie also spends a lot of time by herself or with other kids (of various ages) at the resort, largely a secondary storyline to her realising that, as we see later in her life, she's gay. It's still an incredibly worthwhile film, one that gave me similar vibes to The Florida Project without quite such a jarring ending. It is exactly the
It's a bold choice to call a show something that you never want to tell anyone about. Say, The Sex Lives of College Girls. It is, however, a fairly apt title. I had reservations about watching based on ITV's adverts, but a five-star Guardian review piqued my interest. The show was created, in part, by Mindy Kaling but I promise it's better than Velma (apparently, haven't caught up with it yet). That tells you all you need to know, really. Four girls dorm together at University in Vermont, and each have their ups and downs along the way. The show is often at its strongest in the tender moments, be that Kimberly's struggle to afford school or Leighton, the 'it' girl, journeying toward being an empathetic human being.
Richard Powers' Bewilderment was my favourite book I read last year, so I finally picked up a copy of The Overstory. It was shortlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize and won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - so fair to say critically acclaimed. The story follows nine characters throughout their lives, and the history that brought them together, and centres around the natural world - much like Bewilderment. The premise being how incredible trees and the ecosystems they create are, and how much more we should be doing to protect them. Genuinely a book that will change the way you think, they've just cut trees down outside our flat and I've never been angrier.
In both of Powers' most recent books he makes reference to Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes); A science-fiction story about Charlie Gordon, a man with an IQ of 68 who undergoes surgery to make him more intelligent. One of the meetup bookclubs I joined during lockdown, but never actually made use of, had picked it as their next book and it felt like a sign. It's a slightly confusing mix of acknowledging the idea that someone's intelligence shouldn't affect their status as a human being, conflicting with the evident sadness in his regression. Slight aside, I couldn't stop imagining Algernon as Stewart Little which, at times, took away some of the impact.
And finally, on the stereo in the past fortnight-and-a-half - aside from various Eurovision national selections - has been Thrice and their re-recording of The Artist in the Ambulance for its twentieth anniversary. While it was never as raw as their first two efforts, it still feels that it dates from before Thrice settled on a defined production style. Later albums have been notable for how clean everything is, the drums are perfect, the vocals front and centre, separation in guitars. The original recording feels a little muddied and Kensrue hadn't quite found the vocal style he'll settle into. With that in mind, it's genius to marry one of the great emo albums with the artist Thrice have grown into. Any excuse to listen to Paper Tigers on repeat.
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