Rants of a nerd
books
Which Sherlock?
0So the second season of BBC’s Sherlock has started. I have not yet had the chance to see any episode from this season of the series. But last year’s episodes were fantastic. A modern recreation of a classic. The stories and settings thankfully are fully contemporary unlike the Sherlock Holmes movies that we have been seeing.
So the question is: which Sherlock? The big-screen Robert Downey Jr. version or the Moffat interpretation.
Both are retakes / adaptations, which have little in common with the books. RD Jr’s Holmes is more of an action hero than we can ever conceive of after reading the books. Benedict Cumberbatch is further away in time, but feels truer to what Conan Doyle would have identified with. Though Stephen Fry as Mycroft does have a little something.
Overall I would go with the BBC version. It somehow feels right.
On a related note, is Stephen Moffat the only writer left in Britain? He seems to be everywhere. I have long enjoyed his works like Coupling and Jekyll, and he seems to have contributed to the recent Tintin movie. Plus his Doctor Who work. When does he get time to do all this?
2 months ago
Barry Ritholtz carries this nice “infographic” comparison of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World in their application to the world. I think there are elements of both in today’s life.
The Ron Weasley Mystery
0So what is it with Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter novels? We are to think that he is the side-kick, the guy who stumbles into a friendship with the Boy Who Lived, and bumbles along till the end. But there is also the chap who ended up with the girl at the end of it all. So which is the real one?
I believe that Ron was probably one of the most talented and powerful wizards in the Harry Potter universe. Let me explain why…
Chess
An eleven year old Ron won the wizard chess game set by Professor McGonagall in his first year that helped stop Voldemort from getting the Philosopher’s Stone. It was as Dumbledore put it, “the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years.” I guess that establishes that he is basically intelligent and is capable of thinking many steps ahead.
Ron’s later spells of brilliance
I think that it also explains why in the later books he is apparently quite accomplished in casting spells. Indeed Tonks remarks on his ability in the “seven Harrys” episode to the utter surprise of Hermione. Again in the Deathly Hallows he recalls Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration to everyone’s utter surprise.
Parles-tu parseltongue?
Despite no previous ability, Ron is able to mimic Harry’s “open” command to the Chamber of Secrets and enter to retrieve the basilisk’s fangs. Another brilliant idea of Ron. He had only heard Harry say it once before, when Harry spoke to the locket – at a time when Ron should have been otherwise too busy to remember just how to pronounce open in parseltongue. Was it not moments ago that he had chased the doe to the lake, plunged in and rescued Harry and pulled out the sword of Gryffindor? And was it not moments later that the horcrux inside would try and defend itself by presenting Ron with unwelcome visions and sounds. And yet, in the midst of all this, Ron remembers the snatch of parseltongue he heard. Wow!
The Weasley family
The Weasleys appear much more talented than anyone would give them credit for. Perhaps Arthur’s pro-Muggle feelings kept him from advancing in the Ministry, but look at the rest of the family. Bill and Charlie seem well respected within their circles. When dragons are needed for the first task in the Goblet of Fire, who should they call on but Charlie? And Bill seems to be one of the few wizards that get along with goblins enough to work at Gringotts. Percy seems to rise up the ladder in the ministry in Goblet in the first year since he leaves school. He rises up fast enough that when Barty Crouch is unable – thanks to the Imperius Curse – to judge the Triwizards Tournament, they send Percy as the replacement judge.
Fred and George seem to be extraordinarily great wizards. They crack the secret of the Marauder’s Map in their first year. Their exploits in the Order of the Phoenix (the fireworks and general nuisance including a swamp they created) are legend. They never completed school and yet their ability seems to be very good – their Wizard’s Wheezes are universally admired (maybe not by Umbridge).
Ginny appears talented enough to attract the attention of Slughorn in Half Blood Prince. Later she displays talent in attacking spells in the Deathly Hallows though she is not supposed to be fighting being underage.
And that bring me to Molly. She appears to be the perfect housewife but is the one who finally kills Bellatrix Lestrange – who was probably the most talented and evil among the Death Eaters.
So why should the remaining member of the family not be just as notable?
The Fidelius Charm
When the Weasleys go into hiding in Hallows, most of them go to their Aunt Muriel’s and Bill and Fleur remain at Shell Cottage, both of which are placed under a Fidelius Charm. Arthur is the secret keeper of the former and Bill of the latter. Only the secret keeper may share the location of the place with anyone. Witness the way Mad-Eye had to show Harry the address of Number 12 Grimmauld place through a piece of paper that Dumbledore had written the address on. And yet Ron is able to tell Dobby to take Luna, Ollivander and Dean to Shell Cottage even though he is not Secret Keeper. This is not an easy charm to break and Voldemort had to rely on Pettigrew’s treachery to get to the Potter’s residence in Godric’s Hollow.
He gets the girl
After being generally a prat, he finally gets the girl. From the way he worms himself to her good side in Half Blood Prince (moaning her name while recovering from the poisoning) to the sudden display of caring for the welfare of the house-elves during the final battle, he makes a conscious effort at making the move on Hermione. She is also made to miss him terribly when he takes off from the tent after an argument. That was not the first time Ron played hard to get though. Earlier he did it in asking her to the Yule Ball in Goblet and going around with Lavender in Prince. And given Hermione’s intelligence, is it likely that she fell for an idiot side-kick. She probably (using woman’s intuition?) figured out that he was more intelligent than he made out to be early enough.
Conclusion
Ron Weasley is the guy who keeps out of trouble’s way and yet gets to participate in most of the glory. He makes Prefect in fifth year (even Harry does not), gets on the House Quidditch team, seems to be a better than fair dueler and gets the girl. I think he may be the hero of the tale after all (after all where does the sidekick get the girl)!
Any thoughts people?
Cultural history pieces worth reading
0Long reads, but well worth the time spent on these:
Boston Review — Onnesha Roychoudhuri: Books After Amazon
An interesting look at how publishing has changed since amazon.com launched. Including some scary tales of monopolistic behaviour by Amazon. There is also a lot of discussion on what happens in a post-Kindle world where people are preferring to buy electronic copies as they are cheaper than the printed versions (the difference being greatest for new books). In an industry where talent spotting is at the publisher stage (i.e. they read and weed out stuff so you don’t have to), how does diminished profitability of publishers affect new authours and new books?
Another long piece on the change in the US Postal Service (& communications in general) over the years and how the dropping of the public service mandate in posts and radio have changed the media landscape there. There are lessons for everyone across the globe too of course. In this context this giant graphic of social media over time is itself worth a peek (via Barry Ritholtz).
Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere: A must read
0Just finished reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Of course, one knows Gaiman from the Sandman graphic novels, but it was great reading this book. There is a blurb on the back cover that kind of captures the essence of the book – a meld of Doctor Who, Monty Python and so much other Brit fantasy fiction.
The story is set in London Below, where people who fall in between the cracks go. It is a land of sewers and tunnels and underground stations not in use. There is a parallel to everything in London Above – Night’s Bridge, Earl’s Court and so much more (Serpentine, the British Museum, and even HMS Belfast makes an appearance).
This is one of the best fantasy novels, indeed one of the best novels I’ve read. Highly recommended.
10/10/10 – The answer is 42
01 year ago
Gizmodo tells us that
Today Is the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything
Today is October 10, 2010. 10/10/10. In binary, that’s 42. And 42 is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Or at least, that’s what Douglas Adams says.
Many people wonder what Adams exactly meant by 42, the answer given by the supercomputer Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Why did Adams pick that number? Is there a connection to something the world doesn’t know about? Is the CIA and the MI6 involved in all this? Real aliens, perhaps?
On November 3, 1993, he gave an answer on alt.fan.douglas-adams:
“The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’. I typed it out. End of story.”
Later, talking to BBC Radio 4 Iain Johnstone, he explained that the number was chosen by none other than John Cleese as the punch line for one of his skits. The famed Python thought it was a funny number, and Adams borrowed it for his book, turning it into a recurring integer through all his work.
But that comment wasn’t the end of the mystery. Stephen Fry—a friend of Adams—also jumped into the debate, claiming that the latter explained to him why it was 42. Fry will not reveal the secret, but he says it is “fascinating, extraordinary and, when you think hard about it, completely obvious.”
Spring cleaning
0The origins of spring cleaning are probably connected with the arrival of spring which had people getting their summer clothes out and placing the cold weather clothes back into shelves. In tropical climes, this is not a necessity and one can be a pack rat for years accumulating stuff.
One advantage of renting and not owning a house is that there’s a forced cleaning out of stuff on every move. Still something that cannot be thrown out are books. Today we took the decision to throw away some old books and I felt quite awful about that. At every second hand book store I wonder why are people throwing away these books. Some have come from libraries, others still carry their previous owner’s name. Presumably some have been sold as part of a spring cleaning, some on moving away or even death. The stories behind the copies may be sometimes better than the contents of the book themselves. How’s that for a plot – The Adventures of Billy the Book.
British Female Crime Fiction Writers
0If there is a genre of fiction that I can say is my favourite, this would be it. There’s always a strange look I get when I say that. It is too narrow to be a genre in itself, right?
A group that includes Agatha Christie, P D James, Dorothy Sayers, and Ruth Rendell has a large enough canon to justify calling it a genre. Many of these are a group referred to as golden age authors.
What’s better than spending a few hours in the company of poet detective Adam Dalgleish, Lord Peter Wimsey the collector of first editions, Albert Campion who evokes awe whenever he reveals his true name, and others of the ilk where the build up of the character is as important as the unraveling of the plot.
Recently I came across the Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George. She has been compared to these authors by many a reviewer. The inspector is Thomas Lynley, Earl of Asherton, and his interplay with his sergeant, Barbara Havers, a working class woman is a key part of the stories. It had to fit my fave genre, right? Imagine my surprise on discovering that Elizabeth George is an American! Maybe I should broaden my favourite genre definition, huh?
Greek mythology
0A rebuttal to the Percy Jackson books. The series refers to Kronos as the Lord of Time. This appeared incorrect to me. But then I thought the author is a teacher of Greek Mythology and my memories are from school days and are probably rusted. So I turned to my trusted Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology and I find that Cronos and Chronos are different indeed.
Cronos, the leader of the Titans, is a son of Ouranos (the sky) and Gaia (the earth). He was the presiding deity during the Golden Age. He is the father of Zeus and the other gods. In the war between the gods and the titans, he is finally overthrown and Zeus becomes the presiding god.
Chronos is an older deity and is the personification of time. In a sense he is at the level of Ouranos, a generation before Cronos. There is not much that I could find in terms of myths about him.
Well, my memory served me well! I had an interesting discussion with someone recently about the Percy Jackson books. I mentioned that if one is reasonably familiar with Greek myths, some of the events in the books are predictable. His response was that his daughter was developing an interest in Greek mythology by reading these books. Who knows if these books become well-entrenched, future generations may believe that the Homerian epics are modifications of these books and not vice-versa!
