(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

From March 19, 2009: What’s the worst 'best' book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?

Easy: Moby Dick. I'd heard great quotes from it on X-Files and Star Trek and it sounded brilliant. So only a few years ago I sat down and read it cover to cover, and haven't been so bored (or frustrated) by a novel since Ivanhoe. But I understand why some people might like Ivanhoe, or, rather, might have done so in the 19th century. Moby Dick? I just didn't get it.

It quotes well, though. Ignorance is the parent of fear.

It was a sharp, cold Christmas.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The narrator is Joan Bakewell in voice-over. And you get the on-screen montages of nature burgeoning, flowers blooming, wildlife shagging, & c, whenever she's reading. Considering how long ago it was made, it's far more risqué in places than the 1990s version, but I suspect that's because the 1990s TV movie version was made with an eye to US cinema release. US cinema seems happier with violence than it is with sexual references.