To The Ends Of The Earth
Jul. 7th, 2005 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWilliam Golding's Lord of the Flies is read in schools, but the rest of his novels are a minority taste.
Maybe this will change now the BBC has filmed his trilogy, To The Ends of the Earth.
Set on board a clapped-out man-of-war turned emigrant ship at the close of the Napoleonic era, To the Ends of the Earth is a bracing riposte to the Hornblower mythos. The cabins drip, the bilges stink and the sailors are into buggery. The characters are all flawed in unlikeable ways. The hero is callow, arrogant, snooty and unfeeling.
The film gives us the creased uniforms and sweaty faces but misses out on Golding's poetic intensity. It's less visual than the book, less cinematic. We get lots of reading aloud from journals but only odd, perfunctory glimpses of sea and sky. The book deals with sex, class and the romantic imagination; the film deals with sex and class.
I'll watch the next two episodes. But what I really want to do right now is go out and buy the novels.
Maybe this will change now the BBC has filmed his trilogy, To The Ends of the Earth.
Set on board a clapped-out man-of-war turned emigrant ship at the close of the Napoleonic era, To the Ends of the Earth is a bracing riposte to the Hornblower mythos. The cabins drip, the bilges stink and the sailors are into buggery. The characters are all flawed in unlikeable ways. The hero is callow, arrogant, snooty and unfeeling.
The film gives us the creased uniforms and sweaty faces but misses out on Golding's poetic intensity. It's less visual than the book, less cinematic. We get lots of reading aloud from journals but only odd, perfunctory glimpses of sea and sky. The book deals with sex, class and the romantic imagination; the film deals with sex and class.
I'll watch the next two episodes. But what I really want to do right now is go out and buy the novels.
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Date: 2005-07-07 05:10 am (UTC)Thinking of you today-Jackie
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Date: 2005-07-07 05:56 am (UTC)We'd been out at the shops, came home and heard the news.
The latest news seems to indicate that there were 4 bombs and something like 200 casualties- many only superficially hurt- but it's all fairly hazy as yet.
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Date: 2005-07-07 05:12 am (UTC)What a beautiful face Ingrid Bergman has! And what an actress!
I hear that Bergman wants to direct another movie. Wouldn't that be great?
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Date: 2005-07-07 06:00 am (UTC)I think Liv Ullman's performance in that movie is pretty special too.
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Date: 2005-07-07 05:19 am (UTC)I have no wish to read this book. I read Lord of the Flies and hated it. Not because it wasn't well written, but because of the subject. I found it very upsetting....
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Date: 2005-07-07 06:02 am (UTC)To the Ends of the Earth is an upsetting book. Golding had a fairly bleak (or should that be "realistic") view of human nature.
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Date: 2005-07-07 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 06:09 am (UTC)Yes, I know, his books always sell and I've heard him speak. But I don't like his books.
I think that's allowed. Although, I guess his view of the world is also 'realistic'.
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Date: 2005-07-07 06:21 am (UTC)Good writing doesn't have to be likeable. I admire Hemingway no end while disliking almost everything about him.
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Date: 2005-07-07 06:57 am (UTC)What's going on in London? Was there a terrorist attack? I hadn't heard anything until I saw the comments.
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Date: 2005-07-07 07:33 am (UTC)Yes, there's been a series of bomb attacks in London- on buses ans underground trains. Details are still hazy.
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Date: 2005-07-07 07:56 am (UTC)The reports about London sound dreadful. Do you live near there?
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Date: 2005-07-07 09:04 am (UTC)The current confirmed death toll is 33. There were four explosions. Three on underground trains and one on a bus.
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Date: 2005-07-07 11:44 am (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/kharin/79353.html
There are some plot spoilers for Pincher Martin though.
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Date: 2005-07-09 03:26 am (UTC)My copy of To the Ends of the Earth arrived today. My, but it's huge. I want to get stuck in, but I need to finish Little Dorrit first.