Blog Comments

Nice to see you again.

Good to hear from you, Rich! I'm very, very glad to hear that all is well with the various members of your family. I'm sorry your job has fallen prey to new management.

I am thinking that I will consider getting back on Facebook, so I can drop by and say "hi" once in a while. I was thinking of doing so under a fake name. If I alert you to that first, will you still say "hi" back???

Hey, nice to hear from you Rich. That's great you're finally getting out of debt. Trust me you won't miss that financial pressure. And if you really do miss it, you can get yourself in debt just as easily. No don't do that. You owe it to the long suffering spouse.

I love Don Quixote. Easily on my list of top 30 favorite classics. The part where Sancho Panza drinks of the 'knightly potion' and vomits, furthermore remonstrating Quixote about the imprudence of giving him the drink in the first place because he is not a 'knight' had me guffawing. The entire book felt like a roller coaster ride of fun. Loved both 'Knight of the Lions' and 'Knight of the Rueful Figure' equally. Guess I'm just weird

Fantastic Rich. Now what are you going to read? How about Moby Dick? I'm going to blog about it in the near future.

I sometimes feel like Anna, and understand her. Other times, I've read the book and gone "What the hell, lady, get a life!".

All in all, Stiva is probably my favorite character, as I found him the most believable and likeable... but each to their own.

Congrads! I also preferred Anna Karenina over War and Peace. But they are both incredible books and you can now say you read both. I am a Tolstoy loyalist.

Congrats, Rich! Maybe I'll read it someday. It just looks so sad.

Anna is coming along quire well. This really ios the Tolstoy novel I had hoped War and Peace would be. He is FOCUSED on his characters and taking his time with them rather the scattershot sketches from W&P. Almost finished with Part Two. Be back to the puls soon enough when I finally order Nebel's stuff--an hard boiled detective author seriously neglected is finally coming into his own with small press publuhsers. I began to respect Quixote more and more has the book progressed in a sad bitterswet way really wanting him to have his day in the sun.

Wow, you're reading some good stuff lately Rich. Anna is the novel to read! I rank in the elite novels written, possibly top ten of all time. It's the Tolstoy to read. I have to read that again one of these days.

I did laugh at a lot of places in Don Quixote. But sadness is the major emotion from the novel. I really grew to love the guy. I wish it hadn't ended, but it was already pretty long.

Oh yeah, the movie is coming out. I never read The Hobbit. I've read The Lord of the Rings a couple of times. I'm not one of those fanatics who knows every detail of the plot and characters, so i may not have picked up differences with the movies, but I thought they did the movies fairly well. I guess I'll have to pick up The Hobbit. I should read the book before the movie.

No Netflix account here--still dealing with pennies and payday to payday though AAA is settling up on the pension plan and I should see some major relief in late December from that.

Originally Posted by Bluebiird

It's not quite such a random note. The guy playing Bilbo also played Watson in Sherlock. Also that show was brilliantly epic. Shame they only did 3 episodes for both series but it was condensed brilliance.

Very true. It is condensed brilliance, and I love that as a way to say it I'm looking forward to series 3, but that's a way off still.

Originally Posted by LadyLuck

On another totally random note, if you have a Netflix account, you might give the BBC series Sherlock a watch.

It's not quite such a random note. The guy playing Bilbo also played Watson in Sherlock. Also that show was brilliantly epic. Shame they only did 3 episodes for both series but it was condensed brilliance.

I'm looking forward to going and seeing The Hobbit. I very rarely expect movies to be as good as books, but I like that the previous movies were able to keep with some of the massiveness that is the entire world that Tolkien created. You could make a dozen movies and never touch upon every aspect he brought to life, so all of them will be lacking, but enjoyable regardless.

On another totally random note, if you have a Netflix account, you might give the BBC series Sherlock a watch. I've really enjoyed it, and while different, it has really kept with much of the same "feel" of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters

I re read The Hobbit a few weeks ago and there were no girls call Turiel in it. As for what Jackson did to Lord of the rings... It was unforgiveable. He completely changed the characters of Faramir and Arragorn and the last episode (as Jack Nicholson observed after walking out of the premier before the end, "Too many endings..." The excision of the Scouring of the Shire was a big mistake. The story should have been divided into more film episodes to reflect not the number of volumes, but the number of "books" in the storyTolkien wrote. I didn't miss Tom Bomberdil and his crappy poetry but I did miss the Barrow Wights and the source of the weapons given to the Hobbits, which enabled the relevant Hobbit to stab the Morgul King, thus distracting him long enough for Eowyn to finish him off. The only real change which worked in the film series was the addition of the Elves to the battle of Helm's Deep.

There are occasions where films are better than the books. The first Harry Potter movie is a case in point, and the version of The Three Musketeers with Michael York as d'Artagnan.

Very sure Smaug will be asved for Part Two and scratching my head over a third film--suposedlybased on appendix from Return of the King. Of all the book to movie adaptations I have seen over the years I think Gone with the Wind was well done and Maltese Falson.

I hate it when films differ from the original works. So far I haven't seen a film that is exact to the original. Having read half of the Lord of the Rings trilogy I was disappointed by the number of things missing from the movies but let it slide because of how long the books are. I was very disappointed by The Golden Compass movie having just finished reading the book not long before. I was also let down by the live action Blood the Last Vampire movie, having seen and been a fan of the original anime movie. I refused to see How to Train Your Dragon or the later Chronicles of Narnia films because I didn't want to repeat my Blood the Last Vampire experience. I'm also not keen on remakes. The first Italian Job was fine as it was and didn't need a remake in my opinion.
Since I like The Hobbit I'm not sure if I'll watch the films, especially since it'll be spread over 3 movies. 3 Lord of the Rings made sense because of the 3 books but The Hobbit is shorter than any one of the other three books. It might be interesting see how they portray Smaug though. He's a cool dragon.

I enjoy reading about your adventures in reading, Rich. I haven't wanted to read Anna Karenina for the reasons you state, but if you enjoyed it, then maybe someday...

I would think you're going to enjoy it Rich. I certainly did. I consider it one of the best novels ever written. There is a slow spot somewhere two thirds in, but just get through that. Ultimately the story is both funny and sad.