The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe

Well. This was a bit of a struggle.

No doubt like many others before me, I read this because of Northanger Abbey. Austen's utterly hilarious story makes Udolpho sound seriously amazing, full of spookiness and intriguing characters and nefarious villains and non-stop action.

What I got couldn't be further from the truth.

I actually tried to read this when I was about sixteen. I think I got 100 pages into it and returned it to the library unfinished, probably for many of the same reasons that I struggled with it fifteen years later.

I never entirely got into the story. There were such massive slabs of text describing the natural habitat at each location in the story that I found myself wanting to find an abridged version just to get to the point. Emily's a pretty average main character. She spends half her time fainting and the other half mooning over Valancourt. In turn, Valancourt's entire character seems to be "he's nice to poor people and he loves Emily to the point of wandering around the garden of her father's house at night so he can be close to her". Dude. No.

The story itself was so bogged down with description and clunky writing (holy hell, Radcliffe, STEP AWAY FROM THE COMMAS) that it became almost unreadable at times. And when the characters were wandering around moping and suddenly made up two page poems while moping? Yeah, no. (I confess, I skipped the poetry.)

Seriously, though. The comma abuse was extreme. Here's a sample sentence:

"Emily, called, as she had requested, at an early hour, awoke, little refreshed by sleep, for uneasy dreams had pursued her, and marred the kindest blessing of the unhappy, But, when she opened her casement, looked out upon the woods, bright with the morning sun, and inspired the pure air, her mind was soothed." (p. 72)

I'm sorry, but Radcliffe should have been arrested by the Grammar Police for offences like that.

Given that it's a Gothic novel, I was expecting spookiness and dastardly villains aplenty. Instead, I got a villain who was in it for the money and Emily fainting as a plot device to indicate that something spooky was meant to be happening. The titular Castle of Udolpho doesn't turn up until nearly a third of the way into the book. And in the first 200 pages, basically all that happens is Emily's mother dies, she and her father go on a holiday, she falls in love with Valancourt, and her father dies. THAT'S. IT.

Things picked up once we hit the Castle of Udolpho, and actually got fairly exciting for a while there. But then suddenly we're struck with a new narrator - Blanche, a character we've never met before - and a sense of "Huh? What? Who the hell is this?".

Look, I'm sure for its time, it was fabulous groundbreaking stuff. But stay up until 3am because you have to know what happens territory like Northanger Abbey implies? Nope.

When I finished it last night, I gave it 3 stars. But I think a lot of that was relief that I was finally finished. Upon reflection, I'm downgrading it to 2 stars. It certainly had its moments ("'You speak like a heroine,' said Montoni, contemptuously; 'we shall see if you can suffer like one.'" is a stand out), but on the whole I found the writing clunky, the descriptions far too detailed, and the characters bland.

Sigh.

Have you read it? What did you think?

K xx

Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence

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It was bound to happen eventually, friends. I mean, sixty classics on my list. Sixty is a lot of books. Hating one was only a matter of time. That's right. I hated this book. I mean, I didn't hate it enough to rate it one star. I could see the merit in elements of the story. But I was on the struggle bus from start to finish, and there were times when I honestly thought I wasn't going to be able to finish it and would have to throw it across the room instead.

So. Lady Chatterley's Lover is the story of Constance Chatterley, who gets married in 1917 and whose husband comes back from the war paralysed from the waist down. He loses all interest in sex and basically in being around her at all, but decides that he'd quite like to have a child. He suggests that she go off and get knocked up to a nice, respectable man, and that they raise the child as the heir to the estate. Except that Constance falls for the rough-as-guts gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, who introduces her to real passion, and Constance feels herself coming to life for the first time.

This book is/was hella contentious. It was banned for the better part of forty years due to the fact that it contains numerous sex scenes and a ton of swearing and A WOMAN ENJOYING SEX OH MY GOD NO HOW SCANDALOUS. And really, I feel like if it weren't for the fact that the book had been banned, this book wouldn't be anywhere near as popular or infamous as it became.

While there were some passages that contained interesting discussion of the state of English society in a post-war environment, for the most part I found this book incredibly boring. Seriously. Literally none of the characters are likeable. I didn't care about any of them. I found Mellors to be particularly abhorrent, which made it difficult to get through the supposedly salacious sex scenes (frankly, I've read better sex scenes in fan fiction that's written by 15 year olds...).

Either it was incredibly boring scenes of Constance and her husband doing boring upper class things, boring scenes of Constance gushing to her sister about Mellors, or moderately boring scenes of Constance and Mellors boinking. And even that wasn't enough to keep me interested, especially not after I realised that D.H. Lawrence had something of an obsession with bowels and referred to them constantly.

Not even kidding. You want quotes? Because I've got 'em.

"...compassion flamed in his bowels for her."

"Yet the passion of it licked round her, consuming, and when the sensual flame of it passed through her bowels and breast, she really thought she was dying: yet a poignant, marvellous death."

"...the passion for him moved in her bowels."

"...in her womb and bowels she was flowing and alive now..."

"And he went into her softly, feeling the stream of tenderness flowing in release from his bowels to hers".

"And he himself loathed the mention of bowels of compassion."

You and me both, Mellors. You and me both.

In short, I tried to like this book, I really did. I know a lot of people adore it. But when it wasn't boring me senseless, D.H. Lawrence was making me angry by saying that gay people are only gay because they haven't had REALLY GOOD straight sex.

I know it was written in a different time, blah blah blah. But it lost me time and time again. Especially when Mellors made a passionate speech about the state of society and Constance didn't hear any of it because she was weaving forget-me-nots into his pubes.

Yeah. No.

Have you read it? What did you think??

K xx

Movie Monday - The final AFI edition

Tomorrow is the last day of my 101 in 1001 (WHAT?!?!?!?!?!), which means that tonight I'm watching my last movie from the AFI list. All in all, I've made it through 66 of the 100 movies on the list, which I think is fairly impressive considering I basically only started crossing them off last year! (I've also seen but not rewatched another 7 of them, meaning I've seen a total of 73. Definitely not too shabby!)

So, let's talk about the ones I've watched since January, shall we?

Vertigo
Excellent, as most of Hitchcock's stuff is. But also kind of insane? I mean, he basically brought every single event in that movie on himself. Plus, that whole "I'm going to turn you into a copy of a dead woman" thing is creep-tastic.

City Lights
Mostly fun, but some of the gags went on for a little longer than was strictly necessary. The ending was cute.

All About Eve

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Holy crap. Eve Harrington is kind of the epitome of a creepy fangirl. Bette Davis' acting was pretty excellent throughout. Good, but definitely not one I'd rewatch regularly.

Double Indemnity
Kind of great, and (rather unsurprisingly) reminiscent of playing LA Noire.

The Godfather Part II
Booooooooooooooooooooooooooored. It probably didn't help that I'd basically forgotten about all the events of The Godfather so I had very little idea of who any of the characters were or how they were connected... Plus, any time there was dialogue in Italian, I'd mostly tune out. At least The Godfather had that whole horse's head in a bed thing going for it...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Disney movies. This one was no exception. The girl who voiced Snow White reminded me FAR too much of Lena Lamont from Singin' in the Rain, which just made her dialogue and songs bizarrely hilarious. Also, it's a little creepy having her live happily ever after with a dude she saw once for like two minutes...

Annie Hall

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OH GOD SO BORING. And not even remotely funny. But then again, I hate Woody Allen with a fiery passion so this probably never stood a chance with me...

The Deer Hunter
FAR too long. The wedding scene could have been cut down by at least half an hour for starters... The Russian roulette scenes were tense, but the special effects used for the blood were rather laughable, which took away some of the shock value. As far as Vietnam War movies go, it was by far the least traumatic.

North by North-West

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At least three-quarters of the movie is just Cary Grant going "The fuck is happening? The fuck is this? The fuck are you? The fuck am I?" and it is MAGICAL. Especially his facial expressions while drunk driving.

Rocky
Ugh, more boxing. Although nowhere near as painful to watch as Raging Bull.

American Graffiti
Basically Grease without the singing. Weirdly plotless. Although at least it introduced the world to Harrison Ford.

Unforgiven
BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED. And then like ten minutes of Clint Eastwood being a BAMF.

All The President's Men

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Excellent. Robert Redford has fabulous hair. The ending was kind of odd though, having all the events happen exclusively via news updates on a typewriter...

The Apartment
Jack Lemmon is always excellent, and Shirley McClaine was rather spectacular too. Kind of a genius idea to make extra money by lending out your apartment. But I'm not sure I'd call it a comedy. It was pretty damned depressing...

Spartacus
SO EFFING LONG. Would have been infinitely better with decent editing. I mean, you could easily have edited an hour out of that movie without damaging on the plot... Aside from that, Kirk Douglas' haircut was HILARIOUS.

Platoon
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. I made it as far as their arrival in the village and then abandoned ship. I'm not willing to spend my life watching the "good guys" torture and massacre people. Add in rape jokes and you honestly couldn't pay me to watch the rest of this movie.

The French Connection
The chase scene was great. The rest of it was a little on the slow side.

Pulp Fiction

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I LOVE the segmented plot and how it all joins together in the end. Genius.

Ben-Hur
OH MY GOD THE LONGEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. And basically nothing happens except that Jesus turns up at convenient moments, and Charlton Heston gazes adoringly at other men.

Have you seen any of these? What did you think? And, perhaps most importantly, should I watch the rest of the movies on the list to finish it once and for all??

K xx

New Zealand - the "we're going on an adventure" edition

Previously, Ness and I visited a bunch of waterfalls and also hung around Mount Doom for a while. Because obviously.

When we'd planned out our itinerary, we'd kept a free day in there with the idea that if it rained, we'd have extra time for hiking or whatever. Plus, we figured it would be good to have a day where we flew by the seat of our pants a little bit and had no idea where we were going to go or what we were going to do. Foolishly, however, we planned this day to be in an area where there's really not a whole lot to see or do besides more hiking.

So we figured that we'd head for the Forgotten World Highway and stop at anything interesting looking that we came across along the way. Well. We headed north along the highway and stopped at the Raurimu Spiral because a brown tourist sign suggested that we do so. It was pretty cool (more so if you're an engineer) but a little tricky to wrap your head around at first.

Model of the spiral

Actual spiral. You can see the gap in the trees and the tunnel on the right

Luckily, there was something up everyone's alley on the other side of the highway: a giant T. rex made of wood. BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY.

Clever Girl made a friend!

The road became a little hillier and we stopped at Piriaka Lookout where you can see clear back to Mount Doom:

We turned onto the Forgotten World Highway where things got even steeper, and we worried a couple of times that our teeny tiny hairdrier-for-an-engine car wasn't going to be able to make it. There were an increasing number of brown signs along the road, but when we pulled over, they all turned out to be for things that were a half hour tramp through a cow paddock and which recommended wearing gumboots. Which we had very little desire to do just to see the entrance to an old mine. So we drove on, and pulled over in a half-arsed "read the detailed sign through the car window" way for the next few. Until we got to Nevin's Lookout. It was a bit of a trek through a paddock gate and up a steep cowpat covered hill. But the view was totally worth it:

See? HILLY.

Eventually, after going through a completely awesome single lane tunnel through a mountain, we reached something relatively unexpected (although it WAS marked on the map, so we probably SHOULD have expected it) - nearly 20kms of unsealed road. We debated whether or not to drive through it, as the gravel was really coarse and we a) didn't have a proper spare tyre, just a space-saver one and b) were driving a car that had the hubcaps attached with cable ties. We dithered for so long that a massive Winnebago-y thing drove through, closely followed by a 4WD. We figured that would pack the gravel down enough that if we followed in their tracks, we'd be okay.

The gorge that the unsealed road ran through wasn't nearly as exciting as anticipated and by the end of it, we were both a little cranky (partly due to hunger, partly due to thirst, but mostly due to the fact that we'd turned the air conditioning off to help the engine along and the car was really stuffy and kind of dusty feeling...). There were several towns marked on the map, so we figured we'd stop in one of them for lunch. Except that they all turned out to be either closed (as it was a weekend) or nothing more than railway crossings. Eventually, hot and bothered and in desperate need of a wee, we reached the Whangamomona Hotel.

They could have served nothing but haggis and only had a squat loo, and I still would have been thrilled. Luckily, neither of those things were the case. After far too short a lunch break, we got back in the car and headed back the way we'd came with plans to stop for ice cream if/when we stumbled across one.

Of course, just to spite us, there was not a SINGLE PLACE SELLING ANY KIND OF ANYTHING until we reached Te Kuiti, a couple of hundred kilometres later. And by that point, we were over the idea of ice cream, so ended up with milkshakes from the cafe attached to the service station, which gave us the sugar rush we needed to get the rest of the way to Otorohanga, where we promptly checked into our hotel, sat around in our PJs for an hour or so, then headed out for dinner. After which we watched a random Topher Grace movie on TV and collapsed into bed.

All up, we (by which I mean Ness) drove about 600km on "highways" that were mostly twisty country roads populated largely by slow moving vehicles. We didn't really see anything particularly fascinating, and I managed to get sunburnt IN THE CAR. In short? If you add a free day to your travel itinerary? Make sure it's in a place where there's stuff that's actually worth seeing and doing without driving for several hours... Because it may start out like this:

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But it'll end up feeling like this:

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Also, if you're in New Zealand, don't trust the free maps that the hire car company give you. They're full of lies...

Next up, Waitomo makes up for everything.

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXIII

Previously, horses plus butterfly infested woods = Kirsti's worst day ever. On the plus side, there were cenotes, which pretty much made up for it...

We left our hotel in Merida at 7.30am and had yet another delightful walk to the bus station carrying 20kg worth of luggage. The bus trip from Merida to Palenque is approximately NINE HOURS. Our trip notes informed us that it was "along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico", which implied nice sea views. Our trip notes lied. All we could see for nine hours was hedges taller than the bus... I spent a large chunk of it watching movies in Spanish with Portuguese subtitles - namely, Flyboys and The Wicker Man (the Nicolas Cage version). I don't think I missed much in terms of the dialogue...

Nic Cage's facial expression pretty much sums up my feelings towards
this film. Also, source.

Lunch consisted of the bus stopping at a roadside diner for an hour. The food looked less than appealing, so Sara and I made the executive decision to have ice cream for lunch. Because, you know, the Pringles and Pinguinos we'd had as bus snacks weren't enough...

After a millionty more hours of driving, we finally arrived in Palenque. After dumping our stuff at the hotel, Arizona Boy gave us a quick tour of the town. If you've never been there, I can tell you that you're honestly not missing much. (Do not confuse Palenque the town with Palenque the archaeological site. The former was kind of scummy, the latter was awesome)

Eventually, we went to dinner, which rapidly became...interesting. The restaurant we went to was run by a dude named Salvador who was our guide for the archaeological site the following day. And Salvador was OBSESSED with tequila. If you didn't order tequila, he would nag you. And nag you some more. And then nag you again five minutes later. Eventually, I asked for a margarita just to shut him up. Except that Salvador believed that the use of sugar syrup ruined the flavour of the tequila. So he presented me with a glass filled with tequila and lemon juice. It tasted like sour lighter fluid...

Mix with lemon juice and serve. Also, source.

While I stopped after (two sips of) my one lighter fluid margarita, the rest of the group decided that numerous rounds of tequila shots were the way to go. Over the course of the evening, the following things happened:

• Sara discovered that seven shots of tequila will make you throw up.
• Arizona Boy didn't believe me when I said that Sara had gone to throw up, and proceeded to sniff her hair when she got back from the bathroom, which was insanely creepy.
• Waterproof Trousers (so called because he wore Goretex trousers approximately half the time) seemed to be hitting on Salvador, despite claiming throughout the tour that he was straight.
• Arizona Boy thought it would be hilarious to throw various people's belongings off the balcony of the bar we were at and into the street.
• We then had to spend huge chunks of time trying to persuade various passersby to toss them back up to us. 
• There was an awkward discussion about how not all brown eyes are nice brown eyes, which resulted in Waterproof Trousers sulking. 
• Arizona Boy turned to Sara and said (in a deadly serious tone, I might add), "Sara, would you like to ride the Arizona Boy Helicopter of Love?". I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair. He did not appreciate my reaction.
• Upon leaving the bar, Arizona Boy found a stick in the gutter (ew), and proceeded to heard us all back to the hotel by smacking people's butts with the stick and yelling "Git along, little doggies!" in a bad cowboy impersonation.
• This VW Beetle from a nearby pizza shop (no, I can't explain the connection between pizza and a giant chicken either) was parked outside our hotel. Various people (ahem, Arizona Boy) thought it would be an excellent idea to climb on top of it:

To be fair, it DID somewhat inexplicably have a chair on the top of it...

The evening ended with Arizona Boy yelling down the hall to Sara and I that his room had a California king sized bed, and that the three of us should use it to recreate the Ringling Brothers Circus. Needless to say, we passed on that incredibly generous offer and cackled all the way to bed.

Moral of the story? Tequila is evil.

Arizona Boy's version of events the next day? "That wasn't me, it was my evil twin."

The best part of being the one who can't drink straight spirits because the smell makes you gag? Remembering everything that happened and being the one to fill in the gaps the next day.

Next up, a somewhat subdued trip to Palenque (the archaeological site), which I think was enjoyed by me and no one else, and we all make the most of our stupidly expensive Goretex jackets.

K xx

30 Days of Books - Day 18

Apparently it was -7 degrees in Canberra overnight. That may not seem like much to my Canadian readers, but that's completely insane, even by Canberra standards. The office was totally freezing after the weekend - I had the heater on under my desk all day, and still had to fight the urge to put my coat on at regular intervals. I've been home from work for about an hour and a half now, and I'm JUST starting to thaw out.

At least Leah's brought in yesterday's leftover chocolate truffles. There's nothing quite like delicious chocolatey goodness to make dying of hypothermia seem less painful!

Day 18 - A book that disappointed you

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Oh Mexico by Lucy Neville. I bought this at the airport in March when I went home for Em and Matt's wedding. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting from it, but I do know that I finished it and went "meh". I don't think it helps that the author was born the same year as I was, and I'm pretty sure I can write more engagingly than she can. And yet, she's the one who's a published author... *sigh* I know when it comes to a travel memoir, it can't be all action packed hilarity (okay, it kind of can. Bill Bryson proves it). But it kind of felt like I was reading someone's mass emails to their friends during their year abroad... And to be honest? I can get that without paying $28 for the privilege...

K xx

Day 01 - The best book you read last year

Day 02 - A book you've read more than 3 times

Day 03 - Your favourite series

Day 04 - Your favourite book of your favourite series

Day 05 - A book that makes you happy

Day 06 - A book that makes you sad

Day 07 - Most underrated book

Day 08 - Most overrated book

Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving

Day 10 - Favourite classic book

Day 11 - A book you hated

Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't any more

Day 13 - Your favourite writer

Day 14 - Favourite book of your favourite writer

Day 15 - Favourite male character

Day 16 - Favourite female character

Day 17 - Favourite quote from your favourite book

Day 18 - A book that disappointed you

Day 19 - Favourite book turned into a movie

Day 20 - Favourite romance book

Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood

Day 22 - Favourite book you own

Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't

Day 24 - A book you wish more people would've read

Day 25 - A character you can relate to the most

Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something

Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending

Day 28 - Favourite title

Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked

Day 30 - Your favourite book of all time

Boredom...

Earlier today, I was looking through the archives of my incredibly illustrious blog for something that I promptly forgot about. But in looking through said archives, I came to a realisation - I used to write about a LOT (not 'alot', which is completely different - see here if you don't believe me!) more than just baking and cooking. And - in my opinion at least - my blog was better for it.

So here we have a little promise - *places hand on heart* I pledge to blog about things that don't involve chocolate and butter and the use of knives and baking trays. And to rely less heavily on photos.

Because frankly, the past few months worth of posts (with the exception of my completely horrifying and embarrassing bridesmaid's dress related post) have been a bit of a snorefest.

I promise to do better in the future. Well, I'll at least *try*!!

K xx