wurble wurble sclup

[erastes]

Happy birthday melora98!!

Am watching Priscilla Queen of the Desert. What a GREAT GREAT film. What a cast. What a cast. I'd forgotten how damned good it was. And I'd never realised it was Hugo Weaving - and he's almost unrecognisable. What an actor he is.

A song of Ice and Fire to be made by HBO. I'm (like probably every grrm fan) in two minds about this. I'm thrilled to bits that it will make the screen, and it's better HBO than a lot of other networks

but...


ASOIAF is unmakeable. Let's be honest. It has a cast of thousands.

So, I'm reserving judgement. I'll probably have to accept the series in the same way that I watch the Potter films.

I don't know how many of you noticed the wank yesterday, which started with a honest book review on amazon, spread to Smart Bitches and then inevitably to the now ironically named FANDOM wank. But basically someone posted a review on Lady Blue saying that - for someone who considered the medieval period to be their favourite and how historical fiction should INFORM that the terrible inaccuracies in Lady Blue were just appalling.

Inaccuracies included:

The heroine is caled Willow. In the 1400s
Willow claims to be a huge fan of Michelangelo.
She had been in MUSEUMS
Willow serves tea from a teapot.
Willow is worried that if she is disobedient her father will send her away to a stuffy boarding schoolfor girls
Willow is given a dowry by of fifty thousand pounds.
Willowwithdraws this money from her BANK ACCOUNT using a BANK BOOK, and walksaway with it in her bag - ALL OF IT.
Willow goes toFrance, and feasts on such foods as potatoes, tomatoes, wild rice andchocolate mousse

The reviewer gave the previous 2 books good reviews, so whether the scathing review is personal or not is irrelavent as far as I'm concerned. The point is - what the HELL is the point of writing historical fiction if you aren't in the slightest bit intested in using the history of the day? Look. I love AU history books, if you can write a mix of technolgies convincingly, - like Pullman can - you will have a fan for life. Lyra's Oxford is a place I could happily spend the rest of my days. I've read books where computers and knights live side by side, but they don't pretend to be 1400 in england - not without serious time travel.

Look. I feel the same way about historical fiction as I do about historical drama.  I like it to be right.  I hate people to pick up a book, read it and feel that they've learned something about history, because if the book is bad history they'll just look a bloody idiot if they go to the next dinner party and start spouting off what they've learned.  I am perfectly happy to read a book which might describe ties instead of buttons or vice versa, becuase I DON'T KNOW and most people wouldn't, but tea, bank books and potatoes in the 1400's?  Surely people know this? Or am I attributing intelligence to the populace that I shouldnt?

What was unsettling to me, was so many people saying that "research doesn't matter" and I can tell you that the historical novel writing fraternity are perfectly horrified at this attitude.  Why then, we ask, do we spend years researching just to find out that you lot don't give a fuck whether the facts are right or not?

It's worrying!

Cinema Night - Miss Potter

A lovely film, the cinematography is fabulous, the acting is ace, the costumes are wonderful, Zellweger is brilliant. I might complain "don't we have any english actresses" but she really is good.

The only quibbles I have is that it is sanitised and saccarine, it shows a rather kind aspect of her parents, when they were a lot colder than that and until she had her own money was trapped, and that's not shown.  It's also not shown what a naturalist she was, how she studies, learned about the way animals were made up (by boiling Benjamin Bunny to see the bones for example).  It doesn't show that she actually had to SELF PUBLISH! *shock* and that Warnes picked up her books (which they had rejected) when they had shown to be popular.

However.  Note to self. Don't go and watch a film with sad bits when you are still grieving.