WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOOK?!
Oct. 8th, 2011 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
venetia_sassyI talked to Mum the other day, after she got back from visiting Charleston and Savannah. She was almost babbling, she'd enjoyed herself so much - and she told me she'd taken so many pictures and that I must read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil before she got back so I'd know what the pictures were about!
Okay? So I got the book out and figured I'd read it over the weekend while I was resting. Well, I started reading it today and finished it a couple of hours ago.
WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOOK?!
I always assumed it was some kind of Southern Gothic novel, from what I'd heard and since Mum kept it shelved with novels. And since my taste and Mum's taste in novels don't necessarily coincide ... (she likes literary novels. No, thank you.)
Instead it's part travel memoir, part biography, part true crime, all mixed together as a love letter to Savannah. And if I hadn't already wanted to visit Savannah, I would after reading the book. I'd shelve it with Gerald Durrell's memoirs of life on Corfu (the Rose Beetle man had a Southern clone!) which I utterly adore.
I'd be interested to find out what parts of the story Berendt did fictionalise and elide because I seriously doubt he managed to stay as detached as he presented himself but I rather liked the way he let the people of Savannah take centre stage instead of his own reactions to them.
I could babble on about the various persons of the book for ages but mostly I am still thinking, WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOOK?! It is so entirely my kind of book.
It's like when Leverage started and I saw mentions of it on my flist but I had no idea what the show was about and the name didn't inspire any curiousity in me ... and then I found out the show was essentially a series of one-hour heist and caper movies. WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THAT?! I would have watched that from the first ep ... although since it still hasn't screened in Australia (at least not on free-to-air) it might just have left me frustrated, in endless waiting for DVDs. But still!
Okay? So I got the book out and figured I'd read it over the weekend while I was resting. Well, I started reading it today and finished it a couple of hours ago.
WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOOK?!
I always assumed it was some kind of Southern Gothic novel, from what I'd heard and since Mum kept it shelved with novels. And since my taste and Mum's taste in novels don't necessarily coincide ... (she likes literary novels. No, thank you.)
Instead it's part travel memoir, part biography, part true crime, all mixed together as a love letter to Savannah. And if I hadn't already wanted to visit Savannah, I would after reading the book. I'd shelve it with Gerald Durrell's memoirs of life on Corfu (the Rose Beetle man had a Southern clone!) which I utterly adore.
I'd be interested to find out what parts of the story Berendt did fictionalise and elide because I seriously doubt he managed to stay as detached as he presented himself but I rather liked the way he let the people of Savannah take centre stage instead of his own reactions to them.
I could babble on about the various persons of the book for ages but mostly I am still thinking, WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOOK?! It is so entirely my kind of book.
It's like when Leverage started and I saw mentions of it on my flist but I had no idea what the show was about and the name didn't inspire any curiousity in me ... and then I found out the show was essentially a series of one-hour heist and caper movies. WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THAT?! I would have watched that from the first ep ... although since it still hasn't screened in Australia (at least not on free-to-air) it might just have left me frustrated, in endless waiting for DVDs. But still!
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Date: 2011-10-08 01:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-09 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-08 04:21 pm (UTC)But Leverage. Oh hell yes.
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Date: 2011-10-09 03:05 pm (UTC)Leverage! I couldn't understand why I'd been seeing posts about Nate's manpain instead of gleeful squee over ridiculous capers and Hardison/Parker/Eliot OT3!
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Date: 2011-10-08 09:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-09 03:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-16 04:42 am (UTC)So much love for Midnight.
Unlike, Aka, however, I must say that the movie is hot mess--in that it doesn't have much in common with the book other than the murder and the Lady Chablis. There's a few glimpses of what the movie could've been . . . except for the parts where John fucking Cusack shows up and then there's this totally forced romance between his character and Mindy (a fictional character.)
However, it also has the Lady Chablis (who, seriously, totally saved the movie.) I had *just* read the book when I went to see the movie so, my expectations were at an all-time high.
IMHO, the movie was different enough that they could've had the Lady Chablis as the detective and it would have been just fine with me. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-22 02:22 pm (UTC)I would watch that movie!
It definitely sounds like the movie should be viewed as being 'vaguely inspired' by the book rather than adapted from it. Adaptations are always hit-and-miss. I've tried watching the Miss Marple telemovies and I think I'd enjoy them if I hadn't read the books but as it is, they've changed too much!