2013: Books I Have Read So Far

I started off 2013 by re-reading two Tamora Pierce quartets. My friend Mark is reading all of her Tortall books over on Mark Reads, and last year I read along with him as he read Song of The Lioness, but I kind of ended up racing ahead. Tamora Pierce was my first true obsession – I first read the Lioness/Alanna books nearly 20 years ago. They were a gift from my ex-stepmother, who had given the books to all the important young women in her life, her nieces and god-daughter and then later, me. When she first brought me them to read, they were not in publication – they went out of print in the 1990s and came back in a few years later, maybe the very late 90s or early 2000s. She lent me all the books once, and was able to track down the first and fourth of the Lioness books in print in England. When she couldn't find the others, she took her niece's copy and recorded the entire thing aloud, the two middle novels, on cassette tape for me, and sent them to me from England. To this day, it's the most thoughtful and loving thing anyone has ever done for me. I still have the tapes, and I really want to get them made into MP3s.

Tamora Pierce's books, her characters – they forged me. Harry Potter, a few years later, brought me into fandom and things like that, it changed my life, but Tamora Pierce books made me who I am. I don't think anything will ever feel as mine as her books are, especially the Tortall books (though, in some ways, I find the Emelan series cleverer and more pithy.) They would be my specialty subject on any game show. I've always been incredibly possessive over them and this world – like they're the one thing that, if a film adaptation was made, I'd be like “wait, wait, wait, hold the phone, this is NOT OKAY, wait, I need to be involved in every aspect of this, I need to be the casting agent, I need to play Alanna, nope, NO ONE CAN MAKE THIS RIGHT EXCEPT ME.” They are my home. I cannot count the amount of times I have read them – I am on my third copy of the Alanna series – the first has fallen apart, and the second is on the way. They fostered a lot of other interests in me, like real-world medieval history and weaponry, and I'm sure that Alanna being my major favourite fictional character from age seven made it so I never even considered or doubted that there was anything a little girl could not do.

When I stayed with Anna, my ex-stepmother, in London a couple of years ago, I visited her while she was house-sitting for one of her nieces, who is, I guess, a few years older than me, in her 30s. I was staying in a spare room or study that contained a lot of books, and I saw, in her shelves, that she had the Beka Cooper books – Tamora's latest series, published in the last three or four years, which is a Tortall prequel series. This made me so incredibly emotional – I've never met this girl, this niece, but she had the books, Anna had given her the Alanna books as a young teen and she, like me, has kept Tammy all her life, she's kept buying the new releases, she's kept caring, well into adulthood. This surprised me, and meant so much to me. I've rarely felt so connected to someone, and this is a girl I'd never met or even really seen a photo of. I just saw those recent copies and knew she'd taken the same path as me. It was a really special experience.

One great thing about Tammy is that the books never quite feel the same – as I've grown and changed, I've viewed the books and various characters differently. The Alanna series used to be my world, and while it is always going to be the most special to me, I can look at it objectively now and see that it's quite rough and simplistic. I can see the restrictions put upon her by publishing as an unknown author in the 1980s, I can see the inconsistencies that are ironed out in later series set in Tortall, even in things like dialogue, slang they'd use. That is not to say that it doesn't still mean the world to me, because it does, they do. The characters in those books... are my friends. I can visualise them better than any other fictional characters, and I love them. I just wish that they could have been given the same opportunities, of length and progressiveness, as her later publications, in the 1990s/2000s. Like, my god, as an older reader, the canonical subtext between Thom and Roger is... almost painful, and it would be so cool to see those books exploring the full potential that they could have had. But they were an author's first work, and in the 80s, and at a time when it was hard enough to get a fantasy book taken seriously, especially one with a girl protagonist. Oh well. They're still great, they're still an amazing adventure and they're still my world. Hogwarts is for all of us. Tortall is for me.

The second series set in Tortall, around 10 years after the end of the first, is Daine's series, The Immortals, and that was the first thing I read in 2013.

The Immortals Quartet:

1. Wild Magic

2. Wolf-Speaker

3. Emperor Mage

4. Realms of the Gods

I realised on this re-read that my perspective on these books has changed the most out of any of Tammy's quartets. The format of them is quite different – both Alanna's series and Kel's, the next one, cover long periods of time – around ten years in total, each series. They're a pretty specific formula. The Daine books cover short periods of time – once a year, we drop into a specific adventure or conflict that covers a few weeks of Daine's life, rather than following her over the entire period of those four years. I found on this re-read that I actually really like this aspect, the close, fast-pasted, detailed coverage of a specific event rather than the vague coverage of four years in one book with a few main highlights. It is a lot more in-depth and interesting. I also liked Daine a lot more than I ever have before – I always loved her powers, naturally, but I don't think I much liked her for herself, I found her a bit tedious, and looking at her now, that's really changed for me. I – and I think this is an age thing – am also now obsessed with Numair. I used to not really notice him that much, and was never moved by his relationship with Daine. He, on this re-read, became my favourite romantic character of Tammy's. As a younger reader, I was a bit weirded out by the eventual Daine/Numair romance. It seemed strange to me, not inappropriate exactly, but not realistic and the age-gap put me off. I think this is because I was too young or immature, because now, at someone closer to his age – I'm seeing him not as a odd teacher figure, but as quite a sweet boy – which he IS, I just didn't realise that when I was 13. He's a total darling, and I love him, and I now see him as younger and more relatable than I ever did before. 

As I mentioned, my attitude towards Daine herself has also completely changed – I don't know why, or what changed, because it isn't as if I haven't read the books a lot, it isn't as if I read them once at 13 and once now. But something shifted for the better, and I now adore Daine's series. I've always loved Kitten, and I love what we see of Thayet, Jonathan, George and Alanna in this series, the progress of Tortall in the ten years since we left them. I love Maura of Dunlath. I love Kaddar – Emperor Mage has always been one of my favourite of Tammy's books, no matter what I thought of Daine I always found that story one of the best. And I always liked Rikash, but on this re-read, my liking of Rikash turned to full-blown favourite character obsession. I love every single word he says, I love what he represents, how he changes Daine's perspective and prejudices, and I actually put off finishing Realms of the Gods because of how much I knew I was going to not handle his death scene. I'd read it many times before and never been desperately hurt by it, but I knew this time wouldn't be the same – I know the books almost off by heart, and I remembered what Daine's inner thoughts were, and I knew it was going to wreck me, and it did. It was awful. It is awful. It is the worst death in any of her books, like the most viscerally, emotionally, painfully written for me. More than Alanna losing Thom, more than Liam, more than the little boys in the Trickster books. Daine staring at him getting killed from afar, screaming without realising it. “It was her voice. If she screamed loud enough, long enough, he would live. She hadn't realised that he meant something to her. She hadn't realised her was her friend.”

Jesus fucking Christ, right?

The Protector of the Small Quartet:

5. First Test

6. Page

7. Squire

8. Lady Knight

Kel's books have always been a solid favourite for me, because they take that original structure of Lioness – page and squire training, knighthood, and then out into the world – but they totally flip it around, showing the developments in the system since Jon became king – first and foremost, of course, the fact that Kel is publicly training as a lady knight, as opposed to Alanna's disguise. There are many other changes to the structure, the training processes, and I love all of them. I love all of Kel's friends, especially Neal, Owen, and Merric. The stuff with Joren and his gang is so exquisitely messed up. Lord Wyldon is one of the most interesting and complex of all Tammy's characters, and I love how much he comes to love Kel, and how much she knows it, despite the fact that everyone else thinks he is unfair to her. All their scenes together, where they have this unspoken understanding, they just pretty much all make me cry. They are wonderful. I also, of course – of course – am absolutely in love with what happens to Kel as a squire, that Raoul picks her and that we get a whole thick novel – Squire is one of Tammy's longest novels, and one of my very favourites (apparently it's Tammy's favourite, of all her books, too) – of amazing Raoul antics, he's one of my utterly most beloved from the Lioness books and I love who he has become while remaining his gorgeous, jolly, cheery self. Kel's relationship with Raoul is one of my favourite things in all literature. 

I love Cleon, I love Dom – Kel's fickleness with her crushes frustrates me a little, and I feel really sad for Cleon about how serious he is about her – I'd take him in a heartbeat - but I have read Tammy's take on this, and I respect it and appreciate that not every one of her girls ends up with a true-love ending. When Kel's series ends, she's really only on the start of her path, and while I'd love to see what ends up happening to her in the long run, I like the ending of her series. Kel's character is probably my favourite out of any of Tammy's Tortall girl-heroes – even though I grew up with Alanna as my idol (just like Kel did,) Kel's sense of self, her control, and her general personality is one I really admire and respect. If I could be like any of those girls, I would want, the most, to be like her. I can't wait for more books on her, which apparently are coming, from the point of view of her own first squire.

9. Playing Beatie Bow

Ruth Park

Playing Beatie Bow is an Australian children's or young adult book, a short novel about a 14-yr-old girl called Abigail who lives in The Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney city proper. She slips back through time to the same area in 1873, where she is – seemingly by accident or coincidence – taken into the care of the Bow family. It turns out that she was actually drawn specifically, and ties into a Bow family prophecy in regards to protecting their slightly psychic and healing Gift. I picked this up again (I had read it several times when younger) because I was thinking about it, and about the Rocks and the settlement of Sydney. It gives a fairly detailed description of the Victorian working classes and slums in Australia and I bet they make kids in school, age around 12 learning Australian history, read it for that cultural reason. It's well known and was recently reprinted in a line of Australian classics along with Seven Little Australians and Picnic at Hanging Rock. This book was written in the late 70s, published in 1980, when the author herself was in her 60s. I looked this up because it sort of seems to suffer for that – the dialogue in the book's present day, in 1980 or wherever Abigail starts out, is so unrealistic – not just dated, but really, really unrealistic that a teenager would have spoken like that. It has the kind of dialogue that you only really ever see written, like really prosy? It's especially noticeable when Abigail is speaking to Natalie, the four-year-old girl who she babysits. I don't know if the writer had ever met a four-year-old girl because no child, no matter how smart, would say lines like this – or have thoughts like this – at age four. They just wouldn't. 

Oddly, the stuff in 1873 is more realistic, though the family she stays with are immigrants from Orkney so a lot of their speech is written as dialect. The book, of course, features young love in the shape of Judah Bow, the son of the family who is one of those lovely, good, golden characters who you can't help but adore. Abigail comes into the past a cynical, sour thing, furious about her parents getting back together after her father had left the family years earlier, and comes back all softened and considerate and changed, of course. And she finds Judah, again, in a way. As I mentioned, the modern parts of this book are not the best-written thing I've ever read, but I would always recommend this as a book to someone who wants to know more about Sydney, because it is a really great portrait of the Victorian times here and the Rocks is a really interesting place.

10. Gray

Pete Wentz

I've been waiting for this book for a long time – a very long time. Since Wentz first came onto my horizon, in around 2005 – at this point he had already published The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, I believe – it was known that he was working on another book, at the time entitled Rainy Day Kids. This project disappeared, and he even told fans that he didn't think it would ever actually happen, but around a year ago – seven years after I first got involved – he started hinting that this thing was actually happening, posting a photo of a few draft pages. This absolutely stopped my heart, because Wentz's writing has always been what primarily drew me to him. I love the way he writes – in lyrics, but in broken poetry and prose as well. I'd go as far as to say that I was a fan of his before I was a full-on fan of the band's – I followed his blogs regularly before I actually knew the band that well, I was absolutely, absolutely in love with his words first. I have followed all his blogs since that time – the public ones, like on FOBRock, Buzznet or FBR, and the secret blogspots as well, of course, like nohartandsole, stagecoaches, and some that came before, though I now find I can't remember the earlier URLs. I think he even still had LiveJournal, as well. One of my favourite things about being a Fall Out Boy fan is hearing a new album and recognising lyrics – phrases, metaphors and such – that are fragments of old blogs, things I had read before and taken to heart, posted right as Pete was feeling them and offered up to the small congregation of those who always knew where to find him, the ones he left “breadcrumbs” for. So even though we have the wonderful fact that Fall Out Boy are now touring and recording again, I was already satisfied, prior to that announcement, just that we would be getting Pete's book.

Oddly enough, it wasn't quite what I expected , but perhaps what I should have. Gray is billed as a novel, and I knew it was going to be about a boy in a band on tour, and in a tumultuous relationship. However, for some reason, I expected it to be, well.. a proper novel, not something actually based on himself. Maybe because he's moved on so much in his life, through marriage, fatherhood, divorce, lowering his fame level, and becoming stable in love and life. I honestly thought he wouldn't want to revisit all of this, I thought he was writing something dramatic, yes, and based on feelings, yes, but this thing is not a novel, it's practically a memoir. Now, I don't claim to know the private goings-on as this man, but he has always been open and public, if you knew where to keep tabs on him, and the fact is that I recognise most of this story. I expected him to put across his opinions and feelings – his uncertain relationship with fame, things about mental illness and medication, and his experiences with love, but into a genuinely fictional story. Gray can only be called fiction in the loosest sense of the word. The protagonist, himself, is never named – it's in the first person – and the girl is never named, but if you know Wentz, you know who she is. The story covers the band's progression, and his love life, from prior of the recording of TTTYG to sometime after the recording of FUCT. So many facts are the same – locations, events, time periods, even the exact locations of the studios where both those records were made. Even people's actual names – not many characters are named but one who is, a crew member of Fall Out Boy's, goes by a famous nickname in real life. That nickname is changed, but his real given name is mentioned and is the same in the book as it is in real life. Patrick's in the book, though is referred to as Martin – as in Patrick Martin Stump. 

I also recognised, while reading, just like when listening to a FOB album, many passages from old blogs, many of his prosier writings, where he'd actually write in paragraphs or tell stories about himself as opposed to his more poetic, lyrical posts. As I said, this really surprised me, purely because I just didn't think he'd ever want to go back to this place, this headspace. Once I established that yes, we are going to this place, I settled in feeling deeply attached and deeply unsettled, because ten to one odds, most of the terribly harsh things I was reading had really happened – and most of these things were things our protagonist was doing, not things being done to him. We've always known how dark and unstable he was, always, but there are some scenes that were startling even to someone who has known just how fucked up Pete was, who had read those old blog posts that he'd post in the middle of the night and delete in the morning. Following the story closely, I knew what was coming – his suicide attempt in February 2005 – and when that didn't happen, I soon realised where the “novel” aspect of Gray comes in. Pete seems to have taken his own story, been an honest as possible, and then given it a completely different ending: ultimately more tragic, but maybe one he found easier to cope with, maybe one he would have preferred. He doesn't kill himself off, don't worry, but he certainly addresses that idea that, honestly, if you haven't felt, you haven't had a bad break-up – the idea that you'd rather someone you loved was dead, you'd rather they left you without it being their choice, that it would be easier to cope with than the pain you were putting one another through on a daily basis.

11. Struck By Lightning

Chris Colfer

I haven't seen the film of Struck By Lightning yet, and I will admit that I found it a little bit odd that he was even putting this out as a novel – a bit sell-outy, even, like he just wanted another book out at any cost. However, after reading it, I established that he'd actually – as the film's scriptwriter – taken the opportunity to go further into his characters, perhaps inner thought processes that he was not able to portray in the film. I don't know how much of that kind of thing made it in, like if the main character, Carson, had a lot of inner monologue, but if he didn't, the novel tie-in is, though quite simplistic, definitely a really great, and deep, resource for someone who enjoyed the film. The book also includes the entire literary journal that Carson produces, the writings of all the students that he blackmailed, and that was, I felt, an important experience, insightful and sad, which is something that Carson realises himself. Chris Colfer also, just like he did in The Land Of Stories, makes sure to have his character repeat, in passing, his negative ideas about fame, about pedestals of celebrity, and about the bad behaviour of fans. In TLOS, it's just one character tiredly mentioning dealing with the responsibility of the public eye, but in SBL it is slightly less subtle, because Carson is opinionated and scathing about everything. But yeah, Chris really isn't shy about his distaste for a lot of celebrity and fan behaviour, and it feels like that, if he can't outright tell everyone off, he uses his creations to put his opinions across and teach or guide his fans about how he feels on the subject. I was mostly unmoved, emotionally, by reading this book – I enjoyed it, but quite absently – until quite near the end when Carson discovered exactly what had happened to his Northwestern application. I was so furious and disgusted, like I literally went cold, I felt like a fist was gripping my heart, I was so angry on Carson's behalf. It really took me by surprise, how much righteous fury I felt, I think I said out-loud “wow, that is fucked up.” Anyway, I'm keen to see the movie, and I'm interested to see how much of the inner thoughts expressed made it into the film in some form.

12. How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less

Sarah Glidden

This is a graphic novel that I looked up and purchased after I saw Amanda Palmer looking for recommendations of books about Israel to read before she goes there for an event later this year. Several people recommended this and I had never heard of it. I've only read one or two novels set in Israel before, and seen one film. I'm going there in May on what will be my seventh or eighth visit overall, my first visit in nearly ten years, and my first time alone, not with my dad and younger brother. For those who don't know, my background is Israeli – my dad is from there, and all of his family live there – his mother, sisters, and my two older half-brothers, though both of them lived in Australia for times as teenagers/young adults. The reason I live here, and that he lives here, is because my mother was a control freak, but that is a long story for another day. Israel has always been a fixture in my life, since before I knew its position on the world map, the conflict, etc. It was where I was taken on holidays, to see family, and most of my memories are of the beach, riding bikes around my grandmother's kibbutz, my dad showing me all the places he'd done metalwork, flea markets, being bought new clothes, a particular type of strawberry ice cream, apartments with tiled floors in every room, and lots and lots of cats and dogs – everyone in Israel has a lot of pets, and all I wanted as a child was animals all the time. On the kibbutz, even, my dad's best friend from school ran a small zoo, where she had a tame meerkat, and lemurs and spider monkeys. That's my Israel. I knew nothing about the conflict, about Palestine, about why people might be anti-Israel, or any of that.

This graphic novel is the direct opposite: it's the true story, or diary, of this girl Sarah, from NYC, who is Jewish by birth but who claims to be progressive and liberal, and apparently being progressive and liberal means being anti-Israel? She decides to go to Israel to sort out her feelings on the situation and see for herself – she goes on taglit, a Birthright trip, which is a program set up by the Israeli government which offers young Jewish adults the chance to visit Israel, for free. Like, they pay everything – international flights, accommodation, travel around in a guided tour. There are all different styles of taglit trips – religious, non-religious, ones from different countries or even niche trips – there's ones for outdoors types where most of the spare time is doing extreme sports, and ones for special needs groups... But the basic structure is a 10-day tour around Israel, explaining the history to young Jews. The agenda, I'm pretty sure, is to encourage them to “make aliyah” - to move to Israel and become a citizen, or at least to feel connected to Israel and to defend it on a world scale. No matter the niche, there are several spots that every tour visits – places like Masada, the Old City in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, they learn the origin of the kibbutzes, they go to the Negev Desert and learn a bit about the Bedouin tribes. They spend time with young members of the army – army service is mandatory in Israel, you go in between high school and uni. I have never had any desire to do taglit, even though a free trip anywhere is appealing. The author, Sarah, went on a non-religious taglit – I mean, Israel is a Jewish state, so things are historically Jewish, but on a non-religious trip they don't push any religious rules on the group. Sarah, the author, is not shy in portraying herself as going in cynical and argumentative, expecting the whole thing to be sheer propaganda, but then goes through the process of an attitude adjustment, as she meets new people. The group visits places that do seem to push propaganda – the visitor's centre in the Golan Heights, for example, but Sarah is surprised to have this issue addressed by the tour guide as soon as the group gets back on the bus. Her group's guides, who are Israeli Jews, don't shy away from the issues of the country and present a more unbiased view of the situation and the conflict than she was expecting, and even though Sarah has done as much objective research as she can and is prepared to attack at every turn, she finds herself questioning a lot of things. She admits that she came there, originally, to validate herself that Israel was definitely the bad guy, because they are the ones with the power, and that she could go home without having qualms of cutting it out of her life forever. She ends up conflicted about this.

She finds some ingrained prejudice, but also realises she has a fair bit of her own. It was a really good read, and gave me a perspective on why people may actually be anti-Israel. Sarah mentions at some point, that she's felt like that if you're Jewish, you're meant to support Israel no matter what, and she doesn't, so she feels conflicted. I think that I'm probably one of those people, though more out of thoughtless loyalty than Zionism. I look at Israel and I'm a child, saying “but what's wrong with it?” This gave me some idea of why people have issues with the creation of Israel, though it is hard for me to really commiserate. My family were in concentration camps, they went to Israel to be free. My father was born in a holding camp as they waited to emigrate. What am I meant to do with this information? I have bias. I was glad to see that Sarah didn't do a total 180, because even my dad hates the creepy Zionist attitude and is against a lot of current Israeli politics – he loved Rabin, naturally, may his lovely soul rest in peace, and hates Netanyahu. He – and most Israelis I know – also really dislike the Hasidic Jews, mainly for their hypocrisy – they, in our experience, find every loophole to live by their laws and feel superior about it. Like how cutting the hair is forbidden, but it specifies something about shears, electric razors weren't invented in the Bible, so they're totally fine to cut the hair with. So even Israelis have varied feelings about aspects of Jewish culture. There's a pretty big rift between secular and orthodox.

The book does a good job of portraying two sides to a lot of stories – like the security wall, disrupting a lot of Arab settlements, but reducing the amount of terrorist attacks from something like two per week, to about four a year. At some point, Sarah hears from an Israeli how it is to turn on the radio and know, if there's a happy song on, it's okay, there hasn't been a bomb that day. I've lived that. I literally know what that's like. I've been there when a bomb goes off – everyone in Tel Aviv loses cell reception, did you know that? It's like when you go to a music festival, and everyone is texting each other so the entire place gets messed up signal? Imagine that, except it's everyone checking to see that their friends aren't dead, weren't in that nightclub or that bus. The same person who recounts this also gives an honest opinion on most people's view of sending kids to the army – that no one glorifies it, thinks it is normal or easy, or wants to send their kids. I've been to a few of the places that Sarah goes to – I've been to the Golan, I have a photo lying around somewhere of us on the edge of a minefield. I've been to the Sea of Galilee. Tel Aviv, of course. I've been to several kibbutzes – my dad grew up on one, and I've seen the way they've changed over the past couple of decades, the privatisation. I've been to the Dead Sea, but not to Masada, and one part of Sarah's aggressive cynicism and determination to root out “brainwashing” that actually really interested me was her comparison of the original recorded story of what happened there to the softened, heroic legend that commonly goes around.

Another part of the book I really liked was where Sarah described the Israeli temperament, the blunt criticism that is common – no soft-pedalling. She explains that the upside of this is that any compliments given are genuine, and she says “My gratitude towards this Israeli honesty did have its limits, though to me, it's worth getting offended by someone if it means I can trust their true opinion.” I was raised in an Israeli family, and this trait is definitely something you may recognise in me if you have experience dealing with me. I'm not saying that I don't have some social problems regardless of culture, but if you're sensitive, and find me too blunt and difficult, I do not suggest making friends with Israelis. They can be harsh, sometimes in a way that seems very mean – more malicious than I believe I've ever sounded. But it's all just candid, unfiltered honesty, and they're also very forward, honest and unfiltered in what they do like. It's definitely something that's influenced me and been part of my upbringing.

I've been to the Old City in Jerusalem, to the Wall, to the markets and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but I haven't been to Jerusalem city proper, or to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial. I want to go there – though want isn't the right word, I need to go there, but I have never known how I will handle it. I have trouble dealing with Holocaust imagery in general art exhibitions and such – I mean, I'm sure it's no cakewalk for anyone – but alternately, I've read quite a few books – people's biographies from the Holocaust, or Jews escaping it, in the Second World War. If you have ever received an email from my personal account, you'll see the email signature is a quote, “what gives light must endure burning,” which is a quote by Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl is a bit of a hero of mine, he was a Jewish psychiatrist who performed mental health care on other prisoners in the camps with him. Before the war, he set up a program counselling high school students free of charge, and this was credited with vastly decreasing teen suicide rates in Vienna, where he practiced. He wrote many things, including a short but brilliant book called Man's Search For Meaning, which is about his time in the camps and the development of the idea of discovering meaning in all existence, and hence, a reason to keep living. If you are interested in a general Holocaust memoir you could try Night by Elie Wiesel or Elli by Livia Bitton-Jackson. Anyway, the point is, I'm an Ashkenazi Jew and come from a family of Holocaust survivors. I have Holocaust issues. Naturally. I could never, ever visit the actual camps, in Germany, Poland, etc. I have been scared of facing Yad Vashem for over ten years, I don't know how to handle it, who to go with. I didn't know how I felt about going with family or with going alone. What I'd most prefer is to go with a good friend who's more detached than me, who is there to support me, but I don't think that's possible. Naturally, no one is going to come to Israel with me just to hold me upright. So we'll see how that goes.

In May, I'm visiting Israel for the first time since 2004, and I'm going alone. I'll be mainly staying with my family, but I will be an adult tourist, not with my dad and not being ferried around. This is my first chance to experience Israel from my own perspective, and I've been curious and somewhat anxious about it. I feel this inexplicable need to make the most of it, to do and see the right things, to not miss out. I'm only going for about two weeks. My younger brother, since graduating high school, has spent large chunks of time there, like a couple of six month stints. He has been absolutely impossible, I asked him what to do and his answer is to go sit in cafes in Tel Aviv. Now, I'm not exactly a “tourist attraction” type traveller, but sitting around in cafes for six months? Reading this graphic novel was a good experience for me. The author was not scared to portray her own flaws and prejudices, as well as the ones she found in Israel, and was open about expressing her positive experiences and changing point of view. While I don't think I could ever truly empathise with her original determined anti-Israel stance, her story did give me a better perspective and understanding of why people may feel that way and what some of the problems are in a way that actually makes sense. One of Sarah's issues, before she went to Israel, was a lack of objective material about “the situation,” and with writing How To Understand Israel In 60 Day Or Less, she's done a pretty good job at filling that gap in the market. I would definitely recommend this graphic novel to anyone visiting Israel, or anyone who is curious or uncertain about what things are like there.

Reviews - Films of January 2013

Here are the movies I watched in January:

People Like Us

(watched at home on 4th January 2013)

Watching this film cemented something in me that I have been coming to terms with for a while - I kind of like Los Angeles now. I used to HATE it, and in a lot of ways I still do. A lot of it is ugly, dry, dusty. They don't look after their old art deco buildings. The roads are all broken. The kind of arid scenery they do have - palm trees, canyons and so on, I don't find appealing. The culture is strange. It's extremely difficult to get around it without driving, and I don't drive. The fact that everyone else does drive means that there are not many places designed for traversing by foot, nice places to walk around. The public transport is very limited and kind of scary, and there's barely anywhere that you can hail a cab. It is the opposite of New York and if there is a word stronger than 'opposite,' apply that to London. However, somehow, just by passing through over the last five years, I have discovered pockets, things scattered around the city, that I actually do enjoy, and since my most recent trip to the USA in July, my mind keeps treacherously wandering to these places and somehow, against my own will, I find myself wishing I was back in Los Angeles. Sitting in Intelligentsia in Sunset Junction after purchasing several bags of hand-made salted caramels at the Silver Lake Cheese Store. Shopping at Amoeba, drinking at the Cat and Fiddle, watching a Disney classic at El Capitan Theatre. The Los Feliz Farmer's Market on Sundays, where we bought local honey from a blind man and the best brownie in the history of creation from another stall. The stretch of Vermont that counts as Los Feliz is probably the most pleasant and civilised stretch of street I've found in all of  LA, except maybe down in Santa Monica, which is a whole other type of civilisation, shamefully taking 90 minutes to reach on public transport if you're coming from Hollywood. Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, ending up in the VIP loft at the Troubadour. The beautifully maintained entrance hall at Union Station. Griffith Observatory, for the Tesla coil demonstrations, the coyotes and the sunset. Paramount Studios, not only because they make some of the best TV and movie, but for the glory of Old Hollywood and how carefully that has been preserved. Even the shopping complex of Hollywood and Highland, if you ignore all the people in costumes - the mosaic artwork in the plaza telling the anonymous stories of those who've made it in LA and the outrageous lies or dodgy tricks the took to get there.

Los Angeles is a true character in this movie, in a way that reminds me of all the things I like about it. It would be nice if I had Chris Pine to drive me around in a shiny Mustang, though - I am sure I would start to love it in that scenario. Chris Pine, Chris Pine, Chris Pine. Is there anything he cannot do? If you do not like him, you are wrong. No arguments. You are wrong. He is wildly, wildly talented. His range as an actor is extraordinary, I have seen nearly every film he has made, they're all different, every character is vastly different, from “blind dude in a rom-com” to “neo-nazi punk in an action film” and he just always manages to elevate whatever he is doing to some next-level shit. If he is in a film, he will make the film good, even when the film should be bad. Even when the film is “Just My Luck.” He has a special quality about him, he is a masterful actor, and I am in love with him. He looks like a frat-boy ken doll and has an English degree from Berkeley. He is genius-levels smart and it shows in his work, particularly with dialogue – nothing he ever says sounds unnatural or like an affectation. He is amazing. He is perfect. However, this film, People Like Us, is a film about family relationships – about him as a brother who finds out about his secret half-sister as an adult, and about him as a son, dealing with his mother after his father dies. The iconic Michelle Pfieffer plays his mom, and Elizabeth Banks, who is sharply, sharply intelligent, plays the sister, and the result of putting Chris Pine up against women who are just as smart and talented as him means that their chemistry is off the charts – in a way that's a little inappropriate for family relations. To be fair, this may have been intentional – it's certainly part of the plot with the sister-who-doesn't-know-she's-his-sister, but even at the end, after the inevitable shitstorm, and he's begging her to let him be her brother, it still feels intrinsically romantic in some way. Like, it's just that intense, there's just that much chemistry, and you don't generally see family members talk to each other like that. God, he is good with Elizabeth Banks, they need to be in more things together, because I have seen him act against a lot of people and I have never seen him work better against someone – well, maybe Quinto, but this was something very unique. The sister's son, Chris's character's nephew, was also a fucking gift, one of the most talented child actors I have ever seen, and his interactions with Chris were priceless. The kid's name is Michael Hall D'Addario and I am going to be keeping an eye on him because he was genuinely brilliant. Everyone in this was brilliant, honestly, including the surprise appearance by Mark Duplass, and the magical Olivia Wilde, but that trio of Chris, Elizabeth and the child was something that I bet film-makers do ritual sacrifices in the hopes of finding. All in all if you like things that are good, you should see this movie. It had a smallish budget, which it didn't even make back at the box office, but was clearly a labour of love – it was made by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who co-produced Star Trek, and it was based on true events of Kurtzman's actual life. It is quite an odd film, quite startling, but it is genuinely very good, and really, honestly, nothing like any other movie that I have seen in a long while. I couldn't define it. It just is, and what it is is good.

Anastasia

(watched at home on 4th January 2013)

This was, by no means, of course, the first time I have watched this film. It is my favourite animated movie, far surpassing anything by Disney, and I have felt that way since I first saw it, which would have been at the cinema, sometime between 6th and 7th grade. I remember knowing I wanted to see it and asking a friend to come with me, and I remember the vague feelings of shame, or like I had to “convince” her or talk her into coming to see a cartoon. I can't remember if this was unfounded or not, like whether she readily agreed or whether I actually did have to beg her, but I remember feeling like I might need to because at that time, I was under the impression that people our age did not go to see cartoon movie without little brothers or sisters or whatever. This was something that followed me through most of high school – perhaps there were groups of people out there not giving a shit, but I cannot remember, as a teenager, anyone having any fondness or respect for “children's” things, like animated movie, Disney, etc. I know that I was invested in some afternoon television animated series, like The Animals of Farthing Wood and Madeline, at an age that was deemed “too old” and, again, had to make excuses about it. Aria and the Simpson were okay, but not stuff meant for actual children. I secretly read and enjoyed books that were considered “too young,” as well. Something I have noticed in the current day and age, in fandangos, on tumble, etc, is the stigma of all of this has melted away. This can only be a good thing. I have a lot of gripes with tumble as a random medium and the way it has spread the idea of certain subcultures to a much wider audience, some of whom really don't know how to behave, but I will say this – I have to hand it to the younger generation of kids who seem to no longer have any shame about hanging on to childhood – adults reading YA books, teenagers crying over Disney films, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Adventure Time. There seems to be a much more widely spread acceptance of all forms of entertainment and art, that people aren't ashamed or dismissive about appreciating things simply because of the recommended age bracket. I bet Harry Potter had a lot to do with that, and, as I said, the fact that “geek culture” and random behaviour is becoming less of a subculture. When I was in early high school, like, the four Goth kids in the corner would have had a Livejournal, at my all girls school. Nowadays, for better or worse, it seems like millions of kids have Tumblr, people make friends at school via Team StarKid references, and all that. I don't know. Maybe this was always happening, in some way, and I just knew the wrong people. But it does seem like there is a higher percentage of young geeks out there now, readers, lovers of culture, people who just like good stuff, and if I was twelve nowadays I wouldn't have had any shame in asking someone to come see Anastasia with me.

So yes. It's my favourite animated film, and on this re-watch, I think I figured out why. It's tonally so different to Disney, which I already knew, of course – it's really dark, really messed up, Disney would never tackle this kind of thing, though Hunchback gets really dark, for them – but the characterisations, as well. Now, we all love our Disney princesses, and there are strong women among them, in their own ways – Belle, Jasmine, Megara – but it isn't until you get to Mulan that you get a hardcore BAMF. And Anya, in Anastasia, is an absolute BAMF. She takes no shit, she is just so fucking cool, and she doesn't have to run away and pretend to be a guy to do it. The way she sasses Dimitri, constantly, is incredible, and the bit on the train where he's expecting her to hand him an axe and she hands him the dynamite? Also, in the end, she saves herself, and him, from Rasputin, which, yes, sort of happens in some Disney, but this is better. It helps that I am also obsessed with the lives of historical royalty, particularly the children of revolutions, because it's always super-sad and messed up. I have read countless, countless historical novels/diaries about people like this – the Tudors, Jane Gray, Marie Therese of France... so yes. Anastasia's story has always fascinated me, and I love how tough she is in this movie, because she was, she was a little terror. I've always been a little curious why they messed with the ages – she was aged 8 in 1916, in the movie, when in reality she would have been 14. They could have kept her as 14, and then had her meet Dimitri ten years later, at age 24? That's not super old, is it? Though maybe they wanted the audience – of children – to relate to a child, in the first scenes, and then when she gets kicked out of the orphanage it's at the “legal adult” age of 18. Whatever. I pretty much wept through the entire film on this viewing, god, the bit in “Once Upon A December” where she dreams of all the dancers and then her father cuts in and she bows to him? Kill me now. Also, the bit on the stairs at the opera in Paris, when Dimitri sees her in that dress. I want that damn dress. Someone make me the dress. I still don't completely understand the ending – why does she have to elope with Dimitri? Why, as a dethroned empress, can she not just marry who she wants and still be publicly acknowledged? She could totally grant him a title. But I just love them, I love the way they talk to one another, I love the way their faces are animated. The animation style has always been a big thing for me, it's a touch more “real” than Disney's, they look like real people, and Anya is just so gorgeous and feminine without being totally delicate. Like, they somehow make her look slightly out of place in her formal gowns, even though she looks amazing. Something about the way they've done it makes you just feel that she's wearing this as a costume, no matter how good it looks, as opposed to, say, Belle, who is equally at home in the blue pinafore or the yellow ball gown. This movie just feels, and has always felt, exceedingly natural to me, and I love that about it.

I also love the songs. So much. There have been rumblings about a Broadway adaptation of this movie for a long time and they actually did a reading/workshop of it in the middle of last year. Aaron Tveit read as Dimitri and I swear to God if he doesn't actually do the role if/when this thing makes it to stage, I will build a fucking barricade outside his house because I will just die if he doesn't do it after knowing he has been attached in some way. He would do this role flawlessly. His range is amazing, particularly as a screen actor, but as a Broadway romantic lead he tends towards flamboyance in a way that – for his Fiyero, for example, I didn't love – but that is perfect for Dimitri. Dimitri is a fucking drama queen, he throws his hands up, he swings his hips when he walks. I can literally see Aaron moving the way Dimitri is animated in the movie, I can visualise it, and his face looks right, his lovely nose and his voice is right. PLEASE give this to me, world. If it comes down to it, I wouldn't mind Darren doing this, of course, he would kill it, too (though they'd need a rather short Anya to match him) but Aaron is the Dimitri of my dreams and I am not just saying that because of Les Mis, but because I am a Broadway stan. Groff could do it, but he doesn't the right mix of innocence to his face – he either looks totally smarmy or totally sweet. Dimitri is a con-man, but not properly- much like Frank Abagnale, the role he originated in Catch Me If You Can, so there's that. Anyway. If Aaron does this role, I will be fucking flying to see the initial run of this when it is released (it will be Europe, maybe West End, but tipped to actually premiere in St Petersburg) and as a matter of fact I may still do that regardless of who is cast, because I want to see this show so, so, so much. Oh my GOD, you know who could totally do it? Jamie Parker.

I'm a little afraid about the music – they're allegedly only using five songs from the movie and adding 15 more – and I've stressed out over which movie songs they may cut. I have assessed that they HAVE to keep Rumour In St Petersburg, Journey To The Past, Once Upon A December, In The Dark Of The Night, and Learn To Do It, but I cannot imagine them omitting At The Beginning, even though it was a pop single/the credits song, because it was such a big hit. Rumour In St Petersburg is one of the best establishing numbers I have EVER seen in a musical, FYI, and the flawlessness that it will be on stage will be worth the cost of my plane ticket to wherever the show runs. I AM seeing this, when it happens, I will not miss the initial run of this show.

There is not a single person whom I know of who I can picture playing Anya, but I am sure she is out there somewhere.

Les Miserables

(watched at cinema on 11th January 2013)

Yes, again. I have a rip of the DVD screener sent out for the awards-show circuit, so there are certain bits that I have seen way too many times now, but I will be going a couple more times to the cinema before it leaves, and I will do a final assessment post about it then, because the feels, they keep on coming. For this viewing, I went alone, I sat in the front row, and I spilled popcorn all over the floor.

Hitchcock

(watched at cinema on 29th January 2013)

I know nothing at all about Alfred Hitchcock, but the trailer impressed me and basically, I love biopics. I tend to get invested in people via their story, rather than objectively by their work (see: The Libertines, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Oscar Wilde) – that is not to say, whatsoever, that I don't like their work objectively, or that there aren't many creators of whom I simply like the work, and don't know about the person behind it, but if I know someone's story, and it moves me, I get really, really, really invested in them, and the point is, I don't think I have ever actually seen a Hitchcock film, but it did not stop me wanting to see this movie, because it looked interesting. It was interesting, however, the way that Hitchcock was portrayed as rather sad and sympathetic confused me, as I had had the distinct impression that he was quite awful. Apparently this was not an unfounded impression, and that in this movie he was altogether too nice. There was a HBO biopic of him released last year as well, which apparently went too far the other way, I read an article saying "...Hitchcock was depicted in his twin biopics as either a charming but troubled genius or a monstrous sexual obsessive..." neither of which are probably completely true. Helen Mirren was, of course, awesome, as was Toni Colette who played their assistant – Toni Colette is possibly my favourite actress ever and she and Helen Mirren, as a team, gave this really cool dynamic of power. I also loved ScarJo as Janet Leigh, and I am not usually ScarJo's biggest fan. It was interesting to watch the film-making process, like to see them editing reels by hand – god, that job must have been so incredibly hard – and there is stuff I still can't work out whether is true or not, like Hitchcock taking the knife and doing the stabbing himself while filming “the shower scene” of Psycho. I was also not 100% sold on the whole thing of Hitchcock being followed around and haunted by Ed Gein – I do not think that happened to him in real life, and I am not sure what it added to the picture. The other thing I kept thinking about was the Hitchcocks' massive and beautiful house and the fact that they seemed to not have any staff – like that they just cooked for themselves and ate in the eat-in kitchen of this giant mansion. Understandable later in the film, when they start cutting expenses, but the entire way through, they lived a very small life in a very big house and it was just something I kept wondering about. Perhaps that was true and was just a lifestyle thing. Anyway, I liked the film well enough, but it had some serious oddness about it. Fun Fact: I saw this in the exact same cinema that I saw the above showing of Les Mis, and I knocked the popcorn over again. However, I was not as fail as the woman sitting behind me, who was having the loudest and stupidest reactions that I have ever heard from someone in a film audience. Oh my god, she was hard to tolerate.

Rise of the Guardians

(watched at cinema on 30^th January 2013)

This was a really creative and interesting movie that I had been keen to see due to the animation and the voice actors. This film is based on a book series but set around 200 years after those books take place, and I would be quite interested in reading those books, the origin stories of each of the Guardians. The lead character is the figure of Jack Frost, the spirit of winter, and aside from being crush-worthy gorgeous, he is voiced by the amazing Chris Pine, whom I waxed lyrical about earlier. The concept of all the elemental spirits was quite unusual, particularly their version of the Tooth Fairy – and the Sandman, of course, when compared to my dear Dream King – but it was really nice world-building. It was a cute, and sad story, with a pretty scary villain. Jude Law scares me at the best of times, and his character was definitely causing some childhood trauma to the rest of our audience. Some parents can't gauge their kids' reactions very well, because there were children there scream-sobbing the entire way through. That was somewhat off-putting. But the movie had some really, really funny bits – North's (Santa) stuff was all really, really funny and he may be my new favourite Santa of all time, kudos Alec Baldwin for that. If you have seen it, the bit where he was marching along on the spot excitedly with the elves? I died. And I loved the rest of them trying to do Tooth's job when all her fairies were trapped. Jack, of course, was lovely and sassy and gorgeous and sad, and I’m sure the film-makers thought they were putting in a slight implication of him and Tooth getting together, but dude, I was shipping the hell out of him and Hugh Jackman's Easter Bunny. There was one bit, where Jack pretends to fall off the sleigh, and Bunny's reaction, where I was like “dammmmn.” Yeah, it's a giant anthropomorphic rabbit, so what? Tooth is mostly hummingbird. They're elemental spirits, I'll ship who I want. Okay, wait, I've checked AO3 and people totally ship it. Good to know it's not just me being weird, I haven't been this relieved at “not being the only freak shipping this” since I discovered that no, it wasn't just me, the major ship in Little Miss Sunshine IS Dwayne/Frank. Oh my god, that movie is intense and if you do not vibe that ship there is something wrong with you, honestly. Look at me, bringing cross-generational incest into my review of a children's movie! Keeping it classy as always. Anyway, I am not someone who goes into anything – particularly not children's movie - wearing slash goggles – if I vibe something I vibe it, I don't set out to start shipping people – so the fact that I vibed it in this means that it must be legit. Amirite? Probably not. Oh well.

Coming up... February so far:

Eurotrip

The Silver Linings Playbook

Looking For Alibrandi

The Castle

Review: Pitch Perfect - ACAMAZING

Pitch Perfect
(watched on 2nd January 2013)

 I know that Pitch Perfect has been out for months in the USA, but it has only been in cinemas for a few weeks here. I knew it was going to be good, but oh my god, it was one of the funniest films I have seen in a long time. There were some flaws that stuck out to me - firstly, although Aubrey's regime for the Bellas is clearly crap, it would have been nice if they had kept the "we only do female songs" aspect because, you know, girls. Secondly, it felt a bit unfinished - like that maybe there were sub-plots that were meant to happen and that got cut, but they left the set-up in there to meander out? I'm thinking the stuff with Freddie Stroma, Aubrey's daddy issues, some of the Amy/Bumper stuff (the "Why do you have Bumper's number? " "Ummmmm... ahhh.. ummm.." and also some of the Chloe stuff - I've heard that the movie was meant to go to a Beca/Chloe place and that they changed it, and it felt like a LOT of set-up was done for that and then they just decided to literally change it half-way through filming. It felt like the reveal of "who's a lesbian" was meant to be this, like, unexpected twist as Chloe, but then it wasn't? I don't know, was that a thing?

Regardless of that, though, I can't believe how involved I got in the film - like, just sheer delight at the musical numbers - there were a few where I literally wanted to (and did, quietly) applaud, or wanted to (and did, quietly) sing along. And the most unrestrained laughter I have had in a cinema in a very long time, I think everyone in my group ended up sliding out of their chair at some point. Rebel Wilson, my god, the whole audience was dying, most of us with the added aspect of actually understanding exactly how awful and un-PC her Australian references were (they were bad, you guys, reallllllly bad) and also having grown up watching her on Pizza, which was, side-note actually filmed on location in a store right down the road from my old house and school. But seriously, "sometimes I have the feeling I can do crystal meth, but then I think, mmm... better not." This, in context, absolutely murdered me, as did everything Elizabeth Banks said. And Anna Kendrick was great, she has always been great, I have loved her since I saw sing "Ladies Who Lunch" in her first movie, Camp, at the cinema. If you have not seen this film, run, don't walk, run and see it NOW, it is absolutely everything Glee wishes it could be about performing arts students, it is one of the best films of all time. She's just so natural and cool.

Skylar Astin is a prince, and a brilliant Broadway baby, and I loved his character and would like to date him myself, though I would have been okay with Jesse and Beca being BFFs and the film actually going to a Beca/Chloe endgame, seeing as Beca complained about movies having predictable endings in a way that made me think there would be more of a twist. But dude, when she was singing "Don't You (Forget About Me)" at the end, and I realized a heartbeat before it happened that he was going to do the Judd Nelson fist-pump KILLER. Also, when this happened, my friend Francesca was crying, I mean like... glasses fallen off, full on weeping. I have never seen her cry more in my life, she assures me she has when watching things in private, but I have never seen her cry like that in front of people or watching a movie. And while I was not sobbing like her, I do understand the sentiment.

But yeah. It was just all so damn cool, and engaging - both the initiation party scene and the riff-off were so totally awesome and vibed really realistically, in regards to those kind of communities and college parties. Also, if you look closely, one of the song topics on the riff-off spinning wheel was "songs ruined by Glee," which, lol forever. By the end, that final Trebles number, the Cee Lo/B.o.B one, I was like, finger-pointing and seat dancing and not even pretending not to sing along. Basically, plot-holes aside, this was a bloody brilliant music-related film, with some extremely fresh writing, and I want to watch it again pretty much right now.

Twenty Thirteen: a prize for the most awkward-sounding year.

It's a new year (it's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new liiiiiife) and while I'm not really one for doing things purely because it's a certain date or a social norm, I am in the process of trying to change some aspects of my life in general, so I guess that I do have some "resolutions."

I hope to:

- do some sort of physical activity or exercise twice a week

- take a vitamin tablet every day

- do a water-as-my-only-beverage day once a week

- watch at least one movie per week

- read at least one book per week

- write/document every book or movie, even if it's just one paragraph

- re-read Les Misérables cover-to-cover, at least one chapter per day

- watch the entirety of Lost without looking up any spoilers

- start learning to drive

- complete scrapbooking/photo albums of 2009 - 2012 events and travel

- visit a country that I've never been to before, that isn't a Western culture, and survive my eating problems

- visit my family in Israel

- write and post a physical letter once a fortnight

- make one video blog per month

- write one personal blog post per week

- make a new friend in the "physical space"

- find a new activity or unique day out in my city once a month

So yes. I need to get a new diary and calender in order to cross things off, like the vitamins, or make some sort of checklist. Christmas was ehhhh. The hype does not thrill me, and large social gatherings of family whom I either have to "explain myself" to or avoid make me quite anxious. I hope you all had a nice time. I was delighted to receive a StarKid fan-made shirt in this style from my Hypable Secret Santa. I was also sent an epic Not Another Teen Wolf Podcast stenciled tote bag and a hand made Teen Wolf charm pin by my crafty friend Courtney (who is definitely the greatest addition to my heart that 2012 gave me.) My housemate Francesca gave me a Wills and Kate Christmas card, which is definitely a keeper, and the four of us in our house had a small Christmas party in which we went to the zoo, then came home and watched Elf and Love Actually.

(A photo (of a photo) of people who love giraffes (who love giraffes.))

On New Year's Eve, we went out at midnight and watched the fireworks over the city from the hill at our train station. It wasn't the full show, it was about nine awkward locals standing around in silence on a traffic island together, but whatevs. We actually spent most of the evening at home having drinks and watching Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2012, which was amazing. Lobstromonous, even. The best BFQOTY since maybe 2007, or even 2006, (the first one I saw, back when I was living in London) - fuck, have I fucking mentioned how much I fucking love British comedy and all these people? Because I do. A lot.

Since 2013 has existed, I have:

- had a panic attack over the fact that Tyler Hoechlin is just currently chilling somewhere in my city, like no big deal

- tediously spent around 16 hours editing a podcast

- watched Pitch Perfect (at the cinema) and People Like Us (at home) - reviews coming tomorrow

- finished the first book in Tamora Pierce's Immortals quartet, which I am re-reading for the 762nd time because my friend Mark is reading and writing about them on his blog

- not been able to stop thinking about Les Mis in some format for approximately 20 of the 24 hours in any given day, I mean seriously we're talking about anything from comparing the various cast recordings and loving how the film has thrown back to the original 1985 London cast in regards to tone and delivery; to remembering more canon included that I forgot to mention here, like Marius threatening to blow up the barricade; to dipping in and out of the book (mainly Les Amis, I won't front) and recalling what an actual lolrus Victor Hugo was, how funny, snarky and distinct he made these ten boys ("Here lies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose, Blondeau Nasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplinae, the bloodhound of the password, the angel of the roll-call, who was upright, square exact, rigid, honest, and hideous. God crossed him off as he crossed me off.") and how much more horridly tragic it is when they all die so specifically; to mapping out a walk described in the book by comparing a map of 1830s Paris to current Google Maps and finding out what streets changed names; to wondering why no one has made some sort of graphic set incorporating the Frank Ocean verse of "No Church In The Wild" with stills from the film; to trawling Youtube for bootlegs and trying to work out how much book/stage-show/movie crossover there is (and deciding that the director and cast of this period of the West End run really have the right thing in mind when it comes to Enjolras and Grantaire, damn; to theorizing how, because of above hilarity, snark and distinct characterisation, that if the BBC or HBO did a miniseries just about Les Amis, about their formation as well as Eponine and Marius's friendship, and the few years lead up to the June Rebellion - if viewers got to know these bromantical boys, with their nobility and their sass, that it would be complete and utter fandom fodder and then they'd have to open a support phone-line to deal with the results of the finale in which all the people you love are KILLED HORRIBLY AND SPECIFICALLY, not in one big shoot-out as per the musical. So yeah. That's mainly been my 2013.

Today, however, was a little different. Everyone in my house had a day off, so I took them to two different Eastern Suburbs swimming locations. I'm not a fan of the Eastern Suburbs, it's a very snobby and rich area, the kind of young people who choose to live there are not generally the kind of people who would mesh well with the kind of people who live in the Inner West, like me, and it's very difficult to get around as far as transportation goes. I mean, I even grew up on the North Shore, which is VERY upper middle class, and I went to a Catholic private school. Eastern Suburbs private schools make my school look like Waterloo Road. But the area has great swimming.

These aren't coastal beaches, like Bondi or whatever you might be familiar with. These are within Sydney Harbour, so much more sheltered. The first is a private beach at the bottom of the gardens belonging to a public historic house:

After a couple of hours here, we moved down the road a little bit to Murray Rose Pool in Double Bay, which was called Redleaf Pool when I was a kid. This is a huge harbor pool with facilities: showers, a cafe, and most importantly, things to jump off of.

There was much leaping to be done, off the pier fence boardwalk, and off the floating pontoons.

Also, at this pool. a tiny little girl, around three years old, made her mother tell me she liked my swimsuit. I looked down and the kid had literally exactly the same swimsuit as me - a one piece in the same exact print - and I did not know whether to feel complimented or humiliated. Oh well.

Hmmmmm.

Review: Les Miserables - To Love Another Person Is To See The Face Of God

So, I saw Les Misérables. Twice, actually. I saw it on 22nd December, at a midday advanced screening session which may have literally been the first public screening in Australia, and then again yesterday.

I won't spend a huge amount of time explaining what this show means to me. I will say that I have seen it onstage about seven or eight times. This includes professional productions (in Sydney, 1997 and in London, in 2006 and 2007) as well as school and local productions. I have seen the 10th anniversary concert DVD over twenty times, the 25th anniversary concert at the cinema. I have read the book, and seen the non-musical films (the 2000 miniseries with John Malkovich is the best in my opinion) and I have listened to the soundtrack literally hundreds of times (again, 10th anniversary cast = best cast.) I will say that I know every single breath of the show as a musical, every word, that it is my favourite musical, that it changed my life, that it was probably what drew me into being passionate about music as a medium in general, and that it – extending to more musical theatre – would be the reason why songs that are stories mean the most to me, in any genre. So yeah. Les Mis is kind of a big deal for me. This movie coming out – kind of a big deal for me. It had the potential to be the best or worst thing that has ever happened to me, and, good news, I'm currently leaning towards best!

God knows how many times I'll end up seeing it. When I worked at a video store, I used to put the 10th anniversary concert DVD on every weekend shift. When my brother was in the ensemble of a production of it at his school, I ended up going three times – and spoiler alert, it wasn't because I was proud of my brother or anything. Sorry, brother.

Anyway, I have to write about my feels. The first part of this will be general, about different aspects of the movie/musical, and then the end part – which is long – explains my feelings on a certain aspect/certain characters in the book-canon who are my favourite and my babies and the amazing way the film has used the book as a resource to actually show some of that in a way that the musical is usually too simplistic to be able to focus on.

So, first off, the leads:

Hugh Jackman as Valjean – was fine. He was not bad at all, and I especially liked the Soliloquy/What Have I Done as well as Who Am I. He managed the live-singing aspect really well in these, the pacing and the emotion. His quiet breakdown whisper on “I feel my shame inside me like a knife” will be sticking me for a long time, as will his delivery of “yes Cosette, forbid me now to die” in his death scene at the end. But Valjean just never moves me that much anyway though? I know he's the lead and whatever, but he just isn't the focus for me. I have heard Hugh Jackman talk about this live-singing process and how it means that you're not limited to the traditional song structure or whatever – that he had the freedom to go from speaking to singing, from quiet to loud, power, whispers, making acting choices with the singing delivery as opposed to delivering a formally structured song performance, and he definitely did well in this aspect.

So did Anne Hathaway, who was flawless perfection as Fantine, a character I usually ignore. She genuinely used to bore me and I never cared for I Dreamed A Dream. But wow, wow, wow. She was the best, just the best. That live-singing-making-acting-choices thing? That aspect worked better for her than for anyone else, she was the best at making the medium work. She was just amazing, beautiful. I never thought much about her as an actress, just never gave her that much thought, until I saw her onstage in 2011, doing a reading, at an event hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and she just blew me away then, as a stage performer. It's her medium, I don't want to say she's wasted in film, exactly, but she kind of is, and while this is obviously film as well, she was using stage-acting qualities and this just made me want to see her on Broadway. Of course, film has the added benefit of doing face close-ups, and while this was something over-used in the movie (I will get to gripes in a little bit) for her it worked, the horror of her getting fucked by the sailor client, the single-shot take of I Dreamed A Dream, and the close-ups of her delirious, happy, dying craziness... yeah. She was something else. I was so reluctant about Anne Hathaway for the longest time – since 2001, when I stamped my foot and said “she is NOT my Princess Mia!” and proceeded to not forgive her, for ten years. I can safely say – Anne, you are more than forgiven. I'm sorry.

Apologies are also in order for Mr Russell Crowe. When this casting was announced I was just absolutely like “Nope. No. Terrible.” I don't know why I was so objectionable about it – I think it was that I knew his singing voice isn't the traditional booming powerful voice that Javert generally has, and also that he isn't harsh enough, that he didn't seem stern and cold and brutish enough. Yeah, I eat my hat. Because he wasn't those things – he wasn't – but he was something better. He gave Javert this real nobility – not the harsh righteousness that you automatically want to oppose, but this vulnerability that was almost close to Asperger's or OCD. He reminded me, uncontrollably in some ways, of Sheldon Cooper, the way he played Javert's single-mindedness. I found myself finding him sweet, even, like in the scene where he comes to report to Monsieur Madeleine – Valjean, after he's rebuilt his life, saying he's there to serve – it was almost like an eager puppy, and again later when he comes to admit that he thinks he's done wrong by Madeleine and asks Madeleine to press charges against him because he feels that he deserves it. He isn't a hypocrite, and he sees the world in black and white. His singing wasn't that strong, honestly, and it struck me the first time I saw it, but by the second, I didn't mind it – and the lack of boom and power suited his version of Javert anyway. I cannot believe what brilliant character work he did, it seems I was forgetting that Crowe has two Best Actor Oscars. I was intrigued even by his movements, his weird precision, his pacing the edge of the roof in Stars, a metaphor for his faith, and his movements fighting Valjean in The Confrontation. The Confrontation in general was staged perfectly and was one of the best moments of the film. And then, when he joined the revolutionaries undercover, you could see it, you could see him starting to have his values shaken, to start to see the grey areas, even before Valjean frees him. The most emotional part of the movie – the part where I broke down and sobbed, I mean really sobbed, couldn't stop, was a wordless moment too detailed to be in the musical and, to my recollection, wasn't in the book either, and it's when Javert is observing all the bodies laid out, of the revolutionaries, and he passes over Gavroche, crouches down, and pins his own valour medal on him. I fucking lost my shit. It was the most beautiful thing they could have done, I wasn't expecting it, and I have tears dripping again just writing this. So yeah. I loved his Javert, even if he isn't the greatest Broadway-style singer I have ever witnessed.

The Thénardiers – were well cast - I usually greatly dislike Helena Bonham Carter, but she was great for this, she really was - and performed well, but it was all done a bit too lightly. Bits of Master Of The House were TOO much comic relief in a way that just didn't suit the rest of the movie's tone. In the musical, Lovely Ladies can also be a funny-ish number, but here it wasn't, it was sinister, so Master Of The House should have been a little more sinister as well. Most of it was okay, but some of it was just a bit too stupid, and that goes for their appearance at the wedding as well.

Cosette – both Isabelle Allen (baby Cosette) and Amanda Seyfried made her a lot less simpering and a lot stronger than how she's done in the musical. Amanda especially – I mean she wasn't exactly a tough rebellious woman, but she had enough independence, enough strength of character, pushed Valjean enough, for me actually to be offended on her behalf when Valjean and Marius are keeping things from her “for her sake.” Usually I just find her wishy-washy and annoying and getting in the way of one of the saddest and most beautiful OTPs ever, but I hated Amanda's Cosette much less than any other Cosette.

Marius – Eddie Redmayne gets ALL THE AWARDS. God. He'd never sung before doing this film? He was so, so good. He has something, that kid, he is always so interesting to watch, and again, Marius is usually kind of a dumb drip. He was way more enigmatic than most Mariuses I can remember seeing, and I can't believe how good he sounded – not flawless, not the most traditional tone, but strong and interesting and just, yeah, he was great. I know that all Les Amis de l'ABC,  including him, sat with the director, Tom Hooper, and drew a lot from the book-canon for all their characters, and they crafted a wonderful Marius. I'm glad he got the role and he truly deserved it, even though people were screaming for it to go to a Broadway veteran. Apparently he's been obsessed with the show since he was seven years old and it legitimately inspired him to start acting in general, and yes, good, yes.

Samantha Barks as Eponine – oh, Eponine, my dearest, dearest girl- was perfect and criminally underused. For some reason – I'm going to go out on a limb and say 'they were on crack,' they cut several of her best dialogue-y scenes – her first long back and forth with Marius, that really paints the picture of their relationship – they kept, like, one line; and also the awkward introduction, by Marius, of her and Cosette as adults.. but what she did have was perfect. On My Own wasn't the traditional ingénue belting it out to the back of the room, it was her crying into her knees, and A Little Fall Of Rain – oh, man. That's the song that literally took me years not to cry in even on the cast recording. I will always cry every time I see it staged, but I used to cry every time I even heard it. It was beautiful, and the film included the book-canon aspect of her directing the soldier's gun to shoot her, rather than her just getting picked off while climbing to Marius. Ughhh, that poor girl. I swear to God, if anyone has ever come out of Les Mis actually shipping Cosette/Marius instead of wishing that Cosette would go away and Marius realise how amazing Eponine is, you are doing it wrong.

Daniel Huttlestone as Gavroche was another flawless part of the film – sometimes Gavroche can be a bit of a snotty, arrogant brat, too sassy, too Artful Dodger, and not, to me, all that likable. This version was perfectly balanced and adorable and you loved him and Les Amis loved him and he died horribly and even Javert loved him. I desperately want to get a TARDIS, go and get Javert and Gavroche, and have Javert run off with him and raise him in a caravan, like Bruce Willis and the kid in Moonrise Kingdom.

Aaron Tveit as Enjolras was a prince, he was poetry in motion, the rest of Les Amis were marvellous, especially George Blagden as Grantaire and Fra Fee as Courfeyrac, and you could tell they were truly feeling it in all their amazing group numbers, and there's about 3000 words to follow of my Barricade Boys feelings, so strap yourself in.

Before we get there, though: some gripes and some loving mentions:

There were a couple of aspects of the film I didn't love: there were too many close-up shots. Yes, I get that they wanted to show off their live singing and do single takes and make a big deal of that but you didn't need to do it for the entirety of every solo. Some performances suffered from it. It worked for Valjean's Soliloquy  I Dreamed A Dream, and On My Own – even On My Own didn't need it. Everything else could have been less close-up-in-your-face. Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, especially – not that Mr Redmayne couldn't sing it, not that he needed the takes, but the performance would have been better and more moving if we'd panned around, if we'd had flashbacks of the rest of his friends, all that kind of thing. I can't believe I'm saying this, but more montages were needed? This could be said for a few of the songs that just lingered on the singer's face. The movie had such a huge and grand scope, yet they spent so much time right up here in your face – often with quite strange framing, due to the fact that they may have got a perfect singing take from a less than perfect camera angles. So yeah, the group numbers really stood out for me as stronger.


They also did this thing, a couple of times, which I did not understand at all, which is where they would change a bit of random wording from the original for no purpose that I could tell? Like, the musical came first, I am not sure why they changed words to fit the film, surely they should be building the film around the words? One random one that stands out was Bamatabois, “Javert, would you believe it, I was crossing from the park...” and in the film “Javert, would you believe it, I was lost here in the dark..” like.. why couldn't he be crossing from the park? They could have put a park there? Another was just a word change of the Bishop, saying “I have saved your soul for God” instead of “bought your soul for God” - the imagery of saved rather than bought paints kind of a different picture to me, because for the whole musical Valjean considers the entire thing a sort of bargain.


Also, the new song, Suddenly. Look, it was actually sweet, and I know they want the Best Song Oscar and to be eligible for that you need an actual original song, but like... I'd have rather have gotten more Eponine/Marius flirting, or Grantaire's verse of Drink With Me, or the full Attack On Rue Plumet. I know they filmed EVERYTHING, and Tom Hooper's original cut was nearly 5 hours long, and there is just stuff I would have rather seen than that new song which I have zero investment in.


This length issue/cutting issue also leads to my final problem with the movie, which is that some cuts were made in odd places – cuts that messed with the flow of a song, or didn't complete a rhyme. It was quite jarring, as was a thing they did a few times in which they would change the order of dialogue in a song, which again messed with the rhyme and flow – for example “come on ladies, settle down, I run a business of repute, I am the mayor of this town” was changed to “come on ladies, settle down, I am the mayor of this town, I run a business of repute..” and the transition was really awkward? And less than 5 minutes later they had it again, with the Runaway Cart and the line goes, from Javert as he speculates on the Mayor reminding him of Valjean: "forgive me sir, I would not dare.." and Valjean saying “Say what you must, don't leave it there!” and in the musical these lines are switched? Like Valjean says his first? I get why they did it – because in the song, Javert then goes to sing about his explanation of the criminal Valjean, and they don't do that immediately in the movie – Javert comes to him later. So they can't end the scene with Valjean saying “say what you must, don't leave it there” and then Javert just... not saying anything.. but the flow of it doesn't work well.

However, all these issues were things that jolted me on my first viewing, because I had all the exact wording of the musical in my head. On my second watch, it was very easy to just go with it, gloss over it, and get used to it, and I can only imagine these issues will go away even more each time I see the film again and get to know it as its own permanent entity.

Um, Colm Wilkinson (the original Valjean) cameo as the Bishop, every hardcore Les Mis fan would have been crying at that; scenes/staging that I adored: At The End Of The Day was incredible, the women working with Fantine, the foreman, and the fact that Valjean sighted Javert and that's why he didn't stick around to help – I always raise my eyebrow a bit, in the stage show, where he comes in and is like “what's all this? You fix it,” for pretty much no reason. I liked the re-structuring of some of the songs, like changing the order of I Dreamed A Dream/Lovely Ladies/The Runaway Cart – the new structure worked PERFECTLY for the storytelling medium of film. At first I was a bit taken aback by the change of Do You Hear The People Sing – usually they go straight into it from Red and Black, but in the film they do Red and Black, they have all of Marius and Cosette's meeting (In My Life/Heart Full Of Love), On My Own, and One Day More before doing Do You Hear The People Sing, and I am sat there going 'where is it?' But they do it the next morning, at General Lamarque's funeral parade, as an initial movement of rebellion and protest, and the effect of it is absolutely chilling and by that moment, I knew, I knew that this whole thing could have disappointed a lot of people, it could have all gone wrong, but it wasn't going to, that this was right, this was the best, because there is literally no way to top how they did that scene. The finale of Valjean watching the reprise of Do You Hear The People Sing on the gigantic barricade, with all the honoured dead, is also so grand and beautiful that I have never envied actors more than I envy the people who got to be a part of it.

I also love how much book canon they were able to use. LOVE it. I have already mentioned a few moments, but others that stand out include the removal of Fantine's teeth, the fact it was Christmas Eve when Valjean fetches Cosette as a child, Fauchelevant taking in Valjean and Cosette at the convent, the elephant statue Gavroche lives inside, and a lot of details about the Cafe Musain and the goings on of that time, including actual details of the June Rebellion, such as the funeral parade. There is so much more, I haven't read the book since high school and am in the process of going through it again now, but those are just a few I remember.

But for me, because I'm me – the most important book-canon aspect and the most interesting relationship in the story is that between Enjolras and Grantaire. If you've seen the musical, you know who Grantaire is, even if you don't know you know – he's the one always shown to be drinking and messing about. He's the one that teases Marius about falling in love with Cosette and encourages him, in order to goad Enjolras, and he's the one with the incredibly cynical second verse in Drink With Me: ("will the world remember you when you fall?/could it be your death means nothing at all?/is your life just one more lie?") In the book, however, it is so much more detailed: Grantaire is a sceptic and a cynic, a hedonist and an alcoholic, he's brilliant, witty, funny, he doesn't believe in the revolution, in their common cause, he isn't honourable, he thinks Les Amis de l'ABC are wasting their time. However, he stays with them, he keeps coming to meetings – even when he interrupts said meetings with poetic and distracting monologues; he keeps asking for tasks to be assigned to him, even when he fucks up and does not fulfil them. He canonically calls himself R, because Grantaire sounds like grande r – capital R in French, and so does Les Mis fandom, and so shall I. So why is R still hanging around the Cafe Musain, when all he does is get drunk, drop truth-bombs, and mock people? Enjolras. R is pretty much in love with Enjolras – not because he believes in Enjolras's ideas, but because he believes in the boy himself.

From the text:

Still, this sceptic had fanaticism. This fanaticism was not for an idea, nor a dogma, nor an art, nor a science; it was for a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical doubter ally himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what way did Enjolras subjugate him? By ideas? No. Through character. A phenomenon often seen. A sceptic adhering to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colours: that which we lack attracts us. Nobody loves the light like a blind man. The dwarf adores the drum major. The toad is always looking up at the sky. Why? To see the bird fly. Grantaire, crawling with doubt, loved to see faith soaring in Enjolras. He needed Enjolras. Without understanding it clearly, and without trying to explain it to himself, that chaste, healthy, firm, direct, hard, honest nature charmed him.

Instinctively, he admired his opposite. His soft, wavering, disjointed, diseased, deformed ideas hitched onto Enjolras as a backbone. His moral spine leaned on that firmness. Beside Enjolras Grantaire became somebody again. On his own, he was actually composed of two apparently incompatible elements. He was ironic and cordial. His indifference was loving. His mind dispensed with belief, yet his heart could not dispense with friendship. A thorough contradiction; for an affection is a conviction. This was his nature. There are men who seem born to be the opposite, the reverse, the counterpart. They are Pollux, Patroclus, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechméja. The live only on condition of leaning on another; their names are sequels, only written preceded by the conjunction "and"; their existence is not their own; it is the other side of a destiny not their own. Grantaire was one of these men. He was the reverse of Enjolras.

We might almost say that affinities begin with the letters of the alphabet. In the series O and P are inseparable. You can, as you choose, pronounce O and P, or Orestes and Pylades.

Grantaire, a true satellite of Enjolras, lived in this circle of young people; he existed within it; he took pleasure only in it; he followed them everywhere. His delight was to see these forms coming and going in the haze of wine. He was tolerated for his good humour.

Enjolras, being a believer, disdained this sceptic, and being sober, scorned this drunkard. He granted him a bit of haughty pity. Grantaire was an unaccepted Pylades. Always treated rudely by Enjolras, harshly repelled, rejected, yet returning, he said of Enjolras, "What a fine statue!"

------

So yeah. R is obsessed with Enjolras to the point where Victor Hugo makes all these allegories to the Ancient Greek homoerotic figures – Enjolras's introductory pages compare E himself to Antinous, Aristogeiton and later in the text, to Apollo – and here, E and R as a pair are painted as Achilles and Patrocles, Alexander and Hephaestion, Euryalus and Nisus, and of course, Orestes and Pylades, the last of which becomes very important later. The thing is, this is a “two-halves-of-the-same-whole” allusion, not a “close friends” allusion because they are NOT friends. If we were talking about the best BROTP in nineteenth century Paris, we'd be looking at Enjolras and Combeferre, who very much calms E down - ("The Revolution was more adapted for breathing with Combeferre than with Enjolras. Enjolras expressed its divine right, and Combeferre its natural right. The first attached himself to Robespierre; the second confined himself to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world more than did Enjolras. If it had been granted to these two young men to attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise man.")

Grantaire is barely even tolerated by Enjolras, but he loves that E believes in himself, even when R lives to tease him about that very fact (though not really, remember, an affection is a conviction.) He loves that E believes in people being good, being righteous, because he thinks that the human condition sucks so badly, and he can't make himself not believe it, but he wants so much to be wrong. He wants Enjolras to be right. They are tied together, by love, fate, whatever – something different to logical convictions. Alexander and Hephaestion, Orestes and Pylades, Enjolras and Grantaire, but Enjolras won't accept the connection. But R keeps hanging around, just to be with E. Enjolras, whose character is made pretty obvious even in the simplified musical, “was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible.” He's very noble, he has incredible convictions, he is the spark. Without him, the boys would just be sitting around saying “wouldn't things be better if...” and many of them were really just kids playing adult games right up until they died.

But Enjolras was the real deal, harsh, true to his convictions, and, in a way, totally naïve. ("He chastely dropped his eyes before everything which was not the Republic. He was the marble lover of liberty. His speech was harshly inspired, and had the thrill of a hymn. He was subject to unexpected outbursts of soul.") I mean the way he reacts to Marius falling in love with Cosette is basically the same as, on Teen Wolf, the way Derek reacts every time Scott is distracted by or prioritises Allison, he's like “I don't have time for your teenage shit, Marius, ugh, I'm so above this” but it's actually because he's so naïve and repressed that doesn't know how to open himself up at all. There is a bit (in a chapter called “Wherein Will Appear the Name of Enjolras' Mistress”) where the other guys – not even Grantaire, just some of the boys - are teasing about Enjolras and discussing how he could possibly be so passionate – the kind of crazed bravery usually inspired by love of a woman. “He is not in love, and yet he manages to be intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man should be as cold as ice and as bold as fire." E overhears this and mutters “Patria.” - homeland. So yeah, Enjolras is in love with France. He's that guy.

ANYWAY, the volumes of the book focusing on Les Amis de l'ABC feature quite a few scenes of Grantaire's dedication to Enjolras, and trying to win his approval. There's a bit, where E is trying to send people out to different neighbourhoods  to spread the gospel of Enjolras or whatever, and because Marius is off chasing Cosette, E finds himself a man short. R is like “hey, what about me? I can do it!” and E is like “what the fuck, YOU? Er, no.” Let me post you the dialogue here:

"I have to have somebody for the Barriere du Maine. There’s nobody left."

"Me," said Grantaire, "I’m here."

"You?"

"Me."

"You to indoctrinate republicans! You, to warm up, in the name of principles, hearts that have grown cold!"

"Why not?"

"Can you be good for something?"

"I have a vague ambition in that direction," said Grantaire.

"You don't believe in anything."

"I believe in you."

"Grantaire, do you want to do me a favour?"

"Anything. Polish your boots."

"Well, don't meddle in our affairs. Sleep off your absinthe."

"You're an ingrate, Enjolras."

"You'd be a fine man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You'd be capable of that!"

"I'm capable of going down to the Rue des Grés, of crossing the Place Saint-Michel, of striking off through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherch-Midi, of leaving behind me the War Ministry, of hurrying through the Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, of striding through the Boulevard, of crossing the Chaussée de Maine, of crossing over the Barriere, and of entering Richefeu's. I am capable of that. My shoes are capable of it."

"Do you know anything about those comrades at Richefeu's?"

"Not much. We're on good terms, though."

"What will you say to them?"

"I'll talk about Robespierre, by God. About Danton, about principles."

"You!"

"Me! You don't do me justice. When I get going, I'm formidable. I've read Prudhomme, I know the Contrat Social, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. 'The Liberty of one citizen ends where the Liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have an old assignat in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, ye gods! I'm even a bit of a Hébertists. I can repeat, for six hours at a time, watch in hand, superb things."

"Be serious," said Enjolras.

"I'm fierce," answered Grantaire.

Enjolras thought for a few seconds and gestured like a man making up his mind.

"Grantaire," he said gravely. "I agree to try you. You'll go to the Barriere du Maine."

Grantaire lived in a furnished room quite near the Café Musain. He went out and came back in five minutes. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat.

"Red," he said as he came in, looking straight at Enjolras.

Then, with the flat of his huge hand, he smoothed the two scarlet points of his waistcoat over his breast.

And, going up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear, "Don't worry."

He jammed down his hat resolutely and went out.

-----

So yeah. You get the picture. R will do anything for E if E wants him to do it – especially if it's E that asks him specifically, not just a general part of going along with everyone, but he still is a major sass-monster right to E's face, and it is all very amazing and tragic. Later, E goes to check on R's progress and finds him at du Maine, playing fucking dominoes with the people he'd been sent to convert. What's weird is we don't get a reaction to this – the chapter ends with E just watching the scene play out and the dialogue of the game, no chastising of R, no resolution, resignation or confrontation. (Because of this, I like to imagine that R was winning them over in his own way, by drinking and playing with them and slipping things into conversation, and not that he simply got distracted and failed. But it is R, so unfortunately he probably did just fail.)


On the day of the revolution, Grantaire is having some breakfast wine with some of the others and they get a messenger from E. R is a sulky baby because E sent the message directly to one of the others and not to him. ("Enjolras disdains me," he muttered. "Enjolras said: 'Joly is ill, Grantaire is drunk.' It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet. If he had come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enjolras! I won't go to his funeral." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH no.) So basically he switches from wine to liquor and gets shitfaced while the others prepare to fight. Because the boys are basically still idiots, they end up building the barricade outside their wineshop, and when Enjolras arrives there, he tries to send Grantaire away, to sleep off his booze somewhere else, because, in E's opinion, R is “dishonouring” the barricade. E telling him off totally makes R shut down, stop fighting and sassing him, and he quietly begs to be allowed to stay there with E, to just sleep in the corner.

-----

Grantaire, keeping his tender, troubled eyes fixed on him answered, "Let me sleep here -- until I die here."

Enjolras stared at him disdainfully.

"Grantaire, you're incapable of belief, of thought, of will, of life, and of death."

Grantaire replied gravely, "You'll see. You'll see."

-----

R then passes the fuck out and sleeps through. The. Entire. Thing. He sleeps through the whole final day of the battle, through the barricades all falling. The National Guard chase off the students, the revolutionaries, and they box them up like rats in a trap inside the cafe, shooting at them through floors, which opens the chapter titled Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk – I told you that would be important! The last one left alive is Enjolras, they know he's the leader, and they corner him, defenceless and beautiful, in an upstairs room. He throws aside his broken gun and offers himself up to their guns honourably  and his nobility kind of chills everyone into silence, to the point where they don't want to do it. They lower their guns a bunch of times. They ask him if he wants his eyes bandaged, he says no. They ask him if he's sure it was him who killed their artillery sergeant, he says yes. “Perhaps it was of him that the witness spoke who said afterward before the court-martial, "Three was one insurgent whom I heard called Apollo." A National Guard who was aiming at Enjolras dropped his weapon, saying, "It is as though I'm about to shoot a flower."


When the room goes quiet, as the Guards are holding back from shooting E, R wakes up. “Noise does not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the crumbling of all things was his lullaby. The sort of halt which the tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood.”


So what happens then? He comes over, unnoticed, and as the Guards are preparing to shoot again, he calls out to stop them. "Vive la République! I'm one of them. Count me in."

-----

He repeated: "Long live the Republic!" crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.
"Finish both of us at one blow," said he.
And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him:
"Do you permit it?"
Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.
This smile was not ended when the report resounded.
Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed.
Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

-----

So, yeah. He wakes up, realises what the fuck is going on, and basically has no interest in living in a world without Enjolras, or in letting E die alone. He won't die for E's cause, but he will die for E himself, with E accepting him, holding his hand, smiling at each other.


ISN'T THAT JUST LOVELY AND CHEERFUL. So yeah. I don't think I need to really explain WHY this is just the most asnbdhvvdsmnjkjkqwg of relationships? If you have a soul and good taste, you ship, or at least, are intrigued, by E/R. I mean it isn't exactly subtle, especially in a 19th century religious novel. But yes. Where were we. Oh yes. The musical and the movie.


With the musical, a good director, who knows the book-canon, knows how to stage the Grantaire stuff – there are certain parts of songs/Enjolras's lines that should be directed TO him, and certain parts in group numbers that he must be the one to sing, including, of course, the bitter, cynical verse of Drink With Me. A director or actor who knows Grantaire knows how to basically play up this relationship, and the movie really does do that. Even though some of it was cut, I've read the script and there were a lot of stage directions pertaining to the E/R connection – ones that are still apparent are mainly, of course, in Red and Black, where Grantaire is mocking the shit out of Enjolras, incensing Marius while giving E these sassy-as-fuck looks because he KNOWS what Marius's mooning is doing to E. And then E sits Grantaire down and sings the “it is time for us all to decide who we are” at him and kind of chides him, which is the correct direction that verse should be taking – some lesser productions have E direct that bit at Marius, and it shouldn't be – it's directed at R, and then becomes all-encompassing to the group. The movie stages it perfectly, and later, in One Day More, Grantaire's reaction shot didn't make it in, but the stage direction on E's line of “will you take your place with me?” is 'from top of stairs, for Grantaire’s benefit' and then 'Grantaire rather reluctantly goes upstairs.'


And then. And then. The death scene. See, the thing is, in the musical, they don't really do the "Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk" scene. It's too complex, the show is too simple, and they basically just have all the boys get shot down on the barricade, including Grantaire. Enjolras dies last, always, and the traditional way it's done is that he falls, lying on his back hanging down the barricade, his red flag streaming out below him like blood. It is one of the play's most iconic images. This may be a good time, or a weird one, to mention that I actually wanted to call my first son Enjolras, for about five years in my teens, until I realised that it may be cursing him to a life of dismay in more ways than one.


Anyway. The movie. It does the book's death scene, and it ended me. The killing of the students is a lot more raw, visceral, less noble than in the traditional musical. They realise they've lost, they run, they try to get to safety, and the people of Paris, the ones they were trying to save, close their doors to the students. They get boxed in, they get shot through the floors, and Enjolras is cornered, alone, in the upper room. They don't do the dialogue, but Grantaire comes in, stops them, says “Long Live The Republic!” and then crosses the line to take his place beside Enjolras. E hoists the flag he still has wrapped around his fist, and they are shot together, die together. They're in front of an open window, so Enjolras does get his traditional stage-musical death shot of being splayed upside down with the red flag, but still. I NEVER expected the movie-musical to include their real death scene with this much thought into what it meant. Ever.


It turns out both Aaron Tveit and George Blagden, E and R respectively, used and became obsessed with the book-canon of their characters, both together and in general, and used it as a terrific acting resource. It really, really shows. Aaron has spoken about it in a couple of interviews, and George is extremely active on Twitter, is pretty much a shipper himself, and possibly doesn't know what he's getting himself into with fandom. But he tweets things like this:

That moment when consciousness returns to the drunk man who then realises he is about to lose everything he ever cared about in this world.


I mean, thanks, George, really. Thanks for that. I'll just go cry in a Fortress of Solitude now. It has actually been a really long time since I have seen a screen actor this obsessed with his own character, and his own character's canon. That kind of thing is like crack to me. So yeah, I am drowning in a well of Grantaire feels right now.

This is approximately 7000 words long so common sense dictates that I need to stop. But yes! Les Mis in general gets a big thumbs up from me, and I hope I have traumatised you with information you probably didn't know about one of the greatest (and most canon) queer ships of all time!