Entertainment

On the TV front, The Looney Tunes Show and Big Bang Theory are back with new programs. Excellent news. I was excited, but ready for disappointment back when when I saw the ads for Tunes. So much had been recreated in a new pattern I feared a loss of character and spirit, but it was, and remains a great success. I am very happy to have a new season to enjoy. The new Sherlock Holmes was also a worry for similar reasons, but I find it to be engaging and enjoyable, although the director believes the sound effects and music are more important than the dialogue and has a deep love of corpses, which are closely photographed and heavily featured. Creepy, but typical.

Oh, and BBT is always fun.

On the book front, Game of Thrones was mixed. The author created an interesting and engaging world. He created characters in whom I was interested, and characters who are simply too flat and extreme to be taken seriously. His good guy was too good to have made it to adulthood in a feudal society, his bad guys are so bad they make Machiavelli sound like a kindergarten teacher. But I find myself caring about the children of the cardboard figures. The author also takes the lazy path of brutalizing children as a way of projecting emotion to his readers. It is easy. It is what incompetent authors do. It is the serious fiction equivalent of fart jokes in what passes as a comedy in today's theaters. It brings a tear or gets a laugh without any effort or talent needed on the part of the writer. Still, the author managed to interest me, and that is difficult. It means he has some real ability and displays it at least part of the time.

The books are too long. Thankfully, the TV series is surprisingly
true to the books and is much shorter. I will watch it to satisfy my interest. It also has lots of nudity, which is always a plus.

A better read is the fascinating and ugly world of The Peculiar. It does contain the brutalization of children, and I dislike that, but as a novel aimed at the youth market, the threat to the youthful characters is, of necessity, a threat to youngsters. I feel it was overdone, but what a rich and strange world the author has created! And I love the characters, especially Arthur Jelliby. I look forward to the rest of the series