During her prolific career, Agatha Christie penned a few spy thrillers, or at least novels with strong elements of international intrigue and espionage, which for me were never on the same level with her best work (I keep putting off re-reading any of the Tommy and Tuppence novels, easily my least favourite Christie series). This book is not a fully fledged espionage novel, more like a strange hybrid of spy thriller and boarding school murder mystery, with Hercule Poirot cameo thrown in the last third for reasons that, one suspects, have nothing to do with story needs. Though flawed and uneven, it’s still quite enjoyable.
I always found fascinating the way the first few years of your life seem to be covered by impenetrable mental fog. My niece is closing on two and it’s weird to think that she’s unlikely to remember anything from what’s happening now.
Like other Michael Haneke films I’ve seen, this beautifully shot black-and-white movie about a small German village just before the breakout of World War I is unsettling, mysterious, and doesn’t offer any easy answers.
“Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat’s chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.”
I gobbled up this book club read in one go, in about three hours on a lazy Sunday morning. I’m generally a fast reader, but it’s a real testament to Sally Rooney’s clear prose and the irresistible pull of her story about a complicated on-and-off relationship between two young people.
I didn’t think it was a perfect movie, but I’ll give Hereditary this – it got to me like very few horror films ever have. I ended up watching maybe a third of it through my fingers, which I haven’t done since I was a child.
I’ve yet to see a Guillermo del Toro film that made me a true believer, but this visually ravishing adult fairytale came closest, and is easily the one I’ve enjoyed the most. At the very least, you gotta admire him for tackling a premise that many would find way too icky with such sincerity.
yggdrasille.com 