The Jewel in the Crown – Paul Scott (1966)
The Jewel in the Crown (1966) I was forty or fifty pages into this book when it penetrated my little brain that it wasn’t going to be a straightforward novel about the last days of Imperialist Britain in India. Consequently, I laid it aside for a few days and then started it again from a different perspective. I’m glad that I did. Perspective is what Paul Scott’s 1966 novel The Jewel in the Crown is all about. We start off...
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 50th Anniversary Showing
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 50th Anniversary Showing A good number of years ago, during one of its periodic returns to the big screen – something which alone points up the enduring popularity of this film – an ad campaign ran with the slogan: BEFORE STAR WARS THERE WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE 2001: A SPACE ODDYSSEY. Well, it was catchy, I’ll give it that; but it was a bit misleading. In fact, I’d call it bloody well...
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) There was a rare treat for silent movie fans on the 15th of March this year when Dublin’s beautiful St. Patrick’s Cathedral hosted a rare screening and live score performance of Rex Ingram’s majestic 1921 classic of the cinema, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Now, it isn’t quite accurate to describe Rex Ingram as a ‘forgotten film director’. Certainly, those of us who love the...
Stephen King’s The Dark Half
Summoning Demons: Revisiting Stephen King’s The Dark Half “Kull meditated a while, then spoke. ‘Can you summon up demons?’ “’Aye. I can summon up a demon more savage than any in ghostland – by smiting you on the face.’” –Robert E. Howard, The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune Fittingly for a novel that deals so obsessively with the subject of twins, doubling and mirror images, Stephen King’s 1989 novel The Dark Half is...
View from the Madhouse: Revisiting Stephen King’s Misery
View from the Madhouse: Revisiting Stephen King’s Misery Loosely sandwiched in between two novels with truly enormous casts – It and The Tommyknockers – King’s 1987 Misery was a stripped-to-the-bone two-hander. Yes, there really are only two people featured over the 350-odd pages. One is writer Paul Sheldon — famous for his money-spinning bodice-rippers starring heroine Misery Chastain. The other is his isolated,...
Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End
Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End Contains Major Spoilers Well now, twice in one week; wonder what that means. Ten or so days ago I found myself left with a feeling of bleak sadness on rereading Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. It was a sort of ‘localised’ sadness: just this recognition of time passing and even ending for those who I love or have loved through the years. Of the Veil pulling back and Oz the Great and Terrible...
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