Well, Lent Term might have been a smol black hole, but Easter Term continued to eat my free reading time (or at least, the bout of COVID I had in the middle of my essay deadlines did for my energy for extra reading and writing). I spent some quality time getting acquainted with Apple TV instead.

Things I have read

• No 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute - Lauren Elkin. I had a few days break in Paris before Easter, which was a joy (aside from having to have my passport stamped, thanks Brexit) and so I picked this up to read. It’s a slim little thing, made up of reflective journal notes. I enjoyed its musings on life and death and grief by way of the rhythms of journeying on public transport, and it’s nice to read on public transport.

• The Cost of Living - Deborah Levy. Into part two of Levy’s autobiographical-reflections-on-writing trilogy (just as part three came out). I find with these that I really enjoy reading them, and I don’t remember too much about them not too long after I’ve read them. I don’t know that I think that that’s a problem though, as they’re the kind of length and form that I’ll happily return to and probably find different things in each time. This time, I found focus on the difficulties and chaotic-ness of life over and above the success she was experiencing as a writer in the period notable; both as as marker of what we remember about our lives and a disabusing of the idea of the ‘dream’ of what it might be to be a writer.

• Termination Shock - Neal Stephenson. It used to be I had Stephenson on the pre-order list, but this I found browsing in the bookshop about six months after it was published and made a very surprised face at my discovery. And now I have to say I’m downgrading him to the ‘wait for the paperback’ category. This was fine in many ways; he’s still an engaging writer, with a nice line in characterisation and a focus on interesting ideas (in this way, dealing with climate change); but it was also significantly focused on world-building and ideas over action and tension, and I found the sudden ‘oh here’s the dénouement’ in the last 100 pages didn’t quite work for me. I would have wanted more in the drama that grappled with the problem of ludicrously wealthy individuals trying to solve situations to their own advantages while their states flounder along in their wake - something that Stephenson seems to just shrug at.

• Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel. In contrast, this was a delightful return to form from the author of Station’s Eleven (I didn’t particularly go for The Glass Hotel). It’s moody and atmospheric and brings its story and characters together wonderfully. I find it hard to say what I like about Mandel’s writing when it works for me, but I think it really is in the way that the atmosphere she creates is as much a part of the story as the plot (and it is something, interestingly, that the Station’s Eleven TV show really grasps). As a side note, I really like the little interconnected universe she has going on—it’s a little David Mitchell-y (but hasn’t yet started getting in the way).

• Mischief Acts - Zoe Gilbert. Another one I picked up while browsing the bookshop, this time because I really enjoyed the author’s first novel (Folk). This one, similarly, works with interconnecting stories, working almost as a short story collection as well as as a novel—interlocking pieces coming together to explore something, in this case, the myth and ‘life’ of Herne the Hunter over time. It might have been my mood or timing (I was reading it in breaks during and just after exams) but it didn’t work for me so well, although I really enjoyed some of the individual stories. I like the idea—exploring how a ‘person’ constituted in myth survives changes in their environment over time—but I’m not sure it really held together over the book until the afterword articulated it in a fictional academic form, which, for me, felt too late.

Things I have watched

• Moon Knight and Obi-Wan. I have not yet watched Ms Marvel, and I have to confess I am nervous it will be as underwhelming as both of these. Am I officially overloaded on Marvel and Star Wars series, or are they just blasé about making them only moderately well? Who can tell. Both of these series wasted some great actors (who doesn’t want to watch Ewan McGregor or Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke) on some fairly confusing (Moon Knight) and emotionally underpowered (Obi Wan, wasting the return of the young Anakin - Obi Wan dynamic) stuff. Do better, Disney, or develop something new.

• Severance. In contrast to the Disney machine, Apple TV gave me something new—and you should get on to Severance if you haven’t already. It’s a slow burn for the first half of the season and then it tips into a rush towards the finish that is both free-fall and tightly plotted to string out your emotions to their edges. It’s got a brilliant, wild, idea at its core (What if you could completely separate your work life from your home life? Why would you? Why would a company want that?) that it is steadily exploring through a medium of office drone surrealism. It’s glorious, the cast is spectacular (hello, John Turturro and Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette finally getting something good), and it’s totally worth getting hung up on.

• Ted Lasso and Slow Horses are perhaps simpler pleasures, but still wonderfully rewarding. I’m stunned to find myself, who knows next to nothing about football, enchanted by a show that is—it turns out—not about football but about personal relationships and self-growth in the loveliest ways. I’m not stunned to find myself enjoying a grimy spy drama featuring the cream of British acting (Kristen Scott-Thomas! Gary Oldman! Occasional Jonathan Pryce! Cameo Sam West!), and no, it’s not quite John Le Carré (give me my screen versions of Silverview, or Agent Running in the Field), but it is a satisfyingly cynical view of the current state of spy games and national ‘security’.

• To the cinema to see Everything Everywhere All At Once, which came out of nowhere with a blast of great reviews and which was an absolute ball. I loved the way it punctured the seriousness of so much multi-verse media with its lo-fi-ness and reference points that were funny-but-not-overpowering, but most of all I loved its heart and its conviction that the good little things in life and the love of a normally dysfunctional family can overcome the fear of the bigness and possible void-ness of everything.

• In utter contrast, Terence Davies’ Benediction, exploring the life of Siegfried Sassoon, was quiet, slow, and utterly melancholy. In some ways, if Everything, Everywhere… explores the way an experience of universal emptiness can create supervillainy and destruction, Benediction explores the ways that attempting to fill that emptiness with things and people beyond oneself is also not a good way forward. I find myself conflicted over the use of ‘older’ Sassoon (Peter Capaldi) in the film: it feels as if tonally it doesn’t work, a too-harsh light illuminating the weaknesses of the ‘younger’ Sassoon (Jack Lowden), and yet, it is thematically necessary to its depiction of his failure to find grace and peace. In a strange way, though, the final scene redeems it all. (And also, a Terence Davies film is always worth watching)

• It was a wild three weeks in cinema, as I followed Benediction with a trip to Top Gun: Maverick. Spectacularly unsubtle and frankly just spectacular, I had a blast. It managed to be both a glorious repeat of the original and add something new by way of the development of the Maverick-Goose friendship through Goose’s son Rooster. Jennifer Connolly hid a wafer thin part, the return of Val Kilmer was quietly moving, but frankly the most fun was the flying and Glen Powell being a jackass.

• And finally, I made it to the Opera House for Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet, Like Water for Chocolate, which was fabulous. It was heartbreaking and sexy and fun, and made great use of a fabulous cast (I love a new ballet, where all the stars get used and take the stage for small roles that in later revivals will often go to the soloists), and the music was delightful. And after years of tragic Giselles and Swan Lakes it was so nice to have a ballet in which the female lead’s emotions and journey are at the centre without ending up dead. Go see it when they bring it back.

IN THE PILe…

I’m in South Africa for the summer / winter with plans to read The City of God (finally) and also whatever is on my kindle, including some re-reading, just to get me back into fiction reading again. I’ve also shoved Ms Marvel, The Boys, and Barry onto my iPad for watching.

A Photo from the last month

I went to a May Ball! It was ridiculous! And fun!

Also I graduated! It was ridiculous! And slightly less fun! But hey, I have a BA now, and get to wave my ‘I’m a theologian’ piece of paper at anyone who was sceptical about it before.