Books:
Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko:
So some Janice recommended this… I don’t know what genre exactly - philosophical fiction? - to me, and I will just say I thought this book was total genius. But I need to be clear about why so you can see if it’s for you (and, as you’re about to see, that was definitely not for at least one Janice). I'm not going to tell you about the plot, sentence-level writing, characters, or more about the genre than I already wrote because they’re actually irrelevant to why I thought this book was so amazing. And I highly recommend, if you're reading it off my assertions of "genius" and “amazing” alone (and clearly that's enough!) that you read nothing about it. Not because of spoilers but because the marketing people obviously had no clue what to do with this book (see “philosophical fiction” above) and use references that will either (a) set you up for disappointment because it's not what you thought it would be or in my case (b) will make you not want to read it because the blurb references something else you hated. Put another way, I imagine the same publicity team, had it existed a century or so ago and been on the Kafka account, would’ve been out in the field pitching The Metamorphosis as “a slow-burn sci-fi thriller.”
There are many ways to love a book and I loved this book specifically for the experience it gave me which is that it managed to evoke in me the exact same frustration, confusion, and desire to push forward that was evoked by the plot for the main character. I had this happen one other time (with Charles Palliser’s Betrayals where, through the way the plot unfolded, the characters put forth a thesis about the relationship between the author and the reader which, I realized at the end, had been played out on me). In other words, I felt the authors managed not merely to communicate their perspective on Life’s struggle - which is what I took the book to be about - but made me actually experience it in a visceral way through the very act of reading. So it’s not that I loved the book per se - I mean sure I enjoyed it - but rather the parallel experience of Life struggle equaling reading struggle. It’s important to note this because if you don’t have that experience, where your personal relationship to the textual journey is analogous to the lead’s relationship to her character journey thus making you feel like you’re on the same journey together and thus to the thus making the ending feel thoroughly satisfying, then, well…
So after reading, I recommended this book to some other Janice who did NOT have the same experience with it I did. In fact, that Janice loathed it enough to first vow revenge then followed up that threat with multiple enraged emails over a period of days describing the book as, among other things, “a cross between a bad physics textbook [… and] Madonna-style Kabbalah” followed up by some “interminable treading-of-water,” “just as meaningless as the universe it purports,” with a “HATED actively” tossed in for clarity. It’s possible the book was thrown across the room at some point (or whatever the digital equivalent of throwing a book across a room might be - closing the Kindle’s magnetic cover but with forceful meaning perhaps?) and I have no doubt that that Janice, in such a fury at having read this utterly detestable garbage, did what any rational human would do to purge themselves of such unpleasant emotion - fire off a few more angry emails then gummy up and spend five soothing hours watching college football.
Thus, should you choose to read this book, you'll either (a) be searching for meaning bug not finding it and doing the not-finding very angrily, (b) finding meaning and being moved by it, or (c) DNF'ing out of sheer boredom and wondering what the hell all the fuss was about.
Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1) by Sebastien de Castell
The same Janice who despised Vita Nostra rec’ed this Western-style fantasy (not as revenge - that’s a whole other piece of media I haven’t had the fortitude to face as yet) about a teenager who’s cast out of his family for reasons related to his magic. The main plotline is his journey, along with a mentor and a partner (which I won’t spoil by describing), to try to rid himself of the magical reason he was exiled but is really, natch, a journey of self-discovery. While there’s nothing genius here, the book is super fun. The characters are amusing and quippy; the family situation, in addition to its somewhat convoluted involvement with the magic system, is relatable and entertaining, the overall plot zips along, and even though I say Western - and that’s clearly part of the reference - the world-building is actually much more specific as are the larger politics and conspiracies that the lead gets involved with. This is light fantasy - it’s not gonna blow your mind, but, if you like the genre, you’ll totally inhale this and immediately go grab the sequels.
TV/Streaming:
I Hate Suzie:
What was most incredible about this series was the speed with which it managed to engender an enormous volume of hatred in such an exceedingly short period of time; I have to give it credit for that - it ramped up how much it sucked really really fast, and I made it through barely 1 episode before finding myself so furious at its utter stupidity such that even viciously pressing "delete" numerous times left me deeply unsatisfied. The show is about a famous actress who discovers someone posted old sex photos of her (yawn), but what makes it truly awful is its effort to present its lead - oh, did I mention the star also created the show? - as a delightful DTE charmer and asks us to believe, for example, that when 30 people show up to her house to do a publicity shoot for a film she was in, it’s she, and not, say, the PAs or Craft Service, who frantically has to run around the kitchen to make the crew tea then get upset and apologetic about running out of cups. All that while trying to hide her true upset over the sex scandal from, like, the lighting people because you know how much those lighting people really care. And, sidebar, other than for the person it’s happening to and their immediate circle of family/friends obviously, does anyone actually care, in a career-ruining sense, about sex tapes or porn photos emerging anymore? It certainly had zero impact on Jennifer Lawrence’s professional life when her Apple account was hacked so, like, why is this still a plot point? WHATEVER! I mean, you want to do an exaggerated version of UKllywood (that rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?), great - go watch the series version of Get Shorty for an excellent example of how you can pull all the absurdities of the film industry into a compelling piece of entertainment rather than what this was for the one episode I (almost) made it through which is I think the actress trying to present herself as a batty, caring delight so, I don’t know, we’ll all think she must be a batty, caring delight in real life too? Clearly the“I” in the title of this show is a total Janice because I too, hate both Suzie and I Hate Suzie.
How To with John Wilson:
I had no idea what this show was or who John Wilson is but I loooooooooved this series which manages to be both LOL funny and also weirdly moving and falls somewhere between actual documentary and a kind of constructed documentary. I'm not even sure that’s the right phrase but something like that - where the filmmaker takes actual documentary footage but cuts it together along with voiceover commentary to create a larger point (and, in this case, more LOLz as well). I thought the show was deeply strange and great though it took a bit to warm up to it because I couldn't figure out what I was watching initially. But by somewhere in the middle of the first episode I knew I loved it. It’s just so particular and weird and kind of everything I love about people with artistic vision because John Wilson clearly felt like he needed to say what he needed to say over the six episodes in this particular way, and I don’t know why nor am I 100% clear on what linked them all into a cohesive series for him, but I didn’t care, because he was very invested in saying whatever it was and clearly felt they were all glued together somehow and I went there with him. You’ll know by the end of the first episode if it’s for you or not but, if it is and you haven’t seen it, delight awaits!
Movies:
Happy Accidents - You know this story. You’re Marisa Tomei and you’re co-dependent and unlucky in love because you wind up only dating losers and fetishists - though Holland Taylor your therapist thinks that’s just because you like to fix people, you fixer you! So what are you supposed to do when you come across this sweet guy from the year 2400-something who claims to have seen your picture and a reference to your death somewhere and that you seemed sweet and he traveled back in time to meet you? I mean, yeah, Holland Taylor and your bestie say he’s mentally ill, but come on! They don’t have sex when he’s from because they only clone each other (since clearly that irritating sex habit humanity is saddled with is the first thing we’ll get rid once we develop the tech to never have to do it again) so he can’t be yet another fetishist meaning at least you’re dating someone different this go ‘round and maybe he really is from the future and regardless he wants to save you from dying and well wouldn’t all that make you dive directly into Vincent D’Onofrio’s arms too? All of that made me dive directly into a series of musings about (a) how this film could possibly be on multiple “overlooked gems” lists which is where I had the great misfortune of finding it, (b) why it was financed at all, and (c) whether or not lifting my arm to press “stop” would interfere with the nap I was sliding into. I decided the risk of (c) was too great so let it play to the end, thus if you’ve been yearning for one of those Marisa Tomei/Vincent D'Onofrio time travel romances which this Janice technically didn’t DNF, well boy oh boy are you in luck.