Mid-December

[heliopausa]

Mid-December, and Christmas is approaching rapidly - I've posted everything that needs to be posted - or I hope I have. Whether they get to the recipients by Christmas… well, I hope they do. Or the parcels, anyway, and most of the cards; the two cards I posted yesterday probably won't, but it's too late to fret about that. I plan to make a gingerbread house again, but have no other cooking plans at all (as yet); it'll be a quiet Christmas.

For Star Wars fans - the story of one fan of the old, un-Special Edition version, and his quest to save them from George Lucas's second thoughts.

It's a story that raises interesting questions. Of course artists have the right to redo earlier works (da Vinci made at least two attempts at painting Madonna of the Rocks, for example) or change them significantly (there are so many examples of authorial rewrites!) or even to attempt to obliterate them (Nathaniel Hawthorne tried hard to make his first novel disappear). Works can be revamped or withdrawn after publication, no question. But it does feel queasily unfair to digitally obliterate actors who were in the first version - or come to that, to remove from public access the work of the pre-CGI special effects artists.

The year's end is approaching, too - and I'm being forced to concede in reviewing the year's reading that I probably never will finish Capital in the Twenty-First Century. On the other hand, I did finally read the Silmarillion and Les Misérables, so that's something. What big book should I read next year, people? Classic or new, fiction or not - I was pondering something about Shostakovich and the siege of Leningrad, if I can find it in a bookshop before this year's end. Does that sound good?

Comments

[marmota_b]

Director's cuts. In most cases, those involve more of people's hard work, though...
I think the main thing that puts most (all?) people off Lucas' changes is the fact that they are (were?) apparently so constant and yet apparently so unimportant. There's a difference between a significant overhaul to a story or inserting a missing scene or correcting mistakes, and making it completely impossible for the consumer to be sure which of the versions one's actually seen and whether it even matters! Plus what you said.

I can't speak to big books. Up to you, what you've already read and what you can get your hands on!

[heliopausa]

Yes - a director is the director, so I suppose everyone involved is ceding control, and lots of people's work has ended upon the cutting-room floor before this, but it still seems hard lines on those cut.
I'm not learned enough in Star Wars matters to know which of the changes were significant (except about who fired first in a gunfight).

I was looking at Don Quixote this afternoon, and wondering if there's enough matter there to carry me through all those many, many words, or if it'd just feel like an endless and increasingly grim string of anecdotes.

[marmota_b]

I'm only well-versed enough to come to the understanding that that was the only really important change, in terms of story and character.

I haven't read Don Quixote, aside from some excerpts in school reading materials. I felt the same way about Ivanhoe and descriptions, though... I think I must have skipped about half of that book, with no particular difference to my understanding of it, as far as I can tell. (I had to read it for school, so I had to read it, otherwise I probably would not have bothered after a few chapters.)
But this conversation has just reminded me that there's been Pilgrim's Progress sitting on one of my shelves for years, never having been read. Now that I've had more experience with old books, I think it should be pushed up the unwritten reading list.

[heliopausa]

Oh, I think Pilgrim's Progress is terrific, but for maximum enjoyment I think it needs to be read on its own terms - and with an ear for mildly old-fashioned English! :)

I'd enjoy a read-through if you like, if and when you do pick it up. Which reminds me... the Narnia read-through...

(heads off to post on that)

[marmota_b]

Czech version in my case. Might be interesting to find an English one somewhere online and compare.
Do we still do the read-through of Till We Have Faces? Because I still have the English version I borrowed, and didn't get beyond Chapter 1 on my own so far.

[heliopausa]

I still haven't managed to get my hands on one! But I'll try very hard between Christmas and the New Year, when I hope to go bookshopping.

Here's an online Pilgrim's Progress.

[marmota_b]

Thank you. :-)