a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death[s], and chaos year

Read John Scalzi’s Head On, which is set in the same future America as Lock In, involving again the Halden syndrome patients forced to live by remotely operating robots (threeps) and introducing an extreme form of American football adapted to these patients, since they cannot be injured when their threep is. (Not as in the terrible 1975 dystopic Rollerball, which was supposedly taking place in… 2018!). The two main FBI detectives are the same as in Lock In, with great and funny dialogues but with mostly dialogues!, and a surprising disregard for team work and reporting to their hierarchy. My conclusion of the review of Lock In thus stands:

“the Halden detective conveniently happens to be the son of a very influential ex-basketball-player and hence to meet all the characters involved in the plot. This is pleasant but somewhat thin with a limited number of players considering the issues at stake and a rather artificial ending.”

Starting to cook a matcha rice pudding as an experiment, which proved successful in keeping both the matcha taste ad the rice pudding texture, and in lowering considerably the input of sugar [from which I must shy] in the recipe. (In all honesty, I actually used an organic substitute to matcha, grown and made in China!)

Found out while going to a repair shop for a brake replacement that my second bike (the one that I can leave locked in the street for a few hours!) was in such a bad state that I should not drive it. The wheels had indeed lost most of their material at the level of the brakes, due to alien, abrasive, material getting stuck inside the brake pads. My nearby repair shop was clearly uninterested in repairing a cheap, ten year old, bike and gave me a quote that was larger than my original purchase amount. I thus found a Décathlon store nearby PariSanté campus and brought back a new wheel attached to my backpack, which proved more manageable than dreaded!

Watched in the nearby cinema A Man (ある男) by Kei Ishikawa, based on a book with the same title by Keiichiro Hirano, that won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature.  (The main actress Sakura Ando also played a central role in the fantastic Cannes Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters.) I went thinking it would be a psychological thriller, but it proved me wrong, as the movie is much more about self identity, intimacy, and societal prejudices, than a detective story about usurped identity. The pace is deliberately slow and the director light, impressionist, touch gives depth and freedom to the characters, while keeping some of the mysteries behind the story open. I really enjoyed the film, which was the first time I had returned to a cinema since watching a Jim Harrison documentary in 2022. I also discovered thanks to the beginning and final scenes an infinitely deep René Magritte’s painting, La Reproduction Interdite, which I had never seen, and which was a perfect still for the film message.

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year

Read novellas by Aliette de Bodard, The tea master and the detective, and Seven of infinities, which involved a “mindship” as a central character and mysteries attached with a second central character, set within a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation (still enjoying tea!). Easily forgotten mind candy but not unpleasantly so.  And Legacy of Evil by James W. Peyton, which had been recommended by the Crime Book board of Libé, which proved terribly predictable, cliché, borderline (!) sexist and racist, and unrealistic, plus loads of unnecessary political reminders about the dire state of Mexican politics and policing, and the impact of the recent US policies about migrants.

Made my first kimchi, with chards, red onions, and radishes for the basis. Which proved much easier (and messier) than expected. It even worked (!) in that fermentation took place with no major disaster and in that the outcome is definitely eatable, with approximately the right spiciness. Made good use of the jar  for cooking within a fortnight. But the bitterness of the chard had not gone away, so next round will be with more traditional cabbage. And more gochunjang. Still on the food side, met two occurrences when a shop absurdly refused to sell (or give) me a product (previous day bread and spelt levain) that was just out of date, when no equivalent product was available… Absurd waste.

Watched The Fall of the House of Usher, a modern variation on the most well-known short stories of Edgar Allan Poe (who seems in high demand on Netflix shoes, witness the recent The Pale Blue Eye where he was a character by himself, during his cadet year[s]). Like the Gold-Bug (little connected), the Pit & the Pendulum (imperfect), The Telltale Heart  (predictable), the One-Eye cat (duh), the Red Death (closest) &tc. Other characters have names taken from Poe like Rue Morgue‘s Auguste Dupin, Arthur Gordon Pym and Rufus Gimwort. I could not trace an Annabel Lee (one of the very few luminous characters of the show) to Poe’s works and life… The whole setting is very Gothic(-chic) and saturated, not only in the colouring, but so are Poe’s stories. Actually, I remember enjoying these stories very much as a teenager, Poe being presumably better known in France than in the US, but I am unsure I would still uniformly do in the current time, esp. in stories that are droning on the melancholic feelings of some old nobility characters or the vague prescience of an horrifying event. (As an aside, I regret I never found the time to visit Poe’s museum in Philly.) The characters of the show also are uneven, possibly getting more structured with the episodes, especially the Usher elders, but with little suspense (everyone dies!) or logic (a supernatural being being the deus ex machina). The reconstitution of the 1980’s atmosphere is remarkable, though, if unconnected with the Victorian Gothic!

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death, and chaos year

Read (in French) L’Anomalie (2020 Prix Goncourt) with difficulties as the time travel paradox behind the story is extremely shallow and uninteresting, with caricatures of mathematicians and of about any other category in guise of characters. Lazy writing at its worst, floors below a standard Paasilinna. On a whim, decided to read Le Grand Meaulnes (in French) which I had not fully read as a teenager, but was remembering as a “classic” I should have read. Ended up being highly disappointed by the book, except for its literary style and the insights on the daily life of in the French countryside before World War I (during whose first days the author, Alain Fournier, was killed in action). Indeed, the setting is puzzlingly fantastic, with the highlight of a costumed and doomed wedding in a remote castle that Meaulnes stumble upon, but with no clear intention and on such a scale as to be completely implausible for a small rural community, plus other glaring inconsistencies like getting lost in one’s own vicinity and reuniting some characters at the end against all odds and logic. Maybe I should have read it as a teenager! I am still bemused it was ranked in the top 101 French favourite novel list… unless readers share the same phantom memory as I of the book being a “must-read”, rather than of the book itself. As a side story, the edition I read dates from 1967 (number 1000 in Livre de Poche!) and looks its age, presumably one of the few books we had at home, courtesy of a family member with duplicates in her library, just like my version of David Copperfield. printed in 1965.

Cooked more of the seasonal vegetables, had oysters with no consequence (despite the current contamination scare on Atlantic and Channel fields, due to heavy rains saturating the nearby sewage systems), and celebrated our son’s 30th birthday (!) in a nice, friendly, and tiny 8ième restaurant with enough Italian roots they did not blink when I asked for an (off-menu) affogato! Which they made with a miso ice cream, surprisingly well-suited to the espresso. The dishes were all pleasantly surprising, with one of the best sweetbread preparation I have ever eaten. Great meal before a (rather arctic!) stroll to the Musée Guimet.

Watched The Night Agent delivering a moderately convincing conspiracy hunt at the core of the US government with improbable escapes and unlikely hunches and obvious red herrings, but an interesting couple of evil killers. Watchable on a lazy, wet weekend, maybe. Also had a go at Leave the World Behind poor and shallow, adapted from a 2020 bestseller with the same title by Rumaan Alam, heavy going, poor characters, poor actors, unbearable music. Only positive point for being included here, its connection with the (horsemen of the) Apocalypse.

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death, and chaos year

Had to find a fifth horseman of the Apocalypse for 2024, and figured out that Terry Pratchett was the ultimate expert on these characters, witness

“The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet, and Contra-flow.” Terry Pratchet, Interesting Times

Hence followed suit when he signaled Chaos as the fifth (part-time) horseman. In Thief of Time. (Incidentally, I do not remember ever finishing a single book from his Discworld series, despite several attempts and encouragements from fellow readers.) With the precision of “not [being] the chaos which can be used to draw pretty Mandelbrot patterns”.

Read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon. While I did not like much the author’s later The Priory of the Orange Tree, bought in one of the many Montréal bookstores and read by Lac Saint-Jean, which I found very shallow and predictable [the book, not the lake!], with most of the tropes of the genre (e.g., ninja-like fighters, heroes uncovering long-lost magical artefacts, super-evil entity about to return to life/power, a few predestined characters saving the Universe), unrealistic events, all-too-convenient coincidences, with little efforts put in the construction of the world, of the magical rules, or of the political structure, I still picked this rather heavy volume in a St Kilda bookstore, in [misguided] prevision for the flight back to Paris and read it later over the Winter solstice break. It is actually much better and enjoyable, in terms of world building for certain, involving a modified history of our World, mostly Britain and Ireland, with a non-human dominant species in the background, a no-man’s land gothic Oxford surrounded by zombies (?), and a part of humanity endowed with paranormal powers. The characters have some depth as well, even when remaining somehow predictable and often repetitive, and the scenario is mostly solid, apart from the unraveling finale. (The Guardian pointed out a direct filiation to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, which I certainly did not see coming.) I am unsure I am ready for the next six volumes in the series, though!

Watched Gyeongseong, a Korean TV series that is a mix of horror, period, WW II, sadistic, mad scientists, nationalist, colonialist, family, survival, love, comical, soapy, teary stories all at once! Gyeongseong [경성, capital city] being the name of Seoul during the Japanese occupation and the entire series takes place in a recreated city that resembles the one in other period series I watched. Still enjoyable with a complete suspension of belief (as the scenario accumulates convenient coincidences, clueless Japanese occupiers, and bullet proof main characters) and the acceptance of the cartoonesque nature of fights and innumerable deaths.

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and death [definitely new] year

Read some graphical novels over the Yule break, incl. the new volume in the endless Thorgal series, Adieu Aricia, created by a master of heroic fantasy comics, Recht Robin,  L’Art de la guerre, a refreshing if light pastiche of Blake & Mortimer drawn by Floc’h, far from the E.P. Jacob ligne claire (following another one by another master of Belgian comics, Schuiten, Le Dernier Pharaon), and Le Monde sans fin, by Blain & Jancovici, a best seller retracing the central importance of energy in evolution and the urgent need to change the entire societal software (if a bit heavy handed).

Cooked little while being away, except for a Flemish red cabbage stew and a batch of mini buckwheat galettes, and fortunately escaped the huge meals that usually plague this time of year. Avoided as well some viral issues with French oysters, despite enjoying several servings of Norman origin. While in Aubrac, has a taste of the local beef, the well-named… Aubrac breed, whose herds are raised on this immense and treeless plateau during the warmer months. Most crucially, we enjoyed very much the few days we spent there in a remote farm with no Internet, great company, long trail runs, and simple home-made dinners. (Foodwise, the difference of food prices on the local markets like Saint-Chély d’Apcher when compared with Paris and its suburb was noticeable, if not a major surprise, meaning we brought back home a month worth of local cheese.)

Watched Chicken Run #2 with my kids, which I found heavy handed and predictable, even on a 25 December afternoon, if admirable stop motion animation by the Bristol based Aardman studios, Rebel Moon by myself, just a terrible mix of existing space operas, with frankly embarrassing moments (like the disguised horses, the Warhammer-ish fights, and the final scene when the band is carelessly crushing through a wheat field)  and Blue Eye Samurai with the whole family. The latter is a French-American anime set in Japan, around the Great Furisode Fire of 1657 in Edo and the expulsion of foreigners from Japan by the Tokugawa shogunate. Graphically beautiful, Great except for the dialogues being in English, the cubist way horses are drawn and for some historical inaccuracy.