Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

This is wonderful stuff, of course, just about peerless as a story of love obstructed by social pressures. Everybody should read it.

The interesting thing for me, as my first re-read in quite a while, was how much of the story I misremembered. I had totally forgotten the lengthy prologue of Jane’s childhood and the important episodes during Jane and Rochester’s separation. I first read it, probably too fast, back in undergraduate days and my brain was pretty muddled in that period. The things that remained vivid were, I suppose, the iconic material – Jane and Rochester’s convincingly complex relationship, the madwoman in the attic, “Reader I married him”. I was sure I remembered the description of the destructive fire, too, but that happens entirely off-stage. Curious.

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

This was the final major entry on my mental “books I’m embarrassed not to have read” list, so I’m glad I’ve read it for that reason. I’m more glad, though, for the fact that it is a magnificent novel, the best thing I’ve read this year I reckon.

I found myself getting both angry and depressed at the plight of the Joad family and the other “Okies”, suffering at the hand of the police and the land-owners (interestingly, the politicians hardly get a mention). Great writing, great story, great message.

The surprising thing is that it’s still so popular in the USA when it’s explicitly a socialist polemic. Isn’t socialism a dirty word in Bush’s America? Maybe the movie is less obviously left-wing and that’s what sticks in people’s minds. I have a similar theory about To Kill A Mockingbird, but that’s another story.

Ivan the Terrible (BFI Film Classics) – Yuri Tsivian

The best bit of this monograph was the discussion of Ivan's beard. This movie is clearly THE great facial hair movie, so it's nice to see it acknowledged. Otherwise, I'd rate it as a lesser entry in the BFI series, but it has some interesting stuff about Eisenstein's working methods.

Paradise Lost – John Milton

This was number one in my mental “Books I really ought to have read” list, so it’s good to have it out of the way. It’s worth ploughing through, although this is right at the cusp of things I would read for pleasure in terms of difficulty.

I thought it read as older than it is; it seemed pre-Shakespearean, essentially. In particular, the constant references to Greek mythology were confusing for me, and seemed particularly odd given that this is a re-telling of the Genesis story. Apparently, Renaissance humanists regarded classical myth as the result of imperfect understanding of scripture, so Pandora’s Box is an erroneous version of the Eve story and so on.

I found it fascinating how Milton, using the narrative voice of Raphael, gets into such a mess when justifying (a) the existence of evil, and (b) all the icky practical aspects of procreation. They were problematic for Christian theologians in 1677 and they remain a problem today. The central issue seems to be that Adam and Eve cannot truly be held responsible for their actions because they don’t understand the implications. How can one fear death when death has not heretofore existed?

The central thrust of the poem may be totalitarian (knowledge is bad, kids) and resoundingly misogynistic, but despite these minor caveats it’s a book well worth the effort.

Film Noir – Alain Silver and James Ursini

Taschen can usually be relied upon to produce beautiful looking books, and this is high class stuff. There is a nice mix of movie stills and location shots, all of which made me want to rush out and (re)watch all these classic movies. Unfortunately, the text is more banal. There seems to be some confusion over what constitutes a noir (M? The Magnificent Ambersons?) and too much space is taking over by synopses of individual films rather than discussion of the genre in the round.