Immrama

[dolorosa_12]

I wasn't going to write another post this weekend, and then I read a book which — although it's obviously very early days — is a strong contender for my book of the year. This is All the Horses of Iceland (Sarah Tolmie), a novella I find hard to describe but nevertheless moved me to tears on several occasions — not because it's sad, but because it spoke to me in ways that I would not myself have been able to articulate. I've tried to pull together my thoughts over on dolorosa12, my reviews blog, but all I really want to say is: read this book, and you will not be disappointed.

In general, it's been a good weekend for reading. In addition to the nonfiction book I finished and discussed on my previous post, I'm making strides into tackling my to-read list. I picked up Idylls of the Queen (Phyllis Ann Karr), an Arthurian murder mystery told — with wry humour — from the world-weary point of view of Kay, who is very much Sir Completely Done with This Nonsense. It pokes gentle fun at Arthuriana, particularly Malory, but in a way that shows affection for the source material while not taking it too seriously.

Matthias and I have also started 2023 with our semi-regular Saturday night film watching — in this case The Banshees of Inisherin. This is a hard-to-categorise black comedy set in a tiny island community in 1920s Ireland, about two former friends who fall out, and the repercussions. The setting is gorgeous, the dialogue is fantastic, the casting is perfect, and the film does an incredible job of capturing the stultifying claustrophobia of tiny, insular communities where nothing happens and people have few opportunities. Do be warned this is quite a dark film (it's funny, but bleak), and there is an animal death that may bother some viewers.

So far this year I'm almost at a post a day. I can't promise this state of affairs will continue, but I definitely owe this to the quality of the books and other media I've been reading and watching at the moment!

Comments

[naye]

Very curious about the novella now - I'll see if I can't find it when looking for more stuff to put on my Kobo.

The Saturday night film watching sounds lovely. Skuld and I don't usually watch a lot of movies, but between being on sick leave together and not traveling over the holidays we watched something new every other day, and it was great fun.

[dolorosa_12]

It was fairly cheap on the Kindle, and I'd assume that price will be consistent across platforms — hopefully you'll be able to read it because it really was staggeringly good.

The film night thing is one of the activities we implemented in the wake of the pandemic and lockdowns — we were fairly regular cinema-goers (although not every week, more like once a month), we pay for almost every streaming service, Matthias also has a huge DVD collection, and it felt ridiculous not to make use of these things. It was a way to build fun routines into the week when we initially started working from home and every day felt the same. It's been good so far, although we go for months at a time not watching any films.

I don't know if 'glad' is the right word given it was due to sickness, but I'm happy the two of you were at least able to watch a bunch of new stuff together while you were stuck at home.