Midnight Sun - should it be?

Photo by me

This week I think I have had at least 10 people approach me whilst I was sat reading this book - it's taken me two weeks to finish. Midnight Sun is in short, two long, any Twilight fans know the longest book is Breaking Dawn, this is a similar size weighing in at nearly 700 pages. However, the difference is there actually isn't much actually happening like Breaking Dawn. It's not a tough read because of the dialogue however, I was actually bored.

I am a real Twilight fan, after being disappointed initially in The Host, Meyer's latest offering post Twilight mania and I wondered if she was just a one-hit wonder. The voice of Bella Swan ricochets into her own authors tone in each book following - both her Twilight novella and The Host.

Now, Midnight Sun has confirmed this theory, Bella's voice and tone creeps in, it's feminine youthful naivety and typical 17 year-old first love and obsession crashes through in the voice of Edward Cullen. The illusion of this Vampire we all fell in love with in 2005 is well and truly shattered, and what's left is a childlike, stubborn obsessive young man, almost creepily watchful of this young human girl. The sex and intrigue is completely taken out, mainly because it is word-for-word Twilight but with pages upon pages of filler, Edward hanging from her every word in a way that was intriguing and enthralling in Twilight, falls flat and ridiculously repetitive in Midnight Sun.

I remember when Twilight mania was still high in the air and those fateful three chapters were leaked and maybe yes it was exciting to have just a taste more of our favourite sparkly vampire, but really, this should've been a short Novella. I think this would've worked in a less is more kind of way, a bittersweet kind of romance where he saves her life and never leaves her (knowing all we know) and just leave it at that. Not 700 pages of him analysing her conversation, sleep patterns and explaining every move in great detail. Also, the guy doesn't sleep so it's generally a lot more conversation and thought which Bella didn't have.

If you love the Twilight Saga, you may find this a fun trip down memory lane, I got bored and left it for a few days to be honest. So, I am sorry Stephanie Meyer, this is just one Twilight book that shouldn't exist.

Now, can we talk about a Jacob and Renesmee book, picking up on them as adults? That's one Twilight book I think should exist.

What I've been up too this week

My weekly round-up of what I've watched and finished reading, hope you enjoy! x

The Party by Elizabeth Day 2017

Publisher: 4th Estate

Elizabeth Day's book The Party follows the twists and turns of one night where old friends get together, years of secrets surround them. The book trails Martin Gilmour, slight outcast and his friendship with the glamorous popular rich boy Ben. From their childhood through to university the mens lives interweave through sudden turns of events. I loved the format of the book, different chapters under different authors and winding through different decades making you question the turn of events and the validity of the characters accounts. I gobbled this book up in a couple of evenings it was so gripping! The story was so multi-facetted discussing wealth, privilege and obsession. Not what I was expecting from the beginning I couldn't work it out at all, such a fun but emotional read.

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Visuals of the week

Ladies in Black Director Bruce Beresford 2018

Based on the 2008 book by Madeline St John set in 1959 at a prestigious department store named Goodes in Sydney Australia. The story centres around a young girl in between high school and university, who joins as a shop hand in the ladies department to earn money over summer leading to Christmas. The story follows her and the three key women she encounters, two young women in their mid/late twenties navigating marriage (Patty) and love (Fay) whilst the third is the head of the haute couture section of the department, and older sophisticated Slovenian Madga (Julia Osmond). It’s quite a soft-hearted film, with some light comedy.

The look of the film generally is a real reason to watch it, you get beautiful scenes of Sydney & general Australia landscape but also the costumes really stand out even through the natural glamour backdrop of the shop floor setting. I think they followed each characters arc really well, Lisa generally growing up and seeking acceptance into the adult world Magda now exposes her too, but without complete fashion film fantasy as often happens in commercial period drama.

The Dressmaker (2015)

It reminds me of the film The Dressmaker (2015) with Kate Winslet by written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, this tale shows a small town go through a fashionable transformation when a dressmaker returns from Paris after years away. Both stories are lighthearted but with small plot gems weaving it all together. However sometimes these films drag in the middle simply because there isn’t enough plot and both reveal secrets which on reflection don’t stand up as greatly shocking or dramatic. Never the less very worth watching for the clothes and photography as both were really inspiring to watch. The Dressmaker is probably better though if you’re interested in Australia in this era, though inaccurate in places it’d an exciting fashion fantasy to watch.

Eleven Madison Park

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7 Days Out: Eleven Madison Park Director Michael John Warren 2018

7 Days Out follows the final seven days before any major world event in 2018, sadly only one series but so interesting. Some events include NASA’s incredible Cassini mission to Saturn ending after decades of work and research, to the Chanel couture show with final camera interviews of the legendary fashion mogul Karl Lagerfeld before his death later in the year.

My favourite episode is Eleven Madison Park, following the refurbishment and final week before the grand opening of the restaurant. Having won title of best restaurant in the world in 2017 restaurant partners Chef Daniel Humm and restauranteur Will Guidara decide to purchase the restaurant and re do it and the menu to make it more their own vision. The documentary is only 45 minutes per episode but I think watching they way chefs operate within the kitchen and front of house, we see the completely intense work ethnic and hierarchy.

Head chef Daniel Humm begins his early career as a professional cyclist before moving to American from his native Switzerland. At 24 he received his first Michelin start in San Francisco before moving to New York City and working for Eleven. The pair now own the company Make it Nice which now sees three further restaurants and a cook book across the world, most recently in Claridges Hotel London.

The series is more than the tense final moments of rush and will they finish in time, it showed me the drive that both men and the team have and their strive to be the best and except no less. Small moments like Will Guidara explaining that the plates have the logo placed exactly facing the customer printed on the base of the plate. He says “will anyone notice this? No, but it’s about doing everything with intention”. I’ve watched this episode so many times purely as I find them so inspiring, the idea that the team means more than any individual.

Moments when they discuss being in the “human connection business” not the food business, it could not be put more accurately. They see their role as a small element to help celebrate key moments in a persons life. I think the series shows the drive in life you need to make those human connections and why having that drive ultimately gives you and others around you so much joy and peace.

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An American in Paris Director Vincente Minnelli 1951

Written but Alan Jay Lerner, key writer of Camelot, Gigi My Fair Lady and Royal Wedding. Died young at 67 but has over 231 soundtrack credits. Mostly posthumously, which shows how many films and television shows have been influenced by Camelot and My Fair Lady, but also his early music and lyrics from these films.

The bombastic erratic musical stylings of this film were revolutionary in breaking the mould of traditional musicals on film. With cinema scope coming in and expensive technicolour grading we see one of the largest, richest longest sequences in cinema thus far.

A dreamscape alongside the narrative of the artist Kelly, gives you a love triangle but mostly the romance and dialogue is transferred through dance. The costumes are fabulous, some dramatic party scenes are insane but creatively so rich, it’s worth watching for the inspiration of the mise en scene and the photography.

Elements of costume show clear influence on wider modern culture, scenes of dance where the ensemble wear striped classic new look a line skirted dresses, has translated into the Dior collections of 2017 RAF Simons crimped tulle and satin rainbow skirts. It really shows film influence on wider fashion culture today.

Some elements of the music are so poetic and balletic, the principal actress being a dancer first and discovered by Gene Kelly for this role, she shines as a dancer, her body communicates more than her acting parts. Some amazing scenes describing characters showing off the technicolour and set design, it’s so worth watching.

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The Hustler (1961) Director Robert Rossen / based on the Walter Tevis Novel 1959

From the writer of The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, Major film starring David Bowie) Walter Tevis wrote The Hustler & the sequel Colour of Money (1986) which are also films. The Hustler staring Paul Newman follows a pool player known as "fast Eddie" and his assistant travelling around America's pool rooms hustling amateur players. They hit a bump when he ups the stakes attempting to beat the best pool player in the country "Minnesota Fats", throwing his ambition and talent into question. Eddie encounters the personal cost of winning and getting involved with "fats" manager to break into the big leagues.

I had watched the sequel Colour of Money (1986) where Newman reprises his role and Tom Cruise becoming his protege, before this one, and I really liked watching it this way around. It was almost more mysterious not knowing the past Newman had as "fast Eddie". Both stories discuss relationships, ambition and what it really means to be the best - and at what cost?

They Drive By Night (1940) Director Raoul Walsh

The film follows truck-driving brothers who join a transport company, which soon after leads to one (Raft) being falsely accused of murder.

So Ann Sheridan looks like the love child of Judy Garland and Joan Crawford. Thats the first impression I wrote down about this film, secondly, is that you can't understand why Walsh has George Raft as the central male lead instead of Humphrey Bogart who plays his brother. Interestingly, only a year later after this John Huston took Bogart on as the lead in The Maltese Falcon (1941) which lead to a lifelong partnership of film-making and catapulted Bogart into a Hollywood megastar.

I found this lesser acknowledged film noir an interesting take on the mad woman striving for economic independence and sexual power. Lupino then actress turned director portrays Lana Carlsen, wife to truck company owner, gives an incredible portrayal of a woman on the edge. For 1940 these central female characters usually are one or the other Mad or Passive it appears, but I enjoyed the subtle challenges the film poses, Sheridan plays Raft's central love interest and often between Lupino dominate screen time.

The film has interesting twists and turns with beautiful visuals in Ida Lupino's character adding glamorous costumes, designed by Miles Anderson. This crime-of-passion noir is well worth watching even just for Lupino's costumes.

What I am reading next:

A Brief History of: The Normans The Conquests that changed the face of Europe By Francois Neveux

Levels of Life & The Only Story By Julian Barnes

I have just had a strange thought about life. I read a sentence today, in a book by William Boyd, Any Human Heart (2002), about our lives being dragged out when we are old and, in a way gives rise to feelings of urgency to die, out of exhaustion. But as cliched as it sounds, it really had a profound affect on me, I'm sat here, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, four months in, where we are slowly being allowed to go out, but mostly we are in solitude, either working remotely, or not at all. I suddenly feel a real pang of gratitude for the early life I have, and what I've experienced at 25.

I'm listening to Phoebe Bridges. Her words are sound astonishingly mature as though she has experienced a lifetime of love and loss, yet, she's twenty-five. Bridges says at one point, "I still hate you for what you did/ but I miss you like a little kid" she writes as storyteller, almost in prose, each song like a moment in her life. I felt this urge to remember important moments, and write them down, most recently having read Levels of Life (2013) & The Only Story (2019) by Julian Barnes.

Blake Morrison reviewed Levels of Life by Julian Barnes for the Guardian in April of 2013, interestingly, he said that Joan Didion wrote her book on grief, in little under a year after her husband died, then subsequently another when her daughter passed, whereas Julian Barnes took around 4 years, publishing Levels in 2013, literary agent Pat Kavanagh [Barnes wife] having passed away in 2008. I admire the strength it must take to let the world into your inner-most thoughts that a memoir provides, but, in another way I wonder: is this another part of the grieving process? To be understood and heard, to relate and maybe been drawn back into everyday life, outside your grief.

The loss and feelings don't go away, as everyone tells me you learn to live with it. I can't help but feel Barnes novel The Only Story, could only have been written and structured as it is, because of Levels of Life. Levels, the part biography/ part memoir has a confusing structure at first. I didn't understand it, in one way, to me it was like Barnes started the biography, then a sort of historical fiction, then his own essay on grief sort of collides with the rest of the book. I didn't know what to make of it initially. I was confused, and I think it's the genius of Barnes to draw your own conclusions on what the Levels of life really are.

Barnes tells the short history of 19th century Ballooning, and aerial photography at the forefront. So, on the surface, it's this story of a search for new beginnings and innovation, but then of looking back at yourself, in the images taken in the clouds. In these three sections of the book, I think Barnes is exploring the ideas of fact vs fantasy. I personally thought about all of the things we fantasise about in life, the 'what-ifs', like the two characters (real people Colonel Fred Burnaby & french actress Sarah Bernhardt) and their romance in the second part. We know they are real but the rest is romantic invention. I think Barnes is exploring how we look back on love, how we can have a facsimile of an event, then an imagined moment, entirely built on our own interpretation of love, and then the aftermath of love, the reality, the authors own feelings.

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon [Nadar] a pioneer of aerial photography in the 19th century.

I think reading this after Barnes book The Only Story, a novel written retrospectively by a middle aged man, looking back on his life, focussing on one particular part his early life, which shapes the rest of it. Written in three key sections, Barnes excellently carries us through key moments of Paul's life, we dip in and out, opening in first person, then changing tenses as he moves further away from happiness, and in a way himself. It was easier having read both books to see where the central themes of grief and devotion come from with Barnes.

This book is beautifully written, I read it in a day, it was heartbreaking. The message was such an interesting one to me, the idea we all have one key "story" in our life which defines our romantic experience, and changes us forever. It's also not necessarily the primary relationship of your life, nor is it about the longevity of the relationship. This really moved me, and weirdly I do think both books go hand-in hand, though deeply thoughtful and intense, read them both close together.

To me, it's Barnes working through things, trying to aline his thoughts - is this what love is like perhaps when you lose it, muddled and displaced? Some articles say half of the pleasure of Levels of Life, is what it doesn't say, I think it's the genius of Julian Barnes in drawing out those emotions which we often can't express to ourselves.