Last Day of the Book Meme!

30. Would save if my house burned down.

Well, there goes my secret First Folio. Kidding aside, I think I'd go for a novel my second teacher ever presented to me when I had finished primary school. We had been his first class, and he gave everyone a book as a farewell present, not the same, but a different book for each student, depending on her or his taste, with an individual dedication written by him. I received "Up a road slowly" by Irene Hunt, and here is what I remember about it, not having read it since three decades: the heroine is a loner in love with books and wanting to become a writer. She has a terse relationship with her aunt whom she grows up with after her parents died, originally rejecting her as an humorless spinster, and the reader along with our heroine discovers step by step how fabulous the aunt (named Cordelia) really is. Another interesting relationship is with her uncle (the aunt's brother, not her husband), who is a bit of a slightly more functional Branwell Bronte type (expected to be the brilliant one of the family, overindulged, turns into self destructive alcoholic), who decdes that our heroine is his shot at redemption at some point.

There are also some love interests about, but I don't remember anything about them. Anyway, I loved the book, appreciated that my teacher had picked it for me (the indicated age range on the back was five years older than I was, but Mr. U. knew what else I was reading at that point), and would definitely grab it on my hypothetical way out of a burning house.



( The other days )

Apropos....

Back in the day, I growled against the existence of Ant-Man (as opposed to the non-existence of Black Widow) with the best of them, but it turned out to be surprisingly charming when I did get around to watching it on dvd, so I'll probably catch the sequel in the cinema. This article about how the movie creators used the events of other Marvel movies (in short: it's set pre-Infinity War, for obvious reasons if you've watched IW, but very much past Civil War and influenced by same) tells me ( something about Hope's and Hank's emotional reaction to Scott's actions in CW )

And while we're talking other MCU movies using CW in their continuity: Spider-man: Homecoming early on sums up the events of Captain America: Civil War in Peter's hilarious home video which transitions into a new scene of Tony and Happy delivering Peter back on the doorsteps of the building where he lives with his aunt. Now, my question is this: when exactly did this happen? Because it has to be either between the Leipzig-Halle Airport fight and Siberia, or directly after Siberia but before the final CW scene featuring Tony with a recovering Rhodey. Now, CW does a great job remembering Tony Stark as opposed to Steve does not have superhealing, so you see him looking him progressively more battered from the first skirmish at the CIA's Berlin quarters onwards. Tony post Siberia doesn't just have a black eye but various other cuts and bruises in the face, which he evidently does not in the Homecoming scene. Mind you, even post Leipzig, he has some facial bruises (you can see it in the conversation scene with Natasha), but not as severe. Now, the boring Doylist explanation is probably that the Homecoming production team either didn't recall he was supposed to look somewhat battered or didn't want to because the scene in question is supposed to be light hearted, but who cares about Doylist explanations, I want a Watsonian one, which is why I favor Peter's ride home taking place before Siberia. This still leaves us with Tony's chipper demeanour in that scene being entirely faked for Peter's benefit.

On to the tv section of the Marvelverse: abigail_n has reviewed the second season of Luke Cage here. She liked it far better than I did, though I absolutely agree on Alfre Woodard's performance and Mariah's story and characterisation versus Luke's. Her observation that Luke is written as a different character in all four seasons he's appeared so far (JJ s1, LC s1, Defenders and now LC s2) sums up the problem with the later.

Lastly, a Jessica Jones fanfic rec:

and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty : Jessica post season 2. Painful and beautiful, in just the right way.