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The internet as an education tool, # 20045: so I idly check out fanficrants, and in the midst of a small debate about whether or not it would be ic for Howard Stark to refuse to pay ransom had Tony been kidnapped as a child, someone brings up one of those real life stories one wouldn't dare to invent but which had been utterly unknown to me until then: the John Paul Getty III case. J. Paul Getty III was kidnapped in 1971, his grandfather - J. Paul Getty, Sr., he who collected all the art on dispay in Los Angeles and at the time one of the wealthiest men in the world - refused to pay the ransom. (The boy's father did not have access to the family money). After the grandfather received the boy's ear and a lock of hair in the mail, he finally agreed to led money to his son (at 4%) interest - and only 2.2 million (the maximum tax deductible amount) to pay the kidnappers. It's the "maximum tax deductible amount" which delivers the final blow. I mean, if someone wrote a novel with this detail, or shot a film, you'd call the grandfather millionaire character an over the top unbelievable caricature. Good grief.
On a more joyful note, this week's![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fannish5 wants to know:
Five favorite comfort reads: books or stories you turn to when you're sick or feeling down.
1.) Richard Adams: Watership Down. It must be bunnies, as Anya would say. Still my favourite novel using animals as main characters, and I love every bit of it, including and especially the in-world mythology, the stories of El-ahrairah. Note that there are some very grimm passages (WIRES!), so my idea of comfort reading obviously includes scary interludes, but you know, I was raised with Grimm fairy tales, so. :)
2.) Heinrich Heine: Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen. This I usually listen to rather than read, in one of the various recitations available by some of our top actors. It's still one of the best and wittiest satires (verse or prose) by one of our best poets ever, Heine in top form, doesn't spare anything or anyone including himself and is guaranteed to make me smile in a rueful "...and this is still true!" way. (More Heine praise complete with translations here.)
3.) Katharine Hepburn: African Queen. This short, slender book about making the film of the title was the predecessor of her later memoirs and is ideal comfort reading. It's brief, funny, with affectionate portrayals of Huston, Bogart and Laureen Bacall (who as Bogart's wife was along with the ride even if she didn't appear in the film), and unafraid to use herself as the butt of a joke. (As when she reports how after lecturing Huston and Bogart about their drinking she got sick while those two alcoholics of course remained just fine.) Written in a breezy rat-at-tat speaking style that makes you feel Katharine Hepburn is telling you this story.
4.) The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. Waugh's a cold bastard, both of them are the embodiment of privilege, but my, could they ever write witty letters. (Bursting with good anecdotes. One of my favourites is about Randolph Churchill (son of Winston, cousin of Nancy) reacting to Brideshead Revisited by declaring he'll never commit adultery in the same carefree way again.) Blissikins, to use a Mitford phrase. Also Nancy is great at shooting Waugh down when he gets into lecturing mode, and being the cosmopolitan to his xenophobe.
5.) Barbara Hambly: Bride of the Rat God. Which is a glorious 1920s adventure in which our heroine, sensible Englishwoman Norah, helps her sister-in-law, glamorous and extravagant American silent film star Christine, when the later becomes accidentally the focus of supernatural goings on. So many things to love about this: it's both a spoof of a certain type of serial and a good variety of it because it takes its characters seriously in the absurd situations they're thrown in, the romance between Norah (who in the process of the adventure finds her calling as a scriptwriter) and Alex the camera man is endearingly unangsty, the evocation of Los Angeles in general and Hollywood in particular in the 1920s is great, and most importantly, Hambly avoids the temptation of villainizing or trashing Christine the hedonistic party girl in order to build up Norah; au contraire, the friendship and bond between these two different women is crucial for the tale.
On a more joyful note, this week's
fannish5 wants to know: Five favorite comfort reads: books or stories you turn to when you're sick or feeling down.
1.) Richard Adams: Watership Down. It must be bunnies, as Anya would say. Still my favourite novel using animals as main characters, and I love every bit of it, including and especially the in-world mythology, the stories of El-ahrairah. Note that there are some very grimm passages (WIRES!), so my idea of comfort reading obviously includes scary interludes, but you know, I was raised with Grimm fairy tales, so. :)
2.) Heinrich Heine: Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen. This I usually listen to rather than read, in one of the various recitations available by some of our top actors. It's still one of the best and wittiest satires (verse or prose) by one of our best poets ever, Heine in top form, doesn't spare anything or anyone including himself and is guaranteed to make me smile in a rueful "...and this is still true!" way. (More Heine praise complete with translations here.)
3.) Katharine Hepburn: African Queen. This short, slender book about making the film of the title was the predecessor of her later memoirs and is ideal comfort reading. It's brief, funny, with affectionate portrayals of Huston, Bogart and Laureen Bacall (who as Bogart's wife was along with the ride even if she didn't appear in the film), and unafraid to use herself as the butt of a joke. (As when she reports how after lecturing Huston and Bogart about their drinking she got sick while those two alcoholics of course remained just fine.) Written in a breezy rat-at-tat speaking style that makes you feel Katharine Hepburn is telling you this story.
4.) The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. Waugh's a cold bastard, both of them are the embodiment of privilege, but my, could they ever write witty letters. (Bursting with good anecdotes. One of my favourites is about Randolph Churchill (son of Winston, cousin of Nancy) reacting to Brideshead Revisited by declaring he'll never commit adultery in the same carefree way again.) Blissikins, to use a Mitford phrase. Also Nancy is great at shooting Waugh down when he gets into lecturing mode, and being the cosmopolitan to his xenophobe.
5.) Barbara Hambly: Bride of the Rat God. Which is a glorious 1920s adventure in which our heroine, sensible Englishwoman Norah, helps her sister-in-law, glamorous and extravagant American silent film star Christine, when the later becomes accidentally the focus of supernatural goings on. So many things to love about this: it's both a spoof of a certain type of serial and a good variety of it because it takes its characters seriously in the absurd situations they're thrown in, the romance between Norah (who in the process of the adventure finds her calling as a scriptwriter) and Alex the camera man is endearingly unangsty, the evocation of Los Angeles in general and Hollywood in particular in the 1920s is great, and most importantly, Hambly avoids the temptation of villainizing or trashing Christine the hedonistic party girl in order to build up Norah; au contraire, the friendship and bond between these two different women is crucial for the tale.
