Birds of the World

Birds of the World #1

Common Mynah, Qatar

Collared Doves, Qatar

Red Vented Bulbul, Qatar

Laughing Dove, Qatar

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

When I first read this book I recalled a different story. One about journeying through a dark primitive landscape; two worlds fighting against each other, and an insane deserter. I must have missed Conrad's weight after being so heavily bogged down by his language. This was a very sobering read and for the denseness of the prose, it was not an easy one. Conrad seems to have a knack for describing landscapes and phenomena emotively. That might be why many have problems with this novel, many of his descriptions are so personal they are occasionally bizarre. "We live as we dream, alone", that quote probably best defines his approach.

The Poisonwood Bible Review

 I recently read Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I had wanted to read this book since I was in 6th grade. The plot concerns a Baptist missionary family posted in a rural Congolese village.  As you can expect stuff does not go to plan, cultures clash and tragedy strikes. Short chapters are narrated in first person by the wife and the three daughters of this fervent preacher, with the daughters providing most of the narration. I enjoyed this narration style, and it allowed for unique perspectives as well as a story that seems to reinforce and converge together. I also enjoyed Barbara's prose and found it very colourful sometime maybe to dreamy, but there are some very nice moments. Likewise, I enjoyed reading as the children grew and changed and all the difficulties they had. Likewise, I enjoyed most of the secondary characters as well and felt that most of the prominent ones were as well fleshed out as they needed to be. The problem with the novel though is the ending. Dear Lord, the novel climaxes about 2/3 before the novel ends and the last third of the novel is in this perpetual meditative state. I understand that their needs to be a long  wrap up to the climax (which was excellent, exhilarating and very tragic) but out of the 130 pages at least half were banal political lectures or a detailed but largely unnecessary outline of the lives of these protagonists. The last third feels like a completely different novel with characters diverging and lamenting about their own struggles individually. I was expecting a novel much like the first two thirds.  

PEELS NO LIVE EVIL ON SLEEP

Les Miserables Movie Review (SPOILER, IT'S MISERABLE)

 Les Miserables is an adaptation of the musical based on one of 19th centuries novel of the same name. There are aspects of the film that are attractive. The cast is impressive and their performances especially from an emotive perspective especially those from Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway are often strong. The musical score is good and occasionally exhilarating. And the context and substance derived from a Hugo novel set in 1830s France is very attractive. However, Les Miserables is a miserable movie Perhaps because it was meant to be experienced in theatres, the cinematography and the editing are sickening and once you notice it, the film becomes a drunken hellscape. Cameras shift from shaky to slanted, close-ups to tracking till it makes you on verge of barfing. The film has an incredibly a sanitized nature and pompous glamorous set design. The scenes shift from each other at such a fast pace of set expositions and continuous emotional torment that it almost seems like a continuous string of advertisements attempting to sell the film. Maybe the film is too self-aware? Though performances are often emotive on the surface, the singing is often subpar. The cast is definitely capable of emoting like they are in a musical and selling an emotion, they are just weak singers which affects the quality of the music since the film and is very irritating since the film is almost entirely sung. We don't know much about the characters either other than he's a revolutionary, she's in love, they're swindlers etc. With some exceptions, the first 30 minutes are the best and closest I felt to the characters during Les Miserables 158 minute run time. Jean Valjean's scenes with the Bishop and the opening scene are well done and connect well to later scenes, but after that, the is mostly a disorienting cloying melodramatic slog. Maybe it was never meant to be seen on a TV screen. Look down! Look down! It's a miserable mess. Seriously this film needs a warning label for its hurl-inducing cinematography.