Spain + The Prestige + Annotation

 

So, in case you haven't noticed from my book tour page, I will be going to Spain tomorrow for a 10 day trip.  I'm really not sure what my Internet connection will be like, but it's unlikely that I'll be making many posts over the next two weeks. 

I'll do my best to at least throw up my consistent constant--that means an Amphigory Tomorrow, a Warbreaker on Wednesday, and annotations on Fridays and Mondays.  However, some of these may come late, and if my Internet situation looks bad, I may just get on once and then publish all of these things together on one day.

For now, however, let me post a New Annotation: Mistborn Chapter Fourteen Part One.

Also, I went to see The Prestige on Saturday.  I wasn't exactly sure what to expect--a lot of people had spoken very highly of the movie, and the book was written by a Tor author.  (Christopher Priest.)  The year that Moshe, my editor, was sitting on the World Fantasy Award committee is the year the book won for best novel, and so it's very special to him.  (He was the one who first brought the book to the committee's attention.)

The movie was, in my opinion, a masterpiece.  The directing was excellent, the acting wonderful, and the storytelling very well done.  There was only one problem.  I didn't really care.

That didn't stop me from enjoying the movie.  It was, as I said, very well made.  However, the story is essentially a warning about letting an obsession--and a rivalry--take over one's life.  Both of the main characters, then, represent men who let their passions destroy them. 

That left me feeling little empathy with either of them, probably on purpose.  However, because of that, the movie felt like it lacked heart.  I couldn't really understand either character, and couldn't connect with them.

And so, the movie--despite being very well made--affected me intellectually more than emotionally, and for that reason will probably fade from my memory.  I tend to remember emotion far more powerfully than thoughts.