the quirky brunette: Sunday Summary

Hello, friends.

This week, I have mostly been

Finishing | THIS BOOK!

{The Hundred-Year-Old Man...
Jonas Jonasson}

Actually, y'know what, I enjoyed it, I did. I just couldn't read it in one sitting.

I also finished:

{Willful Creatures
Aimee Bender}

which was both mature and immature in turns, and quite Alice Hoffmann-esque in its mystical surrealism.

I'm now working my way through:

{The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway}

and am only two books behind in my Quest to read 50 books this year. (Hurray for me!)

{I'm gonna make it... I'm gonna make it...}

Watching | Gone Girl

The book wasn't especially my favourite of this year although it was an engaging read; I was just all too pleased to close the covers and squish those foul characters inside (except maybe Go; I'd spare her). I need characters I can root for.

But I did enjoy the film, or at least the first two hours of it; the last twenty minutes or so dragged a little, especially after the biggest denouement of the film (no spoilers here, don't you worry). And if Gillian Flynn had indeed rewritten the end of the film to differ from the book, I couldn't tell, largely because I only had vague memories of how the book finally ended, so pleased was I to be done with the Dunnes.

{Lizzy Bennet, too, was rather glad to finish Gone Girl...}

So it's safe to say that, against type, I preferred the film. The casting is superb -- there is both history and tension between Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick and Amy -- and from the start of the film, when Amy tilts her head and gives Nick (or rather us), a look, she is drawn perfectly (catch it in the trailer!). But while I did indeed find myself wanting to squish the characters inside the book, never to be released, the film gave them just that modicum more sympathy. Not a lot, granted, because they're fairly heinous, but the sides to each story are more tangible.

There is a lot of very graphic rumpy, some very descriptive violence and a severe case of potty mouth, and two out of three of these elements could have been toned down... (not the violence, though -- oddly that almost needed to happen in line with the story.) There are also one or two plot holes... but you don't really think those through until long after the film has ended.

{fifteen minutes after credits have rolled...}

See it... but only if you've read the book first.

Day-trippin' | back to Brighton

Because I had a 'delay repay' voucher that expires on Wednesday...
and because I fancied a day trip...
I took my little old self on the train down to Brighton on Saturday -- pilgrimage number 2 of the year.

My day looked a bit like this:

...autumn-grey yet flecked with colour.

I paid another visit to Mr Magpie (for a 1920s sans serif ampersand this time; it's beautiful), and Snooper's Paradise (which may or may not have an apostrophe, I don't even know any more, and I've had a very confusing day today!), where I picked up three old photos for 50p each -- I'm dating the first two around 1930s, maybe 1940s for the second shot of the couple; anyway, I love them:

{'1933' was written on the back of this one.}

I also ducked into the Photomatic Photo Booth in Snooper's, because, well, it was there, and I could. And I'm glad I did, even if I have had to ceremoniously edit out the heinous eye-bags from the resultant photos... Sheesh, aged, much?

(Today I am mostly applying a caffeine-based eye roll on in the hope of removing said eye-baggage.)

The chap from Snooper's was suitably impressed by a) my cloche and b) my ability to switch hats in between the camera flashes going off. I gotz skillz.

Saturday was (reportedly) the last day of Lucy Sparrow's excellent pop-up felt cornershop at the No Walls Gallery on Church Street; the premise of the shop-cum-art exhibit being a cornershop in which the produce was made almost entirely from felt. So I popped in for a look; and the attention to detail was terrific!

The rest of the day involved mooching to the Pier, eating ham, egg and chips in the Dorset, trying to use up the last NYC camera film...

...and actually wishing I wasn't down there alone, that this was a day trip I was sharing with someone else. Because, sometimes, in spite of my Destiny's-Child-era Beyoncé-esque protestations that I'm an Independent Woman with all its implicit throwing-your-hands-up-at-me shenanigans, I'm not enough company for myself.

Only sometimes, though. I can still happily take myself on dates.