Green Grass Running Water

This is the rare case where studying a text has made me like it less. On original reading, King's novel made me ecstatic, with hilarious renderings of biblical texts through a native lens, and a fast-paced, humourous story.

However, the sheer anger that permeates the text has dimmed my enjoyment; I will admit this is because his anger is directed at me, a descendent of a Colonial nation (England in particular), but I was made uncomfortable. I'm sure that was King's intention, however, I cannot help my reaction to the cutting remarks he makes regarding people he likely identifies me as close kin to.

5/5 pre-lecture, 4/5 post-lecture.

Die Welle

German films tend to be hit or miss for me; that is to say, I cannot think of a single German film I have been ambivalent or apathetic about. I love them or hate them, with little room between. I am lucky, then, that this would be one of the films to love.

Die Welle (or, in English, The Wave), explores autocracy (and not necessarily Third Reich autocracy, though that is certainly a shadow over the film) in a high school context, which works marvellously, without simplifying the issue. Instead, the subject is handled deftly, with loaded dialogue, and even more so loaded concepts.

Die Welle doesn't buckle under the pressure of the concepts it explores, and while occasionally the film seems a little obvious, a little heavy-handed, that is likely because we, as a society, have spent so much time discussing these issues. That doesn't make Die Welle less important; in fact, its fresh take on the issue is perhaps even more important in light of the ham-fisted efforts that precede it.

4/5

Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever...

Swish is a delightful little romp, advertised as a man's quest to become the gayest person ever, and packaged as such, with chapters on knitting, aerobics instruction, and go-go dancing. But instead of being a shallow, if funny, look into sterotypical homosexuality, it is a much more nuanced memoir, tackling issues like the early death of Derfner's mother and his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder. That isn't to say it isn't funny, because it is very, very funny. But instead of being a waste of time, if an enjoyable time-waster, it is an intelligent little memoir, packaged as something much less substantial.

4/5

As You Like It

I'm rarely enamoured with Shakespeare's comedies, and As You Like It is no exception. It retreads concepts Shakespeare has examined in other plays (Twelth Night as a more enjoyable example), and with the exception of the famous speech on the phases of man, offers nothing Shakespeare hasn't done, and better.

I was reading this for a queer literature course, but the concepts in relationship to queerness have been tread and retread, and it appears the only reason we read this text in particular was in order to offer a familiar author in a queer context (which his sonnets would have achieved, and in a munch more interesting way).

2.5/5

Symposium

I feel guilty; I don't particularly like Plato. There are some interesting aspects to Symposium, such as the nature of oral storytelling, and Aristophanes' origin of love story (which I have a soft spot for from repeat viewings of Hedwig and the Angry Inch), however, the prose is basic, and the concepts not particularly interesting to me. They're also just about beaten to death, which I cannot blame Plato for, but that fact did seriously affect my enjoyment of the book.

2/5