protean depravity

Haha, this will be one big rant post. It was an unlucky month for me and the book choices I made left much to desire. At the risk of sounding like grumpy İnci, I'm really unsatisfied with what I have read but I hope you enjoy the short reviews nevertheless.

A place changes you – a city, a neighborhood, a hotel. A story. You arrived to each with your own fear, your own hunger, and you found yourself taking on the cast and the appetite of where you were. You couldn’t help it. About one third into Extended Stay I was confused and not sure what Martinez was trying to do here. The half-hypnotic, half-psychedelic narration. The dream-like atmosphere. Confusion. A main character as detached from his reality as he was from his readers. Helpless, directionless, sometimes mean, sometimes aggressive, sometimes opportunistic, sometimes indifferent. An environment teeming with, literally leaking hostility. It really felt like reading a dream, or rather a nightmare-diary. And I didn't like how it affected me, it didn't feel like a kind of fiction I enjoy reading.

First off - I am profusely sorry if I have motivated anyone to go to open air cinemas in Berlin in my last text on films, in which I claim it an exhilarating pastime and the way the summer goes this year, let's face it, it's just not great at all, it is awful... I apologize. This summer sucks, to be brutally honest. During every single movie I went to see open air it rained in various degrees, from mild pattering to Earth-has-decided-to-end-by-flood level and I am now tired sitting on cold benches with chattering teeth and wet feet, and before developing severe frostbite in August I decided I will finish my film plan either at home with my hot water bottle or in indoors cinemas. Still, it wasn't all for nothing, because I saw a lot of good films and documentaries so far. The day before yesterday, for instance, I finally got the chance to see a movie I was really craving for and it was amazing for me. I am, clearly, talking about Mad Heidi.

Although I have read a lot, I feel like I haven't been reading anything of much substance the last few weeks. On the one hand I have all these novellas I want to go through because I need a certain amount of novellas to choose from for my end of the year list, on the other hand I want a long book. It sucks but I also feel like I get bored easily and can't really focus on longer books right now, even though I have a mountain of them waiting on my bed side. I sincerely hope to get out of that slump quickly and really really wish to get completely captivated and lost again in a long story. Maybe I'll yet find that story this summer. Enjoy the shorties!

Having read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" last week and afterwards re-watching and comparing the book to Blade Runner in my review was so much fun that I'm repeating it this week with another book, and I even found a goodreads friend, Debbie, who is ready to read with me the book on which a famous movie is based off on a regular basis. We will then try and watch the movie around the same time and compare the works, but the focus will of course be on the book since I'm a bookworm and not a film critic in no way. And I'm opening a new column called "Based on Books" to sort these reviews in. Back around the time it was first released (2013-2104?) I had tried to watch the movie Under the Skin but unfortunately fell asleep while watching and so I couldn't claim I watched it. That was before yesterday, because after finishing Michael Faber's book I succeeded in watching it and here are my thoughts on both.

Apart from festival time, I sit down about twice a year to take stock of all the new movies I want to watch in the upcoming season - which doesn't mean they're all the movies I'll ever watch in the coming months, there will surely be many I'll still go see, but it's nice to have a plan and a goal before you. So I have scanned my favorite horror sites, the fantasy film fest website and the websites of various movie theatres in Berlin that I'm fond of, open air and closed room, and I came up with a mini summer program that goes until fall. I will be traveling end of August and the first half of September but decided to return early to Berlin in order not to miss the Fantasy Film Festival, I hope it will be worth it, lol.

Finally, I have the feeling that there's some revving up in terms of good books coming my way as I have read numerous of them these past weeks. I'm really trying, but also struggling a little bit to balance all the new publications with the book group and buddy reads with my many challenges and back list. No need to stress, though, I guess the tbr list is something never ending, and once you accept that truth it gets easier to accept I'll never be able to read everything, sigh.... Enjoy my short reviews on that melancholy note!

I'm such a bad blogger, I completely forgot the 3rd birthday of my blog... Happy third birthday, Protean Depravity!! This past year was quite turbulent and had me thinking if and how to carry on with my blog at all - mostly because PD is essentially a pandemic project and as you may have realized, the COVID pandemic ended (probably?).