The Sunday Salon, At the Last Minute

Blogging is so hard for me these days, and I don't really know why. Every time I try to write something, I can never seem to get past the opening paragraphs. But I don't want to stop blogging*, so hopefully one day I'll get past these bullet point posts and write real stuff again.

1) I finally finished last month's War and Peace section, and I liked it so much! I wish I hadn't waited so long, but sometimes stress reading isn't the best. My favorite part was when Andrei was telling his son a story but also thinking about his own issues (lbr, we've all done it when reading a bedtime story) and suddenly he stops the story and just gets up and leaves and his son is like WAIT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE STORY? Lol, poor kid. I also loved the part about Rostov's unexpected guilt/conflicted feelings over harming the French soldier. Like, he was doing this courageous and bold thing and in that moment, though, it became more complex and human. And I loved Natasha's grappling with her loss of innocence? And how she tried to turn to God and how desperately she wanted that to ease how she felt. I could totally relate, lol. I don't know this tiny section just hit on a bunch of my favorite stuff! I'm also reading next month's on a schedule so that I'll finish in time, and I won't say much except that I'm glad a certain someone is dead even if that makes me a horrible person!

2) I also read Rose Under Fire, which I liked so much. All this year, I've sort of wanted to do a theme week about women who survive violent crimes but let's face it, I'll probably never be that organized again. Even so, I felt like this book would have fit in and has a lot to say about survivors. Also, I just love how Wein writes friendship...it's so deep and heartfelt and real and I like it.

3) I haven't watched this week's episode of Breaking Bad yet, but I'm patting myself on the back for sticking with this show through the seasons. It certainly tried my patience at times, but it has always been surprising in its own way and does tension SO WELL. But I have always enjoyed the ending of a show that people are talking about and it's exciting to watch week to week and know it's going somewhere, like it's finally really truly going somewhere and that makes it exciting and fun.

4) The ending of The Killing's third season made me appreciate it on a whole new level, like I really love the season as a whole now. I am trying to write more about why it worked so well for me, but it made me consider that perhaps foreign adaptations need to be thrown out the window, like this was a story specifically created for the American incarnation of these characters and I think it made it a better season. Which leads me to...

5) The Bridge. I really disliked the most recent episode and I'm realizing that perhaps this adaptation isn't working for me. I had really high hopes for it, but somehow it's not delivering on what I hoped I'd see. I guess all I can hope for is that it straightens out a bit and that when the show shakes free from the Danish/Swedish version it becomes its own thing. I don't really know how to explain what I mean other than I think the vision these writers have of the story and the characters is different and yet it's not because they use EXACT SEQUENCES and DIALOGUE in developing the characters. It's just odd. Or maybe it's just my issues, idk.

6) I watched Upstream Color recently and lol. I liked it a lot, it was the exact perfect thing I needed for my mood, but I had NO IDEA what was happening, it was just pretty with nice music. So I had to read the director's explanation which made sense and made me enjoy it and want to watch it again. In any case, I want to watch Primer now (same director) which is apparently a time travels story that holds up (Jodie)

7) In more straightforward movies, I also watched Admission, which I liked a lot actually. Do you guys remember when this was a huge book on the book blogs? Anyway, I thought it was kind of a sad movie, though, and it gave me all these The Original 1982 feelings.

Hope you guys have a great week!

*I know I don't need to post to not give up blogging, but actually these little posts make me think I'm still a blogger, also it's just so complicated, like posting somewhat consistently is important!