Z/Web

Author: William Goldman

This book is a sequel to The Marathon Man, a novel I haven’t read, but it seemed like it was readable on its own. First, let me say that this is a superior book, so superior in fact, that it overcomes some major flaws. The first flaw is the opening few chapters which are poorly written and meaningless. The main character, who was supposedly killed in the first book, is the ultimate assasin, and he’s not dead, and the first chapter puts us into his stream of consciousness as he recovers from his injuries on a deserted island. Unfortunately, Goldman begins and ends every sentence with an ellipsis (three dots), and without understanding who this guy is or what the situation is, not a word makes sense, and all the dots and abbreviated sentences make reading tough. This chapter is followed by a scene involving two young kids, brothers, who are tragically killed in an explosion. What makes that confusing is that in the stream of consciousness portion, the guy talks about his brother, leading me to think this was a flashback of him and his brother in childhood, and the explosion that kills them blows that away, leaving me bewildered and puzzled. More incomprehensible scenes follow, but these are longer and more interesting, and they’re soon explained. The thing about the kids isn’t explained until the very end of the novel, however, which is a long time to go without understanding anything. However, once the novel gets going, it’s excellent. The assassin character is interesting and deadly, and Goldman does a great job keeping us in suspense while still keeping his main guy almost superhuman. We constantly think he’s failed and lost, but in the end he always wins. Very cool. The climax is terrific, and everything pays off in the end, making this a very exciting novel. The actual secret of the kids is a bit bizarre and never technologically explained (it’s like technomagic, I guess), but it does make some sense. I won’t reveal it here since that would spoil the book. I recommend you skim through or skip the first chapter or two — you won’t miss anything, and you’ll be a lot less frustrated. It took me a while to get into the book because of the poor start, but once it got going I couldn’t put it down.

Director: Peter Jackson

This is Jackson’s terrific follow-up to his first effort, entrails of a zombie try to strangle the hero! My favorite scene is one is which a zombie is given a spoon to eat with and he’s so dumb and impervious to pain (he’s already dead, remember) that he shoves the spoon so deep in his throat it comes out the back of his head! Just awesome.

Not as pathetic as I expected: in fact, I kinda liked it (or at least one aspect of it). What I liked was the approach and premise: a young woman who’s getting ready to be married has an antagonist relationship with her mother, who wants nothing to do with the wedding (and the daughter doesn’t want her there). But the old woman’s three friends (the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) drug and kidnap the daughter and take her back home in order to explain to her who her mother is and why she’s not as bad as the daughter thinks. What follows is flashbacks to the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’s childhood and youth (played by two generations of actresses) as dark family secrets are revealed. Eventually, of course, the daughter and mother reconcile. What I didn’t like: first, the dark secrets revealed aren’t very dark, secret, or particularly interesting or exciting; second, watching a bunch of old woman talk like sailors and whine and reminisce isn’t my idea of quality entertainment; and third, the whole “Ya-Ya” thing, though portrayed as childhood girls club, had mystical elements that echoed occult-type ceremonies and left a bad taste in my mouth. It would have been okay if they’d left that stuff in childhood, but seeing 60+ old women do it was bizarre and uncomfortable. Still, the film wasn’t as bad as I expected, and I liked some of the characters and scenes.