Wives and Daughters

BBC Adaptation based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell

Review:

The adaptation is based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell, one of my favourite authors. Her books are usually compared to those of Jane Austen. Though I feel her stories are more grounded to reality than Austen's, which are far more romantic in nature. The central theme of Austen's books is romance, whilst Gaskell focuses on all others relationships including romance.

Set in provincial England, the story is centered around a sensible girl with dreamy eyes, Molly, her family , her friendships and the society she lives in. It is her journey and struggle from childhood and mainly focuses on her relationship with her father, her step mother, her step sister and her secret love.  Molly looses her mother in her early years and her father, a well established doctor in the province, falls in love and marries again . Her step mother is a governess with polished manners and though outwardly appears a kind person, is very concieted. She has a daughter from an earlier marriage, Cynthia, who is ravishingly beautiful but is rebellious in nature. Molly endures a silent struggle of acceptance and gets accustomed to her father's divided attentions to the new family. The squires in the town are very fond of Molly and they consider her as a part of their family. She falls in love with the younger son, Roger, but she never reveals her feelings to him. He in turn falls in love with Cynthia and Molly has to deal with the hardbreak silently. 

The squire, over a period of time, looses his wife and his elder son to illness. He struggles between the matters of status and heart when he figures out that his elder son had secretly married a French maid and has a son. Molly helps him accept the daughter-in-law and grand son.Cynthia has her share of struggle with her secrets of the past and has to deal with heartbreaks herself.

The story is more of a journey of each one of the characters, they recognize their weaknesses and evolve over a period of time . Set on the backdrop of provinicial England, there is an undercurrent of how the society was, at that point of time. The character of a young girl , if she is seen with someone unworthy and exchanging a secret word, is looked upon on derogatory terms. The fame of the girl and her family is questioned. There is a matchmaking talk which always goes on in town between a certain eligible young man and a pretty girl. What is worthy and who is worthy is discussed with utmost scrutiny.  

The BBC adaptation is brilliant and sticks to the book to the core till the end. The ending is modified a little bit as the book was left unfinished by the author, who died suddenly. Shot mainly in the country side, the visuals are beautiful. The costumes, the sceneries, the carriages transport you to the period which is so appealing. On a weekend, sit back, relax and enjoy this adaptation.

Recommended : 👍👍

Buy Wives and Daughters online

Also read my review on North and South

Review !!!

Avengers - Infinity War- Part 1

Review:

I am a huge fan of Avengers, and I look forward to see all the Marvel movies. In Avengers-Infinity War-Part 1, the plot follows Thanos going behind all the six powerful stones in the universe and gaining the ultimate power to wipe out the life on Earth. He follows the typical logic , which is followed by most of the villians in the science fiction movies -  help the Earth from getting over burdened , annihilate most of the life , and leave the chosen few to pave the new path. In his quest of six stones, he has to encounter and fight the Avengers and the Guardians, who are in posession of those stones. The part 1 ends in a distressing note when he manages to acquire all the six stones and disintegrate half the team of the Avengers and the Guardians, and wrecks havoc on Earth. He,for some reason, leaves the oldest ones alone .Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America are all intact, watching helplessly, as the world around them diminishes. Looks like Part 2 will pick up the strings and turn things around. The plot is a good one, and you are hooked to the film from the beginning to the end. But I felt the movie was one of the most grim and serious one from Marvel. I missed the quirky dialogues ( not that they are completely missing, they are there, but very few). I missed the wit from Iron Man, the star power from Thor, Banner's innocent and adorable comments. Each hero has very less screen time, simply because they were too many of them. I somewhere seemed to have sided with Hulk who refuses to show up throughout the movie. It was like a boycott from him that he would'nt show up. The whole film looked like a red carpet where the Avengers come, show their face and go. The good part though is Captain America competes with Thor on his good looks with his newly grown beard and super toned body. But we are all so used to Avengers now, and we wait for them to come, entertain us in their own sporting and stylish way. So, I left the movie hall wishing they would have made their presence better in the film. One of my cousins had shared a pic which summarizes the cast and the sequence of the whole movie.

To summarize, Avengers is always a feast to watch. But too many cooks, spoil the broth. Here's hoping, by the end of Part-2, the broth is indeed tasty.

Recommended : 👍

Lavender's blue - lovely lullaby !!

Lavender's Blue (Dilly Dilly)

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly,
Lavender's green
When you are king, dilly dilly,
I shall be queen

Who told you so, dilly dilly,
Who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, dilly dilly,
That told me so

Call up your friends, dilly, dilly
Set them to work
Some to the plough, dilly dilly,
Some to the fork

Some to the hay, dilly dilly,
Some to thresh corn
Whilst you and I, dilly dilly,
Keep ourselves warm

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly,
Lavender's green
When you are king, dilly dilly,
I shall be queen

Who told you so, dilly dilly,
Who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, dilly dilly,
That told me so.

How far I'll go - Moana

I've been staring at the edge of the water
'Long as I can remember, never really knowing why
I wish I could be the perfect daughter
But I come back to the water, no matter how hard I try
Every turn I take, every trail I track
Every path I make, every road leads back
To the place I know, where I can not go, where I long to be

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me
And no one knows, how far it goes
If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me
One day I'll know, if I go there's just no telling how far I'll go

I know everybody on this island, seems so happy on this island
Everything is by design
I know everybody on this island has a role on this island
So maybe I can roll with mine
I can lead with pride, I can make us strong
I'll be satisfied if I play along
But the voice inside sings a different song
What is wrong with me?

See the light as it shines on the sea? It's blinding
But no one knows, how deep it goes
And it seems like it's calling out to me, so come find me
And let me know, what's beyond that line, will I cross that line?

The line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me
And no one knows, how far it goes
If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me
One day I'll know, how far I'll go

Portkey to a magical world

A good list , not just for the children but for us too . 

A very good compilation with most of my favourite books .
Few of them I have not read, will get added to the reading cart.

Portkey to the magical world

Gajapati Kulapati

Review:

My kids love this series from Tulika publishers. Everyone in our house is fond of the dear Gajapati Kulapati , the adorable elephant and the villagers who take such good care of him . For children less than 5 yrs old, these books are awesome. Kids go giggling in fits and start enacting everything the elephant does .

Discussion on the book with the author

Author's Comments

The Book of Dust (Volume one of La Belle Sauvage)

Author : Philip Pullman

Review:

This trilogy is the prequel to the much acclaimed ' His Dark Materials' trilogy by the same author. The first book The Golden Compass was also made a motion picture on a very grand scale. Philip Pullman is another author who mixes fantasy with science. He takes up human conscience as a separate entity in matter, and how it is bound to us. 'His Dark Materials' is a masterpiece with extraordinary imagination. 'The Book of Dust' is just part 1 of the new trilogy and nothing much happens in this book. It's a journey of a boy and girl, who try to save the life of the main protoganist Lyra against all odds, because there is a prophecy tied to her that she will change the destiny someday. So, they battle against the great flood, and a psychotic villian who is hell bent on stealing Lyra away from them. Having said this, the main opposition which Pullman faced before and will continue to face with this book as well, is that his main antagonist is the fictitious religion he has created in his plot, which draws a lot of parellels to christianity. He talks about this religion and the magesterium , the organization, which governs this religion as the main powers which try to impede science. It is my humble thought that though at one point of time in the past centuries, religion and science , stood against each other, that period is long gone now. It is easy to mock standing on the other side and derogate the party in question. We can also choose to be neutral and try to understand the other perspective. If science has progressed leaps and bounds, the religious organizations have also become quite accepting compared to what they were before. They stand for what they believe in. In the end, faith moves the world. To summarize, Pullman's books are brilliant in imagination if you can overlook these sentiments. But alas, anyone who is very strongly biased in their opinions are not universally liked.

Recommended : 👍

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Here's to the ones who dream....

"A bit of madness is key
To give us new colors to see
Who knows where it will lead us?
And that's why they need us"

So bring on the rebels
The ripples from pebbles
The painters, and poets, and plays

And here's to the fools who dream
Crazy as they may seem
Here's to the hearts that break
Here's to the mess we make

- La La Land, The Fools Who Dream

MAGNUS CHASE AND THE SHIP OF THE DEAD

Author : Rick Riordan

Review :

I have always maintained in all my reviews of Rick Riordan books, that the primary reason I follow him is because he has this knack of introducing his readers to different mythologies in a very interesting way. His plots are simple, and there is a lot of humour in his books. You get so engrossed in them , and as you turn page after page, you never realize how and when those mysterious tales of different mythologies unravel before you and the characters welcome you into their world. We all know Hindu and a little bit of Greek mythology thanks to the popular Helen of Troy. But Riordan's books take you into a vast journey of such mythical creatures which will leave you aghast. His books have covered in-depth Greek(especially), Roman, Egyptian and the Norse mythologies so far. Just today there was an article he is going to start on the Korean line next. Coming to the book itself, The ship of the Dead is the last book of the Magnus Chase Trilogy. It revolves around the journey of a Norse demi God and his friends who have to stop the momentum set by the infamous (or famous?) Loki to bring about Ragnarok- the final battle which will bring the end of the world.The trilogy covers the entire spectrum, the nine worlds, the tree of life, Asgard, Valhalla, Valkyries, the einherji , the giants, dwarfs, elves, dragons, wolves, zombies and the Norse Gods. On the flip side, I felt the series ended abruptly. I would have really liked to see more of the description of the Norse Gods in particular;the battle in the end, especially looked very comical. Percy Jackson's finale was so spectacular, this one in comparison falters very bad. I had not liked the first two books as well much, I felt them lacking in plot, and the trend continues...But to sum it up,for all the good reasons mentioned above , Hail Riordan !!!

Recommended : 👍

Buy Magnus Chase and the ship of the dead online