Muse: Monday Linky Love (With Added Geekery)
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And I can confirm, for the record, that Game of Thrones is awesome.
I thought it showed promise, but certainly wasn't great 1st episode. I'll keep on trucking with it to see how it goes. Haven't read the books.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Me, I just find it more hilarious when Liberterians and Randians invoke Orwell or try to "rehabilitate" him as some proto-cold warrior.
And I also find it rather amusing when Orwell gets a rather extreme makeover in the other direction -- politely squinting past his rather cranky disdain for homosexuals, feminists and birth control. Eric Arthur Blair was a rather prickly mass of contradictions, blind spots, prejudices (both reasoned and not) and inconsistencies; no interesting person isn't.
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Matthew Littlewood, in reply to
And I also find it rather amusing when Orwell gets a rather extreme makeover in the other direction – politely squinting past his rather cranky disdain for homosexuals, feminists and birth control. Eric Arthur Blair was a rather prickly mass of contradictions, blind spots, prejudices (both reasoned and not) and inconsistencies; no interesting person isn’t.
Oh absolutely, he was a flawed individual and very much a product of his times- and his biography is a fascinating read because of that- but I do think reclaiming him as a proto-Cold Warrior would require either a massive leap of faith, or total ignorance of his works and background, political or otherwise.
We're straying way off topic but Christopher Hitchens's Why Orwell Matters is worth a read as a it manages to be a robust (if somewhat self-aggrandising) defence of the man that doesn't shy away from his blind spots.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
So's The Tudors when you get down to brass tacks. :) I'm wondering if the real problem (if it is a problem) with Game of Thrones is that HBO has made a ten hour movie, not heavily-serialised episodic television. Will be interested to see how many people will make that kind of investment.
It's been critically very well-reviewed for the most part, including a lot of people unfamiliar with the books. Of course, most of them had the first six episodes, so whether that translates into audience attention past the premiere remains to be seen - I will be very, very interested to see the numbers come Tuesday for episode 2.
The "rutting" thing...eh, not my cup of tea either. It put me off the Tudors and Rome both, because I'm just not a fan of sex on screen - but I care enough about the story for GoT to just avert my eyes and keep going. Given HBO's reputation in the US, I think it's not unlikely that most people tuning in will be expecting that level of sex/nudity, and it won't be a particular barrier. The time investment required to remember who all the cast are and their various interconnections is the real kicker with this one.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Oh absolutely, he was a flawed individual and very much a product of his times- and his biography is a fascinating read because of that- but I do think reclaiming him as a proto-Cold Warrior would require either a massive leap of faith, or total ignorance of his works and background, political or otherwise.
People mistakenly regarded Orwell as a sell-out sue to his anti-Stalinism, when in fact he remained something of social democrat right up to the bitter end. From Kapka Kassabova's article:
A Guardian journalist suggested that “the modern English identity is an identity crisis”, and the English-born, US-based writer Christopher Hitchens wrote that “to be English is to be mildly embarrassed by the very concept of identity”.
This, of course, only applies to the thinking populace. Back in 1941, George Orwell mocked the left-wing intelligentsia for such thinking. “In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings.” But, he hastened to add, the working class more than made up for it with their “insularity” and “xenophobia”.
Part of the extract is taken from Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn, written during the Battle of Britain.
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Heh. Doctor Who credits, Buffy style.
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