In retrospect, Haydon and Esterhase also have distinct ways of dressing – we learn later on that Esterhase is a foreigner (he wears a bow tie, I guess that should have been a hint), and that Haydon wears bright red socks.

ANYWAY. I find that Peter Guillam was the most distinctive of the lot (at least for me) because he dressed expressively and made for a nice contrast against George Smiley, who was old and practical and nondescript like a proper super-spy.

Guillam, his shiny blue tie, and modern hairstyle.

I mean, what do we know about Peter Guillam (based on the film)? One, he works for the MI6. Two, he’s young and modern – a generation younger than the rest of the Circus. Three, he’s gay and in the closet. And, okay, four, he’s played by Benedict Cumberbatch, which means this post is really just an excuse for me to screencap the life out of him and spam you with my heart-eyes.

Guillam.

You can’t really tell from that first screencap, but Guillam’s wearing a tie with a weird flashy pattern. Plus matching pocket squares! Clearly he’s a man who cares about his appearances and knows how to spruce up his outfit.

For some reason, I imagine that Guillam’s going to grow up dressing up like Haydon. They’re both fairly flashy/snappy dressers, though of course Haydon’s style is more luxurious.

Also of note: Ricky Tarr. He’s the other young character in the film, but unlike Guillam he’s had a rough lifestyle/background. He’s more hands-on and gets all the dirty jobs and goes to a lot of places.

Ricky Tarr

I really just wanted to post pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch and have run out of things to say, so I’ll just leave this here.

Socks.

As Agnes turned round again she saw the three magpies. They were perched on a branch over the road.

“‘Three for a funeral-‘” she began.

A stone whirred up. There was an indignant squawk and a shower of feathers.

“Two for mirth,” said Nanny, in a self-satisfied voice.

“Nanny, that was cheating.”

“Witches always cheat,” said Nanny Ogg. She glanced back at the sleeping figure behind them. “Everyone knows that – who knows anything about witches.”

Basically if you need me, I’m just here having a Discworld reading marathon (though at this point it’s more of a stroll XD). There’s something to be said about being able to see the shape and movement of things as the writer develops the style that fits. Apparently it took 20+ books, which shouldn’t be surprising, given the strange and complex demands of the Discworld-verse anatomy, what with it needing multidimensional trouser-legs and all, among other things. I mean, I’ve always felt that the earlier novels tended to float away with all the jokes and parodies. Everything since book 24 (Carpe Jugulum, as excerpted above), though, has been stronger and more consistent*, and the YA books are excellent.

Tbh, Terry Pratchett probably got it right long ago when he wrote Small Gods (which was book 13), my first Discworld novel ever and still my favorite. One of my favorite books in general, actually. (Also my favorite Discworld radio play! I love how Brutha’s voice is equal parts earnest and exasperated around Om.)

DANGEROUS BEANS: What is a rat?
HAMNPORK: Teeth. Claws. Tail. Run. Hide. Eat. That’s what a rat is.
DANGEROUS BEANS: But now we can also say “what is a rat?” And that means we’re more than that.

From The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, one of the YA novels. Dangerous Beans is kind of like the Philosophy of Ethics class I took in college, in the voice of David Tennant. (Sadly, I don’t think this part was dramatized in the radio play.)

I feel like I should put a disclaimer about this blog: THIS IS NOT A BOOK BLOG. It’s… not much of a blog, actually, but I really don’t read as much as I seem to.

—
* Except maybe Monstrous Regiment, whose entire last part I have surgically removed from my headcanon. Okay, I’m keeping the Lofty/Tonker ending because I love them, and maybe the parts with the Watch just because I collect Watch cameos, but otherwise THE LAST PART DIDN’T HAPPEN.

Tbh, I’d kind of lost it back in Fables#70, which was like an invitation to kick both Blue and Willingham in the face:

BETRAYAL AND DISAPPOINTMENT. "SOUL-KILLING HUMILIATION" = I CAN'T EVEN. I used to like you, Blue. I imagine he wrote blog entries behind the scenes.

Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie

MirrorMask isn’t my favorite, but I love Gaiman/McKean collaborations, and I put up such a fuss over it in high school because it was like a ~*dream come true*~. I remember an epic bonding session with Tata over the Neil Gaiman event we’d attended together in 2005 – he’d done an Anansi Boys reading and shown the “Close To You” clip from MirrorMask and I was left starry-eyed and breathless with stangirl wonder. I STILL HAVE MANY FEELINGS OVER THAT MAGICAL NIGHT OF MAGIC.

Stardust and Coraline happened shortly afterwards. And now American Gods is official, and I’m glad it’s a series instead of a movie since it’s a pretty dense novel.

Day 20 – Favorite romance book
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish is essentially rom-com, so it should count, and I love that book, but for the most part, I really just wanted Arthur Dent to be happy because he deserved it, after having his home planet blown up and learning to fly spontaneously and being – as someone pointed out to me – the original Boy Who Waited*.

Otherwise one of my favorite ~love stories~ is Murakami’s 100% Perfect Girl (from The Elephant Vanishes, I think), which was a love story that never existed (and a sad story, don’t you think?), what does that say about me :)) Aaaaand I totally shipped Sammy/Tracy in Kavalier & Clay. Like FedEx. Oh, and Blankets! Blankets was lovely. And Ella Enchanted, from my childhood.

Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood
Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness and The Immortals series! I still reread them from time to time. I actually want to buy the new box sets because my copies are srsly battered from all the reading and pimping and lending. :)) I also still have a lingering fondness for Lloyd Alexander’s Westmark trilogy – I associate it so strongly with Les Miserables, probably because I read them both in the same timeframe.

Day 22 – Favorite book you own
The Sandman: Dream Hunters because it is what originally made me want to read Neil Gaiman, back when I regularly visited Filbars to buy issues of Young Justice and kept seeing Dream Hunters on display (I was a bit of a slut for Square during this period – Yoshitaka Amano’s art was a definite selling point). Not to mention:

Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
I AM SO ASHAMED THAT I STILL HAVEN’T READ LORD OF THE RINGS, EVEN THOUGH I OWN THE TRILOGY AND HAVE ACTUALLY STARTED THE FIRST BOOK YEARS AND YEARS AGO AND LIKED ALL THE RHYMING BITS.

Here is an image of Boromir at Winterfell, just because:

Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Ted Chiang! I don’t know why Story of Your Life isn’t more talked-about because it is srsly one of the most amazing things ever and it’s hard to unsee heptapod logic from things like Doctor Who and Buggers and stuff.

Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Love in the Time of Cholera isn’t a character but I just finished reading it recently, and it hit so close to home, watching the characters grow old and watching them watch each other grow old. It’s a story about aging, yeah? And dying. And I’m kind of in that point in life where my parents are gradually becoming old people. It’s terrifying.

Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
In some ways, A Song of Ice and Fire? I’m actually new to the fandom, I only started reading it last year at someone’s recommendation that it’s different and I only read book 2 around two months ago? But it changed my mind about modern epic fantasy, which had all those tropes about ~destiny~ and ~swords~ and men-from-simple-villages and magical women with Pendants Hanging Between Their Breasts. Jon Snow probably fits as the archetypal hero, but at least GRRM doesn’t make good vs evil look easy.** Plus it has genuinely awesome women.

(And while we’re at it, Discworld for making fun of the tropes.)

Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
I think the best ~plot twists~ are the simple and quietly resounding ones. Like the 1) ending of Ender’s Game and that horrifying moment when the adults talk about Stilson and Bonzo, which was chilling and made each reread harder.

"For a moment, the others backed away and Stilson lay motionless. They were wondering if he was dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow. I have to win this now, and for all time, or I'll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse."

2) That part in Ice & Fire #1 – and I think anyone who’s watching Game of Thrones knows what I’m talking about – was certainly shocking but also, more importantly, it was logical that it should happen because you don’t see the story going on another way, do you?

3) And then you have the ending from Arthur C. Clarke’s The Star (a short story, it srsly gave me goosebumps the first time I read it), and you have The Little Prince, and Lois Lowry’s The Giver, and then you have Kavalier & Clay, which has things that are not so much plot twists as Horrible, Horrible Things That Happened And Made Me Want To Hide The Book In The Freezer Forever.

Day 28 – Favorite title(s)
Invisible Cities and So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Guards! Guards! and for some reason, Across the Nightingale Floor.

Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Idk! It’s not like I go around reading books people hate. If it helps, I don’t hate Twilight? At most it has bad storytelling and was kind of misogynist and had so many unnecessary pages it got boring? (But so is every Wheel of Time book [that I've read anyway], if you think about it.) AND ANYWAY I DISTRUST VAMPIRE STORIES BY DEFAULT, so it’s really nothing personal.

Day 30 – Your favorite book of all time
This is a really unfair question. My favorite book depends on my current mood at a given time. But if we’re talking timelessness, etc, maybe the entire Sandman collection? It will never grow old, even though I’m growing up with it.

——
* Rory/Arthur Darvill is really a lot of what I imagined Arthur Dent to be. I STILL ADORE MARTIN FREEMAN AND HIS FACE, OKAY. I’m just saying!

"I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting."

** Unlike… ahem, Sword of Truth. Darker adult novels really shouldn’t get away with that amount of righteousness/preachiness.

It’s impossible to compile a definitive list of favorites, but I think a very appropriate and relevant line would be from Locks, a poem by Neil Gaiman that was published in Fragile Things: “We owe it to each other to tell stories.”

Similarly relevant, a line from Transmetropolitan:

These are their stories. And when you ask yourself how this could have come to pass, understand: there is a reason.

And some stuff from Ender’s Game (I know it’s ancient, but it’s also haunting):

ENDER: “…And it came down to this: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them -”
Valentine: “You beat them.”
Ender: “No, you don’t understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them till they don’t exist.”

“You scared us. They said you were crazy, and we said they were crazy.”
“I’m crazy,” said Ender. “But I think I’m OK.”

One more from Orson Scott Card; a line from a short story in Cruel Miracles:

Jesus cured the blind people and the deaf people and the crippled people and the lepers. But as far as I remember, the Bible don’t say he ever cured even one son-of-a-bitch.

I forget which THHGTTG book this was, but it stuck to me for some reason:

Slartibartfast: “Overnight, the whole population of Krikkit was transformed from being charming, delightful, intelligent…”
Arthur: “…if whimsical…”
Slartibartfast: “…ordinary people into charming, delightful, intelligent…”
Arthur: “…whimsical…”
Slartibartfast: “…manic xenophobes. The idea of a Universe didn’t fit into their world picture, so to speak. They simply couldn’t cope with it. And so, charmingly, delightfully, intelligently, whimsically if you like, they decided to destroy it.”

Not a book, but from a short story by Ted Chiang called Exhalation:

Because even if a universe’s lifespan is calculable, the variety of life that is generated within it is not. The buildings we have erected, the art and music and verse we have composed, the very lives we’ve led: none of them could have been predicted, because none of them were inevitable. Our universe might have slid into equilibrium emitting nothing more than a quiet hiss. The fact that it spawned such plenitude is a miracle, one that is matched only by your universe giving rise to you.

From Small Gods:

Simony: “Look… listen… We died for lies, for centuries we died for lies. Now we’ve got a truth to die for!”
Brutha: “No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.”

From Y: The Last Man:

ALLISON: “You have a big heart.”
YORICK: “Ugh, stop! This has been sappy enough. I want to remember you belittling my many short-comings, not leaving me with a compliment.”
ALLISON: “Enlarged hearts are weak and fragile, Yorick. It wasn’t a compliment. It was a warning.”

From Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes:

Why love the woman who is your wife? Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow and pain. Shared and once again shared experience. Billions of prickling textures. Cut one sense away, cut part of life away. Cut two senses; life halves itself on the instant. We love what we know, we love what we are. Common cause, common sense, common cause of mouth, eye, tongue, hand, nose, flesh, heart and soul.

More Neil Gaiman (FAVORITE FOREVERRRR):

There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women’s tale, and it is never told to men.

dream: “You should have gone to the funeral.”
Orpheus: “Why?”
Dream: “To say goodbye.”
Orpheus: “I have not yet said goodbye to Eurydice.”
Dream: “You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.”

I do not fear cities sleeping, stretched out unconscious around their rivers and estuaries, like cats in the moonlight. Sleeping cities are tame and harmless things. What I fear… is that one day the cities will waken. That one day the cities will rise.

All Bette’s stories have happy endings. That’s because she knows where to stop. She’s realized the real problem with stories – if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.

I like the stars. It’s the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they’re always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend… I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.

Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look so pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each. What’s that? You want to know if Anansi looked like a spider? Sure he did, except when he looked like a man. No, he never changed his shape. It’s just a matter of how you tell the story. That’s all.

Bod: “Does it work? Are they happier dead?”
Silas: “Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”

Cat: “Cats don’t have names.”
Coraline: “No?”
Cat: “No. Now, you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are.”

Kavalier & Clay:

George Deasey: “Do you know why they have to fuck each other?”
Bartender: “What’s that?”
George Deasey: “I said. Do you know why Batman and Robin have to fuck each other?”
Bartender: “Now, why is that?”
George Deasey: “Because they can’t fuck themselves. The way you can.”

Aaaaand the obligatory ~inspiring~ quote from Letters from a Young Poet:

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

It’s possibly the only book I read for pleasure last year, but yeah, definitely Richard Siken’s Crush. I remember the exact moment I found this book in Kinokuniya. ALL THE FEELINGS. I mean, technically, I’d already read 90% of the poems in the anthology – I’d even saved them in Evernote – but actually holding a physical copy in my hands = BRB SHAKING AND CRYING. I remember the plane ride home and wanting to bury my face between the pages when I got to The Torn-Up Road: “His shoulders blot out the stars but the minutes don’t stop.” HNNNGGajf;adf

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

The Little Prince and Invisible Cities. BTW I JUST CAME FROM THE GRAND OPENING OF ELAN, REESE’S SHOP OF BLING AND SHINY THINGS, AND LOOK! A PICTURE! #building-up-my-blogger-cred
I mean, it’s a terrible cellphone pic, but it is also The Little Prince on a star, and a discount coupon! WHICH I WON LEGITIMATELY (the coupon, not The Little Prince), along with an umbrella in the raffle. I AM DRUNK ON THE SENSATION OF WINNING. (I’M SORRY IF I SEEM TO BE PERPETUALLY SHOUTING, I FEEL LIKE WINNING SHOULD COME WITH A WARNING ABOUT CAPSLOCK AS SOME SORT OF SIDE EFFECT. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE SUFFICIENTLY ANNOYED THE UNIVERSE AND HAVE THUS BEEN BANNED FROM WINNING ANYTHING EVER AGAIN.)

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Does The Sandman count? Because I swear it changes lives. Right now, though, the only series I’m reading is Discworld.

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

The Sandman – the entire Brief Lives, probably, since it’s the most emotional one, but some of my favorite issues are the standalone stories like Soft Places and Ramadan.

Discworld – The Watch books are my favorite. I’m trying to read them in order now. XD And Small Gods, which was my first Pratchett book ever, and the most adorable thing in the world, with a side of religious/political satire.

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Anything by Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. THHGTTG was, for the most part, the only thing I read throughout college. For stress relief. <3 Also, Anansi Boys. :D

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Ender’s Game and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. They both make me HYSTERICAL WITH SADNESS. Kavalier & Clay, for its beautiful words, remains my most painful reading experience.

Day 07 – Most underrated book

I… have no idea. Pretty much everything I love is popular in its own niche.

Day 08 – Most overrated book

Most titles in best-seller lists, I’m guessing! And maybe Harry Potter, but that doesn’t mean the hype is undeserved.

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

Maybe 20th Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry by Robert Hass? I’m not sure this counts; Meditations at Lagunitas is one of my favorite poems ever, and I do generally love Hass’s writing. But still, it’s a book about poetry, and I thought I’d get lost in the technicalities – I’m not saying I didn’t – but I love how Hass’s essays still have a conversational touch to them and how he sometimes ends up sharing personal anecdotes.  I actually haven’t finished the book. I’d only borrowed it from the university library the week before finals week and, haha, I have photocopies of the chapters I’ve read and loved (the perks of being a student XD). Hass on Rilke’s Elegies in Looking for Rilke:

No one has ever composed a more eloquent indictment of fucking: if it is so great, why hasn’t it catapulted all the dead directly into heaven, why is the world still haunted by the ghosts of so much unsatisfied desire?

*_______*

Day 10 – Favorite classic book

Oh, Les Miserables, hands down.

Day 11 – A book you hated

I wouldn’t normally use the word “hate” but… After DarK. As a rule I don’t read Murakami’s novels (except for Hard-Boiled Wonderland, which I think is different from his more popular/notorious novels), but I got this one for free and it’s short and anyway Murakami is extremely readable and if anything, I read him for the ease in his prose. The thing is. The thing is the prose in this one is jarring – be it a fault of Murakami’s own writing or the translation – and the camera technique was poorly executed. (As a book in itself, it’s really weak. None of the characters or the dialogues or the themes ever stuck.)

Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore

The Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth series – they really do go together, they’re eerily similar. XD Robert Jordan – RIP – is a pretty horrible storyteller, but I did stick with him for the adventures and quests and world-building. I dropped it off after the 3rd book, though. The pace and writing didn’t seem worth putting up with and anyway I found that none of the women were actually likeable. I stuck with Sword of Truth for much longer – mostly because it’s easier to read. And I did sincerely love it. On retrospect, after Richard asserts himself into power, he becomes annoyingly self-righteous and preachy and you end up wanting to stab him with the ~*sword of truth*~. A lot of people have pointed out the preachiness but I didn’t notice until long after I’ve stopped reading it.

Day 13 – Your favorite writer

Neil Gaiman, obvs.

Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer

I will interpret this question as my favorite books by Neil, and not Neil’s favorite books, okay. XD I feel like none of his novels were ever as strong and life-changing as The Sandman (I think Sandman is also where his prose shines best), but American Gods comes closest, although I actually do love all his books. American Gods is also the first Gaiman thing I’ve ever read. And they’re making a series out of it! And Neil Gaiman hinted on a sequel! And there’s a 10th Anniversary Edition that I want but cannot afford! (That said, I also love his short fiction collections, ie. Fragile Things and Smoke and Mirrors.)

Day 15 – Favorite male character

Tyrion Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire. He is also my favorite in the TV series in every way possible. Couldn’t pick a better actor <3, although arguably he is too charming and likeable. (Ok, I also adore TV!Viserys, but this is a meme about books, so.)

Day 16 – Favorite female character

Granny Weatherwax from Pterry’s Witches novels. UNREPENTANTLY BADASS (in fact she is first seen in Bad Ass Village). I love this line from Witches Abroad:

. .because, and I wants you to understand this prop’ly, after you went I had to be the good one. You had all the fun. An’ there’s no way I can make you pay for that. . .

THE REST OF THE MEME ON A DIFFERENT POST BECAUSE I’M GETTING BORED WITH THE LENGTH OF THIS ONE.

HAVE SOME CALVINO:

It is the mood of the beholder which gives the city of Zemrude its form. If you go by whistling, your nose a-tilt behind the whistle, you will know it from below: window sills, flapping curtains, fountains. If you walk along hanging your head, your nails dug into the palms of your hands, your gaze will be held on the ground, in the gutters, the manhole covers, the fish scales, wastepaper. You cannot say that one aspect of the city is truer than the other, but you hear of the upper Zemrude chiefly from those who remember it, as they sink into the lower Zemrude, following everyday the same stretches of street and finding again each morning the ill-humor of the day before, encrusted at the foot of the walls. For everyone, sooner or later, the day comes when we bring our gaze down along the drainpipes and we can no longer detach it from the cobblestones. The reverse is not impossible, but it is more rare: and so we continue walking, through Zemrude’s streets with eyes now digging into the cellars, the foundations, the wells.

HELLO HELLO HELLOOOOOO