Two interesting lists

I happened upon Kindle's list of Most highlighted passages of all time today. What this refers to is the way in which you can highlight (like the old idea of using a highlighter in a book with real pages) a section of a book you're reading because you think it's important, or it struck you as of interest, or whatever.  These highlighted sections can be tracked later, if you want.

Considering that this list has the most highlighted passages of all time, they're a strange bunch. (All time being somewhat hyperbolic, I think.) Passages from the various books in The Hunger Games prevail, which presumably means that a huge number of people are not only reading these books on Kindle, but are highlighting more than ever.  Initially it's almost hard to find anything else in the list, but wait! Jane Austen is there, third in line with It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. (Let's hope they read further than the first paragraph.)  She manages to sneak in at eighth place as well.   Sherlock Holmes makes an appearance in the top 25 along with a book entitled: Heaven is for real: a little boy's astounding story of his trip to heaven and back.  Hmm.  


Dorian Grey gets in at around number 27, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People makes more than one appearance in numbers 26-50.  After that it becomes open slather, with a real mix of books turning up.   The interesting thing about this list is that, unlike those lists produced by retailers and other places, where the greatest books of all time will include Harry Potter and suchlike, this list is actually related to what people are reading and highlighting.  The highlighting is the relevant factor.  It will be worth checking out this list again when The Hunger Games has run its course.


The second list is related to Twitter, and appears in the NZ Herald, where a list of NZ's Twitter top 50 appears today.  Taika Waititi, who made the film, Boy, appears first on this list, with 11,520 followers, though he's actually the second most followed tweeter.  Comedian Rhys Darby has over 79,000 followers, Cory Jane (the All Black) has around 53,000, nearly twice as many as TV3's John Campbell, who almost ties with another commentator, John Lai.  Except that Lai is a social media commentator.  


The interesting thing about this second list, for me, is that I don't follow a single person on it, although a few of the names turn up in retweets now and then, notably Hamish Keith.  There are quite a few New Zealanders I do follow, but none of them appear on this list.  Maybe they'll turn up on the Herald's second list, which is due out soon. 

Blame

Yesterday, a person I follow on Twitter drew my attention to an article by Paul Holmes that appeared in the NZ Herald on Saturday.   Holmes is ranting on about Waitangi Day and calling it repugnant and a waste of time - amongst other things.

The tweeter was appalled at Holmes' gall, and had to read the article 'three times' because he was so full of disbelief that anyone could write anything so 'racist.'    Certainly Holmes uses plenty of strong and emotive language, but I suspect he's saying what a lot of people actually think.   And are maybe too scared to say because of an invariable backlash.

I had a bit of a debate about the subject with this tweeter, and didn't really get anywhere - although at least, after an initial possibility that there might be angry words between us, we managed to maintain a reasonably respectful tone.  However, there wasn't going to be any change of mind.  What Holmes was saying was rubbish, according to this person, and basically the Maori are still being treated badly by Pakeha in New Zealand.

It seems to me we've progressed, in our history, from a state of Maori bad/Pakeha good, to Maori good/Pakeha bad.   The initial state wasn't right, but it came in a time of colonialism, and was by no means uncommon.  It took us some time to get past it.   Nevertheless, within that, there were many good things, not least the understanding by some Pakeha that the Maori people had a great deal to offer, and the understanding by some Maori that the Pakeha also had a great deal to offer.

In our present state, the Maori have turned themselves into 'victims.'   Everything that's wrong is the fault of someone else.  (When I say 'the Maori' of course I'm talking about those who want to think this way; there are plenty who don't, many of them now living in Australia!)  The problem is, when you make yourself a victim, or behave as if you are one, someone else has to become the 'oppressor', whether they like it or not.  The victim approach automatically turns the other into the person to blame for all that's wrong in their world.

I'm not saying that everything that Pakeha do is right; by no means.  Much of what those in leadership do affects everybody in the country, not just the Maori.  Much of what leadership do or has done has been opposed by the whole population, to no avail.

But continuing down our present path will not aid the country as a whole.  Somehow we've got to get to a point where we think: Maori good/Pakeha good.  Any other variation on this will just keep on leading us into a blind alley.

Sherlock Holmes

Went to see Sherlock Holmes last night, with some rather mixed expectations. My son had described it as an action-movie-cum-murder-mystery, and yes, there was plenty of action - the film hits the ground running (and then goes even faster) and at first I didn't even realise it was Holmes who was doing all the knocking down of sundry rogues and vagabonds. Then Watson turned up and my mind had to do some readjustments.

This is a Holmes so at odds with our usual movie concept of him (and of Watson) that you have to change your thinking about the characters. I've just been reading the Christianity Today review which points out that the two characters as played here are actually much more like the original Conan Doyle protagonists than the way they've been portrayed in many other movies.

Russ Breimeier notes:
Doyle describes [Holmes] as "eccentric" and "bohemian"—both perfectly describe this new portrayal. In one scene, Holmes seems to use a hallucinatory drug to gain insight into his enemy's plan—also consistent with Doyle's depiction.

Watson here also differs from his traditional Hollywood portrayal. Doyle's stories never depicted him as the portly, befuddled sidekick; he's originally described as a veteran of the Afghan war, thin, strong, and packing a revolver. Yes, he's a foil to Holmes' intellect, but more as an intelligent everyman for the detective to play off, not merely for comic relief....

Other familiar details are still present here: the flat at No. 221b Baker Street, landlady Mrs. Hudson, Watson's soon-to-be wife Mary Marstan, Inspector Lestrade of the Scotland Yard, and even Irene Adler, the beautiful and mysterious woman who bested Holmes and stole his heart in one classic short story.

Well, there you go. I knew Holmes had an eccentricity about him, but wouldn't have thought of him as the 'wild man' Downey portrays here. Watson is certainly contrary to any previous depiction - his limp comes and goes (I wasn't sure whether it was due to his career as a soldier or the innumerable fights he gets into during the movie), and while I knew the names of Lestrade, Hudson and Baker St from the back of my trivia-filled brain, I'd never heard of Irene Adler or Mary Marstan.

So that rather undercuts some of what I was going to say about the movie. Holmes may be closer to Doyle's version after all - though he never gets to play the violin in this movie. He plucks at it in a seemingly absentminded way, but never goes into full flight - there's not even a bow in sight (though given the absolute clutter in his flat that's hardly surprising).

Taking the movie, therefore, on its merits we have the following:
- a solid storyline (we don't get the explanations of several features until almost the end)
- frequently frantic pace
- banter along the lines of many other Hollywood male partnerships (think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
- superb renditions of a period London done in incredible detail (presumably with the help of considerable CGI)
- heart-thumping music by Hans Zimmer (we were right beside one of the speakers and the violinists' bows were almost whipping our ears off)
- excellent cinematography by Philippe Rousselot (read the list of his credits and you'll have an idea of his style) in which the camera sits still only when necessary
- an almost method-acting approach to Holmes by Robert Downey Jnr, which just manages to avoid the absurd
- an intriguing storytelling approach by Guy Ritchie in which we are sometimes see the action before it happens, sometimes have a few moments of flashback to bring us up to speed, and all the time have to rely our wits to keep up with the manic way films are made these days - no wonder we think older movies are slow.

Put your preconceptions about the characters aside, and you'll enjoy this thoroughly.

More on the Detection Club

Click here to read the original ‘oath’ that members of The Detection Club had to swear. It focuses on fair play between the author and the reader, and the avoidance of what Sayers in the introduction to The Floating Admiral calls ‘sensationalism, calp-trap and jargon.’

It turns out that a number of compilation books were written by early members of the Club, though nothing quite along the lines of The Floating Admiral.

So what about these various lesser known authors? The first is Victor Lorenzo Whitechurch, who, like Ronald Knox, was a clergyman. He was also a railway enthusiast. He wrote a number of short stories, and some 24 books, some of which are still readily available. His most famous detective was Thorpe Hazell (created to be as unlike Sherlock Holmes, as possible, apparently!).

There’s not a lot about his life or history on the Net, apart from the link above, though several of his better-known books are listed.