✉️Review - "Collectors" by Raymond Carver🏡

This was a short, uneventful story which I had to read twice to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. It reminds me of the type that are set as close reading exercises, and I normally like this sort of modernist story where people are just going through life. I didn't click with this one.

The plot is basic: An unemployed man is waiting for letter. A vacuum cleaner salesman arrives at the house, saying that Mrs Slater has won a free cleaning. The narrator claims that Mrs Slater doesn't live there and that he is to poor to purchase a vacuum cleaner. The narrator seems more motivated to make it clear that he can't afford it, rather than out of concern for the cleaner. The salesman proceeds to clean the house anyway, and picks-up the letter when it arrives. Claiming that the letter is for Mr Slater and that he would "see to it." Then the salesman leaves.

Was there any meaning to it? It was just a slither of the daily routine of two people. I guess what is remarkable about it is that another author may have made the story farcical, the story of a man going through the motions of cleaning a house for the wrong person, who had no intention of buying a vacuum cleaner either. But this story here is just mundane. 

🖼Review - Ways of seeing (1972) - John Berger

It is a case of you don't know what you've got until it's gone. I was vaguely aware of John Berger, mostly hearing him referred to as the guy who gave his Booker prize to the Black Panthers. So as a result of the coverage of his death, I was introduced to his 4-episode, 1972 documentary Ways of Seeing. 

This documentary is up there in quality and passion with such great documentaries of the era such as Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It does have a slower pace than something made now, but it never feels dull. 

Aimming to demystify 'high culture' from the chains of heavy terms, Berger covers European painting from 1400 - 1900 and the echoes in mid-20th century culture. 

My favourite episode (or the one for which I took down the most notes) was the third, which discusses art as a commodity, but then looks back at why this is. The European oil paintings of this era, according to Berger, are the 'Images of the things which are desirable." Rich people had painters paint them along side their property, livestock, mistresses, slaves and junk to preserve and show off there spender. It was "a medium which celebrated private possessions."

👽Review - "A princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs👾

Review - "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rrice Burroughs

(With musings about why I should write a space opera, but probably won't) 

I finally got around to reading A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The novel is famous for being mad into a forgettable film by The Asylm and then into an even more forgettable film by Disney. The book is fun, even if times it does get to anthropological. The strange titles which most characters have get a bit confusing at times.

The book is almost a western, but on Mars. It establishes the Si-fi plot where the 'civilised' humans align with the primitive natives to defeat the evil (thing Dune or Return of the Jedi).

So, where does it leave me. I'm thinking of writing a space opera, but probably won't. I have scribbled down a brain storm which resembles Henry IV in space. This could pretty amusing be. A celestial nation ruled by a leader who seized power through force, recently fallen out with his heir. This youthful dauphin has been lead astray by the comic relief, secret hero of this epic. But the prince must redeem himself by defeating a braver verson of himself, leading the revolution against his father. Most likely it will go into the pile and never be developed farther.