1. Christ The Lord: The Road To Cana - just finished this second novel by ANNE RICE (she re-converted recently to Christianity. she's a roman catholic), and as in her first novel about our Lord's life (CHRIST THE LORD: OUT OF EGYPT), ann rice manages to hypnotize you with the loveliness, the richness, the density of her prose. this beautifully written second novel about our Lord picks up shortly before his baptism in the jordan, where he meets his hermetic cousin, john, and ends with the miracle at cana. what happens in between is a fascinating insight into the Lord's joys, sorrows, travails, trials and temptations (i love the way anne rice narrated a particular temptation. she handled it masterfully and with a lot of care and love. beautifully done). if you haven't read the first novel, don't worry, for the two novels stand perfectly well by themselves.
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - i am re-reading this novel because i think this is, of all the harry potter novels, the most insightful and incisive novel into the human psyche. the novel portrays our hero, harry, as being very human indeed, not only subject to the same frustrations and disappointments we "muggles" have to endure, but also subject to the same foibles, failings and flaws we "muggles" are subject to everyday. the novel shows us how the very best of us can be, at times, petty, selfish, self-centered, foolish, proud.
3. Flowers For Algernon - now this novel, well, actually this started out as a short story, and actually won the HUGO and (i think) the NEBULA awards for science fiction, which i read when i was still in college (and i also saw the movie they made of this novel -- did it have the same title, or was the movie renamed CHARLY? i think the movie's title was CHARLY), is, if i remember correctly, a critique into the way science inadvertently sets itself up as God, and fails miserably in the end. the theme runs along the same lines as the themes of FRANKENSTEIN and JURASSIC PARK.
4. The Dark Knight - starring christian bale and (the late)heath ledger. this is heat ledger's definitive work, and i think the movie where he shows his true genius as an actor. he played the part of the Joker brilliantly. it is indeed very sad that he died. the world of the performing arts is certainly darker without this star. The Dark Knight is a movie of ironies, where white (harvey dent) becomes black (two face), and gray (bruce wayne) takes on an even grayer shade (who else?). the thing i find fascinating here is that it is the Joker's insights into human nature that are more realistic. the only problem being that the Joker is also nihilistic. and yet he does not die, or rather, the batman (right, you begin to wonder: who's crazier, him or the Joker) doesn't end his life (but comes close to it, as the passengers of the two ferries come close to blowing each other up, but don't -- speak of microcosms, huh!). all in all, this is a film wonderfully produced, and we are all, somehow, diminished, by ledger's death (there are some speculations that heath ledger got so into his character, which was very very sinister and devilish, that somehow, he couldn't get out of character and so he killed himself. please. not that again. D&D, backmasking, and now this. come on. the devil doesn't need to help us along the road to perdition. we are quite capable of going there by ourselves if left to our own devices).
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