The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Movie Review: Wonder Woman 1984

Movie #15 of 2020:

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

I like a few isolated parts of this superhero sequel (mostly involving Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig’s respective acting choices) but overall it’s a huge mess whose thematic incoherence at least keeps pace with all the plot holes. What exactly is the macro-goal of our villainous thinly-veiled Trump figure, or the micro-justifications for some of the prices he demands for granting wishes? Why does he himself ask to be the Dreamstone, especially given that its power is clearly able to reward multiple requests from the same person? Why does this film completely gloss over its protagonist violating the bodily consent of that poor nameless engineer?

I’ve got more of these questions — I kept up a running thread on Twitter while I watched — but they all boil down to the fact that this blockbuster’s script goes to some baffling places that seriously undermine the story it’s nominally trying to tell. The logic never tracks, and the ultimate moral seems to be that it’s bad to want things: not to get them unfairly or without hard work, but just to crave them at all. That’s a weird fit for a genre that’s literally built on empowerment fantasies, and it’s not even developed consistently enough throughout that it could be appreciated as subversive.

Instead this is a movie that practically demands you not think too hard about anything it shows, yet neglects to provide enough spectacle to ever merit that level of distraction either. Even the 80s setting doesn’t feel as cheesily retro as some comparable recent period pieces like Stranger Things or Captain Marvel. It’s a frustrating viewing experience, especially as a follow-up to one of the brighter spots in the DC Extended Universe.

[Content warning for queerbaiting and racism.]

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: The Office, season 9

TV #57 of 2020:

The Office, season 9

This final season recovers substantially from the weaker entries that it follows, and improves further as it approaches the catharsis of the series ending. At the end of the day I still don’t know if I can say that it’s great — this is, after all, the zanier mode of the show that has no problem shooting a lazy salesman with bull tranquilizers and sliding him down several flights of stairs to get him to see a client — but I admire how it takes risks that The Office never has before, even if those choices remain controversial and not entirely effective. Primarily, the writers transform the camera-people from the sporadically-justified framing device they had previously been to actual characters who can interact with our leads, and they finally introduce legitimate conflict and stakes into Jim and Pam’s happily-ever-after.

Some fans, of course, hate this. It’s certainly a big turnaround for the program! And it’s an element that’s rather light on jokes, playing into the sadder notes of the early years in place of the manic comic energy that otherwise defines this era of the sitcom. But there’s a welcome nuance to the Halperts navigating their opposing visions for their family’s future, and although Brian the boom guy turns out to be a bust of a concept who’s barely more sketched-in as a viable romantic alternative than last season’s Cathy the temp, the couples counseling and tense conversations add a certain realistic poignancy to a central relationship that’s coasted for far too long. (I think I appreciate this storyline more now that I’m a married thirty-something parent myself, too.)

That’s the closest we get to genuine pathos for this stretch of episodes, unfortunately. Dwight has a few nice moments here and there, but his arc is too wrapped up in the setup for a proposed spinoff that never ultimately comes to fruition. Kelly and Ryan are written off with minimal fanfare in the first half-hour so that their actors can go work on The Mindy Project, and Andy disappears for an extended period himself while Ed Helms films The Hangover Part III. His absence as manager somehow doesn’t much affect the workplace dynamics, an angle which could have been pushed for satirical bite but mostly just seems like a plot hole given how quickly Nellie jumped on the last similar opportunity. And Erin and Pete’s new flirtation is simply a weak retread of various stories we’ve already seen in this setting, despite the dialogue lampshading it as exactly that.

By the standards of Dunder Mifflin without Michael Scott, this is nevertheless a strong run, and the finale is a worthwhile sendoff to the erstwhile Scranton branch, full of fun callbacks and emotional farewells for viewers who have stuck around since the start. It’s admittedly not the series that it once was, but under returning original showrunner Greg Daniels, it’s a big step back up from that recent nadir of aimless Robert California nonsense.

[Content warning for fatphobia, transphobia, and sexual assault.]

This season: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Seasons ranked: 2 > 5 > 3 > 4 > 6 > 9 > 7 > 1 > 8

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TV Review: Fleabag, season 1

TV #56 of 2020:

Fleabag, season 1

This short British show about a woman with sex addiction, a dysfunctional family, and a dead best friend successfully mines some uncomfortable humor from those subjects, but… I’m frankly just not sure I really get it. Like, as funny and distinctive as the nameless protagonist’s audience asides can be, I don’t know that the series is articulating exactly what I should be rooting for or understanding about her mental / emotional state throughout. It may be that’s clearer in actress-creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s original one-person stageplay and something’s been lost in the expansion to an ensemble program for television, or it may be that I’m just not connecting well enough with the material and its somewhat jarring scene and episode breaks. In any event, it’s a quick enough watch that I expect I’ll continue on to the second season — which I’ve heard nearly everyone say is much better anyway — and hope that that one can provide the missing ingredient that’s been keeping me at a distance here.

[Content warning for suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The Mandalorian, season 2

TV #55 of 2020:

The Mandalorian, season 2

Beyond even its debut season, this second year of the live-action Star Wars show is an outstanding achievement on every level. The spinoff program really does feel like it’s happening in the exact same continuity as the movies — something that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its ilk (or the Clone Wars cartoon, if you prefer to stick to this franchise) have never quite managed to pull off. That effect is bolstered by a few fan-favorite characters making their triumphant and long-delayed returns to this era of the universe, but it’s already present in the simple care with which the writers and producers have crafted each element in the narrative.

The individual installments are episodic and largely riffing off familiar genre stories, but they seem pretty distinctive from one another and not particularly formulaic. They also offer a strong set of jaw-dropping moments, either for geeky lore reveals or plain old action-packed spectacle. And although a lot of that was true before, the storytelling is improved here in the shape of the overall ‘Baby Yoda’ plot, which pays off much more satisfyingly this time around with various threads coming together in a meaningful and exciting climax.

This looks to be the close of a major chapter for The Mandalorian, both protagonist and series, and it will be interesting to see where each develops next. I admit I’m a little wary whether the quality can be maintained, especially with the recent news that Disney is greenlighting further projects which might divide creative attention and make this property less special. But the initial gamble on the company’s part to extend this galaxy far, far away into big-budget TV has regularly succeeded past my wildest hopes for it, and I take solace in how this sophomore outing builds upon a great foundation to reach further dramatic heights.

★★★★★

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Book Review: The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

Book #300 of 2020:

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

A heartbreakingly graphic depiction of an Irish plague ward during the 1918 influenza pandemic, told over a few days and mostly in one narrow chamber — a familiar constraint for Room author Emma Donoghue — for patients who are both infected and pregnant. There’s obvious resonance in this 2020 title with our own worldwide health crisis, although the writer notes in an afterword that she was inspired by the centennial anniversary of the outbreak in question and turned in her finished manuscript just before the novel coronavirus appeared. Readers looking for a larger plot may wish to give this book a miss, along with those who are squeamish about childbirth, but there’s a strong core here of a nurse and the young woman volunteering to help her, who quickly grow to care intimately for one another. They may be fictional, but their struggles are drawn from the historical record in convincing detail, and actual medical doctor and Sinn Féin activist Kathleen Lynn is incorporated naturally as a supporting character within their story.

While I don’t love — spoiler alert! — the ‘kill your gays’ ending, I can’t say that it comes out of nowhere or that Donoghue in any way pulls her punches on the awful deadliness of the era. It’s estimated that up to 6% of the human population perished in that flu, and this novel shines a welcome light on how that might have looked in one small corner of the world.

[Content warning for post-traumatic stress disorder, stillbirth, maternal mortality, implied homophobia, and mention of domestic abuse, incest, and rape.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

Book #299 of 2020:

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #6)

I’m not a big fan of the first half of this novel, in which the three protagonists — a returning Eustace, his classmate Jill, and a rather miserable creature named Puddleglum — are very nasty toward one another as they trek across the Narnian landscape. (Beyond just not being all that pleasant to read, it tends to undo a lot of our old hero’s character development from the previous volume too.) But they grow more tender and loyal as the story unfolds, and the dark underworld at the end of their journey is a fascinating addition to our understanding of this realm. Really, one of the greatest strengths of the overall Narnia series is how each individual ‘Chronicle’ manages to stay connected with the others while practically reinventing the setting and the shape of the plot, so as to never rehash an earlier adventure.

As ever, the level of Christian allegory here can be pretty exclusionary; if you take as a metaphor for atheism the witch’s taunts that Aslan and the sun aren’t real because they can’t be seen underground, anyone who similarly disbelieves will seem either wicked or foolish or both. Her torturous demand for the faithful to recant what they know in their hearts is also a fairly twisted version of the actual dynamic, which sees Christians persecuting and marginalizing the rest of the world far more than the opposite. But on the other hand, if you can manage to set all that subtext aside, the scene itself is a creepy display of gaslighting that is shockingly effective at demonstrating the antagonist’s villainy.

It’s ultimately hard not to be charmed by author C. S. Lewis, and there’s some interesting thematic material that he likely hasn’t intended but nevertheless feels quite welcoming to a queer reading of the text, from the children proclaiming that they’ve got to appear gay to their companion’s insistence that he’s a Marsh-wiggle and not a man. Those words may have carried different connotations back in 1953, but with a 21st-century perspective they invite a deeper consideration of gender than these books usually provide. Wrapped in a kidnapped-prince narrative that recalls fairy tales and ancient myths, this title is fun for all ages and proves that the writer still has plenty to say even without any of the original Pevensie siblings.

[Content warning for sexism, fatphobia, and alcohol abuse.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Way Back by Gavriel Savit

Book #298 of 2020:

The Way Back by Gavriel Savit

It’s probably not a good sign when a book that feels so tailor-made for me as a reader struggles to keep my attention throughout. I do love the first quarter or so of this story, which sees a pair of Jewish kids fleeing their nineteenth-century shtetl for the land of the dead, but the stakes of the plot then seem to spin out to the point where it’s not really clear what motivation is driving either protagonist anymore. The novel is distinctive in the fantasy genre for including figures like Dumah from obscure Judaic folklore, yet I’ve personally gotten more out of the richly-observed #ownvoices details that populate the beginnings of their journeys than any of the episodic mysticism that follows. I’m glad I made time during Hanukkah to check out this new release, though, and I’m thrilled for what it says about the current state of representation in the YA publishing industry.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White

Book #297 of 2020:

The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White (Camelot Rising #2)

I don’t have much to say about this sequel, other than that it’s the sort of middle volume that largely treads water for its trilogy en route to a hopefully stronger conclusion. The plot and character arcs don’t really progress any further in this book, and although the premise of an egalitarian Camelot where Guinevere is a wizard bodyguard impersonating the dead queen and Lancelot her trusted female knight remains neat, it feels like most of this novel could have been skipped without incident. Some episodic adventures and intrigue about the heroine’s fake sister seem more like the lightweight filler to an open-ended story than the central pivot to the structured series that they probably should be.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Book #296 of 2020:

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Although I agree with nearly everything that author Ijeoma Oluo opines in these pages, I’ve found it somewhat lacking as a single cohesive argument. Her stated thesis, that white men are so privileged by American society that many of us can achieve success with minimal contribution of the relevant factors needed by most women and people of color, strikes me as probably self-evident for certain readers and requiring a rigorous explanation for others. But Oluo doesn’t really present that sort of case here, instead offering a range of social justice-oriented essays that don’t always speak to the topic at hand.

The anger directed against athlete-activist Colin Kaepernick, for instance, seems like a great illustration of white fragility and entitlement. But who exactly is mediocre in this scenario? A point could be made about the objectively lower talents of the players — some but not all of them white — who have been recruited for NFL teams while Kaep remains sidelined for peacefully protesting police brutality, or about how non-racialized social causes don’t receive the same pushback from fans, yet this writer appears more interested in describing the injustice of his blacklisting on its own terms than in exploring the connections to her title. Other areas of the text similarly call out racism and/or sexism without specifically keying in to the acceptable mediocrity of white men.

I’m aware of the irony for a white male reviewer like myself to critique this book and give it a less-than stellar rating. But I take no issue with the actual conclusions, merely the effectiveness of how they have been argued herein. I think that absent the attempt at an overarching structure to awkwardly squeeze in all the topics that Oluo wants to address, I would feel a lot more positively towards this project as a whole.

[Content warning for death threats, slurs, and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Poet by Michael Connelly

Book #295 of 2020:

The Poet by Michael Connelly (Jack McEvoy #1)

Author Michael Connelly’s fifth crime thriller, the first not to feature detective Harry Bosch, has been written to stand on its own, although it introduces concepts and characters that will later cross over with the main series. Our protagonist this time is investigative reporter Jack McEvoy, who digs into the apparent suicide of his brother the cop only to uncover evidence that it’s actually a well-disguised murder — and that the same killer is behind a half-dozen similar cases around the nation, always leaving a note in the victim’s handwriting that quotes Edgar Allan Poe. The journalist soon joins up with an FBI team promising him exclusive access in return for not publishing just yet, and they embark on a cross-country manhunt to intervene before their target can strike again.

It’s a creepy read due to the extent of the crimes — CW for gore, rape, and child molestation and murder — and for how Connelly takes the Thomas Harris approach of regularly breaking from Jack’s perspective to situate us in the mind of the suspect, in contrast to how the Bosch novels that I’ve read so far have tended to stick to only what Harry knows. Despite this, the plot offers a few twists I haven’t seen coming, and the new lead is a refreshing change of pace, more cautious and thoughtful than the writer’s usual dour hero.

The book is admittedly a little bit dated now, yet the 1996 computer and phone technology has aged less egregiously than the absolute trust both the police and the criminals place in hypnosis as a foolproof method of subduing a person and recalling their memory. But if you can contain your eye-rolling on that front, the narrative is overall a taut cat-and-mouse game, well worthy of the detour away from the typical focus of these novels.

★★★★☆

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