Henrik Carlsson's Blog

All things me.

posted this note on and tagged it with Books Different Seasons Reading Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption Stephen King

After finishing 2001 yesterday, I needed to start a new audiobook on my commute. I didn’t want to spend to much time choosing so I scrolled through the downloaded books on Prologue and ended up glancing on Stephen King’s Different Seasons, so I started Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

I’ve watched the film version multiple times, but I’ve never read the ”short story” before. It hooked me right away so I’m already an hour and a halt into it.

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posted this note on and tagged it with 2001 A Space Odyssey Arthur C Clarke Books Reading

Yesterday evening, after blogging about reading it, I finished 2001: A Space Odyssey and I really, really liked it. From what I’ve understood it has gotten some (maybe even a lot of) critique over the years for spelling things out in the ending part, rather than being artfully vague like Kubrick’s film. Personally, I prefer the spelled out version.

Keep in mind, it’s been at least ten years since the one and only time that I watched the movie so I’m working from old memories here. However, I do remember not ”getting it” in the end. Now, it’s perfectly fine to make a movie that not everybody ”gets”. It’s even okay to make a movie that you are not supposed to get.1 But 2001 seems like a movie that has a clear narrative, but then decides to make the ending abstract even though nothing up until that point has been like that.

By contrast, by spelling things out the book can focus on the ideas and present them in a clear way.

  1. David Lynch’s approach to movie-making comes to mind. Like Mullholland Drive. ↩
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posted this note on and tagged it with 2001 A Space Odyssey Books Reading The End of the World as We Know It

After bailing on Frank Herbert’s Dune I’ve dipped in and out of a few books. First, I gave ”Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” a go. Maybe it’s the audiobook’s fault, maybe it’s mine but I just couldn’t stand it for more than fifteen minutes. So instead I jumped into The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand, an anthology telling stories about the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. This was much more my cup of tea, but about half (maybe) into the third short-story I lost steam and I took a break. That break has lasted for a month or so now.

A week or so ago I started Arthus C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now this is absolutely my cup of tea! I watched Kubrick’s movie many years ago and it is a classic for a reason. That being said, I think I’m one of the weird people who like the novel better.1 The story is fascinating even though I know where it will all end up. It’s got just the right amount of details to keep the nerd inside me interesting, while not getting bogged down in endless regressions on orbital mechanics2. It also feels quite relevant again as our interest in space travel are increasing again, at the same time as the current fixation on AI.

The format of the audiobook also fits my life perfect right now. A single chapter is never longer than fifteen minutes, which happens to be the length of my commute to work. When they’re significantly shorter than that, two usually adds upp to no more than fifteen as well making it perfect for listening to while driving to work.

  1. Thereby making Kubrick movies and their novels a two for two in favor of the novels for me ↩
  2. I love your writing, Neal Stephenson, but if I’m not in the right mood your books can be a bit tedious. ↩
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Dune

posted this note on and tagged it with Books Denis Villeneuve Dune Movies

Movie poster for Dune A few months ago I started listening to ”Dune” as an audiobook. I found it interesting but once I stopped listening for a while I found it hard to press play again, either later the same day or some other day. It is probably one of those books that I would have loved if I had gotten into it in my teenage years. Maybe the problem is me and my attention span, broken by the modern world. Or maybe the novel is just to bloated. Or maybe both.

Either way, I sort of left it behind and instead gave the Denis Villeneuve movie a go. I’ve not watched a lot of Villeneuve movies, but it think Arrival is one of the greatest movies ever made. I’m less thrilled about Dune.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad movie in any way, shape or form. On the contrary, it’s probably a great movie in most ways. It’s stunningly beautiful and the music is Hans Zimmer being his most Hans Zimmer. But I feel detached from it when I watch it.

My main problem with it is probably that it is so ”serious” all the time. Maybe I’m broken by Marvel movies, and at least in theory I believe that there are too many quips and gags in way too many movies, but maybe the opposite with zero percent levity is sort of an over-correction. Everybody is so serious in the movie, all the time. Everything is grim. Macho men speaking in orcish sounding languages being macho.

As I’m writing this I realize that it sounds like I hated it, but I really didn’t. It is a good movie and I would absolutely recommend it. But either it lacked something, or I currently lack something to appreciate it the way it deserves.

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posted this note on and tagged it with Books Neal Stephenson Reading Termination Shock

I took a break from King after ”The Langoliers” and instead dove into Neal Stephenson’s ”Termination Shock” and it grabbed me instantly. What a thrill ride thus far!

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posted this note on and tagged it with Books Four Past Midnight Reading Stephen King The Langoliers

I finished the audiobook of Stephen King’s ”The Langoliers” from Four Past Midnight the other day. I really liked it!

I remember watching the tv movie (tv show?) of this story in class back in high school but I remembered very few things about it. I remembered the main premise, Dinah, and how terrible the langoliers looked, but apart from that I didn’t remember any of the other characters or the plot.

It’s a fun premise and engaging characters. The audiobook is read by Willem Dafoe who’s clearly having a lot of fun.

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posted this note on and tagged it with Books Four Past Midnight Stephen King The Langoliers

I started listening to Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight yesterday. I’m three hours into Willem Dafoe’s reading of ”The Langoliers” and I love it so far. Late yesterday, when the rest of the family was sleeping I was doing some tidying on the deck while listening to this. As the wind and the rain blew around me I got genuinely scared by this story. Can’t really remember when a book scared me like that the last time.

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posted this note on and tagged it with Books Comics Reading

Oh yeah, this year I also read ”House of X”/”Powers of X”. Thanks The Incomparable.

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On reading and (not) being a reader (anymore)

posted this article on and tagged it with Books Reading

I still have a hard time to reconcile the fact that reading fiction, that was such a large part of my identity as a child and a teen, is something that I do so rarely these days. Part of that is how slowly I get through even books I really love from authors that are among my favourites.

Case in point, William Gibson and his ”Blue Ant Trilogy”. According to my Reading page I read Pattern Recognition in 2013 and now, in august 2020, I finished Zero History. I really like Gibson and this trilogy has been a blast but still it’s taking my seven years to get through.

I wonder how much time I’ve spent browsing timelines and listening to people going on and on about the same things in podcasts during those same seven years.

That being said, this year might be a bit different. As I said, I’ve just finished Pattern Recognition but I’m also half-way through a bunch of books, some audio books some paper/Kindle books. I occasionally actually manages to convince myself to read a bit for pure pleasure. That makes me happy.

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posted this on and tagged it with Books

❤️ The Incomparable | You Can’t Pants a Heist (Episode 514)

I love these kinds of episodes. So far I haven’t gotten around to reading Dan’s books but I really want to make time for it.

To be honest I need to make more time for reading books in general.

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