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Carissa Green Reads

I read widely from many genres. Perhaps this blog will feature fewer ratings and reviews, but I certainly intend to write about my reading life - it's the subject I most find myself wanting to talk about.

Currently reading

D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of WWII
Stephen E. Ambrose
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad
M.T. Anderson
The Path Between the Seas
David McCullough
Chekhov Four Plays
Anton Chekhov, David Magarshack
The Gay Science: with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs
Walter Kaufmann, Friedrich Nietzsche
A Kierkegaard Anthology
Robert W. Bretall

Notes on Adaptation: Poldark

Ross Poldark (Poldark, #1) - Winston Graham Demelza - Winston Graham

My post on this spring's PBS Masterpiece series, the reboot of "Poldark," (borrowed from the Brits, of course) is a bit overdue, but better late than never . . .

 

Of course, I read the books before I watched the series. And I found them a trifle boring. The plotting and characterizations were both predictable. Perhaps the pacing was a bit slow. What do you know -- the series followed the book quite well. So you'd expect I'd be bored by the series, too.

 

Heck no. On TV, there was the distinct advantage of actors' faces. The women seemed particularly well-cast -- Heida Reed as Ross's lost love, Elizabeth, and Ruby Bentall as his cousin Verity were absolutely perfect. Both seemed like they climbed right out of an 18th-century painting.

 

And then there was Ross Poldark - Aidan Turner in wigs to die for. Approximately every 2:30 of screen time you were guaranteed a shot of that beautiful creature brooding. And it was sublime. Ross brooding over his broken heart. Ross brooding over his financial troubles. Ross brooding at his banker's desk. Ross brooding shirtless in a field (not kidding). Oh, so pretty. Brood for me baby, you know I like it. 

 

Just one quibble -- why, oh, why, was Demelza a redhead -- especially after the books make such a point of her beautiful black hair. That kind of disregard for detail just annoys me. 

 

-cg