About six month ago my sister sent me a box-set of
DVDs which she had bought without noticing that they were all in English. ‘Your English is better than mine,’ she said
and there I was, burdened with six DVDs which weren’t even in French. I try to only watch DVDs in French, to
improve my language skills (such as they are).
Moreover, these DVDs are the first series of Once Upon A Time, an
American series about fairytales …. I
have a problem with movies based on books, they usually take all sorts of
liberties and I am a stickler for following books to the letter. So I thanked my sister and put away the DVDs.
Several months later I came home totally exhausted on a Friday
night, and just wanted to forget about anything outside my door, and for want
of anything better to do, decided to give these DVDs a try – I was more than
ready to vent my spleen on the makers of this series about the inevitable literary
inaccuracies!
Boy was I in for a surprise!
This wasn’t so much a matter of ‘inaccuracies’ as a matter of taking
huge unforgivable liberties with every fairy tale I ever read – and you know
what, I loved it and couldn’t stop watching!
I was dead to the world for the remainder of the weekend, and watched
the entire 18 hours in one go, with only small breaks for sleeping, eating, and
very basic hygiene procedures. And when
I was finished I bought the French version, and have been watching it ever
since.
Three days ago I came across the box-set of series 2 …. Thursday night I started watching at 18:30 and only stopped after I upset a cup of
tea all over my clothes. I hang up the
wet clothes, put on something dry, and continued watching my DVDs until 00:30 when I finally managed to convince myself
to go to bed, seeing as the next day was a working one. Friday evening saw a repeat performance,
minus the overturned teacup. Saturday
was different, in that I started watching at 10:00
in the morning. At 16:00 I had watched the entire series and felt bereft, because
now what was I going to watch? And I
needed to know what would happen next!
I googled around, and found out that the series continued
last Autumn and will continue this Spring on American television. Heaven knows when series 3 will be available
as a box-set. How ever will I
survive? The French version of series 2
won’t be out until March ….
These marathon DVDish indulgences remind me of my childhood,
after I discovered the joys of reading books.
The kiddie books of course were rarely a problem, because one could
finish their 100 or less pages quickly.
But after I graduated to Karl May books, with a minimum of 300 pages, it
became impossible to read them all in one go.
I resorted to reading by torchlight under my bedclothes, not ideal and
often discovered. Even that wasn’t
enough for me, because Karl May often wrote series of books, and one only knew
who the villain was after having read 2500 pages, which took quite a while,
what with having to go to school and doing homework and having chores to do
around the house. Karl May wrote many
books, my father had about 70 of them, and I read them all in quick
succession.
In case you think this was a waste of time, let me tell you
that these books are full of geography and history and other useful
information, and if I know where to locate the Chott el Djerid and who the
Yazidi are I have Karl May to thank. And
the knowledge thus gleaned isn’t totally useless, either - I once got a free
haircut from an Albanian hair-stylist because I was the only person he had ever
met in Britain
who knew about Skanderbeg!
After I had read and re-read Karl May numerous times my
marathon readings subsided somewhat, until I discovered Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s
Darkover novels, and then Anne Rice’s books.
Once again I spent my evenings after work, and half the night, too,
curled up with a book and read and read and read ….
As my sister once remarked, finding a book that captures
one’s attention in such a way is like having a little holiday. Once is completely lost to the world!
