Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows

Well Well,

the last harry potter book, at last. I started reading these when the fourth one came out, Colm had been reading them from the start, brenda having the inside info as a primary school techer knew about them before the got real big.

Anyhow, as for the series the first two are fairly juvenile but from then on they get good. The third four fifth we very good, the sixth ok and this one is only really good because you know you're going to find out what happens at the end. I don't really think it needed to take 600 pages to tell the story, there's an awful lot of harry camping out in the woods feeling miserable for months on end.

The ending was cliched yet satisfying and you could see how it'll make a god film.

Anyhow, sin sin with harry potter, I'm gonna stick to the list now and keep going.

Cheers more later

Treasure Island

So after the Odyssey I started Rober Louis Stevensons Treasure Island. Although not exactly in order I wanted to read it because I wanted soemthing a bit more lightweight. And at 200pgs its a great read. I picked it up in a second hand book sale in the mall in mullingar - It was the first in the series of Childerens books given out in the independant a couple of months ago, it was free so there was a heap of them which people obviously ditched.

Anyhow its a good read, its written from the point of view if Jim Hawkins a young boy who helps out his dad in thier seaside hotel the Admiral benbow, one day a mysterious old sea dog checks in and from there on a journey of revelation. Jim gets whisked up in a series of events which sees him travelling to Treasure Island (an undisclosed location even in the book). The best character by far is Long John Silver, the wooden legged pirate.

Its a very easy book to read and you can really see where the the goonies and pirates of the carribean came from, adventure on the high seas par-excellence.

Thats it for now guys

The Odyssey

So after the Illiad, we come to the Odyssey. I had always wondered about the name of the illiad, the odyssey seems obvious enough because its about the journey of Ullyssess, written and refereed to as Odysseus in the books. The illiad is called thus because Troy is known as Illium. So the illiad is the story of Troy, although not very much of it, rather 4 odd days spread out over a couple of hundred pages of really small writing.

So back to the Odyssey, really I had to read the illiad before it because some of the main characters of the odyssey are in it. Odysseus is one of the best characters in the illiad. But the Odyssey is by far the more readable book.
Where the illiad is a drudgery the Odyssey is a delight. There is less of the adventure on the high seas than I imagined. It starts out with his son on the island of Ithaca awaiting his much delayed return from the Trojan war, at this stage hes ten years late. Back in ithica, where he was king there are now a heap of jokers trying to get it on with the queen, they are a gang of about 60 odd of these "suitors" laying about waiting for the queen to give up hope of odysseus coming home and to choose one of them as her next king, mean while they're eating them out of house and home.
In any event, the son goes off to get help or word of his dad, that doesn't work out, so he hangs about on some of his dads war buddies islands. Meanwhile we hear the story of Odyessus, which is very good, but he arrives home say about 3/4 of the way through the book and the rest of it is spent coming up with a plan to get rid of the pesky suitors.

So all in all a good read, drags a bit at the end and a little slow to start but I don't see why anyone couldn't read it

cheers

I'll get to it yet

So, the illiad,

but first a review of the car racing, yes went back there this morning it was very good, real festival atmosphere, sounded like its back after an absence, I think its cool becuase it so easy for people to come and see it, its free and its good craic.

So the Illiad, anyhow its very slow read. It goes into painstaking detail on all aspects, most annoyingly about characters who have ust died. Giving you all thick back story about how some guys dad came to wherever the hell and raised some sheep etc and then raised his son blah blah blah only for him to say he was then killed an no other mention of the guy!!!!!

The end isn't really that satisfying either because it doesn't end with the end of the war or the horse etc. So thread wearily into this my friends.

Cheers buds

more later

The Illiad continued, what a saga

Well the gig was great last night. Would really love to play trumpet in a band like that. We have them provisionally boked for the weeding. They are soooo much better live than the samples on the website.

This morning we walked into the park to preview the Pheonix Park Rally which is taking place today and tomorrow. I'll post pictures tomorrow

Gotta go now, more later

The Illiad

The Illiad -

Well its a bit of a monster. Its by no means the longest book I've ever read or even the slowest to read. I think the devil is in the detail. The whole books is basically cast over 4 days of the Trojan war.

I thought this book was going to be just like the screen play for Troy but its more like about 20mins of the film spread over 400 pages. No trojan horse, no sacking of troy, no death of achielles.

gotta go to the a gig of my buddy Eoin Graces soul band in the Blue Note bar on Capel St.
Looking forward to it
later

tbc.........

Gerrys First Blog

Well here I am entering the blogosphere.

It'll mainly be a reminder/review of the gigs, books, shows, trips, restaurant etc

I was thinking of this because over the last while I'd decided to start reading books from the start. So I bough the illiad and the oddessey and away with me. I had previously read other classics as Don Quixote, the Grapes of Wrath, 1984, and loved them. I got me thinking why waste time reading mediocre john grisham novels when there are these great works of literature out there.

So hopefully I'll bother to keep this going