Reading matter

Yesterday evening we went to see the newly released film La vie très privée de Monsieur Sim, based on the novel by Jonathan Coe (The terrible prvacy of Maxwell Sim in English). It's not one of my favourites among his novels, but if you're a fan of bittersweet tragicomedies, I can't recommend the film highly enough. Director and co-writer Michel Leclerc had to change it a fair bit, with Scotland replaced by southern France and Australia by a Caribbean island. He took a few other liberties too, and the ending is quite different. But he must have been separated from Jonathan Coe at birth; he achieves that knife-edge balance between humour and sadness that never tips too far to one side or the other. And Jean-Pierre Bacri (a favourite actor of ours) is marvellous. The film is almost a one-man show, depending entirely on him, and particularly on his face. He has to be in line for a César.  I've no idea what kind of international distribution the film will get, but if it shows up near you, go and see it. A very satisfying evening out. And as you can see I have the new Jonathan Coe to look forward to along with an interesting mixture of several more books from my wishlist (thank you S!).

And wasn't yesterday brilliant? A Following page full of "save blip" posts, and the most positive buzz everywhere in blipland since long before the Polaroid rebranding. I spent far too much time browsing around reading everyone's reasons for not wanting to lose it.