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[Disclaimer: This girl really knows nothing about figure skating, and less about its technical finesses; I watch, and like, or don't.]

Is it just me, or did Plushenko have better programs in the past, especially when Yagudin was still around to challenge him and always push the artistic aspect just a little further? Now it's back to jumps, jumps, jumps, and these complicated, fast step sequences, and yes, it's all perfectly executed of course, and there's enough choreography to pretty it up, but the the program lacks emotion, it's a too cold perfection, too obviously designed to collect as many points as possible, in my opinion. And it's hard on the other skaters. You could see it in the Short Program when he skated first, and again in the final group today, the damper he put on everything when it was clear that no matter what they did, they wouldn't even have a remote chance of beating him. It takes something of the spark out of it, if you know you aren't competing for gold anyway, I would imagine. And really, it isn't fun to watch, either.


Although I seem to in an extra nit-picky mood this evening... I didn't much care for any of the Free Programs, although I was happy for Lambiel in the end...

(no subject)

Lest I forget... I love it that the days are noticeable longer already. It wasn't quite pitch dark any longer when I biked home from work today; still a faint trace of blue in the sky visible above the clouds.


And yes, this does deserve an entry of its own.

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Compulsory Dance is boring. No really, it is.


[Holiday reading, continued]

I liked Der Idiot, I really did. I still have something of a problem with the way Dostojewski rushes one through the plot, always on the edge, always big emotional drama and bigger philosophical issues, with barely any time to simply take a breath, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, or could put it down. But still... after a few hundred pages I always get a little tired of the constant tension that just keeps building up and up and up, and long for something... not meaninglessly ornamental, but perhaps a simple descriptive passage, a break from the long, emotion-charged, almost over-excited dialogues, something that allows you to breath a little, look around...

But there is so much that is wonderful in there. The end. Oh my god, the end. It's terrible and lovely, strangely tender, and wholly unavoidable. Calm, finally.

I loved the Jepatschin family, Jelisaweta Prokowjewna and her three daughters, in all their beautiful, impetuous weirdness.

'Haben Sie meinen Igel erhalten?' No words.


Myschkin... I don't know. Initially there is something utterly compelling about his honesty, his belief in others. It does wear off a little, though, and his exalted outburst at the dinner-party in the end seemed slightly odd. And when he is caught up and destroyed by these events that he isn't in the least equipped to deal with, I couldn't pity him as much as I wanted. In the end I think there's a lot of truth in what Jewgenij Pawlowitsch says.


And again, love. It flares up, so very passionately, it destroys people, drives them to murder, but I don't feel it. Should I feel it? Is love important in this novel? The only emotional connection that truly works for me is between Rogoschin and Myschkin.

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I give up, I can't write about Dostojewski. There's this huge rush of characters, emotions and ideas, and I never know where to look first, can't pick it apart enough to analyse and verbalise, make sense of it, at least not after one reading.