Harlan Coben’s Netflix
I continue to hunt for free books, resolving – ruefully – to borrow more from the Internet Archive. Yes, this will require me to read from a screen. But the books on that website are free.
Maybe I’ll stop carrying four or five volumes to bed with me.
My mother reads from a screen. Today I showed her how to search in the Internet Archive. We quickly found a few cherished books that she hadn’t read in years.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
One guy I won’t be reading onscreen is Harlan Coben. No need: his books are in the library.
And I don’t like them.
Oh, I’ve tried. I’ve been fascinated with Coben, or the idea of Coben, since I read this Atlantic article fifteen years ago.
He was popular then; now, he’s stratospheric. He and Netflix have contracted to turn fourteen of his books into different shows. Fourteen. How does such a thing occur? Netflix has been transposing these stories to England, Poland, France … just about anywhere outside of New Jersey, which is to Coben World what Britain is to Middle Earth.
The good news is, the shows are a hoot. Safe was all right. I liked the family of strivers who, out of sheer social panic, keep a body in their freezer. But the series that hooked me was The Stranger, with its “good kid” teenagers who go on a candy-colored drug trip and cut off an alpaca’s head.
Right now, Karin & I are watching Stay Close. Why are so many scenes set around a huge statue of a skinny, white head – a statue reminiscent of a certain Pink Floyd album cover? Why has this statue been erected in a clearing in the forest? Why do the characters not seem to notice it much? (Who writes this into a crime show?)
Why is the grizzled lead detective saddled with his ex-wife as his investigative partner? How could their boss allow this? And why does the boss look like he’s twelve?
And how does the ex-wife get away with letting her son ride around in the back seat of the police car? (“Childcare issues,” she vaguely explains.)
Why do so many perfectly manicured middle-class marriages have ridiculous secrets? How are the wives and husbands so oblivious to one another’s pasts? Why do these pasts involve things like embezzling and stripping and committing manslaughter?
How do such outlandish tropes get repeated in story after story?
Karin & I get a kick out of all this.
Coben World – the Netflix variety, anyway – is different from any I’ve encountered.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Today, I started to read Babbitt. This year is its centennial.
Maybe I’ll stop carrying four or five volumes to bed with me.
My mother reads from a screen. Today I showed her how to search in the Internet Archive. We quickly found a few cherished books that she hadn’t read in years.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
One guy I won’t be reading onscreen is Harlan Coben. No need: his books are in the library.
And I don’t like them.
Oh, I’ve tried. I’ve been fascinated with Coben, or the idea of Coben, since I read this Atlantic article fifteen years ago.
He was popular then; now, he’s stratospheric. He and Netflix have contracted to turn fourteen of his books into different shows. Fourteen. How does such a thing occur? Netflix has been transposing these stories to England, Poland, France … just about anywhere outside of New Jersey, which is to Coben World what Britain is to Middle Earth.
The good news is, the shows are a hoot. Safe was all right. I liked the family of strivers who, out of sheer social panic, keep a body in their freezer. But the series that hooked me was The Stranger, with its “good kid” teenagers who go on a candy-colored drug trip and cut off an alpaca’s head.
Right now, Karin & I are watching Stay Close. Why are so many scenes set around a huge statue of a skinny, white head – a statue reminiscent of a certain Pink Floyd album cover? Why has this statue been erected in a clearing in the forest? Why do the characters not seem to notice it much? (Who writes this into a crime show?)
Why is the grizzled lead detective saddled with his ex-wife as his investigative partner? How could their boss allow this? And why does the boss look like he’s twelve?
And how does the ex-wife get away with letting her son ride around in the back seat of the police car? (“Childcare issues,” she vaguely explains.)
Why do so many perfectly manicured middle-class marriages have ridiculous secrets? How are the wives and husbands so oblivious to one another’s pasts? Why do these pasts involve things like embezzling and stripping and committing manslaughter?
How do such outlandish tropes get repeated in story after story?
Karin & I get a kick out of all this.
Coben World – the Netflix variety, anyway – is different from any I’ve encountered.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Today, I started to read Babbitt. This year is its centennial.