It has been a long time since I watched the film, even the re-make for that matter. Picked this up in the bargain bin yesterday, half way through already, a very quick read.
Yeah, Amityville a pretty easy read. I think my favorite part of the book were the maps and the descriptions of the house (also depressingly fascinating reading about L.I. real estate costs in the seventies... but that's just me).
I didn't like the cheap "true story" gimmick that it uses, especially since the author never bothers to build up credibility either inside or outside of the family's narrative. What the heck kind of "journalist" is he that he never follows up on exploring the history of the property? That would have been interesting, even though I'm guessing its exclusion means it either undermined or didn't sufficiently support the ghost story (either that or it's just due to sheer laziness). The priest comes across as overly credulous as well, and the characterizations of the family are for the most part pretty bland. Overall the book feels like a rush-job, unfortunately. My wife liked it a lot but I think she's also fairly lenient on haunted house/ghost stories.
I've recently finished these two books:
The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft by Thomas M. Disch
An addictive and darkly humorous mid-western horror novel about horrible, horrible people (and a few flawed-but-decent ones). The antihero is a substitute teacher who undergoes a perverse ethical transformation that coincides with the awakening of a Circe-like power to turn humans into their totemic animal familiars (mostly pigs, but there's also a cat, a deer and a spider). Diana goes from being a jaded, uptight vegetarian feminist to a deranged sociopath who turns men into pigs to be slaughtered and eaten.
What makes this book so enjoyable is Disch's fine and acerbic wit that breathes life and interest into the varied lives and souls of his people, rarely introducing a stereotype without complicating or at least embellishing it with individual thoughts and behavior. (the book's pretty interesting even apart from the fantastic elements, just on the basis of the writing). Other characters include a psychotic Native American shaman/serial-killer; a vindictive Lutheran minister who fathered a son with his own daughter, and then covered it up by putting an innocent man in jail; his rather dopey son/grandson who thinks he's half-Indian and does what he can to make things right; and the brother-in-law of the witch, a smarmy-but-likeable prison guard who spends half the novel ironically imprisoned in the flesh of a pig.
Disch is way underrated, cover plaudits from Stephen King notwithstanding.
Othello by William Shakespeare
Wanted to read this before I re-watch the Orson Welles adaptation. For some reason I usually hate watching a movie adaptation
after I read the book. Watching a movie-adaptation first usually doesn't have much effect on my experience of the book it's based on, but reading the book first can really kill my enjoyment of the film... Shakespeare is a glaring exception, however. I think it's because I'm a bad listener, and his dialog is archaic enough that I have an easier time if I'm already somewhat familiar with the text.
As for the play itself. Good, but not one of my favorites.
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I'm glad you're not finding the book boring, too, now that you've seen the first season and you know what's going to happen. It can feel like a bit of a formality. But it gets you going on the later books!
