Hilton Head Island: two books, two movies: great, excellent, very good and terrible; unjibed

I recently read two books, LORD JIM and M.A.S.H., and then Carol and I watched the movies based on them.  

This was the third time I have read LORD JIM and Conrad was a pleasure as always.  M.A.S.H. was offered by BookBud a few weeks ago, so I bought it.  I probably read the novel when it was first published in 1968, but I am not sure.  Reading it now the book was seen through the prism of the long running TV series and partly the movie which I have seen a couple of times.  I have always enjoyed the movie as an original, gory, dark comedy of men and women forced into the exhausting struggle to save the lives and what parts of the bodies they could of those caught in the maelstrom of war.  In some ways I think the movie is even better than the book.

So the great is LORD JIM, the novel.  The excellent is M.A.S.H., the movie.   The very good is M.A.S.H., the novel.  And the terrible is LORD JIM, the movie.

I remember when I first saw LORD JIM, the movie.  It was in a Los Angeles first run cinema in 1965.  I was with my wife and another couple who I thought were friends, but proved to be merely acquaintances.  I disliked the movie intensely.  It uses Conrad’s title, but has nothing of the depth of his story of a man who after a single impulsive act of cowardice tries to redeem himself in his own mind.  The movie got bad reviews.  You can find them if you are interested enough to google.  And did poorly at the box office.  Two nights ago Carol and I had enough after forty-five minutes and stopped watching.

We rented both movies from Amazon Prime.  They are also available elsewhere.  Enjoy M.A.S.H.  Don’t bother with LORD JIM. 

Day after perfect day continues in the marsh.

Carol drove us the short distance to the marina parking lot this morning and I pushed a dock cart out to GANNET.  The intent was to lower the jib from the furling gear and trundle both it and the mainsail which I had stowed below deck after removing it a few days ago back up to the car to be driven on Friday to North’s loft in Charleston to be cleaned.  Because I have not removed the jib from the furling gear for two or three years, I wondered how this would go.  In the event it went perfectly.  Carol eased the halyard while I stood at the bow and pulled down on the luff.  We had chosen a morning with only a few knots of wind and the sail came down smoothly.  I had sprayed the luff tape with McLube when I bent it on, but as noted that was quite a while ago and I don’t know if it was still effective.

I will be interested is seeing how clean North can get the sails.  They are now six or seven years and 8,000 or 9,000 miles old and spotty.  But then so am I, though I have the excuse of being much older and having covered considerably more miles.