Another month gone.

What happened to the last few months? A few minutes ago I was sitting in the remnants of Christmas in a post-celebratory stupor and now all of a sudden it's February and the sun is shining again and I've applied to university and taken exams and found some vague meaning in my life.

I didn't expect this year to take sudden turns for the better, but then I didn't expect most of what's happened in the last few years. Perhaps that's when you know you've grown up: things become less unpredictable, you reach security and stability, you trust yourself and your own judgements. In other ways I've hardly changed in the last decade. I still worry all the time about nothing. I still live in a chaotic, self-induced hell-hole of a room. I still find pleasure in the simplest of things: ice cream, music, tranquility, company. I'm still incapable of turning up on time for anything. I'm still muddled, I still lack faith in my own convictions, I still preach passionately to others and then later wonder if they were right all along.

Basically this was a gem of a month. I've found some energy from somewhere and it's doing me the world of good. I've been going to classes and managing to stay adrift with the work. I have friends and plans.

Two good films and a rather disappointing novel this month. Venus is thoroughly entertaining and fairly original, an audacious take on the generation gap with plenty of funny dialogue. Of course, all the characters were openly stereotypical: the moronic, disenchanted, diagreeable youth living off junk food, the helpless, cynical old men, the abandoned wife. The film was a 2 hour long mockery of youth and old age, and at times seemed misogynist, perhaps even a
desperate attempt to appear controversial by providing a lame justification for dirty old men chatting up young girls. But it was funny, and lighthearted and the plot tied itself together well and it was a bloody good film.

Joey gave me The Edukators for Christmas. It's pure genius, and clearly the best film I've seen in ages. There was so much to think about and take in, so much intelligent, engaging dialogue and a genuinely sensational plot. It's political, but it's also about social evolution and the human condition; the balance we struggle to maintain between personal gratification and global consciousness, the decisions that can destroy us or reassure us. As someone disillusioned by the disinterest and passivity that seems to render free thought and activism useless nowadays, I was mesmerised by this film.

Zadie Smith's third novel is a catastrophe. As usual her characterisation is sensitive and engaging, her dialogue is sharp and her ideas are flowing, but the plot is a disaster. The book was patchy, nonsensical and lacks structure or meaning. The pretentious echoes of Howards End were truly depressing and did not seem to make any sense in the context of the story; in fact I find it insulting that Smith dared to integrate the ideas of such a masterpiece into her own work. They didn't even make any sense in the context of the story. I am confused as to what On Beauty is meant to be about; is it meant to be some kind of profound exploration of modern aesthetics? A radical portrayal of class- and race- related confrontation? Or just a warm-hearted feel-good novel about a priviledged American family? What Smith has done is half-heartedly combine these three into a patchy, rambly book which lacks direction and any kind of resolution. It would need far more editing and far fewer characters it it were to make any sense at all.

E M Forster will be turning in his grave.