[This was written mostly in the last full week of March. So any reference to time is in relation to that.]

I finished the book Thursday, only took two days, it's not a long book. But the important bit is I REALLY liked it! :D Wheeeee~ I want to see the movie now. I'm perfectly okay with the movie being quite different from the book, I think it will have to be just by how the book is written and how much of the structure doesn't translate well, as the "chapters" are actually each a year, and sometimes the year can be two pages or less. Shortest one was two really short sentences, longest was pages and pages. That was an intense year.

Synopsis from Amazon: "One summer night in 1808, Sobran Jodeau sets out to drown his love sorrows in his family's vineyard when he stumbles on an angel. Once he gets over his shock, Sobran decides that Xas, the male angel, is his guardian sent to counsel him on everything from marriage to wine production. But Xas turns out to be a far more mysterious character. Compelling and erotic, The Vintner's Luck explores a decidedly unorthodox love story as Sobran eventually comes to love and be loved by both Xas and the young Countess de Valday, his friend and employer at the neighboring chateau."

It follows each year, as I mentioned earlier, so a lot of daily life is missing, so what some may consider big events in the life of Sobran are only briefly mentioned, and I got confused by how many children there were (it didn't help that they were often named after other characters, some who weren't dead yet.) But what was there to love about it? Well, because I have trouble expressing myself in words (a trait I must get over,) I could simply say "Everything!" But I will try to say something a little more intelligent, but it might not be in "review" form.

Favorite character has to be Xas. He's cool, and he also thinks about God and God's relationship to the world, which was quite interesting to read. Now, this isn't a religion book by any means. God sounds rather like a prick, which is fine by me, and works quite well with the biblical God (who is generally a jackass.) I think I will probably have to reread it to form an opinion about one event that involved God and Lucifer. (Not that I'm not planning to reread it anyway... hehehe...) Oh, that brings me to Lucifer. I want to like Lucifer, but I don't. I teared up at that part. Come to think of it, I don't like Michael either. I think the only REASONABLE angel in the book is Xas, and that's just because he's, well... an okay sort of guy. Like a human, but with some worries and not able to understand everything about humans because of his angelical status and also just that people don‘t understand others fully, but...

Sobran's okay as a character, and I'm perfectly fine following him throughout the book, but sometimes he just really annoys me. About halfway through, I wanted to smack him upside the head, but I also kind of pitied him. Thankfully, he shaped up some, but I was still kind of eeehh... about him as he grew older. Sometimes I'd be like, "That's really good of you, but at the same time DO NOT DO THAT!!!" And have I mentioned that I don't really see why EVERYONE loves him? Okay, so in the movie, he'll be played by Jeremie Renier, which that I can understand, but the character himself...

Another character, one that I was actually surprised I ended up liking, was Aurora. She was actually quite cool, though sometimes I thought she was annoying... But when she first showed up, I was lamenting that I wouldn't like ANY of the female characters, none of which you get to know very well except Aurora and a bit Celeste, but not really Celeste. I hate Celeste. I'm sure you're supposed to not like her much. It did feel a bit Jane Eyre, actually, with her and Sobran and his affairs... But back to Aurora. Yes, she definitely surprised me by the end of the book.

[Okay, the rest of this is being written about two weeks after I read the book, so I might be a little fuzzy on some things.]

I completely fell in love with the book several years in. The first few years were a bit awkward to read (Sobran having sex with a pregnant woman and some weird symbolic thing with dead wasps?) but when it got a little bit further in, maybe when Sobran was about 27? Oh, I was in love. There was this one scene that was just amazingly touching. What someone says about it the next day is a bit melodramatic, but that interpretation is meant to prevent the possibility of Sobran and Xas’s discovery. And it’s a character’s interpretation, not the author beating you over the head with some metaphor. So I can overlook that, and in fact, upon reflecting on it a little bit more, see how it actually adds to a loose discussion of God and people’s faith present in the novel. Now, I may be phrasing that not quite accurately, because it isn’t really commentary on the existence or place of God in the real world. But it’s interesting, nonetheless, when it does concern religion.

I think I have a thing for stories that span across a good deal of time. Benjamin Button, Vintner’s Luck… Well, okay, I can’t think of a third example at the moment. So maybe that isn’t true. Well, I did like Jane Eyre, but I wasn’t in love with it. Good Omens just skips the 12 years during which the Anti-Christ grows up… (And also the thousands of years between the Fall from Eden and the modern day.) Hmmm……… Well, I don’t know. I guess I take that back.

I really want to reread this book again, which isn’t quite possible at the moment, because there are several other things I’m reading and several things I should be doing (like school related things…) so I don’t really have the leisure to do so. I will probably when summer starts (or when AP exams and my independent study are over), but maybe before. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I highly recommend The Vintner’s Luck. I absolutely loved it.

A few notes on the movie, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned. Jeremie Renier stars in it as Sobran. I love Jeremie Renier. Gaspard Ulliel stars as Xas. That makes a very attractive pair there, and because I know a few of you are Gaspard fans, I am totally going to make you watch this movie (unless it totally sucks, but I don’t see that happening.) The girl from Whale Rider, who’s all grown up now, is Celeste, and the entire movie is directed the Whale Rider director. So it’s all very exciting. I can’t wait for it, but I must. It’s scheduled to come out in New Zealand in October, but don’t ask me if ever it will get a theater run in the US. It should, because otherwise I would be totally devastated and impatient waiting for camrips to show up online and then a DVD to finally be released SOMEWHERE. It’ll be in English, so it’s easily accessible to an American audience.

And can I say that Gaspard’s current style is actually really, really hot? I like the clicked back, longer hair on him. AND HE’S TALL. Or Jeremie Renier is just really short.

AND OH MY GOD I FOUND TWO IMAGES FROM THE MOVIE!!! Because Google loves me! <3 One image isn’t really all that cool, but another one shows Sobran, Celeste, and one of their kids. EEE. I am so excited. Plus, someone uploaded a couple of wonderful images of Ulliel and Renier at the Cesar Awards, I believe. It’s funny, because Ulliel’s so cheerful, and Renier is all “I don’t really want to be here right now, or at least have my photo taken.” But anyway. It still makes me go :D

If it is released in US theaters, we ARE ALL GOING. I will be going multiple times. Hehehehehehehehehe….

Obsessed? Me? Never!