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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2395 KP) rated I'll Be There for You: The One about Friends in Books

Oct 16, 2019

The One Where We Look at the Friends Phenomenon

Over the course of the book, we get a well-researched look at the sitcom Friends and the impact it has had on the US and the world in the 25 years since it premiered. We learn about how the creators met and came up with the show, the path the actors took before they landed on the show, and some of the bumps and growing pains that everyone experienced during the 10 years the show was on the air. There is also talk about the impact the show has had on fashion, trends, and overall pop culture the world over.

Author Kelsey Miller starts out by talking about her own connection to the show, and at various times in the book she talks about how she gained insight into the show (and vice versa) while talking to her real-life friends about it. As I said, the book is well-researched, but that is part of the problem – it has too much research, rehashing stories we can find elsewhere with little new insights from the cast and crew. I did find her commentary on a few episodes and arcs to be interesting. I had already thought of some of her comments myself, and the rest make perfect sense to me. My biggest issue with the book is the way she works modern social issues into a look at a comedy from 25 years ago. Now, I’m not saying that the issues on the show aren’t worth talking about. This is the only part of the book where she did her any original research, reaching out to people to get reactions to the show’s handing of diversity, etc. However, her experts all seem to be of the opinion that it would be nice if the show had done a better job, but that was TV in the day, and it is a funny comedy that wasn’t trying to push an agenda. It is clear she wasn’t happy these people didn’t agree with her more since she obvious thinks these are major issues in the show. She even spends much of the last chapter talking about the lawsuit a writer’s assistant brought for a hostile work environment and speculating how it would have been handled in the current environment. These complaints aside, I found the book very readable, and when I picked it up, I was hooked. I was even choking up as I read about the taping of the final episodes. This would probably appeal most to die hard Friends fans, but most of the material here they probably already know.

Kudos

Rob P (30 KP) rated Mythos in Books

Jan 22, 2019 (Updated May 6, 2019)

Mythos

Stephen Fry | 2017 | Religion

8.7

(10 Ratings)

Book Rating

Accessible (2 more)

Simplified

Incredible insight into how much the modern world has taken from Greek and Roman culture

A lot of pretty complex names to remember (1 more)

Constant footnotes (usually at least one per page) to explain certain aspects, or highlight an interesting fact.

Mythos - The Greek legends retold

Ah, what a great read. Stephen Fry writes exactly how you would expect him to, if you've ever heard him speak. He understands the subject matter, and more importantly, realises how easily a reader will be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of players in these myths and answers that problem without condescension.

The book reads as a quasi-novel, from the birth of the universe to the third and fourth generations of immortals (this includes the creators, the titans, the gods, and mythical creatures/characters, spawns of titans and gods, gods and creatures, gods and men and all sorts.) and their adventures, each following on from the other.

I have always had an interest in the Greek myths and gods, and as I suggested above the really interesting part of these stories, beyond the very human nature of the immortals (jealousy, unreasonableness, duplicity, rage, deceit and pride) which makes for so much more of a believable creation theory, is the myriad ways they have influenced English language (any many others I'm sure). To give an example (I'm showing my own ignorance flagrantly here) a simple thing, the alphabet. It never occurred to me, in my own self centered existence, this simply come from the first and second letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha and Beta. So simple, so obvious, yet I never made this connection.

The stories themselves are wonderful, and the best thing about them is they all tie in with a creation theory. Something, whatever it is, is learned, or created. Some paradigm is set, some moral conundrum is answered, or something in the world is explained by the end of every story told (the tides, the moon, wine, love, soul, war, sex, the seasons, humanity itself just to name a few). It's such an entertaining read, and I find myself telling anyone who will listen some of the revelations I find in this book page on page on page.

As an end note, don't be overwhelmed by the prospect of reading about these stories, this installment ONLY covers from creation, to the establishment of the twelve Greek gods, and their children. It stops before the even greater amount of legends stemming from human demigods (Hercules, Perseus etc) and these are picked up in Fry's most recent offering, Heroes (which I am yet to read).

If you have any interest in the Greek mythology, or etymology, or even history as a whole, this is absolutely one for you.

- Rob