Pirate Latitudes - a-thrill-a-minute

I just watched The Count of Monte Cristo

which was, surprisingly to me, a lot of fun.(Surprising because I'd thought it was a Guy Ritchie film and I've hated the ones I tried.  Turns out it wasn't, it merely featured an actor named Guy Pearce)
I remember there was a time I was just mad about the lead actor James Caviezel.  His eyes I think.  I can't remember now what the film/project was.  It must have been The Passion of The Christ?  Who falls in love with Jesus' dreamy eyes, like, uggh. 
Monte Cristo reminded me of this novel,

Pirate Latitudes, by Michael Crichton, which in one way is one of the best I've ever read.  And yet when I talked about this book with the writer-bookseller last week but we didn't have time :( I said the book was "pacy".  It had a thrill a minute, such a lot of fun, heads were chopped off, hungry rats used as weapons; there was no dull moment.  Like a children's book, we said, full of event.  And no character development, he added, which was sort of maybe true, in a way.  And we agreed such books are, eh, for those who don't know a good book, like, for the masses.  And you know, the great thing is if you meet someone who says they don't like to read, this may be the one you use to draw them in.  He was soooo cute.  What am I to do with all these handsome gents everywhere I turn?

But I had to run and meet my people who were doing lunch a few doors down, else Juan (no really, his real name, from someplace in the Pyrenees mountains, near Benasque) and I might have got to analyzing and snobbing some more.  Which is not a bad thing, it's just talking about a thing, talking about a thing with nuance, with respect, with irreverence, a mixture of both; measuring the worth of the thing on a fine scale, making an incisive examination of its layers, just because we can.

It's like discussing taste to develop taste and, for some (elitist) folk in the world, this matters.  Then you read The Seagull and other plays and see that this separating from the world, drawing away to think too much, it kills.  First with boredom, then madness lol.  So enough "cerebrating" - found that word yesterday, can't find the passage now.  Really, I've actually decided to tone down the "I want to write, I am writing, I will be a writer" drama and just do it or not do it or whatever.  Haha funny. 

I'll reread the plays sometime, it turns out, and it will likely be for the insights, the answers to "what's the meaning of life?"  But the thrills matter too.  The jabs, like this one: "...she would always take on big parts, but she acted them crudely, without distinction - with false intonations and violent gestures.  There were moments when she showed talent - as when she uttered a cry, or died on the stage - but they were only moments."  Woooooah.  Tickled.  I'm re-reading that.