1 day ago
19 August 2011
18 August 2011
Kakutani Fan Club Edict
I think the more relevant answer to the Observer's "Is the New York Times’ toughest book critic single?" is "Who cares!" But that could be said for everyone on the paper's power media elite potentially* single people list.
*Based on personal knowledge** the list is probably 2:1 actually single: in a relationship they cared not to disclose to a fact-checker.
**#humblebrag
*Based on personal knowledge** the list is probably 2:1 actually single: in a relationship they cared not to disclose to a fact-checker.
**#humblebrag
17 August 2011
John Hodgman Has A Plan To Save The Book Industry... Kinda.
"Up high, Jon, literature slam."
"It's been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds."
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Borders Goes Out of Business | ||||
| ||||
"It's been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds."
Filmbook: Guest Writer Orrin Konheim On The Top 5 Films Based On Modern Library-Celebrated Novels
Today’s post is by film writer Orrin Konheim whose blog I took over a few weeks ago. I asked to recommend some movies based on books on the Modern Library 100 Novels list. Orrin can also be found at Examiner.com and has a very funny list of things he will do for you for money. (All of which appear to be legal also!) Visit Orrin's personal top 100 films list here. Take it a way:
I took this writing challenge from Ellen because, while not as much of a book reader, I wanted to explore which movies came from great books.
What I found was that most of these films are distinguished by rich storylines that aren’t just moving from beginning to end because the plot necessitates it. They all curiously meander to distant corners and back. The main characters in “A Passage to India” in the beginning of the film are all but forgotten at film’s end in lieu of the more interesting souls that have popped up midway.
Similarly, if “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” were written more like a movie, it would have been more efficient in trimming down stories (i.e. the alcoholic played by Stacy Keach, or the doctor’s estranged daughter) that aren’t critical to the arc of the main character -- but the film doesn’t discriminate. A film that almost made the cut, “All the King’s Men,” suffers from similar overcrowding; one might guess that so much detail is devoted to interesting minor characters in the sources that the screenwriter can’t bear to let them go. On the other hand, “From Here to Eternity” seems to have a fairly even distribution of screentime to its five main characters, but their stories don’t intersect.
Lastly, some films gave me the indication that they were constrained by having to stay faithful to some rich source material because they covered such a long time span. “Brideshead Revisited” seemed as if it covered twenty or thirty years’ time (although it was probably far less: the characters seemed to have aged significantly from the war) while “The Magnificent Ambersons” seems like the longest 88 minutes of film you’ll ever see. Although Sandra Locke is clearly still the same age at the end of “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” you get the sense that she’s aged several years at the time.
Here are my picks:
"From Here to Eternity" (1953)
Despite winning the Best Picture Oscar and being known to modern audiences for its kissing scene on the beach, I still view “From Here to Eternity" as a somewhat undiscovered gem. Set at Pearl Harbor in the months before the famous attack, it’s a film (based on a James Jones novel) about the lives and conflicts of officers when there’s no urgency for an attack, and in that sense, it’s more interesting than most war movies. It’s a film that I love and consider among my favorites (in some rudimentary outdated list of my top 100 films of all time, I ranked it 10th), mostly because of its great characters and great performances.
Of the five leads, Montgomery Clift leaves the strongest impression on me as guarded private who we learn is a formidable bugler and boxer but he refuses to do either for his company out of principle. Clift gradually opens up as he befriends a fellow private played by Frank Sinatra who defends him from a sadistic bully (Ernest Borgnine) and attracts the interest of a call girl played by Donna Reed (both Oscar-winning roles) but the stubborn ex-bugler is a tragic figure. Meanwhile, the Captain’s second-in-command (Burt Lancaster) begins a torrid affair with the Captain’s wife (Deborah Kerr) although it's a relationship destined for doom as well. Ed. note: This is of particular interest to me since I just visited the Pearl Harbor historic site for the first time.
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” (1968)
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” reminds me of a book I read in 10th grade called BOY’S LIFE (by Robert McCammon) in which the quirks and quirky characters of a small-town in the South are deconstructed by a boy as he grows up and loses his innocence. Only this time, it’s a 14-year old girl played by Sandra Locke on her debut. Locke (better known as Clint Eastwood’s future ex-wife) is in my opinion, the most beautiful actress ever and I’ve always had a soft spot for her, but she’s hilariously unconvincing as a 14-year old. (She was apparently 21, but a very mature 21.) Similarly, the casting of the dumb mute as Alan Arkin is equally baffling. Arkin, best-known to modern audiences as the foul-mouthed grandpa in “Little Miss Sunshine,” has built a career with his Yiddish-infused deadpan style, so why use him for a role with no dialogue? Despite these impediments, the two stars really shine and elevate the strewn-all-over story to something special.
“A Passage to India” (1984)
I find it ironic that David Lean’s films mostly come from books because his body of work is so purely cinematic. A master of the epic, his visual scope is so large that his films are hardly worth watching unless it’s on a screen thirty feet high. “A Passage to India” (based on the E.M. Forster novel) was Lean’s last film and it certainly feels as if it comes from a very rich story with a lot of subtext. Set in colonial India, the film revolves around the mother and bride-to-be of a Colonial Magistrate who are bored with the stuffiness of the old order and wish to venture out to the “real India.” They soon form a social club with a local mystic (Alec Guinness in brown-face, ughh), a local doctor and a magistrate. The wife-to-be (Judy Davis) gets more than she bargained for as she has an attack of sorts for which the prominent local doctor is accused of rape. The ensuing trial brings to the forefront the racial undercurrent of the times and a clear and unforgiving divide forms between bigotry and compassion. It’s a poignant film with complex moral themes with well-earned moments of sadness and hope.
“Brideshead Revisited” (2008)
One of those movies that seemed to fly under the radar when it was released, the film boasts Emma Thompson, Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw in this novel adaptation about guilt, forbidden love, more forbidden love, and love being prevented from blooming because of more guilt. Set in Great Britain in the 1940s, the story’s first act involves a wealthy youth named Sebastian (Whishaw) who invites his commoner friend from the University, Charles (Goode) on holiday to his estate. Sebastian is very into Charles in a more-than-just-friends way and Charles is what might be described as bi-curious enough to give Sebastian some hope. (The film takes a sort of “hey it was the ‘70s” [or its British equivalent] attitude towards its characters’ sexuality.) This all changes when Sebastian’s sister shows up and Charles becomes into her, although that’s a forbidden love for different reasons. They also have a horribly overbearing mother who the kids hate and Charles also hates (is it more or catastrophically awful mothers the norm in Dickensenian literature?) and blames for the failure of his friendship with Sebastian and romance with his sister. It’s a movie that has its moments but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as highly as the other three above-mentioned films. Ed. note: My parents love the old miniseries with Jeremy Irons as Charles – but this is a much smaller time investment.
For my fifth pick, I’ll have to cheat a little bit and draw from the Modern Library-produced reader’s list, or the right column here. “All the King’s Men” and “The Great Gatsby” were so by-the-numbers films that they felt like little more than filmic cliff notes. I really can’t remember “The Magnificent Ambersons” well enough to opine (Ed. I sure liked the book, though) and I feel like “Apocalypse Now” is too loosely based (Ed. note: on HEART OF DARKNESS, of course) to satisfy book readers. As a result, I’m going to go with the reader’s version and select:
“Shane” (1953)
There was practically a different Western playing every week if you went to a movie theater in the 1950s, so what makes “Shane,” based on the 1949 novel by Jack Schaefer, a film that’s even remembered 60 years later? (Ed. note: Having not seen the movie I believe it's the part where, spoiler, people shout "Come back, Shane!") I think it’s entirely because the story is told by Joey Starrett (played by 11-year-old Brandon de Wilde). If the genre isn’t directly aimed at kids, one might say that the Western appeals to the childlike part of adult for whom an untamed world without rules is an ideal fantasy in our rigid bureaucracy. The character of Joey is key because, like us, he doesn’t exactly understand why the Western is the way it is. He grows attached to the charismatic gunslinger title character and worries early on about his departure. He doesn’t understand the irony of the Old West (or at least the movie version): After the heroic gunslinger has done his job to tame the West by chasing away the bad guys, he’s created a civilization that has no place for a man with such a violent and unchaste profession.
Well, that was easy. Thanks, Orrin! If you want to blog for me, please reach out at lnvsml at gmail.com.
I took this writing challenge from Ellen because, while not as much of a book reader, I wanted to explore which movies came from great books.
What I found was that most of these films are distinguished by rich storylines that aren’t just moving from beginning to end because the plot necessitates it. They all curiously meander to distant corners and back. The main characters in “A Passage to India” in the beginning of the film are all but forgotten at film’s end in lieu of the more interesting souls that have popped up midway.
Similarly, if “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” were written more like a movie, it would have been more efficient in trimming down stories (i.e. the alcoholic played by Stacy Keach, or the doctor’s estranged daughter) that aren’t critical to the arc of the main character -- but the film doesn’t discriminate. A film that almost made the cut, “All the King’s Men,” suffers from similar overcrowding; one might guess that so much detail is devoted to interesting minor characters in the sources that the screenwriter can’t bear to let them go. On the other hand, “From Here to Eternity” seems to have a fairly even distribution of screentime to its five main characters, but their stories don’t intersect.
Lastly, some films gave me the indication that they were constrained by having to stay faithful to some rich source material because they covered such a long time span. “Brideshead Revisited” seemed as if it covered twenty or thirty years’ time (although it was probably far less: the characters seemed to have aged significantly from the war) while “The Magnificent Ambersons” seems like the longest 88 minutes of film you’ll ever see. Although Sandra Locke is clearly still the same age at the end of “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” you get the sense that she’s aged several years at the time.
Here are my picks:
"From Here to Eternity" (1953)
Of the five leads, Montgomery Clift leaves the strongest impression on me as guarded private who we learn is a formidable bugler and boxer but he refuses to do either for his company out of principle. Clift gradually opens up as he befriends a fellow private played by Frank Sinatra who defends him from a sadistic bully (Ernest Borgnine) and attracts the interest of a call girl played by Donna Reed (both Oscar-winning roles) but the stubborn ex-bugler is a tragic figure. Meanwhile, the Captain’s second-in-command (Burt Lancaster) begins a torrid affair with the Captain’s wife (Deborah Kerr) although it's a relationship destined for doom as well. Ed. note: This is of particular interest to me since I just visited the Pearl Harbor historic site for the first time.
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” (1968)
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” reminds me of a book I read in 10th grade called BOY’S LIFE (by Robert McCammon) in which the quirks and quirky characters of a small-town in the South are deconstructed by a boy as he grows up and loses his innocence. Only this time, it’s a 14-year old girl played by Sandra Locke on her debut. Locke (better known as Clint Eastwood’s future ex-wife) is in my opinion, the most beautiful actress ever and I’ve always had a soft spot for her, but she’s hilariously unconvincing as a 14-year old. (She was apparently 21, but a very mature 21.) Similarly, the casting of the dumb mute as Alan Arkin is equally baffling. Arkin, best-known to modern audiences as the foul-mouthed grandpa in “Little Miss Sunshine,” has built a career with his Yiddish-infused deadpan style, so why use him for a role with no dialogue? Despite these impediments, the two stars really shine and elevate the strewn-all-over story to something special.
“A Passage to India” (1984)
I find it ironic that David Lean’s films mostly come from books because his body of work is so purely cinematic. A master of the epic, his visual scope is so large that his films are hardly worth watching unless it’s on a screen thirty feet high. “A Passage to India” (based on the E.M. Forster novel) was Lean’s last film and it certainly feels as if it comes from a very rich story with a lot of subtext. Set in colonial India, the film revolves around the mother and bride-to-be of a Colonial Magistrate who are bored with the stuffiness of the old order and wish to venture out to the “real India.” They soon form a social club with a local mystic (Alec Guinness in brown-face, ughh), a local doctor and a magistrate. The wife-to-be (Judy Davis) gets more than she bargained for as she has an attack of sorts for which the prominent local doctor is accused of rape. The ensuing trial brings to the forefront the racial undercurrent of the times and a clear and unforgiving divide forms between bigotry and compassion. It’s a poignant film with complex moral themes with well-earned moments of sadness and hope.
“Brideshead Revisited” (2008)
One of those movies that seemed to fly under the radar when it was released, the film boasts Emma Thompson, Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw in this novel adaptation about guilt, forbidden love, more forbidden love, and love being prevented from blooming because of more guilt. Set in Great Britain in the 1940s, the story’s first act involves a wealthy youth named Sebastian (Whishaw) who invites his commoner friend from the University, Charles (Goode) on holiday to his estate. Sebastian is very into Charles in a more-than-just-friends way and Charles is what might be described as bi-curious enough to give Sebastian some hope. (The film takes a sort of “hey it was the ‘70s” [or its British equivalent] attitude towards its characters’ sexuality.) This all changes when Sebastian’s sister shows up and Charles becomes into her, although that’s a forbidden love for different reasons. They also have a horribly overbearing mother who the kids hate and Charles also hates (is it more or catastrophically awful mothers the norm in Dickensenian literature?) and blames for the failure of his friendship with Sebastian and romance with his sister. It’s a movie that has its moments but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as highly as the other three above-mentioned films. Ed. note: My parents love the old miniseries with Jeremy Irons as Charles – but this is a much smaller time investment.
For my fifth pick, I’ll have to cheat a little bit and draw from the Modern Library-produced reader’s list, or the right column here. “All the King’s Men” and “The Great Gatsby” were so by-the-numbers films that they felt like little more than filmic cliff notes. I really can’t remember “The Magnificent Ambersons” well enough to opine (Ed. I sure liked the book, though) and I feel like “Apocalypse Now” is too loosely based (Ed. note: on HEART OF DARKNESS, of course) to satisfy book readers. As a result, I’m going to go with the reader’s version and select:
“Shane” (1953)
There was practically a different Western playing every week if you went to a movie theater in the 1950s, so what makes “Shane,” based on the 1949 novel by Jack Schaefer, a film that’s even remembered 60 years later? (Ed. note: Having not seen the movie I believe it's the part where, spoiler, people shout "Come back, Shane!") I think it’s entirely because the story is told by Joey Starrett (played by 11-year-old Brandon de Wilde). If the genre isn’t directly aimed at kids, one might say that the Western appeals to the childlike part of adult for whom an untamed world without rules is an ideal fantasy in our rigid bureaucracy. The character of Joey is key because, like us, he doesn’t exactly understand why the Western is the way it is. He grows attached to the charismatic gunslinger title character and worries early on about his departure. He doesn’t understand the irony of the Old West (or at least the movie version): After the heroic gunslinger has done his job to tame the West by chasing away the bad guys, he’s created a civilization that has no place for a man with such a violent and unchaste profession.
Well, that was easy. Thanks, Orrin! If you want to blog for me, please reach out at lnvsml at gmail.com.
16 August 2011
Spotted on the subway
A teenage girl with Rihanna-red hair and a Kindle cover to match, immersed in Alyson Noel's EVERLASTING, which I learn is a YA series about an immortal who falls in love with a mortal in her various incarnations. Hmmm, that definitely sounded less creepy when I read about it.
15 August 2011
Because if you read it on the Internet it's got to be true!
Just made my first Kindle preorder
of Roger Ebert's memoir LIFE ITSELF, out September 13. Important question: Will I be able to start reading it at midnight the day of the book's release? Oh, goody!
14 August 2011
This just about killed me.
"I'm sorry, Buddy. I don't think this is a good idea."
"Why not? Don't you like me?"
"I got involved with a friend once before. It was a disaster."
"We're different," I said.
She chose that moment to open the refrigerator door and take out a bottle of Pepsi.
"Please," she said. The bottle made a kissing noise as she twisted the cap. "Let's just forget this happened."
--Tom Perrotta, "Just The Way We Were" (from BAD HAIRCUT: STORIES OF THE SEVENTIES)
"Why not? Don't you like me?"
"I got involved with a friend once before. It was a disaster."
"We're different," I said.
She chose that moment to open the refrigerator door and take out a bottle of Pepsi.
"Please," she said. The bottle made a kissing noise as she twisted the cap. "Let's just forget this happened."
--Tom Perrotta, "Just The Way We Were" (from BAD HAIRCUT: STORIES OF THE SEVENTIES)
13 August 2011
Bonnie made a joke now as she served him his martini.
"The last time I taught this, my students were drawing the [not really a spoiler] post horn on everything," he said, with a head-tilt of disappointment.
For about two-thirds of BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS I did not see what the fuss was about, but when the final character was added to the mix -- one who in a sense had been there all along, but not participating -- it finally clicked for me, and it was so good. And the next day I found myself in a meeting doodling "Goodbye, Blue Monday" at the top of my to-do list. Like a symphonic motif, it recurs until you realize its function all along.
The skeleton of BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS is the gradual unraveling of car dealer Dwayne Hoover under the influence of little known pulp novelist Kilgore Trout. Trout began his career writing science-fiction filler for pornographic magazines; since it was assumed no one was reading his work, his style evolved along its own weird but highly allegorical path. Trout comes to Midland City, where Dwayne Hoover lives, at the behest of a local millionaire who wants him to speak at their arts festival -- even though he's fairly sure they're making fun of him.
Vonnegut's satiric target in this one is much wider than SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, almost too diffuse -- probably the reason I had trouble gripping onto this one. I'm not saying any of them were unjustified, but it tends to dilute the power. Which is interesting in light of the author's recent book ban in Republic, Missouri, in which school board member Wesley Scroggins criticizes SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE for basically that, containing a wide range of offensive material (and profanity!) while not even mentioning what the book is about which is, at its heart, wartime atrocities specifically those committed by the Allies. I learned more about the bombing of Dresden from Vonnegut than from either AP US or European History. Might as well shear those off, too.
The turn in BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS doesn't promise (threaten?) the same realization, but it's almost as powerful.
The Internets inform me that this book has been made into a movie with the oddest-looking cast ever. (Barbara Hershey and Omar Epps? Forsooth!) There is also a bar in Bushwick called Goodbye Blue Monday and I will probably have to go there.
Illustration: Well Said
12 August 2011
Reading on the Road: RIP Midwest Airlines Edition
The airline I used to fly on 80 percent of my trips home was purchased and is being slowly unbranded, replaced by... this.
- Tom Perrotta, THE LEFTOVERS (review)
- Amor Towles, RULES OF CIVILITY
- Douglas Preston, THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE
I hope someone told that wolf the birchbark doesn't hide anything.
11 August 2011
"Because I am a sucker and the mother of an only child, I get my kid small gifts for her half-birthday. For the momentous EIGHT AND A HALF it ended up being the seventh (and last, or so I hear) Harry Potter book. Nora genuinely enjoys reading these, but I think there is a certain degree of fangirl shit going on with regard to the Harry Potter franchise, both with her and among her peers—it is not enough to get Harry Potter books from the library, you need to own them; the books’ lengths and girths are compared, like some literary locker-room wangfest; and you are expected to have a favorite book and vigorously defend that choice. I roll my eyes a bit at the whole thing but cannot deny that listening to a bunch of pre-teens arguing about books is adorable."
--Mimi Smartypants
--Mimi Smartypants
It's that time of year again!
Event listings for the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival are starting to go up (if not the festival day events themselves). And to quote a contemporary grammatically incorrect pop hit, we, we, we so excited.
Top 5 authors I have never heard speak who are scheduled to attend:
Joyce Carol Oates
Norton Juster
Esmeralda Santiago
Tom Perrotta
Kate Christensen
Okay, your turn!
Top 5 authors I have never heard speak who are scheduled to attend:
Joyce Carol Oates
Norton Juster
Esmeralda Santiago
Tom Perrotta
Kate Christensen
Okay, your turn!
10 August 2011
5 Chuck Klosterman-related Portmanteaux That May Be Practiced At His Bookstore Panel Tonight
- Klosterbomb: A surprisingly scathing review by Chuck Klosterman
- Kloster-feeding: the act of bringing Chuck Klosterman dinner
- Klosterstock: Investing tips from Chuck Klosterman
- Kloster headaches: Searing pain caused by straining to either hear or see Chuck Klosterman at a very crowded reading
- Klosterfuck: Use your imagination (or not)
Philip Levine, "On 52nd Street"
Down sat Bud, raised his hands, the Deuces silenced, the lights lowered, and breath gathered for the coming storm. Then nothing, not a single note. Outside starlight from heaven fell unseen, a quarter- moon, promised, was no show, ditto the rain. Late August of '50, NYC, the long summer of abundance and our new war. In the mirror behind the bar, the spirits—imitating you— stared at themselves. At the bar the tenor player up from Philly, shut his eyes and whispered to no one, "Same thing last night." Everyone been coming all week long to hear this. The big brown bass sighed and slumped against the piano, the cymbals held their dry cheeks and stopped chicking and chucking. You went back to drinking and ignored the unignorable. When the door swung open it was Pettiford in work clothes, midnight suit, starched shirt, narrow black tie, spit shined shoes, as ready as he'd ever be. Eyebrows raised, the Irish bartender shook his head, so Pettiford eased himself down at an empty table, closed up his Herald Tribune, and shook his head. Did the TV come on, did the jukebox bring us Dinah Washington, did the stars keep their appointments, did the moon show, quartered or full, sprinkling its soft light down? The night's still there, just where it was, just where it'll always be without its music. You're still there too holding your breath. Bud walked out. | ||
"I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life—or at least the part my work played in it—I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life." (source: Poets.org)
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