You know how some movies that are made from books make you think, "Wow, they really skipped over a lot of this book!" But then you forgive the film maker because he had time constraints and really it was so beautiful anyway and it evoked all of the emotion of the book, even if it skipped over some scenes?

This movie wasn't like that. The director, working for the visionary and cutting edge Arts and Entertainment channel, put in everything he could find in the book, and possibly more. Every scene change was marked with a schmaltzy swell of orchestral music, thundering through the same part of theme music from the bleak, obvious score. And there were many scenes. The number of scenes was: maximum.

The actor who played Michael Henchard reminded me a lot of Chris Cooper. You know him. He's been in various things as Lt. This and Col. That, most recently in "Breach" as that CIA guy. He has one of those mouths that looks like a gash you cut with a kitchen knife in a spaghetti squash, down on both sides. Know what I mean? No? He also has hooded eyelids which he uses to peer into a middle distance when considering manly things. Yet doesn't look like he's ever had stubble.

The long and short of it was that we couldn't even make it through disc 1. Oops! I think I'll wait until Hollywood turns it into a movie with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth-Jane and they cut out most of it and give it an adult contemporary soundtrack. Then I can bitch with the rest of you that they cut out the scene in the granary, but at least I'll make it to the end of the movie.

Labels: chris cooper, mayor of casterbridge, movie review, thomas hardy

Let me just say, before I begin, that the things I saw on this episode truly shocked me. I did sit, for several minutes, with my jaw hanging open. This was during the part where everyone was rolling around in mud trying to yank each others' underwear off to win a fishing boat and gear. Your reaction may vary. Maybe you have seen more people yank off their friends shorts for a fishhook, but I have not. I guess you have lived more than I have. Well. Some of us can still be shocked.

Last week on Survivor: Someone was evicted and his name was CHICKEN. This week, will it be beef, bacon, or duck? Given this is CBS, I gather that elk, geoduck and scallops are safe.

FEI LONG: In China, the sun rises, and in keeping with the theme of this season so far (moisture) the first thing we see is water. Then we see James pushing over more bamboo trees. Also, at Fei Long, apparently there is someone named Jean Robert who sleeps all the time.

Todd the mysterious flight attendant made an alliance with another flight attendant named Amber. They decide to bring Aaron into the flight attendant alliance, so he can "do all the dirty work" for them. Todd swears with his "whole life" that he will take these two to the final three. Aaron shakes and says, “I trust.” Amanda repeats several times that you have to have an alliance in this game. Todd reports that he and Amanda have the game in their hands. These people talk like they strategize. That is to say, like a bunch of drunk milk goats just starting to experiment with the language. I give this alliance one week -- or, rather, I predict that the alliance members will forget about it on the way back to camp, and begin to eat bamboo.

Fei Long has a group meeting in which Aaron calls for people to start working and Jean Robert (previously referred to on this blog as "a giant baby in a denim diaper") argues that he can contribute inside his mind, while his body is resting. He interviews that he is using the “I’m lazy” strategy to show big improvement later in the game. Expect big things from Jean Robert in the late game -- he may even sit up.

ZHAN HU: Dave the leader defines the priority as using huge mud bricks to create a gigantic barbecue pit. He says wants to achieve achievable goals. Jaime suggests maybe they could start a small, provisional fire just to make a handful of rice for everybody. Dave responds by braining Jaime with a prioritized mud brick.

Jaime complains to Sherea’s bra, sorry it’s all I see until WWAshley appears wearing a bandana over her boobs and a red ruffly ribbon around her waist. The red ribbon is so ineffective at covering her business that the business still has to be blurred. Don't be shocked -- this is only the beginning of the blurred nakedness. Only the beginning. Ashley yells at Dave in her strange underwear, and they fight over whether he is patronizing.

CHALLENGE: Reward is fishing gear and a fishing boat.

Tiny Todd has to sit out, and James the grave digger accidentally shatters his tiny collar bone while patting him in a consoling way.

Jeff Probst introduces the challenge, which is a combination of mud wrestling and soccer. Teams of three from each tribe must try and push a huge heavy ball through deep mud into a goal. Probst pronounces: “Just like we like it on survivor – nice and wet.” Apparently also nice and naked, since we soon see a strategy emerging that involves ripping off your opponents underwear, then shoving the ball away while the unclothed one stands there clutching his vitals. No, not kidding. Naked in the mud, ripping at each others clothes, pushing giant balls around which look like they weigh at least 500 pounds. For a long, awkward, naked time, it looks like no one will score. The scene gets ugly. Aaron decapitates Jaime. No one has any clothes and everyone is blurred.

Finally we hear Jeff Probst shout, “Even with no top on, Amanda scores for Fei Long!”

This is absolutely the strangest challenge ever in Survivor history. Fei long wins and Courtney flashes a gang sign for victory.

But wait! There is a twist! Fei Long can kidnap one of Zhan Hu, that person comes to live with them until the next immunity challenge. They kidnap Jaime. Jaime gets a scroll marked “Open in Private” to read at the Fei Long beach. They embrace her fakely.

Jeff tells Zhan Hu he has nothing for them, and Frosty flips him the British bird, which is, like a peace sign but facing the other way. Then he turns it around. Meanwhile Sherea is standing there in her underwear with her dress wadded up and draped over her shoulder, and WWAshley is now wearing her black bandana bra on her head. So confusing.

ZHAN HU: When Zhan Hu gets back, their camp has flooded and there are dead, inflated frogs floating around. In actuality, the low parts of the camp are under several inches of water, but Frosty proclaims: “It’s like someone took all the water from every ocean they could find and just dumped it right on us.”

Dave: “We actually live on the lake now.”

Dave is proud that his giant barbecue pit made of giant muddy bricks withstood the flood waters. He feels vindicated. Knee deep in mud, and vindicated.

FEI LONG: Aaron hypothesizes that by taking Jaime away from Zhan Hu he completely demoralized their tribe. That would suggest that they noticed she was gone, and this is something of which I saw no evidence.

Todd wonders if Jaime is going to steal his stuff. What stuff?

Inside Jaime’s secret private scroll is a sealed tube with a clue to a hidden immunity idol at Fei Long’s camp. She has to choose someone to give it to. In this segment, I notice that Jaime has bad upspeak, and Amber is a smile talker. Both of these girls need smacked in the eye.

Leslie is sick and wants her Bible. Jaime, an agent of the almighty, gives her the clue to the immunity idol, because she thinks she’s sure to be voted off soon, thereby making the clue irrelevant. Leslie reads that the idol is hidden in plain sight, and the camera focuses in on what is obviously the idol: an ornament on the gate thingy that marked their campsite. Leslie cannot figure it out, so she decides to trust Todd to help her. Todd immediately plans to get Leslie voted out so that he will be the only one that knows about the idol. Daemon Flight Attendant!

ZHAN HU: Dave is talking down to Ashley and everyone else.

Dave: “Think outside the box! Critical and analytical thinking really helps!”
Ashley: I don’t need your life lessons. I just need you to tell me what to do.

Ashley interviews that Dave is the most irritating person on the planet. It must be irrational overstatment day. I love Survivor!

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE: Jaime goes back to Zhan Hu, and they hug her fakely.

The challenge is to smash a puzzle log through two walls, use it to solve a puzzle, ring a gong. Courtney gets sat out and flashes a gang sign for… victory? I'm losing interest in my favorite because she seems to have stowed the NY attitude. I need a new favorite. Looking around, I catch a fleeting glimpse of the cafeteria lunch lady. Are you aware she has had no lines? Since she appreciated the Chinese culture?

It’s unclear what “smashed” truly means when it comes to logs. Dave bonks on the challenge. Lunch lady gets the line, “Hurry up!” Fei Long wins immunity and grave diggerJames accidentally smashes through the gong and one of the production trailers in his enthusiasm.

ZHAN HU: Dave apologizes for losing his power and takes full responsibility for losing the challenge, then interviews that he wants Ashley out because he built a fire pit and she didn’t. Ashley says she has two choices, to either rant and rave against Dave and be thought a crazy person, or to wait until tribal council and then claim that Dave is crazy. WWAshley makes no sense. Then a random person we’ve seen nothing of for two episodes, possibly just some American living in China, wanders on screen and opines that Dave is strong, which also makes no sense given that he just performed like an aging baboon in the last challenge. Jaime clears things up by saying that either Ashley or Dave should be voted out.

They get to tribal and accuse each other of things. I do like Ashley’s answer to Jeff though…

Jeff: Ashley, what’s your criteria for who gets your vote tonight?
Ashley: Oh, I’m voting for Dave!

Ashley, in fact, gets voted out. And it’s time for her to go.

Next week on Survivor, Dave comes one step closer to his inevitable violent meltdown (can’t wait!) and Todd overhears gossip in first class (Mais Oui!) and Courtney puts her spikey knee through Amber’s skull1 (Not kidding! Check the clip!)

Labels: china, episode 2, recap, survivor, survivor china

A man walks into a bar, gets drunk, sells his longsuffering wife and infant daughter to a stranger for five smackers. POW! What a hook. What a first chapter. The next day, he wakes up sober, repents, and walks to the nearest church. At the altar, he swears off drink for the next 21 years. He looks for his wife, but it's too late; she's gone. WHAT WILL HAPPEN!?

If I'd had a seat, I would have been on the edge of it. Fortunately I was sitting on the floor, watching the children in the tub. But I was riveted to the point that the children were in danger of hypothermia. That's a hook, my friend, worthy of a high concept Hollywood road movie starring Vince Vaughn and and Benicio del Toro. What, you don't think they would be good together? They would be GREAT together.

The Hollywood movie would then switch over to the wife with her new husband, see how they're getting on, and then switch back to the original husband, etc. Not this book. Instead, Hardy takes 19 years out of the story, brings us back to the wife returning to look for the original husband, daughter in tow. Okay. Now he's the mayor of a fine big town and one of the big time corn dealers as well. Rich, famous, well-respected, and still not drinking. From there, things go downhill, as you might expect from a Thomas Hardy novel. You will not be surprised to learn that the couple did not quietly reunite and live out the rest of their days happily and without notice. They were noticed.

Another thing I have come to expect about a Thomas Hardy novel is a female main character whose virtue or position is compromised in public court of opinion through no real fault of her own, but just because she was following a logical course of action, or acting under impulses we today would find quite normal. Tess, Sue, Elfride, all are caught both by cultural circumstances and mistakes that we all can see they should not make. The bad ends to which they come are both brought on by their own bad choices and dictated by the restraints of Victorian society, both high and low.

In this novel, there is no such character. Lucetta comes close to this, but isn't really central enough, or independent enough, to fit. I realized only when I was near the end that the main character was actually the man, or the men, the two men who share the title "Mayor of Casterbridge" during the span of the book. Then it all became clear. The main character, Michael Henchard, the man who originally sold his wife, is the one whose impulsive, passionate character and rotten choices seal his tragic failure -- he has more in common with Tess, actually, than the other women do -- uneducated, irrational, earthy, but bizarrely driven by good intentions. Donald Farfrae, the other mayor, has much in common with Bathsheba from Far from the Madding Crowd, as he also gets his final quiet happy ending, with the one he should have had all along.

It made more sense once I figured out I wasn't supposed to really like the females, because I didn't. I love the way Hardy writes women, particularly Sue Bridehead. Particularly the incomparable Tess. But the women in this book were unsatisfying. Maybe he just hadn't got there yet -- Sue and Tess were to come later. Bathsheba was ten years previous.

People who are not fans of Thomas Hardy are permitted to skip the previous three paragraphs. Oh, should I have mentioned this before you slogged through all that? Woops.

Here's a writerly note: The opening scenes of the novel are really an *excellent* example of how the pros used to do third person objective point of view, you know, just the human witness, no insights into anyone's thoughts or feelings, motives or past. The opening of the book was really SO amazing. I do so love Thomas Hardy. Just look at him there, with his moustache. You could just eat him.

I think now I have read all the Thomas Hardy I need to read. I've read five of his novels, including all the famous ones and one of the romances. It makes me a little sad. I remember when I first read his poem, "Neutral Tones," and I initially thought, what a dull little plop that was, but it really stayed with me, okay, I know this makes me sound like a SUPERFOOL, but I always remember that first reading of it. Here it is:

NEUTRAL TONES

by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Yeah! Makes you want to go out and write a bunch of valentines doesn't it! That's Thomas Hardy for you. Writer most likely to make you feel like rolling under the bed and rotting already. Bless his grey little heart.

Labels: books, literature, novels, thomas hardy, victorian

When Joshilyn gave me this book, a long time ago, she said that it was really two books mashed into one, and she felt sure I'd like one of them. I know I liked the second half much more than the first. So much did I not like the first half that I actually put the book down for more than a year. I liked the present sections more than the past, the dog sections more than the human. Which were the two books? I'm not sure. I picked it up again because I finally succumbed to the hook, and had to know how it ended.










Visit The Dogs of Babel on Amazon.com.

Labels: book reviews, books, carolyn parkhurst, dogs of babel, novels

This season on Survivor, China is awesome! Stock footage of pandas replaces stock footage of sea snakes. Stock footage of mist over mountain peaks replaces stock footage of crabs. A lunch lady, a grave digger, a poker player, a Seriously, China is totally awesome. Sixteen suspicious-looking strangers arrive in Shanghai with enormous suitcases which they lug deep into the back country to an awesome mystical lake where they will be living. Before moving in proper, they participate in a welcome ceremony.

The Christian talk radio host cannot make it through the ceremony because it feels too much like worship, although Jeff Probst makes a point of telling them it’s not a religious ceremony. The New York waitress has difficulty getting through too, because, as she says, she did not come here to be a monk, and they were like, bowing for days. For days. She is real super-blond and skinny. Please not that the lunch lady, after expressing wonder and emotion over the Buddhist welcoming ceremony, does not get any more lines. That’ll learn her.

After the ceremony, Jeff Probst reveals since Buddhism means leaving behind material possessions, they will be wearing only the clothes they came in. So, what was the philosophical reason behind all the other times they only had the clothes they came in? Nice try, Jeff. He also reveals that Sun Tzu’s Art of War will figure heavily in the game. What, is that because they’re in China or something? Wow, the strategies in this book could really help you play the game! So could not burning yourself up in a fire, not whining about wanting to go home, not claiming to be the pivotal vote, and other stuff.

Teams are chosen. Zhan Hu in yellow and Fei Long in Red. To be known henceforth as that one team and that other team.

The teams arrive at their camps.

At the red camp, Survivor Courtney, the waitress from NYC, expresses shock that she is meeting people who are not like she is, who do not come from NYC. She says that people in New York to not give each other thumbs up and say “Good job.” She must have been cast, not auditioned. Also at Fei Long, a giant baby in a denim diaper accuses a small gay man of *not* being a flight attendant. Mysterious.

COMMERCIAL:

A red bear with a loose, bouncy tail introduces superstrong toilet paper and a blue bear with a loose, bouncy tail introduces supersoft toilet paper. Now your bottom can choose its experience while becoming tidy after a poo. Thank you, colorful bears.

Anti-depressants advertised on Survivor? I thought anti-depressants were only advertised during the Tyra Banks Show. Not that I watch it. I don’t.

ZHAN HU: The team discovers an old rotten wall in the jungle. Chicken suggests that they not use a rotten old wall for a shelter. He is told not to be negative, and the team proceeds to hang it from a tree and try to sleep under it, standing up. Chicken is very offended that his opinion was not taken seriously, and pouts for the rest of the show. He is totally over it!

In other news, Ashley is a WWDiva. She is a wrestler and she has fake boobs. How does that work? Peih-Gee is Chinese and it makes her feel strange being in China. She cannot connect to the wackiness out here, she feels very serious. She thinks about her grandfather who recently died. I kind of like her but my superfavorite is Courtney from NYC who hates everyone and is skeletal.

Chicken is asked his opinion, repeatedly, and nastily refuses to give it. Did he mention, he is over it?

FEI LONG: Bamboo is awesome. James the grave digger can knock a tree down just by pushing on it. He confesses to Leslie (Christian talk radio host) that he can’t be social and charming. Leslie gives him some pointers on it – ask people questions, because they love to talk about themselves. I already love James. James and Courtney, final two.

ZHAN HU: Team Yellow is trying to sleep standing up under shelter. They are wet. They are hoping Chicken will save their asses and build them a shelter, but Chicken is only able to say he told them so, and suffer in the rain.

The next day, Ashley the wrestler is puking and shivering. Dave the ex-model promises sincerely that she’s not on the block just because she’s sick, then interviews that she is definitely gone first if she doesn’t get better. Nice! I loathe Dave. I loathe Ashley a little bit too. There is enough loathing for all.

COMMERCIALS: I love the music to the J.C. Penney commercial about unlocking your magic, but I guarantee that tomorrow I will not remember what it was a commercial for. Well, probably I will remember, since I wrote it down. I knew this blog would be good for something.

TV: Every day, what if your moisturizer could treat the causes of aging, not just the signs?
Husband: That would be AWESOME!

So, China and Loreal Skin Genesis are awesome.

FEI LONG: Red Team gets cool tree-mail shaped like a dragon. Todd who actually is a flight attendant pushes leadership onto Aaron the surfer, who told us earlier he wouldn’t be a leader because he didn’t want a target on his back. Don’t’ worry,

ZHAN HU: Yellow team gets a tree-mail shaped like a tiger. A man named Frosty claims to be a master of “Parkoor” which means climbing over obstacles. I do not know how to spell “Parkoor” but it sounds like my favorite show, Ninja Warrior. Is that what it is?

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE: Obstacle course with Chinese dragons. Keys, drawbridges, gates, puzzles, the works, plus dragons. Winning tribe gets fire and a kneeling Chinese warrior toy. Also, everybody gets the running shoes they brought, to take back to camp.

The dragons make a cool aerial shot. Sherea has shown up for the thing wearing her bra. Fei Long wins immunity and fire. Skeletal Cynic Courtney jumps up and down enthusiastically, disappointing all her friends at home.

COMMERCIALS: I like the Wendy’s commercial because it is such a brilliant touch to have all the people running to jump into the hole with their arms straight down at their sides. Just makes them all look so much more feckless.

ZHAN ZU: Peih Gee bawls about losing and then starts bossing everyone around, making insane suggestions like “Let’s build a shelter” and “Maybe we should keep the tools in a pile.” This strikes Ashley as bad – choose one or the other, Ashley recommends. Either be bossy or sad. Thanks, Ashley.

Chicken wants Ashley gone because she was sick. Pee Jeih wants Chicken gone because he won’t give an opinion. Sherea, whose dress is already, inexplicably, in tatters (What was it made of? Corn husk?), wants Peih Gee gone because she’s bossy. Everybody wants everybody gone for reasons they just can’t clearly articulate. Everyone promises everyone that they won’t write their names down.

TRIBAL COUNCIL: Jeff Probst tells them fire represents life in the game. This is not news to anyone. Dave volunteers to be the leader, promises to get everything “nice and tight.” The fact that Dave is gay is not news to anyone either. Everyone says they’re voting out the least productive member, and Ashley looks to the right and the left, very worried. Chicken makes pompous statements about how they need to do this and that.

Ashley’s boobs vote for Peigh Gee. Sherea’s tattered dress votes for mercy. Chicken is voted out.

Chicken walked around pissing on everyone’s ideas for building a shelter, then pulled three days of pout that his opinion had not been respected. When he discovers he is voted out, he hollers, “DAMN” and everyone jumps out of their skins. Good riddance, whiner.

They get to take their torches back to camp.

NEXT WEEK ON SURVIVOR: The giant baby demands rest, the wrestler body-slams someone, and Courtney rolls her eyes at China.

Labels: china, episode 1, recap, survivor, survivor china

One of the awesome clients of my book doctor service posted about the experience on her writing blog. She compares the writing of a first draft with birthing a baby, and the editing of that draft with watching the baby get surgery. I can understand that feeling, but I guess I've always seen writing a draft like birthing, and editing like brushing the kid's hair and straightening its tie.

If it has to be surgery, then let's remember that *we* are the surgeons. We don't have to sit in the waiting room wringing our hands -- we are not *only the* surgeons, we are *the only* surgeons who can possibly perform the operation. We are uniquely qualified, highly specialized surgeons who know every corner of the insides of that kid, and while we do get consultants to tell us where to cut and where to splice, only we can do it.

Surgery is supposed to be kind of exciting. Reportedly, it even makes you feel like a god. Maybe editing can feel that energized too, if we realize we're in control.

Another thing -- not every baby needs surgery -- most babies spring out of the womb fully grown and perfect and healthy. However, every first draft needs surgery. So, you're not alone in that operating room, there are lots of other people going after their drafts with scalpels and clamps flying, biting their lips, refocusing their lights, and hacking away.

Critiquing people's novels is, in some ways, not a hard job. You don't have to haul around buckets or wear a uniform or get up early or go to meetings. However, you do have to stand up and honestly tell people that their books need surgery. Being a good consultant means telling them exactly what tools to use, at what angles to approach, how deep to go, to make what you feel will be a better story. And then you wait in the waiting room, anticipating the results of their labor. :)

Labels: book doctoring, editing, writing

I will confess to you now that I am not entirely of sound mind, when it comes to writing my own fiction. There was a point, and I only tell you this because we are very close friends, where I was almost paralyzed in my fiction by weird little habits and the writing ticks that I had developed.

Labels: nanowrimo, screenwriting, script frenzy, script writing, writing

To: Anne Elliott
CC: Elizabeth Bennett, Emma Woodhouse, Elinor Dashwood
Subject: He loves YOU. YOU are the one he loves.
Attachments: clues.xls


Dear Anne,

It is you that he loves. Obviously. He loves you, only you, and always you, to the end of his days. HOW do you not see this? You spend page after page, heart atwitter. A tiny gasp, a tiny sigh. Is it denial? Is it mental retardation? Or are you actually physically blind and deaf? Has all of your mild, sweet goodness clogged up your aural passages?


I know that you don't like to come right out and say things. I know you prefer to hint around and embroider wainscoating and use your eyelashes to communicate the intricate ticks and giggles of your soul. Your patience, your modesty, they cripple you. You flounder. You languish.


Here's news: If you weren't in a Jane Austen novel, where all comes right in the end, you would never be Mrs. Wentworth. Real men don't pine that much. Real men, if they pay attention to Louisa Musgrove, are doing that because they actually want to get busy with Louisa Musgrove. But you're okay. He's a Jane Austen hero, and that means in spite of all the completely contradictory evidence, he does really love you, you blind, deaf, ignorant fool of a woman. Please, when the truth comes out, take a minute to breathe and weep, and then give yourself a good smack, right on the head, because really, a cocker spaniel could see that he loves you, and only you. Louisa Musgrove? You have got to be freakin' kidding me.


Sincerely,
LYDIA


Jane Austen said that Anne Elliott was too good for her. Jane, Anne Elliott was too good for me too.


Let's face it, Jane Austen novels are not about suspense. There's a man and a woman, or there are two men and two women, and at the end of the novel the church bells will peal, and there will be joy. The pleasure in one of these romantic comedies, like most romantic comedies where the end is predetermined, is watching the characters muddle through, make their mistakes, rush around.


I liked watching Emma, and Elizabeth, and Elinor and Marianne. But not Anne. I didn't like watching Anne. Anne made me impatient and irritated. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just a dreadful person, incapable of appreciating the sensitive spirit of Anne. I know this novel is all about the subtle. And most of my friends seem to like it. I, however, was not able to love this book, although I know I should. Anne was too good, Louisa Musgrove was too annoying, and Captain Wentworth was just impossible.


You know what? In the end, they got together. Don't blubber about me spoiling the ending. No one was shocked. I was glad it all ended well, but this time, instead of weeping with joy, like I did for Elinor and Marianne, I snapped the book shut, BAM. Enough already. This time, she took it too far. Bless you, Jane Austen, you do better with sass.

Labels: book reviews, books, Jane Austen, novels, persuasion

Labels: angela's ashes, book reviews, books, frank mccourt, novels

Well, this was a silly little book. A book that treats writing like Juliet Binoche treats acting. That is to say, with a lot of insubstantial intensity, and mystic eyes. You can read Sin in a sitting, and get up feeling pensive, taciturn, and violent. Or you can read it in little chunks over a period of weeks, while you're giving your children a bath, like I did, and every time you open the book you have to remember how serious life is, how morbid, how dire, how dramatic. How everyone uses small sentences, and feels things deeply, so deeply.

I read it before, years ago, and recently somehow via some used book shelf it came back into my life. The same edition too. Page 169 still seems to bear the blush of shame after my shuddering eye-roll. The last few lines:

These questions long engage me. Do you have answers? Please. Please, answer me.
Answer me, as I leave you now.
As I leave you.
As I leave.

The only work of fiction I've seen trying to end on an echo effect, like a power ballad from the 80s. If the ending seems unforgivable, you should know that there are other disastrous lines in the book too. Like this one:

Hours later, Dominick lay on top of me. And whispered love again. And again. Perhaps the music in his own head made him deaf to my silence.

"Deaf to my silence"? That's one of those lines that sounds complex and interesting, but in reality means nothing. Like Juliet Binoche again. She can be thinking of her grocery list, but as long as she fires up her "piercing depths" eye lock, you'd think she was decoding the fate of the world. Hart knows how to ratchet up the drama in the way a scene sounds, even if the plot is really a rather standard soap opera chain of events. Adultery, death, rivalry, hatred, love, etc. The pounding drum in the language, the constant syntactic reminders that This! Is! Dramatic! actually diffuse the drama from her character's troubles, much the way a soap opera's soundtrack can make light afternoon fare out of murder and betrayal.

I am simultaneously reading Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, and Sin does not bear up well in contrast, since McCourt's delivery of disaster and wretchedness is at low volume, with no fanfare, no sonorous words, no short sentences drifting off into black. Unfair comparison, maybe, but... still.

SIN

Labels: book reviews, books, josephine hart, novels, sin

1. Maybe writing is just lying.

2. I'm cutting out of my writing group again tonight.

3. I've started walking to the art museum to think. During the walk, you know, not at the museum. When we get to the museum, we turn around and go home. Map My Ride tells me it's 3.6 miles round trip. This is about as much as I can do with inappropriate shoes, a stroller, a dog, and another child on a bicycle. We've done it twice:

The thinking must be happening between reminding the boy to watch for driveways and reminding the dog to keep up. The girl doesn't need reminded of anything but she does need to be hydrated.

So far I've had two ideas, both unrelated to the novel. Two ideas in seven miles is a number I'm comfortable with. I'm not crowning myself Pope or anything but I'm satisfied.

4. "The Libertine" was like the opposite of "Shakespeare in Love." Like all opposite pairs, they have some things in common: 17th century London, playwrights, female actors, and a bunch of people scrabbling around in the street. Strangely, in the time between Elizabeth and Charles II, London got a lot dirtier and nastier. John Malkovich was the king with a prosthetic nose. It was almost possible to forget he was John Malkovich. I never forgot Johnny Depp was Johnny Depp but the remarkable thing was that during his performance I never even caught a sniff of Jack Sparrow, or Ichabod Crane, or Willy Wonka, or J.M. Barrie. He's a master.

5. "Deja Vu" was pretty dreadful. The movie requires such a radical suspension of disbelief that I needed a special crane and a permit from the city. On the other hand, it was nice to see that not every time travel movie ends with the lesson of time travel: "Travel to the past all you want, but if you try to stop something from happening, you'll end up causing it." Are you listening, Sandra Bullock?

6. "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Snakes on a Plane" both started out with someone getting their head beaten in. From there, the two movies diverged in pretty much every way possible.

7. Samantha Morton is not Samantha Mathis. Samantha Morton never played Princess Daisy in "Super Mario Brothers." Samantha Mathis did. Therefore, my shock that Samantha Mathis was playing the female lead in "The Libertine" was misplaced.

8. Chloe Sevigny was in "Zodiac" as a dull, smart girlfriend of Jake Gyllenhaal. I liked her in this role. Between this, that, Big Love, and the other thing, I am ready to forgive her for her slouchy, droopy-lidded performance in "The Last Days of Disco." It's been ten years. I'm over it.

9. We couldn't finish watching "Zodiac" because of all the one month later, six weeks later, three days later, two years later. We never found out what happened. Robert Downey Jr. is so awesome though. He is made of awesome.

10. Speaking of Robert Downey Jr., "Fur" was bad. Susannah says the crime was taking Arbus' asthetic fascination with freaks and sexualizing it. I agree, but felt that the biggest problem was Robert Downey Jr. with all that hair on him.

Labels: lists, movies, writing