Funny how things work out. The Oct. 1 New Yorker runs an article about Ann Patchett's new book, Run and the library schedules Bel Canto for their Nov. discussion and with the stars aligning themselves like that I got hold of Bel Canto and couldn't stop once I started it. She uses a situation in Peru some years ago when terrorists took hostages during a party at the president's house. Their prize is an opera singer whose voice has thrilled audiences around the world.
Readers could sit around all day talking about the characters. who gradually adapt in surprising and unexpected ways. It's not exactly the Stockholm Syndrome. Something more subtle is at work. Perhaps it's something about the power of art to heal. There's the music as the opera singer begins to share her gift with the others. Because most of the hostages aren't familiar with the music, the reader doesn't have to be either.
New Yorker review of the book here:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/10/01/071001crbo_books_updike.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
We saw an Irish film last night: The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Directed by an Englishman, Ken Loach, it is harshly critical of British rule in Ireland. What made it spooky was how the action in it reflected what's going on in Iraq at the moment. But in this case the bad guys are the British, not the Americans. It's the British who beat people up and destroy their homes, and call them horrible names. The time period is Ireland in 1920-21 when the Irish Republican Army formed to resist British rule. The focus is on one unit of men who form in County Cork to fight British rule. Vastly outnumbered they still manage to inflict damage and casualties on the British. But the British regiment, the Blakc and Tans, inflict far greater torture, deatb and destruction on the Irish. The Black and Tans were mercenaries hired by the government for better pay than soldiers got. The resemblance to Blackwater and its mercenaries in Iraq is clear. Not a very good film to go to bed on! I told Paul I'd pick a nice light and frothy French comedy for our next film.
Am reading a fine novel at the moment, Bel Canto by Ann Patchet.. Our library will hold a discussion on it in a couple of weeks, and I'll go and hear what others have to say about it. I'll tell you this.
A banquet is under way in the home of the Vice President of a poor Latin American country. A famous singer with the most beautiful voice in the world has been invited to perform. 200 people are guests. After the concert, the house is invaded by terrorists who take everyone hostage, including the singer. The streets outside begin to fill with rescue units......
The is from an online comment:
Am reading a fine novel at the moment, Bel Canto by Ann Patchet.. Our library will hold a discussion on it in a couple of weeks, and I'll go and hear what others have to say about it. I'll tell you this.
A banquet is under way in the home of the Vice President of a poor Latin American country. A famous singer with the most beautiful voice in the world has been invited to perform. 200 people are guests. After the concert, the house is invaded by terrorists who take everyone hostage, including the singer. The streets outside begin to fill with rescue units......
The is from an online comment:
Even better the second time,
September 28, 2007 I just finished Bel Canto for the second time, and enjoyed it even more than I did on first reading. Without rushing towards the end to find out "what happens" -- which I did, in spite of myself, the first time, I was able to luxuriate in Ms. Patchett's elegant, evocative sentences. Her characters are so deftly drawn that they will remain with you long after you close the covers of the book. She's able to do the impossible, it seems: write about love and music within a highly charged, almost over-the-top scenario, without ever becoming melodramatic or maudlin. I believed this book so deeply, it seemed every word was true. Every character was real. Every note of music was there for the listening. I understand why another reviewer bought every one of Ann Patchett's books after reading this one -- I'm about to do the same!
By E. Almond (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews 
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852)
Read Uncle Tom's Cabin lately? I recently came to it for the first time and, you know what, it's a compelling page turner. It has a suspenseful plot and a readable style. No wonder it sold millions of copies, helped Harriet Beecher Stowe and her spouse get out of debt, and drew thousands of readers to the docks at Liverpool to greet her as she began her first European tour.
Stowe, who lived in Cincinnati for over twenty years, tackles American slavery head on and shows its corruptive influence on owners and slaves. Families are split and never reunited, pretty light-skinned young women are shipped down to the bordellos in New Orleans, children are torn from their mothers' arms and never seen again. Not all owners were cruel to their property (other than owning them of course), but Tom's kindly owner has to sell him down the river because of overwhelming debt. The worst of all slave owners is Simon Legree and eventually Uncle Tom falls into his hands and suffers vicious and graphically described tortures.
In reading the book I discovered that Uncle Tom was not an Uncle Tom. Later stage versions changed the character to a shuffling fool who pandered to his owners). In the novel he is noble and brave--a Christlike figure--who protects and sometimes saves his fellow creatures--some of them white.
When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet he said to her, "and you're the little lady he started the Civil War." The book had power then, and it still does.
Stowe, who lived in Cincinnati for over twenty years, tackles American slavery head on and shows its corruptive influence on owners and slaves. Families are split and never reunited, pretty light-skinned young women are shipped down to the bordellos in New Orleans, children are torn from their mothers' arms and never seen again. Not all owners were cruel to their property (other than owning them of course), but Tom's kindly owner has to sell him down the river because of overwhelming debt. The worst of all slave owners is Simon Legree and eventually Uncle Tom falls into his hands and suffers vicious and graphically described tortures.
In reading the book I discovered that Uncle Tom was not an Uncle Tom. Later stage versions changed the character to a shuffling fool who pandered to his owners). In the novel he is noble and brave--a Christlike figure--who protects and sometimes saves his fellow creatures--some of them white.
When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet he said to her, "and you're the little lady he started the Civil War." The book had power then, and it still does.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
John Lanchester's Memoir
I'm in the middle of reading Family Romance: A Memoir by British novelist John Lanchester. The centerpiece is what Lanchester finds out about his mother after her death--that she had lied to his father in order to get him to marry her (no mention of her many years in a nunnery, and she put her age at 31 even though she was actually 41 and pregnant with John. (The man must have been a bit gullible). She never let her son know anything about being immured in one of the most strict and harsh Catholic orders in Ireland. They were The Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and coincidentally a few years ago the movie The Magdalene Sisters exposed the cruel treatment that went on in that sisterhood. For Lanchester, having a mum who had spent decades being a nun before she finally saw the light and escaped and married at the age of 41, it meant having a mother who could express no emotion or love, and lied to cover up her past. It gets a bit bogged down in parts, and I'm skipping some, but in the main it's good.
Shakespeare Wallah
This evening we saw, courtesy of Netflix, a most engrossing movie--Shakespeare Wallah--Merchant-Ivory's first picture, made in 1964.
Felicity Kendal was seventeen when she played the daughter of an actor-manager and his wife who spent their years with a little troupe of English actors touring India with productions of Shakespeare during India's post-independence period. It becomes increasingly difficult to get bookings and one scene is quite painful when the actor-manager faces up to rejection from one of his most reliable patrons. Lovely scene at a boarding house with the grand name of "Gleneagles." The actors have stayed there over the years many times, but it seems that it's in its twilight. . It's run by a Yorkshire woman who herself is dealing with rejection while a palatial new hotel is being built across the street.
The story is based on the experiences of Felicity's parents who themselves toured Indian for years and play themselves in the film. The DVD includes comments from Felicity, now in her sixties and still beautiful. She's very active on the London stage these days.
A review in The Daily Telegraph of her performance in a recent play says she took the challenge of taking over a part played by Judi Dench and made it her own.
Here's a reader comment from online:
Felicity Kendal was seventeen when she played the daughter of an actor-manager and his wife who spent their years with a little troupe of English actors touring India with productions of Shakespeare during India's post-independence period. It becomes increasingly difficult to get bookings and one scene is quite painful when the actor-manager faces up to rejection from one of his most reliable patrons. Lovely scene at a boarding house with the grand name of "Gleneagles." The actors have stayed there over the years many times, but it seems that it's in its twilight. . It's run by a Yorkshire woman who herself is dealing with rejection while a palatial new hotel is being built across the street.
The story is based on the experiences of Felicity's parents who themselves toured Indian for years and play themselves in the film. The DVD includes comments from Felicity, now in her sixties and still beautiful. She's very active on the London stage these days.
A review in The Daily Telegraph of her performance in a recent play says she took the challenge of taking over a part played by Judi Dench and made it her own.
Here's a reader comment from online:
.Set in post-independence India, it tells the story of a small, though thoroughly professional traveling Shakespeare company fallen on hard times. The troop, built on the talents of the three Buckingham family members, including the young and fetching daughter Lizzie, is slowly dissolving in a culture increasingly hostile to their art and readier to worship the queens of the silly Indian pop cinema.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Closely Watched Trains
I'm reading some of this week's New Yorker online since it hasn't yet arrived in my mail box. Anthony Lane reviews a new movie with an important role for a train. The Darjeeling Limited seems to be about some American guys who take a train journey across India. Lane goes with a profound question in his opening paragraph.
He's right about the train/Hollywood parallel. Wasn't the first American movle with a plot The Great Train Robbery? Let's ask Amazon.com. OK, here's an answer:
"Its hard to believe but this film was made more than 100 hundred years ago; it has to be considered to be a technical step forward for its time. The plot is basically a train robbery. It is also the first western. This was a stepping stone for what movies could be,
D. W. Griffith directed this historic movie. Anyway-
I love the train movie genre. Especially memorable are The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, The Twentieth Century, The Great Train Robbery, Runaway Train, 3:10 to Yuma, Strangers on a Train,
and the great Marlene in Shanghai Express. . . .
Stage coaches aren't bad, either.
Can you have a thriving movie culture in a country without enough trains? The decline of the American railroad neatly parallels that of the Hollywood studio system, and something about the train traveller and the moviegoer catches the eye: both are required to sit with their fellow-men, and to start their journey at a particular time, not of their own choosing. Both are left alone, yet their privacy—tinged with dreaminess—is of a very public kind. Set a movie on a train and you get the best of both worlds, for your audience will feel an instant kinship with the souls packed together onscreen. Preston Sturges knew this, as did the Billy Wilder of “Some Like It Hot”; these days, however, the thrill of the ride has shrivelled to a dull metropolitan commute.
He's right about the train/Hollywood parallel. Wasn't the first American movle with a plot The Great Train Robbery? Let's ask Amazon.com. OK, here's an answer:
| By | Alex (Chicago) - See all my reviews |
D. W. Griffith directed this historic movie. Anyway-
I love the train movie genre. Especially memorable are The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, The Twentieth Century, The Great Train Robbery, Runaway Train, 3:10 to Yuma, Strangers on a Train,
and the great Marlene in Shanghai Express. . . .
Stage coaches aren't bad, either.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Should cats eat kibble, canned, or mice?
From dawlishgal
Following snatched from comments to Norah Ephron's column today in the HuffPost:
Our experience with kibble and our cat:
When we took him in for his kitten checkup, the vet told us that she gives her own cat canned cat food only on (get this) CHRISTMAS Eve...the rest of the time it makes do with kibble.
We felt guilty while we continued to feed ours a mixed diet of kibble and canned food, and ,when he developed chronic constipation and blockages that almost killed him, we blamed ourselves for not following the vet's advice.
NOW, a week after the latest episode and thirteen hundred bucks poorer, we have been told the whole thinking on cat diet has changed, and the theory is that now cats and dogs ought to be eating what they would eat in the wild (vermin?). Some wily petfood manufacturer is bringing out a version of THAT kind of natural food at a price higher than for human food. At the same time there is a new kind of digestion-problems kibble that goes for 10 bucks for a little bag. It is almost impossible to know what to do. And the cat would be better off eating MICE, forgawdssakes!
Our experience with kibble and our cat:
When we took him in for his kitten checkup, the vet told us that she gives her own cat canned cat food only on (get this) CHRISTMAS Eve...the rest of the time it makes do with kibble.
We felt guilty while we continued to feed ours a mixed diet of kibble and canned food, and ,when he developed chronic constipation and blockages that almost killed him, we blamed ourselves for not following the vet's advice.
NOW, a week after the latest episode and thirteen hundred bucks poorer, we have been told the whole thinking on cat diet has changed, and the theory is that now cats and dogs ought to be eating what they would eat in the wild (vermin?). Some wily petfood manufacturer is bringing out a version of THAT kind of natural food at a price higher than for human food. At the same time there is a new kind of digestion-problems kibble that goes for 10 bucks for a little bag. It is almost impossible to know what to do. And the cat would be better off eating MICE, forgawdssakes!
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