The Blog Is [Not] the Territory

04 August 2007

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels

In the Thursday Next novels, Jasper Fforde has created a universe that is irresistibly attractive to book lovers. It is a world in which literature has such importance that Britain's Special Operations includes a "Literary Detectives" division, to which our heroine (Thursday Next) belongs. Original manuscripts of great books are kept under lock and key because changes to the original (such as eliminating a character or altering her fate--an important plot element of The Eyre Affair--are immediately reflected in every extant edition. And it is possible (via innate talent or specialized devices) to physically enter the world behind the books, which is governed by administrators and bureaucrats sometimes even more annoying than real-world ones, as well as an organization called Jurisfiction, which tries to keep the wheels of literature turning smoothly (characters in their proper places and plot threads neatly tied).

What's amazing about the Thursday Next novels is not that Fforde has come up with conceits like these, but that he continually comes up with more of them, and that he manages to sustain them over several volumes. For example, in First Among Sequels, we are introduced to Britain's "stupidity surplus." The ruling Common Sense party has been acting with such probity and pragmatism that the country is in danger of a huge explosion of stupidity if something isn't done soon. What for another author would be a disposable one-liner becomes a robust plot thread for Fforde. (This is not to say there are no throw-aways in Fforde; there are plenty, which is sometimes disconcerting.)

As with many multi-volume series, the first novel displays the most energy and originality, and the subsequent ones all have some rough or dull spots. But there's typically enough ingenuity and suspense to carry you through; in particular, First Among Sequels offers plenty of outlandish ideas, essential paradoxes, and urgent mysteries to keep your left brain busy while your right brain follows the occasionally lagging story.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

How to discuss this book without giving something away?

Only in the most general terms.

So: chock full of action, suspense--as hard to put down as any previous volume--with a highly satisfactory climax and conclusion. Significant questions are answered. Of course one is never glad that a beloved series is over, but at least there is no sense of having been cheated.

Highly recommended for Harry Potter fans. Non-Harry Potter fans couldn't care less anyhow.

Sicko

The word is out, I think, that this is probably Michael Moore's best movie, largely because he's largely absent from it. We didn't plan to see Sicko last week, but the Harry Potter screenings were all sold out, and it was a hot, humid evening, so we were determined to see something.

We expected to see a film that told us what we already knew (i.e., the US health system really sucks--not enough people have insurance), but the actual focus turned out to be on people with health insurance rather than without, and the impact of the individual stories of sick and injured people whose claims had been denied was enormous. In contrast, Moore shows us satisfied customers of the Canadian, British, and French health systems, and in the movie's sole stunt, carts a bunch of 9/11 workers with health issues to Cuba for treatment.

The stunt is the least successful part of the movie (while Moore says, on camera, "just treat us like you would treat anybody else," who's going to "act natural" with a camera running and a celebrity watching?)

Still, very much worth seeing: eye-opening with regard to the venality of insurance companies and the shabby way we treat the sick in this country.

Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry?

Elizabeth McCracken, author of two fine novels (The Giant's House and Niagara Falls All Over Again), first brought out this collection of short stories in 1993. Like her novels, the stories could easily be called charming and quirky; they typically center on people who--when they love--love for good; the stories also spend a lot of time considering guilelessness.

Apparent guilelessness is in part what gives the stories their charm: stories like "The Goings-On of the World," in which the second sentence reads, "One morning in the last week of May, I got up, got dressed, and killed my wife." You have to read it a few times to make sure you read right. Another, one of my favorites, "Some Have Entertained Angels, Unaware," begins, "My parents were not handy people." From that simple beginning sprouts a story of love, grief, abandonment, love, survival, and love again.

Highly recommended.

27 July 2007

Animals in Translation

I have mixed feelings about this book, which is perhaps appropriate as it is itself a mix--of personal memoir, professional mea culpa, behavioral reference, and (perhaps primarily) anecdote collection. It is written by Temple Grandin, a high-functioning person with autism who became much better known when Oliver Sacks wrote about her in An Anthropologist on Mars.

Grandin has a Ph.D. in Animal Science, and has spent her professional career designing humane(r) slaughter facilities for cattle, pigs, and sheep. Animals in Translation presents the lessons she's learned about animal behavior filtered through her unique perspective as an autistic person; she believes that the way autistic people think and the way animals think are very similar.

The book offers many compelling insights. Grandin talks about how animals don't generalize the way typical humans do--an animal once traumatized by a man in a black hat may forever rear at the sight of a black hat; a cow can be stopped in its tracks by a shiny reflection. They're attentive to details because they don't have a sense of the whole--or at least not as easily as typical humans do.

In spite of some interesting points, the book's idiosyncratic, circular, and often redundant style put a damper on my enjoyment of it. There's little distinction between conclusions drawn from anecdote, scientific research, or personal experience--all are given equal weight. The old saw about essay writing ("Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them") is adhered to rather too literally: a paragraph introduces an idea including its conclusion, comes to a conclusion, and then affirms that conclusion (often with a not very persuasive, "That's my guess" or "I've seen this again and again."). Animals in Translation does have a co-author, but either that co-author was asleep at the wheel or she's simply a poor writer/editor.

Worth reading? Sure. But the reading can start to feel like trudging after a while.

25 July 2007

My Best Friend

It's movie pass week. This new French movie stars Daniel Auteuil as an antique dealer who's made to realize he has plenty of business contacts but not a single friend. (In the words of one old classmate, since the age of 11 he has been a "smug son of a bitch.")

After a bet with his business partner (she has to meet his best friend in 10 days), he engages an amiable taxi driver (Dany Boon) to teach him how to make friendly connections. The driver's lessons fail, but the antique dealer ends up friends with the taxi driver. Then the dealer betrays the friendship because he still doesn't really understand what friendship is and loses the friend. Then he sincerely repents, secretly makes amends, and eventually he and his friend reconcile. In the process he has become a much better person, and everybody likes him.

Have we heard this story before? Yes. Is it pretty predictable? Yes. Is it still fun to watch? Absolutely. Terrific performances and details that are not entirely expected (the cab driver is an autodidact with complete mastery of the sort of trivia featured on quiz shows) make this movie continuously entertaining, and in spite of the familiar story, it provides some acute observations that make you think about the nature of friendship and its relative scarcity.

Not to mention deeply thankful to have friends.

23 July 2007

Stardust

Got a pass to see a screening of this new movie, which turned out to be better than I expected: a light-hearted fairy tale with a little romance, a little adventure, a little magic, and so on. One surprise was how funny it was--you're expecting an earnest little "happily ever after" story, and then Michelle Pfeiffer's witch is watching her breasts deflate (the result of too much hexing), and Ricky Gervais is trying to weasel his way out of paying a fair price for a shipment of lightning, and Robert DeNiro's pirate captain is happiest in drag.
Fun escapist fare, with some lovely evocations of the magical world.

Pan's Labyrinth

Although some parts of this movie were so violent that I could not watch (particularly scenes of torture), it was quite wonderful. Still not entirely clear on what it is trying to say--you want to find an affirming lesson about the power of imagination or somesuch, but the ending of the movie rather contradicts that. Still, the human (or humane) spirit shines very brightly in this dark tale, and that's what makes the violence bearable in the end.

21 July 2007

Curiosity: the Anti-Depression Emotion

I have been reading Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and she spends a lot of time talking about emotions, particularly emotions shared by people and animals. She discusses curiosity as an emotion. I had never thought of curiosity as an emotion, but I guess it is, as she describes it: a sense of excitement and anticipation about the things around you.

Which strikes me as the opposite of depression, and part of why going for a walk or drive, or taking a trip, can help a person shake the blues.

Just as I thought: you can run away from your problems.

20 July 2007

Houseplant Survey

Our plants don't do as well in this apartment as they used to in our house in Columbus, even though we have a lot more light here. Of course, we have different plants here, ones that are supposed to be suited to higher light levels. They survive, but not very well. In a way, it would be easier if they didn't stay alive (it's easier to discard a dead plant than a struggling one). Two big ones have been especially bothering me lately; it's hard to think of replacing them, because large plants are expensive. Two smaller leafy plants keep growing but just don't seem that healthy--the leaves quickly brown, or the plants get spindly instead of bushy. Maybe they're rootbound? It's been a couple of years since they were transplanted...

In the warm weather, when it's cheaper, I try to have a lot of cut flowers. Jewel always has a special--three bunches for $12, and during the warm season the bunches can be pretty nice. Treasure Island usually has one kind of flower on special at a time--say, $5.99 for a big bunch of sunflowers--but everything else is really expensive.

I have also been buying small flowering plants, which are pretty inexpensive right now. Little $3 mini-rose plants are cheaper than a bouquet and can last longer. Found some small succulents ($4.99 each) at Trader Joe's which seem to be doing well on our east-facing window sills. Splurged on a live orchid about a week ago, and so far it seems to be doing well (I figure if the bloom lasts four weeks I'll have gotten my money's worth).

Victor's mom is coming next week and she's really good with plants, so maybe we'll go plant shopping together. When they're healthy, plants make a home so happy!

19 July 2007

Talk to Me

Our friend Teresa invited me to go see this movie with her at the last minute, and Victor rushed from work to join us.

It was terrific. Great performances, especially by Don Cheadle and Taraji P. Henson, who I remembered from Hustle and Flow. Great evocation of times past. We loved it.

Later, Victor said, "I thought it was going to be an Almodovar movie." I said, "No, that's Talk to Her."

13 July 2007

Baryshnikov and Hell's Kitchen Dance

We've seen Baryshnikov only a couple of times before: in 2003, at a benefit performance in Columbus, Ohio, and in 2004 in a staged interview as part of the New Yorker Festival. This time, he was performing with his dance troupe, Hell's Kitchen Dance, in Chicago's Harris Theater, and he and they were phenomenal.

All three dances included Baryshnikov. The first dance was a solo--or sort of a duet with himself--video of a very young Baryshnikov was projected on the back wall and he danced in relation to it. It was so moving, somehow. I found myself weeping without knowing why.

The next dance also included two young female dancers. After an intermission, there was a performance that included the whole troupe. The choreography was splendid--thrilling and imaginative. Lots of arms and hands, heads--not just legs and jumping up and down. (Though there were plenty of leaps and pirouettes.)

What's great about Baryshnikov? Presence and grace. When he's on stage, he's just magnetic. You can't take your eyes off him. And when he moves, he's like liquid. He flows.

12 July 2007

Guardian

In the past, Joe Haldeman has been one of my favorite science fiction writers, but this book makes me reconsider. I found the writing pedestrian and the story pretty pointless.

Why do I get so annoyed when books are bad? Because there are so many books to read, and so little time.

11 July 2007

Three Junes

This is a wonderful novel, told in three novellas from different perspectives: a father, his eldest son, and a woman who turns out to be, coincidentally, an acquaintance of both of them. It is beautifully written, and one of those books about which the question "what's it about?" is irrelevant, because it's about life.

The Foreign Correspondent

Alan Furst is a favorite writer of mine; for what he does, he can do no wrong. And what he does is write espionage thrillers that take place in Europe on the cusp of World War 2. These stories have heroes who typically never planned to have anything to do with politics, who would have been happy to sit out the war in Tahiti (ideally with a warm blonde), but whom circumstances have forced into engagement against the forces of fascism.

Basically, they're ordinary people who get mixed up with spies, and end up becoming spies themselves, or helping spies, which amounts to the same thing.

The great thing about these heroes is they seem ordinary and peaceful enough that you can really imagine yourself in their shoes; when the daring missions ensue, you've identified with them so much that you can convincingly flatter yourself you'd have done the same.

Furst writes simply and well, and while you could complain that his several novels tell essentially the same story again and again, that's hardly surprising. This is popular fiction at its best, but it remains popular fiction.

This latest novel centers on an Italian Reuters correspondent living in Paris just before Mussolini and Hitler cement their alliance. He works for an emigre newspaper, writing anonymous articles against Mussolini's government, but his relatively placid existence is disturbed when the Italian fascist secret service sets out to terrorize everyone involved with the newspaper.

A great read for the train or when you just feel like an escape.

You Kill Me

We haven't been excited about too many movies lately. Spiderman 3, which we might have otherwise been eager about, got terrible press, and none of the other sequels seemed too interesting.

So this movie seemed promising: Ben Kingsley who is always wonderful, likable Tea Leoni, and super-likable Luke Wilson. Not to mention terrifically slimy Bill Pullman, amusingly long-suffering Philip Baker Hall, etc. (It really doesn't end there--it's a fabulous cast.)

However. Actually there is no "however," to our great surprise. We went to this movie hopeful, but with dimmed expectations, since it wouldn't be the first time a movie with a great cast turned out rotten. But this movie was almost exactly what we'd hoped for: a reasonably adult and intelligent black comedy, with some juicy performances and good laughs. It has nothing profound to say about love, addiction, crime, or anything else, but it says nothing insultingly stupid about them either.

I feel like I'm saying the best thing about this movie is its inoffensiveness, but that's not what I mean to convey; rather, this movie is exactly what it ought to be, which isn't as common as it should be, and which gives considerable pleasure.

10 July 2007

Unpronounceable

We went with friends the other night to see Kumail Nanjiani's one-man show Unpronounceable at the Lakeshore Theater. It was our first time in that theater, although it is only a couple of blocks from our apartment. A pleasant enough venue, except they play music ridiculously loud while you are waiting for the show to start, so you can't carry on a conversation. Very irritating.

The show was good, though. Nanjiani highlights a lot of the startling inconsistencies you notice when you've been brought up as a fundamentalist, and then traces his own journey from fundamentalism to atheism. Quite funny, as well. You certainly don't have to be Muslim to appreciate it. In fact, it's quite possibly better if you're not.

Spartan

Victor was iffy about this movie because Val Kilmer stars in it, and he's been in a lot of bad stuff. But I tend to remember the good stuff he's been in--Tombstone, Thunderheart--and don't so much hold the bad stuff against him.

Indeed, Spartan is not a bad movie. It's not a great movie, either, but that's not Kilmer's fault. He tries.

The movie is written and directed by David Mamet, who I like, but I wonder whether the trademark delivery of lines--the repetitions, the emphases, the repressed violence--might work better in a story about repressed violence. This movie incorporates so much actual violence that the stylized dialogue seems to almost mock the seriousness of the events, making the movie harder to believe in.

09 July 2007

Hair

I first saw this movie when it came out, which was 1979, so I was 14 years old. It made a huge impression on me then--the amazing colors, the great music, and Twyla Tharp's choreography. It mostly took place in my city, New York, in Central Park and Washington Square Park, so I guess I felt a special identification for that reason as well.

When you're 14, you think everything's about you.

More than 25 years later, the movie holds up pretty well. You have to suspend a bit of disbelief to see 28-year-old Beverly D'Angelo as a 16 year old (Treat Williams also looks a lot older than he should be), but the color still looks great, the music is still wonderful, and the choreography is still invigorating. Moreover, even though many of the songs became so popular they are cliches now (especially "Aquarius" and "Let the Sun Shine In"), in the context of the film they remain profoundly moving.

I was crying at the end even though I knew what was going to happen, even though I'm sick of that song, even though I was internally criticizing the film's logic (the gravestone should have said Bukowski, not Berger, since Berger took Bukowski's place). And just as my 14-year-old self gazed wistfully at the joyful scenes of protest on the Washington Mall, I wished I'd been there then.

Hurlyburly

Just terrible. We couldn't watch it straight through; skimmed it using the DVD player. If there is anything redeeming about this movie, which follows a year or two in the lives of a handful of shallow LA professionals, we couldn't find it. The great cast does it no good at all.

Nasty and vapid.