I recently watched the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which was kind of awful.
I had been warned that Mr. Darcy was somewhat...lacking in intestinal fortitude, which he certainly was. What's unfortunate is that interpreting him in that manner throws the whole story off. As it is, much of the book is compressed to fit it into the 2 hour time frame of the movie, so it's hard enough to comprehend why Elizabeth would love him. Granted, there are his actions to benefit her sisters, but Elizabeth's character is such (and again, this is only briefly established in the movie) that such actions, while laudable, would not be enough to win her love.
Of course, it's been a while since I read the book, which is why I went out and picked it up today. Maybe I'm wrong. I just kept waiting for a spark of something from Darcy other than sad, longing stares. Why would anyone feel any sort of attraction towards a mopey bastard? It's ludicrous.
It probably didn't help that I also recently watched When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee's documentary about New Orleans and Katrina, which is very well done and fills you with large amounts of inarticulate rage and sorrow. There are no words to communicate the disgust that such a thing could happen in the United States, but what is perhaps more worrying is the fact that it and its repercussions have been lost in the shuffle of Iraq. Where are the demands for change, for oversight, for some acknowledgement of failures and a transparent creation of plans for future emergencies? Is there even a fucking plan for the next time? Because, make no mistake, there will be a next time.
I was reminded, as I was watching it, of the night Dubya won re-election, when I turned to my friend sitting with me and said, "You know, it's horrible to say this, but you almost wish something terrible would happen to the US again, so they could really see what kind of person they re-elected."
People saw, but did they care?
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Is This A Racial Thing?
| Your Psyche is Yellow |
 You have a ton of energy - both physical and mental endurance. You are rational and logical, and you can help almost anyone think clearly. Optimistic and bright, you also have a secret side that's a little darker. When you are too yellow: You will do anything to get your way, and no one will be the wiser When you don't have enough yellow: you lack confidence, drive, and humor |
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Heights Which Wuther
For various reasons, I've started re-reading Wuthering Heights. The first time I read it, I found myself focusing on Heathcliff's situation, though in retrospect that may have been because his dominates the latter half of it. I'm currently about halfway through it, and have come to realize that my initial impression of the flawed nature of Heathcliff's love might owe more to Catherine and her perception of it.
The true realization is this: Catherine's love is not a mature love. It is, in fact, a child's perception of love. This is not to say that it is good or bad, nor pure or calculating - perhaps more on that later. All I mean is that she envisions and conceives of love in the same way that younger people do. She says that "Whatever souls are made of, [Heathcliff's] and mine are the same," (81) - the sort of oneness which people experiencing love for the first time seek, not realizing that such closeness is ultimately confining and destructive. She displays a child-like assumption of primacy: "I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me" (122), and, in an interesting touch by Bronte, the form her ghost takes is not that of her at the end of her life, but her as a child, begging to be let back into the home where she lived with Heathcliff.
It is childlike to love in this manner because it's how you perceive love before dealing with failed relationships; it's the way you love before reality forces you to deal with people who don't love you, who fall out of love with you, before people tell you they've fallen out of love with you. Perhaps, then, this form of love is truer, is better, is more real. It's certainly simpler, and perhaps less satisfying in some ways, but moreso in others.
This being said, my enjoyment of Wuthering Heights is no less than it was the first time around. For while the love shared by Catherine and Heathcliff may or may not not be desirable, it is true. Would that we could all say such a thing.
The true realization is this: Catherine's love is not a mature love. It is, in fact, a child's perception of love. This is not to say that it is good or bad, nor pure or calculating - perhaps more on that later. All I mean is that she envisions and conceives of love in the same way that younger people do. She says that "Whatever souls are made of, [Heathcliff's] and mine are the same," (81) - the sort of oneness which people experiencing love for the first time seek, not realizing that such closeness is ultimately confining and destructive. She displays a child-like assumption of primacy: "I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me" (122), and, in an interesting touch by Bronte, the form her ghost takes is not that of her at the end of her life, but her as a child, begging to be let back into the home where she lived with Heathcliff.
It is childlike to love in this manner because it's how you perceive love before dealing with failed relationships; it's the way you love before reality forces you to deal with people who don't love you, who fall out of love with you, before people tell you they've fallen out of love with you. Perhaps, then, this form of love is truer, is better, is more real. It's certainly simpler, and perhaps less satisfying in some ways, but moreso in others.
This being said, my enjoyment of Wuthering Heights is no less than it was the first time around. For while the love shared by Catherine and Heathcliff may or may not not be desirable, it is true. Would that we could all say such a thing.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Turn and Face the Strange
A common presumption runs through the e-mails that whatever the problem, Future Me will have more courage, more power to act.Lifted from an interesting article over here that lets you archive and send an e-mail to your future self.
I recently flipped through Moneyball, which attempts to examine the system behind Billy Beane's operation of the Oakland A's (baseball, for those of you who are sportily ignorant), and one of Beane's driving tenets is that people don't change. This is why certain statistical categories are better predictors of major league success than others; because the trends that a person establishes over their college career will continue in later life. Of course, in his case he's talking about their tendencies as baseball hitters, not trying to make some sort of grand statement about life.
I also stayed up way too late watching Unforgiven a few nights ago, a movie in which Clint Eastwood spends the first half repeating, "I ain't like that no more," but he is; indeed, it is all he is, as suggested by the very title of the movie - it doesn't matter what he goes on to do with his life, his past and his past identity will always a part of him. Externally he's changed, but the core remains, waiting to be called upon.
I'm sure there are all sorts of literary sources which point towards the possibility of change and redemption, but if we're being honest, what makes those stories attractive is the idea that someone can change, that people can identify and rectify their faults, which somehow makes up for any horrible things they might have done in the past, right? Perhaps the reason why people find those stories so attractive is because they identify our own fears about the actual impossibility of change and subsequent redemption, and assuage them with a fluffy little fairy tale about how anything is possible.
I know, I'm going out on a limb here, but it's been a while since I've written anything.
As a random aside, I feel pretty confident saying that Clint Eastwood gives the best reading of the word, "Yeah," in the history of cinema.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The Big Chill
Been feeling kinda blah the last few days, which is why there's been a dearth of entries. Perhaps it's SAD? Whatever it is, it sucks.
I was out with a friend today, and the conversation turned very briefly to Pan's Labyrinth, which she mentioned she found disappointing because the fantastic elements were all make believe. I mentioned that her interpretation was more indicative of her own beliefs, as opposed to the intent of the film. I don't think she bought it. Still, she's the one stuck with a boring life view, so I suppose that's her loss.
I was out with a friend today, and the conversation turned very briefly to Pan's Labyrinth, which she mentioned she found disappointing because the fantastic elements were all make believe. I mentioned that her interpretation was more indicative of her own beliefs, as opposed to the intent of the film. I don't think she bought it. Still, she's the one stuck with a boring life view, so I suppose that's her loss.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Deep Thoughts
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
30. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson
As I was reading through Siddhartha I actually found myself wanting something a little more serious. I suppose Emerson fits that bill; I'm sure in a week or so I'll be wanting something silly and fluffy instead.
Emerson is apparently referred to as a "transcendentalist" (whatever the hell that means); a champion of the sort of individualism which has come to be associated with the American spirit, which was then taken to its extreme by Ayn Rand and others.
One of the interesting things about Buddhism is that on the surface, it seems like a communal religion: love for all your fellow beings, for the plants and the rocks and the waves and all that hippy jazz. But when you find out more about it, you find that it reaches that level of community through a similar sort of individualism to that espoused by Emerson; that is, every thing, every creature, has their own potential, has something of the Buddha within them, and that's why you love them, because they are all Buddhas, all of them seeking their path. Obviously, Emerson doesn't quite put it that way, but the intent is similar. I read a passage recently talking about how everything is becoming, everything is evolving, even rocks; that perhaps copper is simply metal on its way to becoming something else, and when it's done being copper (though it may take millions or billions of years), it'll turn into silver, or gold, or whatever the next step on its path is.
I mean, it's a nice thought, and it would be wonderful if it were true, but it seems to me that there are many people who are not seeking at all, or who don't even know there's something they should be seeking, or are seeking the wrong thing. And what can you do? You cannot walk their path for them, you can't even make them see what they're missing. Life is difficult, and life is unfair. That is the way of things. I suppose that's why religions were created in the first place; though, of course, actual divine inspiration is entirely possible, and maybe when I die I'll show up and whatever god it happens to be will be all, "Ha-ha, don't you look fuckin stupid now."
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
30. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson
As I was reading through Siddhartha I actually found myself wanting something a little more serious. I suppose Emerson fits that bill; I'm sure in a week or so I'll be wanting something silly and fluffy instead.
Emerson is apparently referred to as a "transcendentalist" (whatever the hell that means); a champion of the sort of individualism which has come to be associated with the American spirit, which was then taken to its extreme by Ayn Rand and others.
One of the interesting things about Buddhism is that on the surface, it seems like a communal religion: love for all your fellow beings, for the plants and the rocks and the waves and all that hippy jazz. But when you find out more about it, you find that it reaches that level of community through a similar sort of individualism to that espoused by Emerson; that is, every thing, every creature, has their own potential, has something of the Buddha within them, and that's why you love them, because they are all Buddhas, all of them seeking their path. Obviously, Emerson doesn't quite put it that way, but the intent is similar. I read a passage recently talking about how everything is becoming, everything is evolving, even rocks; that perhaps copper is simply metal on its way to becoming something else, and when it's done being copper (though it may take millions or billions of years), it'll turn into silver, or gold, or whatever the next step on its path is.
I mean, it's a nice thought, and it would be wonderful if it were true, but it seems to me that there are many people who are not seeking at all, or who don't even know there's something they should be seeking, or are seeking the wrong thing. And what can you do? You cannot walk their path for them, you can't even make them see what they're missing. Life is difficult, and life is unfair. That is the way of things. I suppose that's why religions were created in the first place; though, of course, actual divine inspiration is entirely possible, and maybe when I die I'll show up and whatever god it happens to be will be all, "Ha-ha, don't you look fuckin stupid now."
Thursday, March 15, 2007
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
It's also interesting that the 2 movie adaptations I've seen (haven't seen Apt Pupil) are very accurate to the stories (from what I remember of them; it's been quite a while since I've seen them both). Well, maybe it's not that interesting. Maybe it's just kinda neat? A little neat? Not really neat and I'm a loser?
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. It's hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life.So, it turns out that the 4 short stories in Different Seasons were written several years apart, The Body being the first one, which is interesting because it's (to my mind) the best, and the most personal of the 4.
It's also interesting that the 2 movie adaptations I've seen (haven't seen Apt Pupil) are very accurate to the stories (from what I remember of them; it's been quite a while since I've seen them both). Well, maybe it's not that interesting. Maybe it's just kinda neat? A little neat? Not really neat and I'm a loser?
Green!
| You Are Emerald Green |
 Deep and mysterious, it often seems like no one truly gets you. Inside, you are very emotional and moody - though you don't let it show. People usually have a strong reaction to you... profound love or deep hate. But you can even get those who hate you to come around. There's something naturally harmonious about you. |
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Huzzah
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
Finished the RFK book. Quite the abrupt end, but I suppose it was quite an abrupt end for him, as well.
Different Seasons is a collection of short stories, 3 of which have been made into movies: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil", "The Body" (Stand By Me), and the fourth I've never heard of: "The Breathing Method". I've been trying to track down "The Body" for quite some time, and finally managed to find it in this book in a cute little used book store. Each story corresponds to a season, and it's interesting that "The Body" is fall; the beginning of the end of innocence, I suppose.
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
Finished the RFK book. Quite the abrupt end, but I suppose it was quite an abrupt end for him, as well.
Different Seasons is a collection of short stories, 3 of which have been made into movies: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil", "The Body" (Stand By Me), and the fourth I've never heard of: "The Breathing Method". I've been trying to track down "The Body" for quite some time, and finally managed to find it in this book in a cute little used book store. Each story corresponds to a season, and it's interesting that "The Body" is fall; the beginning of the end of innocence, I suppose.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Minority Casting
I have an audition on Wednesday, for a touring show in BC (British Columbia) from April to June. It's been quite a while since I auditioned for anything, and they're also expecting a bit of movement, so I'm not really sure how it's going to go.
What gives me pause, though, is the fact that the play is based on a Native American legend - the legend of Raven stealing the sun, moon and stars, and I'm auditioning for Raven.
I mean, that's fine and all (the myth is neat, and I've always had an affinity for trickster gods, from Raven to the Monkey King to Loki to Anansi - come to think of it, isn't it neat how the motif of the trickster god is repeated so often, all across the world? I wonder what, if any, similarities exist between the various cultures which believed in trickster gods), but it is, to my mind, mildly (to say the least) insulting to cast anything other than a Native American in that sort of role. From a production perspective, I'm sure it's many times more difficult to find a young Native American actor than any other visible minority, simply because they have it so much worse than any other minority in North America, and grinding, institutionalized poverty tends to create more disaffected substance abusers than actor-types. But then, wouldn't that make it all the more important to find them?
It's silly, but it's important to me. Since minorities are given so few chances to share their stories with others, it makes it all the more important that those stories are presented properly. Granted, I'm closer to Native American-looking than someone descended from European stock, but still, there's something about it that makes me vaguely uneasy.
What gives me pause, though, is the fact that the play is based on a Native American legend - the legend of Raven stealing the sun, moon and stars, and I'm auditioning for Raven.
I mean, that's fine and all (the myth is neat, and I've always had an affinity for trickster gods, from Raven to the Monkey King to Loki to Anansi - come to think of it, isn't it neat how the motif of the trickster god is repeated so often, all across the world? I wonder what, if any, similarities exist between the various cultures which believed in trickster gods), but it is, to my mind, mildly (to say the least) insulting to cast anything other than a Native American in that sort of role. From a production perspective, I'm sure it's many times more difficult to find a young Native American actor than any other visible minority, simply because they have it so much worse than any other minority in North America, and grinding, institutionalized poverty tends to create more disaffected substance abusers than actor-types. But then, wouldn't that make it all the more important to find them?
It's silly, but it's important to me. Since minorities are given so few chances to share their stories with others, it makes it all the more important that those stories are presented properly. Granted, I'm closer to Native American-looking than someone descended from European stock, but still, there's something about it that makes me vaguely uneasy.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
If This Is Groundhog Day, Where's Bill Murray?
Later that month Tom Wicker asked him on Face the Nation whether, in light of the administration claim that the "great threat from Asian communism" made victory essential for the security of the United States, it did not follow that "perhaps we ought to do as much as needs to be done?" The United States, Kennedy replied, had originally gone into South Vietnam in order to permit the South Vietnamese to decide their own future. Plainly the South Vietnamese did not like the future held out by the Saigon regime. So we had moved on to the national security argument.Quoted from the RFK book I'm reading, p. 824.
"Now we're saying we're going to fight there so that we don't have to fight in Thailand, so that we don't have to fight on the west coast of the United States, so that they won't move across the Rockies...Maybe [the people of South Vietnam] don't want it, but we want it, so we're going in there and we're killing South Vietnamese, we're killing children, we're killing women, we're killing innocent people...because [the Communists are] 12,000 miles away and they might get to be 11,000 miles away."
It is difficult, if not impossible, to make comparisons between any two geopolitical situations, but isn't it somewhat odd that you could change a couple nouns and arrive at a statement that one could imagine a senator saying today?
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Bridge to What-the-Fuck?
Just got in from Bridge to Terabithia. Honestly, it is possibly one of the most disturbing films (and thus, books) I've ever seen marketed to children. I'm probably going to check out the book at some time, just to know exactly how it's dealt with there, but...damn. There is certainly a niche there, but as a mass marketed tale? I honestly don't know.
About halfway through, I found myself thinking that all those kids in the movie (or perhaps just the chosen one or two) will soon become the next generation of Lindsay Lohans and Hilary Duffs. I found that quite sad.
Zooey Deschanel is also in it (though somewhat of a superfluous, cardboard character; I wouldn't be surprised to find that she doesn't exist in the book), and, as someone pointed out to me recently, she's really quite pretty. Or cute. Or hot. Or whatever you want to call it.
About halfway through, I found myself thinking that all those kids in the movie (or perhaps just the chosen one or two) will soon become the next generation of Lindsay Lohans and Hilary Duffs. I found that quite sad.
Zooey Deschanel is also in it (though somewhat of a superfluous, cardboard character; I wouldn't be surprised to find that she doesn't exist in the book), and, as someone pointed out to me recently, she's really quite pretty. Or cute. Or hot. Or whatever you want to call it.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Oh Yes
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
Still slogging my way through RFK.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of reading biography are the reminders that people are not monolithic. People are not always of one mind, and this may seem obvious if one assumes that to mean that people's thoughts and opinions change throughout their lives, but what I really mean is that it is possible to be of multiple opinions simultaneously. It is, indeed, possible to both love and hate someone or to be in favor of two things which seem diametrically opposed (anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, perhaps).
Is this rational? Perhaps not. Is this human? Most certainly.
What is perhaps most striking about great individuals is the particular way in which these combating impulses coalesce, which particular ones come to dominate at which points in their lives. One of the recurring threads of the RFK book (reflecting Schlesinger's point of view, from what I know of his work) is that individuals can make a difference, can identify issues and effect real, positive change. It is, perhaps, the most romantic notion of the book; a vestige of that time when all the problems of society seemed solvable.
I keep asking myself if I believe in that and I'm really not sure. Some days I do and some days I don't. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself. Because if you do believe that's true, then you're left with the obvious question: what are you doing to make things better?
We live in a society (assuming whoever reads this comes from the developed world) where all but the very lowest members remain within the top 10% of the world's population, in terms of privilege, opportunity and well-being. I personally come from an even smaller substratum, in or about the top 10% of that 10%. And often I cannot escape the feeling that I am wasting it, sitting around and waiting for something to fall into my lap.
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
Still slogging my way through RFK.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of reading biography are the reminders that people are not monolithic. People are not always of one mind, and this may seem obvious if one assumes that to mean that people's thoughts and opinions change throughout their lives, but what I really mean is that it is possible to be of multiple opinions simultaneously. It is, indeed, possible to both love and hate someone or to be in favor of two things which seem diametrically opposed (anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, perhaps).
Is this rational? Perhaps not. Is this human? Most certainly.
What is perhaps most striking about great individuals is the particular way in which these combating impulses coalesce, which particular ones come to dominate at which points in their lives. One of the recurring threads of the RFK book (reflecting Schlesinger's point of view, from what I know of his work) is that individuals can make a difference, can identify issues and effect real, positive change. It is, perhaps, the most romantic notion of the book; a vestige of that time when all the problems of society seemed solvable.
I keep asking myself if I believe in that and I'm really not sure. Some days I do and some days I don't. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself. Because if you do believe that's true, then you're left with the obvious question: what are you doing to make things better?
We live in a society (assuming whoever reads this comes from the developed world) where all but the very lowest members remain within the top 10% of the world's population, in terms of privilege, opportunity and well-being. I personally come from an even smaller substratum, in or about the top 10% of that 10%. And often I cannot escape the feeling that I am wasting it, sitting around and waiting for something to fall into my lap.
The List
Just got finished watching The Prestige, which I had wanted to catch in theaters but never did for want of a buddy or the testicular fortitude to go watch it alone, a block which I managed to break through before leaving New York.
Holy shit.
HOLY SHIT.
It is, I suppose, somewhat presumptuous to have a "list" of people you really, really, really, really, REALLY want to work with. Well, call me presumptuous, because Chris Nolan is one of those people.
I love that his movies are challenging, I love that they're intellectual, I love that they're great stories, I love that he is passionate about his work and it shows, particularly in The Prestige, where magic is a obvious metaphor for the movie making process. Indeed, the mind-numbingly large number of people who create movies (you know, all those Oscars that nobody pays attention to, because the people who win them tend to be extremely untelegenic and have little or no stage presence, which is why they work behind the scenes in the first place) are the modern-day inheritors of the magician's mantle. Everyone knows that there's no magic, that the Victorian era is gone, that there's a man behind the curtain and blah-di-de-blah-blah-blah (that's a technical term, for those of you not in "the biz"). But there is magic in the minutes and hours when you can make those things live again, where people will forget reality and believe in something you show them, and follow you wherever you are able to take them.
It is not, in the final analysis, a great movie. But it is a good one, and an interesting one, which is more than I can say for the vast majority of Hollywood releases nowadays.
Holy shit.
HOLY SHIT.
It is, I suppose, somewhat presumptuous to have a "list" of people you really, really, really, really, REALLY want to work with. Well, call me presumptuous, because Chris Nolan is one of those people.
I love that his movies are challenging, I love that they're intellectual, I love that they're great stories, I love that he is passionate about his work and it shows, particularly in The Prestige, where magic is a obvious metaphor for the movie making process. Indeed, the mind-numbingly large number of people who create movies (you know, all those Oscars that nobody pays attention to, because the people who win them tend to be extremely untelegenic and have little or no stage presence, which is why they work behind the scenes in the first place) are the modern-day inheritors of the magician's mantle. Everyone knows that there's no magic, that the Victorian era is gone, that there's a man behind the curtain and blah-di-de-blah-blah-blah (that's a technical term, for those of you not in "the biz"). But there is magic in the minutes and hours when you can make those things live again, where people will forget reality and believe in something you show them, and follow you wherever you are able to take them.
It is not, in the final analysis, a great movie. But it is a good one, and an interesting one, which is more than I can say for the vast majority of Hollywood releases nowadays.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Some Things'll Never...
I was recently informed of two things: that I dote on the women I become attached to, and that I'm far less entertaining when I'm sappy.
The person who said the former went on to say that it made me "safe," as far as women were concerned; that it was neither good, nor bad in and of itself; that it simply was.
Personally, I find that thought repulsive, all the more so because it's true.
One of the things in Sandman that speaks to me is the theme of change that runs through it, a theme which necessarily is found in any good story that spans several years in its telling. Morpheus changes throughout the series (indeed, throughout his "lifetime", as the series depicts him at many different points in his existence), but in the end is forced (or, perhaps, chooses) to face his limitations. And so, tiring of the struggle, he moves on.
I do not know if it is possible for people to change.
That reeks of such self-indulgence. "People can't change, so why bother trying?" I don't mean it to that extreme; as I've said in this space before, just because there might not be the possibility of wholesale change or amelioration, it does not follow that we should not strive to be better than we are.
In some ways, I suppose I do not want to change; perhaps that is the true problem. I've never wanted to be the cloying, annoying person draped all over a significant other in public, but when I care for someone I see nothing wrong with letting them know. I love fiercely and I love passionately, and I don't think those are bad things. They are somewhat nonsensical (I shudder at the use of adverbs, and hear acting teachers saying, "Show me 'fiercely,' you silly bastard."), but not categorically bad.
Still, it seems to be undesireable to project so much onto someone else, both for one's own identity and because it's unfair (not to mention annoying) to that person. I'm sure in my case it comes from my own specific circumstances and background; I could spend all sorts of time wallowing in a pathetic Psych 101 exploration of my neuroses.
I think I'll avoid that. For now.
Suffice to say I am aware of this shortcoming in myself, and am seeking a middle ground.
The person who said the former went on to say that it made me "safe," as far as women were concerned; that it was neither good, nor bad in and of itself; that it simply was.
Personally, I find that thought repulsive, all the more so because it's true.
One of the things in Sandman that speaks to me is the theme of change that runs through it, a theme which necessarily is found in any good story that spans several years in its telling. Morpheus changes throughout the series (indeed, throughout his "lifetime", as the series depicts him at many different points in his existence), but in the end is forced (or, perhaps, chooses) to face his limitations. And so, tiring of the struggle, he moves on.
I do not know if it is possible for people to change.
That reeks of such self-indulgence. "People can't change, so why bother trying?" I don't mean it to that extreme; as I've said in this space before, just because there might not be the possibility of wholesale change or amelioration, it does not follow that we should not strive to be better than we are.
In some ways, I suppose I do not want to change; perhaps that is the true problem. I've never wanted to be the cloying, annoying person draped all over a significant other in public, but when I care for someone I see nothing wrong with letting them know. I love fiercely and I love passionately, and I don't think those are bad things. They are somewhat nonsensical (I shudder at the use of adverbs, and hear acting teachers saying, "Show me 'fiercely,' you silly bastard."), but not categorically bad.
Still, it seems to be undesireable to project so much onto someone else, both for one's own identity and because it's unfair (not to mention annoying) to that person. I'm sure in my case it comes from my own specific circumstances and background; I could spend all sorts of time wallowing in a pathetic Psych 101 exploration of my neuroses.
I think I'll avoid that. For now.
Suffice to say I am aware of this shortcoming in myself, and am seeking a middle ground.
The End?
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
There. Now I've read every Neil Gaiman-written Sandman story. There are the Death stories (which I might pick up at some time), and there's another Sandman-titled book which I also might pick up eventually, I suppose.
Who am I kidding, I'll probably end up getting them before the week is over.
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
There. Now I've read every Neil Gaiman-written Sandman story. There are the Death stories (which I might pick up at some time), and there's another Sandman-titled book which I also might pick up eventually, I suppose.
Who am I kidding, I'll probably end up getting them before the week is over.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Unfinished Lives
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
There's 5 other Sandman books which I haven't picked up yet, but which I'm sure I will sometime over the next month.
It's really an incredible achievement, though one wonders if it might have been better or worse with a more consistent art crew. Sandman is the only major comic from this period that I can think of with a rotating cast of artists; many of the others were both written and drawn by the same individual (Maus, Love and Rockets, Cerebus, Sin City), and while Alan Moore worked with different artists, his stand-alone works (Watchmen and V for Vendetta) are drawn by the same artist from beginning to end. I suppose, though, that as Sandman concerns itself with the Lord of Dreams, and dreams are always in flux, the rotating cast of artists could be taken as another commentary on the world that Gaiman created.
I mean, I'm sure he just happened to use different artists for each storyline, but it's possible that he might have thought it out a bit more explicitly like that.
The RFK book I'm really looking forward to. Early on, Schlesinger (who actually passed away a day or two ago) makes the point that what is so poignant about RFK's death is that he was still in the process of becoming, a process which he had been going through his whole life. There are glimmers of the man he was at the time and whom he was becoming, perhaps most famously in the Indianapolis speech (and if you don't know what I'm taking about, I demand that you watch the linked video, and promise you will not regret it), but we will never know whether or not he would have faltered in the years to come, what mistakes he might have made and how he might have responded to them. In some ways, perhaps he was too good, too earnest, too honest of a man to live; the perfect symbol of an era which started with such promise and somehow, some way, lost its focus, as its leaders dropped by the wayside, one by one.
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
There's 5 other Sandman books which I haven't picked up yet, but which I'm sure I will sometime over the next month.
It's really an incredible achievement, though one wonders if it might have been better or worse with a more consistent art crew. Sandman is the only major comic from this period that I can think of with a rotating cast of artists; many of the others were both written and drawn by the same individual (Maus, Love and Rockets, Cerebus, Sin City), and while Alan Moore worked with different artists, his stand-alone works (Watchmen and V for Vendetta) are drawn by the same artist from beginning to end. I suppose, though, that as Sandman concerns itself with the Lord of Dreams, and dreams are always in flux, the rotating cast of artists could be taken as another commentary on the world that Gaiman created.
I mean, I'm sure he just happened to use different artists for each storyline, but it's possible that he might have thought it out a bit more explicitly like that.
The RFK book I'm really looking forward to. Early on, Schlesinger (who actually passed away a day or two ago) makes the point that what is so poignant about RFK's death is that he was still in the process of becoming, a process which he had been going through his whole life. There are glimmers of the man he was at the time and whom he was becoming, perhaps most famously in the Indianapolis speech (and if you don't know what I'm taking about, I demand that you watch the linked video, and promise you will not regret it), but we will never know whether or not he would have faltered in the years to come, what mistakes he might have made and how he might have responded to them. In some ways, perhaps he was too good, too earnest, too honest of a man to live; the perfect symbol of an era which started with such promise and somehow, some way, lost its focus, as its leaders dropped by the wayside, one by one.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Whiteout
The snow sheets down,
Blanketing the world in pristine white,
Harsh in its purity.
People enter bathed in it,
Baptized by the cold and the snow, melting in their hair.
In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.
Objects disappear, devolve
Into piles of pure white,
One lump
Indistininguishable
From another. The snow
Penetrates, it
Procreates,
Multiplying in nooks and crannies,
Covering all the hidden secrets of the world
In mute acceptance.
Turn your back for a moment and what you seek is
Gone,
Has vanished into a sea
Of white that numbs your hands as you dig,
Dig,
Dig, searching for your buried treasure.
And yet
In the cold
There is warmth,
There is a core of heat as old as the earth;
A cold heat that soaks into your bones,
That saps the strength and energizes,
That rebuilds and remakes you
In its own image
As it destroys what you once were.
And it is white
(so white)
All around, pressing down,
Penetrating
And pure, filling your vision and mind with
Ancient vistas,
Snowswept plains from the dawn of time
When gods were dreams.
It is a white of corrections, of
Failed impulses, of
Restarts and rewinds and redos,
Echoes of memories painted over and written over,
Forgotten
But still there,
Underneath it all.
Blanketing the world in pristine white,
Harsh in its purity.
People enter bathed in it,
Baptized by the cold and the snow, melting in their hair.
In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.
Objects disappear, devolve
Into piles of pure white,
One lump
Indistininguishable
From another. The snow
Penetrates, it
Procreates,
Multiplying in nooks and crannies,
Covering all the hidden secrets of the world
In mute acceptance.
Turn your back for a moment and what you seek is
Gone,
Has vanished into a sea
Of white that numbs your hands as you dig,
Dig,
Dig, searching for your buried treasure.
And yet
In the cold
There is warmth,
There is a core of heat as old as the earth;
A cold heat that soaks into your bones,
That saps the strength and energizes,
That rebuilds and remakes you
In its own image
As it destroys what you once were.
And it is white
(so white)
All around, pressing down,
Penetrating
And pure, filling your vision and mind with
Ancient vistas,
Snowswept plains from the dawn of time
When gods were dreams.
It is a white of corrections, of
Failed impulses, of
Restarts and rewinds and redos,
Echoes of memories painted over and written over,
Forgotten
But still there,
Underneath it all.
A Place Called Vertigo
1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
So Underworld was good, perhaps brilliant in the last 20-30 pages. One wonders if brief flashes of brilliance are worth 800 some-odd pages of ok to good writing, though in some ways those 800 pages are necessary; buildup and backstory and such. There are a couple of ideas I'm still trying to fully assimilate, which I tried to explain to someone yesterday and failed, I think, to convey effectively. Well, it's one idea, really, that permeates the book and makes it somewhat similar to The Human Stain, in that it's about trash, the detritus of life, though there's more of a physical element to it in Underworld. Like I said, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it.
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
So Underworld was good, perhaps brilliant in the last 20-30 pages. One wonders if brief flashes of brilliance are worth 800 some-odd pages of ok to good writing, though in some ways those 800 pages are necessary; buildup and backstory and such. There are a couple of ideas I'm still trying to fully assimilate, which I tried to explain to someone yesterday and failed, I think, to convey effectively. Well, it's one idea, really, that permeates the book and makes it somewhat similar to The Human Stain, in that it's about trash, the detritus of life, though there's more of a physical element to it in Underworld. Like I said, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it.
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