My Mother is a Fish aka As I Lay Dying The Movie

Yes, you read that right. And for those of you who've read any Faulkner at all, you are probably joining me in thinking "HOW!?!?"



Evidently James Franco stopped making movies for pot smokers somehow became a serious actor (can someone please tell me when that happened?), and he's going to tackle the project. I'm not sure how Faulkner's multi-narrator, stream-of-consciousness style is going to translate onto the screen, but I admit I'll be curious to see it.

Read more on Franco's ideas here (Thanks Katie for sending me the link!).

What do you think? Ambitious film making or potential disaster?

Pineapple Express image found here.

Virginia Woolf Brain Snack

Yesterday was Virginia Woolf's birthday, and this article includes 59 informational tidbits about her. It looks like the only we have in common is a complete and utter dislike for James Joyce.

Enjoy!

Only connect!

So it would probably be a useful exercise for me to post more frequently here so I don't have to cram so many thoughts into one small space, but I get too involved in the story and forget to write. Oops.

I thoroughly enjoyed Howard's End. Even though dear old Eddie pulled the "I'm including characters to represent lofty ideas" ruse, I didn't find that as bothersome or obvious as I have in other works (*cough* The Jungle *cough* Lady Chatterley's Lover). The Schlegels, representing liberal intellectualism, unite with the Wilcoxes, conservative, practical businesspeople, through the marriage of Margaret Schlegel and Henry Wilcox.

And let's be honest here, if I wasn't imagining Henry Wilcox as Anthony Hopkins, I would think he was pretty much a giant jerk. Sometimes even the imagined Hopkins charm couldn't salvage his remarks. Upon learning he'd caused Leonard Bast to lose his job, Henry's response was pretty much "There will always be poor people. Not my problem!" And some of the terribly chauvinistic remarks he would make to Margaret made me seriously question how someone as awesomely smart, practical, and loving as Meg could have fallen for a guy who is more or less an arse. Women's expectations were a lot lower in 1910? I wanted to like Henry because Margaret loved him so much, but never could quite make myself do it.


.

But she crossed out "I do understand"; it struck a ... false note. Henry could not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, "It is everything or nothing." Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must not comment; comment is unfeminine. (28.3)

Through a series of events too complicated to relay in their entirety here (but including such juicy tidbits as a former mistress, an unexpected pregnancy, and a possible murder), everything works out in the end. Meg's mantra of "Only connect!" not only helps her love all the very different personalities in her new family, it indeed helps Henry and her sister Helen learn how to better love and "connect" with others. Forster leaves us with the idea that the different English classes will soon intermingle and learn to respect one another. As I am not British, I can't really say whether I think his prediction came to pass, but it's certainly an optimistic way to end the novel. And if there's anything I really treasure on this list, it's an optimistic ending. Trust me, there are plenty of dire endings to balance this one out. And bonus - Meg gets Howard's End after all!

I'm really excited to watch the movie some time this week to see how it compares to the novel, as this seems to be one of only a handful of cases where the book and the movie receive favorable reviews.

Want to read Howard's End yourself? Download the ebook from Project Gutenberg here.

Bonus question - what do you think is the best movie adaptation of a novel? What's the worst?


Anthony Hopkins image found here

More Howard's End Love!

Just spotted this on Design*Sponge today. Enjoy!

A Little E.M. Forster Love

I'm a third of the way into Howard's End, and I admit that I've been remiss in posting about it. Mostly because I just get school girl giddy when I'm reading me some Forster, and I wonder if anyone would find it interesting to read my gushing over his way with words. I love - dare I say luuuuurv? - how this man puts together his sentences!


I heart you and your funny moustache, Eddie.

One sticking point of this project is that the novels are predominantly...well...sad/angry/life-is-so-crushingly-depressing type stories. It's super refreshing for me when I actually get to read a novel that's happy or even (gasp!) funny! And though I don't know how Howard's End (which, by the way, is a house) will end, I love Forster's dry humour so much that I'm going to start spelling like a Brit. And there's a movie adaptation with Tony Hopkins and Emma Thompson?


I think I'm in Heaven. Even if he is clearly too old for her.

Now on to the story. Thus far we are following the Wilcox family, the Schlegel family, and a poor gentleman named Leonard Bast (whose name I love because my friend Sarah always wanted to name a cat Leonard). Mrs. Wilcox has just died and left a handwritten note that her home, Howard's End, is to be left to the oldest Schlegel girl Margaret, whom she recently befriended. Of course, the Wilcoxes aren't having this, and they tear up the note and throw it into the fire. Ouch!

Does anyone else feel like they'd have a much more serious moral dilemma about discarding their mom/wife's last wishes? Of course, being put out of your own house isn't much of a proposition either.

In any case, Margaret doesn't know about Mrs. Wilcox's last wish, and now several years have passed. I'm pretty sure it will come up again, because that's how stories like this work, right? In the meantime, Helen, the younger Schlegel sister, has just had an interesting run in with a strange visitor who seems to have lost her husband. And I will leave you with a brief excerpt of the incident, just to show that really it is funny and not sad, despite the plot description so far!

"Now, Helen, what did really happen?"

"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open. Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my husband, what I have reason to believe is here.' No--how unjust one is. She said 'whom,' not 'what.' She got it perfectly. So I said, 'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan, Miss,' and there we were.

"Lan?"

"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline. "

"But what an extraordinary--"

"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.'"



Howard's End photo found here. 

Future Best Books?

Here's a fun trip into the past! Check out the best selling books on the day you were born.

Sadly, I've not read anything notable from my birthday. Since novels written in 1983 could have been included in the Radcliffe Publishing Best List, I guess they weren't that great? :)

But for those young'uns born after 1998, we could be looking at candidates for future Best Lists! I'm crossing my fingers that Harry Potter will make it (and The Da Vinci Code...not so much).

Final Thoughts: My Antonia

So I finally finished My Antonia last night. And if you guessed from the dearth of posts that I didn't find it overly interesting, you'd be right!

I'm still debating why I think this book made the 100 Best list. Willa Cather's writing was fine. The story was fine. Characters were fine. I guess when I'm reading something that makes the final cut of 100 from the many thousands (millions?) of books in print, I expect a little more than fine.

The nostalgically written story basically followed Antonia and Jim Burden, the story's narrator, from childhood into young adulthood, covering all the triumphs and mistakes along the way. Perhaps the story was lackluster to me because it was almost too normal. Some of the kids go to school, others go into business, Antonia gets pregnant out of wedlock but ends up finding a kind man and having a large family with him. These things happen in life.


That's why we have Teen Mom.

I try to imagine reading the story at the time it was written, when gender roles were much different, and how that experience might change my perspective on the narrative. Cather's women are predominantly strong characters, capable of handling hardships that the men in the tale seem to buckle under. In 1918, I'm sure the inverted gender roles made My Antonia much more intriguing to the reader. Today, I found the female characters relatable but just...not that interesting.

Too, I think Antonia was supposed to symbolize the earth/Nebraska/the country lifestyle. I'm not sure about you, but I often have trouble with symbol characters and find them difficult to care about.


Is it me, or does this Earth Mother look suspiciously like the gal from My Big Fat Greek Wedding?

Of course, had I read this immediately following A Room with a View or something by Edith Wharton, maybe I would have been in a better mindset for a sweet story of times gone by.  A Clockwork Orange doesn't really prepare you for that. :)

Overall rating: Meh.

Teen Mom photo found here and Earth Mother image found here.

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Thus far, My Antonia has read like a delightful blast from my childhood past, the sweeping prose describing the expanse of the Nebraska landscape, the harsh realities of farm life on the frontier, and the wonder of it all seen through Jim's ten year old eyes. Cue montage of beloved prairie girls:


The book that inspired me to drag my sister in a covered red wagon across the frontier my grandparents' farm.





Yes, my mom did sew me a dress and apron similar to this so I could go to school rocking the prairie style.

Then somehow last night my pleasant prairie fantasy turned into something from Grimm's Fairy Tales when the Russians Peter and Pavel tell the gruesome story of why they were forced to immigrate to the U.S. Wedding party, fun and games, drinky drink, good times, and suddenly...the Russian wedding party is being overrun by wolves. What! And to save their skins, groomsmen Pete and Pavel toss the bride and groom out of the sled to the wolves.


The Neverending Story was pretty scary too.


Does this happen? Can wolves really outrun a horse? Will they really attack you out of the blue and eat you!?

I thought I had this genre down pat, but clearly my adult experience is going to be a little different...

Neverending Story image found here.

A Brief Side Trip

I begin most mornings with a cup of coffee and some quality time with my Google Reader (yes, I guess I do read an inordinate amount). Today's news included an article about a new edition of Huck Finn that will have all instances of the n-word removed. Read the full article here.


Huck Finn also has the distinction of being the first movie I saw at the theater with a boy. Awww...

While Huck Finn isn't on my 100 Best list, which only includes novels from 1900-1998, I'm sure in most people's minds it qualifies as a classic. What do you think of this new edition? Will it make Twain approachable to a wider audience of readers? Is it criminal censorship of the worst kind?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Huck Finn image found here.

Deep and Hard Questions

I've been pondering for the last three days on what I wanted to write about A Clockwork Orange. My mind's been in overdrive since I finished it Thursday night. Perhaps it's that the book coincided with the end of one year and the promising start of a new one; perhaps it's that I'm enjoying an unusual amount of solitude while my husband visits family in California; perhaps it's that I saw Black Swan yesterday and now I have to think about something else or I get the creeps. In any case, I'm struggling to find the right words to describe a novel that I didn't really like, and yet somehow loved. Yes, this one deservedly makes the Personal Best List.

Jake tries to help me collect my thoughts.

Burgess poses a tough problem with Alex's forced conversion to model behavior. Clearly he finds the government's power to snatch away free will to be more terrifying than Alex's brutal, destructive nature. In a sense, I understand that - the enormity of that power and the ability to inflict it even on those who do not need "reform" is quite disturbing. And yet...I'm not quite buying it either.

My version of the book included the "controversial" last chapter, which was not published in the original U.S. edition and thus not included in the Kubrick film's ending. Essentially the last chapter sees Alex grow out of his hedonistic ways and voluntary choose the straight and narrow, to the point that he now focuses his energies on finding a mate and perhaps starting a family of his own. Errr...wait. Wait. WAIT. So, murder, rape, beatings, etc. are just the product of youth's folly??? I'm sorry Mr. Burgess. I see that you might want to end the book on a more positive, upbeat note, but really, this ending is a cop out. It's much more unsettling, and I think realistic, to end the book with Chapter 20, wherein Alex is cured of his conditioning and able to terrorize the night once more.

Perhaps it's too American Puritan of me, but I want consequences when someone chooses to inflict harm on others. It's galling to me that Alex brutally murdered at least two people, raped children, and attacked old men, and the only punishment he may potentially suffer is having a child that will go through the same "stage" of violent behavior? I don't think he even feels remorse for what he's done, just boredom with it all and readiness to move on to something new. Murder is so old hat, you know.

Despite all of that, I liked the questions that the novel put forth. I like that it really made me think carefully about the nature of good and evil and the motivations for our actions. A Clockwork Orange reminded me that our free will is a terrible and wonderful gift. And so, with that, I shall leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the novel as spoken by the prison chaplain (or charlie):

"It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questions…" (2.3.13)