David Adams Richards has been awarded both of Canada's national literary prizes for his work in the novel: the Governor General's (1988), and the Giller (2000). But before the prizes there was a first novel, The Coming Of Winter (1974).
It took me only a few chapters with Winter to realize how so early in his career, Richards had marked out his fictional territory, and found the voice to write about it. Richards's later novels would become both more elaborate and emphatic. But in Winter, Richards was already writing the Miramichi that will draw comparisons to Hardy's Wessex and Faulkner's South.
II.
Kevin Dulse is in that uncertain stage between late adolescence and new adulthood. As Winter opens, we find young Dulse hunting in the Miramichi woods in New Brunswick. The hunt ends with Kevin shooting and killing a farmer's cow.
Dulse then heads to a local tavern. There he learns that his friend Andy has been killed in a car accident. Later, when Andy's death comes up among Dulse's other friends, Bruce and John, Kevin would prefer not to discuss the subject. "'It doesn't do one bit of good to talk about it'", he says.<1>
Dulse's origins are working class, and he himself has a job at a mill, pouring bags of lime into water, shift after heavy shift. His girlfriend Pamela is a nurse, and on the sum of their incomes, they plan to marry. The wedding day concludes the novel.
III.
Winter's prose is of an artful realism. At its surface, it records the muted and cyclical routines of its setting. But if you probe deeper into the subtle text, the reader will encounter a speech and a world of understated emotion. It doesn't do one bit of good to talk about it. There is sorrow, rage and loss in Richards's storytelling, as well as humour, joy and love. The Coming Of Winter is a first novel that more than once suggests the poetical through its realism.
__________
<1>Richards, David Adams. The Coming Of Winter. 1992 Edition: New Canadian Library, McClelland & Stewart Inc.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Friday, October 31, 2014
Breaking Code
When I first wrote about Breaking Bad, I'd only seen the one season on dvd. <1> Having viewed the complete series now, Bad is television drama that retains its noir sting. There are flashes of confrontation and violence that bring the Western into the equation as well. But no matter the genre conventions it uses, the show is always engrossing television, superbly written, acted and produced.
II.
Breaking Bad is also popular art that invites serious discussion. Issues of morality in contemporary America are boldly raised, and powerfully dramatized by the show. At its centre, there is the character of Walter White. Speaking of character in a fictional work involves identifying traits, and considering how those traits change, or become reinforced over time. But what does it mean when a character is most present when his character is most absent?
I mean that it allows White to turn from character, into cypher. <2> Whereas character is usually developed by the interaction of an individual with social figures and factors, a cypher can be self-made. White then breaks the codes of established law and morality, and displaces them with his own encoded compulsions. It allows White to keep his criminality secret as long as he does, and charges his new role as a gangster.
III.
Bryan Cranston's performance as Walter White is attentive to reminding us of White's vulnerabilities throughout the series. Among the many images that will stay with me is that of Walter White thus, crying out in helpless grief. To be sure, his is an agony caused by bearing the full fruit of his actions. But I was also seeing the agony that may be caused by extinguishing character and self, and the consequences that follow for the soul.
__________
<1>"Running Between the Raindrops". BMT, November 2013.
<2>"Cypher", from the Arabic sifr meaning "zero", or, nothing.
II.
Breaking Bad is also popular art that invites serious discussion. Issues of morality in contemporary America are boldly raised, and powerfully dramatized by the show. At its centre, there is the character of Walter White. Speaking of character in a fictional work involves identifying traits, and considering how those traits change, or become reinforced over time. But what does it mean when a character is most present when his character is most absent?
I mean that it allows White to turn from character, into cypher. <2> Whereas character is usually developed by the interaction of an individual with social figures and factors, a cypher can be self-made. White then breaks the codes of established law and morality, and displaces them with his own encoded compulsions. It allows White to keep his criminality secret as long as he does, and charges his new role as a gangster.
III.
Bryan Cranston's performance as Walter White is attentive to reminding us of White's vulnerabilities throughout the series. Among the many images that will stay with me is that of Walter White thus, crying out in helpless grief. To be sure, his is an agony caused by bearing the full fruit of his actions. But I was also seeing the agony that may be caused by extinguishing character and self, and the consequences that follow for the soul.
__________
<1>"Running Between the Raindrops". BMT, November 2013.
<2>"Cypher", from the Arabic sifr meaning "zero", or, nothing.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
A Second First Essay
There is a point beyond which the clutter in one's space can no longer go unremarked. Trying to tidy things by moving some paper-choked boxes around, I came across an old folder of undergraduate essays. There it still lay: my first university essay on a literary subject: a required consideration of Willa Cather's compelling story, "Paul's Case". The following will be, I suppose, an elective consideration of "Paul's Case". <1>
II.
Reading Cather's story again these years later, I noticed a detail I don't recall raised in our lectures or tutorial group. It comes early in the narrative, after Paul has just finished delivering one of his sub-Wildean performances ("there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin...and a red carnation") to a group of faculty at Pittsburgh High School. After Paul bows "gracefully" from the Principal's office, it's his Art teacher that notes Paul was born "only a few months before his mother died".
III.
Paul doesn't have much of a relationship with his parent that remains, and seems to work hard at keeping it that way. Coming home late one evening, for example, Paul actually prefers breaking in through a basement window than to be "accosted" by his father for explanations, if he were to enter their house through the main entrance. In a certain way, Paul only tolerates his father by the nature of their bond - and his father would seem to return the sentiment. Paul is only too aware of being compared to another neighbourhood young man, whom his father "daily held up to Paul as a model...a young man with a future". Paul will have none of this, his father's attempt at sensible guidance, as he is being led by a sensibility (or a sensibility in the making) of his own.
Having the sensibility of an aesthete, Paul suffers and humours the banal and tiresome routines of his middling circumstances, so that he can escape to the world of art and beauty. The access to his preferred society comes from Paul's part-time job as an usher at Carnegie Hall. Only here, he "really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting", and when the orchestra played "the overture from Martha, or jerked at the serenade from Rigoletto...his senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired." But because of his various delinquencies, Paul loses his job at the Carnegie. He responds by running away to New York on stolen money. Cather resolves Paul's truancy there in the big city, with a most sombre conclusion.
IV.
Let us come on back now to the detail of Paul's mother passing away, just months after his birth. Was this Cather only emphasizing the sense of Paul's isolation and estrangement? Given the precise highly-wrought text, it's hard to think it a crude emphasis, certainly. Willa Cather has made sure though that Paul have no mother to turn to. Such a maternal presence might have proved crucial, in Paul's case.
__________
<1>Cather, Willa. "Paul's Case". The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (1986).
II.
Reading Cather's story again these years later, I noticed a detail I don't recall raised in our lectures or tutorial group. It comes early in the narrative, after Paul has just finished delivering one of his sub-Wildean performances ("there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin...and a red carnation") to a group of faculty at Pittsburgh High School. After Paul bows "gracefully" from the Principal's office, it's his Art teacher that notes Paul was born "only a few months before his mother died".
III.
Paul doesn't have much of a relationship with his parent that remains, and seems to work hard at keeping it that way. Coming home late one evening, for example, Paul actually prefers breaking in through a basement window than to be "accosted" by his father for explanations, if he were to enter their house through the main entrance. In a certain way, Paul only tolerates his father by the nature of their bond - and his father would seem to return the sentiment. Paul is only too aware of being compared to another neighbourhood young man, whom his father "daily held up to Paul as a model...a young man with a future". Paul will have none of this, his father's attempt at sensible guidance, as he is being led by a sensibility (or a sensibility in the making) of his own.
Having the sensibility of an aesthete, Paul suffers and humours the banal and tiresome routines of his middling circumstances, so that he can escape to the world of art and beauty. The access to his preferred society comes from Paul's part-time job as an usher at Carnegie Hall. Only here, he "really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting", and when the orchestra played "the overture from Martha, or jerked at the serenade from Rigoletto...his senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired." But because of his various delinquencies, Paul loses his job at the Carnegie. He responds by running away to New York on stolen money. Cather resolves Paul's truancy there in the big city, with a most sombre conclusion.
IV.
Let us come on back now to the detail of Paul's mother passing away, just months after his birth. Was this Cather only emphasizing the sense of Paul's isolation and estrangement? Given the precise highly-wrought text, it's hard to think it a crude emphasis, certainly. Willa Cather has made sure though that Paul have no mother to turn to. Such a maternal presence might have proved crucial, in Paul's case.
__________
<1>Cather, Willa. "Paul's Case". The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (1986).
Monday, September 1, 2014
Bedside Manner
Our film opens with a young lady picking up a Marine in her car. He immediately asks if they might pick up another soldier down the road. The lady agrees, commenting, "I hear it's not too difficult". No sooner has the second Marine hopped in that he asks the lady the same question as the first soldier, leading her to declare: "What is this? An ambush?" The three Marines are named Tom, Dick and Harry, and share a surname. Smith.
II.
So begins Her Favorite Patient, a comedy that sometimes drives its tone of chirpy silliness right into the surreal. The lady transporting the three Marines turns out to be Dr. Hedy Fredericks (Ruth Hussey), who's on her way to Chicago, but has decided to stop off in her hometown, Blithewood. There she visits her uncle, J.H. Fredericks (Charles Ruggles), who also happens to be a medical doctor.
Dr. Fredericks certainly has his hands full with a busy practice, and tries to convince his niece to join him as a physician at the office. But Dr. Hedy declines the offer, being set on going off to big-city Chicago. What's Dr. Fredericks to do? Will he simply accept his niece's decision - no. Will he dream up a scheme to keep Hedy in Blithewood - of course.
The doctor's plan involves a pilot in town, Morgan Hale (John Carroll). Through a series of machinations, the doctor has Hale become his niece's long-term patient. Does Morgan Hale echo the looks of Clark Gable with his leading moustache - yes. Is there romantic intrigue developed between Morgan and Hedy - of course.
III.
Her Favorite Patient also goes by an alternate title, "Bedside Manner". It was directed by Andrew L. Stone, and released by United Artists. In 1945.
II.
So begins Her Favorite Patient, a comedy that sometimes drives its tone of chirpy silliness right into the surreal. The lady transporting the three Marines turns out to be Dr. Hedy Fredericks (Ruth Hussey), who's on her way to Chicago, but has decided to stop off in her hometown, Blithewood. There she visits her uncle, J.H. Fredericks (Charles Ruggles), who also happens to be a medical doctor.
Dr. Fredericks certainly has his hands full with a busy practice, and tries to convince his niece to join him as a physician at the office. But Dr. Hedy declines the offer, being set on going off to big-city Chicago. What's Dr. Fredericks to do? Will he simply accept his niece's decision - no. Will he dream up a scheme to keep Hedy in Blithewood - of course.
The doctor's plan involves a pilot in town, Morgan Hale (John Carroll). Through a series of machinations, the doctor has Hale become his niece's long-term patient. Does Morgan Hale echo the looks of Clark Gable with his leading moustache - yes. Is there romantic intrigue developed between Morgan and Hedy - of course.
III.
Her Favorite Patient also goes by an alternate title, "Bedside Manner". It was directed by Andrew L. Stone, and released by United Artists. In 1945.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Footprints In The Shadows
Dean Koontz is known for his thrillers in pop fiction. Koontz's use of referentiality, however, also brings his work into the conversation of literary fiction.
II.
Take as an example a more recent Koontz novel, 77 Shadow Street. It features the Pendleton, a sprawling mansion in the American heartland, originally built in 1889 to the taste of the billionaire Andrew North Pendleton. The sinister soon followed.
Pendleton's wife and two children vanished from the mansion, never to be found, leaving Andrew North to turn insane with grief. The owners after Pendleton, the Ostock family, were murdered in 1935 by their butler, Nolan Tolliver. Tolliver then killed himself, leaving a cryptic note to explain his actions, as an attempt to "'save the world from eternal darkness'". <1>
The Pendleton now, in the 21st century, is a swanky condo building. How and what Koontz writes of some of the current building's residents makes for the referential discourse I alluded to earlier. It is a discourse that exposes a corruption of appetites.
III.
Among the Pendletonians, there is the hitman Mickey Dime. His pleasure in termination is connected to the pleasure he receives from art - through its "sensation". "True art was about the meaninglessness of life, about the freedom of transgression, about power."
There is the enigmatic figure known only as "Witness". He has great feeling for the law, "just as a man who lived in godless despair might esteem the idea of God that he was unable to embrace".
There is the "One", the Pendleton's artificial intelligence/ consciousness. Throughout the story, the One makes its declarations: "The only love that matters is self-love, and the only self worth loving is the One"; or, "A world of weaklings is a world without a future". Just in case we still haven't caught the reference, the One states: "In your wisdom, you once observed: 'What need have we of gods if we become gods ourselves?'"
And then, there's Fielding Udell.
IV.
Being a heir to great wealth, Fielding Udell has perhaps too much time on his hands. All that leisure and...Udell becomes obsessed with conspiracy theories. When his various researches on the internet scuttle one apocalyptic scenario after another, he makes a breakthrough; and it's not realizing that he might be a mite paranoid. No, he comes to believe that the conspiracies he had investigated were actually the fabrications of a Ruling Elite, to "control the masses with fear".
But wait! Udell makes a bigger breakthrough when he infers that instead of inventing crises, the Elite were concealing them, to "prevent panic...and the loss of their power". And just who or what was this Ruling Elite? Udell has his guesses - survivors from the continent Atlantis, space aliens, or even, the "Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks" - and is hard at work on them, when all kinds of paranormal activity breaks out in the Pendleton building.
As another of Koontz's characters, the novelist Sparkle Sykes looks on, two house cats transform into a new "biological chaos" of a creature. By the hallucinatory nature of this event, Sykes is reminded of "Thomas Pynchon, six genres in the same book, horror blooming out of horror with a feverish delight".
V.
There will be readers to whom referentiality matters little, who come to Dean Koontz mostly for page-turning chills and thrills. Their book is also here, at 77 Shadow Street.
__________
<1>Koontz, Dean. 77 Shadow Street. Bantam Books, 2011.
II.
Take as an example a more recent Koontz novel, 77 Shadow Street. It features the Pendleton, a sprawling mansion in the American heartland, originally built in 1889 to the taste of the billionaire Andrew North Pendleton. The sinister soon followed.
Pendleton's wife and two children vanished from the mansion, never to be found, leaving Andrew North to turn insane with grief. The owners after Pendleton, the Ostock family, were murdered in 1935 by their butler, Nolan Tolliver. Tolliver then killed himself, leaving a cryptic note to explain his actions, as an attempt to "'save the world from eternal darkness'". <1>
The Pendleton now, in the 21st century, is a swanky condo building. How and what Koontz writes of some of the current building's residents makes for the referential discourse I alluded to earlier. It is a discourse that exposes a corruption of appetites.
III.
Among the Pendletonians, there is the hitman Mickey Dime. His pleasure in termination is connected to the pleasure he receives from art - through its "sensation". "True art was about the meaninglessness of life, about the freedom of transgression, about power."
There is the enigmatic figure known only as "Witness". He has great feeling for the law, "just as a man who lived in godless despair might esteem the idea of God that he was unable to embrace".
There is the "One", the Pendleton's artificial intelligence/ consciousness. Throughout the story, the One makes its declarations: "The only love that matters is self-love, and the only self worth loving is the One"; or, "A world of weaklings is a world without a future". Just in case we still haven't caught the reference, the One states: "In your wisdom, you once observed: 'What need have we of gods if we become gods ourselves?'"
And then, there's Fielding Udell.
IV.
Being a heir to great wealth, Fielding Udell has perhaps too much time on his hands. All that leisure and...Udell becomes obsessed with conspiracy theories. When his various researches on the internet scuttle one apocalyptic scenario after another, he makes a breakthrough; and it's not realizing that he might be a mite paranoid. No, he comes to believe that the conspiracies he had investigated were actually the fabrications of a Ruling Elite, to "control the masses with fear".
But wait! Udell makes a bigger breakthrough when he infers that instead of inventing crises, the Elite were concealing them, to "prevent panic...and the loss of their power". And just who or what was this Ruling Elite? Udell has his guesses - survivors from the continent Atlantis, space aliens, or even, the "Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks" - and is hard at work on them, when all kinds of paranormal activity breaks out in the Pendleton building.
As another of Koontz's characters, the novelist Sparkle Sykes looks on, two house cats transform into a new "biological chaos" of a creature. By the hallucinatory nature of this event, Sykes is reminded of "Thomas Pynchon, six genres in the same book, horror blooming out of horror with a feverish delight".
V.
There will be readers to whom referentiality matters little, who come to Dean Koontz mostly for page-turning chills and thrills. Their book is also here, at 77 Shadow Street.
__________
<1>Koontz, Dean. 77 Shadow Street. Bantam Books, 2011.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
The Road To Sunshine
The month is July, and up here in North America, family vacations and the road trip are in full swing. Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 2006) takes the family road trip, and builds a comedy out of the ritual that's both funny and thoughtful. The film benefits from a fine screenplay (Michael Arndt), as well as the sharp work of its directors and ensemble cast.
II.
The Hoovers live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There is Sheryl and Richard Hoover (Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear), their seven-year-old daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), and Sheryl's son from an earlier marriage, the teenage Dwayne (Paul Dano). Two other adult family members have also taken up residence with the Hoovers: Richard's ageing father Edwin (Alan Arkin), and Sheryl's brother Frank (Steve Carrell).
Sunshine makes quick work of attaching signature bits of business to members of the family Hoover. Sheryl's brother Frank is a Proust scholar, who has tried to kill himself recently over a romantic disappointment. Sheryl has brought him home to supervise Frank's continued suicide-watch. Richard, Sheryl's husband, is busy trying to make a success out of promoting a motivational program. Richard's father, Edwin, enjoys recreational drugs and spouting obscenities, mostly because at his age, he doesn't give a fork what anybody thinks. Sheryl's son Dwayne is a moody adolescent, who has taken a vow of silence for reasons best known to him alone.
And then there's Olive, whose dream of competing in a children's beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, has all the Hoovers pile into a rickety yellow van, and head out on the open road.
III.
I won't spoil by elaborating what exactly happens when the family finally reaches the pageant in California. What I will say is that the concluding number is well-worth the wait, both in its affirmation and irony. Boy, those Hoovers really showed them! And themselves.
II.
The Hoovers live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There is Sheryl and Richard Hoover (Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear), their seven-year-old daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin), and Sheryl's son from an earlier marriage, the teenage Dwayne (Paul Dano). Two other adult family members have also taken up residence with the Hoovers: Richard's ageing father Edwin (Alan Arkin), and Sheryl's brother Frank (Steve Carrell).
Sunshine makes quick work of attaching signature bits of business to members of the family Hoover. Sheryl's brother Frank is a Proust scholar, who has tried to kill himself recently over a romantic disappointment. Sheryl has brought him home to supervise Frank's continued suicide-watch. Richard, Sheryl's husband, is busy trying to make a success out of promoting a motivational program. Richard's father, Edwin, enjoys recreational drugs and spouting obscenities, mostly because at his age, he doesn't give a fork what anybody thinks. Sheryl's son Dwayne is a moody adolescent, who has taken a vow of silence for reasons best known to him alone.
And then there's Olive, whose dream of competing in a children's beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, has all the Hoovers pile into a rickety yellow van, and head out on the open road.
III.
I won't spoil by elaborating what exactly happens when the family finally reaches the pageant in California. What I will say is that the concluding number is well-worth the wait, both in its affirmation and irony. Boy, those Hoovers really showed them! And themselves.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Book Learning
The Book and The Brotherhood was Iris Murdoch's twenty-third novel. She was to write three more, before her death in 1999.
II.
We open Book to a midsummer's ball at Oxford University. Through this chapter devoted to the ball, Murdoch introduces us to the characters that will concern us most in the novel. The brotherhood is a group of fellow Oxford graduates: Gerard Hernshaw, Jenkin Riderhood, Duncan Cambus, Jean Kowitz Cambus and Rose Curtland. The book is a promised work of philosophy, by an Oxford graduate of Scottish birth, David Crimond. Hernshaw and the others first met Crimond as undergraduates, eventually forming a "brotherhood" to financially aid Crimond in finishing his book.
By the time of the ball, both Crimond and the brotherhood have slid into middle age. This passage of time, among other things, has served to underscore that Crimond's book remains unfinished, while its author in recent years has become detached and removed from the people who continue to finance his efforts. The night of the ball marks Crimond's return; his reappearance is noted in the very first sentence of the novel. "David Crimond is here in a
II.
We open Book to a midsummer's ball at Oxford University. Through this chapter devoted to the ball, Murdoch introduces us to the characters that will concern us most in the novel. The brotherhood is a group of fellow Oxford graduates: Gerard Hernshaw, Jenkin Riderhood, Duncan Cambus, Jean Kowitz Cambus and Rose Curtland. The book is a promised work of philosophy, by an Oxford graduate of Scottish birth, David Crimond. Hernshaw and the others first met Crimond as undergraduates, eventually forming a "brotherhood" to financially aid Crimond in finishing his book.
By the time of the ball, both Crimond and the brotherhood have slid into middle age. This passage of time, among other things, has served to underscore that Crimond's book remains unfinished, while its author in recent years has become detached and removed from the people who continue to finance his efforts. The night of the ball marks Crimond's return; his reappearance is noted in the very first sentence of the novel. "David Crimond is here in a
kilt!" <1>
In a kilt, and come to dance. "Crimond danced with a magisterial precision, his torso stiff, his shoulders held well back, as taut as a bow...he reminded Gerard of one of the tall Greek kouroi in the Acropolis museum". Gerard's observation also speaks of an opposition between the two men - Gerard the Platonist, David the Marxist. Crimond's dance partner is Jean Cambus, and before the ball has concluded, Jean will have eloped with Crimond for a second time. Also for a second time, Crimond will get the better of Jean's husband in a fight, on the same evening, by shoving Duncan Cambus into the college river Cherwell.
III.
Jean Cambus first committed adultery with Crimond years earlier in Ireland. Before that encounter, Murdoch had already told us that Duncan Cambus is "stout and tall...his big shoulders gave a look of menacing power". And yet, when matters come to a physical confrontation over Jean and David's affair, it is Crimond who emerges the victor. "Crimond punched Duncan as hard as he could...Duncan fell back and tumbled down the spiral staircase into the room below".
Jean eventually returned to Duncan, asking forgiveness. As Duncan is helpless in his love for Jean, he forgave her. Marital harmony follows until the Oxford ball, when Jean runs off with Crimond, again.
What manner of a person is David Crimond that he can entice the same woman to twice betray her husband through adulterous relations? Here, Murdoch's Slavic influences surface, as she has lent Crimond the charisma of a fierce-eyed radical intellectual in a 19th century Russian novel. He is profoundly obsessive about the things that concern him, whether it's his form of Marxism, or a woman he happens to desire. Murdoch suggests that it is the ruthless edge of Crimond's passions that Jean Cambus finds so specially exciting.
Crimond is a Marxist, but Murdoch reveals a Nietzschean strain in him as well. "We are fat with false morality and inwardness and authenticity and decayed Christianity", Crimond declares at one point; or, "Truth may have to appear as a lie - that we are sick with morality, that morality is a disease to be got over", quotes Rose Curtland from one of Crimond's pamphlets. <2>
Having identified Nietzschean tendencies in Crimond, Murdoch probes further and shows us Nothing. David and Jean's second affair builds to unexpected endings: Crimond actually finishes writing the book the brotherhood have sought for so long; Crimond then calmly proposes a lovers' suicide pact for he and Jean. "Now that the book is gone there is nothing left but our love. You are the motive, the blessing...You make death possible...that is eternal life", says Crimond.
Jean responds to Crimond's rhetoric by calling it "sickening romantic nonsense". But as ever, Crimond ultimately has his way with her. The pact is planned by Crimond so that Jean and David will crash their cars head-on at high speed, on a deserted country road. "As she began to accelerate Jean felt a sudden surge of energy, something very intense, perhaps fear, perhaps joy, perhaps, in the depths of her body, a prolonged sexual thrill". At the very last moment, however, it's Jean that is unable to carry out the pact, veering from the road.
Furious with Jean that she could not go through with killing them both, Crimond ends their relationship right there by her car, which has been ruined when running off the road at speed. Jean is then left to walk for help, as Crimond drives off, abandoning Jean by the roadside.
IV.
There is much more to this rich novel than David Crimond and his affair with Jean Cambus. Murdoch is both shrewd and sympathetic when detailing the other intrigues of the brotherhood, and those in its immediate circle. It's just that we are seldom as engrossed in Murdoch's narrative than when she is considering Crimond, a Crimond through her art. With cool irony, Murdoch bares the nihilism in Crimond's soul.
V.
By the time of Book, the brilliant novels of Iris Murdoch already included The Black Prince, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, and The Sea, The Sea (1978 Booker Prize). The Book and The Brotherhood is not diminished if we should compare to those earlier Murdoch triumphs.
__________
<1>Murdoch, Iris. The Book and The Brotherhood. 1988: Viking USA.
<2>For a provocative discussion of Marx, Nietzsche and the Left, see the chapter "The Nietzscheanization of the Left or Vice Versa", in Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (1987). Nietzsche also appears passim in Closing.
In a kilt, and come to dance. "Crimond danced with a magisterial precision, his torso stiff, his shoulders held well back, as taut as a bow...he reminded Gerard of one of the tall Greek kouroi in the Acropolis museum". Gerard's observation also speaks of an opposition between the two men - Gerard the Platonist, David the Marxist. Crimond's dance partner is Jean Cambus, and before the ball has concluded, Jean will have eloped with Crimond for a second time. Also for a second time, Crimond will get the better of Jean's husband in a fight, on the same evening, by shoving Duncan Cambus into the college river Cherwell.
III.
Jean Cambus first committed adultery with Crimond years earlier in Ireland. Before that encounter, Murdoch had already told us that Duncan Cambus is "stout and tall...his big shoulders gave a look of menacing power". And yet, when matters come to a physical confrontation over Jean and David's affair, it is Crimond who emerges the victor. "Crimond punched Duncan as hard as he could...Duncan fell back and tumbled down the spiral staircase into the room below".
Jean eventually returned to Duncan, asking forgiveness. As Duncan is helpless in his love for Jean, he forgave her. Marital harmony follows until the Oxford ball, when Jean runs off with Crimond, again.
What manner of a person is David Crimond that he can entice the same woman to twice betray her husband through adulterous relations? Here, Murdoch's Slavic influences surface, as she has lent Crimond the charisma of a fierce-eyed radical intellectual in a 19th century Russian novel. He is profoundly obsessive about the things that concern him, whether it's his form of Marxism, or a woman he happens to desire. Murdoch suggests that it is the ruthless edge of Crimond's passions that Jean Cambus finds so specially exciting.
Crimond is a Marxist, but Murdoch reveals a Nietzschean strain in him as well. "We are fat with false morality and inwardness and authenticity and decayed Christianity", Crimond declares at one point; or, "Truth may have to appear as a lie - that we are sick with morality, that morality is a disease to be got over", quotes Rose Curtland from one of Crimond's pamphlets. <2>
Having identified Nietzschean tendencies in Crimond, Murdoch probes further and shows us Nothing. David and Jean's second affair builds to unexpected endings: Crimond actually finishes writing the book the brotherhood have sought for so long; Crimond then calmly proposes a lovers' suicide pact for he and Jean. "Now that the book is gone there is nothing left but our love. You are the motive, the blessing...You make death possible...that is eternal life", says Crimond.
Jean responds to Crimond's rhetoric by calling it "sickening romantic nonsense". But as ever, Crimond ultimately has his way with her. The pact is planned by Crimond so that Jean and David will crash their cars head-on at high speed, on a deserted country road. "As she began to accelerate Jean felt a sudden surge of energy, something very intense, perhaps fear, perhaps joy, perhaps, in the depths of her body, a prolonged sexual thrill". At the very last moment, however, it's Jean that is unable to carry out the pact, veering from the road.
Furious with Jean that she could not go through with killing them both, Crimond ends their relationship right there by her car, which has been ruined when running off the road at speed. Jean is then left to walk for help, as Crimond drives off, abandoning Jean by the roadside.
IV.
There is much more to this rich novel than David Crimond and his affair with Jean Cambus. Murdoch is both shrewd and sympathetic when detailing the other intrigues of the brotherhood, and those in its immediate circle. It's just that we are seldom as engrossed in Murdoch's narrative than when she is considering Crimond, a Crimond through her art. With cool irony, Murdoch bares the nihilism in Crimond's soul.
V.
By the time of Book, the brilliant novels of Iris Murdoch already included The Black Prince, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, and The Sea, The Sea (1978 Booker Prize). The Book and The Brotherhood is not diminished if we should compare to those earlier Murdoch triumphs.
__________
<1>Murdoch, Iris. The Book and The Brotherhood. 1988: Viking USA.
<2>For a provocative discussion of Marx, Nietzsche and the Left, see the chapter "The Nietzscheanization of the Left or Vice Versa", in Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (1987). Nietzsche also appears passim in Closing.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
An Apple A Day
The cult members in Sound Of My Voice (Zal Batmanglij, 2011) are offered apples for a snack. After a few bites, the initiates are then told to vomit what they've eaten of the apples. Or apple. It is by virtue of its spacey tone that this indie film encourages us to also think of those apples in the symbolic singular. And be amused too, because along with being unsettling, Voice is often quite funny. Or funny, maybe.
II.
Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) are a young Los Angeles couple who have gone undercover to make a documentary about an area cult. In the process, they are made to take a decontaminating shower, are blindfolded, and then taken to an undisclosed location. But before they can enter the body of the cult (in a house-basement), Peter has to correctly perform a ritual handshake.
It was this handshake that gave me my first big laugh of the film. It brought high school days back to mind, when the jocks and other young gentlemen of the popular crowd greeted their own with coded handshakes. The cult handshake in Voice carries the adolescent exercise I remember to a hilarious level, what with digits joining, clasping and releasing in a precise, intricate pattern.
Having passed the handshake test, Peter and Lorna meet the other cult members, and then the cult-leader, Maggie (Brit Marling). Even before she says a word, we are struck by Maggie's appearance. In her flowing white robe, with her long, wavy golden hair, she reminds you of an alluring figure from the ancient myths. Speaking, Maggie floats a whopper: she claims to be from the future: the year 2054.
Like all who possess the power to persuade, Maggie places great emphasis on how she delivers her message. Sitting on the floor with her immediate audience, she speaks in a low, soothing voice, her smile radiating hypnotic bliss. From the future she might be, but Maggie sure knows how to work the charms of an old-fashioned seducer.
III.
As Voice progresses, questions are raised about Maggie's claims, as well as her true identity. Is she in fact a fugitive criminal? Why are cult members asked to learn about firearms? Are Maggie's requests of her followers always moral, or even legal?
But right when you think you know where it's going, Sound Of My Voice will throw you, up to its final twist. Give it a look, certainly. Just hold off on the movie-time snacks, til you're past the bit with the apple upchuck.
II.
Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) are a young Los Angeles couple who have gone undercover to make a documentary about an area cult. In the process, they are made to take a decontaminating shower, are blindfolded, and then taken to an undisclosed location. But before they can enter the body of the cult (in a house-basement), Peter has to correctly perform a ritual handshake.
It was this handshake that gave me my first big laugh of the film. It brought high school days back to mind, when the jocks and other young gentlemen of the popular crowd greeted their own with coded handshakes. The cult handshake in Voice carries the adolescent exercise I remember to a hilarious level, what with digits joining, clasping and releasing in a precise, intricate pattern.
Having passed the handshake test, Peter and Lorna meet the other cult members, and then the cult-leader, Maggie (Brit Marling). Even before she says a word, we are struck by Maggie's appearance. In her flowing white robe, with her long, wavy golden hair, she reminds you of an alluring figure from the ancient myths. Speaking, Maggie floats a whopper: she claims to be from the future: the year 2054.
Like all who possess the power to persuade, Maggie places great emphasis on how she delivers her message. Sitting on the floor with her immediate audience, she speaks in a low, soothing voice, her smile radiating hypnotic bliss. From the future she might be, but Maggie sure knows how to work the charms of an old-fashioned seducer.
III.
As Voice progresses, questions are raised about Maggie's claims, as well as her true identity. Is she in fact a fugitive criminal? Why are cult members asked to learn about firearms? Are Maggie's requests of her followers always moral, or even legal?
But right when you think you know where it's going, Sound Of My Voice will throw you, up to its final twist. Give it a look, certainly. Just hold off on the movie-time snacks, til you're past the bit with the apple upchuck.
Monday, March 31, 2014
From The Sunset
The last I read of DI John Rebus, he was frantically trying to save the life of his nemesis, the gangster Gerald Cafferty, in a Scottish hospital. That installment of the Rebus series was Exit Music (2007), and as rides into the sunset for fictional detectives go, the concluding scenario didn't exactly echo Holmes&Moriarty grappling life and death over a mountain waterfall. But the exit in Music did have one clear advantage. Unlike Holmes's final appointment at Reichenbach Falls, it allowed for the possibility of Rebus's return.
II.
The possibility becomes fact in the 18th novel of the Rebus series, Standing In Another Man's Grave. Author Ian Rankin presents Detective Inspector Rebus now as pretty much the Rebus of old: he still drinks and smokes too much; he likes the rock music, preferably on vinyl; his sense of humour leans toward bad jokes; and he is still obsessive and relentless in the pursuit of justice.
But in the time Rebus has been away, other things have changed. For starters, he is now a civilian (retired) employee with the police, assigned to the cold-case unit. This means he has to play nice with careerist officers like James Page. "'You've changed a bit,' Rebus said. Page looked at him blankly. 'Led Zeppelin,' Rebus explained. 'Guitarist'." <1> Page's humourless bafflement leads Rebus to further refer to him as "Dazed and Confused", and later, "Physical Graffiti".
And then there's DI Malcolm Fox, the head of the internal affairs department, who has become suspicious of Rebus's continued association with gangsters like Cafferty. Fox thinks Rebus a maverick dinosaur, and thinks even less of Rebus's plan to reapply to the police as a serving officer.
III.
One of the attractions of the Rebus series has always been Rankin's acute attention to land and life in contemporary Scotland. In Another Man, Rebus follows a missing-persons case well away from his home base of Edinburgh. With Rebus at the wheel of his trusty Saab, Rankin guides us up into the northern Scottish coastline. "The landscape grew more alien, almost lunar...now and then there would be a spectacular cove with pristine white sand and blue sea... [Rebus] felt utterly alone in the world. No traffic sounds; no other humans".
IV.
The eventual resolution of the case turns a whodunit into a thriller about how the guilty will be caught. It's all suspenseful, page-turning work. As Rebus replies at one point to being a "stuck" recording: "Maybe so, but the song's still a smash". Standing In Another Man's Grave proves it.
__________
<1>Rankin, Ian. Standing In Another Man's Grave. Orion Books, 2014.
II.
The possibility becomes fact in the 18th novel of the Rebus series, Standing In Another Man's Grave. Author Ian Rankin presents Detective Inspector Rebus now as pretty much the Rebus of old: he still drinks and smokes too much; he likes the rock music, preferably on vinyl; his sense of humour leans toward bad jokes; and he is still obsessive and relentless in the pursuit of justice.
But in the time Rebus has been away, other things have changed. For starters, he is now a civilian (retired) employee with the police, assigned to the cold-case unit. This means he has to play nice with careerist officers like James Page. "'You've changed a bit,' Rebus said. Page looked at him blankly. 'Led Zeppelin,' Rebus explained. 'Guitarist'." <1> Page's humourless bafflement leads Rebus to further refer to him as "Dazed and Confused", and later, "Physical Graffiti".
And then there's DI Malcolm Fox, the head of the internal affairs department, who has become suspicious of Rebus's continued association with gangsters like Cafferty. Fox thinks Rebus a maverick dinosaur, and thinks even less of Rebus's plan to reapply to the police as a serving officer.
III.
One of the attractions of the Rebus series has always been Rankin's acute attention to land and life in contemporary Scotland. In Another Man, Rebus follows a missing-persons case well away from his home base of Edinburgh. With Rebus at the wheel of his trusty Saab, Rankin guides us up into the northern Scottish coastline. "The landscape grew more alien, almost lunar...now and then there would be a spectacular cove with pristine white sand and blue sea... [Rebus] felt utterly alone in the world. No traffic sounds; no other humans".
IV.
The eventual resolution of the case turns a whodunit into a thriller about how the guilty will be caught. It's all suspenseful, page-turning work. As Rebus replies at one point to being a "stuck" recording: "Maybe so, but the song's still a smash". Standing In Another Man's Grave proves it.
__________
<1>Rankin, Ian. Standing In Another Man's Grave. Orion Books, 2014.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
When the Oscar Went
Oscar Night '14 is tomorrow, March 2nd. In 2013, Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell) was one of the films nominated for Best Picture, when the Oscar went to Argo (Ben Affleck).
II.
Silver Linings Playbook opens with Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) leaving the mental institution he's been confined to. It's his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) who has come to take him from the institution, against the best advice of Pat's doctors. When Pat and mum arrive at the Solatano home in Philadelphia, we further learn that Mrs Solatano has retrieved her son without telling her husband Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) of the plan.
How did Pat Jr. end up in a mental institution in the first place? Seems Pat had come home unexpectedly one day, only to find his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) showering with another man. This infidelity leads Pat to a bipolar break acute - he beats his wife's lover senseless - and extended - his wife is forced to take out a restraining order against Pat. In the end, it was resolved that Pat seek treatment for his issues in a residential setting.
III.
But now Pat's back, living in his parents' home, attempting to deal with his bipolar disorder without the medications indicated for the condition. This has mixed results. Pat gets so agitated by the conclusion of a book he is reading, for example, that he throws it out his bedroom window. As the book is a novel by Hemingway, a writer syllabused upon me during my school days, I was delighted to see one of Papa's works flung farewell through a window. In the film, Mr and Mrs Solatano aren't similarly pleased by their son's brand of literary criticism, or his ranting that follows it, in the middle of the night.
After being involved in some more erratic incidents, Pat reluctantly agrees to go back on his meds. This in no way means that he has retreated from his original plan however, which is to win back his wife, and resume their marriage. As part of his goal Pat decides to get in better shape, by taking up jogging. Wearing a garbage bag over his tracksuit. To help him sweat off the excess pounds.
In the meantime, Pat is introduced to his friend Ronnie's sister-in-law, the recently-widowed Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). The romantic attraction between Pat and Tiffany is immediate; Pat just won't let himself admit it quite yet. To help him along the path of realization, Tiffany has Pat agree to be her partner in an upcoming dance competition. In return, Tiffany will help Pat circumvent his wife's restraining order, by contacting Nikki on Pat's behalf. So begins the narrative that concerns the balance of Playbook, which is mostly the story of Pat and Tiffany's building relationship, and Pat's acceptance that his marriage is really over.
IV.
The performances are strong across the line in Playbook. Bradley Cooper plays Pat as a man grappling with unspoken mental pressure. Just look at Cooper's way with Pat's eyes - how they dart back and forth, seeming to come into, and then out of focus; or at Pat's body language as a whole - how he shifts abruptly between stillness and movement. Look, and Cooper will show you how hard Pat is working to convince others, and himself, that he is coping successfully.
In the role of Pat Sr, Robert De Niro is marvellous as the father trying to adjust to living with a mentally-disordered adult son. Fine too is Jacki Weaver as Dolores Solatano, and marvellous indeed are De Niro and Weaver together, in showing the Solatanos' resolve to help their son. Stressed, tried and tested they may be by their son's issues, but De Niro and Weaver show us that giving up on their son is never an option for these parents, for theirs is a love duty-bound and steadfast.
And Jennifer Lawrence gives us much to praise in her performance as Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence won the acting Oscar for which she was nominated from Playbook). Lawrence's Tiffany is a neurotic mass of contradictions: sad but funny; shrewd but naive; promiscuous but romantic; cynical but honest. We are allowed to see all these sides of Tiffany, and more, by Lawrence's always compelling portrayal.
V.
Playbook begins as one kind of quirky comedy, about a damaged psyche, and evolves into a romantic comedy about two damaged people, Pat and Tiffany. Being a David O. Russell film, the quirks remain, but Russell doesn't let them run away with his film. Instead, the director has assembled Playbook so that the idiosyncrasies of his style are of a piece with the acting performances, lending a smooth, genial rhythm to the story being told on the screen. Such a pleasing harmony in a picture dealing with its kind of discordance may be considered artificial or superimposed. Yet, can any of us deny that the sympathy and hope often conveyed by Silver Linings Playbook are among what we all seek, in our own time of trouble and need?
II.
Silver Linings Playbook opens with Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) leaving the mental institution he's been confined to. It's his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) who has come to take him from the institution, against the best advice of Pat's doctors. When Pat and mum arrive at the Solatano home in Philadelphia, we further learn that Mrs Solatano has retrieved her son without telling her husband Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) of the plan.
How did Pat Jr. end up in a mental institution in the first place? Seems Pat had come home unexpectedly one day, only to find his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) showering with another man. This infidelity leads Pat to a bipolar break acute - he beats his wife's lover senseless - and extended - his wife is forced to take out a restraining order against Pat. In the end, it was resolved that Pat seek treatment for his issues in a residential setting.
III.
But now Pat's back, living in his parents' home, attempting to deal with his bipolar disorder without the medications indicated for the condition. This has mixed results. Pat gets so agitated by the conclusion of a book he is reading, for example, that he throws it out his bedroom window. As the book is a novel by Hemingway, a writer syllabused upon me during my school days, I was delighted to see one of Papa's works flung farewell through a window. In the film, Mr and Mrs Solatano aren't similarly pleased by their son's brand of literary criticism, or his ranting that follows it, in the middle of the night.
After being involved in some more erratic incidents, Pat reluctantly agrees to go back on his meds. This in no way means that he has retreated from his original plan however, which is to win back his wife, and resume their marriage. As part of his goal Pat decides to get in better shape, by taking up jogging. Wearing a garbage bag over his tracksuit. To help him sweat off the excess pounds.
In the meantime, Pat is introduced to his friend Ronnie's sister-in-law, the recently-widowed Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). The romantic attraction between Pat and Tiffany is immediate; Pat just won't let himself admit it quite yet. To help him along the path of realization, Tiffany has Pat agree to be her partner in an upcoming dance competition. In return, Tiffany will help Pat circumvent his wife's restraining order, by contacting Nikki on Pat's behalf. So begins the narrative that concerns the balance of Playbook, which is mostly the story of Pat and Tiffany's building relationship, and Pat's acceptance that his marriage is really over.
IV.
The performances are strong across the line in Playbook. Bradley Cooper plays Pat as a man grappling with unspoken mental pressure. Just look at Cooper's way with Pat's eyes - how they dart back and forth, seeming to come into, and then out of focus; or at Pat's body language as a whole - how he shifts abruptly between stillness and movement. Look, and Cooper will show you how hard Pat is working to convince others, and himself, that he is coping successfully.
In the role of Pat Sr, Robert De Niro is marvellous as the father trying to adjust to living with a mentally-disordered adult son. Fine too is Jacki Weaver as Dolores Solatano, and marvellous indeed are De Niro and Weaver together, in showing the Solatanos' resolve to help their son. Stressed, tried and tested they may be by their son's issues, but De Niro and Weaver show us that giving up on their son is never an option for these parents, for theirs is a love duty-bound and steadfast.
And Jennifer Lawrence gives us much to praise in her performance as Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence won the acting Oscar for which she was nominated from Playbook). Lawrence's Tiffany is a neurotic mass of contradictions: sad but funny; shrewd but naive; promiscuous but romantic; cynical but honest. We are allowed to see all these sides of Tiffany, and more, by Lawrence's always compelling portrayal.
V.
Playbook begins as one kind of quirky comedy, about a damaged psyche, and evolves into a romantic comedy about two damaged people, Pat and Tiffany. Being a David O. Russell film, the quirks remain, but Russell doesn't let them run away with his film. Instead, the director has assembled Playbook so that the idiosyncrasies of his style are of a piece with the acting performances, lending a smooth, genial rhythm to the story being told on the screen. Such a pleasing harmony in a picture dealing with its kind of discordance may be considered artificial or superimposed. Yet, can any of us deny that the sympathy and hope often conveyed by Silver Linings Playbook are among what we all seek, in our own time of trouble and need?
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