Novel Eye

And then I won tickets to see a preview of the film last Wednesday. I don't usually read the novel that close to seeing the film--to go in with the book so completely in my head--and to wonder how they were going to be able to make a film of this book. It was the same director who directed Keira in Pride and Prejudice, and I had liked his direction there. How to convert a book so completely of the mind--the minds of multiple characters--into a visual medium. It is a book with little external dialogue, but a lot of internal dialogue. It is also (the middle part) an enormous novel describing the chaos of Dunkirk and the horrors of war as seen from a military hospital. It is one character's story throughout her life. And it is a story seen simultaneously from several different points of view. For the most part I will say that it succeeded. There was a little reliance on close up to show "the internal." But my husband, who had not read the book, said he had little trouble...

When I realized that I didn't own Pride and Prejudice I also realized that I did not own Atonement by Ian McEwan , now a film with Keira Knightly. I remember in the beginning of summer when I first heard advertisements for it I thought, "But there aren't any good female parts in Atonement." There aren't any good female parts in Amsterdam, McEwan's book before Atonement. This made me realize that I didn't own and hadn't read Atonement. So, since I now work a few blocks from a Barnes & Noble, a terribly dangerous thing for me--I went an bought them (I also bought The Maltese Falcon and Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham--that's why I don't go to bookstores--it's hard for me to stop). I don't want to give the story away. I had wondered where the transition between the McEwan of Amsterdam and the McEwan of Saturday had happened. This would be the book. I reviewed On Chesil Beach (and I believe Saturday before I started doing labels)...

For Musing. I'm kidding! I was actually thinking of a quote I should have put down from Black Dogs : "It is photography itself that creates the illusion of innocence. Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness hat they will change or die. It is the future they are innocent of. Fifty years on we look at them with the godly knowledge of how they turned out after all--who they married, the date of their death--with no thought for who will one day be holding photographs of us." I think of that sometimes, when I write the wrong year, for instance, 2004--think of who I was just a few years ago. What I did not know then that I know now, let alone twenty years ago. Absolutely read Saturday-- all of the minute of life, love, violence, disappointment, success, etc. wrapped up in 24 hours of one man's life. Working backwards I would also suggest Enduring Love although it's disturbing in many ways. I would likewise recommend the mov...

Part of my tension, I think, is the fact that I have not been reading much. As I mentioned--I'm deep in the doldrums (to steal a metaphor) of Moby Dick and a stubbornness on my part keeps me from simply putting it down and picking up something else. Normally I'll read two novels a week. Back in the late spring I did put down MD long enough to read On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan because it was very short. At the time it had not come out in America, but it has by now, and everyone and their brother has reviewed it. I was trying to remember if I found McEwan on my own, or if i found him in college. I know that I read Black Dogs in a class which was called "European Literature after the war," but the Professor admitted was really just a list of April Bernard's favorite authors. We read Calvino , Kundera , Highsmith and Muriel Spark. And Ian McEwan . I've always liked McEwan , but I believe he's becoming a better author as he goes along and I was trying to...

I just finished this novel. It's copywrited 2005. There are two nice blurbs about how it's a nice metaphor AND a heartwarming story on the back by "hot" writers J.M.Coetzee and Nuala O'Faolain. It's only 188 pages long, and yet, I didn't like it. What's more I can't imagine why/how it got published out of the hundreds of thousands of manuscripts that slide across editors desks each year (and in case your wondering, it's not personal bitterness--I have never tried to get a novel published). No, it just didn't strike me as a very good story or one that was particularly well-written, or and here's the important bit--a particularly MARKETable one. It's not poorly written. The voice is clear and strong and the prose is pleasant. The description is sparse (well it would have to be in 188 pages) but I don't dislike it for that reason. The progtagonists are a woman and her dog. She is a middle-aged professor, transplanted from New York ...