I left off recording film info this month. There wasn't a lot to record, but mostly just because I got behind. I'll try and get better next month. Nothing to record that blew my mind, though there were plenty of enjoyable films. Three highlights that stand out as movies that have stuck with me recently:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Stage Beauty
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Really dug all of these films for completely different reasons!
Books
I'm teaching a Shakespeare course next year, and so I've had a little bit of fun buying a lot of Shakespeare-related texts as well as trying to see what bits and pieces I can pass along to my students (it's only a one-semester class and we'll spend most of our time digging into the plays themselves). In that regard I looked into this short biography by the always-entertaining Bryson as a possible prose piece or as an extra credit/summer reading possibility. I might still offer it as the latter, but I probably won't include it on the syllabus. Not because it's not worthwhile--Bryson continues to be supremely readable, affable, and interesting--but simply because reviewing what little we know about the Bard's life reminded me how completely unessential knowing about the Bard's life is to appreciating the plays.
Still, if you're looking for a beginner's intro to Shakespeare's life, this is a great place to begin. Less "academic" than Greenblatt's also-fine Will in the World and anchored by Bryson's pleasant voice, this slim volume provides a just-the-facts approach to what we know (and don't know) about the most influential author to ever live. Bryson enjoys the "details"--how many signatures we have of Shakespeare's, where they can be found, what an appearance at court might or might not tell us--but he doesn't get bogged down in speculation, and he has a very low tolerance for those who want to spin out great biographies from making assumptions based on the content of the plays themselves. Bryson is instead content to point out where the plays seem to line up with what we know, and where perhaps they raise surprising questions. As with all his texts, he does not rely on histrionics or emotional appeals, but rather walks you through the author's life with a calm and slightly sardonic tone.
Incidentally, I was pleased that the last chapter is basically a pointed rejection of the "Shakespeare-wasn't-Shakespeare" theories that seem to be so prominent these days. I have little interest in the snobbish arguments that the Oxfordians and others seem to make, and I appreciated Bryson's wry rejection of those pointless theories. There's enough in the historical record to make a man, and there's enough in the plays and poems themselves to make a living and thinking and feeling human. Getting caught up in the silliness of "yes, but which human" seems to miss the point of what makes the plays so powerful.
Grade: A-
Continuing on the Shakespearean theme (and continuing my efforts at reading mostly alternating male and female authors this year), I was really pleased to fall in love with Gloria Naylor's Tempest-inspired masterpiece set just off the Georgia/South Carolina coast. It's close enough to home for me now to feel the rhythms and the lifestyle at play, and foreign enough to be full of the magic and fantasy of Shakespeare's play. It helps that Naylor has such a keen ear for dialogue (and dialect) and character to make it all ring with life and truth.
Naylor's tale alternates voices and narrators--mostly the first-person accounts of budding lovers Cocoa and George, but also a third-person narrator who tracks the mysterious Mama Day and the other characters wending their way through life in Willow Springs, an island that has its own roots in history and mystery--a no-man's land unclaimed by any state, a rich heritage of seventh-sons and seventh-sons, a strong rooting in magic. As Mama Day goes about her life and touches the lives of those around her, Cocoa (living her life in New York City) attempts to figure out what place her own individuality has with personalities as strong as Mama Day and the stiff and similarly-independence-minded George vying to influence her life.
The resulting story hits the rough outlines of the Tempest well enough that familiarity with the play will add richness to the story, but Naylor is such a powerful storyteller and writes with such a poetic and reflective voice that I would also recommend it to readers who have no knowledge of the play and just like a well-written text. Yes, it gets a little magical and "non-realistic" at some points, so if that bothers you, be prepared. But I found the story and the writing completely enriching and entertaining. A definite recommend for fans of Zora Neale Hurston or other writers in that vein.
Grade: A
The Orphan Master's Son (by Adam Johnson)I absolutely loved this book.
Johnson's novel of North Korea presents the insular nation as almost comically ridiculous before veering into black and tragic territory. Pak Jun Do, the titular orphan master's son, serves as an almost picaresque hero in a world that is more 1984 than recognizable. In a country where lies become truth when they are agreed to, where identities can be erased with the nod of the Dear Leader's head, where not fitting into the system will almost certainly kill you, Pak Jun Do slips into experiences that should result in his obliteration with the silence of a fish. Survivor, kidnapper, spy, prisoner--he fills all these roles and more as he exposes the idiosyncrasies and insanities of North Korea under Kim Jong Il. Driven by his love for the famous North Korean actress Sun-moon, Pak Jun Do follows the passionate heart he keeps hidden under a stoic face.
Johnson won pretty much all the major awards last year, and it's easy to see why. He makes this world, so foreign to Western eyes, come alive in all its absurdity and horror. It's easy to love Pak Jun Do, whose inner torments and triumphs against all odds seem to have something profound to say about the human spirit and the drive for fulfillment and wholeness we all face, no matter the obstacles. The novel alternates between three separate voices--the propaganda announcer on the radio, a third person narrator following Pak Jun Do, and a first person interrogator who is attempting to learn the story of Commander Ga, husband of Sun-moon and rival of Kim Jung Il. As these stories intertwine around and through each other, journeying from the seas around the Korean peninsula to a Texas ranch, and from a prison camp to the shores of Japan, Johnson allows us to ask questions about truth, about love, about what makes us who we are, and about human nature. The plot barrels forward without ever becoming trite, and as Pak Jun Do's world becomes increasingly labyrinthine and complicated, it also becomes richer and more rewarding for the reader, culminating in a climax that I completely adored.
It's been a great reading year for me so far, but this is currently one of my front runners for my book of the year: just absolutely compelling and, despite those Orwellian tones, like nothing I've ever read. I'm guessing it's too complex (and maybe even dark) for my tenth grade students, but this is the kind of book I would love to teach in school if I can find a way to fit it in, simply to expose more people to it.
Grade: A+
The Secret History (by Donna Tartt)A modern classic I'm glad I finally got around to (even if I didn't adore it), The Secret History follows (or at least presents bits and pieces of) the lives of six classics students at a Northeastern liberal arts college. As the insular group attempts to embody the Dionysian philosophies of the ancient Greeks, they also find themselves melding, fracturing, and slipping into darkness in ways none of them could have anticipated: shades of The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Sherlockian mystery and a dose of Dead Poet's Society: The College Years.
It's equal parts compelling and infuriating in that Tartt's tale is both eminently predictable and disturbingly obtuse; she doesn't explain large chunks of the story, instead using inference and vague hints to explain many of the novel's finer points. I understand the purpose, but by giving us a narrator on the fringes of the group, much that could have been presented in a more interesting manner instead gets alluded to in vague second-hand statements. Ultimately I got frustrated with the opaqueness (or rather the attention-to-detail being paid in less-than-interesting places) and lost my interest a bit. Don't get me wrong, Tartt is a masterful writer, and her characters are compelling enough to keep me reading, but they are also got on my nerves half way through, and though I wanted to see how the story ended, I also got tired of their narcissism, drug-and-alcohol-fueled rampages, and general unknowability. Even the narrator, whose thoughts we are exposed to most clearly, seems so far removed from his own humanity that I just got a little exacerbated.
Still, Tartt can write a mean sentence, and I'm more than interested in reading her other works, The Little Friend and the recently Pulitzer Prize winning The Goldfinch. I think there's enough literary talent (and fun) to make her an exciting author to read.
Grade: B-
Andy Weir's debut novel is MacGuyver meets Apollo 13 meets Robinson Cruesoe by way of pulp novelists like Dan Brown or Clive Cussler. It's a compelling edge-of-your-seat adventure in which astronaut Mark Watney finds himself accidentally stranded on Mars, the lone man on the planet.
Watney's endeavors to survive--to modify the astronaut habitat (designed for a few months of use by a crew of six) to allow him to survive until the next rescue mission can survive (anywhere between one and four years), to beat the harsh habitat of Mars, even to grow potatoes to live on--make up the bulk of the book, and Weir has a head for scientific writing that sounds convincing, even though I have idea if the actual science behind it is sound. The novel combines dense (but readable) scientific explanations with a propulsive plot that finds Watney facing one life-threatening catastrophe after another. Weir makes space exploration exciting and sexy, and he makes NASA and the scientific minds behind it look like genius rock stars. It's pretty great.
On the other hand, Weir doesn't have a great handle for characterization. Watney's voice is entirely too optimistic, and so though he may be a brilliant problem solver, he never feels like a real person. He spends no time thinking about the people back home, or feeling anger at those who left him behind, or really even contemplating his almost inevitable death--you know, those things that almost anyone would think about when stranded on Mars. Weir has the problem that a lot of airport thriller writers have for me: the story is exciting, but the depth is lacking. I guess I like literary fiction a little too much to just ignore those kind of shortcomings altogether.
In the end, however, Weir still won me over. It's a novel I was recommending to the science teachers at my school even when only one-third of the way through (mostly to find out whether the science was at all accurate) and one I wouldn't hesitate to pass off to most readers I know. It may not be particularly strong in terms of character, but it's still a heck of a ride.
Grade: B
So you want to introduce your children to Fargo but aren't ready for them to see the wood chipper scene yet? You want them to read more but don't think they're ready for things that are particularly complex or well written? No One Else Can Have You is your ticket!
When Kippy Bushman's best friend is found dead and hanging from a tree, with straw stuffed down her throat and her mouth sewn up, Kippy realizes she is going to have to solve the crime herself. The sheriff is content to pin the crime on a local hooligan, and the rest of the overly superficial town seems ready to follow suit, but Kippy has her best-friend's diary, and with the help of her friend's PTSD-addled older brother, Kippy is on the case.
Sigh.
There are elements here to really like. The crime itself is particularly horrific, and the promise of twisted town secrets to be revealed is very enticing. Unfortunately, neither of these things pays off particularly well, and when the protagonist thinks and acts almost as though she's mentally challenged (even while we're supposed to be thinking how smart she is, and how beautiful she is, and blah blah blah typical YA babble), it's hard to take her seriously. Of course, everyone else in the town seems even more ridiculous than she is, and since no good rationale or explanation for anyone's stupidity is ever revealed, I'm left just thinking everyone in the novel is basically a paper-thin cardboard cutout.
Hale's ear for dialogue is pretty off too. Literally everyone in the book talks like a bad Fargo impersonation, with rampant, "Don'cha know"s and "Gosh"es thrown all over the place.
This is the kind of book that makes me angry that I'm not writing books. So much potential here in an intriguing setup that is just basically wasted when it's not hitting predictable notes. If I hadn't found a few characters to like in the last hundred pages or so, I would probably have given it an F. As it is, I'll just say I'm disappointed.
Grade: D
