reading – Page 18 – Ripple Effects

A Midsummer Day’s Dream

It was pure serendipity. Finding out there would be an interview with Michael Ondaatje at the Banff Summer Arts Festival was a wonderful surprise. Hours later I was on my way to Banff National Park. The 90-minutes drive through the Rockies listening to the soundtrack of The English Patient was surreal. And the destination was just as picturesque and dreamlike:

Banff Summer Arts Festival

The Banff Centre

In the event entitled ‘Literary Primetime’, Michael Ondaatje, the Sri Lanka born Canadian poet, novelist, filmmaker, winner of the Booker Prize for The English Patient, was interviewed by Marni Jackson, the Chair of the Literary Journalism Program at The Banff Centre, an acclaimed writer in her own right.

Ondaatje’s impressive body of work includes novels, memoir and a dozen books of poetry, editorial work and documentary filmmaking. But perhaps the most famous is The English Patient, which was adapted into film by the late Anthony Minghella. The movie was awarded nine Academy Awards in 1996.

The literary event started off with Ondaatje reading several passages from Divisadero, a book that brought him the fifth Governor General Literary Award. I sat in the huge dining hall with an audience of a couple hundreds, entranced. From afar I held my gaze at the silver haired writer framed by the large picture windows, the evening sun seeping through majestic evergreens, and silence shrouded the place except for one man’s gentle voice. It was simply mesmerizing.

But it was the interview that made the dreamlike experience most rewarding. The conversation explored the creative mind behind the writing process. I jotted down some helpful tidbits:

Curiosity goes a long way. It sparks off the research process, generating and sustaining the creative energy for the work.

Listen to the rhythm of the sentences. “He would” or “he’d” could elicit very different effects. Sound advice from a poet.

I was excited to hear Ondaatje address questions stemming from his book The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, which coincidentally, I am currently reading. Murch was the film editor of The English Patient, one of my all time favorite movies. The serendipity is most gratifying. The art of film editing parallels that of writing… the essence is knowing what to cut, and when to move on.

While Minghella was writing the screenplay, Ondaatje was involved in the drafts. The story had to be taken apart and rewritten to be adapted into film. When you see your work being dismantled and reconstructed into another form, I imagine it takes courage, trust, and humility to accept that. Ondaatje appreciates the art form of film and respects others’ expertise, entrusting his work in their hands. This team effort, this alchemy of talents is most prominent in the making of the movie.

In the Interview, Ondaatje was asked about one excerpt from The Conversations. The writer and the film editor shares a common appreciation for the Chinese auteur Wong Kar Wai and his film In The Mood For Love. The layering of sounds suggests the multiplicity of going-ons, events happening off-screen. Such an effect can also be found in The English Patient. The thickness of the actual and imaginary scenes adds complexity and depth, weaving a much more interesting tapestry. Again, the parallel can be drawn with novel writing. It’s the multiple offerings and the possibilities of interpretations that make a piece of writing intriguing:

“We are not held hostage by just one certain story, or if we are, we know it is just one opinion: there are clear hints of other versions.” (The Conversations, p. 160)

There were a couple of ideas I was a bit surprised to find.

First there is the ubiquitous self-doubt throughout the writer’s creative process. Strange, and yet comforting, to find talented minds share this same psyche. It is a humble sign to admit self-doubt. The architect Frank Gehry and the late filmmaker Sydney Pollack came to mind.

“Her only virtue is self-doubt.” (Divisadero).

Second, and perhaps the most precious gem I collected from the event was reflected by Odaajte’s own words on the creation of a story: “I don’t know what would happen… I don’t want to know.” The excitement of writing is that the story reveals itself as if it has a life of its own. The writing process is an exploratory experience. How gratifying to know we don’t need to follow a predetermined structure to plug in the story elements. The creative mind is not bound by structure. Let the story lead, and, enjoy the ride.

At the end of the Interview, Ondaatje was asked about a skills and job match questionnaire he once did when he was a young man. The results showed that he could make one good customs officer. Aren’t we all glad he had chosen to march to a different drummer and diverged in his career plan.

***

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”

A novel in the form of letters? I admit it wasn’t much of an appeal to me at first. After it has maintained its position on the New York Times Bestseller List for months, and now the trade paperback holding the first spot there, I just can’t resist anymore.

The book begins with a series of letters between a London writer Juliet Ashton and her friend and publisher Sydney Stark shortly after WWII. Later, upon receiving a letter from Dawsey Adams, a resident of Guernsey of the Channel Islands, Juliet starts to correspond with the charming folks living there.

So how does the book title come about? Guernsey Island was occupied by the Germans during the war. It happens that one night after a secret ‘pig out’, a few Guernsey residents are found breaking the curfew. To find an excuse quickly when confronted by German soldiers, Elizabeth, our heroine, makes up the story that she and her fellow members have to leave a literary society meeting late as they’ve been so immersed in a German book.

This impromptu excuse soon takes shape in reality. Thus begins the odyssey of reading, book discussions, and the members’ correspondences with Juliet Ashton. Juliet is so immersed in their lives and moved by their situation that she later decides to go visit them, making the Guernsey Literary Society the subject of her next book.

Many of the letters are poignant descriptions of lives during the difficult war years. The Guernsey residents have to suffer the searing pain of evacuating their own children to England for safety, seeing the young and healthy sent to war, finding others just disappear to concentration camps, and hearing eye witness accounts of heroic sacrifices for utter strangers. While all these years on the Island, they have to endure deprivation of food, basic necessities, and freedom. But the literary society meetings and the few reading materials in their possession remain their lifeline to humanity and dignified living.

“Everyone was sickly from so little nourishment and bleak from wondering if it would ever end. We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us.”

Author Mary Ann Shaffer passed away in February 2008 and was succeeded by her niece Annie Barrows in finishing the novel. In the Acknowledgment, Shaffer had written these words in December 2007:

“I hope, too, that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art — be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music — enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised.”

Despite the subject matter, readers will find the book witty and delightful. Authors Shaffer and Barrows have depicted a myriad of lively characters, charmingly joined in their humanity by their strengths and weaknesses. Yes, we can also visualize the madness of war. But we’re relieved to see too that people can weather hardship much better when they have a common bond, here, in the reading and sharing of fine literary works. Mind you, these are not your academics and scholars. The Guernsey residents are mainly pig farmers and vegetable growers. As we read their letters, we soon see them as friends, Amelia, Dawsey, Isola, Eben, Eli, Elizabeth and little Kit…

And, am I such a Jane Austen fan that I’m seeing this: Juliet Ashton (J.A.), Dawsey (Darcy), and Elizabeth, beloved heroine of all time.

What impresses me most is that the Guernsey Islanders are so willing to open their hearts and lives to writer Juliet, an absolute stranger, mainly because of their common love of the written words. They find it an honor to be able to correspond with a real life writer, pouring their hearts out in respect and admiration, and quickly confiding in her. A writer as a celebrity and friend? It’s just fiction, you may say. But, why can’t it be real?

As for the art of letter writing, has it been lost as some have claimed, or has it merely been transformed into … yes, blogging, for example? Because as I was reading the book, it flashed by me at times that I was reading some blog posts. Are the writings that we post in the blogosphere a kind of open letter? Our exchanges in the comment box our correspondences? And, to push it a bit further, the telegram of old the early form of twitter?

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Dial Press Trade Paperback Edition, 2009, 288 pages.

***

Click here to go to the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society website. As for the potato peel pie recipe, yes, at the Jane Austen Society of North America website.

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

Nocturnes is a recently published short stories collection by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Booker Prize winning author. Like a song cycle, the five stories are arranged with a common motif, alas, the loss of romance. They take place mainly in Europe, in some romantic settings, like Venice. The cycle begins and ends there. Music is the essential backdrop. It is the common thread linking the various ways the characters attempt to salvage lost love and revive relation stalemates.

Nocturnes is a light read. The theme could be dealt with seriously, but Ishiguro apparently tries a very different rendition. I had expected him to depict dreamscapes as he had done with his previous works, such as The Unconsoled, or While We Were Orphans, but I had not expected laugh-out-loud, hilarious scenes. Unlike the serious tone of The Remains of the Day, we see Ishiguro in a comedic styling. And, despite the meditative title, it’s not the classical music of Chopin that he has invoked, but Broadway, jazz, Irving Berlin, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, and yes, ABBA, just to name a few.

The quintet is composed of ‘Crooner’, ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’, ‘Malvern Hills’, ‘Nocturne’, and ‘Cellists’. They touch on a basic question: Is a marriage finished with the loss of romance? Is revival even possible after lovers have fallen out of love?

Kazuo Ishiguro

‘Crooner’ is poignant in depicting a once hot, now aging American singer trying to offer a last bit of love to his wife before the inevitable end.

‘Malvern Hills’ has a similar story line, but carries additional sadness in that the dispassion extends to the couple’s only son.

‘Nocturne’ offers an interesting perspective on Beverly Hills’ image-driven quest of the rich and famous, and the up-and-coming. It offers some real fun and sardonic humor.

And ‘Cellists’, well, I really don’t know what to make of it, a story about a cellist who is not a cellist…

The most hilarious scene is in ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’. In the story, the main character has to cover up a mistake he’s made with the excuse that ‘the dog did it’. So, it’s canine method acting that he has to take up instantly. It is in such incredulous scenarios that the dreamscapes of Ishiguro emerge. But this time it is more like merging reality with comedy romp.

Considering the motif of this literary quintet, Ishiguro’s humorous and sometimes farcical way of dealing could well have offered his readers a fresh perspective on the subject matter. While Nocturnes may be a good pick for a beach read, I admit that I miss the poignant and pensive mood of The Remains of the Day. I wish too that Ishiguro would re-visit his previous style in his future work, for his writing can be most subtle and incisive, heart-wrenching without commotion. I missed such tonal expressions here, and the resonance they could have evoked.

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2009, 221 pages.

***

Photo credit: Jane Brown, www.list.co.uk/article/ 17435-kazuo-ishiguro/

More Great Finds!

Call me greedy. I’ m happy to take the blame. Since this is the last weekend of the gigantic used book sale at the Crossroad Market, I just had to go again for more treasure hunting. If you take a look at my second loot list below, you’d have done the same. As the lady said when I was squeezing my way in,

“It was a zoo yesterday.”

“You came here yesterday too?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure!” (Subtext: What a dumb question… and, why didn’t you?)

So, again, these are all trade paperbacks in mint condition. They are all a dollar each (Canadian).

The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant: 887 pages. Having seen the video of Mavis Gallant reading in a Paris book shop and her conversation with Jhumpa Lahiri, thanks to fellow blogger oh introducing the Granta link, I was elated to find this volume. It looked like it had not been opened, fresh, clean for the picking.

The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe

Short stories, the more the merrier. I was delighted to find this volume: The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, 621 pages. I’ve long wanted to read Wolfe, now’s a good time.

A lady held up a heavy box for me to take this one out underneath: A Fine Balance by Canadian writer Rohinton Mistry. “That’s a good pick,” she said.

“I’ve seen it many times, but think it’s too thick,” I said.

“You wouldn’t want it to end,” she said. What higher recommendation can you get for a book?

One Man's Bible One Man’s Bible by Gao Xingjian, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Chinese recipient of the Prize. Born in China, Gao has been living in France since 1987. The book is translated into English by Mabel Lee, associate professor of Chinese at the University of Sydney. Interesting… although this one I can read the original, the chance of me finding it in a farmers market here in Cowtown, Canada is not great. I’ll settle for the translation.

I missed the Golden Globe winning TV miniseries. So, grabbing the original material is just great. David McCullough’s 721 pages John Adams won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for biography. This is a handsome movie-tie-in- cover edition with many color pictures. What a find!

Talking about wonderful covers. How about this one: Margaret Drabble’s The Radiant Way. I’ve never seen this edition of Drabble’s book. A pleasure just to look at.

And what’s summer reading without beach reads. Here’s my copy of The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. Again, seldom do I see a trade paperback of this title.

Here are the rest of my 20 titles:

Digging to America by Anne Tyler
A Patchwork Planet byAnne Tyler
The Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston (Giller and GG Finalist)
Larry’s Party by Carol Shields (Winner of 1998 Orange Prize and National Book Critics Circle Awards)
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby (Saw the movie starring Colin Firth, quite liked it.)
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Reapers by John Connolly
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Just want to read it before the movie comes out.)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize)
Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize)
Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier (Author of Girl With A Pearl Earring)
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

It’s a tall order to read all the 40 books I hauled back these two weekends. It’ll take me years. But as any book lover can attest, it’s good to know they’re on my shelves.

***

Summer Reading 2009

When does ‘regular reading’ end and ‘summer reading” begin? Well this year it’s easy. The gigantic used book sale I went to over the weekend and the loot I brought back make it official: Let summer reading 2009 begin.

The treasures I found were trade paperbacks in like-new condition. And because I had twenty, they cost me just one dollar each. Right, that’s Canadian dollar, even a better bargain. How I found them was an ordeal. They were painstakingly selected under smoldering heat at a farmers’ market. For two hours, I elbowed my way in to grab hold of my targets which I had to eye from a distance over heads and shoulders. But it’s all worth it.

Here’s a picture and a list of the titles I brought back:

Used Book Sale Loot 1

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam (Giller Prize Winner)
The Sea by John Banville (Man Booker Prize Winner)
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Stories of Edith Wharton selected by Anita Brookner
The Mapmaker’s Opera by Béa Gonzalez
Always Now The Collected Poetry of Margaret Avison
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (Pulitzer Author)
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (Booker Prize Winner)
Marginalia: A Cultural Reader by Mark Kingwell
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood
Exit Music by Ian Rankin

Some of these titles I’ve long wanted to read, like Goodbye, Columbus and Rebecca. Some are just well known titles or authors that I think I should read, like Tolstoy, Franzen and Tyler. Some are winners of book prizes that I usually enjoy, the Booker, Giller, Pulitzer. Some are fine Canadian authors and one of my favorite poets. And some I’m just curious about like A Natural History of the Senses. But one stands out. This time, I’m literally judging a book by its cover:

Front Cover Mapmaker's Opera

Back Cover Mapmaker's Opera

The above are the front and back cover of the book. There’s no title, only on the spine. It’s enjoyable just looking at it. But the title is appealing too: The Mapmaker’s Opera.

Together with the books I’m already reading, plus my long TBR list, I think I’m topped up till next summer.

For More Great Finds, Click Here.

***

Girl With A Pearl Earring

The Painting (1665)

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Not much is known about this girl looking back at the artist with her soulful glance. The pearl earring, the focal point of the painting, is obviously incompatible with her humble attire. Vermeer has captured a mystery open to anyone’s imagination. But it takes a master storyteller to create a believable and poignant narrative that can move modern readers three hundred some years later.

The Novel (1999)

Vermeer taught me that Less Is More, and I have been practicing that aesthetic principle in my writing ever since.” — Tracy Chevalier

You can see it coming… it’s almost like reflex that after seeing a Vermeer exhibition I’d go back to the book Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, and re-watch the DVD of the movie based on it. Well, especially when I didn’t get the chance to see the painting itself in the exhibition.

GWAPE Book Cover It was this book that first sparked curiosity in me about Vermeer and his works. Tracy Chevalier has done a superb job in creating out of her imagination the story behind the girl with the pearl earring, within the realistic social and historical contexts. She has brought to the surface layers of possible subtexts hidden in this seemingly simple portrait.

I’ve appreciated that she has chosen the social segregation and hierarchical class structure of 17th century Delft as the backdrop of her novel. So, instead of a sweet little tale or melodramatic story, Chevalier highlights the complex social reality of power relations between servant and master, artist and patron. She has masterfully created a scenario whereby the social distance between the servant girl, Griet, and her master Vermeer, is drawn closer by her quiet understanding and appreciation of aesthetics. With the same sharpness and sensitivity, Chevalier has also shown how a wealthy patron can exploit art with his despicable, self-serving lust.

Chevalier’s ingenuity tugs at our heartstrings as we see the innocent and powerless being played as pawns, no more than flies caught in the web of the rich and powerful. The struggle between survival and artistic freedom is poignantly painted as irreconcilable subjects on the canvas of financial reality. And fate teases all. Yet among all these, the natural light that comes from art and beauty silently seeps through, brushing us warmly with a tender glow.

Do try to get hold of the Deluxe Edition. It includes 9 full-color Vermeer paintings, which are cleverly incorporated into the story by the author.

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, Deluxe Edition, published by PLUME, Penguin Group, 2005, 233 pages.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

The Movie (2003)

GirlWithPearEarring1

Watching the movie Girl With A Pearl Earring is the closest to actually seeing a Vermeer exhibition. Every frame is like a Vermeer painting with its extensive use of natural light from windows, contrasting the shadows in the interior of the Delft household. The film was nominated for three Oscars in 2004, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design. In other words, it’s a pleasure to watch… it has to be because dialogues are sparingly used throughout. Herein lies the strength of acting and the effectiveness of sound and visual communication.

The restrained performance of Colin Firth as Vermeer and Scarlett Johansson as Griet brings out the reality of the social order of the day. A servant is not supposed to speak unless spoken to. And what does a master has to say to an uneducated maid, unless he sees in her the appreciation of art and the clear understanding of aesthetics, of light and shadows, of beauty in the mundane.

Vermeer’s asking Griet to be his assistant and ultimately putting her in one of his works, albeit reluctantly for both, sparks off repugnant reverberation in town, and of course, the fierce jealousy of the painter’s wife Catherine (Essie Davis). But as flies caught in the web of patron Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), with debts to pay and a full household of mouths to feed, the artist has to bow to reality, and the even lower-ranked servant has to yield to her fate.

The visuals and music are the key to revealing the internal. Beautifully shot in Luxembourg to simulate 17th Century Delft, the movie is a work of art in itself. Colin Firth’s usual reticent persona on film fits him perfectly this time. His taciturn portrayal of the ambivalent artist betrays the struggles within. Scarlett Johansson delivers a convincing performance as pure and innocent Griet, and her gradual growth on the path of experience, albeit the book, as usual, depicts the inner turmoil more effectively.

The special feature on the DVD is enjoyable as well, chronicling the making of the movie. I hope though that a Blu-ray version will come out one of these days, for that will indeed do justice to the cinematography and to the original artist, the master painter Johannes Vermeer himself.

~~~ Ripples

CLICK on the following links to go to related posts on Ripple Effects:

Inspired By Vermeer

Books and the Gender Issue

The Proximidade: Celebrating Closeness

Arti of Ripple Effects is honored to receive The Proximidade Blogging Award from ds of third-storey window. A wonderful view she has over there. Thanks again ds!

“The Proximidade Award believes in the Proximity – nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award.”

proximade_award1

This is a while back now. Although ds is very generous as to spare us the obligation to pass it on, I feel I should share this award by naming some worthy recipients whose blog has closed the gap among us, in one way or another, narrowing our physical distances through common interests and other higher ideals.

It’s my pleasure to pass the Proximidade Award to the following Blogs, in alphabetical order:

Book Club Girl — for closing the gap between authors and readers by her own radio show ‘Authors on Air’.

Classy Music — for drawing us closer with news and views of classy musicians and their performance. Take note, ye fans of Susan Boyle and Paul Potts.

FilmChat — Movie reviewer Peter Chattaway (no kidding) engages us with insightful and interesting dialogues between faith and film.

Jane Austen Today — Great job Laurel Ann and Vic, in connecting Janeites the world over by their excessively diverting blog. (LA and V: I’m still working at finding ‘classics’ blogs for the ED Award.)

Visual Dialogues — Blogging from Hong Kong, Molly Mavis closes the gap between East and West with her perceptive photography.

I trust you’ll find the above blogs informative and entertaining, well deserving the Proximidade Award.

The Poets’ Corner

poets-corner-book-cover

Just got this from the library, and it’s a gem. The Poets’ Corner is subtitled The One-And-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family, compiled by John Lithgow. Yes, that’s John Lithgow of the ‘3rd Rock from the Sun’. From Matthew Arnold to W. B. Yeats, Geoffrey Chaucer to Allen Ginsberg, it’s more like a high school curriculum than your light family reading. However, the collection includes many favorite selections, ideal to share as literary heirloom.

Lithgow presents fifty poets whose work he had grown up with. He has written a two-page introduction for each of them, a personal response to a piece of literary art. In the introduction of the book, he explains how it all started. Lithgow was invited to host a benefit for a non-profit organization. The fund raiser was for the fostering of creative approaches to educating autistic children. He was given a few poems to read out that night, poignant poetry that speaks to the heart of parents with autistic children. That night, Lithgow saw the power of poems read out, the voice and the words striking a shared chord with deep resonance. Thus planted the seed for this book.

The central theme here is not autism, but the selections here speak to a general and wider audience, humanity at large. The bonus is a CD featuring readings from Lithgow And Friends. I believe that poetry read out loud offers a heightened enjoyment than just from silent reading. I had heard recordings of Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams reading their own work, leaving indelible resonance that I didn’t get from reading off the page.

Here in this CD, what we have are professional performers, experienced and well-trained in the art of speech, dramatically performing these selections. And Lithgow’s ‘Friends’ include: Eileen Atkins, Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, Jodie Foster, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Lynn Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Gary Sinise, and Sam Waterston… what a cast.

Here are some of my favorites, too bad I can’t embed the sound track. But do check it out from your local library, or even get a copy of your own. It’s a keeper.

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

(Read by Morgan Freeman)

The Pool Players.

Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

***

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth

(Read by Helen Mirren)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

***

The Red Wheelbarrow

by William Carlos Williams

(Read by Jodie Foster)

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

***

No Doctors Today, Thank You by Ogden Nash

(Read by John Lithgow… I LOL listening to him)

They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful,

well, today I feel euphorian,

Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a Victorian.

Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,

Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any swashes?

This is my euphorian day,

I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away.

I will tame me a caribou

And bedeck it with marabou.

I will pen me my memoirs.

Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!

I wasn’t much of a hand for the boudoirs,

I was generally to be found where the food was.

Does anybody want any flotsam?

I’ve gotsam.

Does anybody want any jetsam?

I can getsam.

I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,

I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.

I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because

I am wearing moccasins,

And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.

Kind people, don’t think me purse-proud, don’t set me down as vainglorious,

I’m just a little euphorious.

Lithgow and friends have convinced me all the more that poetry is written to be heard.

Poets’ Corner: The One-And-Only Poetry Book For The Whole Family, compiled by John Lithgow, Grand Central Publishing, 2007, 280 pages.

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. I’m glad we still celebrate poetry in this day of ephemeral twittering. W. H. Auden once described poetry as “memorable speech”. As millions upon millions join in on-line chats, exchanging the most trivial of their everyday life unreservedly, and even addictively all day long, how we need poetry all the more, to create lines that strive for some memorable quality worthy of keeping.

The late Canadian communication guru Marshall McLuhan was right, the medium is the message. And such is the message of our time. Mind you, I’m no Luddite, my iPhone is evidence. I’ve gone through this before, so I’m not going to dwell on it here again. It’s just that the rash and temporal nature of our medium, and mode, for that matter, make me long for quality and permanence.

After posting an excerpt of T.S. Eliot’s poetry in my last entry, I just didn’t have enough. I re-read and explored more of his work and was amazed at how prophetic his vision was. To celebrate National Poetry Month, here’s Arti’s selections of lines from the work of T.S. Eliot, just for our post-modern, Facebook and Twitter generation.

Twit twit twit

Jug jug “>jug jug jug jug jug

So rudely forc’d.

— The Waste Land (1922)

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

— Ash Wednesday (1930)

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

….

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

….

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

— Choruses from The Rock (1934)

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Visual: Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper. CLICK HERE FOR MORE EDWARD HOPPER.

The Reader: Book Into Film

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The Reader is the highly acclaimed novel by German writer Bernhard Schlink. It was first published in 1995 in Europe and the English translation came out two years later. Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain, 2003) was said to be the original director of the film adaptation, with his friend Sydney Pollack (Sketches of Frank Gehry, 2005) producing. Their untimely death sadly altered the scene somewhat, even though they were still named as producers when the Awards Season arrived. Thus the poignant acknowledgement from Kate Winslet as she received her Oscar Best Actress Award.

Selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, the novel’s 218 pages are packed densely with poignant images and thought-provoking moral questions. The first part takes place in the 1950’s. 15 year-old Michael Berg gets sick on his way home from school and is helped by a woman, Hanna Schmitz. Thus sparks the sexual encounter and later love affair between the two. Every time they meet, Hanna makes sure Michael reads to her literature from Homer to Chekhov.

After a while, Hanna disappears, and not until Michael becomes a law student does he see her again, this time in a post-war trial of Nazi criminals. Hanna turns out to be a guard at a concentration camp during the Holocaust. As Michael is awash by torrents of conflicting emotions while watching the trial, he is aghast at a personal secret Hanna refuses to reveal, one which could have saved her from a lengthy prison term. Her only statement of defence is wrapped in one sentence: “What would you have done?” She asked the judge.

The last part of the book is in the present day. Michael, now a lawyer, is still haunted by his past and the residual emotional ambivalence upon the release of Hanna from prison. The story wraps up with a heart-wrenching ending.

Hidden behind the romantic facade is a story that deals with a deeply complex set of moral issues; the love affair between a 30 some year-old woman and a 15 year-old boy is only the initial spark. This is not a Holocaust novel, but rather, an incisive depiction of psychological dilemma confronting a new, post-war generation in Germany. The moral burden that Michael faces is heavy, seemingly unresolvable and yet born by the collective psyche:

“I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna’s crime and to condemn it… When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding… it was impossible to do both.”

I read the book a while back but have delayed seeing the movie, directed by Stephen Daldry and screenplay by David Hare (both of The Hours, 2002). First off, I could imagine the film, having the advantage of transporting the literary into visual realism, can go all out gratuitously to depict the love affair between Michael and Hanna. Further, the very complex moral issues the book deals with would be a challenge to transfer into film, making it less effective and maybe even trivializing the crux of the matter.

Well, I was both right and wrong. The first part of the movie depicting the seduction of Michael (18 year-old David Kross) by Hanna (Kate Winslet) and which gradually grows into a full-fledged love affair does carry some gratuitous erotic sequences. However, having watched the movie I have also come to appreciate the necessity of this relationship. The love affair between Michael and Hanna is the very analogy of a younger generation having had to deal with the conflicting emotions of loving their own parents, many of whom were involved in the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

Both Winslet and Kross have delivered a most affective cinematic rendering of an otherwise despicable affair. Winslet has brought out an exceptional performance, from a simple and passionate young woman to a grey-haired, seemingly amoral and yet deeply tormented prisoner. The irony of the movie is that, by crafting a visually appealing cinematic offering, it has won over its viewers’ heart (especially Winslet fans), resulting in a much more sympathetic rendition of someone who has a hand in the death of hundreds of Jews under her guard.

Likewise, the portrayal of the older Michael (Ralph Fiennes) is less effective than it deserves. Maybe due to his limited scenes, it appears that Fiennes lacks the time to dwell himself fully in the character to elicit the spectrum of conflicting emotions. It may also be the weaker script, compared to the book, that has shrouded some critical issues with ambiguity.

But I did appreciate the scene where a distressed Michael consults with his professor (Bruno Ganz), who distinguishes between law and morality. The law has nothing to do with right or wrong, he tells Michael. What’s legal doesn’t make it right. Implication follows that duty and legality do not excuse wrongdoings. While the law regulates the behavior, it is morality that constrains the heart.

While the movie is appealing visually and offers some riveting performance, I urge viewers to be the reader. That’s what I did, re-read the book as soon as I got home, and appreciated the written words even more.

Book and Movie

~ ~ ~ Ripples

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, translated by Carol Brown Janeway, published by Vintage International, 2008, 218 pages.

Photo Source: usatoday.com

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No Texting for Lent and The End of Solitude

Roman Catholic Bishops in Italy have added some contemporary relevance in the fasting tradition during Lent: High Tech Fast. The faithful are urged to free themselves from the bondage of technology and gadgets, and refrain from surfing, emailing, twittering, texting … in order to prepare themselves for Easter. This could prove to be a penance much harder to practice than not eating meat, even just on Fridays, for texting could well be the newest form of addiction today.

At about the same time, I heard an interview on the CBC Radio program Spark. Host Nora Young conducted an interview with William Deresiewicz, literary critic and essayist, who has recently written an article entitled ‘The End of Solitude’.

Deresiewicz taught at Yale from 1998 to 2008. When he asked his students what place solitude had in their lives, he got this reply: “Why would anyone want to be alone?”

With the ubiquitous use of high tech gadgets, and the torrents of Internet social networks around us, we are caught in a web of connectivity like never before:

Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone.

Not only that, the goal now seems to be to gain as much self-exposure as possible, to be visible. It seems that the number of friends we have on Facebook, and the number of hits on our blog directly leads to our self-esteem and our quality of self. The irony is, the pseudo and the virtual are substituting the genuine and the authentic.

What does friendship mean when you have 532 “friends”? How does it enhance my sense of closeness when my Facebook News Feed tells me that Sally Smith (whom I haven’t seen since high school, and wasn’t all that friendly with even then) ‘is making coffee and staring off into space’?

Deresiewicz notes that solitude used to be a desirable social value. From religious sages to the Romantics like Wordsworth, solitude is the channel one hears the still, small voice of God, or heed the beckoning of Nature. As modernism crept in, the literati turned inward to find validation of self, like Woolf, Joyce, Proust.

Then came urbanization and suburbanization. The generation that used to vegetate in front of the TV has given way to the child of the Internet, the networked self. And we no longer believe in the solitary mind.

So what does it matter when we have lost the moments to be alone? What have we lost?

First, the propensity for introspection, that examination of the self that the Puritans, and the Romantics, and the modernists (and Socrates, for that matter) placed at the center of spiritual life — of wisdom, of conduct.

Also, the urge to be instantly connected has bred a new generation of skippers and skimmers, replacing readers.

… five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity

No wonder we’re told to keep our blog posts short if we want to attract readership.

With the loss of the capacity for solitude, we’ve lost the ability to cultivate depth of self and create independent thinking. Emerson said that “Solitude is to genius the stern friend.” Deresiewicz goes on to say:

…no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific or moral, can arise without solitude.

The irony is, the more we are connected with the virtual world out there, the less we are connected with ourselves inwardly. But this is what’s valued nowadays, isn’t it, to be open, sociable, gregarious. But to maintain a sense of authentic self, we may have to sacrifice popularity, to be not so polite:

Thoreau understood that securing one’s self-possession was worth a few wounded feelings. He may have put his neighbors off, but at least he was sure of himself.

Those who would find solitude must not be afraid to stand alone.

Maybe this is one meaningful connection we should strive for: solitude, introspection, slow blogging, quality thinking, quality reading, quality writing, quality self.

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Click here to listen to the full interview.

Click here to read the article ‘The End of Solitude’ by William Deresiewicz.

Click here to read my review of Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together

Click here to read my post on Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in which she explored the privilege of Solitude.

Confessions of a Shopaholic: Book and Movie

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‘Are you serious?’ my son exclaimed as he pried open my Amazon package.

‘It’s just a filler to make up the amount for free shipping,’ I said. (Didn’t he know it was for his CD that I had to make this purchase in the first place?)

Ok, after reading Thomas Hardy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Philip Roth, not to mention the very hard-to-get-through Amy Bloom, all in a month’s time, I needed a break. A break it is.

The book Confessions of a Shopaholic is like a commercial break: it gives you a chance to relax in between tense moments, a filler, but unlike most commercials, it’s entertaining, very funny, and not as dismissible as it looks. (To my copy-writer friend: Nothing personal, it’s just the genre.)

I’d many LOL moments, and several times I caught myself reading with a smile on my face. How many books have you read that can elicit that facial response? Not that I looked at the mirror while I read, but I just noticed.

I learned a long time ago that the best kind of humor is the self-deprecating kind. Kinsella’s Shopaholic series just might have extended that axiom to include her own gender. But why not, Jane Austen did that too, plus the other gender along the way. And that reminds me, reading Shopaholic conjures up images of Bridget Jone’s Diary, which in turn, and remotely, suggests certain Austen-esque styling.

Rebecca Bloomwood is a twenty-five year old college grad lucky enough to have launched a job as a financial journalist at Successful Saving. A whole new world opens up to her as she gets her VISA card and automatically given an overdraft limit at her bank. Loaded with such financial ammunition, Becky plunges right into the swirl of brandname fashion and all other fancy stuff a gal just got to have. After all, they’re all an investment to her, and shopping just seems to be the ideal workout. How can she keep fit just sitting at home?

“They should list shopping as a cardiovascular activity. My heart never beats as fast as it does when I see a ‘reduced by 50%’ sign.”

In no time, Becky Bloomwood the financial journalist has sunk deep in debt. The irony becomes more acute when she is invited to appear on TV as an adviser on personal finance management.

Kinsella has crafted a modern day satire on the female psyche vis-a-vis consumerism. Ok, some female psyche… not all. Her sharp observation of human nature, and spot-on nuances on both genders, together with the generous unleashing of self-deprecating humor, effectively mask the didactic end of Shopaholic. The book might have delivered the message for us all in today’s slumping economy. It has unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly) depicted some of the causes of such a major breakdown in our financial system: the allure of credits, the insatiable quest for posession, the deception of desire over need, and the tyranny of brandname consumerism.

The author has effectively created a comic caricature. Rebecca is an addict in denial, but she’s amiable nonetheless. We laugh at her flaws and errors because we can sympathize with her predicament, or maybe even identify with some of her weaknesses. The book is almost script-ready, it has the funny dialogues, the colorful characters, the dramatic elements. Although the story doesn’t get fired up until the last hundred pages, it’s an enjoyable read overall.

~ ~ ½ Ripples

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And for the movie, well, the movie is a different matter.

Australian director P.J. Hogan (My Best Friend’s Wedding, 1997) has wasted some highly workable comedic materials, and a talented supporting cast like Kristin Scott Thomas, Joan Cusack, John Lithgow, and John Goodman. He has reduced a pleasing, humorous, and relatively intelligent book into a slapstick, patchy, and mindless farce. LOL response in the theatre was almost nil, because the script is simply flat and not funny, despite the earnest attempt of the cast. Isla Fisher (Definitely Maybe, 2008) has downgraded Becky Bloomwood into a stereotypical, silly female wrapped in pink; Hugh Dancy (The Jane Austen Book Club, 2007), who plays her boss and later love interest, seems too constrained to be effective. The movie simply epitomizes and confirms the bad rap ‘chick flicks’ are getting.

Throughout, I’ve the feeling that I’m watching the sequel of The Devil Wears Prada (2006) but without its depth of characterization, and Becky Bloomwood is the dumbed down version of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde (2001)… alas, a pitiful rendition of Pretty In Pink (1986). What it lacks in brain it rescues itself with a little heart in the latter part. But the fond feeling comes too little too late.

And I can’t help myself but to ask if the movie was directed by a female, would it be quite different. But then I’d be stereotyping.

~ ½ Ripples

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