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Reading the Season: Silence by Shusaku Endo

Click for ‘Silence’ movie review and thoughts.

For this year’s Reading the Season, I’ve chosen Shusaku Endo’s masterpiece Silence. Unlike previous years, it’s not as pleasing and exulting a read at Christmas time. Rather, it’s unsettling and disturbing. It will interfere with your festive mood. It presents an excruciating dilemma that we hope we may never need to confront, and a question that more likely for us to face: Where is God during our suffering?

silence

Why so unpleasant a read at this time? We’re all busy with our festivities. Who would want to think about such a somber question? Director Martin Scorsese thinks it’s seasonal; Dec. 23 is the day his adaptation of Silence will be released in North America. Mind you, before showing here, it will first premiere at the Vatican. What a diversion of Christmas over there.

Thanks to Scorsese, I dug out Endo’s book and reread it. This time around, it’s even more disturbing for me. However, I also see the light seeping through the cracks of a broken human scene. I sure hope Scorsese’s film — twenty-five years brewing in the director’s heart — can lead to some quiet meditation amidst the cacophony bombarding us these days.

Historical Note

First off, very crucial before reading Silence is to establish a frame of reference; this is furnished by the Historical Note at the beginning of the book. Christianity was introduced to Japan by Francis Xavier in 1549. It was very well received at that point, despite an expulsion order later in 1587 by the Shogun Hideyoshi and the subsequent crucifixion of twenty-six Japanese Christians and European missionaries. By 1600, there were an estimated 300,000 Christian converts living in Japan.

By the time the second expulsion order was issued in 1614, however, the Christian Church in Japan was driven underground. Warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu was resolute in wiping out all traces of Christianity that from 1614 to 1640, an estimated five to six thousand Christians were killed. He later found out martyrdom wasn’t as effective an eradication measure as forced apostasy, especially with leaders of the faith, so torture was widely used towards that end.

crucifixion

In 1632, the Catholic world was shocked to learn that the stalwart leader of the Jesuits mission in Japan, Father Christovao Ferreira, had disavowed his faith and become an apostate after being tortured at ‘the pit’ in Nagasaki. No news of him came after that.

Upon this setting Endo begins his story. The historical novel describes the journey of one fervent young priest from Portugal, Father Sebastian Rodrigues, who has had the privilege to be taught and mentored by Father Ferreira years before. Upon hearing Ferreira’s apostasy, and with the reluctant approval of the Jesuit Superior, Rodrigues and fellow priest Father Francisco Garrpe board a ship and sail all the way to Japan to look for their beloved teacher and to investigate the situation. They have been forewarned, the magistrate Inoue is ruthless.

While still on the ship, the priests encounter Kichijiro, a sly, cowardly, and ambiguous figure who later will wade on shore ahead to guide them to some hidden Christians. For a while, the two Fathers have to hide themselves in a hut on a mountain during the day, and minister to the needs of Japanese believers who, despite the danger, come to seek them out for spiritual matters at night.

Later Kichijiro leads them to a nearby island to meet with more hidden believers. To the welcoming relief of the villagers, the fathers secretly conduct mass and baptism despite the risks. The evasive Kichijiro hangs around like a phantom nemesis.

The people suffer greatly under the rule of magistrate Inoue, yes, that Inoue who Rodrigues was forewarned. He extracts from the poor peasants harsh revenues and infuse the utmost fear into those of the Christian faith with his deathly measures. Rodrigues observes that “The persecutions of Christians make their faces expressionless. They cannot register on their faces any sorrow —nor even joy. The long years of secrecy have made the faces of these Christians like masks. This is indeed bitter and sad.”

Never before has Rodrigues felt so deeply about the meaningfulness of his mission:

“… like water flowing into dry earth … For the first time they have met men who treated them like human beings. It was the human kindness and charity of the fathers that touched their hearts.”

But such a firm conviction begins to shatter when Rodrigues comes closer and closer to the reality of persecution. No, not just of his own, but those of the Japanese peasants, his flock. Many are faithful to the end. When discovered, they would be tied on trees in the shape of a cross at the seashore, the rising tide slowly consumed their bodies after two or three days.

The ultimate punishment is ‘the pit’. Believers are tied up and suspended upside down above a pit. Blood would flow out of their eyes, ears, nose and the slits on the neck. They would be literally drip dry into a slow death through several days.

fumie A way out of such torture is to trample on the fumie. The fumie is a wooden plaque with a copper plate on which the image of Christ was artfully engraved. A person’s willingness to trample on the fumie is Inoue’s way of testing if one belongs to the outlawed Christian religion. It is also a convenient way to turn a believer into an apostate upon the threat of torture and death. One only needs to put one’s foot on the fumie, trample or even just step on it, then one can be released immediately, a most easy and convenient ‘formality’ to show one’s denunciation of faith. This was what happened to Father Ferriera.

The officials would say: “I’m not telling you to trample with sincerity and conviction. This is only a formality. Just putting your foot on the thing won’t hurt your convictions.”

To a believer, this may sound like a temptation, or self-deception. Or, is it a necessary choice to survive?

In this historically based novel, Shusaku Endo (1923 – 1996), a Japanese Catholic, paints a vivid picture of the crisis of faith in the face of extreme suffering, the doubts that often lie hidden even in the most devout. In the midst of persecutions, where is God? Why is He silent? Endo is not depicting so much about the hubris of foreign missionaries coming with the hope and optimism to preach and convert, but just the opposite, he has exposed the lowest state a believer, let alone a priest, can possibly experience, the utter humiliation of being the one to denounce and betray his God, albeit under duress.

The duress is horrific indeed. The priest sees no glorious martyrdom but is witness to unbearable torture of these peasants. For several nights, the screams and moans of five Christian villagers accompany him in his sleepless nights. Father Rodrigues is thus being dragged into the ultimate dilemma: He only needs to place his foot on the fumie and all five of these suffering peasants will be released right away.

In a court of law, a statement or action made under duress cannot stand as evidence to lay blame, as the subject is under threat and coercion like Father Rodrigues is here. But in the court of the priest’s conscience, it is an ironclad verdict: Apostasy!

As he is struggling with this painful dilemma, trample on it and denounce his faith or five peasants will be suspended in the pit till death, Father Rodrigues seems to encounter an epiphany. Seeing the well-trodden, blacken face of the Christ image on the fumie, the priest hears a voice breaking through the silence:

“‘Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross.’

The priest placed his foot on the fumie. Dawn broke. And far in the distance the cock crew.”

Indeed, the allusion to Peter’s denial of Christ three times before the cock crows points to Christ’s forgiveness, the light that sheds through the cracks of human failure. After his denial, Peter later served his Lord with transformed fervency and love. Yes, even the Rock, upon whom the Church was to be built, had once denied Christ.

When I first read Silence a few years ago I could not accept Rodrigues’s action. This time around, I’ve come to see that Endo is not discussing theology here, but depicting an imaginary scenario. In the darkest hour of a believer’s journey—likely Endo’s own as well—when a devout is entrapped in an excruciating dilemma like being suspended in the deep pit of spiritual conflicts, Endo draws our attention to the response of a compassionate Christ.

As to the seeming silence of God, Endo lets us hear these internal dialogues:

‘Lord, I resented your silence.’
‘I was not silent. I suffered beside you.’

At the humble manger some two thousand years ago, God had spoken, with a birth that pierced the darkness of that silent night.

***

Reading the Season of Christmas Past:

2015: The Book of Ruth

2014: Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2013: Poetry by Madeleine L’Engle

2012: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

2011: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

2010: A Widening Light, Luci Shaw

2009: The Irrational Season

2008: The Bible and the New York Times by Fleming Rutledge

2008: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

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Words Without Music by Philip Glass

“For me music has always been about lineage. The past is reinvented and becomes the future. But the lineage is everything.” — Philip Glass

This 400 plus page memoir by Philip Glass (1937 -), with 14 pages of photos and 20 pages of index, is nothing short of epic. Glass has not only told us the story of his life so far, but chronicling a generation of American arts and music from an insider’s perspective. The zeitgeist of the Beat Generation and the preoccupation of Eastern philosophy with its search for transcendental experiences make the memoir an interesting and informative read.

Pertaining to Glass’s innovative musical style, I’ve experienced the book in several ways: reading the first half in hardcopy, listening to the latter part in audiobook format via hoopla, superbly performed by narrator Lloyd Jones, and listening to Glass’s works available on hoopla. Hoopla, btw, is wonderful.

Words Without Music Cover

Born 1937 to a secular Jewish family in Baltimore, Glass’s father Ben was a record store owner, mother Ida a librarian. The flute and the violin were his first instruments. Bursting with potentials ready to be unleashed, he left home to attend The University of Chicago at merely 15 years of age majoring in philosophy and mathematics. At Chicago, he’d decided what he wanted to do after graduation, to pursue a career in music, albeit the realization of which was still a blurry vision.

As a young college grad, Glass worked at a steel mill to save enough money to head to NYC for Juilliard, a decision that was against the wish of his mother: “If you go to New York City to study music, you’ll end up like your Uncle Henry, spending your life traveling from city to city and living in hotels.” His uncles also frowned on such an idea. They wanted him to take over the family’s building supplies business.

But the teenaged Glass was determined, only to face a closed door upon audition at Juilliard. No, he wasn’t qualified as a flute player, but, he was given the chance at the extension program to learn composition. Only a detour. Once he’d become a full-fledged student in Juilliard, he devoured all opportunities to learn. You’d think such a talent would become a young success soon after? Well, that wouldn’t have been as interesting a story as real life.

Philip Glass is classified as a ‘minimalist’, a label which he frowns upon. Reading the memoir, I can only say what’s minimal is the material means, money, while all else, passion, intellect, talents, cultural milieu, internal space, and the prolific output of works have been abundant throughout his life journey.

It would be decades later that Glass could earn enough to make a living by only composing. Along the way, he was contented with his day jobs in NYC, including being a furniture mover, plumber, and taxi driver. He nearly got killed driving a cab in NYC, albeit he does recall more pleasant excitement like the time he picked up Salvador Dali from 57th Street to the St. Regis Hotel. During that short trip, he was, alas, tongue-tied. Yes, the word is “contented”, for no matter what he had to do to earn a living—at first just for himself, later a family of four—he seemed happy to be on the right course striving for the ultimate goal. That in itself is inspiring. The tone of the book reflects a quiet and humble soul, reflective and personal.

Glass’s contact list is a who’s who of the Beat Generation and cultural icons in the following decades. He was a contemporary with Jack Kerouac, Jackson Pollack, John Cage, friend with Alan Ginsberg, Doris Lessing, Richard Serra, collaborator with Ravi Shankar, Leonard Cohen, wrote music for the works by Jean Cocteau, Samuel Beckett, composed for Martin Scorsese, Steven Daldry, Woody Allen, studied with Nadia Boulanger as an American in Paris, journeyed to the East to find enlightenment in New Delhi, Katmandu, Darjeeling, explored and created global music with musicians from India, Himalaya, Chinese, Australia, Africa, and South America. Just a few names. The 20 page index is a definite asset.

“I have come to understand that all music, without exception, is ethnic music.”

As for his own music, people always say it’s like “the needle is stuck in the groove.” To understand this, of course, you’ll have to know the operation of a vinyl record. To counteract the general public impression of repetition to no end of his music, he explains in details the Glass music theory. That I let you to explore for yourself.

But here are some passages that I’ve particularly noted with low tech stickies on the side of the page:

About John Cage’s famous piece 4′ 33″, wherein the pianist sits at the piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without touching any keys, whatever sound the audience hears during that time lapse becomes the piece, Glass writes:

“… a work of art has no independent existence… What Cage was saying is that there is no such thing as an independent existence. The music exists between you—the listener—and the object that you’re listening to. The transaction of it coming into being happens through the effort you make in the presence of that work. The cognitive activity is the content of the work.” (p. 95)

What goes on internally in the listener is what the piece is about. Makes me think of Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author” notion.

So do we have “the death of the composer” now? Wait, actually, no. You see, Glass has this brilliant point. The composer still lives in that the performer interacts with and interprets his works, thus becoming a co-creator:

“… the performer has a unique function in terms of what I call this transactional reality which comes from being in the presence of the work: that the interpreter/player of the music becomes part of that. Until then, I had really thought of the interpreter as a secondary creative person. I never thought he was on the same level with Beethoven or Bach. But after I had spent some time thinking about all that and began playing myself, I saw that the activity of playing was itself a creative activity… ” (p. 96)

And how should the performer play the music? By listening intently and purposefully:

“The ideal way of performing, to my way of thinking, would be when the performer allows the activity of playing to be shaped by the activity of listening, and perhaps even by the activity of imagining listening.” (p. 97)

In 1957, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road had just been published and “everybody had read it”. With the $750 prize money he received from Juilliard at the end of his third academic year, he bought a motorcycle, probably an unintended item on which the music school would like to see the scholarship spent. Off he went on a cross-country road trip. But what’s the difference between he and his friends and the Kerouac’s clan? Glass writes:

“His [Kerouac’s] book is full of interesting characters, but that’s not what happened for us. We weren’t interested in having those kinds of experiences, we were out and abroad in America, consuming the country visually and experientially by driving through it…. (p. 102)

The renowned sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, or Raviji as he was known to friends and colleagues, at that time started collaborating with George Harrison. Glass notes that “The casual drug use by young people particularly upset him. Sometimes he would lecture me about drugs, and I had to remind him that I was drug-free.” Ummm, wonder if Raviji had lectured George Harrison on same.

In 1964, with a Fulbright Scholarship, Glass went to Paris to study with the eminent music guru Nadia Boulanger. For two years, she inspired and led Glass to higher grounds of musical epiphanies. One of the crucial lessons he took away after two years with Boulanger was the route to innovation. First, learn the conventional theoretical foundation, then you diverge and create your own:

“… an authentic personal style cannot be achieved without a solid technique at its base. That in a nutshell is what Madame Boulanger was teaching.” (p. 145)

His mother Ida went by train from Baltimore to NYC for her son’s first concert at Queens College on April 13, 1968. There were only six people in the audience including herself. As Glass drove her back to the train station after the concert, the only comment she made was that his hair was too long.

The second time Ida attended her son’s concert was eight years later in November 1976. This time, she was in the full house audience of four thousand people at the Metropolitan Opera for the performance of his first opera, Einstein on the Beach.

Glass movingly recalls his conversation with his mother at her death bed. She was in and out of a coma. She whispered two last words to him: “The copyrights”. Mother and son came to a perfect understanding. He reassured her, “It’s all taken care of, Mom. I’ve registered them all.”

He’d better.

Glass has composed more than twenty operas, eight symphonies, two piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra, soundtracks to films, 125 credits on IMDb for all sorts: full features, doc, shorts, TV. And more to come.

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Stillman’s Love & Friendship: More than Book Illustration

Back in 2007, the Welsh-born film director Peter Greenaway made the following stark comment:

“Cinema is predicated on the 19th-century novel. We’re still illustrating Jane Austen novels — there are 41 films of Jane Austen novels in the world — what a waste of time.”

I’m afraid since then, must be to Greenaway’s disdain, more Jane Austen movie adaptations had come out. As recent as early this year, Greenaway had reiterated his stance with an even starker comment: “all film writers should be shot.”

Not that he’s anti-Austen, or holds a grudge against Tolkien or Rowling… I don’t think, but that he is pushing for a non-text-based, purely visual medium for movies.

Well, I’m glad his view remains just that, a personal opinion, and that writer/director Whit Stillman had not become a casualty of such an incendiary thought.

For thanks to Stillman, we have an intelligent, delightful and worthy adaptation of Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan, a first for the author’s lesser known Juvenilia, apart from her famous six novels. The film is definitely not an illustrated book, but a worthy stand-alone cinematic production that Jane would approve.

As for dear Jane, I think she’d be pleased to know that her works are being cherished enough to be adapted into this modern invention called a movie two centuries later, and that in this post-modern era, we have a director by the name of Whit Stillman who’s enthused enough to turn her novella, written when she was still in her teenage years, into a movie production.

The epistolary novella “Lady Susan” was deemed unfinished and published posthumously. So this is a plus as Stillman could finished it for Jane, with an ending that’s aligned with the plot’s trajectory, and in a style that’s so well melded one would marvel at the perfect alchemy of Austenesque characters and language. Smartly borrowing the name of another of her novella “Love and Friendship”, Stillman toys with dear Jane’s uncontested approval.

While written in letters format, “Lady Susan” is highly entertaining. Austen’s talent is apparent on every page. How well she presents her characters merely through their written correspondences. Acerbic commentaries from an 18 year old? Hard to believe. But indeed, here are some lines describing Mr. Johnson (Stephen Fry), Lady Susan’s only friend Alicia’s (Chloë Sevigny) husband:

“My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agreeable, too young to die.” (Letter 29, Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson)

Interestingly, Stillman has toned down Lady Susan’s language and made her a more amicable heroine. The above lines were shortened and delivered by Kate Beckinsale in a casual manner. Yes, turning the letters into movie scenes are tricky, crafting mere letter writers into flesh and blood can be challenging, something I hope Greenaway can appreciate.

Stillman has taken Love & Friendship to 21st C. audience with fast paced, short scenes. The settings are elegant, the period costumes appealing, overall, a fine cinematic production. It is an apt visual presentation of Austen’s ingenuity. Writing “Lady Susan” while merely 18 or 19, she had seen through the marriage system of her country, understood human nature and foibles, depicting her characters and the main heroine, no, anti-heroine, with piercing sarcasm and generosity.

Having read the novella first could be an advantage as the viewer knows exactly who the characters are and the backstory as the film begins. With the literary source in mind, the viewer can also have a heightened appreciation of the cinematic rendering and alterations needed to make it work as a movie. The fusion of Austen / Stillman humour is most delightful, punctuated with some whimsical rendering on screen that I won’t mention here but leave for viewers to enjoy.

Kate Beckinsale portrays Lady Susan with deadpan astuteness. Deadpan or dead-on, no matter, for Beckinsale is a fine Lady Susan, newly widowed, not too young to be gullible and definitely not too old to flirt for her own gains. Don’t blame her, for she has a sixteen year-old daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) to mind, and so, two eligible candidates who need to wed.

If one were to find fault, blame it on the social system allowing the female population only one track to go for sustainability, i.e. to find a husband. The ultimate goal of the marriage contract is more for finance than romance. (Maybe that’s why we love Pride and Prejudice so much, for its triumph of true love.) Here in this story, it’s a social milieu where love is remote and friendship useful. Lady Susan Vernon ultimately finds her conquest, never one to boast, just a project accomplished, all bottom lines met.

Stillman has a wonderful cast to work with, and they look like they had a lot of fun making the film, the most lively being Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett). It must be a joy to be silly without restraint, yes, let it all out.

Alicia, Lady Susan’s only friend, is aptly played by Chloë Sevigny, who reunites with Kate Beckinsale from “The Last Days of Disco” (1998) where the two are the yuppie heroines under Stillman’s direction. Great to see the two friends in “Disco” have now emerged as allies yet again, this time in a comedy of manners with real Austen roots.

Stillman is a master of dialogues, and so’s Austen. In both the novella and the film, conversations make the characters. But mind you, Janeites know this, and it shows in Stillman’s film, Austen’s humour is not your roll on the floor laughing type of funny

rofl_1

but a clever kind of jokes that elicits a knowing chuckle or a smile, ones that exude insight into human nature, ones that you’d want to jot down:

And for those who have read the epistolary novella penned by a young female writer of the 18th century, one cannot help but marvel at her prodigious astuteness and now director Stillman’s revealing of her brilliant mind. A long time Austen ‘apologist’, Stillman’s previous work “Metropolitan” (1990) is unabashedly a “Mansfield Park” of the time. My favorite line in that movie is uttered by the Fanny Price parallel character Audrey Rouget (Carolyn Farina), when she is talking to Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) about one of her favorite Austen works, Mansfield Park. Tom has not read any Austen but feels qualified to criticize nonetheless:

Tom: But it’s a notoriously bad book. Even Lionel Trilling, one of her greatest admirer thought that.

Audrey: Well, if Lionel Trilling thought that, he’s an idiot.

(But of course, it was Tom who hasn’t read any Austen that has misread Trilling.)

That was Stillman’s debut film. Since “Metropolitan”, he had proven his mastery in the comedy of manners in our times… preppies, yuppies, and maybe someday I hope, millennials. To say his oeuvre is a conglomeration of Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach, and Wes Anderson would be unfair, neglecting his own style of humour and social observations, although his works do leave traces of all the above.

When awards season comes, I anticipate the film to receive some nominations, specifically Adapted Screenplay, Set Design, Costumes and Hair, and perhaps directing.

Here’s my recommendation: read Jane’s novella Lady Susan first before watching the movie would probably reap the most enjoyment. Afterwards, there’s the bonus. Yes, Whit Stillman has wrapped it all up with the novel Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen’s Lady Susan Vernon Was Entirely Vindicated published by Little, Brown and Co. in May, 2016. Icing on the cake.

Jane Austen doesn’t need a defender, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind getting acknowledgement for her lesser known Juvenilia, some works started when she was only twelve. “Love & Friendship” is a first attempt and a worthy homage to her ingenuity. I’m glad there are many prospects. Whit Stillman and Jane Austen make one fine match indeed.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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Related posts on Ripple Effects:

Love & Friendship and Other Prospects

Too Much Jane?

Why We Read Jane Austen

Mansfield Park: Jane Austen the Contrarian

In Other Words: Lahiri’s Reconstruction of Self

In Other Words book cover

A couple of years ago, I was surprised to read about Jhumpa Lahiri moving to Italy to live, even just for a few years. Author of four works of fiction – Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland – at the prime of her writing and teaching career, having received the O. Henry Award in 1999, the Pulitzer in 2000, and her latest The Lowland shortlisted for the Booker in 2013, Lahiri decided to uproot her family and move to Italy to totally immerse in the Italian language. That means speaking, reading and writing in Italian.

In Other Words is Lahiri’s brave and candid account as a language learner. It compiles twenty-one essays and two short stories which she wrote in Italian. She uses the metaphor of swimming out into the lake instead of safely hugging the shore to refer to her Italian language learning experience. From her descriptions of the challenges and risks, the loss of anchor, the inability to express herself and be literate, let alone literary, the disorientation, the total humbling, her Italian venture is more like jumping off a precipice to billowy waters of unfathomable depth.

My hat off to Lahiri’s honest revealing of her frustrations and strive for a new identity; yes, after all, language is a major determinant of identity, one which is, unfortunately, superseded by one’s outer appearance and racial features. So it is heart-wrenching to read that despite her love of the Italian language, her total devotion to adopt it not just to live but as a tool of her trade as a writer, she is often seen as an outsider, a foreigner, barred from acceptance. Even when she speaks to Italians fluently in their language, they would respond to her in English.

English, that’s the rub. I was surprised to read that, while the author had achieved so much in her literary career as a writer in English, she chose to discard it to totally immerse in Italian. In the chapter entitled “The Metamorphosis”, she candidly admits that her writing in Italian (which she had been learning in America for some twenty years before) is a flight:

“Why am I fleeing? What is pursuing me? Who wants to restrain me?
The most obvious answer is the English language. But I think it’s not so
much English in itself as everything the language has symbolized for me…
It has represented a culture that had to be mastered, interpreted. I was
afraid that it meant a break between me and my parents. English denotes
a heavy, burdensome aspect of my past. I’m tired of it….”

Of course, that’s also the language that she loved, and succeeded with. The conflict in identity, first as an Indian immigrant with Bangali as her mother tongue, then as a writer in English who had garnered the Pulitzer Prize – an award that she felt she did not deserve – had shrouded her with unresolved tensions. Lahiri had felt deeply the tug of war between her parental heritage and adopted land. A rejection of both had silently crept in. Italian provides a way out:

“Italian offers me a very different literary path. As a writer I can demolish
myself, I can reconstruct myself, I can join words together and work on
sentences without ever being considered an expert. I’m bound to fail when
I write in Italian, but, unlike my sense of failure in the past, this doesn’t
torment or grieve me.”

Unbelievably surprising and honest, written in Italian and translated by The New Yorker editor Ann Goldstein, the bilingual book opens up to a dual English and Italian version. The short essays chronicle the progress of not only an insightful identity search and reconstruction of selfhood, but an invaluable personal documentation of second – no, additional – language learning journey. If this book was published a couple of decades earlier, I would likely have another topic for my thesis in my graduate work on second language learning; not only that, my view of English being the lingua franca, the language holding linguistic hegemony, would have completely changed as well.

After reading In Other Words and my surprising discovery of Lahiri’s ‘tormenting sense of failure’ with the English language (for all its symbolic meaning) or even her ‘undeserving’ feeling towards her award in her writing, I am relieved of a hidden burden. I don’t feel so badly about having had to constantly check and re-check my English: prepositions, idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs usage, subject verb agreement… All the hurdles that confront me every time I write a post or an article. If Lahiri can be so candid about her frustrations and errors when it comes to language learning, why can’t I?

~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

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My thanks to Asian American Press for allowing me to post my book review here on Ripple Effects. The last paragraph is added in just for my Ripple readers.

Related Posts on Ripple Effects:

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: Book Review

The Namesake (2006, DVD): Movie Review

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Upcoming Books into Movies 2016 and Beyond

The following is a list of upcoming movies based on books. Their productions are at various stages of completion. Some are already screening at Film Festivals. I hope that they will be released to a larger audience. Some titles have just been announced, or the director, screenwriter, and / or cast just been named. I’ve selected the ones I’m interested in and want to see.

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The fantasy/science fiction classic by Madeleine L’Engle is not for children only. This 1963 Newbery Medal-winning YA fiction is a wonderful concoction of space adventure toying with interesting concepts such as “tesseract”, a fifth dimension traveling log mixed well with faith and love. And the movie adaptation? Disney’s got the rights for some time now. Latest news is Selma director Ava du Vernay will direct. The screenplay will be written by Oscar-winning Frozen writer and co-director Jennifer Lee.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The 2005 memoir by Jeanette Walls, more than seven years on the NYT Bestsellers List (according to Barnes and Noble) has also been on the back (or front) of filmmakers’ mind, with Jennifer Lawrence linked to the possible production. But now, we have a fresher Oscar winner replacing J. Law to star in this extraordinary memoir: Brie Larson. The 2016 Oscar Best Actress of Room will do justice to J. Walls’ unique story of growing up a nomad in America. Larson will re-unite with her Short Term 12 director Destin Cretton. Woody Harrelson also stars, so he must be the dreamer Dad of Walls’. It has been a long decade since the book came out. Let’s hope this adaptation would become a reality.

Love and Friendship by Jane Austen

This is the first time Jane Austen’s epistolary novella Lady Susan is adapted to the big screen. Published posthumously, the work had long been thought as ‘unfinished’, maybe due to its hasty ending. Would that pose a challenge to director Whit Stillman? Apparently not. The film premiered at Sundance FF this January to high acclaims. Kate Beckinsale is young widow Lady Susan Vernon (later Martin). Austen’s Emma Woodhouse is nowhere near Lady Susan on the scale of being despicable, if you ask me. Her manipulation isn’t limited to others but for her own ends in securing a husband and one for her daughter, might as well. The film is described as ‘supremely elegant’ by Variety. Now that’s a definite appeal as we’re all suffering from Downton withdrawal.

Certain Women by Maile Meloy

Thanks to the film Certain Women, now I’m aware of the writer Maile Meloy. Ripples from a fine movie production often lead me to the source material. Based on the short stories of Meloy’s, the adaptation tells the story of three women and boasts a high calibre cast with Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, and Laura Dern. It is helmed by Kelly Reichardt who had directed Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy (2008) to critical acclaims. This leads me to a keen interest in exploring Meloy’s works, which had garnered multiple literary awards including the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, shortlisted for the Orange Prize and included in the New York Times Notable Books. The film adaptation drew my attention in that it’s not based on one book but multiple short stories. It premiered at Sundance this January to critical acclaims.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

The book is Dutch writer Herman Koch’s sixth novel. It has sold over a million copies and translated into twenty-one languages.The setting takes place in an upscale restaurant with the story just over the course of a fancy dinner. But what is revealed by the conversations between two brothers and their wives could send chills down one’s spine and we soon find the background story and hidden thoughts unappetizing. The veneer of social grace can only last through the appetizer as we are led to the raw revealing by the main course and lashing out by dessert. Koch’s novel had been adapted into films in the past few years, first a Dutch and later an Italian production screened at TIFF. I’m glad to see the cast for the English adaptation, recently announced, is quite an appetizing mix with Richard Gere, Rebecca Hall, Steve Coogan, and Laura Linney.

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

Movie stars are crossing the once thought to be a great divide, from the big screen to TV. In recent years, the line has been porous. Many have moved into TV productions to even more success, Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Kate Winslet, James Spader, Matthew McConaughey, Kirsten Dunst; now Scarlett Johansson is diving in. Edith Wharton’s classic The Custom of the Country had inspire Julian Fellowes to write his successful screenplays. It has been announced that Wharton’s 1913 novel is to be turned into an 8-episode TV mini series, with Johansson in the staring role as the spoiled, flirting and ruthless Undine Spragg. Looks like it’s going to be one compatible match.

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Related Posts on Ripple Effects

The Glass Castle Book Review

The Dinner by Herman Koch: A Timely Read for Lent?

A Visit to The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Summer Home

The Outsider Visualized

Just finished rereading Albert Camus’s The Outsider (or, The Stranger, L’Étranger). For some reasons, I find these two photos which I took late last fall well represent my thoughts. Words may come later in another post; until then, these visuals will suffice.

The Outsider 2

IMG_3400 (1)

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Books Before Films 2016

There are several books on my shelf and in my TBR box that will be turning into films coming out in 2016. I must get to them soon. How time flies, one day’s gone already.

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

The Light bet Oceans Often it’s the cast of an upcoming movie that prods me to read a book. This one has been on the New York Times Bestseller List for years since its publication. No matter how popular it is, I’m motivated only now mainly because of the first rate cast: Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz, directed by Derek Cianfrance. Instead of a place beyond the pines (his last work) we have an island off the Australian coast, with the story about a lighthouse keeper and his wife bringing up a baby they found in a boat washed up onshore.

Silence by Shûsaku Endô

Silence This one is just the opposite. I want to read it regardless of whether it will be made into a film or not. But what a bonus it is to know the adaptation is a Martin Scorsese’s work with Liam Neeson, Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, and Ciarán Hinds. I highly anticipate this film, albeit I expect the viewing experience won’t be pleasant. I’ve read it before but want to reread it before watching. The book is heart-wrenching as Endô describes the persecutions and tortures Christians and Jesuit missionaries suffered in 17th century Japan. How Scorsese, a Catholic himself, handles the subject matter – the choice between apostasy vs. martyrdom – and have these character actors interpret the internal and physical torments will be intriguing to see. Scorsese wrote the forward of this edition of the book (image here).

The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman

The Zookeeper's Wife This is a worthy, true story to be made into film. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were keepers of the reputable Warsaw Zoo. During the Holocaust, Jan smuggled Jews out of the Warsaw Ghetto into their facility, saving hundreds. Antonina did the day-to-day chores of protecting them, hiding them in the cages, feeding them and keeping their spirits up. The parallel and irony of men and beasts are obvious. Acclaimed nature writer Diane Ackerman drew from Antonina’s diary to write her non-fiction work, a historical account of a heroic rescue mission. Screenplay by Angela Workerman, a scribe to note. Jessica Chastain and Daniel Brühl play the altruistic Zabinski couple.

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Lady Susan Book Cover This has been in my iBooks for a long while, so long that I’d deleted it and now reloaded it again as the film adaptation is coming out. Entitled Love and Friendship, screenplay is based on Austen’s early novella Lady Susan, with Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan Vernon. It will be interesting to see how the epistle form is translated onto screen. It will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival Jan. 23. Whether we will actually see it in our movie theatres is another matter. I hope it will be screened in the not too distant future.

Remainder by Tom McCarthy

I bought this book at Harvard Book Store – the independent book store in Harvard Square since 1932 – during my New England Road Trip last fall. I’d read McCarthy’s 2015 Booker shortlisted Satin Island and knew Remainder had been adapted into film before I went on the trip. So it was a title I’d intended to get at that bookstore. Remainder is McCarthy’s debut work (2006). An unnamed Londoner is struck by a falling object and lapse into a coma. As he awakes, he has lost all memory and needs to re-enact his past to find his identity and authenticity of being. The Telegraph had called McCarthy “a Kafka for the Google Age”. Interesting to see how that translates onto screen. The film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival last October. Will screen at Berlin International Film Festival in February, 2016.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

the_secret_scripture_bookcover The film adaptation of Booker short-listed and multiple award winning novel by Irish writer Sebastian Barry has already been completed, but has yet come up with a release date. So, I’ve plenty of time to read the book. The narrator is a 100 year-old mental hospital patient recalling her life. The old and the young are played by Vanessa Redgrave and Rooney Mara respectively. Directed by Jim Sheridan, the Oscar nominated director who introduced us to Daniel Day-Lewis in the excellent productions first in My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown and later In the Name of the Father.

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Reading the Season: The Book of Ruth

For the past seven years, I’ve a special post at Christmas which I’d named Reading the Season, just to help me dwell on the Reason behind all the festivities. Some past authors I’d read include Marilynne Robinson, C. S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Luci Shaw. This year I’m going back to the source material, The Bible, for my Christmas read. And no, my selection isn’t from Luke 2, which Linus so eloquently delivers every year in the delightful A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I reread the little love story in The Book of Ruth, one of the earliest parallels pointing to the Christmas story. This time I found it particularly relevant. So here it goes…

moonrise

A long time ago in a land far, far away a man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi, together with their two sons Mahlon and Chilion, had to pack up and leave their hometown of Bethlehem in Judah to escape from a famine in the land. As migrants, they travelled to a foreign country called Moab.

Alas, Elimelech died soon after and left behind Naomi and their two sons. Years passed, the sons married two Moabite gals, Orpah and Ruth. Could it be the food there, for not long after Naomi’s two sons also died. Bitter and despondent, Naomi sent her two daughters-in-law back to their own family and began her lone journey to return to Bethlehem.

But Ruth was adamant to follow Naomi back to where she came from with this moving vow:

Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Touched by her loyalty, Naomi let Ruth travel with her back to Bethlehem. She was like a migrant all over again. To the people there Naomi, if anyone still recognized her, was now widowed, sonless, bitter and destitute. The two women didn’t even have a refugee camp to take shelter.

To survive, Ruth went out to the fields to glean the grains left by the harvesters. It happened that they were in the fields of a kind landowner Boaz, who after noticing Ruth and hearing of her love for her mother-in-law, told his workers to leave more grains in the fields for her to glean. Yes, it just happened that she’d come to the right field.

When Naomi learned of Boaz, she saw a glimpse of hope. Definitely this was more than the food bank; this generous landowner actually was a relative belonging to her late husband’s clan. Out of desperation, she sent Ruth on a risky mission: to go to Boaz at night and approach him tactfully, letting him know of their ties in kinship.

Lo and behold, Boaz, an honourable and compassionate man, was harbouring a deep and ardent love for Ruth. That night, though surprised to see Ruth, he received her readily and with respect, restraining and keeping his torrid passion well under wraps, umm like… Mr. Darcy.

According to the law of the land, the closest relative had the first right to redeem the lands that Naomi’s late husband Elimelech had sold and to marry Ruth to carry on the family line. But lo, Boaz wasn’t that person; instead, he did the honourable thing, extending the first right of redemption to the closest relative, yes, like umm… Mr. Collins.

And it happened that Mr. Collins was willing to buy back the land but wait a minute, he couldn’t take Ruth as a wife. There could be reverberations, for Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabite. Further, the land was for her to continue with Naomi’s family ownership, and would not be under his name. “I pass,” he said in the sight of ten elder witnesses. Phew!

So only then did Boaz declare not only his willingness to redeem the land once owned by Elimelech, but also his desire to take Ruth as his wife to save her from destitute, poverty, and childlessness. How marvellous it was that Boaz, a legit kinsman redeemer according to the laws, was also truly, madly, and deeply in love with his redeemed.

And we are definitely indebted to the two lovers for producing the line of descendants, for Ruth later became the great grandmother of David, from whose ancestral line generations later came Jesus.

With this beautiful ending I come back to Christmas 2015, and ponder on the lowly birth of Christ at the manger, to become our Kinsman for the ultimate purpose as Redeemer.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us… full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14

The Risk of Birth

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

– Madeleine L’Engle

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Previous ‘Reading The Season’ Posts:

2014: Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2013: Poetry by Madeleine L’Engle

2012: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

2011: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

2010: A Widening Light, Luci Shaw

2009: The Irrational Season

2008: The Bible and the New York Times by Fleming Rutledge

2008: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín: A Second Encounter

As one who is interested in the adaptation process, I’m always eager to find out how filmmakers choose movie materials.

I first read Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn a few years back when it was first published. I admit I found it uneventful and a bit bland at that time. On the shelf it went after my reading, and I didn’t bother to think too much about it.

Only in recent months when I knew about its upcoming movie adaptation that I was drawn back to it. My major quests this time: to give it another chance and to find out what in it that appeals to filmmakers.

Well, glad I reread it, for I’m actually giving myself a second chance. This time the ‘uneventful’ narratives become a quiet and gentle portrayal of a young woman’s journey of self-discovery, a coming-of-age story told with nuance and grace.

I read it more carefully this time, noting in particular the subtexts and inferences. I paid attention not only to the characters’ inner thoughts and feelings from Tóibín’s direct statements, but his descriptions of their actions and find that he’s a master of subtleties.

Brooklyn_Colm_Toibin

Brooklyn is about migration, this time around, I can see how relevant and timely it is with our present global situation. From the small town of Enniscorthy, Wexford County, Ireland, Eilis sails across the Atlantic on her own to reach the shore of America just for a better future.

The initial foresight is however from her older sister Rose, the financial supporter and all round sustainer of both Eilis and their widowed mother. It is no wonder that Eilis feels it’s Rose that should be the one to go to America, Rose, the good golfer, glamorous, fashionable, capable and confident.

And Eilis? Here’s a little episode while still in Enniscorthy. She goes to a dance with her best friend Nancy and watches her being invited to the dance floor by a promising young man George. Sitting on the sideline Eilis watches her every move and then we read:

“Ellis looked away in case her watching made Nancy uncomfortable, and then looked at the ground, hoping that no one would ask her to dance. It would be easier now, she thought, if George asked Nancy for the next dance when this set was over and she could slip quietly home.”

When this set is over she isn’t given such a chance, for then George brings Nancy and Eilis over to the bar for a lemonade and we are introduced to his friend Jim Farrell, who “just nodded curtly but did not shake hands… his face emotionless.” Towards the end of the book we will see Jim Farrell appear again as some sort of a nemesis who poses a moral dilemma for Eilis.

Tóibín has given us an unlikely heroine in Eilis, a reluctant emigrant. Always the recipient of Rose’s support and encouragement, Eilis is in fact pushed out of her comfort zone by her well-meaning older sister. In her personal journey we see how Eilis grow and mature, and most importantly, with her good nature intact.

In Brooklyn, Father Flood helps her settle in Mrs. Kehoe’s rooming house and secures a job as a sales clerk at Bartocci’s department store. She gets a taste of rooming house politics, and at Bartocci’s, learn work ethics and the soft skills that are so essential to survive socially. And yet, she is plagued with homesickness as soon as she receives the first letters from home.

At the mid-point of the book, Eilis meets Tony, not Irish but from an Italian immigrant family. No matter, Tony’s authentic charm and devotion break down all cultural barriers and alleviates Eilis’s homesickness.

Tony is gentle with her, courteous and considerate. How do we know? As a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan, Tony never mentions baseball in front of Eilis. Instead, he listens attentively to her and having learned of her night class at Brooklyn College, waited for her after class just to walk her home.

Eilis discovers Tony’s love of baseball when he brings her home for dinner over conversations with her brothers at the dinner table. His family? That’s another charming story.

Just as she begins to settle in and fully enjoy her new life in Brooklyn, Eilis receives a tragic news that sends her back to Ireland for a short while. Now we are at the last part of the book with only fifty-one pages left. Here we have the major conflict of the novel, a moral dilemma that Eilis needs to resolve.

I much appreciate Tóibín’s storytelling. After presenting us in details a successful immigrant experience, a young woman becoming independent in a new land, finding herself, meeting a love interest, and even planning for a future with him, Tóibín drops a bombshell shattering all that has been built and invested. And all this while, he’s been so calm and quiet leading to it.

Further, Tóibín shows us how we can be a different person in different settings and environment. Once back in Ireland, the independent and confident Eilis is changed back to her old self. Under the roof of her mother, she is the dutiful and accommodating daughter once again, but this time, with the added burden of guilt.

Tóibín’s narratives are often quiet and mild, but his characterization is shrewd. We see the acerbic Mrs. Kelly who runs a tight ship in her grocery store where Eilis works on Sundays, and her American counterpart Mrs. Kehoe, Eilis’s landlady. Then there’s the curt Jim Farrell who doesn’t even cast Eilis a glance but earnestly woos her when she comes back after dipping in American waters; and finally there’s Eilis’s mother, subtly scheming and manipulative.

With the subject of migration, the ultimate quest is finding a home. As we read Eilis’s personal journey across the Atlantic from Ireland to America and back again, we see her tossed by the waves of loyalty and belonging. Like her first voyage over the turbulent sea, unsettling and gut retching, her return to Enniscorthy is an even more acute challenge. But at the end we see Eilis make her choice, and it is gratifying.

She is finally ashore.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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Movie review of Brooklyn is here.

November Wrap: East Meets West at the Pond

November is an eclectic month of reading and viewing for me. I’ve watched films ranging from a Chinese wuxia legend from the Tang Dynasty, to the English suffrage movement, to the scandal in the Catholic Church in Boston… and read books from crime thrillers to Westerns to the Gilded Age to India before and after independence.

Arti is a hybrid after all, constantly navigating between cultures and languages. When it comes to books and films, dashing between genres, periods and styles only adds spice to life.

Here’s the list of my November books and films.

Films

The Assassin

The Assassin

Acclaimed Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s genre-defying wuxia epic earned him Best Director at Cannes this May. Hailed as the most beautiful film at the Festival, this adaptation of a 9th century Tang Dynasty Chinese legend may not be as easily grasped in terms of its storyline as its visual appeal. The film is recently voted #1 on the reputable Sight and Sound Magazine‘s Best Films of 2015 list, that’s the result of a poll gathering the views of 168 international film critics. It is a rare gem indeed. My full review at Asian American Press. ~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

(BTW, Hou’s last film? The Musée d’Orsay commissioned French feature on the Museum’s 20th anniversary: Flight of the Red Balloon.)

Room

A highly watchable adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s 2010 Booker Prize shortlisted novel. Kudos to the actors Brie Larson as Ma, Jacob Tremblay as 5 yr-old Jack, and yes, to Donoghue herself for writing the screenplay. One of those titles that I’ve enjoyed watching more than the literary source. My review on Ripple Effects. ~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples
Update Jan. 14, 2016: 4 Oscar Nominations including Best Picture

Suffragette

Carey Mulligan has put forth a nuanced performance as the laundry gal turned suffragette in this Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane, 2007) directed historical drama. It’s worthwhile to watch the informative depiction of the actual events woven with fictional personal stories, especially Mulligan’s riveting portrayal of Maud, how her beginning naivety is forged into committed devotion to the suffrage movement. Prolific screenwriter Abi Morgan (Irony Lady, 2011, just to name one of her works) has laid out a fact-based drama with a heart-wrenching climatic scene. The sacrifice these voiceless, working women were willing to lay down is inspiring.
~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Secret in their Eyes

The Hollywood re-make of Argentine author Eduardo Sacheri’s crime thriller is a tall order, for its previous film adaptation is the Oscar winner of 2009 Best Foreign Language Film. My post on the book, original film, and Hollywood version is here. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

Spotlight

One of the best films I’ve seen this year, detailing the sequences of how the Boston Globe’s ‘Spotlight’ team of investigative journalists uncovered the systemic cover-up of child sexual abuse among Catholic priests. The Pulitzer winning reporting is presented in the film as painstaking procedurals in matter-of-fact dramatizing. For those who may be a bit worried about the subject matter, there is no sensationalized scenes of abuse, and on the part of the reporters, no portrayal of heroism. Such may well be the praise-worthy elements of this production. The cast’s performance is convincing, in particular, Liev Schreiber as the soft-spoken but motivating, no-nonsense editor Marty Baron. Come Awards time, I trust the production, its cast and crew, and director Tom McCarthy (The Visitor, 2007) will be duly recognized. ~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples
Update Jan. 14, 2016: 6 Oscar Nominations including Best Picture

Fireflies in the Garden

My guess is, you haven’t heard of this 2008 movie. Neither have I until I saw it on TV a few days ago. The story about a father-son’s love-hate relationship from childhood to adulthood is realistically depicted. Caught in between the straining conflicts between the always angry and harsh father and a sensitive, vulnerable son, is the mother, always loving and protecting, something like the family dynamics in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. It also echoes the Oscar winning Ordinary People (1981), the small-scaled, Bergman-esque chamber film of deep entanglement of unresolved parent-child conflicts. Another film just popped into mind and that’s Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent’s When Did You Last See your Father.

Fireflies has a well-selected cast with Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe and Julia Roberts. I’m surprised to see the low rating the film received among critics. Disappointed really that it wasn’t well received. What’s that to me, and why am I concerned? There’s a half-baked screenplay in my closet that’s something along that line. I know, more rewrites. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

Books (Click on links to my Goodreads reviews)

It’s all a chain reaction started with …

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly (Audiobook)

I’ve not missed a single one of Connelly’s Detective Bosch novels. This time I listened to the audiobook and was much impressed by the voice of its narrator Titus Welliver.

Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker (Audio MP3)

So I checked about Welliver’s other audio works, and found Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker. I’d seen the 2008 film adaptation with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen and quite enjoyed it. So I jumped right in and found it to be a very well-written book, one of the few Westerns I’ve read.

And from this Robert B. Parker, I went on to explore more about him and learned that he was the ‘Dean of American Crime Fiction’. Here are two of his works crime stories I followed up with:

Promised Land (Audio MP3)
The Godwulf Manuscript (Audio MP3)

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
From crime fiction to the Gilded Age. I bought this book at Edith Wharton’s home at The Mount during my New England road trip, during which I learned that Julian Fellowes was much influenced by Wharton and especially this title.

The Secret in their Eyes by Eduardo Sacheri (Audio MP3)

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein (eBook) – click on link to read my one-line review of this title on Goodreads.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
Makes me think of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn which I’m rereading to prep for the upcoming film adaptation.

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Shifting between the English in India before independence and later the 70’s, a clash in cultures and the human toll of unfulfilled marriages. I reread this to prepare for the James Ivory Retrospective this coming weekend right here in my City, with the legendary director (now 87) attending. Yes, really looking forward to this event.

Currently Reading / Listening

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick (for the upcoming film)

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (reread for the upcoming film)

Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford (Audiobook)

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Related posts you may like:

Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)

The Tree of Life (2011) by Terrence Malick

When Did you Last See your Father?

Appaloosa (2008)

A New England Fall Foliage Road Trip

Just came back from a ‘Thelma and Louise’ kinda road trip with my cousin to Northeastern United States. Kinda but not exactly, for obvious reason: I’ve come back, bearing photos and a foliage report that says it’s not too late to head out even now.

According to locals, due to the warm, extended summer days, foliage change has delayed by about a week. I started my drive in late September to the first week of October, and I’d say the foliage color change was from 10% to 40%, depending on the locale.

Here’s the itinerary of my travels:

Wayland, MA –> Portland, ME –> Rockport / Camden, ME –> N. Conway, NH –>
Stowe, VT –> Williamstown, MA –> Wayland, MA

I’ll be posting interesting sights I encountered during this trip. Here’s my first entry.

Walden Pond

I started from Wayland, MA, a suburb about 30 mins. drive west of Boston. Walden Pond is just 6.2 miles north of Wayland. In pursuit of solitude, to taste the bare essence and to ‘suck out the marrow of life’, Henry David Thoreau cleared some trees in the woodlands owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, built a 10′ x 15′ cabin and on July 4, 1845, began to live there by the Pond, an experience that lasted two years, two months and two days.

A stone-throw from the parking lot of the Walden Pond State Reservation is a replica of Thoreau’s cabin. A friendly ranger greeted me:

Inside the cabin were the bare necessities, a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs: “one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

As for the Pond, it was pure serenity. As for fall foliage, I could only see it in my mind’s eye:

So you could imagine my surprise to see beaches and swimmers. But of course, this is now a National Park, and it’s summer still:

The day was September 28, the few autumn leaves reminded me that transition of the seasons was indeed happening, however slowly:

As I walked around the lake, a sign pointed me to the actual site of Thoreau’s cabin in the woods:

And beside it, these famous words of his:

But nowhere could I find a sign posting this other quote which I also admire, on the economy of work:

“For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.”

Don’t you just love his calculations?

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Follow my New England series:

September Wrap

Here’s a post of lists, movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read or listened to, all in September, a list that hopefully can tide you over till my next post, which will be after a long-planned hiatus. You’re welcome to throw in your thoughts on any title on this list, or ripple out to other shores.

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MOVIES At Theatres:

Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Who are they kidding? Might as well just put in this disclaimer: Title taken at random. This is not the Man from U.N.C.L.E. with David McCallum (yeah) as Illya Kuryakin and Robert Vaughn (boo) as Napoleon Solo during my childhood days. I knew what the acronym stood for even as a grade schooler, and was mesmerized by a world wide net of spies and intrigues, despite watching a B/W TV set. This 2015 U.N.C.L.E. feature movie is just like any other lesser spy flicks, feels like haphazardly done, dated spywares that fail to send any positive nostalgic vibes, and featuring an accidental duo just happen to have the same names as those in the 60’s TV series. The third person, Alicia Vikander, makes it a bit more watchable. ~ ~ Ripples

Mistress America

A bit disappointed considering how much I’d enjoyed Frances Ha and the works of Noah Baumbach. Greta Gerwig is a mystery to me. In all her roles she looks ultra cheerful, even in difficult circumstances, but is that overacting or is that what her character is supposed to convey, optimism as fuel for life? Anyway, I wanted to give Mistress America a second chance. But as I checked the showtimes a couple of weeks later, it wasn’t there anymore. ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

A Walk in the Woods

A pleasant surprise! Is there life after 50, 60 … 70? Robert Redford and Nick Nolte is an odd pair to answer that from the jagged edge of a cliff. All the cliché shots of two old men hiking the Appalachian Trail are in the movie trailer; the film has more to offer. Emma Thompson is a welcome addition as the forbearing wife hoping for the best. I’ve seen several of this genre in recent years: Wild, Tracks, The Way, to name a few, with A Walk in the Woods being the lightest but still quite relevant. Lesson learned? Forget about your age, and, giving up doesn’t make you a failure. It has been a long while since I read Bill Bryson’s book on which the film is based. Watching the adaptation brings laughs which I remember were absent while reading. An easy 2 hours of relaxation without taking one single step. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

Learning to Drive

Just the opposite, I was not enthused about the trailer and my hesitations about the film were confirmed as I watched. Based on a non-fiction piece from Katha Pollitt’s Learning to Drive and other Life Stories, the movie turns political by changing the Filipino driving instructor into a Sikh, played by Ben Kingsley. No matter, he has that poise and dignity no matter what costume he puts on. It’s not surprising to see Patricia Clarkson’s Wendy character – a woman in her fifties learning to drive for the first time in her life – get some bonus lessons on cultural awareness on top of parallel parking. ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

The End of the Tour

One of the best films I’ve seen this year, and maybe for some time. Nothing looks ‘performed’, yes, even the nervous Jesse Eisenberg as writer David Lipsky is his natural self, unsure of himself and of his subject David Foster Wallace, as he follows his Infinite Jest book tour to write an article for the Rolling Stone Magazine. Based on Lipsky’s book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace, the film belongs to Jason Segel. A surprising cast and Segel has delivered with poignancy as Wallace. Framed in a sympathetic tone, the film is a moving tribute to and a revelation of an author whom some may choose to misread.
~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Pawn Sacrifice

The title says it all. A pawn is sacrificed in the heat of the cold war. Based on the true events that rocked the chess world and quickly inflamed the political landscape, American Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) captured the world championship in 1972, taking the title away from Soviet Grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). While the film in all its earnest intentions effectively brings out the intensity of the rivalry, the main issue I feel is the casting. Liev Schreiber is too famous a face to be Boris Spassky, even speaking in Russian doesn’t make him any more convincing; Maguire is even more famous a face to be Fischer. And may I go into this? They both need to slim down a bit to fit the profile of the cold war chess rivals, especially Schreiber. My choice for Fischer? Nicholas Hoult. Spassky? Andrew Garfield. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

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MOVIES on DVD’s:

The Jungle Book

It has been a long, long while since I watched it and now a refresher to prepare for the star-studded voicing in the remake. This 1967 Disney animation just shows how much has changed in animations then and now. Hand-drawn, slower paced, and nuanced facial expressions from the animal characters, albeit a bit flat when compared to the hyperactive animations we see today. The new version of The Jungle Book is coming out in 2016, utilizing ‘up to the minute technology’, and fusing a real life Mowgli with CGI generated animals and jungle environs all in 3D. As for the 1967 version, the music and the songs will stay as original as ever.

This is Where I Leave You

Another August: Osage County, which is influencing which, for these two are so alike? Or, maybe just speaks to the fact that the dysfunctional family is the norm. Under the direction of their mother, five estranged siblings have to come back home to sit shiva as their father passed. Staying under the same roof for seven days is an ordeal with the Altman family, for everyone carries baggage they’d rather bury together with the dead. Not as bad a film as critics say. Jane Fonda is a less overbearing mother as Meryle Streep is in Osage County, so not to overshadow the rest of the cast. Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Corey Stoll may not be the best of siblings, they make one good cast. Don’t you just love the title?

Greenberg

From the dysfunctional family to the dysfunctional individual. Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) comes back to LA from NYC to housesit for his brother as the family takes a vacation. As one who had received treatment in a mental hospital, Roger has many personal issues to deal with, and it’s a little heart-wrenching to see him struggle to relate, albeit at times he comes through more as annoying than deserving kindness; but maybe that’s the point. Greta Gerwig plays Florence, dog walker for the family. Stiller is in his usual mode, lost to himself and others; Gerwig is her usual self too, pleasant despite all. So it’s not hard to predict the outcome but the process makes one interesting take. The first time Gerwig in director Noah Baumbach’s work. Here began a beautiful and rewarding partnership.

Panic Room

Re-watch after learning this is the breakout film for Kristen Stewart, age 12. Didn’t realize she played Jodie Foster’s daughter there when I first saw the movie years back, and now seeing it again I find the two do have some resemblance, in appearance and demeanour. Locked in a panic room in a fancy NYC apartment they just moved in, mother and daughter try to stay safe as a gang of burglars break in. Although not thoroughly plausible, especially how Foster answers the door as two policeman come to check on them, which then leads to some even more implausible outcomes at the end. But, overall, a riveting, edge-of-your-seat kind of viewing. And when you think of it, of course, it’s David Fincher.

Olive Kitteridge

Binge-watched this HBO 4-hour mini-series after it won 7 Prime Time Emmys last Sunday. Writing, acting, editing, camera work, the whole production is captivating, and at times, very funny, no, not the Bill Murray section – he’s actually serious here. Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins are deserving winners. In her acceptance speech for the Best Mini Series, McDormand emphasized that it all came from a book. Yay for books, the wellspring of inspiration. Olive Kitteridge is author Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize winning work; writer Jane Anderson wins her Emmy for the adapted screenplay. However marvelous the visualization, it all started with words on a page.

A Touch of Sin

In preparation for Jia Zhangke’s 2015 festival film Mountains May Depart. A Touch of Sin was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2013 and won Jia a Best Screenplay award. Jia’s camera frames a perspective that’s bold and true in his home country China, a nation obsessed with modernization, economic growth, and wealth accumulation. The film reveals the human costs for such enterprises. Unfortunately, his countrymen didn’t have a chance to watch this one as it was banned. But with Mountains May Depart, officials had said they would allow it. I’m afraid it just might be much tamer and easier for the palate.

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BOOKS

Summer by Edith Wharton

After The Age of Innocence, I continue to explore the writings of The Gilded Age, to prepare for my New England trip and yes, Julian Fellowes’ new American TV series.

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

Not as chilling as the title sounds, heartwarming memoir of a son chronicling the extraordinary life of his mother, Mary Anne Schwalbe, albeit she would have likely said, “O, mine is just another life. There are many more deserving ones.” While accompanying his mother at her chemo therapy sessions in the hospital, son and mother share books and reading. The two-persons book club is therapeutic for both.

Circling The Sun by Paula McLain (Audiobook read by Katharine McEwan)

Not sure how much is true in this fact-based fiction about Beryle Markham, the award winning race horse trainer in Kenya and in 1936, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. Markham flew from England to NYC, but crash landed in Nova Scotia after a 21 hour harrowing flight head-on against the prevailing winds. (I later learned that Amelia Earhart’s 1932 flight was from west to east, a much ‘easier’ feat with the tailwind, landed in Ireland after only 15 hours in flight.) McLain’s book tells many more stories, and gossips, than just this monumental event. Beryl had known the Out of Africa author Karen Blixen in the small social circle in Kenya. Why, Beryl is the other woman in Deny’s life, according to McLain. Not too sure about the book, but I was much impressed by the voice of the narrator Katharine McEwan.

Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

The only 2015 Booker Prize shortlisted book I’ve read, so far, and it’s brilliant. The book presents a most interesting story of a ‘corporate anthropologist’ collecting field data for an ethnographic study of the human society in this digital age. The ‘Great Report’ is needed to be written, same as this book: what have we become at this juncture of human history and civilization? Maybe we do need anthropologists to offer a narrative of our contemporary society, or even better, we should all be trained as anthropologists to see ourselves better.

Remainder by Tom McCarthy

I’ve enjoyed McCarthy’s style of postmodern incisions. Remainder is his debut work and soon to be made into a movie. Walking down the street our unnamed (of course) protagonist was hit by a falling object. After coming out of a coma, he needs to re-enact his past to regain memories, and to reconstruct an authentic existence. Who is he, what is he? With the huge sum of monetary compensations, he steps out to do exactly that. Still reading, a fascinating premise.

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