Boyz n the Hood

Finally. Finally. My dream of starting a movie club where we watch classic movies that we've never seen before seems to have started. We watched Boyz n the Hood and, frankly, it stands up. It was extraordinarily good - touching, sad, funny, smart - just good. Cuba Gooding Jr. looks the same as he does now (i.e. he looked 40 then and does now), Lawrence Fishburne is amazing, as is Angela Bassett, Morris Chestnutt, everyone, basically.

Watch it. I don't have much more than that.

Oh, and I saw Jaws in 2017. That's something to add. It was great.

You're welcome!

I'm back, baby. Back.

On Envy

I am, finally, reading a book by Zadie Smith.

There is a reason why it took me so long, which can neatly be summarized as "baggage caused by College-era envy and other complicated things." 

Less neatly and concisely:  I went to the same Cambridge college as Zadie Smith.  When I arrived, I was told of her book deal's existence, even though I didn't knowingly lay eyes on her for probably the first month.  In a college of about 400 undergraduates, with three bars on hand for numerous hours of cheap drinking, you knew everything about everyone.  It's just the way it was - incestuous and close. 

Over the next year, I learnt more about Zadie (in my head, she's always "Zadie," despite never having said a word to her) that seemed positively unfair.  It turned out she was an incredibly good singer (she performed at a college event with a jazz combo, I believe).  She also could dance which, in a college full of geeky, undersocialized white teenagers/early 20-somethings, was unusual.  Of course, she is also unbelievably beautiful.  That she had all these things going for her in addition to being smart and a wonderful writer sort of blew my mind. 

Then she became incredibly successful.  There is always a Tube book - the book you are guaranteed to see at least one person reading on public transport each time you step into the Underground.  For a while, it was The God of Small Things; Trainspotting also was a big one.  Harry Potter books, obviously.  And, for a while, it was White Teeth.  And I did not respond graciously to that, and refused to read it.

Before this seems like a vindictive thing aimed only at Zadie, let me point out that many, many, many of the people I met at Cambridge were similarly over accomplished and incredibly difficult for me to process emotionally.  Although I had always been pretty good at sport, and I was clever, I didn't have any other strings to my bow.  I went to Cambridge and met all these incredibly bright people who were spectacular musicians; who were much, much, much better at hockey and other sports than my feeble attempts; who were great actors or stand up comedians; who made movies; and who were really good looking.  So Zadie was merely emblematic of the envy and weirdness I discovered about myself at Cambridge.  Also, when Katharine Hepburn died - star of my favourite movie, The Philadelphia Story - the Guardian published a piece by Zadie on her love for Katharine Hepburn. Gah!  (I know what you're thinking - reading this blog, it's hard to understand why I didn't become the acclaimed and highly successful writer). 

But it was petty, and childish; and for someone who got to go to one of the best universities in the world which has endlessly opened doors for me, as well as making wonderful friends and meeting my highly significant other, I really don't think I can complain about others' gifts and good fortune.  I'm not proud of it; I just want to explain how silly I was, and why I changed my mind.   Although that is not complex; I think I just grew up a little and threw off the petty fears and petty pleasures.  I was wandering through the Brooklyn Central Library, and there were several of her books on the shelf.  And I finally decided to pick one up and check it out - in more ways than one (drum roll!).

For some reason, On Beauty appealed the most - perhaps because I'm now legally tethered to an academic, or because I live in the US and straddle both a British and U.S.-based identity.  I'm not really sure, but that's what I chose.  I've only just started, but already there has been so much staggeringly lovely writing.  It's not flourished, or ornate, but is insightful, well-observed, sharp, and funny:

When it comes to weather, New Englanders are delusional.  In his ten years on the East Coast Howard had lost count of the times some loon from Massachusetts had heard his accent, looked at him pitiably and said something like:  Cold over there, huh?  Howard's feeling was:  look, let's get a few things straight here.  England is not warmer than New England in July or August, that's true.  Probably not in June either.  But it is warmer in October, November, December, January, February, March, April and May - that is, in every month when warmth matters.  In England letter-boxes do not jam with snow.  Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.  It is not necessary to pick up a shovel in order to unearth your rubbish bins.  This is because it is never really very cold in England.  It is drizzly, and the wind will blow; hail happens, and there is a breed of Tuesday in January in which time creeps and no light comes and the air is full of water and nobody really loves anybody, but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England's got to give. 

This portion I've typed is as much a public service announcement for my U.S. chums.  But I particularly love the bolded phrasing, which captures those Tuesdays so perfectly, I can almost feel them.  Which, given the current humidity and heatwave, is rather special.

Brutal

I can't remember where I first read of Elizabeth Taylor the author, rather than Elizabeth Taylor: Actress. I did a bit of poking around the internet, but appear to have misremembered my source so, alas, this will have to go without citation. Nevertheless, I have had several of her books on my "to read" list that I have accumulated on the NYPL website. I finally got around to reading one, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, which I finished this weekend.

Well. It is elegant, sparse prose; it appears to deal with frivolities - food, particularly - and societal norms, reflections. Yet it is an utterly brutal and unflinching look at old age and dying without being wanted or needed. It is quite shaking; not mean-spirited, but matter of fact and all the more horrifying for it. It's not often that a book of merely 200 pages or so is going to stick and haunt my thoughts, but this will be it. Unsurprisingly, I'm reading joyously frivolous young adult fiction to get me through the aftermath.

Anticipation

There is something of the macabre involved in anticipating the finale to a series. Be it books, be it a trilogy of films, be it a tv show, there is a feeling of dread in approaching the end. That can happen with a single book or movie, particularly as so many often go downhill so quickly as the author attempts to wrap it up. But with a series, it is magnified due to the time and effort invested in it prior to the ending. So while one feels anticipation and excitement for the denouement, there is a genuine feeling of terror - what if the wrong person ends up with the character you love the most? What if, simply, the ending is shoddy? My friends who were seriously invested in Lost have struggled with that ending. And what if you have created a great piece of art or culture - yes, I'm looking at you, George Lucas - but then the author can't let it go, and they keep sucking your emotions away with sub-standard rubbish afterward that makes you forget why you loved the art in the first place?* So many people have slated the final season of The Wire, and I think a great deal of that is the relative disappointment, even if it's still miles ahead of anything else on tv.

There is also the simple regret at the coming to pass of something that you love. This is the feeling I have now as Mockingjay is sitting in wait for me at my local library. I was a latecomer to this, but The Hunger Games gripped both Cerebus and me, and as a result, I positively raced through Catching Fire, the second book that I've now handed onto Cerebus. I don't want to be disappointed in it, but there is also something about having everything unresolved, as if you're on the brink of something wonderful - or terrible - and there's a delicious joy in that uncertainty, the possibilities of what could happen. And the realisation that once you're done with the book, that's it. No going back. The story is fixed, done, and there will be no changes. Which is why I howl and howl and howl when I re-read the Dark Materials trilogy. That light, the hope has been snuffed out.

* Of course, a lot of people would argue about the general rubbishness of Return of the Jedi - which was probably an ill-fated harbinger of the awfulness of the new movies - in comparison to the glories of The Empire Strikes Back. Which leads me to ponder why the second of a trilogy is so often the best of them. Several come to mind: Star Wars trilogy, The Subtle Knife in the Dark Materials Trilogy, The Godfather Part II... hmm. Is it because the author is setting it up, with often a lot of darkness, but doesn't have to wrap up all the loose threads or worry about that, at least? I think so. But one to ponder.

Wired

Why does it take us (me and Cerebus, that is) so long to wind up to watch an episode of The Wire? We've had massive pauses between seasons, and even in the middle of some. I think it's because I know how brutal it will be, and how it emotionally blacks out everything else on tv. We just watched the first episode of the fifth and final season, and I'm already traumatised at this being the last 12 or so for me to watch; I'm exhausted with McNulty and his utter idiocy/self-destruction; frustrated at the political machinations, and both Cerebus and I are aware of a massive spoiler we suffered that is hanging over us, with us just waiting for it to drop. Still, there are glorious, glorious things to enjoy: Bunk is one of my favourite characters on tv, ever; one of the newspapermen, despite reminding me of Mick from Brookside (but who played Lewis in Homicide: Life on the Streets - didn't remind me of Mick then), is clearly going to become one of my favourite characters in this season; and the rhythm, sharpness and familiarity of it is overwhelming.

I suppose I just don't want it to end.

AFI

A couple of things got me thinking about the AFI Top 100 Movies. A work colleague with a much more pretentious (i.e. impressive and learned) taste in movies was talking about it, and then there was a question about how many movies the hosts of Answer Me This had seen. So, I've seen seven of the top ten, and overall, a paltry 41. Boo. Still, I'm pleased with my top ten results. And, of course, Casablanca is second in the list, and as I have discussed at length elsewhere, I adore this film. So I'm watching this and I plan to make my way through at least some of the rest of this. Although given the results of my attempts to get through The Observer list, maybe I should avoid it and just watch some good films rather more informally.

Nadir

As Cerebus points out, I have my own unique brand of snobbery. For example, I get very uptight about the I'm-smarter-than-you-art-so-I-have-to-point-out-everything highbrow stuff, as I have discussed previously on this blog. I'd much rather watch/read something supposedly "low brow" but completely unaffected than ever, ever have to sit through American Beauty again. On the other hand, the "low brow" cannot be anything related to a shopaholic, anything with Kate Hudson or Matthew McConaughey, the "He's not that into you" film and its brethren and anything with the manic pixie dream girl as a main character. Or, indeed, anything trying to teach young girls that having sex is dangerous, you need to be protected from yourself by a man who may kill you with his passion if he does have sex with you, and if you have sex you'll end up with a weird mutant monster baby. And yes, the third installment of that movie series is out in cinemas now!

The problem is, I like low brow, but am picky about what constitutes good lowbrow as opposed to terrible lowbrow. Why, for example, do I find Jackass repeatedly compelling, whereas any reality show (more or less) is just too infra dig.? I haven't quite worked that out, but this weekend I've had a dear friend staying with me, and we've watched numerous incarnations of "The Real Idiots of Wherever" and their spin-off shows, and it really has just been too much for me. I don't know why, when I really can watch terrible things over and over and over, including horrible toilet humour, crass and revolting sexual jokes made by awful and grotesque human beings (hello It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and those are my favourite programmes, but when it comes to real people doing those things I am just horrified and find it all beneath me. I find their grotesqueness horrifying, not amusing; I need to turn away, hide under my cushion. But then, I do that with Peep Show and Extras but can watch those over and over and over again.

This is a remarkably useless post. I just wanted you to know that I really, really, really cannot bear reality tv and it's not because I think I should only watch Mad Men and things on HBO. I've tried, but unless it's neatly packaged and contained for me by Joel McHale, it's just not for me.

Thud, thud, thud

There is a school of art - be it books, music or film - that I find excruciating beyond belief. It's a genre I like to call "patronising highbrow," and I would rather read/listen to/watch a million terrible "lowbrow" items before having to deal with this stuff.

It's the type of prose that tells you that it is meaningful; that this observation is very important indeed and that it is telling you something about the profundity of the human experience - so listen up, buster, because this author is highly important. My real problem with this is that the creators of such work are so pleased with themselves for such astuteness that they are incapable of believing that you, little reader/observer/listener could possibly understand such greatness. So, just in case a) you didn't get profundity of the observation and b) therefore, you have failed to accredit the author of the observation with sufficient praise/awe, the author will point. it. out. to. you. In bold letters.

The first work that provoked my observation (portentous and extremely profound, obviously) of this style was the unbelievably over-rated American Beauty. Apart from the pretty hackneyed and cliched treatment of suburbia and sexuality--did you know that teenage girls can appear sexually provocative and yet be inexperienced and/or virgins? And that men who hate gays are, of course, gay themselves and repressing their feelings? I'm pretty sure you didn't before this movie--we have that utterly annoying montage with the black plastic bag, that floats and floats. With the voice from beyond the grave. Who tells you repeatedly how beautiful this is, because there is beauty in small things and this is the true beauty - but you couldn't have worked that out for yourself.

I was reminded of this after just finishing The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. This is a book published in 1940 that screams its profundity at you. This passage particularly irked me. It's about the owner of a cafe in the small southern town, who has strongly lustful and tender feelings for a girl of about 13:

Always he wanted to set her up to something, to give to her. And not only a sundae or some sweet to eat--but something real. That was all he wanted for himself--to give to her. Biff's mouth hardened. He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt.

Now, you see, why not leave it at that? Why not leave it there, hanging, so that you wonder about the guilt, about how much he realises that his feelings are wrong, cannot be acted on, and how common this is? No, McCullers doesn't finish the paragraph there, but with this:

Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreckoned and without a name.

We get it, Carson. We get it. Then the next passage is about a small meaningful thing where he picks up a penny. Wow.

This book is frustrating because there's a lot of beautiful prose and it gives you a sense of the despair of the post-Depression South, of how it never financially recovered from the Civil War, and the anger inside people, black and white. Yet it can't let you observe for yourself: it constantly points out the seething anger inside the protagonists, because you can't realise that without her pointing it out to you. You're just not as smart as she is.

Once More, Defeat

Yes, I have once more got Anna Karenina out of the library and, once more, failed to even open it.

I may never manage it.

Something old, borrowed, new?

WARNING: Spoilers if you have not yet read Pride & Prejudice. Even if your beloved other half bought it for you ages ago. And yes, that OH may not have read all your gifts, but this particular book might just happen to be one of the aforementioned O.H.'s favourite books of all time and if she could be anyone in literature, it would probably be the main character.

Where was I? Ah, yes, after all the preamble of spoiler warnings, I wanted to note that, while away holidaying, I read with a mixture of amusement, fascination and horror, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was... pretty good, actually. I have just two grumbles. One, it makes use of puns on "balls" much more than I really think any book needs, let alone an Austen, updated or otherwise (too much of something blue, methinks). Two, part of its very joy - things "falling into place" in the plot - are things that I find on some level troublesome and, really, a failure to understand the importance of the original. For example, Charlotte's decision to marry Mr. Collins makes much more sense, according to some reviews. But of course, in the original, her decision is due to feeling in danger of being left on the shelf, being stuck at home with her parents, and without anyone to take care of her were they to die before she married. The things that don't seem to "make sense" actually do when you look at them through the prism of how clearly women did lack choices and control over their lives.

Nonetheless, I'm not trying to write it off or be (too) humourless about the book. There is an interesting look at gender in both, and knowing the original is essential for getting the point of the later version. In P&P&Z, a large proportion of the nation's defenders the scourge of zombies are unmarried women*; a woman's worth is partly based on her immense strength and ability to kill zombies - Lady Catherine is an absolute legend in that field, which aids the narration by explaining why such an awful woman is so greatly esteemed. P&P&Z elevates women and explicitly recognises how vital they are to a nation's health; it also mocks the things that women were actually valued for - not strength or intellect, but sewing and being gentle and playing the piano - not that playing the piano isn't awesome, but it doesn't make you worth having a relationship with - unless you're really good, I suppose.

What reading P&P&Z mainly brought about was the renewing of my obsession with Austen books, and I have just re-read Persuasion in a day. I do utterly love that book. P&P does win out for me, but the older I get, the more Anne Elliot resonates, and the sadder and more thrilling the story. Maybe it's time to re-visit Emma, too, and of course, Sense & Sensibility - before S&S & Sea Monsters emerges. Would that I were joking.

* When they are married, they cease this work to devote themselves to the presumably much more important job of getting pregnant.

Cross-posted at Grace Goes Abroad.

The Price of Quality

I've been trying to buy some DVDs of classic movies, because recently we've been turning to classics when tired and stressed.  A few weeks ago it was Casablanca, and last night I watched the greatest music movie of all time - including even This Is Spinal Tap - A Hard Day's Night.  But what I really wanted to make sure we have are Top Hat, The Third Man, and A Night at the Opera.  Yet it's impossible to get The Third Man for under $30; Top Hat is not quite as expensive, but similarly uncheap.  Why are they so much?  You'd have thought less in terms of copyright issues, but somehow it's not the case.  

Regardless of the reason, it's annoying.  They're totally worth it, but I resent the movie peeps / retailers making these classics more unavailable to the masses.  Including me.

Getting Round to Things

I finally read two books that I have wanted to read for a long time but have not yet managed.

First, We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. It won the Orange Prize in 2005. It is a deeply traumatising and utterly compelling book. It is not the book to read if you are worried about becoming a mother. I wondered often what it was like to read this if you do have children. I imagine for some it would be unbearable to read about how this woman fails to connect with her child and her myriad disappointments and misery thanks to her (lack of) relationship with her child. For others, I imagine they repeatedly say "thank you" for identifying the misery and the inability to truly love her child. All this was very interesting in light of an article published by the Daily Mail a couple of weeks ago in which a mother publicly stated that she didn't really like her daughter. That was probably not the way to go about things, particularly when talking about how much she loves her other daughter. Yet, that's what this book is all about. For those of us who doubt whether we do want to have children, I could empathise with much of this book, yet you could see how much damage she did. It was a really extraordinary book. Apparently she had tremendous trouble finding someone to publish it, but I am very glad she did.

The next book was Ender's Game. It is a classic piece of science fiction, and my mother is mad about it. I basically inhaled it last Sunday, and I really, really recommend it. It's such an interesting question of morality, of reacting to things beyond your control with violence or force, and how people channel their gifts and use them for good or ill. Very interesting, particularly in its discussion of pre-emptive force - it's the Bush Doctrine!

Next up: Going to read some more classic fiction. Just not sure what, yet.

Terrifying

This blog is generally about things that we have not read, and ways to make us feel bad about not having achieved them, but also good about finally getting through them. One thing that I generally don't do is read enough politically-motivated stuff, for several reasons, most of which boil down to not wanting to have to deal with it. If it's written from a perspective with which I agree I simply get enraged at the horrors; if it's written from an opposite view, I lazily refuse to engage and don't rigorously work out why I believe it's wrong and, most importantly, how I can argue with it. Which is not particularly good for a lawyer.

I've read two books this year on the fallout from 9/11 that are the exceptions that prove the rule, as they stand out against my usual detective fiction. First, The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi. Second, The Terror Presidency by Jack Goldsmith. The Terror Dream has been ably reviewed here; I really am not going to fully analyse it. However, it really engaged me on thoughts of gender and prompted me to consider my own scholarship on the role of war and gender, and how war changes so much and yet so little. My masters thesis studied the advancement of female British scientists in World War II; my conclusion was, essentially, that it was really an empty opportunity, unlike those presented in the factories. Male scientists continued to dominate the field, and the war did very little to change the perceptions of scientists as men - Robert Oppenheimer, Alan Turing, Richard Feynman - all were catapaulted into modern consciousness through their roles, and women were generally used as processors rather than thinkers. Faludi argues that 9/11 prompted a reversion to gender roles supposedly overcome, if not completely, by the rise of feminism and equality: the man as superhero, provider, hunter, fighter, warrior, protector of the helpless female. War is such an incredible lens for gender relations because, despite the increasing number of British women in the armed forces, our portrayals of heroes still seems to limit those things for which women can be considered heroic, helpful or patriotic.

The Terror Presidency was a very different book. It was Jack Goldsmith's account of his time in the Office of Legal Counsel in the White House, which spanned 2003-2004. He provides explanations for the Bush Administration's utter disregard for civil liberties by citing sheer fear, due to terror reports and intelligence, and a view of the Constitution at odds with that of most of the educated and lay public. He is conservative, writes conservatively on international law, and I tend to disagree with him about almost everything. However, the book is utterly compelling; I read almost all of it on the plane between London and New York yesterday. His critique of the Bush Adminstration is not what its aims were, generally, on the policy against terrorism, but its means of achieving them, through the unitary executive theory and the explicit attempts to expand presidential power. I think Goldsmith is disingenuous in certain regards; he utterly fails to deal with the "unlawful enemy combantant" label that the Bush Administration purported, sweeping it under the carpet by simply repeating over and over that the type of situation was unprecedented. That this term is utterly unknown within international law is merely an inconvenience due to lack of experience with these terms. That nations have been dealing with terrorism from within and without for around a century is apparently irrelevant to Goldsmith's analysis. Nonetheless, it is a short and incredibly important read. I'm not sure how much legalese is used - that which I think is easy to understand may not be due to jargon and general familiarity with the concepts. However, the depictions of the power dynamics are an important addition to our knowledge of the response to 9/11 and the damage wrought by this administration. Roll on January 20th!

2008's Reading Achievements

This year, from the Observer's top 100, I have read (having not previously read):

The Trial (# 49*)
Lanark (#86)

I also started Money and Scoop, but failed to finish them, having been thwarted by the NYPL and its ability to recall your books. Great when you want them, not so much when you have to return them when you've not got round to reading them. My problem is that I'm too greedy, and I want them all at once. I don't pace myself with my book orders; I forget that it's not like Netflix with your "only two at a time" business.** Maybe I should suggest that... I also read other things by authors on this list, at least, such as The Stranger by Camus, Bleak House by Dickens (which I adored).

Of the two "classics," The Trial was by far my favourite. I took Lanark with me to Africa, and it really was not the suitable time or place for it. Some books are just meant to be read - or not read - in certain climes; certainly, Lanark deserved grey skies and mizzle, not scorching blue skies and turquoise seas. The Trial we read in law school, clearly oppressive enough a climate for me.

Ah well, next year to become more erudite. Plus, I have another book club, which hopefully will increase my posting, reading, and general fabulousness.

* The list is done chronologically, not in order of brilliance.

** Along those lines, just found out that The Terror Presidency by Jack Goldsmith has been recalled. Dammit!

The Forum

Cerebus kindly gave me membership to the Film Forum for Christmas last year. We have very fond memories of being members of the NFT, which led to seeing many fabulous films and drinks on the river - one of my favourite things about London.

Nonetheless, we have made a pitiful attempt to use this membership. I think the reasons are several. First, the location. It's not that far away from Cerebus and NYU, but it was just that little bit too far downtown. Unlike the Thames, which was a central (geographically and socially) part of our lives, we don't wander around that part of town very often. There are no really good bars very nearby... it's just a bit out of our way. This is evidenced by bumping into Cerebus' professor, who lives round the corner in NYU housing and so it's his local cinema. That, and the Angelika, IFC... so lucky. That's a bonus of Greenwich Village that I'd not really thought about previously. Second, the movie selections. Actually, that's not entirely fair -there have been some great selections, such as those in the United Artists celebrations. Still, it's just a bit more "out there" than the seasons for which we loved buying tickets - such as the Jimmy Stewart, or the Kurosawa. Third, timing. There was a fabulous looking French noir season (yes, I get that's funny), which would have been perfect as it was after the Bar. But, of course, I was away, and so all that opportunity for daytime visits was missed.

This is all prelude to the fact that we're making a conscious attempt to go more often in the final months of the year. Hence, Tuesday, we found ourselves watching Alexsandr Nevsky. It was... bizarre. For thems that don't know, it was a Stalin-initiated movie to act as propaganda against Nazi Germany. Prokofiev scored it. I've never seen an Eisenstein movie before, but it was remarkable. Lots of it was very, very funny - I hope intentionally (sample: The Prince Alexsandr stops fighting the Mongols to yell "Quick - the fish are getting away!" - bizarre), but I'm not convinced. The bit where the Russians attack the Germans features some very, very odd music - it jars, as it's almost Marx-brothers-esque, sort of comedic, rather than heroic. But the part where leading up to the German attack is spectacular. It's set on the icy steppes, and full of menace. The music is apt at that point, low, throbbing and threatening, oppressive, making the charge of the Germans genuinely frightening. The suspense is drawn out, but excellently effective. Regardless of the humour throughout, it looked absolutely wonderful all the way through - the framing of shots, the demonstration of the horror of German cruelty, all were incredible.

Not subtle, but excellent. I'm definitely off to more, hopefully soon. Hopefully.

The Art of Travel

The six week trip from which I've just returned was not abundant with reading, but I certainly went through a fair few (almost making the almost certainly-mahoosive fines from the library worthwhile). The following were among those on my list:

• To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
  
• The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon

I also managed to watch two Woody Allen classics, Manhattan and Annie Hall. So not bad going at all. I enjoyed them a great deal, although probably not as much as I thought I would.

Of the books, the best I read, by far, was the astonishing debut by Lessing. It is a truly remarkable book. It simmers with tension - everything in it is singing with the overwhelming oppression felt by everyone in South Africa at that time - white men through the heat and the pace of reform, white women through their roles as women, and the general humiliation, horror and nightmare of the black African's life. The menace emanated through the clear, simple prose. I read it at the time when we were feeling particularly isolated and weird in Mozambique; on every trip of length you feel weird at some point, and the book coincided with that, and feeling tense because at this point one of the guys there was trying to proposition my friend, another was obsessively trying to get her to marry him or get him a visa, and we were suddenly aware of the isolation of the tent, the noises everywhere, and not speaking the language, being trapped there. Except, of course, we weren't, but the novel heightened all these sensations and observations.

Therefore, I am desperate to read more Lessing. When I pay off my library fines (that may well take some time), I will head to The Golden Notebook. Lessing's acute observations, wry turns of phrase and general humour are excellent. Even more so, she was writing extraordinary things about the constraints of women and black people in society well before things started changing and there was international pressure to progress from these conditions.

Breathless

Our Prof in Law & Lit scoffed at us for our general dislike of The Trial, but I think he fails to understand the word "like." There were aspects I disliked (the treatment of women seems dubious), but that doesn't deny its many aspects of brilliance. This led to a rather heated discussion on the subway home last night - oh, how our fellow passengers must have loved us.

K could not breathe within the legal system. It corrupts, overwhelms, destroys us so much that it denies our basic functions. The lack of air is something that Lumet uses in to great effect in The Verdict - Frank Galvin is constantly out of breath, running up and down stairs. The presence of law makes everyone unhealthy - the lawyer, Galvin, and the client, K. The extent of the physical deterioration is evident, as the court officials in the tenement cannot breathe properly outside its doors. Even the Court portrait painter chooses to live without air.

Of course, this fundamental physical corruption indicates erosion of the soul and morals. Even the priest is in on it, part of the system both in employment and his behaviour: he tricks K into meeting him, rather than arranging it directly. And the church - albeit on a Thursday morning - is cavernously empty, in comparison to every court or legal proceeding K goes to, teeming with people. We've abandoned God for bureaucracy, for procedures. Even the days indicate that - a mobbed court on a Sunday, empty cathedral on a Thurdsay.

Apparently, this is what being a lawyer does to you. Can't wait!

Horses and Happenings

This weekend has been a monumental one for the viewing of classic movies. Hence the jumbled list of labels for this post below. I watched: Network; The Talk of the Town; It Happened One Night; and, finally in full, The Godfather.

I'm not going to go indepth about these, but I stumbled upon a couple of things that made me think / leap for joy / pause etc.... that is, I reacted to them and wish to share them with you.

1. TCM on Demand is a simply glorious addition to my life! That's how I watched both The Talk of the Town and It Happened One Night. It's not TCM on Demand, per se, but Free Movies on Demand, which has free Sundance and TCM and something else... absolutely phenomenal and a resource I shall exploit further, particularly when it's a cold, miserable afternoon in winter and I need warming up spiritually. See (2) below for more...
   
2. The Talk of the Town is not a "classic" in the sense of the others, but I'm a sucker for anything with Cary Grant in it. I realised that I will watch a romcom of old, but nothing made in the last thirty years with that description unless someone gives me a compelling reason to (gun against head, torture of my cats, etc.). I think it's because those romcoms were actually a) romatic and b) funny, thus fulfilling the "com" part of it. Sharp, witty, funny, they treated it as serious business, by and large, and the classic ones had glorious scripts - where women may have had stereotyped roles but were fast and funny and smart. Doesn't really describe "Good Luck, Chuck", now does it?
   This movie was also interesting for its depiction of a man who knows what's just (Grant's character, on trial for arson & murder he did not commit), and the law professor who sits stuffily in his room but is about to be appointed to the Supreme Court. We've been studying the lawyer and the moral attorney / person, but the law professor and the law propagated there hasn't been touched upon, and I think there's a wealth of stuff there - are they complicit? Completely, Thane would say, but I think it's an interesting question, possibly to be further studied by yours truly.
3. The Godfather was much better than when I was fifteen; while it was not the best movie I've ever seen, I could at least see something of what others see in it. Again, the opening scene is interesting, because Buonasera talks of how the sentencing of his daughter's attackers, rather than giving him relief, humiliated him. He put faith in "being American," abiding by the rules, going through the system, and it failed him. That wasn't justice. So he has to go outside the law to do so. You wonder what would have satisfied him, but presumably jailtime, and he wouldn't have felt the need to come to the Don. Michael's gradual hardening is horrific to watch. If only every time the music came on when he was in Sicily I hadn't thought of the Colin Corleone sketch from the Glam Metal Detectives...* Nonetheless, it was excellent and I didn't fall asleep once - which, for me in a three-hour movie watched on my sofa on a Sunday night, is not guaranteed.
4. Network was extremely, unexpectedly, funny, and Faye Dunaway is my new heroine - she was extraordinary in this movie. Bonnie & Clyde here we come!
   

* After the beginning "titles," go straight to about 4:30 and hear more of the music... gargling seems to work extremely effectively.

Second Time Around

I first read To Kill a Mockingbird for GCSE English, so (ulp) a mere thirteen years ago. At the time, I thought it was very good, but with the caveat that it was hard to write about, when compared with the symbolism replete throughout Macbeth and Lord of the Flies, the other two major texts we studied.

Re-reading it has been extraordinary. No wonder it is in the top novels that people re-read, according to this guardian article. Yet re-reading is often because it will provide comfort; we know how the story ends, and the torment beforehand is worth it for the resolution. Here, the resolution is not that justice is done, and that makes it unbearable - I know what's coming, and there's nothing I can do to prevent it. If anything, it's worse this time around.

But the book itself is wonderful, so rich in wry and amusing turns of phrase that I missed the first time around: when talking of her aunt and uncle's state of matrimony, Scout observes that Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry... It is full of one-liners that got forgotten - the writing itself was not remembered, just the story. Yet the writing has filled me with as much glee and emotion as the story itself, which is the revelatory aspect. Reading it this time around has been much like reading Lolita for the first time, the revelling in the language and its depth of perception, detail and humour. That has been particularly important given its subject matter.

Further, it really has brought home the rural nature of Maycomb County and the sheer, hellish poverty in which people lived. Perhaps having read Invisible Man in the intervening years has brought me a greater appreciation of the desperate circumstances in which people lived, and how poor white people clung onto segregation for the basic reason that they needed someone beneath them, to look down upon, just as the "respectable" folks did to them. Scout's portrait of Mayella Ewell's utterly lonely, miserable and hopeless life is heartbreaking. It is done with the perception of a child, but the wisdom and hindsight of an adult. It is horrific, and yet Atticus' closing argument brooks no sympathy for that fact as, quite frankly, she should have known better. Not for her sake, but for Tom's. Because Tom did not enjoy the luxury or privilege that she did: whiteness.

Of course, I am reading this within a course on perceptions and portrayals of the law by the artist. I'll report back on our class discussion and what Thane has to say next time around. But the pleasure of re-reading has been really rather striking, yet it seems that it is an entirely different, new book, so much more am I getting from it.

Legal Action

I'm taking a course on Law & Literature this semester. The idea is to think outside the external, tangible and, fundamentally, legal, to try to think about the intrinsic, the intangible, the moral. To see how artists perceive our career choice, our system, but most of all, concepts of justice - both descriptively and normatively. It should be interesting. At least, our prof wants to make sure that, at a cocktail party, we're "interesting."

Mostly, I'm just very excited about what we get to read; the book list, which I'm going to purchase this morning (those that I don't already own, obviously):

• Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
• Franz Kafka - The Trial
• Albert Camus - The Stranger
• Herman Melville - Bartleby and Billy Budd, Sailor
• Sophocles, Oedipus The King
• Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
• Ei Doctorow - The book of Daniel
• Charles Dickens - Bleak House

We also have to watch Sidney Lumet's "The Verdict". Paul Newman. Shame.