Collected Miscellany

Kevin Wignall has an interesting post up over at Contemporary Nomad on books and film.  Not on films based on books but the process of getting a book optioned and maybe turned into a film:

One thing you often hear published writers wish for is a film deal. It’s often talked of as a sort of career panacea, in much the same way that some unpublished writers think a publishing deal will give them everything they’ve dreamt of. By the same token, I think I’ve mentioned before that writers who sell considerbaly higher numbers of books than me across many more territories, will envy me the fact that I have two film deals. So I thought this might be a good place just to explain a couple of things – as I’ve experienced them – to those who don’t know, and share some reflections on an author’s involvement with the film industry.

Which tied in nicely with this Ross Douthat post on Prince Caspian:

I think that to the extent I liked the movie, it was largely for the same reasons as Frederica Mathewes-Greene: The filmmakers took what is easily the weakest of the Narnia novels, rejiggered the narrative and altered the plot, and produced an entertaining, swashbuckling medieval war movie set against a Narnian backdrop. To the extent that I disliked the movie, meanwhile, it was for the same reasons as Steven Greydanus: In the course of making a poorly-constructed book into an entertaining fantasy adventure, the filmmakers largely purged the original story of its most distinctive thematic elements, and the results owe more to Braveheart and Lord of the Rings, in certain ways, than they do to C.S. Lewis.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I am preparing myself to enjoy it and try not to think like a purist, but to enjoy the movie as inspired by not just an illustration of the book.

I am visiting my parents this week, but if I get a chance I will try and post on my thoughts on some recent fantasy books turned into movies.

–> Later, at the Bar: A Novel in Stories by Rebecca Barry

Publishers Weekly

The 10 linked stories of Barry’s first-rate debut capture the idiosyncrasies of an upstate New York backwater where social life revolves around Lucy’s Tavern, founded by the late Lucy Beech, who “loved live music and dancing and understood people who liked longing more than they did love.” There, a limited pool of regulars drinks nightly, has the kind of revolving recreational sex that creates complications for decades, and ruins its children: “You watch a kid like Ruby Plumadore, whose clothes never fit and who smells like cigarettes… get off the bus and… subtly gird herself to walk into her front door.” There’s Harlin Wilder and his twin brother, Cyrus, who are in and out of work, hung up on ex-wives and waiting for the next woman to roll into their lives when they’re not drinking or getting into fights. Linda Hartley, an advice columnist for adolescent mag Sugar and Spice and for Woman Today, battles her own demons; while Harlin’s ex-, Grace Meyers, still has good things to say about him. The situations are familiar, but Barry gets down to the grit of her characters and captures the plangency of a local bar that serves as de facto communal household.

–> Love Today: Stories by Maxim Biller

Publishers Weekly

In the 27 brief stories in German author Biller’s collection (his first to be published in the States, and magnificently translated by Bell), characters fall in love, have affairs, spy on their neighbors, break up and do everything in between, all of which is described with a mix of chic simplicity and Hemingwayesque poignancy.

In “The Mahogany Elephant,” a seemingly banal exchange between two reunited lovers leads to a crystallization of their relationship. In “Baghdad at Seven-Thirty,” two people making small talk at a bar come to reveal a complicated bond. In “Melody,” a troubled couple’s expansive romantic lives are distilled into just over two pages. Some stories disappoint, such as “In Bed with Sheikh Yassin,” about a justifiably reluctant bride who fantasizes about another man on her wedding day. Biller’s chief concerns—fidelity and longing—are examined from every conceivable angle, and the stories, short as they are, carry an unexpectedly powerful emotional wallop.

I would like to think I have the ability to seperate politics from literature. After all, I enjoy any number of musicians whose politics differ sharply from my own and yet whose music, even when it is influenced by and expressive of that politics, I enjoy.  Sure, things get to the point where the politics overcome the music (Bruce Cockburn’s Life Is Short Call Now is a perfect example).  The point is that I would like to believe that I don’t have to agree with or approve of the political sentiments of something to appreciate its skill or merit.

Janis Hallowell’s second novel She Was has cause me to muse further on this subject. I really enjoyed her first novel, The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn, and even did a Q&A with her about it.

So when I heard she had a new novel coming out I was excited to read it. Here is the publishers description that caught my attention:

Doreen Woods is many things: a successful dentist who donates time and skills to the needy, a loving wife and mother, a sister who cares for her dying brother. She has carefully built an exemplary life. But all of this is threatened when a comrade from the seventies shows up. Over the next week Doreen’s past rushes in as she is forced to admit to her family and herself the actions that caused her to change her name and identity three decades earlier.

In 1970 she was impressionable and idealistic Lucy Johansson. When her brother, Adam, came home from Vietnam damaged and bitter, they moved to California, where she raged against the war and the Establishment with many others of her generation. She joined an antiwar group and participated in increasingly militant protests designed to bring attention to their cause and to change the world for the better. But all the best intentions and careful planning couldn’t keep things from going terribly wrong.

Told from a twenty-first-century perspective, She Was spans the width of the American continent and the depth of social upheaval of the second half of the twentieth century. She Was explores the violent, determining act in one woman’s life that mirrors the formative trauma of her age. She Was is a story about the indelible nature of the past, about hiding in the ordinary, and, ultimately, about making amends.

The irnoy is that I was worried about politics intruding in the first book:

I must admit, however, that I was nervous as I began to read. I was afraid it might turn into a heavy handed feminist novel. After all the story largely revolves around a couple of single mothers and the dysfunctional families that surround them. Throw in the issue of homelessness, mental illness, and abortion you have the ingredients for a real political slant.

I noted, however, that “the author doesn’t take that turn but instead uses these characters to present an intriguing and in many ways touching story.” I had hoped that She Was would turn out the same way. But while there are many of the same elements involved, and parts of the story reflect Hallowell’s obvious skills as a writer, in the end the politics and history just drag the story down toward didacticism.

If you think Bush is Nixon, Iraq is Vietnam, and that Boomer leftist radicals were well intentioned idealists that got carried away on occasion, you might be able to read She Was without being turned off. Alas, I was not. Combine this with an anticlimatic ending and the book just falls flat despite some good characters and potentially compelling story lines.

More below.

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I am not really an “Ohio Lit Blogger” in that I report on the literary scene – such as it is – Columbus or Ohio generally. But I do try to make Ohio connections on occasion and take advantage of them when I can. So when I heard that Dinty W. Moore was going to do a reading at Ohio State I made sure to attend. It turned out to be an enjoyable evening with readings by Dinty and Joe Mackall (I hope to have more about this author soon).

And it further prompted my interest in his book Between Panic and Desire published by the fine folks at the University of Nebraska Press. Here is what Publishers Weekly had to say about the book:

In this unconventional, nonsequential, generational autobiography, AKA cultural memoir, Moore, a professor of English at Ohio University, describes growing up as a child of the 1950s. Panic characterized his youth, as he watched the symbols of safety and security on television—Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best—while his real world fell apart. His mother had left his often-inebriated father, but couldn’t handle raising the children herself. Paranoia was the theme of his teen years, as JFK and King were assassinated; the draft and the Vietnam War drove young men to extremes; and characters like Charlie Manson, Squeaky Fromme, Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley Jr. all took aim at public figures. Moore’s own paranoia was only heightened by using LSD and smoking dope while tooling around in his VW Beetle. Miraculously, desire began to overtake panic; he discovered a passion for writing, which has focused him ever since. Moore lays all this out in a series of free-form, almost playful essays; only there’s something serious here, too, as he realizes our history seems to repeat itself: the Patriot Act sounds like 1984 and Iraq feels like Vietnam all over again. In the end, Moore (The Accidental Buddhist) takes readers on a quirky, entertaining joyride.

After the reading I stopped to say hello and he graciously agreed to answer some questions. After some delay I finally managed to send him some and he quickly responded. I offer them below for your enjoyment. I hope to offer a review of Panic and Desire soon. In the meantime perhaps this will pique your interest.

1) When people at parties ask what you do for a living how do you answer?

It depends on the party, of course. I am a writer – I write books – I teach writing. The answer seems to shift. To be honest, I am proud to be the author of five books , but there is always that moment, when you tell a stranger at a party, or on a plane, “I write books,” where they ask the title of one of you books, and if it isn’t a Stephen King or John Grisham blockbuster, they look disappointed. Well, I don’t like that moment.

2) How would you define/describe “creative non-fiction”?

Essentially, creative nonfiction involves bringing the entire literary toolbox – scene, voice, metaphor, lyricism, attitude – to the writing of truth. The creativity comes in the presentation.

3) Are Panic and Desire real towns in PA? Was it really just chance that you found yourself physically in a place you had inhabited metaphorically for a long time?

Yes, they are real. I wouldn’t call it chance – I deliberately veered off the road one morning, out of curiosity, to see what these two towns – crossroads really – looked like. But if you are asking, “Did I know that I would write this book, or that I would land on this metaphor?” No, I didn’t know that at all, it came much later.

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OK, I didn’t get to this as fast as I promised, but I wanted to weigh in on the great Kindle debate of 2008.

First let’s talk about cost.  $400 is a lot of money.  I would not have spent the money myself.  It was a Christmas gift and a wonderful one.  If the price is too high for you I can respect that.  I don’t really want to get into a debate about whether it is “worth” $400 or not.  That is really up to the individual to decide.  But considering what people spend on cell phones, PDAs, Mp3 players it doesn’t strike me as ridiculously over-priced by any means.

The no brainer type for this device is an avid reader who travels a lot.  If you read a lot of bestsellers or popular books and you are on the road a lot the Kindle would be awesome.  You can bring an incredible amount of reading material in one handy device that is about the size and weight of a trade paperback.  Plus, if for some reason you run out you can buy more instantly.  As a bonus you can listen to music and do some basic web surfing. I can’t imagine why a book addict traveler wouldn’t find the Kindle a wonderful tool.

But I am not a frequent traveler, so why do I love the Kindle?  Convenience.  The basic advantage is the ability to have access to a wide array of reading material in a small light weight form.  With the Kindle it is easy to never be without something to read.

Let’s start with books.  And let’s start with a few caveats: 

– Yes, not all books are available.  This is a drawback. I wish more books were available.  But a lot of books are available and more are being added every day.

– There are still some books I want to read in hard copy format.  Books where the illustrations, the look and feel of the book, are part of the process of reading it.  But this is a limited set of books so it isn’t a big problem.  I don’t need to read everything on the Kindle just enough to make it worthwhile.

– I really haven’t had much trouble inadvertently hitting page forward buttons or anything else.  But it does take a little time to get used to handling it given the location of the buttons.  At first I thought it would be a problem, but I just seemed to get used to it.

Now on to the positives.

One of the great things about the Kindle is the instant nature of the process.  Find out one of your favorite authors just came out with a new book?  Buy it on your Kindle and read it seconds later.  Imagine if the Kindle was around for the Harry Potter books.  The moment the book came out you could start reading it.  I find that cool.  No running to the store or waiting for Amazon to ship it to you.

More below.

Continue reading →

OK, I didn’t get to this as fast as I promised, but I wanted to weigh in on the great Kindle debate of 2008.

First let’s talk about cost.  $400 is a lot of money.  I would not have spent the money myself.  It was a Christmas gift and a wonderful one.  If the price is too high for you I can respect that.  I don’t really want to get into a debate about whether it is “worth” $400 or not.  That is really up to the individual to decide.  But considering what people spend on cell phones, PDAs, Mp3 players it doesn’t strike me as ridiculously over-priced by any means.

The no brainer type for this device is an avid reader who travels a lot.  If you read a lot of bestsellers or popular books and you are on the road a lot the Kindle would be awesome.  You can bring an incredible amount of reading material in one handy device that is about the size and weight of a trade paperback.  Plus, if for some reason you run out you can buy more instantly.  As a bonus you can listen to music and do some basic web surfing. I can’t imagine why a book addict traveler wouldn’t find the Kindle a wonderful tool.

But I am not a frequent traveler, so why do I love the Kindle?  Convenience.  The basic advantage is the ability to have access to a wide array of reading material in a small light weight form.  With the Kindle it is easy to never be without something to read.

Let’s start with books.  And let’s start with a few caveats: 

– Yes, not all books are available.  This is a drawback. I wish more books were available.  But a lot of books are available and more are being added every day.

– There are still some books I want to read in hard copy format.  Books where the illustrations, the look and feel of the book, are part of the process of reading it.  But this is a limited set of books so it isn’t a big problem.  I don’t need to read everything on the Kindle just enough to make it worthwhile.

– I really haven’t had much trouble inadvertently hitting page forward buttons or anything else.  But it does take a little time to get used to handling it given the location of the buttons.  At first I thought it would be a problem, but I just seemed to get used to it.

Now on to the positives.

One of the great things about the Kindle is the instant nature of the process.  Find out one of your favorite authors just came out with a new book?  Buy it on your Kindle and read it seconds later.  Imagine if the Kindle was around for the Harry Potter books.  The moment the book came out you could start reading it.  I find that cool.  No running to the store or waiting for Amazon to ship it to you.

More below.

Continue reading →