Primo Levi said, “The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one’s country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.”
What do you think?
(Mark this down as a good day. I got an e-mail from somebody I’d been waiting to hear from, who’s sending me a FREE BOOK ABOUT VIKINGS [more information on that later]. I got going on a project I’ve been putting off in the library, and actually found it engrossing. Time flew. Also my doctor told me I could go off the iron supplement she’s had me on, which means I ought to have a lot less heartburn in my life. Below is another Klavan review, this one from October, 2006.)
Hard-boiled detective stories are one of my favorite genres. So it was good news for me when I learned that Andrew Klavan, my favorite contemporary author, had begun a detective series (I love series! It’s almost like having real friends!).
And I wasn’t disappointed. If Klavan’s Weiss and Bishop series isn’t moving Hard-boiled into fertile new territory, it’s at least discovering new treasures in the old fields.
You gotcher tough-guy protagonist. You gotcher smart-guy protagonist. You gotcher psycho killers and your dangerous dames. You gotcher dead bodies and threats and violence. You gotcher subtextual deconstruction of postmodern philosophy. What’s not to like? Continue reading Repost: Shotgun Alley, by Andrew Klavan
We’re all about movies here at Brandywine BOOKS . . . Ahem . . .
I’m having trouble with my mic here . . . are we live already? Can you hear me now?
All right. We’re all about movies here. As Orson Scott Card said, when modern Americans read a great book, they often say it would make a great movie because when a story succeeds as a movie, it has been perfected. Don’t deny it. You know it’s true.
So I watched the 1931 film Arrowsmith last night. It was great. I think the end could have had more to it. Maybe I needed Ronald Coleman to monologue a bit at the end. “Here’s why I’m going to leave my success and wealth behind. This is the reason I will cut ties with this place. I did make the right decision back in the West Indies. I’m not turning back! I’m am American. We never turn back!” Or something like that.
It’s a sad story overall. It’s based on a Sinclair Lewis novel about a young scientist who marries a nurse in his hospital, begins his career as a doctor in South Dakota, and distinguishes himself enough to be invited to join a research institute in New York. He’s a good man, but he may not make the best decisions throughout the story. Feel free to rent it and judge for yourself. Dr. Arrowsmith’s poor little wife puts up with a lot and I’m not sure he understands her sacrifice in the end. The viewers do understand his devotion to her, which is a strong point for the film.
More importantly as far as movie news goes, Disney has released a trailer for its new princess movie, The Princess and the Frog. I wish them all the best for this one. I hope they do it up right.
Also from Disney (What? I have four girls at home who love this stuff. Is that the reason you’re looking at me that way? Stop it. Here’s a Tootsie Roll, so chill.) comes a good-looking cartoon called Bolt. Could be a strong film, even though my sweet wife couldn’t get over the fact the dog looked like a bear to her at first.
I did some painting on the garage over the weekend, and in between caught a few movies on DVD, and one actually in a theater.
You’ll marvel, I am sure, to learn that I was the only person in the country who hadn’t yet seen Pirates of the Caribbean. I’ve remedied that omission now.
There were some sword fights, which is (it goes without saying) always good. Having been watching Douglas Fairbanks movies recently, it was interesting to note that movie sword fights are basically what they were back then, except that Fairbanks’ old tricks are passé now, so that the choreographers have to come up with increasingly improbable new tricks.
Someday somebody may want to try a realistic fight. Just for the novelty of the thing.
Nah, that’ll never happen. Continue reading Weekend movies
Frederik Pohl has collaborated with Arthur C. Clarke on the latter author’s final novel, The Last Theorem. It will be released August 5.
Clarke is known for predicting scientific inventions in his novels: In 1945, he predicted the invention of communications satellites, 12 years before the launch of the first artificial satellites. As a result, geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are nicknamed Clarke orbits.
“The Last Theorem” includes a weapon called Silent Thunder that neutralizes all electronic activity in a given area to harmlessly disarm entire nations. Another is the space elevator, a cord suspended from an orbiting object in space that can pull objects from Earth, rather than rely on rocket power to launch them.
Pohl said his research and conversations with friends who are scientists convince him both will one day exist.
“If we can somehow figure out what possible futures there might be,” he said, “you can try to encourage the ones you like and avoid the ones you don’t.”
Pohl said the type of work he and Clarke did was different from much of what is written today. He said that rather than delving into difficult subjects like astronomy, math and physics, young writers sometimes turn to an easier route by writing fantasy.
“Science fiction is sometimes a little hard,” Pohl said. “Fantasy is like eating an ice cream cone. You don’t have to think a bit.”
I can understand that, but you don’t have to think much about fantasy only if you aren’t trying to hold to an actual historic time and place. And you don’t have to think much if you aren’t developing/creating much detail in your fantasy world.
The Diary Junction provides a sample of what we can anticipate from George Orwell’s blog:
From 13 February 1936: ‘Housing conditions in Wigan terrible. Mrs H tells me that at her brother’s house (he is only 25, so I think he must be her half-brother, but he has already a child of 8), 11 people, five of them adults, belonging to 3 different families, live in 4 rooms, ‘2 up 2 down’. All the miners I meet have either had serious accidents themselves or have friends or relatives who have. Mrs H’s cousin had his back broken by a fall of rock – ‘And he lingered seven year afore he dies and it were a-punishing of him all the while’ – and her brother-in-law fell 1200 feet down the shaft of a new pit. Apparently he bounced from side to side, so was presumably dead before he got to the bottom. Mrs H adds: ‘They wouldn’t never have collected t’pieces only he were wearing a new suit of oilskins.’
Sherry can’t hack Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer. “Now I get it,” she writes. “This narrator, Binx Bolling, is nuts. But of course, he speaks truths in the midst of his madness. (Whoops, Eldest Daughter says I don’t get it at all. I’m Prufrock: ‘That is not it at all. That is not what I meant, at all.’)” Heh, heh. If I could, I’d go on a Walker Percy reading binge just to pique Sherry’s interest in reading more of his work. Probably wouldn’t work.
According to a report in the London Telegraph (via Conservative Grapevine), a former Special Branch policeman who helped guard Salman Rushdie says in his newly published autobiograpy that the author is such a jerk that his guards once locked him in a cupboard so they could spend a night out in a pub.
If there’s a lesson here, I fail to discern it. Other than that people are extremely complex organisms.
The story of the appalling shooting incident at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church seems extremely strange, judging from early reports.
The shooter is described as hating liberals and homosexuals. But he’s also described as hating the Bible and all churches.
He appears to have been a deranged man with a wide range of resentments.
In any case, his actions were evil.
Jackie Gingrich Cushman over at Townhall reports on a study from the University of Toronto which concludes that readers of fiction develop betters social skills than readers of nonfiction, because they learn vicariously about the results of various kinds of human interaction.
Funny, it never worked for me. But then my tombstone will say, “Here lies an outlier.” In fact, they’ll probably bury me across the street from the cemetery, so I can outlie some more.
It’s an interesting theory in any case.