Author: jonsax201

A mothers manipulations in Sons and Lovers

My second reading of D.H. Lawrence turned out much better than the first (was unable to finish Women in Love last May). Sons and Lovers is a much more personal-feeling novel, and I learned after reading that it is semi-autobiographical as well.
The book focuses on Paul Morel, his relationships with his family and the women in his life. His mother is sort of a piece of work. The book begins with her falling in love with Mr Morel, but growing to hate him for being coarse and barbaric and thinking she is better than him. The reader feels her pain of solitude. She latches on to her children and particularly Paul, her second son. Paul grows up being taught to rise about his simple surroundings, that he is destined for more important things. Mrs Morel’s doting on Paul really leads to a unhealthy relationship between the two, and also to Paul never being satisfied with other women.
Paul has two loves during the course of the book, first Miriam who is much like him but who his mother dispises, and secondly Clara, who is a married (though separated) woman who is quite different. Miriam is a natural fit to Paul as they share many interests, but Paul finds flaws in her, which honestly are more like flaws in himself that he projects on her. To Clara Paul falls head over heels, but because she is married, he can never have her. In both cases, he continues to choose his mother over all, and is heavily influenced by her in his mindset.
Whereas the book started with us feeling sorry for Mrs Morel in the life she was dealt, at some point we start to see her as the master manipulator. Her husband becomes a bit of a tragic figure, and we wish that she could just leave her mitts off of Paul to let him live his life. Even after she becomes ill and dies in the end, Paul is still comparing other women to his mother, though he can at least admit now the damage she has done to his psyche.
Sons and Lovers is not a page-turner, but it is a deep introspective novel in which you get tied up in Paul’s search for the perfect mate, and since he can’t marry his mother, he never finds her. Since the book is autobiographical, you have to feel a little sorry for the author as well.

Today’s racial tensions echoed in Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities

Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanitiesis a popular novel from the 80s with a over-arching plot element that still rings important today, 30 years later, especially where I live in St Louis.
The book has around a dozen or so main characters, the central being Sherman McCoy. McCoy is a wall street investor, who despite making a lot of money, still manages to live well above his means. He also lives hard, running around on his wife with Maria Ruskin. One night him and Maria get lost in a rough part of town, and when approached by a pair of young black men, they panic and race off in his Mercedes, but not before hitting one of the men. McCoy wants to immediately go to the police, but Maria refuses to, saying that it is her choice because she was driving.
Over the next few days, McCoy begins to think they got away with it, but a story pops up in the paper of a young black man in the hospital, the apparent victim of a hit-and-run. Henry Lamb is in a coma now, on death’s door, and the author of the story, Peter Fallow, is trying to get the word out there. Over the ensuing weeks, the black community is up in arms, especially as details get out that Lamb had previously identified the car as a Mercedes and the driver as white. Racials tensions are enflamed by a local black community leader, Reverend Bacon, who claims Lamb was a good kid on the rise, on his way to college, leaving the projects he was raised in. He wants the police to chase after this white man as hard as they chase the black criminals. McCoy feels the noose around him tightening as more and more details come out.
The final parts of the book, McCoy’s arrest and the further missing elements of the case, all evolve in the final chapters. In the end though, the sideshow of the trial becomes the headline, and poor Henry Lamb is mostly forgotten. In fact his eventual death is only a footnote in the novel, as it would be in the papers of today. The book ends rather abrubtly, as the news cycle has all ready moved on to something else, which again, is no different than what we see today.

This is a great novel for even casual readers, and eye-opening for its context in today’s Black Lives Matter movements. Being written 30 years ago, it shows unfortunately not much has changed. I’ve left out much (it’s a long novel at 600+ pages), including many important elements and characters (the cops on the case, the D.A. trying to make a name for himself, McCoy’s lawyers and family). Well worth a read for fans of many genres.

A light read with a dire warning in Cat’s Cradle

Cat’s Cradle was my first foray into the hugely popular Kurt Vonnegut. It is about what I expected, which is to say, not quite my kind of style, but I can see the appeal. It did however leave a strong impression on me.
The book is written in first person, with the narrator telling the story of when he set out to write his own book. He wanted to write about what Americans were doing on the day Hiroshima was bombed in World War II. For research, he sets out to find the family of one of the fathers of the bomb, Felix Hoenikker. Felix had died years before, and left three very peculiar children who are now very peculiar adults. Felix also supposedly left another more deadly invention called ice-9, a substance that turned any water it touched instantly to ice. A funny trick when using only a bowl of water in front of you, it would be deadly if it ever touched a river or ocean, as it would instantly spread to all other places that body of water touched (i.e. the whole planet). However, Felix’s living colleagues all agree ice-9 was just a myth.
When the narrator tracks down Felix’s oldest son Frank, who has set himself up as a military leader in the small fictitious Caribbean nation of San Lorenzo, he heads there and also runs into the rest of the family. We see just how crazy the kids are, as well as how outlandish the island nation is, in conversations in the second half of the book. There is more detail than I care to get into here, but suffice it to say, there is a weird religion that everyone follows, yet no one admits to. Before the end, the kids admit they do in fact each carry a piece of ice-9, which does indeed up getting out and basically destroying the world, leaving only a handful of survivors. The narrator contemplates mankind’s future on this desolate planet, and what got them here, as the book ends.
The manner of writing is very quirky and downright silly at times (think Wes Anderson, though obviously Vonnegut came long before). Having said that, there is depth and meaning in this book. Written at a time when the Cuban missile crisis very nearly wiped us all out, Vonnegut obviously looked at what could have happened if cooler heads hadn’t prevailed. I’ve read that in other books, Vonnegut focuses strongly on the idea of free will, and that certainly is strong here too, with Felix’s kids destroying the world basically because they did whatever they wanted to do in life, with little thought to the consequences. The book feels like it is going nowhere fast, for a huge portion, but when it shifts in the final 50 pages, it turns fast, and leaves you with a lasting impression and something to think about.

Knowles’ classic still great 25 years later

I first read John Knowles’ A Separate Peace back in middle school. It’s the kind of book that is on most grade school and high school reading lists, so I’m sure many of you have read it as well.
To refresh your memory, the first-person narrator, Gene, attends a prep school named Devon in the early 40’s. Going into his senior year, all of the talk among students and teachers is the current world war. Gene is a bookworm and has no plans to enter the war, and while he is popular among his peers, he is continually overshadowed by his best friend and roommate, Phineas (Finny). When Gene causes Finny to fall out of a tree and shatter his leg though, they both have to deal with the changing dynamics of their friendship.
This book has some pretty straight-forward themes. Mostly it is a coming-of-age story, with Gene starting out as a child, and after realizing the serious consequences of his actions, he matures and changes the course of his life. Jealousy is also central. It agitates Gene that Finny always gets away with breaking all the rules, but once Finny loses his athleticism, their roles are slightly reversed, and Finny becomes jealous of Gene’s mobility, almost trying to live his (Finny’s) life through Gene’s. A short book, and an easy, though satisfying, read. As an adult re-reading it, you might just pick up a lot more than the first time around.

Muddled plots and characters in Faulkner’s Light in August

I’m going to chalk William Faulkner’s Light in August as a great book that I just don’t want to have to spend the time deciphering. There’s a lot going on, some of which Faulkner opts to share with us, other things he leaves for us to figure out, but all of it is told in a rather obtuse way.
It has basically 3 over-arching story lines, taking place in the south in the 1930’s. Lena is a young woman who has become pregnant by a southern rascal, Lucas Burch, who heads out of town upon hearing the news. She convinces herself that he is just coming up with money to marry her and build a family, and when he doesn’t show up as the baby’s date approaches, she sets out to find him. We also learn about Joe Christmas, an orphan who struggles with his heritage. Though he looks white, he believes he had a black father, which leaves him angry towards both races at different points in his life. He spents his first 25 or 30 years as a pretty awful person; picking fights, destroying lives, and not owning up to his sins. The third story is that of Hightower, a disgraced minister in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. Through an unfaithful wife and a mental meltdown, he is a preacher without a congregation. Jefferson is where all the stories connect, as Christmas has settled here and Burch as well, who has changed his name to Joe Brown.
Lena finally comes to town in her search, meeting Byron Bunch, who recognizes her quarry based on Lena’s description of him. She arrives just as Christmas’s white lover is murdered (by Brown or Christmas we never learn), and Bunch sets Lena into a cabin to await her lover, even as he himself falls in love with her. When word gets out of Christmas’s heritage, he becomes the de facto target of the police search. The story gets stranger from there, with Christmas’s maternal grandparents entering the scene and Hightower becoming heavily involved before the end.
The book is obviously mostly about race, and how that affects our views of people (or at least, those views in the 30’s when the book was written). We’ve come a long way in many ways, but not so far in others. My only problem is sometimes the characters’ actions don’t make much sense, from a reader’s (outsider’s) perspective, or even in context within the lines of the novel. Whereas my previous read captured my interest and made me want to ponder the interweaving plots and subplots, I mostly just wanted to move on from this book.

Newest Star Trek film goes back to its roots

Star Trek Beyond marks now the third movie in the “new” rebooted franchise. With a fourth movie all ready in the works, this cast will match the Next Generations crew in theater releases. This new movie, for me, felt almost like a throwback to the original series, and I think Star Trek fans and sci-fi fans in general have plenty to like here.

The film revolves around the Enterprise following a distress call to a distant planet. There they are attacked before they have a chance to ready, and James T Kirk ultimately finds himself marooned on the planet with most of his crew dead or captive, and the Enterprise destroyed (again!). As he, Spock, Bones, and Scotty try to rescue their friends from the newest big bad evil guy, they find unlikely friends also on the planet. Even when they make it off, they must still save the Federation from this newest crisis.

When I say it feels like a throwback, I mean the plot, dialogue, and just the general “feeling” of this film brings visions of the original crew. You can supplant Chris Pine with William Shatner and I’m not sure the movie changes all that much. I think this has amazing value for Star Trek fans who maybe felt a little backstabbed at seeing Khan resurrected in the last Star Trek film, but even casual fans can really enjoy this film too.  Stunning effects and some nail-biting action sequences keep it tense, but Kirk keeps his cool and the film never loses its Trek-like fun atmosphere. With original Spock Leonard Nimoy passing away last year (and slight spoiler, in the beginning of this film off-camera), this movie is definitely a proper tribute to his and his original crew’s legacy.

Quick takes on 5 films

The Family Fang is a rare dramatic role for lead Jason Bateman (who also directed). He plays Baxter, who, with his sister Annie (Nicole Kidman), are more famous for their parents actions than their own (though Baxter has written some acclaimed novels and Annie is a Hollywood actress). Growing up, their parents made “performance art,” staging the kids as props in fantastic situations and filming passersby’s reactions. When the parents go missing, leaving behind a crime scene full of blood, the adult children don’t know whether to believe them truly in danger, or if it is just the newest art scene to fool their fans. Brilliant acting by Bateman especially, and the film is raw and emotional, in which the viewer can’t help but be swept up in.
Hello, My Name is Doris showcases that Sally Field hasn’t lost an acting step with age. She plays Doris, who has lived at home with her mom all of her life. Now her mom has finally passed away, and her life is shaken up. In a bit of a life crisis, Doris falls for a man at work who is half her age. Field is breathtakingly good in this film. She runs the gamut of emotion and I felt all of it with her. She misses her mom, she aches for the life she could have had, had she not stayed home to care for her ailing mother, and she longs for love. At the same time, she experiences supreme joy with new friends that she may have missed out on. In the end, the movie is about moving on, though not necessarily the way you think you might.
King Jack is a well acted and emotional story of a coming-of-age in a small town. Jack is picked on by everyone older than him, and ridiculed by those of his same age. He does bring a lot of it on himself by trying to act tough, and get out of the shadow of his older, popular brother. He seems to be on the road towards juvenile deliquency with his constant fighting, when really he is just trying to stand up for himself. When he and his younger cousin become the targets of a particularly ruthless bully, he needs to decide when enough is enough. I make it sound fairly ho-hum, but the movie is deeply moving and more than your average indie flick. I had not heard of the lead, Charlie Plummer, before, but this is one to keep an eye out for.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is the latest comedy starring Tina Fey. She plays a journalist at a TV station, who finally has a chance to get in front of the camera if she is willing to report from the war in Afghanistan. Semi-biographical but with Fey’s comedic talent (at least in the first half), the film is just entertaining enough to keep you watching. It loses some steam comedically in the second half, where the meat and potatoes of the script come together in an actual plot, but there is still enough there to want to see how it all ends. A little vulgarity at times keeps it a solid R rating, so watch this one after the kids are asleep, but you don’t need to be diehard Fey fan to enjoy it.

 

The Invitation is a pretty boring for a thriller. A couple gets invited to a friendly get-together, by some people they haven’t seen in years. The first 60 minutes is slow in building but with plenty of B movie sideways glances and creepy music. The last 30 minutes turns into an even worse cliché slasher film. The movie has some recognizable faces, but definitely low budget and not all that well put together. There are better low budget movies out there.

The brilliance of a modern classic in Infinite Jest

I’ve finally just finished David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Took me a solid 4 weeks to read this one, and I’m not a slow reader. Coming it at over a 1000 pages (plus endnotes, and sometimes endnotes on the endnotes!), and an often convoluted narrative, it isn’t the easiest read, but it is well worth the journey. It is an absolutely brilliant work, I think one of the truly great novels of the last half century.

This will be a very different kind of synopsis, because I won’t say anything about the book at all. Much of what makes this book exciting is a series of plot revelations. There are big shifts in the story, and sometimes plot elements you thought were maybe going nowhere, end up being vitally important to the overall story. So while I won’t be saying anything about the story, I’ll instead write a little about where (I think) it came from and its lasting appeal.

I was first turned on to this novel from a film I saw last year, The End of the Tour, which was biographical about the author’s life just after this book was published. That movie was great, and it made me very curious about this book that was being applauded so heavily at the time it came out. In fact, when I had about 100 pages left in the book, I went back and re-watched the movie, and I got a very different feeling from it after having read most of the book now. Wallace was (he committed suicide in 2008) very introverted and obviously highly intelligent. He admitted to having an addictive personality (and many forms of addiction play a heavy role in Infinite Jest), but he also (in the movie) talks about people being spoon-fed entertainment and just taking it without thought or perspective. “The Entertainment” is also key to this novel.

So what does Wallace do with his ideas about entertainment and addiction? He writes this novel that leaves much to the reader to come up with their own conclusions. If you google reviews, most negative reviews rant  that the ending is too sudden and leaves too much open to interpretation. I feel that is exactly what Wallace wanted. And really, the answers are all there if read carefully and in-between the lines, though a lot of it is easily missed because parts might be buried in drug-induced ramblings or dream-like hallucinations. I tend to think that even though the book is hefty and long, there really isn’t much in there (if anything) that doesn’t deserve its place. Many times seemingly innocuous passages end up having a strong impact on the reader’s understanding of how it all fits together, even though you might not know it at the time. Which means re-reading the whole damn book again (which I will be doing some time in the next year, while it is still fresh in my mind). So that takes me to my final observation.

Wallace wants us to grow with his novel. He wants us to think for ourselves. He does give us all the keys to understand Infinite Jest, but he doesn’t just map it all out for us, and sometimes doesn’t even show us the doors that those keys open. It is up to the reader. Having read it, I googled interpretations of the ending, and there are many, and what was beautiful about the whole experience, my own was not in the majority. I think Wallace would be ok with that too.

Quick takes on 5 films

Green Room is sort of meh. Actually not a bad movie, but a little stereotypical of this genre. A rock band is touring from town to town, barely making enough money to keep gas in the van. As a last resort they take a gig at a neo-nazi hangout. When they witness a murder in the back room though, they are held prisoner, and the decision is made to kill them as witnesses. They decide not to go down without a fight. The bad guys are a little cliché but the action is good and the film doesn’t play out in an entirely foreseen way. Not all that memorable, but a worthy way to spend 90 minutes.
Triple 9 is one of those movies where the amazing cast can’t quite save the story. Not a bad movie, but when you look at the actors (Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet, Woody Harrelson, and those guys from “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead”, among others!), you expect something pretty stellar. The movie is about a group of thieves and dirty cops, doing a couple jobs for the Russian mafia, and the good cops and detectives trying to put it all together. A lot happens in the first 20-30 minutes where you think it is going to get really deep and complex, and then it never does. But still, good action and decent acting (at least they weren’t just mailing it in) put together a passable film, but a few too many holes will leave you wanting more.
45 Years is very enjoyable, and a poignant look at how events long past can have real implications on your emotions in the present day. Kate and her husband Geoff are getting ready to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary, having had to postpone a big party on their 40th when Geoff underwent a major heart procedure and had to fight back to life. A week before the big party this time around, Geoff receives a letter that an old girlfriend’s, Katya’s, body has been found. They had been hiking in Switzerland when she’d slipped off a cliff, and apparently she’d become frozen in the ice, her body now preserved all these years. Though this was all before Kate ever knew Geoff, she is consumed by feelings of jealousy and hurt, especially when Geoff admits that Katya was more than a girlfriend, and in fact they were engaged at the time. Over the next few days, Geoff becomes increasingly possessed about Katya and their time together 50 years past, and withdrawn from Kate, and Kate doesn’t know what to make of it as their anniversary party approaches. The ending is just ambiguous enough. Fantastic acting by Charlotte Rampling, who was nominated for an Oscar.
Eye in the Sky is a movie that will get you thinking. Helen Mirren oversees a drone strike program, jointly between the UK and the USA. They are hunting 3 high profile targets in Africa, and when the 3 come together in a house, the team is faced with the decision to take them out and risk killing nearby innocents, or miss possibly their greatest chance to get all 3 terrorists at the same time. Really fine cast including Alan Rickman (his last on-screen movie), Aaron Paul, and Barkhad Abdi (from the hit Captain Phillips). The movie shows the strife amongst politicians, when everyone keeps passing the buck higher up the food chain, as no one wants to be the one to make the final decision, as well as showing the turmoil among the military. Some are willing to take the shot, seemingly not caring how many innocents die, and others struggle with killing even one non-target. The movie does a great job of balancing the good and bad consequences of the choice, and ultimately, the decision made will affect different viewers in very different ways.

 

I may have mentioned it before, but I have a soft spot for sports films, and I like the Olympics, so a movie about the Olympics will get me every time. I really enjoyed Eddie the Eagle, but not just because of its setting. Taron Egerton is incredible as Eddie, who wanted nothing more than to play in an Olympic games. After trying different sports growing up, he finally settles in as a ski jumper, mostly because his native UK has no team, so it is an easier road to the games. He latches on to a former jumper as a coach (played by Hugh Jackman), and sets out to reach his goals. I’m not sure how factual the base-on-a-true story movie is, but it is quality film and can be enjoyed by all ages.

Quick takes on 5 films

The Wonders is an Italian film, with a couple different subplots going on. It follows a rural family of beekeepers living a simple life. They struggle to get by and have none of the trappings of modern times. However, when a reality show competition comes to the area, offering prize money to the local family with the best product, their simple lifestyle is put at risk. At the same time, the eldest daughter, Gelsomina, is coming of age. She struggles with being the one everyone else relies upon to continue their hard life, with her desire to want to do and see more. Like a lot of foreign films, the dialogue (at least the translated, subtitled dialogue) can be a little hokey and over the top, but it is a heartfelt film and enjoyable.
Anomalisa is a throught provoking film in a different style. Written by the great Charlie Kaufman, it is a stop motion film, but this one isn’t for the kids. Michael Stone is due to give a speech at a seminar out of town, but on his walk from the plane through the airport to his hotel, we see that he perceives everyone around him the same way. All men and women have the same face and same voice, and they all annoy him. At the hotel, he finally hears a female voice down the hall, and he runs to find her. They spend the evening together, but what happens from here, I’d hate to give away. If you like Kaufman’s inspriring films, you’ll enjoy this one as well.
The Program tells the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong, played here by Ben Foster. Foster is great in the movie, and he obviously worked on getting down Lance’s mannerisms and faces; there are scenes where he (Ben) looks a lot like him! Having said that, the movie is sort of boring. It jams Lance’s full career from 1993 – 2011 (or so) in under two hours. Some parts feel rushed, and others you wish they’d have rushed further. I don’t know how accurate the film is, but Lance is portrayed as incredibly egotistic, and not all that secretive about his doping. By the time he is brought down, it is no surprise due to the sheer number of people aware of his cheating.
Race is a little better, but (unfortunately) is a little boring too. It tells of Jesse Owens’ rise and breakthrough at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. It should be a thrilling movie, and the final half hour or so does almost reach must-watch status, but the film as a whole is lacking. It is easy to root for Owens in an environment and time when he has to fight for everything, and the movie leans a little too heavy on that promise. It stars Stephan James as Owens and Jason Sudeikis as his Ohio State coach. James is fantastic, but Sudeikis still has a way to go to distance himself from the comedies and romantic-comedies he is known for.

 

The Wave is a Norwegian disaster movie, and a relatively good one. It takes place around a quiet mountain town in Norway. Kristian is a geologist who monitors for quakes in the mountain, at a waypost that is built to give early warning in case of an earthquake. A large avalanche can lead to a tsunami in the canyon, wiping out the town below. The first half of the movie is great, as little warning signs are popping up and Kristian is getting increasingly worried of impending disaster. When the calamity comes, the movie (for me) slows down a bit, as the tight suspense is replaced by more of a search-and-rescue kind of flick. Still very good and a rewarding film.