THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/23/05 -- Vol. 24, No. 13, Whole Number 1301
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
World of Warcraft Plague (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Your Horoscope (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Comments on Robert Wise (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Forbidden Power (letter of comment by Chris Ward)
Stem Cell Research (letter of comment by Jerry Williams)
TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
A SOUND OF THUNDER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE CONSTANT GARDENER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
JOE DIMAGGIO: THE HERO'S LIFE by Richard Ben Cramer
(book review and future directions by Joe Karpierz)
This Week's Reading (CODEX, THE ANNOTATED HUCKLEBERRY
FINN, and annotated books in general)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: World of Warcraft Plague (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We have been following with great concern the events happening in
the Warcraft World. Apparently a virtual plague has broken out
in this already very dangerous place and the fatality count looks
like it could be in the thousands. If you have not heard about
this you can read about it at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4272418.stm
According to this article the disease has its roots in the blood
of the Hakkar, itself a god of Blood. It is spreading a virulent
disease throughout the World of Warcraft.
I know this is a bad time to ask this of members, and budgets are
stretched because of so many recent disasters, some even non-
digital, but I want to see if something can be done for the
survivors. If you wire me contributions--digitally--I will see
if something can be done to help the resurrected and the
survivors of those killed. Subscribers of the MT VOID have
generous, warm hearts and I know they will respond in this hour
of need. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Your Horoscope (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
(Due to economy concerns we cannot provide complete horoscopes.
Your cooperation is appreciated.)
Leo: Your best course of action involves the out-of-doors. Keep
trying and there is success in your future.
Everyone else: WHAT? You are going to complain you are not
covered with a horoscope? Don't be so superstitious. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Comments on Robert Wise (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
While I was in Canada for the Toronto International Film Festival
I heard the sad news that Robert Wise had died. He was 91 years
and four days old. I was very sorry to hear that. Wise is one of
the directors I admired a lot, in spite of the fact that there
were many in Hollywood who did not like him. But more of that
later.
Wise was an interesting director, particularly for fans of the
fantasy. While Wise directed a wide variety of films, I think of
Wise first for having directed science fiction and horror
stories. His classic of science fiction was THE DAY THE EARTH
STOOD STILL, which frequently shows up on top ten lists for the
best science fiction films. He also directed THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN
and the first "Star Trek" film. His horror films included THE
CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE and THE BODY SNATCHER for producer Val
Lewton. He also directed the first film version of Shirley
Jackson's THE HAUNTING. Away from fantasy he won Oscars for both
Best Director and Best Picture for two different musicals, WEST
SIDE STORY and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.
Wise worked in such varied genres as Westerns (TRIBUTE TO A BAD
MAN), drama (I WANT TO LIVE!), war films (RUN SILENT RUN DEEP and
THE DESERT RATS), and political dramas (THE SAND PEBBLES). With
the possible exception of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, which was
made as the Korean War was heating up, these films seem relatively
harmless and not very controversial.
One would not think of him as one of the more contentious
directors of the studio system. But in fact, there were and are
people in the film industry who hated him with a passion. Some
reviewers have a great deal of vitriol for him. For some Wise
represents, I suppose, the victory of studio business interests
over artistic values. Not that Wise was greatly artistic
himself. Why then is he so disliked?
Wise worked with Orson Welles as editor for CITIZEN KANE and
reportedly Wise and Welles got along very well for that film.
They worked together again on THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS with
again Wise as editor and they had a good relationship. But
Welles had a very independent working style. The young and
somewhat arrogant director
showed no respect for the studio people who were paying him. He
had had a history of battles with the money interests at RKO
studio. The final straw was when reportedly Nelson Rockefeller
and the State Department had asked Welles to make a good-will film
about Brazil, a documentary to tie the two countries closer
together. Welles went off to Brazil doing preparation work for
another film, IT'S ALL TRUE.
In Brazil Welles started to make a film about daily life in that
country, which was not at all what RKO had in mind. They needed
him to finish up with THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, but Welles
ignored them. RKO had decided that with the coming of World War
II audience attention span would be shorter and they wanted to
work with Welles to make AMBERSONS a little shorter and punchier
films. Welles was just not available. Finally RKO decided they
had had enough. They were paying Robert Wise and ordered him to
complete the editing with a briefer telling and get the film ready
to release. Wise reluctantly agreed and did as he was told.
Welles was not happy. He did not like the film as it was released
and blamed Wise for co-operating with the re-editing. He
considered it a betrayal by a friend and they never worked
together again.
Even today there seem to be film critics who are still insulting
to Wise. In his 2001 book BEYOND POPCORN: A CRITIC'S GUIDE TO
LOOKING AT FILMS reviewer Robert Glatzer describes the incident as
follows: "Welles left for South America and the studio had the hack
Robert Wise re-shoot and re-cut the ending." It is hard for me to
think of the director of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, WEST SIDE
STORY, and THE HAUNTING as a hack. Elsewhere in the same book
Glatzer really tears into THE SOUND OF MUSIC. That strikes me as
not fair. It may not be my favorite film, but I believe it
undeniably shows Wise's craftsmanship.
I think people in the science fiction community may have more
respect
for Wise than the public at large. Multiple times at science
fiction conventions I saw him on panels talking about his films,
particularly THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. That is unusual for a
man of his profressional stature. It may be only legend but
apparently on one such panel he was asked about the Christ
symbolism in the film. He professed to not know of any, while the
writer said that of course the script with full of Christ
symbolism.
People who like good science fiction will certainly miss Robert
Wise. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Forbidden Power (letter of comment by Chris Ward)
In response to Mark's article on forbidden power in the 08/26/05
issue, Chris Ward writes, "It has been a long time since I have
read Frankenstein, but as I recall a big underlying theme of the
novel was not just the 'sin of knowledge', but it was the
somewhat good (and somewhat bad) Doctor's abandonment of his
'son', bastard or not. And the man/monster also had the habit of
asking Dr. F. 'who is going to take responsibility for me',
which I think James Whale understood and was alluded to in the
(again, a long time since I have seen it) Dan Curtis/Jack Palance
version and the Mel Brooks version.
Mark responds, "The book is also about what I would almost call
'bad parenting.' I think Mary Shelley had some bad parenting she
received and that was an issue on her mind. It is certainly there
in the book. Victor just sort of walks out on his creation
expecting him to die, not unlike babies exposed on a mountain
side in ancient Greece. Only this baby did not die. It has been
a long time since I have seen the Dan Curtis version. I do sort
of see it Brooks, but the baby is not abandoned in the Whale
version. He is to be murdered and does the murdering first."
Chris continues, "In a big way, taking the step of acquiring
knowledge without being prepared to deal with the results was a
big part of it. And it raised the non-Disney issue of
abandonment of a creature who is not particularly desirable
(although in the book, he may have started out as good looking).
Mark responds, "He may have, but the wording makes it unlikely.
He is called a monster from the very first:
'I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created.
He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may
be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered
some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He
might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched
out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.
I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I
inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking
up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively,
catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the
approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably
given life.'
However one thing that people do not seem to realize is that this
is not really a science fiction story. The monster may or may
not have been created with science. Shelley tells us what Victor
had studied including science and natural philosophy [alchemy].
The monster could be a large homunculus for all we are told. It
is the films that made it an explicitly scientific creation."
Chris closes with, "Thus if someone in power in Hollywood were to
read the novel, they might still get points today for
originality."
And Mark notes, "Well, there is one accurate film version, TERROR
OF FRANKENSTEIN (a.k.a. VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN). It is a little
slow and dull, but very faithful to the book."
===================================================================
TOPIC: Stem Cell Research (letter of comment by Jerry Williams)
Gerry Williams responds to Mark's article, addressing stem cell
research in particular, saying:
[Of the Tree of Knowledge] "Perhaps it's a literal tree, but it
does impart knowledge that Adam and Eve were not meant to have.
It was due to eating from the Tree that they knew they were naked
and got the idea to put on fig leaves. My interpretation was
that the knowledge gained by eating from the tree made them unfit
for the Garden of Eden. The first "forbidden knowledge" was
probably when they realized that they could do something other
than God's will, even before they took the first bite.
I also doubt that scientific facts would be forbidden, although
the realm of knowledge is wider than that, including answers to
questions such as "I wonder what it would be like to . . . ." And
there should be limits on how science is performed. Torturous
experiments on healthy people may advance medicine faster, but
they're still evil and wrong.
The issue [over stem cells] isn't so black and white. It's
really a question of where you draw the line. Certainly you're
not going to start dissecting pregnant women and their healthy
fetuses at various stages of development just to see what you
could learn (which at least one large drug company that I can
think of might have done sixty-five years ago).
In fact, the knowledge that we really need is how to convert
ordinary cells into stem cells. Once we know how to do that,
there's no longer a debate. I don't know what percentage of
fetal stem cell researchers are working on this, but it's not all
of them.
Think about it. Except for identical twins, fetal stem cells
have the wrong DNA sequences. So we may learn something from
this research, but we are not developing treatments, at least not
until we figure out how to convert cells into stem cells. And if
we were developing treatments, then the existing stem cell lines
would already be sufficient.
There is another form of stem cell research that can produce
treatments right away--this involves using stem cells found in
the placenta and umbilical cord. Nobody is preventing any
research in this area, but medical researchers think the big
breakthrough will be in the fetal type of stem cells. They may
be right, but it won't help us if we can only get them from
fetuses.
I've heard some stem cell researchers claim that they need to be
able to do "unrestricted" research to maximize their chance for a
breakthrough. That argument doesn't fly. The fact that any of
them can make such a statement makes it obvious that a line does
need to be drawn. Perhaps it was drawn at the wrong point, but
that's a different argument to make. On the other hand, perhaps
the current line will force these researchers into the type of
research that we really need in the first place.
Frankly, I can think of some reasonable arguments as to why
certain types of fetuses need to be created (e.g., identical
twins). However, I really haven't heard researchers making these
arguments, so I have a hard time getting jazzed up about this
particular limitation. [-gsw]
===================================================================
TOPIC: TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is another joyously morbid fairy tale from Tim
Burton. A nebbish makes a fatal mistake and accidentally weds a
zombie. These mixed marriages--one living and one dead--never
really last. But while this one does our hapless hero gets to
meet the underworld society of the dead. The mock morbidity is a
lot of fun, and it all comes to a heartwarming ending. The
animation is not cutting edge, but it is very good. There are a
host of familiar voices as a great cast of actors speaks the
roles. The film is enchantingly unwholesome. Rating: +2 (-4 to
+4) or 7/10
TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE is a new Tim Burton animated film in
the mold of "Vincent" and THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Once
again some of the most lovable people are the ones that
traditionally give us nightmares. Like Charles Addams and Edward
Gorey before him, Burton knows how to poke a loving jab at things
we are supposed to find horrifying. In actual fact, they
probably have not been horrifying since Victorian times.
Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp, perhaps named Victor for
Victor Frankenstein) is in love with patrician Victoria Everglot
(Emily Watson). Both sets of parents are very anxious to see the
marriage take place. The Van Dorts want to climb the social
ladder. Normally people like the Everglots would not want to be
seen hobnobbing with people like the Van Dorts. But the Van
Dorts have money and the snobbish Finnis Everglot (Albert Finney)
wants to tap their resources and is even willing to marry his
daughter off to them. Willing, that is, if only Victor can get
his marriage vows correct. The stern Pastor Galswells
(Christopher Lee) is losing all patience with Victor and his bad
memory. He sends Victor away to practice what he is to say
during the marriage ceremony. Victor now can get the words
right, but now he is saying them in the wrong place. He is
saying them just over the place where a poor and maltreated young
woman had died and was buried. Before Victor realizes what he
has done he has said his marriage vows to a corpse (Helena Bonham
Carter). And this is all she needs to return to life, or at
least walking death. The dead woman is delighted to find someone
would marry her, considering her delicate condition of being
dead. Victor is now married and it is time to meet the non-
surviving members of his wife's family and others from the land
of the dead. And of course there is a loveable dog only slightly
less loveable for being only a dog skeleton.
Tim Burton likes to deal with the same people from one film to
the next so the actors doing the voices are people like Johnny
Depp and Helena Bonham Carter who are veterans of previous Burton
films. Danny Elfman (who else) nicely provides the music. The
songs are pleasant, but it is too early to tell if the music will
be as memorable as that of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. In at
least one way this film does not live up to that predecessor. In
that film it seemed that there was often interesting creative
action in every part of the screen. There were throwaway gags
and gimmicks happening all over the background. This film
perhaps does not have all the creativity that that film had.
There is less going on in each frame. Possibly it is less
distracting to have less peripheral action, but it is also a
little disappointing. Many of the gags seem less original and
more retreads from cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s. But the
story has its heart in the right place.
This is a tale of love and death, though ultimately much more
about love. Parents may want to avoid bringing children much
less than eight or ten, but anybody else should have a great
time. The biggest fault is that the pleasure lasts only 78
minutes. I would rate TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE a +2 on the -4
to +4 scale or 7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A SOUND OF THUNDER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Based on a famous story by Ray Bradbury, this film will
be a real disappointment for its lack of logic and even the
misunderstanding of the original story. As an action film
without the logic it is only fair. Peter Hyams is good at making
sci-fi, but is not very good with science fiction. Rating: 0 (-4
to +4) or 4/10
A science fiction film about a new and original idea can be quite
good. But when a film is based on a very popular or classic
science fiction story, watch out. It is very hard to adapt a
classic story without disappointing the fans who made the story
popular. A typical example (okay, my best) is the film NIGHTFALL
based on the classic Isaac Asimov story. The film is terrible.
THE COLD EQUATIONS and DUNE are other good examples of films
simply not meeting the expectations of the fans.
The story of A SOUND OF THUNDER, as any science fiction fan
worth his salt will already know, involves a future when time
travel has become commercial but is heavily regulated. Why is it
regulated? Any change to the past affects the future in ways
that cannot be predicted. Hunters are allowed to go into the
past to shoot dinosaurs as big game, but they can kill only
dinosaurs that are fated to die in the next few seconds anyway.
A special pathway keeps the time travelers off the ground so not
even a plant is damaged. In the story, of course, the
precautions prove insufficient and the future is subtly altered.
A team of three writers, not counting Ray Bradbury, has written a
full-length film on this premise and Peter Hyams has directed
that script. Though the logic of the original story is a long
way from being airtight, the film's logic is far more specious.
Different hunting parties come to the same dinosaur and the same
interval of time, yet do not seem to run into each other. Using
the same set and the same dinosaur makes great budgetary logic
but little logic logic. Apparently they are coming back to
different layers of the past, but then later in the film a
character goes back in time and meets members from another group.
So the concept is inconsistent.
In the film an altered past does not simply alter the future.
The changes hit the future in tidal waves that come hours apart
and each brings major changes to the future. Further the waves
affect things at higher and higher "levels" and humans are at the
top level. So humans will not be eliminated until the sixth
wave. Until then they will see the world change from the first
five waves of temporal change. This balderdash makes no sense at
all and seems a very anthropocentric view of the universe. This
turns a story that may have had a problem or two into a feature-
length absurdity.
Politically correct plot lines pad the short story into a longer
length--and in this film the original story is only the jumping
off point for the plot of the scientists trying to correct the
waves of temporal errors. Part of the padding is to create a
nefarious villain--white, male, old, and greedy--and the
unrewarded genius who gave him his power--female, sexy, and
young. One of the team sacrifices his life. Want to guess what
race he is? For a science fiction script there is a distinct
lack of imagination and much of the film simply covers tired
material.
Visually some of the future is nice to look at. Sid Mead who is
best known for his futurist contributions to BLADERUNNER has a
nice visualization of the future. Cars really look different.
However some of his scenery just looks like rear-projection
rather than really a location the characters inhabit. When the
dinosaur walks the ground really shakes. It is not at all clear
a dinosaur even this size could shake the ground so much. An
alternate history creature created for the film is an unlikely
cross between animals of two different orders. Ben Kingsley does
a nice turn as an evil industrialist in an industry that has not
been invented yet. But Edward Burns is not the stuff of heroes.
The short story that this film is based on can be recommended,
but spending ten dollars to see this adaptation cannot. A SOUND
OF THUNDER rates 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a film that starts slowly, moves into comedy,
and then serious drama. An American Jew travels to Ukraine to
find information about members of his family. Forgotten secrets
of past are unearthed. This is a film with a wide range of
emotions. It is a film with some laughter and some very
affecting moments. It may be a flawed film, but parts are really
excellent. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4) or 9/10
Liev Schreiber is a talented and intelligent actor. Here he
turns to writing and directing a film based on the popular novel
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by Jonathan Safran Foer. By an odd
coincidence, the main character of this film is also named
Jonathan Safran Foer. Foer (played by Elijah Wood) is a man who
is surrounded by a force field that seems to deaden all emotion.
He observes the world dispassionately from behind a pair of Coke-
bottle-lens glasses. His every experience is remembered by
taking a souvenir, placing it in a plastic Ziploc bag and putting
it on a complex wall that represents for him his life. There
every aspect of his life can be studied like a bug under a
magnifying glass. One thing seems to defy his analysis. It is a
photograph of his family from the Old Country. Perhaps to
understand this one specimen he will have to go to Ukraine and
investigate the town where his grandfather lived.
It is in Ukraine that he meets the Heritage Odessa Tours Company,
basically a one family business that specializes in driving rich
Jews to Jewish heritage sites. Though they do not think much of
Jews, they are happy to make a nice comfortable living off of
them. The Dad will be unable to drive Foer around. Instead he
sends his blind father as a driver and his twenty-ish son Alex
Perchov (Eugene Hutz) as a guide. How can the grandfather be
blind and still see well enough to drive? It seems like one more
strange and silly facet of Ukraine society. By the end of the
film it will, in fact, be an important question. Can one truly
believe what one knows to be false? What is the effect of
convincing oneself to live a lie?
Also along for the ride is their nasty, growling dog Sammy Davis,
Jr. Jr. To make her official the dog wears a shirt that explains
that she is the "Officious Seeing Eye Bitch." Clearly the
delicate nuances of the English language are something of a
mystery in Ukraine. But then Ukraine is also a mystery to Foer.
Much of the film is a road trip trying to find the long lost town
of Trachimbrod. During the trip Foer tries to understand Alex
and his society, Alex tries to figure out Foer. The two will
have to learn about each other and each will understand the
history of the region better. Both are very much in the dark,
but by the end of their travels everything is illuminated.
The film is shot with subdued color to subdue the mood of the
piece. The score is in large part klezmer that provides a
perfect backdrop for the almost surreal and quietly madcap
journey into the heartland of Ukraine and also into the past.
Though the film gets off to a slow start the characters and the
humor really draws the audience in. People in my group were
repeating lines from the film and laughing at them for days
after, so we must have really liked it. By the end of the film
festival we were singing "Start Wearing Purple" and "Officious
Seeing Eye Bitch" had become the mascot of festival.
Rumor has it that the novel the film is based on is much more
complex and fulfilling than the film. That is what novels are.
As films go, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED tells a pretty good story
all by itself. I rate EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED a +3 on the -4
to +4 scale or 9/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE CONSTANT GARDENER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A minor diplomat investigates the murder of his wife and
gets an education on what is really happening in modern Africa.
THE CONSTANT GARDENER packs a real wallop in its study of the
interconnections of global business, international medicine, and
government. A film that has solid and relevant content, a good
romance, and is still a good story is very rare. This is one of
the best of this year. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4) or 9/10
John Le Carre is probably best known for his Cold War thrillers.
At least he once was. With the Cold War over there was some
question if he could still have subject matter for riveting
thrillers. THE CONSTANT GARDENER is, in fact, a very good story
set in the modern world. The film that director Fernando
Meirelles (who previously directed CITY OF GOD) has made from the
novel is exciting and educational. He tells his story set
against a backdrop of not only his usual international politics
but also global business and international medicine. The three
have interests interwoven together and the story takes us to such
diverse locations as London, Kenya, Italy, and Sudan.
Justin Quayle (played Ralph Fiennes) has just lost his wife Tessa
(Rachel Weisz). Quayle is a minor British diplomat and she is a
political activist. They met when she heckled one of his
speeches and they fell in love in spite of representing opposite
ends of the political spectrum. When she died she was off with a
black activist, Arnold (Hubert Kounde) on some political mission
Quayle did not know about. She was murdered, perhaps by Arnold.
Evidence shows that she and Arnold may even have been clandestine
lovers. Justin just wants to understand what happened and who
was it who killed his wife. Had she been using him and his
political position? The more answers he finds, the bigger the
remaining questions get. The mystery includes drug cartels and
their experiments to test new drugs. What Quayle finds is both
realistic and chilling. The story has action, but it also is
intelligent from first to last. One always feels that Le Carre
knows the political and economic situation and the film is every
bit as informative as a Tom Clancy story.
The writing of the script is crisp and keen and suspenseful.
Characters are complex and frequently take a while to understand
as they are developed. In fact much of the thrust of the plot is
just to understand the real motivations of some of the
characters. In a world as shady as the cold war, characters are
not what they seem.
THE CONSTANT GARDENER also offers some beautiful photography of
Africa by Cesar Charlone. The score by Alberto Iglesias includes
some nice native song. It may be the best story of political
intrigue we have seen on the screen in quite a while. I rate it
a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale or 9/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: JOE DIMAGGIO: THE HERO'S LIFE by Richard Ben Cramer
(copyright 2000, Touchstone, $16.00, 548pp, ISBN 0-684-86547-5)
(book review and future directions by Joe Karpierz)
I'd been wanting a change in my reading material from my
traditional SF fare, so I fell back on my other favorite subject
--baseball. The book in question was Pulitzer Prize winner
Richard Ben Cramer's biography of the Yankee Clipper, Joe
DiMaggio. I've had this book on my shelf for awhile, so I was
eager to get to it.
I knew very few details about DiMaggio and his life before I read
this book--he was a Yankee, of course, he had a 56-game hitting
streak in 1941, he's in the Baseball Hall of Fame, he was married
to Marilyn Monroe, and he appeared in Mr. Coffee ads years ago.
What I didn't know was that he was a self-centered money grubbing
control freak that associated with unsavory characters, including
the mob, throughout his entire life. Maybe many people did, but
I certainly didn't, and as a result once again I was reminded
that baseball players are human beings just like the rest of us
that are subject to and give in to all sorts of demons and
temptations. I had a similar revelation thirty years ago when I
read Jim Bouton's BALL FOUR, after which I never looked at Major
League ballplayers the same way again.
Cramer gives a highly detailed account of the life of DiMaggio,
starting with his teen years and going all the way to his death.
In fact, if anything, there is way too much detail. Cramer
seeks to provide motivation for DiMaggio's life actions by
delving into and revealing to the reader all the facets of
society that were an influence on the Clipper, including the life
of his parents, his interactions with the mob, and his dealings
with Hollywood through his brief association with Marilyn Monroe.
The book is divided into several sections dealing with different
times in Joe's life--in fact, if the reader is looking for
nothing more than the account of Joe's career with the Yankees,
he will be disappointed. That portion of the story is certainly
accounted for, but it only makes up a small portion of this tome.
We learn how Joe's Italian heritage and family life shaped his
later dealings with everyone; we learn how Joe stole the hearts
of New Yorkers while at the same time keeping his distance from
his teammates during his amazing career with the Bronx Bombers;
we learn of his brief fling with Monroe, a fling that burned so
brightly but quickly--but we also learn of the physical and
mental torment he imparted onto her; and we learn about the later
part of his life, when he was a bitter, greedy old man led astray
by a sleazy lawyer that took control of Joe's memorabilia
business for the sole purpose of making as much money off of Joe
as he could.
This is a tremendously detailed book--Cramer evidently did his
homework, and that was made more amazing by the fact that he did
it without DiMaggio's cooperation. The only faults I found were
that 1) there were times it seemed like I was reading someone
else's biography - the section concerning Marilyn Monroe was more
Monroe than DiMaggio; 2) the book dragged in spots--while the
attention to detail concerning those surrounding Joe in an effort
to explain Joe's behavior was terrific, I think it went
overboard, and 3) the book was a tad too long.
I did feel sorry for Joe at the end--he was alone, old, sick, and
being taken advantage of. Other than that, I couldn't find
anything to recommend him as a human being, really.
However, it was a terrific book. I highly recommend it.
----------------------------------------------------
Book Reviewer of Dune
Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert are in the process of
wrapping up their long treatment of the Dune Universe. They just
released THE ROAD TO DUNE, which I will review next time, and
then they will be releasing the final two novels in the Dune
SAGA, completing Frank Herbert's story left hanging at the end of
CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE. Regular readers of my attempts at book
reviews know that I've been following Anderson and Herbert's
treatment of the "Dune" universe since they picked up the torch
years ago, and I've been eagerly awaiting the end of it all. But
it occurred to me a while back that it's been more than twenty
years since I'd read *any* of Frank's original Dune books.
Guess what?
After THE ROAD TO DUNE and OLYMPOS by Dan Simmons, I will be
rereading and, in some cases, re-reviewing all six of the
original "Dune" novels. I won't do them all in a row--I'll go
buggy (some might say Dune buggy, but I digress). I'll probably
alternate Dune and non-Dune books until I'm done or until it
becomes obvious that I need to read them consecutively to finish
them all before the next novel comes out.
Wish me luck cleaning the sand out of my keyboard. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Lev Grossman's CODEX (ISBN 0-15-101066-8) sounded very promising,
a book described as similar to THE NAME OF THE ROSE or THE CLUB
DUMAS. The story is that of Edward Wozny, an investment banker
who somehow gets chosen to catalog a library of old books and
search for a volume that may be there--or it may not even exist.
And the book (the codex of the title) being sought may be a
puzzle with hidden meaning. For the first three-quarters or so,
this works very well, but then, at the end, Grossman fails to
wrap up the story. I don't mean that he doesn't write an ending-
-I mean that I can't figure out from what he wrote what happened.
(And it's not just me--quite a few amazon.com reviewers expressed
the same confusion.) There's also a parallel plot having to do
with a computer game which does not really add very much, but
probably makes this book fantasy rather than realism.
Norton seems to be coming out with a lot of annotated classics
lately, and THE ANNOTATED HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain, with
annotations by Michael Patrick Hearn (ISBN 0-393-02039-8) is the
first of a batch I will be reading. There are three aspects to
comment on in annotated works: the original work itself, the
quality of the annotations, and the lay-out. Of Mark Twain's
HUCKLEBERRY FINN, little needs to be said; it is a classic,
considered by many to be *the* great American novel. The
annotations are both explanatory (e.g., telling you the
definition of obscure words), and critical (e.g., telling what
changes were made on the original manuscript). There are also
some that provide opinions, such as on how Twain uses parallels
between characters to make a point, or how ideas that appear here
appear in other places in his work. I would have preferred more
of the last and less of the first, since after reading these
definitional annotations, I usually end up saying, "Well, that
was obvious." (For example, I know that a hollow is a small
valley, and I guess I figure anyone reading an annotated
HUCKLEBERRY FINN that sells for $40 is not a high school student
who will have problems with the vocabulary.) But my real
complaint is with the lay-out.
I'll start by pointing out that "annotated" works almost always
have the original text in a column that is about three-quarters
of a page width wide, and then the annotations in a narrow column
on the outer side of the page. This is in contrast to footnotes,
which were originally at the bottoms of pages, but now often get
put at the end of the chapter, or even at the end of the entire
book.
The rule about the placement of footnotes is fairly clear: one
puts the footnotes on the same page as the item being footnoted.
If something at the very end of a page generates a footnote that
won't fit, one can extend the footnote to the next page, but at
that point it takes priority over the original text. In general
annotations work similarly, and so one may see a page with a lot
of annotations having a lot of white space in the text area, or a
page with few annotations with a lot of space in the annotation
area. Here, the publisher has decided not to waste any space, so
one finds the annotation to something on page 27 may be on page
30. (I don't think any annotations actually occur before the
text they are annotating, however.) This means flipping back and
forth a lot, which is annoying.
Okay, no one is going to make his decision on this book based on
the lay-out of the annotations. But I guess I'm hoping that some
publisher will read this and do any annotated books they publish
differently. As for this, the annotations do add a lot to the
work. As with most DVD commentaries, though, they do not seem to
be the sort that one would re-read. (One example of annotations
that are worth re-reading, or reading for their own sake, are
William Baring-Gould's annotations for Sherlock Holmes.) Twain
aficionados may want to buy this, but others should ask their
libraries to buy it instead. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I don't want to achieve immortality through
my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
-- Woody Allen