THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
08/24/07 -- Vol. 26, No. 8, Whole Number 1455
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
High Mountain Exchange (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Recommended for All Audiences (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE INVASION (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
FLATLAND: THE MOVIE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
ZEBRAMAN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
EIFELHEIM by Michael Flynn (book review by Joe Karpierz)
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS--THE MUSICAL (theater review
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and THE BOURNE
ULTIMATUM (letter of comment by David Goldfarb)
Unexpected Emergencies, Old-Time Radio, and
CRAFTING THE VERY SHORT STORY (letter of comment
by John Purcell)
This Week's Reading (Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, RAGTIME,
A MAGNIFICENT FARCE, Pepys's DIARY,
84 CHARING CROSS ROAD, and a poem by Ralph
Bergengren) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: High Mountain Exchange (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We are watching David Attenborough's documenary "Planet Earth".
They had an exchange like this as the tried to film at a distance:
"That's snow leopard."
"That's snow leopard?"
"That's snow leopard!"
"That snow leopard?"
"That snow leopard."
"That's no leopard."
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Recommended for All Audiences (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My local Blockbuster used to have a shelf that said, "If you
don't like this film, you will get a refund." I wish I could
remember what films they had on that shelf. The only one that
sticks out in my mind is OCTOBER SKY.
People, many of whom I do not know very well, frequently find out
that I like and review films. They will ask me, what is good?
What movies do I recommend? This makes two assumptions. One is
that I have seen a lot of current films and the other is that if
I think a film is good they might like it.
First of all, I do not see a lot of current films. I probably
should, but I don't. I know many people who are more up on
current films than I am. I write film reviews because I like
writing about film. I like discussing film. I know several
people who see a lot more films--at least a lot more current
films--than I do. This dovetails nicely with my recent article
in which I talked about the declining theater experience. If I
were to keep up with current films I would have to go to the
theater a lot and would have to spend what is getting to be an
absurd admission price for what is getting to be a less and less
enjoyable experience. I would also have to see a lot of films
that I really am not all that anxious to see. For example, after
really not liking SPIDER-MAN 2 I would have to spend at least two
or three dollars more than I did then to see SPIDER-MAN 3. I
suspect I will eventually rent the film from Netflix and see it
on my small screen 34-inch, low-definition screen. That already
is a nicer picture than I got before DVDs and I am satisfied.
And seeing SPIDER-MAN 3 that way will be sufficient for me.
Also there is the problematical question about what is a good
film. I would probably claim that the best film I have seen this
year is AWAY FROM HER. What is that about? It is about how a
husband and wife's relationship is altered when the wife is
afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease. I recommended it to a friend
who is a science fiction fan, and I could see in his expression
that he was reacting in much the same way as if I was
recommending a dish of horse kidneys. He is a science fiction
fan and his idea of a good film is SPIDER-MAN 3. Never mind that
AWAY FROM HER explores how the personality works, how it is
dependent on memory, and how it reacts to the loss of memory.
That is a very science fictional subject, or could be. If the
memory loss was not caused by a common disease, but was caused by
something like climate change it could be the same sort of story
examining the same sort of issues and could be a very good piece
of science fiction.
In addition, I have to admit that there are very good films
delving into psychology that give me the dish-of-horse-kidneys
reaction. I am told that the film WILD STRAWBERRIES by the
recently deceased Ingmar Bergman is a great film. It really does
nothing at all for me. The only Bergman film I can claim to
actually like--and I am not sure if "like" is the proper word--is
THE SEVENTH SEAL. And that film I like more for what it has in
common with horror films. WILD STRAWBERRIES may be a good film,
but I do not consider it recommendable and I would not like to
have it recommended to me. And what I say about Bergman goes
double for Michelangelo Antonioni, also recently deceased.
So without knowing a person's taste it is very hard to recommend
a film. But I mentioned recently that there was a set of films
that I would go ahead and recommend to Joe Average. This is not
really the same thing as saying these film will be universally
liked, but I guess that I would recommend these films to nearly
anybody and would expect a reasonably good chance that the films
will be enjoyed.
So with more preamble than content here is my current list:
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
OCTOBER SKY
MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS
TWO FAMILY HOUSE
12 ANGRY MEN
Only slightly more dodgy would be:
THE GODFATHER
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
I have known people who were not wild about THE MAN WHO WOULD BE
KING, TWO FAMILY HOUSE, and THE GODFATHER, but in each case it
was more than set off by other people who were quite
enthusiastic.
My guess is that of these films all but two will be familiar to
most film fans. The least familiar ones might be MRS. HENDERSON
PRESENTS and TWO FAMILY HOUSE.
MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS is a fictionalized true story of a wealthy
widow who buys herself a London theater and makes it into a
musical review venue featuring nude female tableaux. The theater
balanced its notoriety with the pride that during all of World
War II with its air raids on London, it never closed and after
much resistance it became something of a proud institution. The
film stars Dame Judy Dench and Bob Hoskins. And if that doesn't
sell it let me add that it is probably the best film either actor
has made.
I have my own campaign to get people to see the almost unknown
TWO FAMILY HOUSE. Kelly Macdonald is usually a good actress, but
the film is features a knock-out performance by Michael Rispoli
as a man with a long list of failures. He buys a house intent on
turning it into a bar and finds he has squatters living in the
house. The film follows a predictable route, but the acting is
terrific and really tears at your heart. Well my heart anyway.
I would be interested to know what films other people would add.
I want not what people think are good films, but what films would
they recommend to the unseen man they never met who is standing
behind the curtain. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE INVASION (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a film that is pretty good until it turns bad.
The fourth adaptation of THE BODY SNATCHERS has some thoughtful
and intelligent additions to the telling. Sadly, in the last
twenty minutes the film goes terribly sour as it metamorphoses
into another mindless action film with a much too Hollywood
ending. Nichole Kidman stars as the psychiatrist whose patients
start reporting that the people around them are turning strange.
And they are right. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
THE INVASION is an adaptation of Jack Finney's 1955 novel THE
BODY SNATCHERS. Aliens in the form of seedpods can replicate
humans almost precisely, but they cannot mimic emotions. Once
they replicate a human he mysteriously disappears and the alien
takes his place as a sort of changeling.
It is a little hard to know what to say about the fourth time
around on adapting THE BODY SNATCHERS to film. This is one of
the rare films I went into with low expectations and came out
with mixed opinions. While this could be considered the third
remake of the 1956 version of the film, it is really the first
remake of the 1978 version. When Philip Kaufman directed that
film he had a really fresh take on Don Siegel's 1956 version, THE
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. First let me say that the 1956
version was itself a fresh take on the horror genre. Throughout
the first half of the 20th century most film monsters were the
victims of runaway emotions. The Wolf Man did not want the moon
to rise because it would free he urges to kill. The Frankenstein
monster vented his rage on a world that was unfair and cruel to
him. Hyde was man without inhibitions. Only the monsters that
were agents of evil controllers had no emotions of their own.
Cesare, Kharis, and zombies were pretty much automata. But
people who controlled them and were in turn controlled by their
passions were the source of the evil.
Jack Finney's novel THE BODY SNATCHERS (once intended to be
titled SLEEP NO MORE) suggested that the threat from outer space
was going to bleach out our emotions and leave us like machines.
The basic idea was that if you fall asleep you would lose
everything that makes you human, a scary one. The 1956 film
adaptation told that story very well. But Philip Kaufman
understood better perhaps how the background of scenes and almost
subsonic sounds on the soundtrack could be brought into play and
really enhance the mood of claustrophobia and paranoia. His 1978
version was one of the rare examples of a remake of a good film
that is arguably even better. Now THE INVASION certainly has
some of the Siegel version's plot, but it has a lot more of the
feel of Kaufman's paranoiac approach. And as with the Kaufman
version, much of what is interesting or terrifying happens subtly
in the background.
Unfortunately, the large store of intelligence that is in this
film is itself bleached out in the final twenty minutes. There
the film turns into a mindless action romp with violence and
crashing cars and an ending that will have fans of the original
story cringing. The last twenty minutes are the worst twenty
minutes of any of the four film versions. But before that twenty
minutes there appears to have been some interesting thinking
about the plot. The film dispenses with the novel's whole
"second body" device, which was nothing but a distraction raising
more questions than it answered. One character's observation
that "civilization seems to crumble just when it is needed most"
is painfully accurate and deserves to be remembered. I have
always thought it would be interesting to redo the story form the
point of view that the metamorphosis is actually a blessing.
That is not how the idea is handled here, but there is a wistful
nod to the fact that in some ways the world would be better off
with the change. Those who have changed seem to be violent only
to protect their new ideology. Of course that may be an old
story in human history.
The 1978 version had a small part for Kevin McCarthy, the star of
the 1956 version. This version has a somewhat larger role for
Veronica Cartwright, who played a major character in 1978.
Nicole Kidman is a better actress than her roles generally
demand. But she is getting a little old to play the attractive
blond lead and hopefully some better character roles will soon
come her way. Jeremy Northam is good as a straight actor, but a
little over the top when he has to play it strange (as he did in
the under-appreciated film CYPHER). We see him here as vacant
and spacey as a metamorphosed character, and like the other
spore-people he plays the role too completely flat. There would
be no question in anybody's minds that this guy has gone bizarre
in some way. That is just not how the role should be played. If
all the possessed acted so weirdly, it would tip the aliens'
hand. This performance is right out of INVADERS FROM MARS.
Daniel Craig is a good actor and had some very good roles earlier
in his career. He now has box-office appeal for people who want
to see this James Bond on the screen again. But I kept waiting
for him to do something interesting in THE INVASION and it never
happens. With his fame as Bond he should be in more interesting
roles, not less. One of the genuine pleasures of the film is
seeing characters actors who feel like old friends. Here we have
Josef Sommer and also Roger Rees who for me will forever be
Nicholas Nickleby.
This is openly rumored to have been in large part reshot to add
more action. I suspect the film would have been much better left
alone. I rate THE INVASION +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0427392/
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: FLATLAND: THE MOVIE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a film about life in a world of two dimensions
and the discovery of a higher dimension. The second adaptation
this year of Edwin Abbott's FLATLAND is visually impressive, but
somewhat simplifies the satirical concepts of the original story
and shortens it as well. Mathematical concepts are clearly and
plainly explained. The educational edition includes the text of
the book and an interview with a professor of mathematics
discussing the concepts. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
It is a feast or a famine. The first film adaptation of THE WAR
OF THE WORLDS was in 1953. It took 52 years for another film
adaptation to come along, and then there were three in one year.
It went much the same way with FLATLAND, with two film
adaptations being released this year. As a fan of both
mathematics and science fiction one of my favorite books has been
Edwin Abbott Abbott's FLATLAND: A ROMANCE OF MANY DIMENSIONS,
which has been adapted into both FLATLAND: THE FILM and FLATLAND:
THE MOVIE. (Technically there were two other minor film versions
prior to this year, but I have never run into them and would have
liked to see them.) A few months ago I reviewed Ladd Ehlinger
Jr.'s adaptation, known as FLATLAND or FLATLAND: THE FILM. Now a
second and fairly different version has been released directed by
Jeffrey Travis. From still shots you might almost think they
were the same movies (and when one web site published my review
of FLATLAND: THE FILM they used a still from FLATLAND: THE MOVIE).
Now I am pleased to have had the opportunity to see both films.
A. Square, who is, well, a square lives in a two-dimensional
world whose inhabitants are all polygons. The book cleverly
details how they live and a little of the politics, satirizing
English politics of the time. The main character A. Square then
discovers that there are one-dimensional and even zero-
dimensional worlds. As a two-dimensional person he can
understand one and two-dimensional worlds. But then a sphere
visits him from a third spatial dimension. To him it is mind-
boggling that a three-dimensional world could even exist. He
visits the world and brings back word of its existence.
FLATLAND: THE MOVIE is aimed much more at a teenage audience,
possibly to be used in mathematics classes, while FLATLAND: THE
FILM is more a family film. FLATLAND: THE MOVIE is shorter, about
34 minutes long, while FLATLAND: THE FILM is actually a short
feature length at 95 minutes. (Just to help keep it straight
MOVIE is the shorter version and FILM is the longer version I
reviewed previously.) The shorter film has familiar actors
voicing roles with Martin Sheen and his brother Joe Estevez,
voicing A. Square and his brother. Spherius, the sphere from
another universe, is voiced by Michael York. Film, Broadway, and
TV veteran Kristen Bell pays A. Square's foster daughter Hex.
Immediately the purist fans of the book will ask if the
daughter's name is Hex, doesn't that imply she is a hexagon?
(Yes.) In the book females of Flatland were not really polygons
but just very, very narrow triangles. If she is a hexagon does
that mean that women in this versions are more than narrow
triangles? (Yes, again.) Some liberties have indeed been taken
with the Abbott text. Women are full polygons and do not have
shrill voices. FLATLAND: THE FILM was more accurate to the book.
Both versions deviate from the original story, though FLATLAND:
THE MOVIE takes greater liberties and also somewhat simplifies
the story to fit in its shorter runtime. On the other hand and
perhaps more importantly the script takes pains to describe the
mathematics in simple terms. That makes this version more
appropriate for classroom presentation. The intent of this
version is clearly to make the film mathematically informative
while the other version is more an entertainment with political
satire updated from Abbott's time.
The script co-authored by Seth Caplan, Dano Johnson, and director
Jeffrey Travis has several witty touches. The politics of the
satire may be better geared to Galileo's time than our own with
A. Square persecuted for his new advanced knowledge. Visually
also, FLATLAND: THE MOVIE takes a few liberties with the book.
Polygons get colors and are decorated in fractal patterns, not
explained. In the book, colors were specifically forbidden to
polygons, though there are some advocates of "chromatism." This
film has a great deal of complex dimensional animation in the
three-dimensional world. There are, in fact, a lot of nice
mathematical touches that are not explained at all or are
explained by a mathematician specializing in geometry, Professor
Thomas Banchoff of Brown University, in the interviews of the
educational edition.
The Educational Edition of the DVD comes complete with interviews
with the major actors and with Dr. Banchoff. It also includes
the complete text of Abbott's book. I was a weird kid in school,
loving both science fiction and mathematics, and I would have
loved seeing this film then. It still is enjoyable. This
version seems more pointedly educational than the FLATLAND: THE
FILM, but is perhaps less of an entertainment experience. I
believe that the two are not really competitive with each other
since they are aimed at different audiences. And I greatly
enjoyed both films. FLATLAND: THE MOVIE I rate a +2 on the -4 to
+4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0814106/combined
The novel on-line (illustrated) is at
http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/ or plain text at
http://tinyurl.com/245roq. My review of FLATLAND: THE FILM is
at http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/flatland.htm. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ZEBRAMAN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
[Note: this review has run previously, but the film is finally
getting a release in this country. -mrl)]
CAPSULE: An elementary school teacher sews for himself a suit of a
1960s superhero and through a weird chain of events accidentally
elects himself to become that superhero. This is a dark and yet
playful look at the superhero genre. ZEBRAMAN is a kick.
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
The year is 2010. Shinichi (played by Sho Aikawa) is a second-
rate third-grade teacher who gets no respect from his family and
little from his students. It is not a pleasant life and he
escapes it with his hobby, a sort of media fandom. It seems that
in 1978 there was a TV superhero named Zebraman on a show that
was cancelled after only seven episodes. But unlike most of the
rest of the world, the young Shinichi became fascinated by the
hero. The show was set in 2010 so Shinichi is particularly
fascinated this particular year. He sews himself a makeshift
Zebraman costume. All this is intended to be just a little
harmless escapism allowing him to dress up like a superhero. But
he did not know that the stories of Zebraman and his strange
alien enemies were actually prophecy and that by making his
Zebraman suit he elected himself the fulfillment of those
prophecies. Now he must be the super-hero of his fantasies or
let the Earth fall to cute little green aliens bent on conquering
our green world. In a way the plot is reminiscent of GALAXY
QUEST. Somehow his story ties in with a series of crimes
perpetrated by an evil man in a crab mask. The two connect with
a secret government investigation into little green alien men who
are just head, arms and legs and who can melt into a sea of
protoplasm. What can it all mean? In some ways the film's
surreal style evokes a sort of BUCKAROO BANZAI feel.
This is a film that takes a psychologically dark yet whimsical
(and sometimes very funny) aim at Japanese superhero films and
comics with a well-placed zebra hind-kick. The world it is set
in straddles the gap between a realistic one and the world of
Japanese superhero TV, a gap similar but much bigger than the one
our Spider Man bridges. Watch for some little film references
for films like THE RING.
Takashi Miike directs from a screenplay by Kankuro Kudo. Miike
has directed a multitude of films in many styles, but most
recently bizarre and tongue-in-cheek films that are popular in
Japan. Until now his best know film from the United States has
probably been the really bizarre satire THE HAPPINESS OF THE
KATAKURIS though several of his (yakuza) crime films are also
popular, including ICHI THE KILLER. Most of his films seem to go
in for graphic violence. Here the violence is more comical and
never graphic enough to be more disturbing than what is in a
Roadrunner cartoon. Toward the end of the film the words stop
coming and the story is told mostly by images. My recommendation
is not to expect too much logic. Just take the ride for the fun
of it.
After over two years, ZEBRAMAN has finally gotten a release in the
United States. It is a lot of fun and deserves to be seen. I
rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: EIFELHEIM by Michael Flynn (copyright 2006, TOR, $25.95,
316pp, ISBN 0-765-30096-6) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Our next entry in the Hugo-nominated novel category is EIFELHEIM,
by Michael Flynn. I will admit that by the time I started this
novel I was beginning to despair of finding anything worth the
title of "Hugo-winning novel in 2007". With EIFELHEIM we may
have found it--at least in my opinion. And we all know how my
well my opinion actually matches that of the rest of the crowd
that votes for these things.
EIFELHEIM is expanded from Michael Flynn's novella of the same
name that was nominated eons ago [1987] for the Hugo. Flynn
expands the tale so that it is told on two fronts--the present
(or at least "modern times"), and a small town in Germany back in
1348/1349 when the Black Plague was descending upon Europe. The
town's name is Oberhochwald, later to be known as Eifelheim.
In the present, Tom Schwoerin is an historian, and something is
really bothering him about this town called Eifelheim. It was
abandoned during the Black Plague, but never resettled. What
bothers him about this is that current scientific and historical
theory claims that it should have been resettled--but to this
day, the site of the town remains abandoned.
Tom's live-in girlfriend is Sharon Nagy, a theoretical physicist
who is doing work with some exotic theory that is taking up all
her time and energy. As you might guess, this mix doesn't work
well, considering that both of them like to talk to the other
about what's going on with their work--which interrupts the other
person and annoys them to know end. Needless to say, what
they're both working turns out to be related to each other and
the mysterious goings-on at Eifelheim.
Oh yeah, Eifelheim. So, Father Dietrich is the village priest at
Oberhochwald. Dietrich has a past that is only hinted at in the
novel, but more on my reaction to that in a bit. Part of his
background is in science and philosophy, so I suppose he is the
perfect person to make First Contact with aliens that crash land
in the woods not far from town--with the Black Plague closing in
from all sides.
So, the story proceeds along nicely--in the present, where Sharon
and Tom come to some startling conclusions regarding their work
and its relevance to Eifelheim; and the past, where Dietrich must
come to grip with some demons from his past as well as try to
integrate the aliens into the life of the town while not having
them blamed for the coming of the "pest", as the Black Plague is
referred to in the book.
I really don't want to say anything more here, as it will give
away where the story goes. It is a tremendously well-written
book; the characters back in 1348 have depth, and you do care
about them, while the folks in the present are as driven as you'd
expect two folks in their field to be. The novel has a very,
very satisfying conclusion that fits and makes sense; I haven't
been this happy with the ending of a novel in a long time.
I do have a few nits to pick, however. Dietrich obviously has a
dark past, one that is worth exploring a little more, I think.
We get hints here and there that something is night quite right,
and we can make some intelligent guesses, but I'd like to have
seen more exploration of his background. Back in the present,
Tom enlists the aid of a female assistant that is obviously
interested in him and his work, and obviously wants to take the
relationship a little further than just helping him as a research
assistant. The triangle between Tom, Judy, and Sharon should
have been explored a little more--or maybe, the fact that Tom and
Sharon are both obsessed with their work that it would never
occur to them that Judy was an interloper could be completely in
character.
Other than those two nits, I thought this was a terrific book.
Next I'll review HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON, the final nominated work
in the novel category. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS--THE MUSICAL (theater review by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
This is a direct-to-DVD taping of a performance at Hollywood's
Kodak Theater, starring Val Kilmer. (Apparently billboards all
over Hollywood announced "Val Kilmer *is* Moses!" which is a
heavy burden for him to carry.)
To quote Mark (who may be quoting someone else), "I saw this so
you don't have to." Where can I start? Well, the first really
annoying thing is that everyone is wearing headset microphones--
very visible headset microphones. There is nothing that so
destroys the carefully crafted ancient Egyptian feel as a
microphone sticking out from under a headdress. Though the
costumes are fairly anachronistic in any case--almost all the
Hebrew men are wearing trousers instead of robes, and most of the
women's skirts are too short or slit too high.
There are other mistakes as well. There is a song in which after
Moses shows up, the Hebrews sing about how the "horns of Jericho"
are announcing the arrival of a deliverer. Uh, at this time
Jericho was full of Canaanites, not Hebrews; Moses was bad news
for them, not a deliverer.
The special effects cannot be done very well on the stage, so
they are shown as films projected at the back of the stage--but
they are not very well done either. The songs are not very good,
either, nor is the acting, though some of that is the fault of
today's audiences and how they respond to musicals. If an
audience are watching a stage production of HAMLET, they do not
break into applause at the end of the "To be or not to be"
soliloquy. The actor finishes, and then proceeds directly to
what follows. But with a musical, the audience tends to break
into applause after each big number. (In fact, if they don't,
I'm sure the cast thinks something has gone dreadfully wrong.)
But this means that everyone on stage must do one of three
things. 1) Ignore the applause and proceed. This is not
workable; the next lines won't be heard. 2) Acknowledge the
applause, usually by smiling. This is fine if it's a happy song,
but a real disaster if you have just finished singing about the
ten plagues or something. 3) Freeze like statues and wait. This
may be the best solution, but it still completely destroys any
atmosphere the song has created.
You can skip this one.
(The headset microphones seem to have become ubiquitous--I first
saw them in BEHIND THE IRON MASK in London, and they were
massively annoying there as well.) [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and THE BOURNE
ULTIMATUM (letter of comment by David Goldfarb)
In Mark's review of HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX in
the 08/10/07 issue of the MT VOID, he had written "there is an
interesting allusion to Doctor Who." David Goldfarb writes,
"I've seen the film, but don't recall any such allusions. Can
you specify?" [-dg]
Mark answers, "At one point there is a wooden phone booth that
goes (spinning?) through the air in a TARDIS-like manner."
[-mrl]
David also responds to Mark's assertion that "for once there is
not even a mention of Quidditch" by noting, "There's quite a bit
of Quidditch in the book, but (this being the longest of the
books) it got squeezed out. I rather expect the same to happen
with the next one." [-dg]
In response to Mark's review of THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM in the same
issue, David responds to Mark's comments on the title by
observinb, "'Ultimatum' is Latin for 'the last thing'. Thus, an
ultimatum is the last set of diplomatic demands before diplomacy
is discarded in favor of violence. Perhaps the title was chosen
because this is the last Bourne movie. Admittedly, that supposes
a rather higher degree of education than we usually see in
Hollywood." [-dg]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Unexpected Emergencies, Old-Time Radio, and CRAFTING THE
VERY SHORT STORY (letter of comment by John Purcell)
In response to the 08/17/07 issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell
writes:
Mark, you asked a rather straightforward question: "What
unexpected emergency may happen any moment?" Well, dying leaps
immediately to mind. That would definitely be a big surprise, as
would the sun going nova or the Cubs winning the World Series.
Of course, if this last thing ever came true, then that would the
End Of Everything As We Know It. But mankind has once again been
spared this apocalyptic vision because the Chicago Cubs have been
on a losing streak, and one of their key players, Alphonso
Soriano, is out for the next 3 to 4 weeks with an injury. The
world has been saved once again! I wonder if Soriano has any idea
what his sacrifice has done for humanity...
You know, I have always enjoyed old radio dramas, and the
comedies, too. But the dramas are so much fun to listen to for
the pacing, sound effects, and everything else that came into
play to make the listener's imagination take wing. My favorites
were always the Shadow and Dick Tracy, while Fibber McGee, Burns
& Allen, and Jack Benny were likewise a lot of fun. It has been
a long time since I've really listened to any of these, so I will
have to bookmark some of these URLs and check them out some day.
Thank you for listing these.
Evelyn's review of CRAFTING THE VERY SHORT STORY sounds like a
fun book to get for my classes--that is, if I ever teach a
creative writing course. Interestingly enough, the stories
Evelyn listed here--"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," "Half a
Day" and Luke's "Parable of the Prodigal Son" are all included in
the current literature survey book my college uses in its English
1302 course. "Harrison Bergeron" and a nice selection of spooky
stories and poems by Poe, Hawthorne, Bierce, London, and a
handful of other writers are included. This is why I always
enjoy teaching a Gothic Unit as part of my 1302 classes; it is a
lot of fun and students seem to enjoy it. Some don't, but that's
to be expected, so it's only a two-week unit. Still, it's best
to place that unit around Halloween. Makes sense to me.
That oughta do it for now. Thanks for posting this, and I look
forward to your next issue. [-jp]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I want to add something to my comments in the 08/10/07 issue of
the MT VOID about J. Rufus Fears's analysis of Abraham Lincoln in
Books That Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life". Fears
spends a lot of time analyzing the words of the Gettysburg
Address, and in particular how certain phrases--"four score and
seven", "brought forth", "conceived in liberty", and so on--were
purposely phrased to echo the King James Bible's language and to
give a religious meaning to his words. But in "Angels and Ages:
Lincoln's Language and Its Legacy" (New Yorker, May 28, 2007),
Adam Gopnik notes that we are not really sure what Lincoln said.
"The Cincinnati Daily Gazette, a Republican paper, made the
famous first sentence end 'that all mankind are created free and
equal by a good God,' though it's hard to know whether its
reporter had deliberately italicized the point or was simply
hearing it with his heart. Also in the first sentence, Lincoln's
remark that the nation was 'conceived in liberty' was reported in
some newspapers as 'consecrated to liberty,' a more religious
reading of the intended message, and there are those who believe
that Lincoln made an impromptu alteration." Given this,
attempting to find deep significance in very specific words and
phrases is an interesting exercise, but perhaps not entirely
reliable as a way of pinning Lincoln down. Gopnick does agree,
however, that Lincoln's speeches tended toward a Biblical basis
and style rather than the Classical basis and style favored by
some others of that era, notably Edward Everett, who gave the
main speech at Gettysburg.
Our discussion book this month was RAGTIME by E. L. Doctorow
(ISBN-13 978-0-812-97818-6, ISBN-10 978-0-812-97818-8). Re-
reading it, I am struck by how little of the book made it into
the movie: Houdini got only a few newsreel scenes, Emma Goldman
was dropped altogether, and Younger Brother's role so trimmed as
to make a lot of his actions seem far more arbitrary. And the
plot has been simplified (e.g., the modification of Walker's
demands and how that plays out is much changed in the movie).
This is not to say that the movie is bad, but it simply does not
capture the whole panorama of the book. (This is similar to my
feeling about John Steinbeck's book THE GRAPES OF WRATH and the
film made from in, as I wrote in the 04/13/07 issue of the MT
VOID.)
[The film is 155 minutes as is. The DVD has scenes with the Emma
Goldman plot that were deleted, undoubtedly for length. -mrl]
One technique Doctorow uses is that of the fictional characters,
the only ones with names are Coalhouse Walker (and his son),
Sarah, and Willie Conklin. Everyone else with a name is a real
historical personage. (This is not maintained in the film, when
a few additional minor characters are given names.) The effect
of this is that almost all the principal characters--Mother,
Father, Younger Brother, Tateh, and so on--seem to represent not
just a single character, but an entire type, an entire group of
people. Tateh is *all* immigrants, Mother is *all* repressed
women, and so on. (There are other theories on this, of course.)
Doctorow makes at least one error, though: the incident of Leo
Frank and Mary Phagan was in 1915, yet in the book, that event
precedes Diaz's overthrow in 1911 and Wilson's inauguration in
1913 (among other events). However, Doctorow may have wanted to
mention the Frank incident in spite of its anachronism because of
its parallels with Walker. (The movie also has problems with
chronology, with events of 1914 seemingly happening only a few
weeks or months after events of 1908.)
I recently read yet another complaint about the decline of
bookstores, brought on (according to the author) by
competition of other types of stores selling books cheaper, the
tendency of bookstores to concentrate on the latest best-sellers
to the neglect of the classics, and the decline of reading,
brought about in turn by "having to compete with the many forms
of amusement unknown fifty years ago. Oh, and also the problem
of clerks unfamiliar with the books. Sound familiar? It was
written by A. Edward Newton, sometime before 1921.
I have written before about the experience of getting books
through inter-library loan that have not been checked out in
decades, and show clear signs of having been catalogued in the
1920s (e.g., hand-written call numbers on octagonal paper
labels). The latest for me is A MAGNIFICENT FARCE, A. Edward
Newton's second book. (His first was THE AMENITIES OF BOOK-
COLLECTING AND KINDRED AFFECTIONS, which I earlier reviewed.)
The Plainfield Library, that great repository of old books, had
at some point since 1921 rebound this volume, and it has the
author's name, title, and *call number* stamped in gold on the
spine! (ISBN-13 978-1-432-68840-0, ISBN-10 1-432-68840-5, for
the edition just published in June of this year)
One interesting piece of information I got from A MAGNIFICENT
FARCE was that "in the first edition, only about half of the
[Pepys's] Diary was published, and this was edited and expurgated
by Lord Braybrooke to an extent which became apparent by degrees.
... Finally, and not until 1893, there appeared an edition,
edited by H. B. Wheatley, which gave the Diary complete, with the
exception of a few passages, amounting in all to about one page
of text, which, he says, cannot possibly be printed."
Why is this interesting? Well, because in 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD,
Hanff writes (on October 15, 1951), "WHAT KIND OF A PEPYS'S DIARY
DO YOU CALL THIS? this is not a pepys' diary, this is some
busybody editor's miserable collection of EXCERPTS from pepys'
diary may he rot. I could just spit. where is jan 12, 1668,
where his wife chased him out of bed and round the bedroom with a
red-hot poker?" [all sic] And Doel replies, "First of all, let
me apologize for the Pepys. I was honestly under the impression
what it was the complete Braybrooke edition...." Well, Doel was
almost definitely right in this, because this episode with the
poker is not in the (much abridged) Braybrooke edition, at least
according to the version I have found on line (archived
independently in two different places, so they is a bit of
validation there). It is in the Wheatley edition.
(Checking this is a bit tricky, since Pepys's DIARY was written
before January 1 became unequivocally the first day of the year.
As noted in my review of Mary Gentle's 1610: A SUNDIAL IN A GRAVE
[in the 02/20/04 issue of the MT VOID], the first day of the year
moved from March 1 to January 1 in the change from the Julian to
the Gregorian calendar, which did not happen in England until
1752. So one has to look *after" the December 1668 entries to
find the January 1668 ones.)
Newton also quotes a delightful poem by Ralph Bergengren:
My Pop is always buying books:
So that Mom says his study looks
Just like an old bookstore. the bookshelves are so full and tall,
They hide the paper on the wall,
And there are books just everywhere,
On table, window-seat, and chair,
And books right on the floor
And every little while he buys
More books, and brings them home and tries
To find a place where they will fit,
And has an awful time of it.
Once, when I asked him why he got
So many books, he said, "Why not?"
I've puzzled over that a lot.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A hero is someone who can keep his mouth shut
when he is right.
-- Yiddish Proverb