Black Swan, Gillespie & recent reads

I found the film Black Swan too gruelling, and can't think why one newspaper suggested the dvd as an 'ideal Christmas present for mums'. A well acted psycho-drama, almost a horror movie - it's unpleasant and painful to see a perfectionist ballerina falling apart.  Fortunately I watched it alone, definitely a woman's film, imo, though here's an enthusiastic review by a man.

Much enjoyed Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, short-listed for the Galaxy Popular Fiction award etc. Again the author has chosen a Victorian narrator, this time a lively youngish spinster of independent means who befriends the family of a Glasgow painter with disastrous results. Do read it. I don't want to spoil the plot by recounting the story.  Here's a review.  I've now read both books by this Orange-shortlister and will certainly buy the next one. I particularly like the writer's dry sense of humour.

Emily Barr's The First Wife is set in Cornwall. Lily is almost unbelievably naive for a modern girl - it's easy to see why she falls head over heels for Harry.  Here's the blurb.
'Lily is adrift and penniless after the death of the grandparents who brought her up. When she finds a cleaning job, she becomes preoccupied with the glamorous couple she never sees, but whose house she looks after every week.
When tragedy strikes, she suddenly finds herself getting close to dashing widower Harry. Yet she feels that things are not quite as they seem. Lily adores Harry, but cannot plan her future with him until she finds out more about his first wife.'   A good light thriller/holiday read.

Winner of the Galaxy Award for the Best Crime/Thriller novel, the absorbing and original Before I go to Sleep by SJ Watson is scarier. Christine has lost her memory and lives with her patient husband, but doubts begin to worry her, her doctor and you, the reader.  A gripping thriller. Do read it. I understand a film is in the offing and rights have been sold all over the world. SJ Watson, who works in the NHS, turns out to be a man and he writes exceptionally well from the woman's point of view.
'As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I'm still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me ...' Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine's life.'

A Vision of Loveliness by Louise Levene is a snapshot of the 50s-early 60s and does indeed evoke the period so well that the very few anachronisms take one by surprise.  The main protagonist is a beautiful socially ambitious young girl on the make.  All the characters are pretty unpleasant, but amusing with it. No 'nice girls' here. A social satire with witty writing, reminds me of Muriel Spark. I gather the novel was serialised on the radio on Book at Bedtime, and was long-listed for the Desmond Elliot prize.  Here's a Telegraph review and here's the Independent's.

Bonfire of a bamboo chair that Otto ate when he was a puppy.  He's now a relatively senior dog who wouldn't dream of chewing anything, much.

Notes on Books & Films

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.  The professional reviewers of this Booker prizewinning novella all admire it, and consider it a novel about flawed memories of the distant past.  Yet the narrator Tony remembers with clarity all kinds of emotions about his repressed early 1960s youth when life was full of hope, frustrated sex and worries about class.  This is all brilliantly described and I loved the middle part of this novel. But his memory turns out to be selective, and he's half forgotten a horrible letter he wrote.

Many lay readers, myself included, found the ending puzzling and possibly unsatisfactory. We read on in the hope of finding out why Adrian killed himself, but this is never convincingly explained.  Two boys apparently commit suicide for a reason that seems unlikely. Depression is never mentioned. Perhaps many suicides are inexplicable, but surely they cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation?

Perhaps that isn't the point of the book.  Better read it for yourself and see.

Other books worth reading:  Rachel Hore's A Gathering Storm. Here's a review from the Independent.
Donna Tartt's  The Secret History.  It's especially creepy in that the reader can find herself almost complicit in a murder.  Like Barnes's narrator, Richard feels socially out of his depths.
And do read Marian Keyes' Rachel's Holiday, if you missed it. Funny, sad, moving.

Film: absolutely loved Midnight in Paris, directed by Woody Allen. Scenic, funny and a happy way to pass the time.  Here's a Guardian review.

The dvd of 172 Hours was gripping. A hiker falls down an isolated canyon in Utah and his arm is stuck under a boulder. Based on a true story and very well acted, it's a film worth watching.

The River, Kingfishers Catch Fire, Sashenka

The River (1951) by Jean Renoir (son of the famous painter) is a classic film that passed me by until I rented it the other day. Shot on location in Bengal, the photography is amazingly good for the period - I don't imagine many people had the least idea of what India looked like at that time. It's a coming of age story about a young girl's first crush, the plot isn't strong and the acting seems wooden. (I read afterwards that few of the actors were professionals.) Shame really, as I'm a fan of Rumer Godden's - it's based on one of her novels and she wrote or co-wrote the script.  Despite the acting, I can see why the film made an impact when it first came out.

To reassure myself, I've just re-read Kingfishers Catch Fire , another of RG's novels (1953), and found it excellent, though not entirely pc. It's about a young widow who decides to live in the mountains in Kashmir, with disastrous consquences. Godden loves India, and I always find her worth reading.

I wasn't sure about Sashenka by Sebastian Montefiore. Fascinating and educational background - before, during and after the Russian Revolution - but the main protagonist is not an appealing young woman, so the author (famous historian but first-time novelist) set himself a difficult task.

Puppy, wild daisies and The Breaking of Eggs.

The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell
Separated from his family as a child when the Nazis invaded Poland, Feliks has spent his life producing a travel guide to Iron Curtain countries for Western readers. However, following the collapse of Communism in 1989 and the imminent retirement of his long-term publisher, Feliks finds himself tipped into a maelstrom which he cannot avoid. As he journeys for the first time to America to sell his travel guide there, Feliks is reunited with his half-brother, Woodrow, who no longer considers himself a Pole but rather an American and nothing more. Feeling his own alien status ever more acutely, Feliks has a growing desire to discover the fate of others from his past. Embarking on a journey that takes him back to his Polish hometown, to a long-lost love and to the bewildering landscape of a newly reunified Germany, Feliks is forced to confront the truth about his family's and his own past and to question everything he once believed.  I chose this novel at random in Waterstones (B3GOF) because I thought it was set in Paris but Paris hardly comes into it all.  As the blurb says, it's a late life journey for the narrator, a leftist intellectual 61-year-old Pole, interested in politics rather than people, who begins to thaw as the book progresses. I learnt a good deal I had forgotten about wartime and post-war European history.  It really is an excellent novel, please read it and don't be put off by the dry-sounding protagonist and subject matter.

Films (a girly contrast)
I remember being rather disappointed by the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, so didn't expect much of the DVD but it turned out fun with interesting characters.  A good evening in for middle-aged females.
But I am struggling with the film of Eat, Pray, Love, despite Julia Roberts.

Films

Very busy preparing for the arrival of a new puppy next week and it has just occurred to me I haven’t blogged much lately. Here are some quickie film reviews.

The King’s Speech, excellent, loved it, though I dare say Lionel Logue wasn’t quite so bold and informal with the Duke of York in real life. As a child in the 1950s I remember that the only celebrities were the Royal Family and Winston Churchill, all held in great respect. I even owned books about 'The Little Princesses'. Was amused to see Karen from Outnumbered as Princess Margaret. Well cast, as were all the actors, except possibly Wallis who appeared too strapping. The Australian who played Edward VIII looked exactly like him. Colin F and Geoffrey Rush brilliant. Helena was good too.

The Blues Brothers, dvd. Great fun, great music, it has stood the test of time.

Harry Potter latest. Good magic but too long for me. I became a little bored during the teenage angst scenes beside Scottish lakes, but then I’m not the target audience.

I hired the romantic comedy Heartbreaker because Anglo-French friends said it was funny and I try to watch a French film occasionally so I don’t lose touch with the language completely. Have to say that it wasn’t very good though. Don’t bother with it. The hero/anti-hero wasn’t even handsome. Pity.

Fascinating Aida and films

I don't know if you've ever been to a show by Fascinating Aida but they're very witty in a sophisticated but sometimes rude and raunchy feminist way. Here's an amusing video about flights to Ireland for 50p which, surprise, surprise, turn out to cost a bit more. Now I wonder which airline they can be thinking of?  The star Dilly Keane is the sister of one of my friends, so I feel vicariously proud of her talents. Does contain strong language, sorry.

Films
Watched The Remains of the Day and enjoyed it just as much the second (third?)time.  In a lost world pre-WW2, Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) is a perfect English butler, efficient, self-effacing, almost religious in the practice of a profession where everybody knows their place in the hierarchy. He is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him - oblivious, for instance, of his naive aristocratic employer's political leanings.  Stevens is also unaware of his own feelings for the housekeeper Mrs Kenton (Emma Thompson)  The novel by Kashuo Ishiguro won the Booker prize. 

Up in the Air did star George Clooney which was a plus, but otherwise it seemed a fairly forgettable film.  George travels around the US firing people 'for businesses who don't have the balls to do it themselves.'  Finally it dawns on him that this isn't a wonderful career.

Garden washed out but in the occasional dry period the new flower bed looks quite jolly.

Film: Life is Beautiful

Film: Life is Beautiful (1997, in Italian with subtitles.) This is has been called a Holocaust comedy and, as such, I found it mystifying but ultimately moving, thanks to the brilliant child actor and, of course, history. The first half set in Tuscany is clownish banana-skin comedy. Apparently Roberto Benigni, writer, director and star, is much loved in Italy, but to me his is a silly rather than witty humour that doesn’t translate. Perhaps he’s the Italian version of a 50s cheeky chappie or born again Charlie Chaplin.

Story is that before the second world war, Jewish Benigni goes to Arezzo, works as a waiter, opens a bookstore, marries a beautiful upper-class girl. This is all told with farcical jokes and fast-paced slapstick - you feel you are watching Laurel & Hardy.

Five years on, we discover they now have a child of four. Then the family is arrested and taken to a German camp, so the mood changes completely. But the father persuades the child that the camp is all a great game where people who say they are hungry lose points and the winner will get a tank. I admit that the plot is ingenious in this respect, and the film improves. The ending is half happy, half very sad.

Should you watch it? Well, perhaps you should, but I’d skip most of the first half.
Here’s a review. Some people love this film, some say it diminishes those who suffered. Many say it depends on how you feel about Benigni, but I reckon it is saved by the wide-eyed child who, as I said, is both convincing and appealing without being saccharine. The film won three Oscars and other awards, which was why I chose it at random from the DVD rental company without knowing what it was about.

Garden & Mr Chips

The moving 2002 version of Goodbye Mr Chips was almost ruined by the ridiculous amount of ads on ITV3 last night. Martin Clunes was excellent in the title role and I liked the actress who played his wife. Couldn't think why she was so familiar then it dawned on me she was Miss Ruby from the drapers in Candleford (as in Lark Rise To...)

Have just re-read the original Mr Chips novel which is so short it is almost a short story.  In this sympathetic film the producers have added much, including a storyline about bullying which must still seem realistic to those chaps who went to public schools as recently as the 1960s.  Mr Chips himself was born in the mid 1800s and dies as a very old man in the 1930s.  Of course I wept, despite the ads and despite the fact I've seen various film versions before.

Many of the outdoor locations were shot at the school my sons attended, so that made it all the more interesting for us.

Garden blooming at last though fear have lost a few plants in the cold.

Film, books, TV and, yes, the garden

Enjoyed the film, An Education.  A clever young schoolgirl learns more than she bargains for from an attractive older man who turns out to be even dodgier than she thinks.  Set in the early sixties, with good atmosphere. Kind of a comedy, but more of a cautionary tale. 'Jenny' is so anxious to escape from suburbia that she goes along with his wiles. Excellent, convincing acting all round.  The film was based on a memoir by the journalist Lynn Barber, whose unsophisticated parents must have been charmed and even more conned by the chap than their daughter. By the way, it's clear she went to a school (Lady Eleanor Holles, Hampton) that expected more from girls than most did in those days. Here's an interview with LBarber, but don't read it before you have seen the film.

Recent Reading

The Colour by Rose Tremain.  'In the mid 1800s Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from Norfolk to New Zealand in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land near Christchurch where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin. When the unpleasant Joseph finds gold in the creek he is seized by a secretive obsession with the supposed riches awaiting him deep in the earth. Abandoning his farm and family, he sets off alone for the new gold-fields over the Southern Alps, a moral wilderness where many others are violently rushing to their destinies.' Eventually Harriet attempts to find him and we learn why Joseph was so keen to leave England in the first place.

I thought this was a terrific novel, do read it. Must now look out for more books by Rose Tremain.

Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall is a first novel told from the unreliable viewpoint of an unhinged young woman. Kitty has lost a baby and hasn’t recovered her mental balance. She’s sympathetic and I found it an interesting read.

I’m probably the only person in the world who isn’t crazy about Isabel Dalhousie and The Sunday Philosophy Club. Alexander McCall Smith’s writing is charming as ever, but I never quite believe in Isabel as she sounds so old and fusty for her age. And I was annoyed by her actions in visiting a bereaved mother in such a tactless and intrusive manner.

I love Edinburgh, but wasn't convinced by the storyline of Doors Open by Ian Rankin, so put it down.  Perhaps it just isn't my thing. Don't suppose he will mind.

Enjoyed a nostalgic wallow with Frank Sinatra last week on TV.  And we all roared with laughter at Outnumbered last night. Those children are so scarily real and hilarious.

Delighted that Spring has sprung at last. I keep pottering round the garden seeing what has survived the winter, still have fingers crossed about one or two shrubs and not sure about the 'hardy' dahlia yet.

Freaky film and an absorbing ghost story

It's a pity the new Alice had some frightening chases and scary creatures otherwise it would be suitable for younger children.  Helena Bonham Carter is wonderfully wicked as the Red Queen, young Gwyenth-lookalike Maria Wasikowska (Australian with convincing Brit accent) was good as Alice and I loved Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat.  There seemed too much of Mad Hatter Johnny Depp and not enough of all the clever computer generated animals.
Somehow or other it turned into Lord of the Rings, and not as funny as we hoped. I wouldn't go out of your way to see it.

Recent reading: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters was atmospheric and gripping, but not quite as frightening as I expected.  Set in 1947, it's a gloomy story of a decaying mansion in the middle of Warwickshire, a family and indeed a whole class in decline, narrated by a solemn young doctor whose mother used to be a nursemaid at the house. I have my views but I wasn't sure who dunnit, who instigated the polstergeist, if there was one, but almost everybody came to a bad end.   This is the first Sarah Waters I've brought myself to read for a while because I found Fingersmith too violent.  As Gok said in the TV Book Club, there are no lesbians or sex scenes in this novel.  It's very well written, of course, with wonderful descriptions of the Miss-Havisham house, and I'm still thinking about it. An interesting interview here at A Work in Progress.  Sarah Waters said she wanted to write about class as much as a haunted house.

Flowers, films and a book

Joined Love Film DVD rental but then couldn’t think what I wanted to see. Any recommendations? Here’s what’s come so far, rather enjoyed them both:

Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day – fun, silly and frothy, an elegant period piece set in the 1930s. Amy Adams plays a Marilyn-Monroe type cabaret singer with three lovers – she’s ditsy but adorable. Plainish, middle-aged Miss Pettigrew, starving and desperate for a job, becomes her social secretary and tries to sort her out - a bedroom and nightclub farce-with-a-heart.

Another costume drama: The Duchess. Keira plays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire to Ralph Fiennes’s Duke. A scenic film full of 18th Century atmosphere. We learn there were three people in the bright young aristocrat’s marriage, which kind of reminds us of the life of her descendant, the hapless Princess Diana. The film of Amanda Foreman’s book.

Recent reading: The Truth about Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell. Enjoyed this a lot – an original novel. Melody lost her memory when she was nine after a fire, and ran away from her parents when she was 15 and pregnant. But were they her parents? Following a chance visit to a hypnotist show, fragments of her memory begin to return.

After I’d finished I felt that some of the plot twists were pretty unlikely but so absorbing was the story it didn’t matter.

Encouraging comments about Paris Imperfect from Sweden. They thought Renee Zellweger should play Clio in a film, but I don't think I see her in the role. Would love to have these casting worries.

(At last my Christmas presents are flowering, the four-bloom amaryllis is not just a bulb but a be-good to-yourself because you're worth it, Finest M&S bulb.  Have invested in a white orchid too, as you see. If you click on the pics, the flowers look fantastic, she says modestly.)

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

A moving and distressing film, this is a Nazi concentration camp story seen through the eyes of an innocent eight-year-old German boy.  Bruno's military father is sent to be Komandant of a strange farm in the middle of nowhere, as the child believes. Missing Berlin, the lonely Bruno sneaks out of the stark house and, wandering through the woods, discovers another little boy of his age behind the barbed wire of the 'farm camp'. Sitting on opposite sides of the fence, they become friends.  Most of the scenes take place in Bruno's house and we see his beautiful mother falling to pieces when she realises what is happening at the camp, but Bruno doesn't understand the whispering. And his little Jewish friend doesn't understand why his father has disappeared.
Excellent convincing acting from all concerned. A very good film indeed.  Here is a review from The Times. I haven't read the book. Don't think I could now.  Perhaps we should all see this kind of film or read this kind of book periodically to make us realise how lucky we are that all some of us have to worry about is what to cook for dinner.

Dean Spanley - a must-see movie

Last week the film club showed Dean Spanley. A charming, unusual and oddly moving film set in England just after the Boer War, with no romance, sex or violence. Brilliantly acted by Peter O'Toole, Jeremy Northam and Sam Neill, to name the main performers, but all of the small cast were excellent. If I tell you it is about a churchman, Dean Spanley, who believed he used to be a dog in his previous life you'll fear it is fey or sentimental, but the opposite is true. It also deals delicately with grief and with the father/son relationship in those days of extra-stiff upper lips.
Peter O'Toole gives a master performance as a curmudgeonly sarcastic old man - he has some brilliantly amusing lines.
Do get the DVD. It's a tragi-comedy but ultimately a feel-good film - for grown-ups, by the way, as most of it would go over children's heads. Here's a review.

(photo credit Norwich Cathedral where some of the scenes were set in this Anglo-NZ production. Here's more about the locations)

Not so fantastic fox

Last week the local film club showed Before the Rains, epic stuff set in Kerala, India, before WW2. Here's a NY Times review. Breathtaking scenery; dramatic, somewhat melodramatic plot, British engineer has affair with married maid, endangering many - theme 'passion has its price'(!) Worth seeing.

Went to see the cartoon film Fantastic Mr Fox but found it disappointingly unfunny. Full of psychobabble and angsty foxcubs doing yoga, it was as if Roald Dahl had been given the Woody Allen treatment. Mr Fox (voiced by George Clooney) and all the creatures were American but the baddy farmers were English. Hm. Best to stick to the original book. You can read the Daily Mail review if you want.

Too scary for young children. Not sure what age group it is suitable for.

Film: Julie and Julia

Do go and see Julie and Julia at the cinema. Good fun for girls. It ticked a lot of boxes for me: Paris, cooking, Meryl and screenwriter Norah Ephron (When Harry Met Sally etc), plus blogging and publishing.
I expect you've heard it's about a blogger who decided to cook 524 of Julia Child's Cordon Blue recipes in a year in her dreary flat in New York.
Meryl did a wonderful job as Julia Child, the famous American post-war housewife who boldly went to chef school in Paris and wrote Mastering the Art of French Cookery. And Amy Adams was charming as the modern blogger, Julie Powell. But don't take a man to this movie unless he is very interested in cookery. The male actors are just there to support the heroines with the occasional word of wisdom and adoration.
Later: I checked out Julie Powell's blog and saw she sometimes gets over 500 comments - phew. Seems I have a way to go. I also discovered that Julia Child was 6ft2 whereas Meryl is 5'6", but she manages to look tall, hale and very hearty throughout. Don't let the initial over-jolliness put you off, though. You soon warm to her.

Meanwhile, Tropical Connections has been well reviewed in the American journal Booklist: 'As in her previous books, Vereker expertly explores a world of tight-knit British expatriates as well as the hazards and joys of a single woman abroad.' If you would like to read the full review, it's on my other blog About Susie Vereker's books - see top right link.

Film - the Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Wonderful movie at the film club last week. If you haven't seen it, do please rent the DVD (French with subtitles), or read the book which somehow passed me by, though I heard about it.
Editor of Elle magazine and Lothario about town, Jean-Dominique Bauby, has a major stroke at the age of 43. Though his brain is fine, he is totally paralysed except for the use of one eye. He's taught to communicate by a series of patient women who read aloud the alphabet and when the desired letter is reached, Bauby blinks. In this tortuous manner, letter by letter, he writes a book about his past high-rolling life in Paris and his present locked-in condition in a bleak but clearly excellent hospital near Calais. He's visited regularly by the beautiful mother of his children (all the nurses, speech therapists and editors are beautiful) but never by his lost lover Ines who he longs to see. It's a tribute to the human spirit that there's nothing sentimental or mawkish about this ultimately uplifting film. He died just after the book was published in France where it became a best-seller.
Here's a trailer.

Misc recent cultural stuff Part I

Hampton Court
Strongly recommend a visit to Hampton Court Palace on the River Thames. Even at this early stage of the year the gardens are stunning, so stunning that we didn’t spend much time inside, but we saw the King’s Apartments, with excellent audio guide. The interior of the palace is more complicated than the famous maze, but we did find the Tudor kitchens too, with real log fire and turnspit. The gardens are free at the moment but I believe you have to pay to see the formal sections in summer. Well worth the trip. (Photos to follow next week - currently on son's camera. I thought of buying an extra lead to download them here but was too mean to spend £13)

Jindabyne
The local film club had mixed views about this critically admired sombre film. Having lived in Australia, I more or less enjoyed it, but some Hampshire gents were heard to mutter ‘liked the fishing scenes but not much else.’ The plot is that four ordinary guys go fishing in the remote Snowy Mountains in summer. After walking for miles, they find a body of an Aboriginal girl in a stream but don’t bother reporting it until they have finished their weekend trip. Their friends and families are not impressed by this casual behaviour, particularly Laura Linney who plays the tricky role of a nervous depressive wife. I kept hoping they’d catch the girl’s killer, a sinister electrician, but it isn’t that sort of film – it’s more about sad, murky, mysterious moods and beautiful scenery.
The Guardian buff and others thought highly of it, but I wouldn’t call it a must-see.

Paris Imperfect review
Many thanks to Ex Libris blogger in the US for her encouraging review of Paris Impefect. She found it 'an entertaining romance that has realistic characters with whom readers can relate'. She added 'While reading I found myself becoming irritated with Clio and her tendency to procrastinate. Then I realized that if it were me, I would probably react the same way.'

The Italian Job - hang on, lads

Fans of The Italian Job will remember this literally cliff-hanging closing scene, but Michael Caine did have an idea.
Meanwhile, last month the Royal Society of Chemistry announced a competition to solve the problem of unloading the gold without the bus falling down the cliff. The solution must be based on rigorous scientific principles. Apparently 700 entries have been received - this is all in The Times so it must be true.
Of course, the remake of the Italian Job was rubbish. You must watch the original 1969 version and know crucial elements of the dialogue by heart if you are a true aficionado.

Have not been posting owing to dire feverish cold. Too much else going on in the world to worry about that though.