24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (2002) D- Michael Winterbottom
Being the life and crazy times of Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan), Godfather (or would ‘midwife’ be a better word?) to the Manchester music scene from the 1970s to the Millennium. See how he discovers Joy Division, then following their lead singer, Ian Curtis’s suicide, he engineers their transformation into New Order. Marvel how he spots the ‘Shakespeare-like’ talent lurking inside the outwardly repellent Sean Ryder and creates the mega-successful band Happy Mondays.
These bands were all showcased at the Hacienda night club, which became the coolest club in Britain, never mind Manchester, though it never made a cent. For this was the age of ecstasy, and as Tony points out: “When you’re E’d up you don’t spend money at the bar. The only people who made money out of the Hacienda were the drug dealers”. Not that he cared. It was never about the money for Tony Wilson, but the music, and for once, it wasn’t bullshit.
Michael Winterbottom took a chance by putting ‘Alan Partridge’ in the lead, and one has to work hard at first to put this out of mind. But you soon do, as you are swept along in a manic ride, speeding down memory lane at 100mph. A really extraordinary movie, and one of the best British films of the last 20 years.
TO DIE FOR (1995) D- Gus van Sant
Gorgeous Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) is the weather girl at the local news channel but aspires to be a national news anchor. But she feels her husband is holding her back. Enter two teenagers (Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck) who lust after her, and are willing to do anything to gain her favour.
Based on the real case of American Pamela Smart, on whose story this film is based, director Gus van Sant, whose work I have long admired, brings out the best in his young stars to produce a gripping and tremendously effective piece of cinema. Kidman should have won an Oscar for her portrayal, while the kids never looked back in their careers. Superior.
THE HAPPY PRINCE (2018) D- Rupert Everett
An ageing and damaged Oscar Wilde emerges from Reading gaol, to find his once adoring public have neither forgotten nor forgiven him. He seeks refuge in France, but it isn’t far enough from England, and he is rooted out. He is made happy for a while when former lover Lord Alfred Douglas visits, but he is the same selfish bastard he always was, and he soon buggers off. From there it’s a one way trip to oblivion...
Rupert Everett, who risked a not Di similar fate when he came out in the 1980s, spent over ten years getting his vision to be realised on the screen, but my God, was it ever worth the effort. Beautifully acted by all the players, and directed with supreme subtlety and flair, Everett has pulled together a magnificent movie, funny, moving, and deeply insightful. Will there be better film this year? I doubt it.
DEAD CALM (1989) D- Philip Noyce
A couple (Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman, yes, I’m in a Kidman phase right now) are guiding a yacht across the ocean when they come across a young man (Billy Zane) escaping a sinking ship. Following the rules of the sea, they rescue him, but boy, was that a bad decision. Turns out the guy’s some kind of psycho who killed the crew on the other ship and is now intent on taking this one for himself. But not before he has some fun with the delectable Kidman...
This was an early example of using the trope of ‘the villain who refuses to die’, perhaps most famously exemplified in Fatal Attraction, though it’s now almost passé. Back in 1989, however, it was new and genuinely terrifying.
Dead Calm was Nicole’s breakthrough film, and she has never looked back since her fine performance as the feisty lady who won’t be intimidated. It wasn’t all good though. It is said Tom Cruise saw her in Dead Calm and decided he had to have her. The rest, as they say, from Nicole’s POV at least, is not very pleasant history...
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
July 2018 book review
SODOM AND GOMORRAH, by Marcel Proust
As volume 4 of Proust’s masterwork opens, our narrator spots his friend Baron de Charlus flirting outrageously with one of the male servants. OMG! Whatever next? Then, as the book progresses and we watch the relationship between our hero and his paramour Albertine develop, he becomes increasingly paranoid that she might be harbouring lesbian, or bisexual tendencies. For, in Proust’s world, Sodom refers to the male homosexual, and Gomorrah to the other thing.
There is a well known adage about A La Recherche which goes: “Remember, in Proust, all the girls are boys”. Marcel was himself gay, but made the decision to make his narrator both fascinated and horrified by what he calls ‘inverts’. What he never explains is just why the very idea drives him into an hysterical panic, though in Albertine’s case it is partly because he is terrified lest she leave him for a woman. And as he spends half the book talking about how much she bores him, this does seem a little odd. Whatever.
FIT FOR A PURPOSE, by Diana Gruffydd Williams
A young girl is struck by a car, leaving her with several injuries, some obvious, others less so. As she grows, two things emerge: 1. She is exceptionally bright. 2. She is exceptionally odd. She is given a number of diagnoses (a sure sign that the professionals actually had no idea what was wrong with her), and as a result given all the trendiest treatments available in the fifties and sixties. So distressed by her mental aberrations was she, she even lobbied for a lobotomy. Thank God they wouldn’t go there, though they tried pretty much everything else- innumerable drugs, abreaction, group therapy, you name it. By some miracle she came out the other side, still highly gifted but at last, free of her mental demons.
Then, after a little prompting by her GP (thanks for the plug, Di) she realises she might have a calling as a healer in the Christian tradition, and her life moves into a new and wonderful phase. Meanwhile she finds the love of her life and settles down to make an idyllic family.
This, then, is a book in three parts. It is most compelling when she speaks of her mental problems and how they were addressed, and fascinating when she discovers her role as a healer. The often highly detailed description of her family are perhaps the least engaging part of the narrative, though even here she brings all the players to life in a kind of innocent, even naive style which she has made her own. On the whole, a highly satisfying read.
As volume 4 of Proust’s masterwork opens, our narrator spots his friend Baron de Charlus flirting outrageously with one of the male servants. OMG! Whatever next? Then, as the book progresses and we watch the relationship between our hero and his paramour Albertine develop, he becomes increasingly paranoid that she might be harbouring lesbian, or bisexual tendencies. For, in Proust’s world, Sodom refers to the male homosexual, and Gomorrah to the other thing.
There is a well known adage about A La Recherche which goes: “Remember, in Proust, all the girls are boys”. Marcel was himself gay, but made the decision to make his narrator both fascinated and horrified by what he calls ‘inverts’. What he never explains is just why the very idea drives him into an hysterical panic, though in Albertine’s case it is partly because he is terrified lest she leave him for a woman. And as he spends half the book talking about how much she bores him, this does seem a little odd. Whatever.
FIT FOR A PURPOSE, by Diana Gruffydd Williams
A young girl is struck by a car, leaving her with several injuries, some obvious, others less so. As she grows, two things emerge: 1. She is exceptionally bright. 2. She is exceptionally odd. She is given a number of diagnoses (a sure sign that the professionals actually had no idea what was wrong with her), and as a result given all the trendiest treatments available in the fifties and sixties. So distressed by her mental aberrations was she, she even lobbied for a lobotomy. Thank God they wouldn’t go there, though they tried pretty much everything else- innumerable drugs, abreaction, group therapy, you name it. By some miracle she came out the other side, still highly gifted but at last, free of her mental demons.
Then, after a little prompting by her GP (thanks for the plug, Di) she realises she might have a calling as a healer in the Christian tradition, and her life moves into a new and wonderful phase. Meanwhile she finds the love of her life and settles down to make an idyllic family.
This, then, is a book in three parts. It is most compelling when she speaks of her mental problems and how they were addressed, and fascinating when she discovers her role as a healer. The often highly detailed description of her family are perhaps the least engaging part of the narrative, though even here she brings all the players to life in a kind of innocent, even naive style which she has made her own. On the whole, a highly satisfying read.
Monday, 9 July 2018
Light the beacons! BoJo is no more!
Talk about being on the case. I write just moments after Boris Johnson announced his resignation from the government, presumably in protest at the PM’s latest version of Brexit arrangements.
“You can’t polish a turd” is how he has been alleged to have characterised the compromise, aimed at appeasing all sides, though of course, as appeasements often do, failing to win anyone’s unqualified approval.
“Hard-line” brexiteers were never going to sign off on it, you know, those jerks like Owen Patterson, who believe we should leave now, no deal, and go for WTO rules, which give us the same status in Europe as, say, Argentina. And remainers, like me, who say a referendum should never have been held in the first place, and certainly not on a 50% plus 1 vote basis on something of such profound importance to everyone in the UK as this, aren’t completely mollified either.
Boris Johnson, a highly intelligent person, does a remarkably authentic impression of being a highly stupid person. No one is going to forget in a hurry how he prevaricated long and hard before deciding whether he was going to be a leaver or remainer, so strong were his views - not. It was so obvious he was working out which way would more benefit his medium term career it was frankly embarrassing - for almost everyone except himself.
And when he said “Fuck Business!” When asked to comment on business’s worries about the post-Brexit future, a remark so asinine, so dangerous, so at odds with the entire ethos of the Tory party, which for two hundred years has marketed itself as the party of business, a lot of people began to worry that he might be losing the plot altogether, Mrs May included. Or could he playing a deeper game? Like grooming himself for the highest office once he has plotted her removal with his Brexiteer brethren? I shouldn’t be surprised. I just hope it doesn’t work.
In summary, I’m glad he’s gone, he should have gone a lot sooner, and I hope to God he doesn’t come back. Ever.
“You can’t polish a turd” is how he has been alleged to have characterised the compromise, aimed at appeasing all sides, though of course, as appeasements often do, failing to win anyone’s unqualified approval.
“Hard-line” brexiteers were never going to sign off on it, you know, those jerks like Owen Patterson, who believe we should leave now, no deal, and go for WTO rules, which give us the same status in Europe as, say, Argentina. And remainers, like me, who say a referendum should never have been held in the first place, and certainly not on a 50% plus 1 vote basis on something of such profound importance to everyone in the UK as this, aren’t completely mollified either.
Boris Johnson, a highly intelligent person, does a remarkably authentic impression of being a highly stupid person. No one is going to forget in a hurry how he prevaricated long and hard before deciding whether he was going to be a leaver or remainer, so strong were his views - not. It was so obvious he was working out which way would more benefit his medium term career it was frankly embarrassing - for almost everyone except himself.
And when he said “Fuck Business!” When asked to comment on business’s worries about the post-Brexit future, a remark so asinine, so dangerous, so at odds with the entire ethos of the Tory party, which for two hundred years has marketed itself as the party of business, a lot of people began to worry that he might be losing the plot altogether, Mrs May included. Or could he playing a deeper game? Like grooming himself for the highest office once he has plotted her removal with his Brexiteer brethren? I shouldn’t be surprised. I just hope it doesn’t work.
In summary, I’m glad he’s gone, he should have gone a lot sooner, and I hope to God he doesn’t come back. Ever.
Wednesday, 4 July 2018
Torres don’t like green
Even if they insist they do. Last week the government refused to fund the Swansea bay tidal energy scheme. At 1.2 billion quid, it was just too expensive, they said. Not that cost got in the way of them giving the go-ahead for Huntley ‘C’ nuclear power station, which will cost at least 20 times as much. And they’re just as keen on replacing the obsolete nuke on Anglesey, which will likewise cost an enormous sum.
Not so long ago the Japanese Prime Minister visited Britain, and Wales, and warned against building nukes, reminding us what happened at Fukushima, where elaborate precautions had been taken to protect it against any and all disasters that might befall it- and then proved totally inadequate in the event. Funny really, as it’s the Japanese firm Hitachi which has been given the contract to develop the Anglesey site.
Meanwhile the government has made no secret of its enthusiasm for fracking, which, with its threat to the water table and its potential for further CO2 pollution is the very antithesis of ‘clean energy’. “Energy security” they bleat. We’ve got to ensure the lights keep working and not fear the Saudis or the Ruskies will just turn the supplies off at a whim. Fair enough, but I ask you, what is more secure than the knowledge that the tide will come in and go out twice a day?
It’s true the Swansea scene wasn’t going to be cheap. But it’s an early design, an innovation, the first perhaps in a line of other tidal schemes that could operate up and down the country, each design becoming better as lessons are learned. And it wouldn’t have blown up or pushed out more greenhouse gases into an air already dangerously saturated. For God’s sake, give green energy a chance. We need it, and our children need it even more
Not so long ago the Japanese Prime Minister visited Britain, and Wales, and warned against building nukes, reminding us what happened at Fukushima, where elaborate precautions had been taken to protect it against any and all disasters that might befall it- and then proved totally inadequate in the event. Funny really, as it’s the Japanese firm Hitachi which has been given the contract to develop the Anglesey site.
Meanwhile the government has made no secret of its enthusiasm for fracking, which, with its threat to the water table and its potential for further CO2 pollution is the very antithesis of ‘clean energy’. “Energy security” they bleat. We’ve got to ensure the lights keep working and not fear the Saudis or the Ruskies will just turn the supplies off at a whim. Fair enough, but I ask you, what is more secure than the knowledge that the tide will come in and go out twice a day?
It’s true the Swansea scene wasn’t going to be cheap. But it’s an early design, an innovation, the first perhaps in a line of other tidal schemes that could operate up and down the country, each design becoming better as lessons are learned. And it wouldn’t have blown up or pushed out more greenhouse gases into an air already dangerously saturated. For God’s sake, give green energy a chance. We need it, and our children need it even more
Monday, 2 July 2018
June 2018 film review part 2
VICTORIA AND ABDUL (2017) D- Stephen Frears
England, 1887. The Queen’s golden jubilee. She tries to put on a brave face, but inside she’s still mourning her beloved Albert, who died over 20 years ago. Then a Muslim man is brought over as part of the celebrations, and when Victoria sees him finds herself strangely drawn to his unassuming ways. He finds himself being made part of her household, even coming to occupy a role as unofficial, though highly influential personal advisor. Too far-fetched? Maybe, but it really happened, and Frears, with all his customary skill and subtlety, brings the story to life in a way it seems only he can.
There’s a lot to admire about this film, from the performances to the production values, which are stupendous, but one is left with an uneasy feeling that somehow we, and indeed the Indians themselves, are being slightly patronised. I can’t believe Victoria had so enlightened a view of the subjects of her empire that this movie suggests; if she did she certainly didn’t do a lot about it. But the fact remains, the bare bones of this strange tale are in fact true...
GUN CRAZY (1949) D- Joseph H. Lewis
A young man (John Dall) who fancies himself something of a marksman goes to a travelling show where he sees a pretty girl doing all the trick-shots he can do, and more. Love at first shot, you might say. They get together and soon find an anarchic strain runs through them both. Why not use their skills in gunplay to rob a few banks? Not that they’ll shoot anybody, just scare ‘em to death. That would be OK, until someone is killed. Then everything gets a lot darker. You see, the girl doesn’t just kill someone: she enjoys it. This cannot end well...
The producers apparently had to soft-peddle on the fact that its 2 leads were turned on, almost to a sexual degree, by guns and what they can do, though to me it’s hard to miss. The censors had problems with this, but didn’t quite know what to do about it. I mean, you can’t criticise guns in America, right? So the film got its release, and is now hailed as a classic of film noir. Unmissable.
DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES (1988) D- Terence Davies
Being an everyday story of working class Liverpudlians, first in the late 40s, and then, with the same cast of characters, ten years on, with all the added complications 10 years can bring: children, divorce, bereavement and the rest.
Headed up by a splendid Pete Postlethwaite leading a cast of unknown, but very strong actors and actresses, we see a couple of families at notable occasions in their lives; weddings, funerals, their first date and so on, all told with a delightful lightness of touch which is so skilled it often seems we are watching a documentary film and not a drama at all. I don’t know if you’ve seen Pasolini’s Gospel According to St Matthew, but if you have you will recall how that film comes over as if a documentary film crew had simply followed Christ around on his travels in the Holy Land. Same here.
Many film scholars have given this relatively unknown film their highest rating, suggesting it is one of the best films to come out of Britain in the last 50 years. I concur.
England, 1887. The Queen’s golden jubilee. She tries to put on a brave face, but inside she’s still mourning her beloved Albert, who died over 20 years ago. Then a Muslim man is brought over as part of the celebrations, and when Victoria sees him finds herself strangely drawn to his unassuming ways. He finds himself being made part of her household, even coming to occupy a role as unofficial, though highly influential personal advisor. Too far-fetched? Maybe, but it really happened, and Frears, with all his customary skill and subtlety, brings the story to life in a way it seems only he can.
There’s a lot to admire about this film, from the performances to the production values, which are stupendous, but one is left with an uneasy feeling that somehow we, and indeed the Indians themselves, are being slightly patronised. I can’t believe Victoria had so enlightened a view of the subjects of her empire that this movie suggests; if she did she certainly didn’t do a lot about it. But the fact remains, the bare bones of this strange tale are in fact true...
GUN CRAZY (1949) D- Joseph H. Lewis
A young man (John Dall) who fancies himself something of a marksman goes to a travelling show where he sees a pretty girl doing all the trick-shots he can do, and more. Love at first shot, you might say. They get together and soon find an anarchic strain runs through them both. Why not use their skills in gunplay to rob a few banks? Not that they’ll shoot anybody, just scare ‘em to death. That would be OK, until someone is killed. Then everything gets a lot darker. You see, the girl doesn’t just kill someone: she enjoys it. This cannot end well...
The producers apparently had to soft-peddle on the fact that its 2 leads were turned on, almost to a sexual degree, by guns and what they can do, though to me it’s hard to miss. The censors had problems with this, but didn’t quite know what to do about it. I mean, you can’t criticise guns in America, right? So the film got its release, and is now hailed as a classic of film noir. Unmissable.
DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES (1988) D- Terence Davies
Being an everyday story of working class Liverpudlians, first in the late 40s, and then, with the same cast of characters, ten years on, with all the added complications 10 years can bring: children, divorce, bereavement and the rest.
Headed up by a splendid Pete Postlethwaite leading a cast of unknown, but very strong actors and actresses, we see a couple of families at notable occasions in their lives; weddings, funerals, their first date and so on, all told with a delightful lightness of touch which is so skilled it often seems we are watching a documentary film and not a drama at all. I don’t know if you’ve seen Pasolini’s Gospel According to St Matthew, but if you have you will recall how that film comes over as if a documentary film crew had simply followed Christ around on his travels in the Holy Land. Same here.
Many film scholars have given this relatively unknown film their highest rating, suggesting it is one of the best films to come out of Britain in the last 50 years. I concur.
June 2018 film review part 1
NE LE DIS A PERSONNE (Tell no one) (2006) D- Guillaume Canet
8 years before, Alexandre’s Wife was murdered, presumably by a serial killer. He struggles to come to terms with her loss until a video is sent to him which appears to show she is still alive. Even more worryingly, on the very same day the police inform him they have discovered 2 bodies which, according to them, implicate him in his late wife’s murder. What to do? Run away. Run away fast.
In this film, director Canet draws on a perennial Hitchkockian obsession: ‘the wrong man’, and produces a movie very much in the latter’s tradition. But for me the plot was a little too labyrinthine, and the cuts a little too confusing. But don’t take my word for it. The French loved it and it won loads of awards over there. Certainly notable.
CONRACK (1974) D- Martin Ritt.
A young, idealistic teacher (John Voight in one of his finest roles) is given the daunting task of teaching a class of children living on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina. His name is Conroy, but the nearest the kids can get to pronouncing his name is ‘Conrack’.
He soon finds a level of ignorance he had not thought possible in an America of the 1960s, and starts from the bottom up, teaching them to swim (a kid drowns on an almost monthly basis as no one knows how to swim) and how to brush their teeth. The kids take to their new mentor, but the authorities are less pleased, especially local superintendent, Hume Cronyn, who orders him to stick to the curriculum. But ‘Conrack’ knows that ain’t gonna fly, and goes his own way, passing on the kind of knowledge these kids will need to survive in the world beyond the island. Finally, the inevitable happens and he is fired for insubordination.
Martin Ritt is one of my favourite American directors. From socially aware dramas like A Man is Ten Feet Tall (also known as Edge of the City) to powerful westerns such as Hombre, Ritt has taken on only projects which appeal to his sense of right and wrong in modern society. And here he has excelled himself, creating a brilliant, funny and moving comment on American life.
SHIN GODZILLA (2016) D- Ishiro Honda
Following the radiation leaks from the Tsunami-wrecked power station at Fukushima, a terrible monster emerges from the depths and wanders ashore, where it reeks terrible carnage. A team is assembled to deal with it, but members of that team suspect that what they are witnessing is in fact a leap forward in evolution, and that Homo sapiens may no longer consider itself at the apex of the evolutionary tree. No matter, it’s causing so much mayhem the only option appears to be: kill it. Only problem? The damn thing appears to be pretty much invulnerable. They could nuke it, but they’d have to take out Tokyo as well, something that might not go down well with that city’s 37 million inhabitants...
There have been innumerable Godzilla movies since its inception in the 1950s, most from Japan, although Hollywood has also done a couple. But for me this is the best of them. High quality special effects, sound acting and a unique atmosphere make this a rather special movie. Give it a go.
See next post for more movies
8 years before, Alexandre’s Wife was murdered, presumably by a serial killer. He struggles to come to terms with her loss until a video is sent to him which appears to show she is still alive. Even more worryingly, on the very same day the police inform him they have discovered 2 bodies which, according to them, implicate him in his late wife’s murder. What to do? Run away. Run away fast.
In this film, director Canet draws on a perennial Hitchkockian obsession: ‘the wrong man’, and produces a movie very much in the latter’s tradition. But for me the plot was a little too labyrinthine, and the cuts a little too confusing. But don’t take my word for it. The French loved it and it won loads of awards over there. Certainly notable.
CONRACK (1974) D- Martin Ritt.
A young, idealistic teacher (John Voight in one of his finest roles) is given the daunting task of teaching a class of children living on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina. His name is Conroy, but the nearest the kids can get to pronouncing his name is ‘Conrack’.
He soon finds a level of ignorance he had not thought possible in an America of the 1960s, and starts from the bottom up, teaching them to swim (a kid drowns on an almost monthly basis as no one knows how to swim) and how to brush their teeth. The kids take to their new mentor, but the authorities are less pleased, especially local superintendent, Hume Cronyn, who orders him to stick to the curriculum. But ‘Conrack’ knows that ain’t gonna fly, and goes his own way, passing on the kind of knowledge these kids will need to survive in the world beyond the island. Finally, the inevitable happens and he is fired for insubordination.
Martin Ritt is one of my favourite American directors. From socially aware dramas like A Man is Ten Feet Tall (also known as Edge of the City) to powerful westerns such as Hombre, Ritt has taken on only projects which appeal to his sense of right and wrong in modern society. And here he has excelled himself, creating a brilliant, funny and moving comment on American life.
SHIN GODZILLA (2016) D- Ishiro Honda
Following the radiation leaks from the Tsunami-wrecked power station at Fukushima, a terrible monster emerges from the depths and wanders ashore, where it reeks terrible carnage. A team is assembled to deal with it, but members of that team suspect that what they are witnessing is in fact a leap forward in evolution, and that Homo sapiens may no longer consider itself at the apex of the evolutionary tree. No matter, it’s causing so much mayhem the only option appears to be: kill it. Only problem? The damn thing appears to be pretty much invulnerable. They could nuke it, but they’d have to take out Tokyo as well, something that might not go down well with that city’s 37 million inhabitants...
There have been innumerable Godzilla movies since its inception in the 1950s, most from Japan, although Hollywood has also done a couple. But for me this is the best of them. High quality special effects, sound acting and a unique atmosphere make this a rather special movie. Give it a go.
See next post for more movies
June 2018 book review
THE GUERMANTES WAY, by Marcel Proust
Volume 3 of Proust’s masterwork finds our hero and narrator entering the rarefied atmosphere of Parisian high society. His parents rent an apartment in the grounds of the great mansion owned by the Duke and Duchess of Guermantes, situated in the heart of the Faubourg St Germain, where all the leading members of the French aristocracy have their Paris homes. He instantly (as is his way) falls in love with the duchess, folllowing her around in what would today be termed stalking, and certainly irritating her. Despite this he is ‘adopted’ by the family, for reasons that are never made clear. Is it because he has already made a mark on the literary scene, or perhaps because he has made friends with the duchess’s nephew?
Whatever the reason, he finds himself invited to all the best parties and salons, and now he meets Baron de Charlus, the Duke’s younger brother, and a man of great refinement, intelligence and rather odd personality. Not that that’s unusual in this setting. Immense privilege and an overwhelming sense of entitlement has made many of the aristos our hero comes across extremely eccentric characters, to say the least. But what they are obsessed with most is their pedigree, and that of everyone else. If they “had to buy their own furniture” as Alan Clarke would have put it, or even if they could only trace their ancestry back a mere 3 or 4 hundred years (the Guermantes being able to trace their family back to before Charlemagne) they were barely worth talking to, unless they possessed an unusual talent, like being a prodigy of some kind. And even then they were strictly ‘flavour of the month’, ready to be abandoned when the next extraordinary talent came along.
But amidst this heady, intoxicating new world he has entered, the narrator’s beloved grandmother, after a long illness, finally succumbs to a stroke, bringing forth from Proust one of the most sublime passages in the whole series. Here is a brief extract:
...As in the far-off days when her parents had chosen for her a bridegroom, she had the features, delicately traced by purity and submission, the cheeks glowing with a chaste expectation, with a dream of happiness, with an innocent gaiety even, which the years had gradually destroyed. Life in withdrawing from her had taken with it the disillusionments of life. A smile seemed to be hovering on my grandmothert’s lips. On that funeral couch, death, like a sculptor of the Middle Ages, had lain her down in the form of a young girl...”
By this stage, as we can see from the above, we are thoroughly under Proust’s spell, following the narrator’s journey, almost breathless with anticipation at what will happen next, all the while hypnotised by the magnificence of his prose style. Don’t stop me now. I’m half way through and the best is yet to come...
WHITE TEETH, by Zadie Smith
Two men, Archie Jones (English) and Samad Iqbal (Bengali), are thrown together during WW2 and remain friends from then on, even after marrying and having their own families. Living close by in north London, their children become friends too. Then they get mixed up with a high achieving, upper middle class Jewish family that represents everything they don’t. Whatever. This is Zadie Smith’s home turf: the complexities of cultures clashing and meshing in ways we couldn’t imagine. We couldn’t, but she can...
I hate Zadie Smith. She’s young (relatively), beautiful (very) and talented (extremely). I just don’t think it fair that God should shower his gifts so progiously on one soul, but there it is. Zadie is one of our best writers, and we should be grateful for her contribution to the art of the novel. Try this as a sample:
“...He continued like this, one word flowing from another, with no punctuation or breath and with the same chocolate delivery - one could almost climb into his sentences, one could almost fall asleep in them...”
See?
Volume 3 of Proust’s masterwork finds our hero and narrator entering the rarefied atmosphere of Parisian high society. His parents rent an apartment in the grounds of the great mansion owned by the Duke and Duchess of Guermantes, situated in the heart of the Faubourg St Germain, where all the leading members of the French aristocracy have their Paris homes. He instantly (as is his way) falls in love with the duchess, folllowing her around in what would today be termed stalking, and certainly irritating her. Despite this he is ‘adopted’ by the family, for reasons that are never made clear. Is it because he has already made a mark on the literary scene, or perhaps because he has made friends with the duchess’s nephew?
Whatever the reason, he finds himself invited to all the best parties and salons, and now he meets Baron de Charlus, the Duke’s younger brother, and a man of great refinement, intelligence and rather odd personality. Not that that’s unusual in this setting. Immense privilege and an overwhelming sense of entitlement has made many of the aristos our hero comes across extremely eccentric characters, to say the least. But what they are obsessed with most is their pedigree, and that of everyone else. If they “had to buy their own furniture” as Alan Clarke would have put it, or even if they could only trace their ancestry back a mere 3 or 4 hundred years (the Guermantes being able to trace their family back to before Charlemagne) they were barely worth talking to, unless they possessed an unusual talent, like being a prodigy of some kind. And even then they were strictly ‘flavour of the month’, ready to be abandoned when the next extraordinary talent came along.
But amidst this heady, intoxicating new world he has entered, the narrator’s beloved grandmother, after a long illness, finally succumbs to a stroke, bringing forth from Proust one of the most sublime passages in the whole series. Here is a brief extract:
...As in the far-off days when her parents had chosen for her a bridegroom, she had the features, delicately traced by purity and submission, the cheeks glowing with a chaste expectation, with a dream of happiness, with an innocent gaiety even, which the years had gradually destroyed. Life in withdrawing from her had taken with it the disillusionments of life. A smile seemed to be hovering on my grandmothert’s lips. On that funeral couch, death, like a sculptor of the Middle Ages, had lain her down in the form of a young girl...”
By this stage, as we can see from the above, we are thoroughly under Proust’s spell, following the narrator’s journey, almost breathless with anticipation at what will happen next, all the while hypnotised by the magnificence of his prose style. Don’t stop me now. I’m half way through and the best is yet to come...
WHITE TEETH, by Zadie Smith
Two men, Archie Jones (English) and Samad Iqbal (Bengali), are thrown together during WW2 and remain friends from then on, even after marrying and having their own families. Living close by in north London, their children become friends too. Then they get mixed up with a high achieving, upper middle class Jewish family that represents everything they don’t. Whatever. This is Zadie Smith’s home turf: the complexities of cultures clashing and meshing in ways we couldn’t imagine. We couldn’t, but she can...
I hate Zadie Smith. She’s young (relatively), beautiful (very) and talented (extremely). I just don’t think it fair that God should shower his gifts so progiously on one soul, but there it is. Zadie is one of our best writers, and we should be grateful for her contribution to the art of the novel. Try this as a sample:
“...He continued like this, one word flowing from another, with no punctuation or breath and with the same chocolate delivery - one could almost climb into his sentences, one could almost fall asleep in them...”
See?
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