Brad Simkulet's Blog, page 102

A Movie That Desecrates the Book

Seeing as it is one of my top five books of all time and that Anthony Minghella absolutely butchered The English Patient, Ondaatje's masterpiece seemed the obvious winner for my Movie That Desecrates the Book Award, but I happen to be reading a book right now that was more greviously desecrated, so I need to talk about Alan Moore's From Hell instead.

From Hell was butchered by the Hughes Brothers. I liked their first two movies — Menace II Society and Dead Presidents — and I even liked From Hell when I walked out of the theatre. I liked it enough to by a cheap DVD of it and watch it again, but I hadn't read the source material yet. The brilliant Alan Moore scripted / Eddie Campbell pencilled graphic novel was on my radar, but it is a huge beast of a comic, and I was busy in grad school. So I didn't have an opinion of the source material either time I watched it, and from a place of ignorance there is a lot that works in the screen version of From Hell.

Johnny Depp put in his usual, quirky Tim Burton performance (odd that, considering the Hughes Brothers adopted a Burton-lite aesthetic for their film too), Ian Holm was properly creepy as Dr. William Gull, and the paint-by-numbers investigation into the Jack the Ripper slayings was about what we've come to expect from Jack the Ripper flicks. I even enjoyed Heather Graham's terrible performance as Mary Kelly for its campiness (but please take some vocal lessons next time you're playing a streetwalker in Whitechapel, Heather).

On its own, From Hell was a decent movie going experience. But I am reading the graphic novel now, a good five-ten years since last seeing the movie, and even with my memory of the film being dimmed by distance, I am appalled by the adaptation. From Hell should never have been made into a movie. Perhaps an HBO mini-series could have done it justice, but even that is a very long shot. More than any other comic I have seen, it was created for its form. Moore's story cannot translate into a novel, an epic poem, an essay, and certainly not a movie. It cannot be adapted.

I am only on the fifth chapter of the book and not a single killing has occurred. Jack the Ripper (not yet Jack the Ripper but we know he soon will be) has been ordered by the Queen to dispose of four women, and he's just gone to Scotland Yard to inform them that he is about to do just that. Still no killings, though. No mystery about Jack the Ripper's identity. No police investigations. Nothing that a film producer would want to see in his movie. No real action.

What we do have is the groundwork for the murders. The motives are all in place. We have the history of the man who will be the Ripper. We see his pragmatism, his interest in the occult, his encyclopaedic knowledge of Masonry, his misogyny, his knowledge of London, and his opinions about Masonry's conspiratorial role in everything that happens in England. We also see his benevolence in his genuine concern for John Merrick (the Elephant Man), which stands in stark contrast to what we know is coming, and his superiority as a doctor — the profession that has brought him all his success. 

We also have some of the most inspired pencils I've ever seen. They are not beautiful. They are angular, unfinished, ugly pencil scratches (but for a few well placed and perfectly completed charcoals). The lettering is intentionally messy, as though a drunken doctor were writing a fast prescription so he could race off to the golf course. But they are perfectly effective when it comes to conjuring the mood of the piece, the degradation of industrialized London, the hint of murder that's in the fog.

None of these things, neither the actions nor the aesthetics, can be found in the Hughes' movie. The film is bereft of depth, although it pretends to have some when Mr. Depp's character "chases the dragon" — but it is a sad mockery compared to what Alan Moore is doing in his book. I hate to heap anger on the Hughes Brothers, though. Yes they directed the movie, and it is easy to target them as the culprits, but the producers, the comic companies, everyone else attached must share the blame for this terrible blunder in adaptation.

One can understand why Moore is so disgusted with Hollywood. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a travesty. V for Vendetta and Watchmen were valiant efforts that didn't really work out. But From Hell is murder. Hollywood tied Moore to a chair and forced him to watch them murder the children of his mind.

If you love comics you must read From Hell. There really is nothing like it anywhere in existence. Don't bother with the movie. Try and expunge it from your memory if you've seen it, but stay away, far far far away, if you haven't.

A Book That Disappointed Me

One of my favourite genres is travel literature. It's not so much a desire to read about places I will never go, or a romance for the exotic, or a thirst for vicarious adventure as it is an interest in people. I am interested in people. All people. Even when they're pampered, grouchy, ugly Americans like Paul Theroux.

Having been a long time reader of Theroux's Mosquito Coast (multiple times) and knowing that Theroux is considered one of the great travel writers, I had the highest hopes for The Great Railway Bazaar. It is considered a classic of travel literature, I'd heard universally good things about it, and I expected that a man who loves to travel would turn his considerable authorial eye to all the people he'd meet along the rails of Europe and Asia and treat them with respect and interest.

What I got was an excruciating misanthrope who whines his way along the tracks, a man for whom nothing is good enough. He whines about the cleanliness of trains and their inability to keep on schedule. He bitches about how bad the food is. He moans and moans and moans about poor service and the need for "baksheesh" (bribes, he knowingly tells us). He never stops the complaints. Nothing is ever good enough for him (at least not like it is back home).

If I'd known I was going to be reading the musings of a misanthrope, I think I would really have enjoyed The Great Railway Bazaar. Being ready for pissiness would have made a huge difference. After all, that's what the travels of Karl Pilkington — he of An Idiot Abroad — are all about (and Gervais and Merchant's idiot Muppet owes a debt to Theroux), but my experience with travel literature before Theroux was full of travellers experiencing wonder at what they saw, paying respect to the people they met, becoming part of the landscape if they could, befriending those they came in contact with, being positive people in a world that was always surprisingly positive.

It's been a while now since Theroux shattered my ideas of what travel literature should be, and my disappointment in The Great Railway Bazaar has dissipated over time to be replaced with grudging respect. But I won't ever be going back to Theroux's big railway journey. I may, however, try one of his other travel stories, and I am sure I will enjoy it much more, being ready — as I am — to experience the whingings of a master whinger.

Expectations often make all the difference, and I won't be fooled or disappointed again.

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A Book I Would Recommend to a Racist

Hop on Pop, by Dr. Seuss. S/he'd have to start learning to read somewhere, and Constantinople and Timbuktu should work just fine.

My Plan for Teaching Literature From Grade 1

It's not enough to make a single book "required" reading in any course of English, whatever the level. This idea smacks of deliberate indoctrination into a specific idea rather than a greater pedagological impact, and one book in isolation will never, ever have the desired effect. 

So if I were asked to add "a book" to the English curriculum, I would choose more than a book. I would choose the work of Shakespeare. I would choose Shakespeare, start in grade one and carry it all the way through to grade twelve.

Eleven plays + poems in twelve years. Twelve years to gently nudge children and adolescents and young adults into an understanding of, appreciation and passion for the writing of Shakespeare. Twelve years to truly indoctrinate them into his greatness and cultural impact. Twelve years of beautiful story telling. 

Of course I wouldn't kick things off with the kids actually "reading" the plays themselves. But then how often do kids at the earliest grades read the stories they are exposed to? Not often at all. Yes they read books that are at their reading level, but teachers read them many other stories that the kids wouldn't be able to read on their own. And one doesn't have to read Shakespeare himself to be exposing kids to Shakespeare.

I would start with Tom Stoppard's 15 Minute Hamlet (taken from his play, Dogg's Hamlet). In fact, I have done. My kids, in the first grade, memorized the play and played it with me, and now that they're in grade two we may take it beyond our living room and into the world. They didn't read it, but they learned it, and it didn't take them long to understand not just what was happening but also the subtleties of what they were saying. It gets kids interested in Hamlet. It gets them interested in Shakespeare, and I am convinced that just this one early moment will insure that they never fear Shakespeare in the future. A teacher can even show them Disney's Lion King, and the long reach of Shakespeare will be firmly entrenched in their minds. But I wouldn't stop there. 

In grade two I would offer them the Tempest. Again they wouldn't have to read it, but they could talk about, engage in projects built around it, and learn plenty of new language from the play. They could make puppets. They can talk about storms. We could dazzle them with the magic. See if they question Prospero's behaviour. The potential for learning is boundless.

The Comedy of Errors would be grade three. Its silly humour is perfectly suited to the silly humour of nine and ten year olds. Mistaken identity, crazy characters, total madness. What's not to love for a kid? And an enterprising teacher can create all sorts of reading and writing assignments to go along.

Grade four is the time to get the kids reading a bit of Shakespeare himself. So why not the sonnets? The kids can memorize a sonnet, look words up in the dictionary, try to write their own. They already thinking about love, about first kisses and boyfriends and girlfriends, and the sonnets are packed full of fertile ground in which to plant their love seeds. 

Then it's time — in grade five — for a little adventure. I'd go with Pericles, Prince of Tyre or The Twelfth Night or both. Why not? One for the boys and one for the girls. Get them up acting. Get them reading through short bits with many parts. Let them become familiar with the words, with how the words can come alive. Let the fun inspire them.

Then hit them with some more love just before they head off to junior high (or middle school to some of you). Give them Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like It. Something fun and fanciful before heading off for that last golden summer as a child. By now, after much exposure to the Bard, their understanding of Elizabethan English and their ability to read will be highly advanced. And all the fear most people now have of Shakespeare will have disappeared — as early as grade six. 

In grade seven, I would hit them with tragedy. That's when I read Macbeth, so that's what I'd go with for everyone. Macbeth. Blood, guts, corruption and witches. Let the heads roll. Then hit them with Julius Caesar in grade eight. It's the time to learn about governments and laws and justice anyway, so what better play than the Roman tragedy of Brutus' betrayal. "Et tu, Brute!" will stick in their minds for years to come. And after two dark years of Scottish and Roman tragedy, right when their hormones are raging at their height, give them A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck and Bottom and Fairies and Mechanicals and Athenians. Imagine how ready they would be now to attack the plays that traditionally fill our high school curricula. 

They'd have been physically reading Shakespeare in some way for six years. They'd have been exposed to Shakespeare for nine. After all that work, Othello, Hamlet (don't be afraid to take them back to grade one), Romeo & Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, Merchant of Venice, Henry V, King Lear (shit … any play the teacher wants) would be a vastly richer experience. Understanding would come easily. Students would be much better prepared to dig into the plays. Any hint of Shakespeare being daunting would be gone. 

It won't happen, though. I know that. But it's what I would require if I were in charge. A steady diet of Shakespeare.

And for all those people who are thinking that the content of the plays would be inappropriate for kids of these ages, all I can say is, you're wrong. They're getting that "inappropriate" content anyway (and I am increasingly convinced that it is our withholding of content that is inappropriate), so let Shakespeare give it to them. He can do it better than anyone. And just imagine how that Shakespearean titillation could be harnessed for learning. Now that is a source of power with endless potential.

One of My Favourite Stories by China Miéville

I am not a fan of truisms, but allow me to break my usual policy and say that in literature there is nothing new (of course I know that even this truism isn't new). Everything has been written somewhen, somewhere and someway before.

What makes an author great is his/her ability to take that thing that's been written before and imagine it in a way that no one else can. That is at the core of China Miéville's fierce talent, and it runs through every work he has written

King Rat reimagines the Pied Piper by tossing him in contemporary London with a mixing board; Perdido Street Station reimagines nightmares and the chase through dream shitting horror creatures; The Scar reimagines crime and punishment and revolution and the very nature of cities; Iron Council remiagines the utopia through dystopia; Kraken reimagines the religion, magic, and madness of urban fantasy through absurdism; UnLunDun reimagines the hero(in)es journey by sidestepping the hero(ine) and embracing the other; The City and The City reimagines the mystery novel as hypperreality in the ultimate criss crossing map of a map of a map. Everything is made new again when it is written by Miéville.

Case in point: Covehithe. 

It's a short story he published in the Guardian last year, a bizarre little pseudo-environmental piece about a father and daughter waiting at the beach for the arrival of a leviathan (of sorts). What comes shambling from the ocean is resurrected wreck of an oil platform. It sank years before, and now, in some future England, the wreck is sentient, alive, looking to eat, and it's coming onto the beach. The kinship to Ted Hughes' Iron Giant, and even to more pop cultural metal behemoths like the Transformers, is plain.

But Miéville does something very different with his metal monsters. He imagines an entire evolution for the oil platforms. They aren't just sentient in the robotic sense, they are alive. He imagines a new species of living being, born from our wrecks with a thirst and need for oil. He imagines their reproduction. He imagines their predators. He imagines their feeding habits and respiration. He imagines their locomotion. He knows where they've been and where they are going, and he gives us hints. But he doesn't give us everything. He knows all there is to know about his creations, but he knows that we don't need to know all that. What he chooses to leave out of his tale is as important as the things he chooses to put in, and each tells us as much about the oil leviathans as the other.

Miéville's commitment to even the shortest of his stories, his commitment to creating an entire world or an entire species rather than just a plot and some action is what makes him fierce. It's what makes him great. It's what makes damn near everything he's ever written a favourite of mine. 

If you're curious about his oil leviathans now, and I hope you are, click on over to the Guardian and give Covehithe a read. Then, if you're curious about the rest of Miéville's work and want to know where to start, drop me a line and I'll be happy to direct your reading. 

If, however, you've already read Miéville … well, you already know what I mean. 

One of My Favourite Stories by China Miéville's

I am not a fan of truisms, but allow me to break my usual policy and say that in literature there is nothing new (of course I know that even this truism isn't new). Everything has been written somewhen, somewhere and someway before.

What makes an author great is his/her ability to take that thing that's been written before and imagine it in a way that no one else can. That is at the core of China Miéville's fierce talent, and it runs through every work he has written

King Rat reimagines the Pied Piper by tossing him in contemporary London with a mixing board; Perdido Street Station reimagines nightmares and the chase through dream shitting horror creatures; The Scar reimagines crime and punishment and revolution and the very nature of cities; Iron Council remiagines the utopia through dystopia; Kraken reimagines the religion, magic, and madness of urban fantasy through absurdism; UnLunDun reimagines the hero(in)es journey by sidestepping the hero(ine) and embracing the other; The City and The City reimagines the mystery novel as hypperreality in the ultimate criss crossing map of a map of a map. Everything is made new again when it is written by Miéville.

Case in point: Covehithe. 

It's a short story he published in the Guardian last year, a bizarre little pseudo-environmental piece about a father and daughter waiting at the beach for the arrival of a leviathan (of sorts). What comes shambling from the ocean is resurrected wreck of an oil platform. It sank years before, and now, in some future England, the wreck is sentient, alive, looking to eat, and it's coming onto the beach. The kinship to Ted Hughes' Iron Giant, and even to more pop cultural metal behemoths like the Transformers, is plain.

But Miéville does something very different with his metal monsters. He imagines an entire evolution for the oil platforms. They aren't just sentient in the robotic sense, they are alive. He imagines a new species of living being, born from our wrecks with a thirst and need for oil. He imagines their reproduction. He imagines their predators. He imagines their feeding habits and respiration. He imagines their locomotion. He knows where they've been and where they are going, and he gives us hints. But he doesn't give us everything. He knows all there is to know about his creations, but he knows that we don't need to know all that. What he chooses to leave out of his tale is as important as the things he chooses to put in, and each tells us as much about the oil leviathans as the other.

Miéville's commitment to even the shortest of his stories, his commitment to creating an entire world or an entire species rather than just a plot and some action is what makes him fierce. It's what makes him great. It's what makes damn near everything he's ever written a favourite of mine. 

If you're curious about his oil leviathans now, and I hope you are, click on over to the Guardian and give Covehithe a read. Then, if you're curious about the rest of Miéville's work and want to know where to start, drop me a line and I'll be happy to direct your reading. 

If, however, you've already read Miéville … well, you already know what I mean. 

My Favourite Living Author

He looks like a serious bad ass. Bald head, multiple piercings, built like a hardened pugilist, always dressed in black tees, khakis and shit kicking boots, with a glare full of menace (when it needs to be) and the promise of revolutionary violence. And he's sexy as hell.

He is deep thinker. He is a radical socialist, updated for the realities of today. He incorporates Engels & Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Bakunin, a little Mao Tse-Tung, Pashukanis, Koskenniemi and McDougal.

He's a nerd with credentials: role playing games, monster love, hyper-intelligence, comics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, horror of all kinds, linguistics, and the man has a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and he even spent some time at Harvard on scholarship.

He writes like no one I've ever seen. He writes across genres. He writes academic books about human rights, international law and economics one minute, mindbending tales of grosstopography and detection the next, psycho-weird brain altering shittings the next, moving communities that create their own paths the next, and about cities of all shapes and sizes and personalities the next.

He is a man who cares about justice. He is a man who sees the world as it is. He is a creative man. He is a brilliant man. He can help you read better books. He is the best writer working today.

He is China Miéville.

The First Novel I Read

The lovely Miss Frenette. She must be the reason I am still in love with red heads 37 years after meeting her. In my memory, she is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. All freckles and long red hair pulled back in a pony tail with stray wisps floating around her cheeks. I was in her first ever kindergarten class (she was fresh out of school), and by all accounts I was bored out of my skull, but she took care of me, kept me out of trouble, and found me the space to be me. 

Part of that space was the ability to read books if I was getting bored with shapes and holding pencils and arts & crafts. And that's when I read Franklin W. Dixon's The Tower Treasure. So my first novel was a Hardy Boys novel. I think I read it again a few years later, but that is just a guess. I remember nothing about the book at all, except that the heroes names are Frank and Joe. And I'm guessing there was a treasure and possibly a tower.

I do remember that the kindergarten room was dingy and dark. It was in a school named after one of our great Canadian Commies, Dr. Norman Bethune. The school in my community hadn't actually opened yet, so we were bussed to Bethune. I remember a big tree in the school yard where I played with my Planet of the Apes action figures (this was four years before Star Wars). I think I remember the texture of Tower Treasure's hard cover, but that could be because my son is currently reading the book, and I like to run my fingers over the cover whenever I see it lying around.  

I remember Miss Frenette. She was my first crush, and I think she was the first person outside my family who loved me. She probably didn't, for her I was likely just another student, but she was important to me, and she made me feel loved. While the older kindergarten teachers were labelling me "hyperactive" and a "problem," she was organizing testing and looking into the roots of my inattention and acting out. Because of her they discovered that I was already comprehending at a high school level, and it was she who told my parents to put novels in my hands.

Thank you, Miss Frenette. Wherever you are.