I found myself laughing out loud during the infamous deli scene and the oft-repeated line, "I'll have what she's having." Perhaps it is my familiarityI found myself laughing out loud during the infamous deli scene and the oft-repeated line, "I'll have what she's having." Perhaps it is my familiarity with the movie, but Ephron's brand of romantic comedy spills off the page and you can't help but chuckle. The build up between strangers who become friends who become lovers in the relationship desert of New York is so universal that it doesn't feel dated (even without cellphones and social media). This script is a good reason why more women should be in the film industry. ...more
Thanks to my ex-boyfriend, who worked at the Jane Street Theatre box-office, I became an early "wighead" and saw the show multiple times with differenThanks to my ex-boyfriend, who worked at the Jane Street Theatre box-office, I became an early "wighead" and saw the show multiple times with different actors, including John Cameron Mitchell. The world is small and strange and I had no idea that the handsome and aloof man who lived downstairs from me in the West Village was not just Hedwig, but the boy I had crushed on in Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me. The pieces would not fall into place until I bumped into him at a wedding and the light bulb went off. I went on to see the movie version, which is good but doesn't hold up to the live version for a variety of reasons (primarily because Hedwig does not transform into her protege, Johnny Gnosis), but loved the Broadway debut with Neil Patrick Harris. In other words, I was a fan, but I had never read the text, though I was so familiar with it that I could hear Mitchell's voice in my head, including Stephen Trask's score.
The story of a German girlie-boy who must give up a little piece of himself to find a new life in America crosses genders, borders, and is also a tour de force of alternative musical styles. I was always curious Hedwig was inspired by Jayne County, the transgender singer and performer. County did inspire David Bowie early in his career, but Hedwig's character appears to have evolved in the club scene in New York over time. What works best for this story is that it is such a unique journey, yet at its core is a universal truths of love and acceptance, not just of others, but of yourself. A gorgeous script and a loving tribute to alternative icons....more
Feast of the Goat blends history and fiction to depict the waning days of the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, whose 31 year reign was considered Feast of the Goat blends history and fiction to depict the waning days of the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, whose 31 year reign was considered one of the bloodiest in the Americas. Vargas Llosa gets inside the head of the man, who rationalizes his tyranny as necessary to bring a country of incompetents up to par, who, despite his Haitian immigrant background, wages a bloodthirsty war on other Haitians in the Dominican Republic, does not trust anyone around him, and consistently manipulates his cabinet officials to force his will as they stumble over each other to please him. He is also an older man with issues stemming from his age: an enlarged prostate, weak bladder, and impotence. The novel primarily takes place in two time periods, the day of Trujillo’s assassination, detailing the dictator’s final day on earth, as well as the anxious thoughts and desperate flights of his assassins. Running in parallel is the fictitious story of Urania Cabral, who returns 35 years after the assassination with a more personal and affecting story of sexual abuse at the hands of Trujillo. One sign of a talented author is his ability to weave together moments from different time periods, skillfully shifting in a single conversation between the past and the present without losing the reader; this is especially true in Urania’s chapters.
Scenes in the latter pages of the book of the systemic torture and murder of Trujillo’s assassins and their relatives are not for the weak of heart, and sadly, may not be fully rendered to capture what really occurred. Sadly, aside from the toppling of Trujillo, most of the other players escape Haiti with millions in their bank accounts.
One takeaway is showing how such a despicable person stayed in power for over three decades. The dictator uses a combination of fear, the power of the military, the destruction of government institutions, a puppet presidency, and rewarding those slavishly loyal to him who risk their lives and their families should they disagree. By concentrating power and wealth he is able to continue his regime. These same tactics are being employed in countries around the world; we should read this book as a warning about how history repeats itself....more
Where Rushdie shows off his genius is by combining the history of India in the time of Partition, blending in cultural context, movie plots, with the Where Rushdie shows off his genius is by combining the history of India in the time of Partition, blending in cultural context, movie plots, with the rich tapestry of colors and smells of his home. Interwoven is the fracture of a society that has been colonized and arbitrarily cleaved into sections and the aftermath. The magical realism of the tribe of children born at the same time as Partition allows him to unravel the complexities of this time period in a way that both entertains and enlightens. What helps engage the reader is Rushdie's dark sense of humor, insightful attention to detail, and liberal use of symbolism. ...more
I am not familiar with many other books that capture the dull terror of dystopian politics, driven by secular or religious conservatives, that has as I am not familiar with many other books that capture the dull terror of dystopian politics, driven by secular or religious conservatives, that has as much resonance with the public than Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The “journal” of an unnamed woman is set in the immediate future where religious extremists have taken over a part of the United States through lethal force. Somewhat unrelated to the civil war is a significant drop in fertility rates (which is actually occurring in most of the developed world today). Using a Bible story as justification, Sarah gave her enslaved handmaid to her aged husband in order to bear an heir, the religious order traps and enslaves fertile woman to be used for procreation. Those who cannot bear children are threatened with exile to the Colonies, areas that were left toxic after the war. The handmaids are ritualistically raped by high-ranking officials and mistreated by the jealous wives. This is history repeating itself, the same hollow justification has been used for centuries by religious orders to condone slavery and justify white supremacy.
The unnamed heroine of the book is rich, flawed, and complex. She survives her day to day “unreality” by adapting for survival, reminiscent of Primo Levi’s descriptions of life inside a concentration camp. There is the day to day oppression, fear, and self-censoring, but alongside that are little victories: fond memories of the past, reminding yourself of your own sanity, the caring touch of another human being, and most importantly, and dangerously, hope for the future.
Atwood’s narrator reveals in two sentences how totalitarian societies can exist despite the free will of humanity. When two enforcers, The Eyes, approach the handmaid but take another man nearby, she responds, “What I feel is relief. It wasn’t me.” The pervasive spying and reporting on each other, instilling distrust of everyone, enforced paranoia that you might be next, even for "thoughtcrimes"… these are the methods that dictators use to control large populations with few resources. Everyone is a part of the enforcement system, including those who remain silent. Disloyalty to the leader/party is punished with extreme measures, so everyone must remain loyal and police others or they and their family may face the consequences; real life occurs behind closed doors in whispered voices.
The good news, these regimes do not typically have long durations without using increasingly extreme measures and controls, including extermination of anyone who gets in the way. However, society as a whole is larger than those “in control”. If we continue to unite, embrace our differences, and stand up for everyone, we can collectively force change. Many comparisons have been made between the government represented in this powerful novel and current administrations around the world, and there is a need to fight back against isolationism and totalitarianism in all its forms. Atwood repurposes a fake Latin phrase from her childhood as a rallying call for this fight, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”...more
I was first introduced to the work of Daniel A. Olivas when I was the editor of OutsiderInk.com, and it was a treat to return to his fiction. The storI was first introduced to the work of Daniel A. Olivas when I was the editor of OutsiderInk.com, and it was a treat to return to his fiction. The story he published with me is the lead story, “Los Angeles, 1970,” a piece that deftly navigates the challenges faced by immigrants and their children and a boy’s confusion regarding a sexually manipulative priest. The story showcases Olivas’ talent for capturing a unique and often unheard perspective. There is a spectrum of characters in his stories: protective to overly proud fathers, determined daughters, lesbian lawyers, cocky weathermen, strong older women, as well as a hot and not always welcoming Los Angeles, which is a character appearing it each piece. The author serves up a slice of life with dexterity and dash of humor. Layered into his stories is a current of music: jazz, pop, rock, and Mexican standards. The book is solid throughout, but there are some standouts: The chilling reality-based “Summertime” about a white supremacist opening fire on a Jewish community center and “19” a humorous take on the Y2K debacle, but for me it is the “cautionary” tales that I enjoyed most, reminding us that life is short and we should be true to ourselves: “Res Judicata”, “Weatherman” and my personal favorite, “Voir Dire,” in which a man discovers his ability to write fiction and his parents still dismiss him as an idiot; a mixture of hope and humor! ...more
“[The politician] was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ‘ideas’ almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that“[The politician] was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ‘ideas’ almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.” You would be forgiven if you thought this referred to the 45th American president. However, the quote is taken from Lewis’ prescient It Can’t Happen Here, which documented the rise of fascism across Europe in the mid-1930’s in a fictionalized U.S. setting.
The story is told at the local level through voice of a liberal New England journalist, Doremus Jessup, who goes from dismay to determination to despair—much like the proverbial frog being slowly boiled—as the government is hijacked by “Buzz” Windrip. Buzz rises to power on the shoulders of rabid patriotic nationalism with empty promises of economic windfalls for (almost) everyone. The new president is surrounded by white nationals and their first order of business is to stage a coup to take over all branches of government, jailing any objectors “for their protection”, in order to legislate discrimination against African Americans and Jews. They also revoke the rights of women to return to core American family values (aka The Handmaid's Tale). This legalized racism and sexism ensures the support of his base, who have not recovered financially from the Great Depression, and empowers them over subjugated groups of people. He further empowers these increasingly hostile men by forming them into a well-paid militia, who are instructed to enforce the government’s position by any means necessary. What follows is a discrediting of the media, a takeover of the educational system, and a rise of corruption and self-dealing among those freshly in positions of power.
As documented in the work of Primo Levi, a concentration camp survivor, objectors are thrown into an alternative reality from which they are too numb—or legitimately scared for their lives—to fight back; instead they fight for food and to make sense of their new reality in order to save themselves. What makes this novel such an important read is Lewis’ noting the flags of a rise of a military dictatorship to warn us of their reappearance; many would argue too many of these points have already been breached as of 2018. Recommend this book for any intentionally blind conservative who is “just following orders.”...more
Woolf, in her poetically rambling way, manages to navigate through numerous subjects, including but not limited to: a history of women writing fictionWoolf, in her poetically rambling way, manages to navigate through numerous subjects, including but not limited to: a history of women writing fiction, their male counterparts, the literary merits of both sexes, the dual-sexed nature of the brain, the limits placed upon women in society and to hold property, thwarts the critiques of men who dismiss the contributions and characters of women, and mediates over walks, meals and cigarettes. While she takes an indirect course, a characteristic of her fiction, she hits upon her thesis throughout: to be an artist of any merit a person needs a room to write in and a source of income; without both the artist is hard-pressed to have the time and energy in which to create. She notes that this holds true for men as well, holding up a number of authors we have long canonized who were not only from wealthy families, but highly educated; things denied women throughout most of history. What is most enjoyable is her dry humor that peppers the text, and I wish her fiction contained more of it. I would recommend reading Orlando in conjunction with this; not only does it explore the same themes of art, sex, gender and the evolution of women, but it does so with the same level of humor. It is also her most accessible work and the "love letter" to her lover, Vita Sackville-West, is a warm and sensual novel. ...more
The economy of writing in Silence is powerful and Endō is a compelling author (acknowledgement must be made to the translator). The story is based on The economy of writing in Silence is powerful and Endō is a compelling author (acknowledgement must be made to the translator). The story is based on Japanese history, but explores universal themes such as humanity, faith, the role of missionaries colonizing foreign lands, extreme differences in culture, and strong religious convictions against all evidence to the contrary; this complexity makes this a fascinating narrative.
There are two simultaneous readings of the novel, a conflict which resonated for me. One reading centers on one man’s struggle to retain his faith against all odds, even with the threat of torture, death, and the indifferent extermination of his parishioners if he does not succumb to the Japanese will. The central character, a Portuguese priest who has come to serve Japanese Christians, is most in his element when ministering to his fellow prisoners while surviving in extreme conditions. In his imagination he frequently compares his own suffering to that of Christ, and takes fulfillment in living his life by Christ's example, despite frequent doubts and lack of evidence that God exists or that he is acting in vain.
However, another interpretation is that the Christian missionaries, with full knowledge that they would likely be imprisoned and put to death by an zero-tolerance government, have entered Japan illegally to teach a prohibited religion. They prey on ignorant farmers who are so oppressed by the government that they welcome any story about a better life after death (even accepting death as a better alternative). The priests take food and shelter from the poor, and put them in mortal danger, while providing no support to the community. Father Rodrigues claims to appreciate Japanese culture but makes no efforts to understand it; he instead impresses his world view on them and frequently looks down on them as ignorant children. The Japanese, he learns, have misinterpreted Christianity along their own belief system, but still die selflessly to protect the priests. Rodrigues is suspicious and disdainful of the Japanese, particularly his guide Kichijiro. The priest refuses to even make an artifice of shunning his belief system, which results in the horrific death of others; he is called out for his selfishness in stubbornly clinging to his beliefs and being unchristian.
While the Japanese employed extreme methods of torture to root out Christianity, they are no different than other religious systems have used for centuries against non-believers.
While reading this I was frequently reminded of Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, which posed the question of why, if god is omnipotent, that he only presented himself to a handful of people who took it upon themselves to spread the word. The lengths that the missionaries and the Japanese go through to pursue their own agendas is spotlighted in both extremes; neither is in the right....more
**spoiler alert** After facing with the terror of nearly drowning, the heroine of Chopin’s novel, Edna Pontellier, begins to question the somnolent bu**spoiler alert** After facing with the terror of nearly drowning, the heroine of Chopin’s novel, Edna Pontellier, begins to question the somnolent but respectable life she has all but slept-walked through. In a moment of weakness she lets down her guard and lets passion—for music, art and a handsome younger men—penetrate her socially-prescribed boundaries. The discrepancy between how she is expected to live as an upwardly mobile wife and mother is suddenly at significant odds with her desire to be an independent woman and artist. She decides, at the age of 29, to live her life according to her own desires, exceptionally controversial for a woman in 1899. What follows is Edna’s vacillation between the extremes offered women of her class as represented by her circle of friends, from the matronly Mrs. Ratignolle who lives at home with bars on the windows to the “old maid” pianist, Mademoiselle Reisz, who is disliked by everyone except Edna and her beloved, Robert Lebrun. Once the yokes of wife and mother are removed when her husband travels on business and her children vacation with their grandmother, Edna is free to reinvent herself on her own terms. She breaks with convention and moves out on her own into the “pigeon house”—a coop from which to fly—and blazes her own increasingly solitary path. As a married woman she is neither able to achieve a relationship with the respectable young man she loves, nor succumb to the passionate ministrations of a man with a “reputation”; Edna finds no place for her newly found independence to exist. Instead, she returns to the sea where she was “born” and, like Thelma and Louise, chooses her own death instead of continued subjugation. The lyrical text engages the reader with its honest depictions of desire and sensuality of a modern women, which men of the time had no trouble discussing. Sadly this novel pushed the boundaries too far and Chopin died in near obscurity five years after its publication, but her work was thankfully resurrected decades later as feminist fiction. ...more
Maugham establishes himself as the narrator at the periphery of the intersection of lives starting with an endearing ex-patriot snob, Elliot TempletonMaugham establishes himself as the narrator at the periphery of the intersection of lives starting with an endearing ex-patriot snob, Elliot Templeton, whose life's goal is to be admitted into the highest circles of society. This relationship brings the author into Elliot’s family circle, including his niece, the emotionally conservative Isabel Bradley, and her charmingly distracted fiancé, Larry Darrell. What starts out as a “drawing room” novel grows into a philosophical exploration of how one should leads one’s life which this makes this quiet novel exceptional.
Maugham keeps himself at arm’s length to the other characters as their lives overlap, tracing the rise of Elliot into the superficial social stratosphere only to be cast out when he becomes infirm, Isabel’s conundrum of being in love with Larry while being married to the earth-bound Gray Maturin, but it is Larry’s endless pursuit of the absolute truth that makes this novel fascinating. Maugham keeps himself in the corner as a skeptic, which allows Larry’s story to feel more genuine and not like a life lesson forced onto the reader. Larry lives his life in humble simplicity, financed by his inheritance, and takes time to explore religion, philosophy, and the physicality of being human--discovering his place in the universe--and a life we might all aspire to. It is also a journey of the generation following WWII, who were forced to re-prioritize their lives after so much senseless death. Experiencing life brings us happiness, not material things.
However, one might argue that Maugham found a way to bridge the material and the immaterial worlds with a comfortable life, literary success, and relationships with those he finds interesting. He steadfastly keeps this center course through the novel, aging gracefully on his own terms, without all the twists and turns of his characters. A remarkable book....more
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