Posted on: April 29, 2008
Watched the DVD last night. Very strong film, with a few flaws here and there. Ben Affleck does a nice job of directing his brother, keeping the film gritty and realistic and tied to Boston–to the people, culture and toughness of Dorchester specifically.
It’s a mystery/crime story about a kidnapping. A four-year-old girl is abducted and we quickly find out by whom. Or so we think. Casey Affleck plays a private detective, Patrick Kenzie, who is brought into the case with his girlfriend, Angie Gennaro, played by Michelle Monaghan. They try to assist the police, utilizing their first hand knowledge of the area and its residents, but this is not the sort of case they’re used to. Things quickly spiral out of control, and the little girl is given up for dead. But that’s not the end of the story or the search. It’s also the beginning of the real moral,…
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Posted on: April 26, 2008
One of my favorite books from the 80s is Gert Hofmann’s The Parable of the Blind (1985). It’s an extraordinary novel, told from the point of view of six blind men in search of the painter, Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Parable of the Blind. 1568. Oil on canvas. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy
Hofmann sets obstacles and limits for himself and overcomes them, and I know of no other novel that tests the limits of language and the visual like this one. He limits the number of senses he can utilize to tell the tale . . . we can not see beyond the world of the six blind men. We can not see outside of their world of alternative vision. There is no “normal” description of surroundings and actions in this novel. Sound is heightened. Doubt is more frequent. But the concise, confident prose carries us with…
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Posted on: April 23, 2008
Caught part of a very interesting radio interview today on NPR’s Fresh Air. Two brothers, David and Anton Treuer, fighting to protect and preserve the Ojibwe language. It was clear from their discussion that this Native American tongue is rich in metaphoric, poetic and symbolic resources. The multiplicity of words for key actions exist along side of the knowledge of the roots of those words. The brothers talk about the path we can follow back to the roots without needing to go to other language sources. And they discuss the precision needed when talking about things like water, weather, and natural phenomenon. Hunting and gathering activities have their own special set of words and images. And new words can be formed easily, because the roots are known. Combinations make sense, built upon the past.
English was formed from many different sources, nations, combinations, and that is a strength as well as a…
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Posted on: April 21, 2008
About 166 pages into the book by David Edmonds and John Eidinow*. Not sure, really, what I think of it. Conflicted, basically. It’s a rather gossipy book, when I was hoping for more philosophy, as its subjects, Rousseau and Hume, would lend themselves to a very interesting comparison. It does some of that, showing Rousseau’s famous elevation of the state of nature and the benefits to humans in a that state, versus Hume’s far more skeptical, “realistic” vision. They also talk about his empiricism in such a way that I could see Nietzsche’s perspectivism arising from it, and then Husserl’s phenomenology. Had not seen the connections before, when I read Hume decades ago.
So far, however, the sections on actual ideas and the life of the mind are too few and far between.
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Posted on: April 14, 2008
Watched the Sean Penn film last night, and thought it deeply moving, well-made, and thought-provoking. Based on a true story, the movie follows Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book closely. Penn chronicles the wanderings of Christopher McCandless across America, provides essential background through flashbacks and voice-overs, and takes us all the way to the terminus of Alaska in 1992. It’s a very strong film, one that deserves a wider audience.
The performances by the chief actors are excellent, especially Emile Hirsch as Christopher, and Catherine Keener as Jan Burres, a friend he makes along the way. I also liked Kristen Stewart (in an all too brief role) as Tracy Tatro, a girl with an enormous crush on Chris, who he meets through Jan and her husband, Rainey.
Back to the book for a moment:
Interesting parallels exist between Krakauer and McCandless, which must have made the writing more difficult, personal, perhaps even cathartic . .…
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Posted on: April 13, 2008
Jan Vermeer’s painting from 1665 is remarkable for what it says and doesn’t say.
The Girl With the Pearl Earring, by Jan Vermeer. 1665
I studied it in school many years ago, and have always loved it, but now see it differently, with a back story and another face there. A merger, a gap, a crossing. Scarlett Johansson stares back at me now. She didn’t then. I saw something else. I saw beautiful, lush brush strokes, vibrant, heated colors, and a woman who was bemused, experienced, perhaps even a touch annoyed that her life had been interrupted for a moment or two. An annoyance at first that quickly changed into remembrance, tolerance, and subdued, quiescent, internal laughter.
Scarlett’s girl, on the other hand, is different. She is not experienced. She is truly innocent, but bursting with something she doesn’t yet see. Something that is so deep and personal and real and organic, she…
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Posted on: April 11, 2008
As mentioned earlier, Stephen O’Shea’s excellent Sea of Faith adds a nice angle to its history. He focuses on the interaction of faith, politics, empires and art in the Mediterranean from the advent of Islam to the battle of Malta in 1565. He also travels to many of the lands in question and contrasts current day with the past. This helps us think of the long view, and I imagine it helped him write his history more effectively.
In recent years, I’ve become enamored with a similar approach. Visiting historical sites amplifies the stories I’ve read. Seeing the homes of beloved authors provides a touchstone for further reading. A few years ago, for example, I visited The Mount, one of Edith Wharton’s homes, in Lenox, Mass. Here are two photos of her mansion from the foundation’s website, showing before and after restoration:
Seeing her home, walking through the room she did her writing…
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