Skip to main content

Stuff I'm Reading (3/1)

 *"Mercy Street," by Jennifer Haigh. A campus novel is any novel that has people coming out of broader society and meeting socially, over and over, in a small, quirky, non-domestic sphere.


Haigh's brilliant idea is to set her new campus novel at an abortion clinic. A counselor, Claudia, observes girls with enviable socioeconomic profiles; also, she observes girls who don't have a prayer. To relieve stress, she visits her drug dealer, who happens to serve (additionally) an anti-choice activist (an activist familiar to Claudia). I couldn't predict where all this was headed, and I enjoyed "being in Claudia's mind."


*Sandra Boynton: Boxed Best Sellers. Here is how one book begins: "Behold the armadillo, with his armadillo nose." I think that's not to be surpassed.


*"Oscar Wars," by Michael Schulman. It's not clear to me that anyone needs or wants 500 pages on the Academy Awards. (I know this book has blurbs, but good writing can still fall short, in some ways.)

That said, a small dose of Oscar trivia sends me reeling. You remember that Day-Lewis won for "My Left Foot," but do you recall that the actress playing his mother won, as well? And Harvey Weinstein was so upset when the "secret" of "The Crying Game" became common knowledge, he shipped the actor in question off to Egypt. ("No interviews!") Also, Weinstein wanted to sink "Schindler's List," so he ran ads for "The Piano" along these lines: "SAG BEST PICTURE." In tiny, tiny print, the ad would then say: "Runner-up."

It's also weirdly compelling to discover that Weinstein, Sr. encouraged his two boys to "be like Robert and Jack Kennedy." For some reason, this just leads me to keep turning pages.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more

My Favorite Pop Song

  One thing I admire about Prince is his weirdly pretentious verses: Dream, if you can, a courtyard-- An ocean of violets in bloom. Also: Touch, if you will, my stomach. Feel how it trembles inside. No one else writes like this. Did people try to shoot down these choices? Did a producer say, "We'd like to rethink this one... Touch, if you will, my stomach...."  I can't help but wonder. But it's the chorus that makes this a classic. It's direct and universal--and it ends with that bizarre flourish, the allusion to "the crying doves." (Prince's song was number one in America for quite a while; it defeated Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark.") How can you just leave me standing-- Alone in a world that's so cold? Maybe I'm just too demanding. Maybe I'm just like my father--too bold. Maybe you're just like my mother; She's never satisfied. Why do we scream at each other? This is what it sounds like when doves cr...
Post a Comment
Read more