Book and Movie Updates

A bit of a ragtag post, trying to pull together some random thoughts on what I've been reading or watching.

I did make it through Narayan's The Man-Eater of Malgudi.  Boy, I did not like this at any level.  I didn't like Swami and Friends because I don't like art that glamourizes rebellious children that act out against teachers and/or cut school.  (No question there are terrible teachers, but I still instinctually side with them over such brats.)   For this same reason, I probably will never re-watch The 400 Blows.  Heck, I didn't even like Ferris Bueller (when I was a teenager!), though I may break down and watch that again some day.  Or not.  But I would read Swami and Friends a dozen times again rather than suffer through Man-Eater.  Maybe what really rubs me the wrong way is that the whole novel is essentially built up around a stupid conceit that a man can hit himself (with his hands, not a hammer) hard enough to kill himself, just as some demons did in ancient legends.  I guess it just feels like the entire book was written in the service of a very bad joke.  Even though I am still trying to get through all of Narayan's work, I am sorry that I didn't bail on this book.  I hope he returns to form with The Vendor of Sweets.

I thought Malraux's Man's Fate was ok, not great.  With a few exceptions I didn't really feel the urgency of what they were struggling after.  The characters, particularly the revolutionaries, felt very flat to me.  I also found that the novel focused so closely on individual characters that I never really got a sense of how the overall battles were won or lost.  Maybe too much leaves and branches, not enough forest.  And while the fate of most characters was revealed, there were a couple that I (and maybe Malraux!) lost track of.  This is not completely dissimilar to Farrell's The Singapore Grip where I was disappointed in the ending.

The writing is pretty good in Fontane's Effi Briest, which is often billed as Germany's answer to Madame Bovary.  What is pretty inexplicable, however, is Fontane refusing to show us any of the seduction of Effi.  We have a scene where this louche Major kisses her fingers in a coach, and then a couple of chapters later she writes these letters implying she is a fallen woman.  That is it!  I mean there is coy and then there is doing a disservice to one's readers by withholding too much of what is the essence of the story.  Anyway, it is a short novel, and I should be able to wrap this up this weekend.  I'm actually then going to launch into Madame Bovary, which I read a bit over 10 years ago.

I've done a pretty good job in getting through Kafka's Collected Stories, with just under 100 pages to go.  They have recently been translating and publishing a lot more unpublished fragments.  In many ways the comparisons between him and Robert Walser keep growing; indeed, Kafka was an admirer of Walser.  I think I should wrap this up at some point in Oct., and then probably start in on some of the short story collections on my current reading list: Munro's Open Secrets, Gallant's The Cost of Living, and Joy Williams's The Visiting Privilege.  I might sneak in some Ellen Gilchrist as well.

I'm just back from seeing Howl's Moving Castle.  I had to travel up to Richmond Hill to see it, which seems a bit ridiculous.  I guess it was worth it, however, and I might do the same again for Spirited Away at the end of Oct.  I'd say that this is my favourite Studio Gibli movie, though some of the dream logic didn't quite work for me, particularly the way Sophie's age was all over the place in the second half of the film.  From what I've read, things were handled a bit more logically in the book.  

There is one more animated film that is playing at Carlton that I want to catch.  It's called Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko.  It will likely be tight, but I should be able to catch the 4:05 showing right after the Sunday matinee of speaking of sneaking at Buddies in Bad Times (though I would likely have to skip the talkback).  We'll see if that is just too much, given everything else I am trying to do this weekend.

I've been to the Paradise twice in the past week.  Last Saturday, I saw Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort, then skipped the Varda half of the double feature to set out on Nuit Blanche instead.  I'll try to write up that excursion shortly.  Then Monday I retuned to try to catch another Demy/Varda double feature.  It was Demy's Bay of Angels followed by one of Varda's late documentaries -- The Beaches of Agnes where she delves into her life and work and that of her contemporaries.  In many ways I am coming to Varda backwards, starting with Faces Places at TIFF a few years back and now The Beaches of Agnes.   I still haven't been able to catch Cleo from 5 to 7 on the big screen!  Frustrating...

What was even more frustrating was the complete transit breakdown. It was always going to be a tight trip, but I should have made it, but there was an unexplained 5 minute delay at Broadway. Then we got to Bloor-Yonge, and they shut down all of Line 2 between Ossington and Broadview (so I couldn't even turn around and go home). There was some major security incident on the platform at St. George. They never got more specific than that. This went on for a bit over 20 minutes. I told myself I would go take the streetcar rather than suffer replacement shuttles (because construction on Bloor at St. George has made the street all but impassible for buses). They did announce shuttles were on their way, so I headed upstairs.  At that exact moment, they announced subway service had resumed, so I trudged back downstairs. The next train, however, was turning back.  As you can imagine the train I finally got on was full of angry riders who had their work commute completely disrupted.  I finally got to Ossington. The trip took an hour and 10 minutes for what really should be 25-30 minutes.  Completely unacceptable service from the TTC at every level.   It was too late to see the first film, so I went out for Ethiopian food instead.   Then I still had 45 minutes or so to kill before they would let me in for The Beaches of Agnes.   I mostly read the book I had with me (Effi Briest).   About the only (minor) bright spot is that after hearing of my transit woes, they gave me a free pass to see another movie at the Paradise, so that was nice of them. 

I've been kicking the idea round for a bit, but I think I'll order a box set of Varda's documentaries, ranging from her work in California to the later autobiographical ones. The box set does include The Beaches of Agnes but not Faces Places or her final film, Varda by Agnès.   It looks like I can borrow Varda by Agnès from Robarts one of these days.    I also have put a hold on Demy's Bay of Angels, so will try to watch that soon, but I suspect my annoyance over that evening's events will linger for a long time.

Edit (10/1): One of the saddest breakdown of the postal service is that an signed copy of Ralph Gustafson's Configurations at Midnight got lost in the mail.  What makes this particularly infuriating is that, despite this coming from a bookstore in Montreal, they charged significantly less to mail it to Chicago than to Toronto.  Had I spied into a crystal ball I would have swallowed the extra postage (and my ire) and I would likely have the book in my hands today, though honestly it might still have gotten lost.  I still have a very faint hope it will turn up one of these days.  There is an autographed copy of an early Selected Poems that I will probably order in its place, and also a bookstore in Hamilton has an autographed copy of Impromptus for sale.  I might try to grab that on my next pass through Hamilton, given that I am not really trusting the mail much these days.

Update 2: Impromptus seems to have vanished, so I decided to bite the bullet and order the signed copy of Gustafson's Selected Poems.  There was also a fairly inexpensive copy of Configurations at Midnight (with free shipping!), so I ordered that and had it mailed to Toronto.  There's probably no better way to ensure that the missing (signed) copy turns up in Chicago.  Then as a bit of a crap shoot, there were bookstores offering his Collected Poems: either Volumes 1 and 2 or 1 and 3(!).  I have no idea if these will turn up and if they are as advertised, but if all goes well I'll have the complete set and can try to find a university library to take the duplicate of Collected Poems Vol. 1.  Here's hoping anyway.

Update 3: I was a bit surprised, but I did actually get all the Gustafson books, so I can really dive into his work at my leisure.  Also, the Varda box set turned up, though I got stung by some crazy import fees, which irked me.  It's a nice set, and it actually does include Visages villages, which is Faces Places but without any English subtitles, which kind of stinks.  I wasn't entirely sure if it would have all the episodes of Agnès de ci de là Varda (Agnes Varda Here & There), but it does.  Now I just need to check on those subtitles as well.