Random Cultural Thoughts on the New Year

It's been a pretty good start to the year, reading-wise at least.  I have reread Narayan's The Financial Expert and read The Painter of Signs.  His novels are generally fairly short, and these ones have a bit of a fable-like quality to them, with the characters sort of returning to where they started but having learned something about themselves (or just the bitter teachings of "life") along the way.  I wouldn't say I loved either of them, though I enjoyed The Painter of Signs more.  I think my favourite of all his novels is The English Teacher with my least favourite (and one I will never reread) being The Man-Eater of Malgudi, closely followed by Swami and Friends.  I'm about 2/3rds of the way in reading through all of his novels, and now that I am back on track, I may well be finished by 2027.  I also reread Zelazny's Roadmarks, which I enjoyed but doesn't stand up as much (today) as some of his other work.  Next, I'm going to alternate between Mahfouz's The Beggar and The Tale of the Missing Man next.  I'm more like 1/2 through Mahfouz's novels, and I guess I will step that up a bit.  Then probably O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find.

I've seen 8 of the 9 Naruse films that I have tickets for at TIFF.  I completely forgot that I had watched several of his silent films that Criterion/Eclipse put out years ago.  The only film that I have on DVD I haven't watched is Repast, and I will probably watch this at some point this winter.  I mentioned that I saw Winter Light with my son.  If he comes home at Reading Week in Feb., I think I'll try to watch the other two in Bergman's Winter Trilogy, but if not I'll just watch them while it is still winter.

I also have borrowed a few Godard films from the library, and I should be able to get through Breathless and Masculin Feminin this weekend.  I saw The Truman Show at Paradise, as part of their Toonie Tues. and the theatre was packed.  I finally went ahead and got the membership at Paradise, as they have finally started showing enough films to justify it.  And then last night I saw Network at Carlton.  This is my first time seeing it.  I think maybe there were a few too many plot contrivances, almost more as if this were a TV series with a large cast rather than a movie...  (I wonder if there was any consideration to spinning this off as a TV show, just as MASH had done a few years previously.  Though it would have been a bit of a challenge as one of the more compelling characters ended up dead at the end...)  I am probably going to check out The Thing tonight, though it means going out to The Fox.  (I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but one of the only Antonioni films that I actually like, La Notte, is playing at The Fox, and I do plan to go to that.)

I was travelling back from The Truman Show, finishing up The Painter of Signs, and I saw someone reading a book with a huge Max Beckmann painting on the cover.  I did some sleuthing and realized this was the central panel from his Departure triptych, and from there learned that the young woman was reading Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.  

I suspect I must have read this back in the day, but I don't remember anything about it.  I haven't decided if I like the cover enough to pick up a copy just for the cover.  Perhaps...

As part of this search, I ran across two Beckmann paintings I don't recall seeing before, which is odd, as I have gone through a lot of Beckmann monographs.

Max Beckmann, Odysseus and the Siren, 1933

Max Beckmann, Transporting the Sphinxes, 1945

I like both, though the one with the sphinxes a bit more.  The second one happens to be in a museum in Brussels, not that I am particularly likely to see it.  I guess I should see if it happened to be at the big MoMA show years ago, but I don't think it was.

I'm running a bit late for work.  I actually am going to bike in today and probably tomorrow, which is good, as I have not been very good with my diet lately, and I need the extra exercise.  I might even have a bit more energy when I get to the office, which I desperately need.  Ciao.

Edit (9 pm): Between being a bit depressed by biking around in the damp and dark, and the fact that I don't really like The Fox much, and the even more compelling fact that I have work still to do to hit some deadlines tomorrow, and I ended up bailing on The Thing.  I'm sure I'll see it some day.  I think they program it every so often at Carlton. 

Edit (01/09): I have confirmed that neither of these Beckmann paintings was in the MoMA show out in Queens, which is a missed opportunity, particularly for Odysseus and the Siren, as it is in a private collection housed somewhere in New York.