So hard to believe it is Dec. already! I'm probably running a bit ahead of where I thought I would be with movies (particularly catching up with a lot I've never seen including The Shining and The Godfather 1 and 2 and then of course this amazing Almodovar festival at TIFF). While I still find dealing with TIFF incredibly frustrating, I was persistent enough to get tickets to all the Almodovar films that caught my eye, with the exception of What Did I Do to Deserve This, where I have a conflict that just can't be resolved. As it happens I do have WDIDtDT on DVD, so maybe a bit after the fest ends, I will watch this, as well as lobby for Carlton Cinema to show it as a $5 throwback movie.
Just a quick follow up on Almodovar. I had totally forgotten that I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on the big screen at Paradise, but not as part of their Queen Cinema Club. So at the tail end of December I will have seen it for the third time on the big screen, but bringing my son along. I will also watch Pain & Glory for the second time (tonight in fact) and All About My Mother twice as well. These are probably his strongest films for me. The same day as All About My Mother, I am seeing an advance screening of The Room Next Door, which is his first feature length film in English (with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore). I'll basically just have time to run between the two. As it happens, they also added The Apartment even earlier in the afternoon, so you could run between all three. It's sold out now, and I am wondering if I would even enjoy watching three films in a row, even though I haven't seen The Apartment in its entirety. I might check back in at a later date. Anyway, about a week ago, I decided I could squeeze in Kika and The Labyrinth of Passion. It took quite a few tries, but I finally got a ticket for each, though I am in the second row for Labyrinth, and I will try to get a better seat closer to the time and cancel the one in the 2nd row (or maybe give it to a friend).
On Tues. I went and saw Brazil, probably for the first time on the big screen. For a long time, this was my favorite movie. I find the Sam Lowry character to be a bit on the annoying side now, though I don't know that I have any other movie that is clearly my new favorite movie, though possibly Women on the Verge... I had left work a few minutes late, and then made a stop off at MEC to try to buy some glove liners. What a mistake. The place is now quite badly organized and there wasn't anyone to help me, so I had to wait in line and ask the cashier. Then it was impossible to actually pay for the glove liners, so I just left. MEC has disappointed me several times in the last few months, and I simply have to expunge it from my mental map as a place worth visiting. At any rate, I showed up at Carlton at 6:49, which should have been absolutely no issue (because Brazil was actually going to start at 6:55), but there was a line out the door to get tickets to something else. I have never seen Carlton that busy. Even the self-serve ticket machine had a long line and didn't seem to be working either. I asked the guy at the concession stand if I could just pay for the movie (which I think can be done at Market Square) and he said he couldn't help me. I finally cut into the line and handed the ticket seller $5 and ran in, getting there just seconds before the pre-credits explosion. (This is quite reminiscent of Taxi Driver where I cut it way, way too close.) I also was sitting behind someone who was just slightly too tall. But I enjoyed the movie. It does make a difference seeing it at that scale, so I'm glad I went, even though it wasn't an ideal experience.
It's taken quite a while, but I finally finished Eric DuPont's Songs for the Cold of Heart. I didn't like some of the cheap and easy postmodernism early on in novel (the grandmother sticking around forever after dying the first time) and the sheer number of coincidences at the end were annoying (similar to what turned me off on Powning's The Sea Captain's Wife). The middle sections were pretty good. I haven't decided if I am going to hang onto my signed copy or try to sell it off. Probably the latter, but I'll hold off for a few weeks to make my final decision.
I also finished off Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. I generally found this too annoying. I like Murakami's short stories and I remember generally liking After Dark, but a lot of his novels don't work for me, between somewhat passive characters that just let events overtake them and too much woo-woo mysticism. And his books are too long. In particular, I didn't much like 1985, which was much too long. It very much sounds like his latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, is just full of everything I don't like about his work. I suppose I am a glutton for punishment, as I do have a hold on this at the library, though I have suspended the hold for now...
Anyway, this was final wrapping up of the books I had taken on longish trips to Stratford and then to NYC/DC (where I could have finished the book had I stayed awake on the NYC-DC train ride!). I am planning a trip to Buffalo next week, and I am deciding between Mutis's The Adventures of Maqrol and Soseki's I am a Cat. And I am also pretty seriously considering making a trip out to Ottawa in March (to finally see Collective Soul as well as Our Lady Peace*), and I suppose I would take the one I don't take to Buffalo if I actually do go to Ottawa. (I was a bit more successful in finishing Oliver Twist right after my last Edmonton trip, and it didn't drag on quite so long. Oliver Twist was much better than Nicolas Nickleby, even though the denouement was fairly weak.)
I recently abandoned Thomas Bernhard's Extinction. It just wasn't working for me. This blog makes an argument for Bernhard's fiction, but I am still not convinced. Just not for me, particularly in my current mood. The novel is just one ridiculously long stream-of-consciousness rant by an uber snob (speaking as a snob myself, he was just too much). He spends pretty much all of his mental energy running down his recently deceased parents and younger brother. Nope, not for me. For a short while I was reading this while cycling at the gym because the other two books were just too long and bulky. That isn't an issue now that I have switched back to shorter books, and indeed short stories. I am jumping ahead to read the first 4 stories in Munro's Runaway, since Almodovar's Julieta is based on them, then I will circle back to finish For the Love of a Good Woman (and then most likely finish off Runaway), so a lot of Munro this month, even though I still find her a pretty terrible human being. But I am interspersing with Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women, where the stories are a bit shorter.
I'm hoping before the year ends, I will actually get to Osipov's Kilometer 101, though this may not happen. I am reading some much shorter fiction, along with everything else, but I will just have to discuss that at a later time.
Coda: While I initially balked at the dead essentially following Francis around in Ironweed, I am getting used to it, and in fact it is used sparingly in the later chapters. This does remind me a fair bit of Rulfo's Pedro Páramo. This novel didn't do a lot for me on first reading, but it is short (and highly praised by others), and I hung onto it. I am wondering if maybe I should reread this right after Ironweed and then settle whether I want to keep it or not. Some of the other short books I have in the stack are a book of Orwell's lesser known essays and then perhaps Huxley's The Devils of Loudun. I should be able to squeeze in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, though it is at the bottom of the stack, and recently I added Jelloun's The Last Friend and Azuela's The Underdogs (which would pair well with Rulfo's novel). As always, too much to read and not enough time to do it in.
* I'm going to wait 2 more weeks to see if they add a Toronto date to this tour, but so far it seems they are only playing smaller cities, in Canada at least.
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