Category: Film

Diaries in Life and Fiction

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DIARIES. As someone who has kept journals of one sort or another most of my life, I’m  also interested in the diary as a fictional device.  Here are a few words about my journaling and notes on two recent novels where diaries are key to the underlying story.

My first diary, which I no longer have, was the size of a paperback book with a bright pink plastic cover and came with a key to lock it. I was probably 11 or 12 when I started writing in this and know that my entries began, “Dear Diary.”

Recently I re-discovered a journal I began when I was seventeen and midway through my senior year in high school. I vowed in it to try and write every day. Early entries record my responses to teachers and classes as well as petty annoyances with friends. I am transcribing this journal as a Word document with the thought that perhaps someday my granddaughters might be interested in reading it. This is in keeping with a larger project of transcribing other journals.   I’ve completed our first European trip in 1971 and another one from 1990 when the Chief Penguin was appointed dean of engineering.

DIARIES IN FICTION

The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner  

Meissner presents Mercy Hayworth, a teenager in Salem, Massachusetts, who is a victim of the witch trials, to her readers solely through her diary. In the present day, college student Lauren Durough is hired by octogenarian Abigail Boyles to transcribe Mercy’s handwritten diary. Abigail is distantly related to Mercy, hence her interest in having it transcribed. Lauren, from a rich family, is sorting out her own life and worrying over how she judges or, more often, misjudges others’ actions and intentions.

I am not sure why I liked this novel as much as I did. In some ways, the premise that Abigail and Lauren would develop a closeness is an unlikely one and, one might also question why Mercy’s diary has such a dramatic impact on Lauren. The diary itself is well conceived and convincing, however, and I kept on reading to the end. (~JW Farrington)

The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson  

This is a beautiful novel that deserves to be savored like an extended afternoon tea.  It unfolds slowly focusing on the diary kept by Zinaida Lintvaryova during the several years Anton Chekhov and his family spent summers in the Ukrainian countryside.  Zinaida was a real person, the eldest daughter in her family, and a doctor. She developed a brain illness and began suffering headaches and gradually lost her sight. The Chekhov family did summer in Sumy in the late 1880’s, but the diary is this author’s creation.

In it, Chekhov talks candidly with the now blind Zinaida about the novel he’s working on. Linking the diary to the present are two other women: Katya Kendall, a publisher in London, who sends the Russian manuscript of the diary to an established translator, Ana Harding, based in Switzerland.  Katya is desperate to save her business and hopes the diary will do that.  Ana, who spent time in the Ukraine in younger days, becomes caught up in Zinaida’s diminished life, her friendship with Anton, and their far ranging conversations about life, literature, and philosophy.  For each of these women, Zinaida, Katya, and Ana, the diary prompts a reckoning with her own life—its disappointments and joys, its sorrows and shortcomings.

I was curious about Alison Anderson and aspects of her life show up in Ana.  Like Ana, she lives in a Swiss village and is a translator as well as a novelist.  Obviously, her work as a translator informs the depiction of what getting works to translate involves.  And, since this is yet another historical novel that features a famous author, I found this article in LitHub theorizing why there are so many of these novels of particular interest.  It’s by Helen Mcalpin.  As you might guess by now, I loved this novel! (~JW Farrington)

STRONG CINEMA & GOLDEN GLOBE WINNER

Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri

This is one of the most intense films I’ve seen recently. When Mildred Hayes, angry and grief-stricken that the police have not made any progress on solving the rape and murder of her teenage daughter, rents space on three billboards to publicly question the chief of police, she sets off a powder keg of hate and violence. Fights, fires, and general unpleasantness color everyday interactions.

Frances McDormand is magnificent as the mother. You want to sympathize with her pain and yet can’t condone all of her actions. You feel for her son and her estranged husband and also for Willoughby, the “good old boy” police chief, and eventually even for immature, misguided officer Dickson who exhibits racist tendencies.  Definitely worth seeing!

Note:  Header photo from www.brandsgifts.ae; other photos by this author.

Of Manatees and Movies

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It was a week for birds, manatees, and several very good films.

WILDLIFE

My sister Ann is more of a nature person than I am. She and Paul visited us this past week and they both enjoyed seeing the shore birds from our lanai.  Lots of great white egrets, white and a few brown pelicans, gulls, a few herons, and even a flyby of three roseate spoonbills.  Of course, after they left, I got to watch three spoonbills up close, foraging for fish in the low tidal mud!

My sister also wished to see a manatee or two, so we drove up to Apollo Beach and the Manatee Viewing Center, near Tampa and adjacent to the Big Bend power station.  Manatees, also called sea cows, are large marine mammals related to elephants.  In the winter, manatees seek out warmer waters and the water around this power plant attracts them in droves!  We probably saw at least a hundred lolling in the water and surfacing every few minutes for air.  They looked brown, some with algae on their backs, and are somewhat bullet shaped, rounded and with very small heads and prominent nostrils.  They are quite an impressive sight.  The viewing center includes a boardwalk nature trail through shrubs and grassland and a 50-foot viewing tower.  

Another day we took our guests to the South Florida Museum to check out their manatees. The museum is part of a network of facilities that provide care for injured manatees. Critical care is done in Tampa and three other locations.  This museum provides intermediate care and rehabilitation before the manatees are ready to be released back to the wild.  Manatees are most often injured by boat strikes and there were three on view, one weighing only several hundred pounds.  The goal is to get them to 700 pounds at least before they leave; they are released near where they were rescued so that they can learn which warm waters to return to the following winter.  We heard a presentation while the manatees, here appearing more gray in color, were feeding which was fun to see.  Among them, these three manatees devour 200 pounds of lettuce a day!

MOVIES

Lady Bird.  You might pair this film with Call Me by Your Name as both feature teenagers grappling with questions of identity and seeking love.  Call Me limits itself to focusing on the intense relationship Elio (Timothee Chalamet) has with Oliver, a visiting older student, while Lady Bird tracks Christine’s (aka Lady Bird’s) senior year, her desperate desire to escape from dull Sacramento, her longing to go far away to college, her battles with her strong-willed and occasionally abrasive mother, and her sexual explorations.

It’s a very fine film and Saoirse Ronan gives a marvelous performance at this girl from the wrong side of the tracks who wants more from life.  Chalamet is also here as one of her boyfriends.

Darkest Hour.  This is a totally absorbing film about Churchill’s early days as prime minister and deciding how Britain will deal with Hitler and his expanding empire.  It’s about leadership, party politics, and the events surrounding Dunkirk.  I felt as if I was really there at that time.  Gary Oldman is superb as the stubborn, irascible, inappropriate, but often brilliant (and right) Winston.  Kristin Scott Thomas is his understanding, bemused, and sometimes frustrated wife, Clemmie.  Highly recommended!

All the Money in the World.  I’ve just seen this film and now want to Google the Getty family and find out how much of it was fiction and how much fact.  Teenage Paul Getty was kidnapped in 1973; his divorced mother implores his grandfather, J. Paul Getty, to pay his ransom money.   Although he was the favorite grandson, grandfather Getty is adamant in his refusal to offer the money.  Christopher Plummer, recruited on short notice after Kevin Spacey was booted out of the role, gives a bravura performance while Michelle Williams is young Paul’s self-proclaimed “ordinary” mother.  The film is too long and slow at the beginning, but I’d see it just for Plummer.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

 

 

Holiday Time in New York

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HOLIDAY IN NEW YORK

We’re back in the Big Apple and for us Floridians (guess we’ve become that), it’s cold. But so far no snow predicted, only some warm rain over the next few days. We’re eating at old and new restaurants and while the lure of the West Village is strong, we are working to get to know the Carnegie Hill neighborhood where we’re staying.

We haven’t yet been down to see the Rockefeller Center big tree, but are enjoying the Park Avenue mall of lighted Christmas trees, cold winter-white hanging stars and light-wrapped trees on Madison, and holiday-themed store windows.  It’s a magical time to be in this city—made even more so by the presence of two delightful granddaughters.

SCREEN TIME
While some of these movies are playing at home too, we like seeing films in New York.

Call Me by Your Name. This is a beautiful film and a sensitively drawn portrayal of an intense relationship, sexual, between a 17-year old youth and his father’s visiting scholar. It is summer in Italy and life moves at a lethargic pace with time for reading, reflecting, dining al fresco, and swimming in the river. Elio is lost and overwhelmed by his conflicting sexual desires. Oliver is attracted to Elio and makes a subtle overture, but waits for Elio to reveal himself. The film is leisurely in its pacing, and the relationship slowly unfolds as summer reaches its peak. Timothee Chalamet is superb as the youth and Armie Hammer as Oliver also very good.

DINING
 Many Upper East Side restaurants are traditional Italian or the expected Continental farm to table serving kale salad, organic chicken, avocado toast, and steak frites or braised short ribs. Paola’s on Madison has a buzzy vibe with seating at the bar, near the bar, and along the front windows where it might be a tad quieter. The endive salad with walnuts and Gorgonzola was a tasty rendition of this dish and the agnolotti with veal and spinach in a veal stock reduction with black truffles simply superb. Rigatoni with spicy sausage and porcini mushrooms was equally good. Despite the crowded dining room the night we were there, the service was efficient and done with style.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Screens & Pages

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LIGHT FARE

With hurricane Irma on our minds and the strange anticipation of not knowing what its track will be—will we just get rain or will we be wiped out—it’s time for some diversion.  Here are two recommended films, one fun, the other sobering, and two books, both easy on the brain.

BIG SCREEN

Dunkirk

Watching this film is an emotionally battering experience.  It’s excellent, but challenging.  Told mostly from the perspective of an individual unnamed soldier, it lacks a traditional narrative arc.  Instead, the film focuses on three fields of battle, the beach or mole where 300,000 British troops are hemmed in and trapped, the air following three fighter pilots, and the sea with endless scenes of watery graves, fires, and a desperate struggle to survive.  There is one story line that epitomizes what made Dunkirk especially memorable and that is the father and son, ordinary citizens, who were among the volunteers who took their personal boats and bravely rescued soldiers from the sea.

The Big Sick

The title of this film was almost enough to put me off seeing it, but it got such rave reviews, we did go.  It’s a very good film.  Kumail, an aspiring stand-up comedian, who happens to be Pakistani, meets and falls in love with an American woman.  Meanwhile his mother keeps inviting potential Muslim wife candidates to drop by at family dinners.  When Emily ends up in the hospital, Kumail must interact with her skeptical parents. I don’t care for stand-up comedy and found the first fifteen minutes of the film not to my liking, but then got into it.  It’s funny, believable, and complex all at the same time.

 

ON THE PAGE

The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis

This is a fast-paced coming of age story set in Manhattan at the famed Barbizon Hotel for Women.  Darby arrives there in 1952 from small town Ohio while in 1916 Rose lives there in a refurbished condo with her successful and rich boyfriend.  Darby is a Katie Gibbs “girl”, but through a strange twist of events ends up never marrying and is still living there. A journalist, Rose has had career issues.  When boyfriend Griff decamps back to his ex-wife and kids, she is stuck and becomes obsessed with the mystery surrounding Darby McLaughlin.  The period detail is great, the story fanciful with attributes of a fairy tale, but overall, it’s great escapism! (~JW Farrington)

 Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

Thanks to my friend Bonnie who reads a different Anne Tyler novel every summer, I purchased this new one.  It’s a contemporary re-telling of The Taming of the Shrew and is humorous and fun.  The writing sparkles and you can’t help but be caught up in this eccentric family and its detailed rules for living.  Scientist father Louis Battista routinely forgets his lunch and expects it to be delivered to his lab, younger sister Bunny is light on brains, but attracted to Edward, her supposed Spanish tutor, while prickly, blunt-spoken Kate makes a week’s supply of meat mash for their nightly dinners.  When her father cooks up the idea that Kate should marry his foreign lab colleague, Pyotr, so he can stay in the U.S., their joint campaign tests her mettle.   This book is one in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of his plays retold by noted novelists of today.  (~JW Farrington)

Cover photo:  Sunrise over the bay ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).