Category: TV

Reading & Viewing: Marriage, Race, & Religion

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MOMENTOUS WEEK

Sunday, November 8, 2020

The 2020 presidential election is one for the history books. For many women, it was an especially momentous one. After the long wait all week, the afternoon was suddenly brighter. Watching Kamala Harris deliver her first speech as Vice President-elect last evening was simply marvelous. Then, after President-elect Joe Biden’s stirring call for unity, the sky was lit with their names midst a smashing array of red, white and blue fireworks. With all of that, putting Harris’ image at the top of this post seemed just right.

RECENT NOVELS—MARRIAGE & RACE

Monogamy by Sue Miller
(lithub.com)

In this novel, bookseller Graham co-owns a store in Cambridge, Mass.  He’s a big man with big appetites.  Appetites for reading and meeting literati, for food, and for women.  He’s a gregarious guy, enveloping and dominating those around him.   This is his second marriage as well as Annie’s.  Annie, a professional photographer and his wife of thirty-odd years, is more reserved and inward looking than he.  Between them, there are two adult children: Lucas, son of his first wife Frieda, and Sarah, his and Annie’s daughter.  Comparing herself to Graham, Annie laments her own lack of feeling, sensing a sort of coldness at her core.  

When Graham dies unexpectedly, Annie is initially devastated.  She and the children separately struggle to fill the gaping hole he has left.  Strangely, Annie and first wife Frieda have been friends for years. They attempt to console each other.  When Annie learns more about Graham’s relationships with other women, her grief at first morphs into anger.  Marriages in this novel are not all monogamous.

I loved this novel and read it slowly to savor the richness of Miller’s prose and her profound grasp of human emotions. Here’s a passage I particularly liked.  Annie has been reflecting on her childhood friendship with Sofie and how they had drifted apart in high school and college.

     But the residue of that friendship lingered for Annie, lingered especially in the newly sharp eye with which she regarded her own family—that gift that often comes in adolescence, when you’re suddenly old enough to be conscious of how another family works, of the possibility of other rules, other ways of living, from those you grew up with.  That gift can open a window, a door, into the world.  Let air in.

    Let you out.

   As this gift was at work in Annie, she slowly came to understand that what she had been feeling in her family for a long time was I don’t belong here.  That had helped to free her, to end her puzzlement about her family and her place in it.  It had opened up her life, though she hadn’t known for years what that would mean for her.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Author Brit Bennett (the guardian.com)

A highly praised new novel, The Vanishing Half is about identity and race and takes place over several decades.  Identical twins, Desiree and Stella, grow up in a small Southern town.  In their late teens, Desiree convinces her sister to leave home with her. They run away to New Orleans.  For a few years, they both work in a laundry, but Stella bolts and Desiree loses contact with her.  Later, Desiree flees an abusive spouse with her little girl and retreats back to Mallard.  The twins are light-skinned, and the reader sees that Stella has chosen to re-make her life as a white woman.  

The book raises questions about how one identifies oneself, and about what is required to present one face to the world while inside living another.  Not only does the book concern itself with racial identity, but for several characters the gender assigned at birth is not the one they feel most at home in—or they relish the fluidity of moving back and forth between genders. 

 I found the first section, set in 1968, a bit slow and it didn’t flow.  Subsequent sections, which I’m now reading, are more engaging.  A thoughtful novel and one relevant for these times. (~JWFarrington)

VIEWING—TENSIONS IN THE MINISTRY

Greenleaf (Netflix)
Grace backed by father, mother, brother and aunt (tvovermind.com)

We happened upon Greenleaf when browsing streaming options and have now watched eight episodes of Season 1.  It’s about a Black mega church in Memphis and the Greenleaf family that runs it.  Bishop James Greenleaf is exuberant, manipulative, and rich.  His wife, son, brother-in-law, and other family members work for the church too. And the entire family lives together in a sumptuous mansion.  

When daughter Grace, also a pastor, and her teenage daughter return, family tensions escalate.  Grace has been gone for years, and her mother is not happy having her back.  Mae sees Grace as a threat and supplanting favored son Jacob.  Grace also puts some credence in the rumors of irregularities in Uncle Mac’s private life.  

Add in adultery, lies, and questions about church finances, and you have the makings of a complex drama with many threads.  Overall, the series is about religion and relationships peppered with lots of Bible-quoting.  At times, I find it uncomfortable to watch, but I am intrigued by Grace’s character. She stands apart from the family as both observer and somewhat reluctant participant.  

Greenleaf is an Oprah Winfrey production and Oprah plays Mavis McCready, Grace’s compassionate, non-judgmental aunt.  In all, there are five seasons.

Note: Header photo of Kamala Harris courtesy of APnews.com

Monotones II, Sarasota Ballet

Culture: High, Low & In-between

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We are mostly at home these days with just the regular outings to the supermarket, cheese shop, and this week Costco.  After many months of this, plus lots of reading and TV viewing, we are now beginning to sign up for and watch cultural offerings online.  A few weeks ago, it was two interviews in The New Yorker Festival. This week, the ballet.

ONLINE CULTURE

Sarasota Ballet:  Digital Program 1

Rather than in-person performances, the Sarasota Ballet is recording and offering short programs for online streaming.  These feature only a few dancers at a time and were made with all of the CDC guidelines in place.  The “ticket,” i.e. online link, for this show was $35 and arrived via e-mail.  My technologically adept Chief Penguin was able to hook up my iPad to throw the image up on our large TV screen.  

This year the ballet is celebrating its 30th anniversary.  They are known for presenting the works of noted British choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, and have performed at the Kennedy Center in D.C, and the Joyce Theater in New York.  Just an hour long, this program concentrates on Ashton’s wide variety of styles.  There were seven short pieces ranging from an ethereal threesome, all in white, in Erik Satie’s Monotones II, to scenes from Meditation from Thais (music by Offenbach),  The Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky), and the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet.  It ended with a lively series of ballroom dances in Façade (composer William Walton).  

We had 5 days in which to view the program and ended up enjoying it with our pre-dinner wine and munchies.  The video quality was excellent and overall it was an enjoyable experience, one I’m sure we’ll repeat!

DRAMA ON THE SCREEN

VILLAGE GOSSIP
The Trouble with Maggie Cole (PBS)
Jill, Maggie, Peter (radiotimes.com)

Set in the fictional village of Thurlbury and filmed in Devon and Cornwall, Thurlbury looks picturesque and idyllic.  But, when Maggie gives a radio interview and unloads all she knows about the trials and tribulations of her neighbors, it goes viral.  And suddenly, she’s persona non grata.  

Self-important and nosy, Maggie runs the small gift shop at the historic keep and dubs herself a local historian.  Her long-suffering and ever supportive husband Peter is the headmaster at the local school.  Her son Jamie is in real estate and his wife Becka is forthright and, in the most amusing way, takes no guff from her mother-in-law.  Maggie’s best friend Jill invites a noted mystery author to her class at school.

When the townspeople’s secrets end up in the local paper, Maggie sets out on a mission to apologize to everyone she has offended.  The Trouble with Maggie Cole is a 6-part series that is alternately funny, wacky, and serious.  It is a British series, and something about it seemed to me so very British in its approach.  You might not love Maggie, but it is intriguing to watch how secrets revealed lead to both positive and negative outcomes.  

FORBIDDEN LOVE 

Secreto Bien Guardado (Netflix)

One viewer called this a fairy tale; I might say it’s a bonbon.  The times are serious, but the story is romantic.  Seventeen-year-old Amalia, vacationing with her parents and sisters in Argentina in 1940, meets Martin, a young German lawyer.  Both are immediately attracted to each other.  She is Jewish and he’s a Nazi and complications follow.  Over eight episodes (all less than 30 minutes) and several years, we follow the obstacles they face and their respective fates.  I found this an absorbing diversion for my treadmill watching.

CRIMES ON THE WATER 

High Seas (Alta Mar) (Netflix)
Carolina, Eva, Nicholas, captain (silverpetticoatreview.com)

There’s a profusion of Spanish series now on Netflix, some of them Netflix originals.  High Seas is a stylish production set on a cruise ship headed from Spain to Brazil in the late 1940’s.  Fernando, part owner of the ship and his fiancée, Carolina, and her sister Eva, a budding author, are all sailing.  Carolina’s wedding is to take place during the voyage. She is focused on that, but Eva is more interested in solving the mysteries.  

Also on board are their Uncle Petra; Luisa, a stowaway; Fernando’s sister Natalia and her husband; and Clara, a beautiful lounge singer.  Captain Aguirre is on his last voyage and deeply mourning the death of his wife. First Officer Nicholas is handsome and more like a son than staff to the captain.  The ship is luxurious, but there are troubled waters ahead with murders, disappearances, and storms to be navigated.  

Like a soap opera at times, but with plenty of puzzles, it is never dull!  There are three seasons and I have just completed Season 1.

Note: Header image is of Sarasota Ballet dancers in Monotones II from ft.com

View toward bridge to Lido Key

Potpourri: Viewing & Reading

JWF 1 Comment

VIEWING OPTIONS

From New Zealand to Australia to Spain, I’ve been traveling the world in my recent TV viewing.  It’s marvelous to have so many new series from which to choose.

The Sounds (Acorn)

The Sounds is an adventure tale. It’s set in the fiords off New Zealand’s South Island.  Doubtful Sound or the better-known Milford Sound are favorite tourist destinations.  On a day-long or overnight cruise, one can go deep into a fiord and experience the eeriness of almost complete silence. 

If you read the comments on Facebook when considering this 8-part series, you might not watch it.  Is it plausible? Is Maggie a convincing character?  Nonetheless, the Chief Penguin and I watched it separately and found it consuming enough to keep us on the treadmill.

The Cabbotts (deadline.com)

Tom and Maggie Cabbott are escaping life in Canada and starting a sustainable fishery in the small town of Pelorus.  Tom is the black sheep in a wealthy family and goes ahead to set things up.  When Maggie arrives, there is immediate disgruntlement from a native woman, and it seems Tom has not filled in all the requisite boxes.  The next day he disappears in his kayak and a massive search effort begins.  

What are Tom and Maggie really planning?  What are police chief Jack’s festering secrets?  What is Zoe, Jack’s daughter, up to, and why is Pania so riled up?  Past crimes, suspicion, and big money are all intermixed in this complex stew of relationships. I recommend giving The Sounds a try.

Flesh and Blood (PBS Masterpiece)
Mary, Mark, Vivien and her children (radiotimes.com)

Flesh and Blood is full of tangled emotions, secrets, and surprises.  When their widowed mother, Vivien, begins seeing Mark, a retired doctor, her three adult children are concerned, puzzled, and then upset.  They think the relationship is moving too quickly, and they have questions about Mark’s past.  But Vivien’s offspring have relationship issues of their own from infidelity to lack of trust to secret affairs.  Add in nosy, but from her view, well-intentioned neighbor Mary, and it gets messy and threatens to explode.  Gripping with an unexpected ending!  Is it really the end or will there be a season 2?

Mystery Road (Amazon Prime)

This Mystery Road is a spin off from a movie of the same name, both starring Aaron Pederson.  Set in the Australian outback, the scenery is stunningly beautiful, a plus for a story that moves slowly.  Detective Jay Swan is dispatched to a small town to assist in the search for two missing young men.  Marley is an indigenous kid and rising football star while Reese is white and came from elsewhere to work on the cattle station.  Heading up the local police team is Emma James (played by Judy Davis), who co-owns the cattle station with her brother Tom.  As a Black cop, Jay is considered suspect by both the white and Black communities.  A man of extreme reserve, he and Emma work together to some extent, while he sometimes goes off pursuing leads on his own.  

(nytimes.com)

This first season is 8 episodes. In the beginning, it was so slow, I debated leaving it.  I persisted and then got caught up in the relationships between the various factions in the community. These are at least as important as the crime to be solved.  The concluding episodes are tense and exciting and worth the wait.   There is a season 2 which I have not watched.  Some reviewers bemoan the fact that Judy Davis is no longer in it.  (~JWFarrington)

SIBLINGS IN LITERATURE AND LIFE 

Book Club Notes—The Dutch House

My local book club had a lively discussion about The Dutch House, Ann Patchett’s latest novel.  I had read it back in February and then skimmed it for this meeting.  I enjoyed and appreciated it even more on the second round.  

The characters are richly developed and the sibling relationship between Danny and his older sister Maeve, the strongest and most critical one for both of them.  Maeve is the light around which this story, called a fairy tale by several reviewers, revolves.  She is sister, mother, guide and even goad (think medical school) to Danny.  They survive and thrive under the attention and care of the two women who ran their father’s household.  He was often absent, their mother abandoned them, and their stepmother threw them out.  It’s a carefully crafted novel with straightforward prose.  Still highly recommended!

The Wright Siblings—Maiden Flight

Recently, I commented here on the new novel about Katharine Wright, younger sister of Wilbur and Orville, entitled The Wright Sister.  Reading that work prompted me to read the earlier novel, Maiden Flight, by Harry Haskell.  It’s about Katharine’s late life love affair and marriage to Henry Haskell.  Author Haskell is the grandson of Henry Haskell and had access to letters and documents housed in several library collections. 

His approach is to alternate the relation of events in the voices of Katharine, Orville, and Henry, with the occasional interlude by another friend.  The voices are distinct and capture their personalities.  And his telling bears out Orville’s estrangement from the sister who was often viewed as a spouse in her care and attention to him.  Haskell also reinforces the complex triangle that was Katharine, Orville and Henry, and the delicacy with which Katharine approached each man.  This makes the novel worth reading, but it suffers from an excess of detail on some matters. An example is the long drawn out struggle to have the Wright brothers’ plane displayed at the Smithsonian.  Perhaps Mr. Haskell felt he had to include every bit of information in his source material.  

Like Danny and Maeve in The Dutch House, Orville’s most important relationship was with his sister (and for many years, hers with him). When Katharine married, Orville couldn’t forgive her and never saw her again until her death.

Note: Header photo is Sarasota Bay looking toward the bridge to Lido Key by JWFarrington.

Colorful red & green coleus

Tidy Tidbits: Immersion, Film & Books

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VIEWING

UPLIFTING FILM

On the Basis of Sex (Amazon Prime)

Somehow, I missed seeing this film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early career when it was first released.  This week seemed the right time.  Based on RBG’s life, it isn’t a documentary, but a wonderfully satisfying success story.  First in her law school class at Harvard and first in her class at Columbia Law, Ruth was nonetheless turned down by law firm after law firm (after all, she was a woman, a Jew, and the wives of the lawyers in the firm would be jealous).  

She became a professor at Rutgers and, from that position, worked with her husband, Marty, and the ACLU to take on a case of discrimination against a man.  She won that case and others that followed gaining more rights for women.  She and Marty were a great team.  Not only did she enable him to complete law school, but he was wholly supportive of her career and her rise to Supreme Court Justice.  Highly recommended!

A side note.  I am of an age that I recall being asked at my first job interview after graduate school if I planned to have children.  The questioner was a man and I was married.  It was a personal and inappropriate question, but not illegal.  I made some sort of oblique answer and was offered the job.  I also clearly remember celebrating when, several years later, I could apply for a credit card in my name only, based on my credit history alone.  I was married and working fulltime and, I didn’t really need that department store card.   I got it more on principle than need!

CRIME SCENE

Van der Valk  (PBS Masterpiece)

(variety.com)

Since most of us aren’t traveling these days, and certainly not abroad, it’s refreshing to see a television series set in a city that is familiar from past visits or future forays.  Yorkshire for DCI Banks, Dublin for Acceptable Risk, and now Amsterdam for chief detective Piet Van der Valk and his somewhat scruffy team of colleagues.  The canals and the streets of Amsterdam, jammed with bicycles, bring back fond memories of a week we spent there five years ago.  

This three-part series is the latest remake based on mysteries by Nicholas Freeling.  The suspicious deaths are complex cases, often political, with a tangled web of connections between family members and suspects.  Unlike some of the other series I’ve watched, the Dutch seem to resort to guns more frequently.  

Commissaris Piet is a striking man with steely blue eyes, a blond thatch, and a very prominent jawline.  Usually serious, with seldom a smile, his eyes look haunted by past tragedy.  Living alone on a houseboat, he has a close relationship with Lucienne, his right-hand person, and while fair-minded, brooks no sloughing off by his colleagues.

READING

TIMELY MEMOIR

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

(vanityfair.com)

Losing a parent to an early death is an event that stays with one ever after; losing a parent to violence is another level of remembrance and anguish entirely.  A former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, Natasha Trethewey has written a poignant memoir about her mother’s death more than 30 years ago. Trethewey was just 19.  Her mother didn’t just die; she was murdered by her second husband.   For years, Trethewey carried around a load of guilt.  

In this work, she details her childhood as the offspring of a white father and a black mother and how the experience of walking around with just one of them differed greatly in other people’s responses.  The racism and mistreatment that were rampant during her mother’s childhood and the vestiges that persisted in Trethewey’s own life form the backdrop for this tragic story.  It echoes many of the cases portrayed in No Visible Bruises, an award-winning book by Rachel Louise Snyder.  (~JWFarrington)

CRIME IN YORKSHIRE

Careless Love by Peter Robinson

This is a recent crime novel featuring DCI Alan Banks.  I’d read a bunch of them some years back, but after watching the DCI Banks TV series, decided to re-visit Robinson’s work on the page.  This one starts out a bit too slowly for my taste, but then picks up.  A young woman and an older man are each found dead and abandoned in suspicious circumstances.   Both are dressed up and there appears to be no link between them.  When a neighboring crime team presents the suspicious death of another young woman, the circle widens and the hunt for clues is on.  Both DS Winsome Jackson and DI Annie Cabbot feature in the investigation along with Zelda, Annie’s father’s companion who closely guards her tragic past.  Enjoyable, but I liked some of Robinson’s earlier books more.

Note: Header photo is Florida fall foliage: colorful coleus.