2025年1月11日 星期六

"The Hundred Years' War on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi (2020)


"In the third paragraph of the Mandate's preamble, the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people, are described as having a historic connection to Palestine.  In the eyes of the drafters, the entire two-thousand-year old built environment of the country with its villages, shrines, castles, mosques, churches and monuments dating to the Ottoman, Mameluke, Ayyubid, Crusader, Abbasid, Umayyad, Byzantine, and earlier periods belonged to no people at all, or only to amorphous religious groups."

Rashid Khalidi is the Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University.  His family is from Palestine and he has written many books on the subject of Arab-Israeli relations.

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine covers some very thorny issues, so I'm a bit unsure of how to synopsize it properly.  I'm also not that well-versed in the present and historical contexts involved, and I have to say that I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to modern Arab history.  I'm fairly solid up to the establishment of the first Caliphate, but after that my knowledge of the time periods discussed veers away from the Middle East.  I've read the Quran in English translation, and like anybody else I've watched the news, but I had to take many of the finer points discussed in this book on faith.

To make a decades-long story short, around the end of World War 1 Britain collaborated with members of the Jewish diaspora to create what would eventually become the state of Israel.  This new state was at the outset a colonial venture, in that most of the Jews settling in the new state had only a tenuous, religious and/or historical connection to the land to which they were relocating, and their settlement in what was then Palestine took place with little consideration for the Arab population that was already living there.

As years passed attitudes hardened.  The new Israeli government took an increasingly hard line with their Palestinian neighbors, and an ever larger number of these Palestinians were displaced to settlement camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, and elsewhere.  The Israelis, possessing one of the the world's largest military forces, pursued military methods in their treatment of the Palestinians, with the result that uprisings and acts of terrorism became the Palestinian's only recourse with regard to voicing grievances against the expansive, ethnic nationalist policy put into action on the Israeli side.

Fast forward to 2025, and now Israel is contending with Hamas, a spinoff of the Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt.  Radicalized Palestinians, stripped of their land through a multitude of illegal maneuvers, have less and less to lose as the nation of Israel attempts to grind them into nonexistence, and the Israelis, for their part, have less and less reason to engage in negotiations with a hostile group on the other side of their borders.

Both sides, in other words, have backed or been backed into corners, and opening dialogues between them has been a problem for Israel, Palestine and the rest of the world for as long as most living can remember.

All of the above, I should state, accords with the author's point of view.  There may well be an Israeli side to this argument, but I haven't read it yet.  I will say that Rashid Khalidi's account is extremely well-researched and extremely well-informed, and I could find no fault with it in terms of my own understanding of the region.  It was a little too anecdotal for my taste, but I can't fault the author's scholarship and his grasp of large, complicated issues.

I suppose I have some further reading to do.  Perhaps I can grab a book on this topic from an Israeli source next time.

I'll tell you one thing though, the photographs in this book will make you grateful for whatever you have and however long you've had it.  Gazing at pictures of what the Israeli army has done to the West Bank will really put things in perspective.  Got a flat tire today?  Spilled some coffee on your new pants?  Don't worry about it -- at least you didn't have to climb over rubble to get to work this morning.

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2025年1月2日 星期四

"The Grace of Kings" by Ken Liu (2015)


"Queen Gin has always argued that if one goes to war, one should do all one can to win.  A knife is not malicious merely because it is sharp, and a plot is not evil merely because it is effective.  All depends on the wielder.  The grace of kings is not the same as the morals governing individuals."

Ken Liu's short story collection was reviewed here some time ago.  He's best known as the translator of Cixin Liu's (no relation) novels and short stories.  The Grace of Kings is the first book in his Dandelion Dynasty series, of which four books have been published so far.  He was born in China but grew up in Connecticut.

The Grace of Kings follows the exploits of Kuni Garu, a clever man who rises to a career in politics after the empire of Xana disintegrates.  As Kuni's legend grows, he is opposed by Mata Zyndu, an imposing figure bent on conquest.  Mata and Kuni's disagreements over the nature of honor and the value of tradition frame this saga of empires, with both men slowly coming to new understandings of how their collective history shapes their present day.

While reading this book three other works of fantasy came to mind, these being The Lord of the Rings, George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones and the type of Chinese wuxia novel Ken Liu was channeling when he wrote The Grace of Kings.

Tolkien's books are, like Game of Thrones, one of the pillars of the fantasy genre.  They are books heavily reliant on the Icelandic sagas which Tolkien studied before writing his famous trilogy, and more than anything they are products of language, of the fusion of modern English, Middle English, German and the shared pre-Christian history of northern Europe.  Tolkien wasn't just fascinated with these subjects, he was steeped in them, and these interests produced the lyrical, highly poetic work that has proved an inexhaustible source of inspiration to so many who followed in his wake.

The Grace of Kings, as you might imagine, dabbles in the same kind of linguistic myth-making, but to a far less satisfying degree.  I wouldn't, however, blame the author too much for this.  At this point in time it's just part of the genre.  His digressions into "classical Ano" fall short of the mark, but they can be ignored at the reader's discretion.

George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, to the delight of readers and viewers alike, offered a morally ambiguous take on fantasy tropes.  In this respect Martin was imparting more Medieval history and less Medieval literature into his novels, and the results, dragons and zombies aside, feel a lot more immediate than what Tolkien was doing.  It's to some extent easier to see ourselves in Martin's novels, even if we're not always comfortable with what we're seeing.

The Grace of Kings embraces this same kind of moral ambiguity, but here the weakness of its attempts at characterization impair the reader's enjoyment of the moral dilemmas present in the story.  For all of the ambiguous moments to matter we have to care about the people experiencing them, and The Grace of Kings never really makes us do so.  Ken Liu does a decent job with the two "heroes" of his story, but despite the size and scope of his tale he never manages to give us a feeling of who the other people in this story are, and why they're doing what they're doing.

Which leads me to what is, I think, one of the more unfortunate choices in this book.  About halfway through two of the characters decide, almost completely out of the blue, to give polyamory a try, and this "modern," "enlightened" decision seems so out of step with the times in which they live that it takes you almost completely out of the book.  Likewise a woman sacrificing herself and her reputation for the sake of her people falls just as flat.  The sentiment she expresses in that moment, valid as it might be, seems out of step with both the times in which she lives and the person she's supposed to be, and claiming that a deity informed her choice only makes this choice less compelling.

Lastly, there is the Chinese wuxia genre to consider.  I haven't read much of this genre, but I am well enough acquainted with it to say that yes, wuxia is this book's direct ancestor.  The emphasis on naming weapons, feats of strength and military maneuvers are all there, right down to "Marshal Gin" learning strategy through a game that sounds a lot like Go.  Unfortunately The Grace of Kings shares another thing with wuxia novels, and that thing is its paper-thin characterization.  Western readers are probably going to find this aspect of Ken Liu's novel particularly hard to relate to, given the more personal, less objective type of fantasy many of us are used to.

Is The Grace of Kings bad?  I wouldn't say so.  It is in fact the most thoroughly OK fantasy novel I've ever read.  This said, it's also extremely forgettable, and aside from a well-paced scene near the end involving Mata Zyndu there's just not much in The Grace of Kings for those who enjoyed Tolkien's or Martin's more famous works.

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Still More 80s Movies 3

I'll be adding to this as I go along.


1. Christmas Evil (a.k.a. "You Better Watch Out" and "Terror in Toyland") (1980)

The Premise: Slasher Claus is coming to town.

Overall: It's not a bad movie, but it could have been a lot better.  That scene in the beginning, the killer's relationship with his brother, his fixation on Santa Claus, the ending -- all of these things could have had a lot more impact.  It's hard to tell whether this one was hacked to death in the editing room, if the budget wasn't up to the task, or if those financing the film lacked faith in the film or its audience.  Whatever the case, a reboot of this film could do really well.

Fun Fact: Brandon Maggart, the star of this movie, was also a big star on Broadway.  He's been nominated for many, many awards, and he also happens to be Fiona Apple's father.



The Premise: Four small town vigilantes attempt to avoid their just desserts in the guise of a scarecrow.

Overall: An excellent movie.  There are a lot of great character actors in this one, and their performances bring a concisely written script into focus.

Fun Fact: The director of this made-for-TV film, Frank De Felitta, also wrote the novel upon which 1978's The Entity was based.


3. Secret Admirer (1985)

Back in 85 ten year old me would've been all about Lori Laughlin.  In 2025?  I'd pick Kelly Preston's mom.

The Premise: The good 'ol 80s love triangle.  She's into him but he's into her best friend.  The complication here is the lovers' parents, who engage in their own silliness after an anonymous love letter is circulated between them.

Overall: An extremely forgettable film.  I'm guessing it wasn't played on cable much due to a distinct lack of boobies.

Where Are They Now?: C. Thomas Howell currently appears in the Netflix series Obliterated.  Four years after Secret Admirer he married Rae Dawn Chong (daughter of Tommy Chong!), though they were divorced a year later.

Kelly Preston passed away in 2020.  The last of her movies released during her lifetime was 2018's Gotti, in which she appeared alongside her husband John Travolta.

Lori Laughlin went on to TV's Full House.  She was implicated in a college bribery scandal around 2020, and she still appears on TV in minor roles.


4. Heaven Help Us (1985)

The Premise: Coming of age story set in a Catholic school for boys.

Overall: An engaging movie.  There's a lot of "Where Are They Now?"-type people in this one, so I'll just skip ahead to that part.

Where Are They Now?: Donald Sutherland famously passed away last year.  His last (live action) role was 2023's Miranda's Victim.

John Heard (a.k.a. "Kevin's dad" in Home Alone), that "voice of reason" in so many 80s movies, passed away in 2017.  From the 2000s onward he appeared in a ton of B movies.  His last "big" movie was 2004's White Chicks.

Andrew McCarthy, of Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie's fame, is still doing movies.  Last year he directed the documentary Brats, about the 80s Brat Pack he once belonged to.

Heaven Help Us was Mary Stuart Masterson's second movie.  She still appears in lower budget movies, more recently Five Nights at Freddy's.

Kevin Dillon, brother of Matt, most recently appeared in 2024's Reagan.  Heaven Help Us was his first feature film.

Fans of 80s horror movies might remember Stephen "Evil Ed" Geoffreys, from classics such as Fright Night and 976-Evil.  He still turns up in the occasional scary movie.

Heaven Help Us was also Patrick Dempsey's first feature film.  He has to some extent given up on acting in favor of racing cars.  In 2023 he appeared in Michael Mann's Ferrari.

You might remember Dana Barron from National Lampoon's Vacation and one of its sequels.  In the 90s she transitioned into TV.

Anyone else remember the TV show Herman's Head?  Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, is also in Heaven Help Us.  These days she's doing a podcast.



The Premise: Martin Sheen chases the Son of Sam.

Overall: Bad dialogue is in the forefront here, with characters often explaining way, way too much in the midst of what start out as normal conversations.  Was Martin Sheen's career in a bad place in the mid 80s?  I can't think of any other reason why he'd do this decidedly lukewarm TV movie.


6. Pulse (1988)

The Premise: An electromagnetic entity possesses a suburban home.

Overall: It's a bit hard to empathize with the father character, but other than that Pulse is a well written, well acted and well directed horror movie.  My favorite part was the shower scene.

Fun Fact: Future teen heartthrob Joey Lawrence is in this.  ...and what's he up to these days?  Well, as of 2023 he was trying to get a podcast going.



This movie could have used "Evil Ed."  In the absence of that character Charley Brewster is even less interesting than he was in the first installment.

The Premise: Chris Sarandon's vampire has a sister, and she's back for REVENGE.

Overall: There was a lot of forgettable vampire schlock like this toward the end of the 80s, movies that were a far cry from The Lost Boys, Near Dark and the oft-overlooked Lifeforce.  I wasn't a huge fan of the first Fright Night, and this sequel does absolutely nothing with concepts established in the first movie.

Fun Fact: The director of this movie, Tommy Lee Wallace, was one of John Carpenter's close collaborators.  He was the art director on Dark Star and Assault of Precinct 13, co-editor on both Halloween and The Fog, and 2nd unit director on Big Trouble in Little China.

Where Are They Now?: Another Herman's Head connection!  William Ragsdale, who plays Charley Brewster in this movie, would go on to play "Herman" in Herman's Head.  He's still doing movies and TV.


8. One Dark Night (a.k.a. "Entity Force") (1983)

This movie must have freaked out a lot of kids in the early 80s.  It's somewhat tame now, but the corpses piling on, the dead psychic with the lightning eyes -- freaky stuff.

The Premise: A sorority pledge spends a night in a mausoleum.

Overall: It gets way better toward the end.  Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but the ending is memorable.

Where Are They Now?: Meg Tilly, sister of Jennifer, still appears in movies and TV, but she's better known as an author.

Adam West, a.k.a. TV's Batman, passed away in 2017.  He was voicing Batman in animated films up to that point.


9. Little Darlings (1980)

The Premise: Two girls attending a summer camp bet on who'll lose their virginity first.  (And no, it's not porn.)

Overall: An excellent movie.  I didn't really "get" Kristy McNichol until seeing this one, but having seen it, yeah, she was a great actress.  Tatum O'Neal, Ryan O'Neal's daughter, is also good as her sometime friend, sometime adversary.

Where Are They Now?: Tatum O'Neal is still appearing in movies.

Kristy McNichol retired from acting in 2001.  Up to that time she was doing a lot of voice work.

Armand Assante is still around, though his last "big" movie was 2007's American Gangster.

Matt Dillon, brother of Kevin Dillon (above), most recently played Marlon Brando in 2024's Being Maria.


10. The Pit (1981)

The Premise: A weird little kid pushes people into a pit where they're devoured by subterranean humanoids.

Overall: One of the weirder movies I've seen lately.  Don't expect any kind of resolution to anything, but if you're looking for something decidedly odd you might enjoy The Pit.

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2024年12月16日 星期一

"The Memory Police" by Yoko Ogawa (1994)


"But even if paper itself disappears, words will remain.  It will be alright, you'll see.  We haven't lost the stories."

Yoko Ogawa is a Japanese writer.  She's won several awards for her work and several of her novels are available in English translation.  She cites American author Paul Auster and The Diary of Anne Frank as major influences.

In The Memory Police an island of people, seemingly cut off from the rest of the world by more than geography, slowly forget the facts of their existence.  One day everyone forgets what teapots are, and then, discovering these now mysterious objects in their midst, they set about destroying all of them, effectively erasing these objects from their daily lives.  On another day everyone forgets that they have left ears, and even though they're unwilling to physically part with these ears, their minds close to the very idea of left ears, leaving everyone unaware that they possess such things as left ears or even what left ears might be used for.

All of this "partially involuntary forgetfulness" occurs around a local author engaged in the writing of a novel, and as both her novel and the larger story progress we see the toll these "disappearances" take on the people of the island.  These people are all, without exception, a rather meek population of unaspiring people who hope, however unrealistically, that their collective amnesia and the Memory Police who enforce it will somehow fade from the scene.

With regard to style and tone there are two easy comparisons to make here: one being George Orwell's 1984 and the other being the works of Franz Kafka.  But unlike 1984 The Memory Police is an apolitical novel, and although it shares the same surrealism with Kafka's stories The Memory Police is a distinctly Japanese creation, suffused with a sort of quiet fortitude that Kafka's stories lack.

While reading The Memory Police I was often also reminded of Junji Ito's manga Uzumaki, another story which engages in generous amounts of dream logic.  Both The Memory Police and Uzumaki are works that you feel your way through, and applying too much logic to what their respective characters say and do would be a frustrating experience for the reader.

On the whole I enjoyed The Memory Police and I never found it dull.  At the same time I have to say that it's not an especially deep novel, its intimations of Stockholm Syndrome and collective paranoia aside.

A film adaption is on the way, with Lily Gladstone in the lead role.  Charlie Kaufman is writing the script, so expect something weird.

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2024年11月24日 星期日

Still More 70s Movies 3

A lot of exploitation/grindhouse in this one.  I was in that kind of mood.



Ah, Roman Polanski, the director guaranteed to trigger people on the internet.  I make no assumptions about your moral leanings, but you might find it gratifying to know that he only wrote this one.  Another guy directed it.

The Premise: An failed poet with a serious drinking problem takes his niece (?) out for a day at the beach.

Overall: A pitch perfect movie in every respect.  From the opening credits our failed poet is a thoroughly unlikeable, thoroughly untrustworthy man.  The film never wavers from this aspect of his character and that's its greatest strength.


2. The Demon (1979)

The Premise: South African slasher movie featuring a killer whose preferred method of execution is a plastic bag placed over his victim's head.

Overall: We sat through a lot of movies like this in the 80s, VHS-friendly remnants of a time when everyone was trying to cash in on the surprise success of John Carpenter's Halloween.

It won't blow your mind or anything, but if you're in that kind of mood it fits the bill well enough.  Just don't expect a coherent plot.  It's extremely disjointed, very dark (bad lighting) in parts, and generally difficult to follow.



The Premise: A monster stalks the canals of Venice, CA, and an amateur investigative reporter is all that stands between this monster and its next victim.

Overall: Generic monster movie with a splash -- if you'll excuse the pun -- of Jaws.


4. Medusa (1973)

The Premise: George Hamilton produced and starred in this half baked crime picture.

Overall: The island of Rhodes is a novel setting, but this movie has little else to recommend it.

Fun Fact: Hamilton's costar Luciana Paluzzi appeared as a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. assassin in 1965's Thunderball.



Man, there must be dozens (hundreds?) of Italian movies just like this one.  Low budget crime/suspense knockoffs of much better films.

The Premise: A very Italian-looking narcotics officer journeys from London to Lisbon to bust up a drug ring.

Overall: Very boring, but somehow more entertaining than Medusa above.  More nudity and more violence would have made it better, but they probably didn't have the budget for that.  Wikipedia lists this one in their Giallo entry, but I would argue the point.


6. Blood Thirst (1971)

Black and white?  In 1971?  Blood Thirst was filmed way back in 1965, but wasn't released theatrically until 1971.

The Premise: A New York detective visits the Philippines to investigate a series of sex crimes.  And yes, this movie was actually filmed in the Philippines.

Overall: Not a bad movie.  I'm sure that in 1971 it already seemed dated, but it has a nice film noir vibe that occasionally veers into genuine creepiness.



The Premise: a group of people contend with a haunted house in the French countryside.

Overall: It's not eventful like that other, much more widely known movie, but Expulsion of the Devil will likely remind you of 1982's Poltergeist.  This said, where Poltergeist is more blatantly supernatural, this film ties the "haunting" to a theme of female adolescence.

Fun Fact: Gerard Depardieu has a minor role in this movie.


8. Murder Mansion (1972)

The Premise: Another spooky old house, another group of strangers encountering the supernatural.

Overall: Not very good.  The plot doesn't make much sense, and there's not enough gore to satisfy anyone in search of Giallo-style thrills.



The horror of disco meets the horror of horror head-on.  That scene where he goes shopping for his disco outfit is one of those "time capsule moments" for sure.

The Premise: A psychopath who dabbles in schizophrenia creates a fireproof room for the purpose of incinerating his victims.

Overall: Did I watch the censored version?  Feels like it.  That scene of his first victim's demise... seems like some gratuitous nudity was cut out.  Maybe the filmmakers considered such nudity distasteful, you know, considering the nuanced film they were trying to create.

(Yes, that was sarcasm)

Don't Go in the House is strictly B movie material, but I found it entertaining.  The first killing, the disco scenes, the ending are all memorable, even if the movie spends too much time inside the house.  The killer's conversations with his "voices" could have been used to great effect, but the screenplay never fleshes out the relationship between these voices, the killer's mother, and what he does to his unsuspecting victims.

Fun Fact: Dan Grimaldi, the star of this movie, is now a Professor of Mathematics.


10. Ritual of Evil (1970)

The Premise: A psychotherapist crosses paths with SATAN.

Overall: Seldom do so, so many words add up to so little story.  Louis Jourdan walks around, cross-examines people, drives a car, all without managing to be the hero in his own movie.  To top it off the ending is very dumb, so dumb I regretted sitting through the film up to that point.

Yeah, you could say it was a made-for-TV movie, and yeah, there was a lot of occult stuff like this on the air at the time, but it's still not a good film.


11. Orgy of the Living Dead (a.k.a. "The Hanging Woman")(1972)

The Premise: Zombie-tinged murder mystery set in a spooky European castle.

Overall: A decent movie, and good fun if you're looking for something Giallo-adjacent.  Despite the overdubs and bogus end credits this film was a Spanish-Italian effort (like Murder Mansion above), and most of those involved had ties to the Spanish or Italian film industries.



"You've gotta let your mind hang loose."

The Premise: Made-for-TV movie set in an evil girl's school

Overall: Didn't make much of an impression one way or the other.  Watchable I guess. but nothing to write home about.


13. Psychomania (a.k.a. "The Death Wheelers") (1973)

The Premise: A biker game overcomes death through the power of positive thinking.

Overall: Very much a product of its time.  Late 60s spiritualism + biker movie + a trippy room where one meets... Satan? = Psychomania.  It's a fun little film and I wouldn't mind watching it again.


14. Sweet Sugar (1972)

The Premise: Yet another women's prison movie, with the exception that this one was filmed in Costa Rica (!) and instead of a women's prison they're sent to a sugar cane field for two years.

Overall: I don't know if the humor in this movie is intentional or unintentional -- I suspect those in charge of the English overdubs were having a blast in the recording room -- but whichever it was this movie's hilarious.  You gotta love any movie where the head guard announces something like, "The doctor's performing medical experiments, can we get some volunteers?" and SOMEONE ACTUALLY VOLUNTEERS.  

Besides all this the lead, Phyllis Davis, is stunning.  She'd go on to a career in TV, and end her career as Hostage #3 in Steven Seagal's Under Siege.


15. The Humanoid (1979)

The Premise: Does this movie have a premise?  Does it even have a story?  It seems like some Italian guy set out to copy elements from Star Wars and forgot to add the plot.

Overall: There's a lot of memorably bad stuff in this film: the sets, the costumes, the dialogue and most of all the acting.  I just hope that "Tom-Tom" made it back to whatever planet that was.

Fun Fact: Richard Kiel, who played "Jaws" in two Bond films, is to some extent the star of this one.  He is joined by Corrine Clery and Barbara Bach, two actresses who were also Bond girls in the 70s.


16. Malibu High (1979)

Don't get too excited by the poster.  She's not even in the movie.

The Premise: A high school girl turns to prostitution as a way of rebelling against the status quo.

Overall: The acting in this one's even worse than The Humanoid above.  Given an actress with more screen presence it might have been alright, but as it is it's a real chore to get through.  Even the nudity was boring.


17. Hollywood Man (1976)

One wonders how closely the financing of this film mirrored its protagonist's difficulty with regard to repaying a debt to organized crime.  I'm aware of the stereotypes involved, but there sure are a lot of Italian names in the credits and some of the "jobs" attributed to them sure seem suspicious.

The Premise: A fading Hollywood star rushes to complete his passion project before the mob shuts everything down.

Overall: It's not bad but the ending doesn't make much sense.  Why would they do that in broad daylight?  In a public place?  Given the papers the protagonist signed earlier in the movie he was in no position to bargain for anything, let alone implicate those involved in various crimes.

Fun Fact: William Smith might be recognizable from 1982's Conan the Barbarian, in which he played Conan's father.


18. The Cat Creature (1973)

The Premise: An Egyptologist and a detective contend with a supernatural force.

Overall: This is exactly the kind of movie that freaked kids out in the late 70s and early 80s.  It's super cheesy in retrospect, but atmospheric music and sound effects went a long way toward scaring kids back then.  Adults will find the ending unintentionally hilarious.

Fun Fact 1: Meredith Baxter would go on to become Meredith Baxter-Birney, widely known as "Elyse Keaton" in the hit sitcom Family Ties.

Fun Fact 2: Some elements of this movie are nods to 1942's Cat People, which was remade in 1982 as a vehicle for Nastassja Kinski.



The Premise: Julie Christie pursues a man who might be too good to be true.

Overall: It's a charming movie that sticks the landing.  I particularly enjoyed the "Auto-Ball" scene.


20. Vega$ (1978-1981)

NOT a movie, but I did get here via Phyllis Davis, who stars in Sweet Sugar above.

I watched episodes 1 and 2 and skimmed through a few others.  I was interested because my sister lives in Vegas, and when I visit her she often talks about the history of that city and the long gone hotels, casinos and restaurants that were once found on or near The Strip.

The Premise: Hard boiled detective Dan Tanna foils wrongdoers in sin city.

Overall: It gets very silly, especially as regards any subplot involving Dan Tanna's "soft spot for women," but I stopped watching for the same reason the general public did -- it got formulaic and boring as the episodes wore on.  It's interesting to see some of the older hotels and casinos back when they were new(er), but this aspect of the show wasn't enough to keep me entertained for long.

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*Wikipedia lists the release date as 1980, not 1979, but it was definitely filmed in 79.
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2024年10月31日 星期四

"The Librarianist" by Patrick DeWitt (2023)


"Here was where Bob Comet had landed, then, and he was not displeased that this should be the case.  The northwest branch of the public library was where Bob Comet became himself.  It was also where he met Connie and Ethan.  Connie came first but she didn't appear as Connie until after Ethan, so really, Ethan came first."

Patrick Dewitt lives in Portland, Oregon, though he's originally from British Columbia, Canada.  He's written five novels, of which The Librarianist is the most recent.

The Librarianist details the life and times of Bob Comet, a rather shy, retiring sort of person who's spent most of his life working in one of Portland's public libraries.  In his youth Bob meets Connie, a sheltered young woman that he'll eventually marry, and later he meets Ethan, an attractive, sexually gregarious man who is Bob's opposite in nearly every respect.

In my opinion this novel, published or otherwise, remains unfinished.  It's not that it's badly written, but there isn't enough story here to justify its length.  About a fourth of this book consists of an almost entirely unrelated episode in Bob's childhood which bears no relation to the book's overall plot, and this "missing fourth" is, to make the book as a whole much weaker, much better than the rest of the novel.  As a character Bob is a somewhat interesting construct, but who is he, really?  Is he the introverted man seen at the beginning and end of this book, or is he the young boy running away from home in the "childhood interlude?"  The two halves of his personality are never reconciled, and lacking a convincing fusion of these two selves The Librarianist just isn't complete.

The above-mentioned childhood interlude is great though.  I grew up in Bay City, and even so I was unfamiliar with the bygone town of Bayocean and its weird history.  That part of the book should have been front and center in the narrative, but apparently the author couldn't muster up enough of that vibe to sustain a longer story.

The Librarianist is definitely readable, but it consists of two halves that don't fit together.  Either of these halves might have been expanded into a good book, but their shared presence in the same story adds up to a whole that's less than the sum of its parts.

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