"Her" a Film with Joaquin Phoenix

An unusual set of random circumstances: completely drained me of energy on Saturday; then was re-energized by the SF 49ers on Sunday morning’s win, and then with an early game end, I took an early nap, leaving me with an unfilled 7-9pm timeslot, which was when “Her” was playing at the Airport Stadium 12.

What a fascinating movie.  I was interested in what was going to be happening soon in the computer relationships world.  Joaquin Phoenix is the main character, and he is almost Chaplinesque in playing the meek, downtrodden soul that finds no successes in his life, especially with women.  Amy Adams is his ex-wife [a successful author], Rooney Mara is his best friend [a computer games authoress], Olivia Wilde is a hot-babe his friends try to set him up with, and Scarlett Johansson as the voice of Samantha, his computer friend.

This is not a Sci-Fi theme, no more so than “You’ve Got Mail” with Meg Ryan was 15 years ago.  It’s a girl meets boy tale [loses; then finds], but I won’t give away who.  He has imperfect relationships with all four co-lead women.  He comes to understand each relationship as the 2-hour movie unfolds.  There is no “film time” to develop other male characters.  The two they couldn’t write out of the script were clearly MCPs.

I enjoy the author William Gibson’s take on futuristic ideas, usually ten years out.  This film is just a clean and neat short story that could be this year or next, but it also could be a Gibson short story.

Paris was the Place by Susan Conley

I’ve been doing much more reading of late.  2013 held me captive to a number of one-time activities: saving KGGV, the Big Read, and a Sonoma State graduate course in fundraising for nonprofits.  Now I’m reading some good books for a change.  Susan Conley’s book, which takes place mostly in Paris, struck just the right chord with me. 

I’ve visited Paris dozens of times – alone, with friends, with lovers, wives, my father, and my child, Patricia.  Conley writes this book as a short-term visitor; that matches my experience.  She is a broader, world traveler: peripatetic, me too.  It is a rare gene that allows one to “go native” in a foreign land and become quite settled in and comfortable.  I passed that one on to my daughter, Patricia.  Susan Conley’s Paris is all about people and relationships: mine too – shared fond memories – good times in retrospect, but bad things happen as well.

There are aspects of her character’s personality that are completely opposite of mine.  Willow Pears, the protagonist, is flighty; totally driven by emotion, little room for logic.  It is an endearing quality to the men in her life: brother, lover, father, and friends: at least after they calm down following one of her escapades.  She lacks focus in every area of her life, except for poets and poetry. 

The most minor plot line, “girl meets boy; girl loses boy; girl finds boy” is far and away pre-empted by the major plotlines: brother dies of 1980’s AIDS; pregnancy; Indian independence.

Sarojini Naidu, known by the sobriquet as The Nightingale of India was a child prodigy, Indian independence activist and poet. Naidu was one of the formers of the Indian Constitution. Naidu was the first Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress, and, as the Governor of the United Provinces from 1947 to 1949, the first woman to become the governor of an Indian state. Her birthday is celebrated as Women's Day all over India.

This isn’t the end.  The book keeps giving of more plot lines: the French legal system; Child sex trafficking, French cooking, poetry in general, teaching, wines?

A book with something for everyone: even some gourmet cooking.

I suspended disbelief.  I bought into Willie.  I wanted to protect her as did all males in the story.  Willie is worth doing whatever is necessary to make her succeed. I feel the same way about my daughter, see above.  Patricia has moved the mark a milestone further.

Paris, poetry, and pathos: It makes for a good read.

the Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I must make an opening comment that I, and the rest of you in this book club, are blessed that we have so much reading material available to us, focused on the Bay Area.  Even though we all think we are the center of the sentient universe, there are several other nexus that could also claim center hood: like New York, Paris, and London.  I am currently reading two crime mystery novels and two shrink novels as well as this one which focus on SF in my hey-day.

This locale choice, plus a plot-line of flowers and greenery gives this book a guaranteed recommendation from the likes of us.  However, in a broader marketplace, will this book entertain a nationwide audience?

I think not. 

There is a huge plotline PLUS here with the concept of a language of flowers.  We want to believe in this.  Then again we kooky, Bay-Area people want to believe in Astrology and drug-induced visions.  But we are we, and this is also a must read for anyone liking psychological mysteries.

There are tiered plot-lines here that can go as deep or shallow as one might want.  With a modern twist, there’s a girl meets boy; girl loses boy; girl finds boy story line.  This is not a particularly interesting love affair; it’s almost incestuous.

And then at a level deeper, there are half a dozen socio-economic plot-lines: foster care, plus-minus [hand-wringing moans about the system, without going into why Victoria isn’t getting psychiatric care]; business ethics, plus-minus [including a fascinating glimpse at the Flower Mart]; family relationships, plus-minus [again, why are these families not getting proper psychiatric care?]. 

I have to admit that I never found one iota of sympathy and certainly no empathy with any of the characters in Diffenbaugh’s book.  Does the author purposely avoid going deeper into family, love, loyalties, or ethics?  It seems that every character in this novel has myriad flaws far surpassing mere dysfunction.  The author seems to acknowledge all the symptoms but fails to connect the dots.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others. There may be an impoverished moral sense or conscience and a history of crime, legal problems, impulsive and aggressive behavior.

Besides an education in plant and flower meanings, this book also delves into the experiences surrounding birthing and early post-natal care.  Is there a connection with all the magnificence of Mother Nature?  Is this theology as well as philosophy? 

Is it the nurturing theology of Gaia, Mother Earth?

A book with something for everyone: even some gourmet cooking.

State of Wonder (Revisited)

This book is a lesson in the craftsmanship of writing.  Patchett’s earlier book, Truth and Beauty, convinced me of the belief that her writing was penned by the hand of a grandmaster.  The opening chapter of this book is my case in point.  She writes a vignette about announcing her lab-mate’s death to his wife.  It’s a side issue but it allows her ample time to introduce all the characters and many of the plot lines without any expenditure of effort.  It’s like the chess game opening of P-Q4, perfectly solid, but a bit edgy, hinting at more than the normal challenges.

The next chapter continues at the leisurely pace of the first; no apparent hurry.  She paints in the back-story on Marina Singh, her MD career destroyed by a horrible error of judgment while doing her residency.  This is brilliantly handled through the device of her malarial-like delirium while asleep.  She dwells excessively on death and separation in her nightmare.

By almost halfway through the book, it is obvious that the real story is not about a “Rumble in the Jungle.”  That was just a literary device.  We’ve had 150 pages of exquisite character development.  Patchett adds three new characters with every chapter, never letting go of the rest.  It’s like a juggler’s act, adding in an additional ball, again and again, from 3 to 6 to 9.  The author keeps adding to the depth of the initial personae: Marina, Mr. Fox, and Anders.  She doesn’t let loose of Karen or Annick either.  A deep look at her mid-life crisis also includes Milton, Jackie, and Barbara. They round out her pre-jungle cast of characters.  Her waking moments of thought, like her nightmares, are all about paths taken, or not.

Just before they take off down the Amazon, there is a  “makes-you-wanna-go” description of Manaus.  She adds several more characters here, Tomo, Easter, and Nixon, all while still keeping up the threads with all the others.  It has become noticeable this deeply into the story that Marina only reacts to people and circumstances, she does no self-direction of events or activities.  She is a feather blowing in the wind: afraid to make decisions of her own.  She yields to Mr. Fox her older, married boyfriend, Dr. Swenson her Med School mentor, even Barbara her style guide.  Are they all parental figures like Milton?  Did she never take control of her child-parent relationship?

Into the thick of it at the Lakashi village, sharing their anthropological mores, everything wildly alien, the author again takes the time to delve into human individual differences; not with graphical moments and impossible flora and fauna; not with fearful creatures: spiders, snakes, birds and bats.  The reason I claim we are reading master craftsmanship in the written word is captured in her relating the scene where the tribespeople scam Marina out of her clothes – the shirt off her back, willingly.  Patchett captures the aversion most of us have to a stranger unbuttoning and striping off our shirt and trousers: the titillation of having a community watch as her breasts are fondled, as the natives think of maybe getting away with the bra as well.  Not a lot of adjectives and adverbs in this scene, but we are Marina: No!  O.K., no, yes, as she succumbs to their probing – yielding to the communal will.

The penultimate chapters deal with the half dozen moral questions that are brought up by the premise of the novel: the search for pharmacology as product; the marketing of said product; the impact on indigenous people of the search; the resolution of mid-life crisis by Marina Singh.  None of these ethical dilemmas receives any attention by the author until these moral chapters, where they are all vocalized: argued from all sides, and then positions are taken: malaria cure or menopausal avoidance: free cures or designer drugs or psychedelics; exploitation private or public; Life Part 2 safely as before or challenging the unknown.

Well, you don’t get rich off of masterful character development.  Ann Patchett has tossed in a pinch of comic-relief:

“Annick Swenson’s child will be raised by the Lakashi?!”  /../  “You went to Radcliffe!”
“If we were home I would take him for a CT.”
“If you were home he wouldn’t have been squeezed by an Anaconda!”

And that last line refers to a lengthy struggle between all our friends and an 18-foot Anaconda, won by Marina Singh.

There are several other moments of thriller intensity, but all this is nothing compared to the depths-of-despair / heights-of-glory final chapter where good and evil finally struggle.  Evil represented by the cannibalistic Hummocca tribe next door.  They usually shoot poison darts first, and then eat the dead.  Good is represented by our heroine, at last making her own decisions.  Pirating the pontoon boat, she goes with the boy Easter to the lair of the Hummocca.  There, as suspected, she finds Anders Eckman, hale and hearty and not dead which was the reason in the beginning for her trip to the Amazon.  She trades Easter for Anders, her number 2 and 3 solo decisions.  She sleeps with Anders that night back in camp and then takes him home to his wife the next day. [#’s 4 & 5].

The sixth independent decision would be going back to the jungle where she thrived, but Ann left that for us to decide.

 

State of Wonder [First Read 2011] by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is one of those authors whose new books are automatically sent to the “top of the list” as a must read.  She’s an academic author.  She spends a lot of time perfecting plot and characters, so we only see a new work every two or three years.

This is an amazing story and a compelling read.  It’s all I can do to hold back from just reading it straight through, from cover to cover.  However, like a good Armagnac, the reading is best, when one savors it over time without guzzling.

Marina Singh is a Minnesotan medical doctor with an eastern Indian father, who abandoned her, returning to India.  She has nightmares about her childhood visits to Calcutta.  She gave up her surgical career because of a common mistake when in residency (she never watched Dr. House or Grey’s Anatomy).  At the opening, she is a lab tech with a partner, Eckman; and a quiet sexual relationship with her 20-years-older boss.  The boss sends Eckman to the Amazon; Marina’s old surgery professor reports Eckman’s death after three months.  Marina bonds with Eckman’s wife, who has every thing Marina really wants: kids, acceptance, and a stimulating life.  Marina travels to the Amazon to pick up the pieces.  She finds all those things she has been missing in her life.

 

Ann Patchett normally puts most of her attention on people and their psychology, motivations, and back-stories.  As a change of pace, Patchett has written an action thriller here, not much psychoanalysis. 

So, she has channeled Homer, using all the adventure devices we love in “The Odyssey.”  We have the Lotus-Eaters, who forget their mission preferring somatic drugs [Rapps].  We have the cannibalistic Laestrygonians [Hummocca] with yellow heads and poison darts.  We have the protective drug “moly” to resist Circe [malaria].  And of course, there’s an encounter with Scylla, the six-headed monster [Anaconda].  Marina exhibits growing strength and commitment as the story unfolds.

Patchett’s writing is tight: no meandering, no wasted words on fluff.  I appreciate the time and effort that went into scores of revisions; they were worth it.  There is never any hint of what’s going to happen next.

Marina blossoms when dropped in the Amazon jungle.  Life will never be the same.  Patchett explores the boundaries of love: for children, for a child, of a friend, and mentors; and not unlike Odysseus, the story ends when they get home.

There will be considerable temptation on the part of the movie director to turn this script into something like “Anaconda” or “Arachnophobia,” or even Tarzan.  This is not what the book is all about and it would be a shame to have the movie miss the point, while in search of some teenager-appeasing computer graphics.

New Earth by Ben Bova

O.K., # 1,  I have to come clean and state that I am, and have always been (since age 11), a SciFi devotee. 

Over the last half-century, I would go back periodically and try again, whoever was the flavor of the decade.  I read all of the new sub-genres.  I am a believer in the future.  I was a “Dune” freak until Herbert’s stuff was strung out too far.  Poul Anderson kept to the classic genre, but grew stale.  He was no E.E. Doc Smith, nor Heinlein.  Frederik Pohl raised the bar with the HeeChe Saga, but he, too, had just a single innovation, moving beyond Asimov, but which eventually ran dry.  Carl Sagan was the type of author that didn’t over-reach: not a SciFi writer, he wrote a great book and didn’t milk it.  Michael Crichton was another of these guys, a professional writer who takes a great stab at moving SciFi forward.  My current voice of the future is William Gibson, who may only go forward ten to twenty years, but that’s the equivalent of decades for those 30’s-50’s SciFi writers.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Bova is a middle of the road author who has ground out over 50 books in the SciFi genre.  His ideas aren’t new, the primary premise of the book is a warning about global warming.  His secondary thrust is a plea to move away from violent solutions to the problems of humanity: no war, no hatred, no guns. 

The first half of the novel pays homage to Lost Horizon, a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a movie, also called Lost Horizon, in 1937 by director Frank Capra. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.   Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity.  As in the book and movie, the others in the research expedition to “New Earth” don’t initially agree with the diplomat.  They view things from their commitments to the seven deadly sins.

The second half of the story starts with the lessons of Carl Sagan’s “Contact”.  .

A small crew of Earthlings has arrived at an impossible world after traveling 8.6 light years.  It was all a ruse their hominoid hosts admit, “just to pique your interest enough to come and have tea with us.”  “and, by the way, while you’re digging into that scrumptious scone, I’d like to also remind you and you kind that peace and serenity is good and that war and hatred is bad: so much so that your entire civilization may be destroyed if you don’t change your ways, and that’s why we’re having this little chat.

There’s an unacknowledged co-author with an undeveloped sub-plot that could lead to “New Earth II”.  All good writing – no surprises.