Happy Friday, everyone.

Friday’s are usually pretty quiet here at the office, so I usually make myself busy with checking out the blogrolls and other projects.  This morning, I wrote my sponsor child in the Philippines a letter, sorted out some OSAP details, and sent out a query letter.  Shhhhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone!  I’m also in the homestretch of my NaNoWriMo novel (or, as Rikki says, Nanaimo novel!) and at 43,000/50,000 words, I have nowhere else to go.  In a desperate attempt for some online inspiration, I’ve found the following things to stir my imagination.

Enjoy!

Video Love

I love stop motion!  Which reminds me of these …

This has been making the rounds on the Internets lately, and what kind of (sometimes) book blogger would I be if I didn’t link to it too?

More stop motion loveliness.  I love this lyric:  She pours a daydream in a cup / A spoon of sugar sweetens up … 

I must, must, MUST see this movie!!!  It’s inspiring much of the feel of my next novel (yep, already thinking of the next one because I’m a glutton for punishment) Visually stunning and so fantastical!  And Jude Law, Johnny “Sexiest Man Alive” Depp, Christopher Plummer, Colin Farrell, Terry Gilliam, and the late, talented Heath Ledger? Yes, please!

Quote love

Wine is sunlight, held together by water  – Galileo 

Well, darkness exists so the stars can shine, darling  –  Source Unknown (if someone knows the source, please let me know!  If this is a quote from One Tree Hill or something, I will kick a pigeon.  Just kidding.  I don’t advocate violence towards animals.  But I will feel terribly, terribly let down by the universe.)

Love is the extremely uncomfortable realization that something other than oneself is real  – Irish Murdoch

Sexy authors and historical figures love

Sir Isaac Brock. You know you can't resist that hand on the hip pose!

Andrew Sean Greer, author of "The Confessions of Max Tivoli," a very beautiful book

Neil Gaiman ftw!

Joseph Boyden: hot AND Canadian!

A young Nathaniel Hawthorne could give ME a scarlet letter ... *wink wink!*

Lord Byron: HE walks in beauty, like the night

And because I pretty much have to …

Listen to Wiretap. For Jonathan Goldstein.

Read Broken Pencil magazine. For Hal Niedzviecki.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  May your weekends be as busy or as lazy as you wish them to be.  Other than writing like the madwoman in the attic (rereading Jane Eyre for the billionth time; couldn’t resist!), I plan on having a schedule-free one.

Iris

You know more about me than anyone. You are my world.

(Iris (2001) The young Iris Murdoch to John)

I miss

believing you

love me

best, for

knowing me

deepest. I

miss your

good intentions

but not

the hell

you pave

with them.

Your commitment

to mistaking

my I-dentity

is catastrophic

“The love which brings the right answer to moral problems is an exercise of justice and realism and really looking.  The difficulty is to keep the attention fixed upon the real situation and to prevent it returning surreptitiously to the self with consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy, and despair. Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality.”

~ Iris Murdoch

Jane Friedman at SCPS-NYU Center for Publishing

“To be a success, you only have to be right 51% of the time,” said former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman about her publishing career, past and future. Friedman was speaking to an audience of graduate students, alumni, and faculty of NYU-SCPS Center for Publishing. Publishing heavyweights such as Michael Cader, creator of Publishers Marketplace; Peter Workman,  president and CEO of Workman Publishing; and Bob Miller, president and publisher of HarperStudio also listened intently as Friedman talked about her exciting new e-book company, Open Road Integrated Media.

With 70% of the population having access to the internet, 30% of all books in the U.S. being purchased online, and 96% of young adults being connected to a social network, Friedman realized the importance of creating and distributing meaningful content whenever and wherever readers want it. After 30 years in publishing, she says  that “the only constant is change.” However, sometimes change means recognizing the importance of the past and of books that stand the test of time.  Friedman noted that many of the books she reads are the same ones she wants her children and grandchildren to read. So, with the sale of classic works diminishing, she decided to reinvigorate the great masters.  “I like to tell people I am going ‘back to the future,’ ” she said. Open Road will focus on creating e-versions of backlist books; the first three authors on the list are Dame Iris Murdoch, Pat Conroy and William Styron, whose topics, of course, include depression and war. “You can ride that for a long time,” Friedman said to much laughter.

In addition to publishing electronic editions of the literary giants, Open Road will create “e-riginals”, a term Friedman has coined for books that will be born in digital format.  Other functions of the company include self-publishing and print-on-demand. Digital entertainment, with apps, widgets and audio platforms, is also in the works. She described Open Road as a marketing platform which will work with the social network community, websites and blogs and will do a lot of “pushing out and getting feedback.”

Her company already has agreements to create digi-content for two publishers, Grove/Atlantic and Kensington Books. Although Open Road is currently weighted towards fiction, they will publish in any category. Friedman hopes to publish about 1000 books in her first year.

The audience had a chance to meet her partner and Open Road’s President, Jeffrey Sharp, an award-winning movie producer. Sharp, who previously ran a film development division at HarperCollins, talked about potential movie adaptations for Open Road’s backlist.Visit the company’s website www.openroadmedia.com, designed by Code and Theory, to see the company’s first few videos.

When asked about the business model for Open Road, Friedman talked about the benefit of being a small company. Not having the same overhead as larger companies, Open Road has the ability to move quickly when something works or doesn’t, and the flexibility and edge to be potentially successful.  “Bookstores have shrunk, but advances and returns have not,” Friedman noted. With the publishing industry suffering from declining revenue, she argued that it is time to look at another way of doing business. Although, Open Road will not provide author advances, Friedman feels the profit sharing model could be extremely rewarding to authors. Furthermore, she promises a strong marketing arm and adhering to the same five fundamental tenets of publishing she has used throughout her career:

1. Publishing is about relationships

2. Hire the right people

3. Authors are your most important asset

4. Know your audience

5. Move with and embrace technology

As in any conversation about e-books, the subject of the right price came up. Friedman said she though the value of an e-book should be roughly the same as a trade paperback, and cited $14, possibly more for premium content. “The value of an e-book is the same value for the person reading it as any other format of the book,” she offered, rejecting the notion that digital editions had to be “cheap.”  Like DVD’s that include extra footage and content, Open Road will also include ancillary materials, including author bios and interviews. However none of this will be embedded in the actual text; Friedman does not believe in disrupting “the purity of the read.”

All in all, Friedman is bullish not only about her new company, but about the industry in general. “This is the most exciting time for publishing,” she said. “There are more books, more diverse formats, and more opportunities to serve customers in a whole new way.”

By Alyssa Léal

For another take on this event, check out the SCPS News blog’s entry. You can find video of the event here.

After my previous post on a few things Book Group orientated and The Riverside Readers I said that I would come back with a post on my personal top Book Group reads as well as discussing my top Book Group tips. Those two things would actually make a bit of a Bible of a post and so I will do the top books today and a few tips and my own experiences for and of Book Groups on Thursday, so hopefully you are all still interested in all things Book Group related. Could I fit the words Book Groups in these previous sentences if I tried?

After seeing Novel Insights wonderful post on her personal top twelve books a group could read in a year I thought I would have a go. This isn’t plagiarism it’s simply joining in, ha. Having been in a few book groups (in fact I am currently in two though one is rather rogue and we only do one every so often when the whim takes us) I realised that I had a list of 38 books that I could choose from. Some of the books haven’t worked (Tales of the Jazz Age – we all had different editions which all featured a different selection of short stories), some have received indifference, some have been disliked and some have been loved, more on those in my list.

Though I haven’t featured the books that were indifferent or went wrong I have included one book which I didn’t care for but caused great discussion and that’s one thing I have noticed from book groups, I might not always like a book but that in itself when lots of people do can make for a great book group read as it causes debate. So what five things do I do in order to make a book group choice now, I may not have always done this in the past mind;

1. Books you wouldn’t normally read – one of the main points of a book group in my mind – but which are accessible, you don’t want to alienate your other group members.
2. Books which have been received with strong reviews/thoughts both positive and negative way when they came out, this could cause great debate.
3. Books that make you think and cause all sorts of discussions with yourself in your own head though you can’t always predict these in advance.
4. Authors you love and admire who other people might not have tried, though don’t be precious on these as they could get ripped to shreds.
5. Books that challenge and push you as a reader, if they are going to do this to you they probably will be to others.

Looking back at all the book groups I have been part of in the past which book would I recommend the most? Well after some whittling of the 38 I have read with book groups I came up with the final twelve (like Novel Insights I have chosen a years worth) that I think have caused the greatest discussion in no particular order.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
• The Bell – Iris Murdoch
• In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
• On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan (close tie with Atonement to be honest)
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Animal’s People – Indra Sinha
• Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck (the one I didn’t like – discussion was great)
• The Book of Dave – Will Self
• Kafka on the Shore – Hariku Murakami

So there it is. You can see the full list of all 38 books now on the “new and improved” Book Group page where you can also see what the next book group read is. You may be wondering why some of the above list are in bold. Well my Gran wants a list of five books, as I mentioned on a previous post, she could put forward for her book group. I am actually going to send her a list of new books she and her group are less likely to have read along with the five above in bold. More book group musings on Thursday when I will be discussing Book Group decorum and what made me sensationally (love the drama of that word) leave a book group I started after two years! Let me know what you think of the final twelve too can you spot any themes in them? Also please do tell me of any great books you have done in a book group in the past.

P.S Sorry no picture on today’s post I am not a big fan of posts with no images, if it drives me to crazy will be the shot of The Riverside Readers again!

I never knew just how many famous people dropped off society’s radar because of Alzheimer’s/dementia! I was surprised to see certain people in this list, because often the news would only say that so-and-so passed away; the person’s Alzheimer’s/dementia diagnosis was not always mentioned.

(Please ignore the depressing soundtrack and overly dramatic ending; the names and faces are really the most interesting part of this video.)

The Sandcastle begins with a fractious dialogue between Mor (the main character) and his wife Nan. It becomes clear within only a few pages that this kind of antagonistic exchange is common between them. In the middle of the discussion, Mor makes a reference to their dead dog, seemingly out of the blue. And then Murdoch delivers two lines which put their entire relationship into perspective:

This animal had formed the bond between Mor and Nan which their children had been unable to form. Half unconsciously, whenever Mor wanted to placate his wife he said something about Liffey.

I really like this kind of specific insight into a character, especially when, as I suspected correctly, it also serves to highlight the book’s central focus. In the case of The Sandcastle, a book about an unraveling marriage, these two sentences illustrate the longstanding tension between Mor and Nan (and ultimately the complete failure of their marriage) as well as reveal a fundamental issue of Mor’s personality – his need to mollify Nan.

As the book progresses and certain important events transpire (Mor meets an engaging young painter and begins a chaste affair with her), his absolute inability to really cross Nan becomes fundamental to the rest of the story. So what looks on the surface like an exploration of the bonds of marriage and whether they are really sacred is actually a careful and detailed criticism of Mor’s particular weakness.

I mentioned earlier that Murdoch was recommended to me as a writer I would like because of my deep admiration for Nadine Gordimer. Interestingly, I think I actually put off reading Murdoch for a long time because I was afraid to make the comparison and find either writer lacking. Now that I’ve read Murdoch, I realize how silly this was. They are similar, so I can see where the recommendation came from, but of course they each carry certain distinct stylistic traits.

Without reading more Murdoch I can’t make a real comparison, but I do think it is interesting to note some of the echoes of Gordimer I found while reading The Sandcastle. First, the flawlessness of the male narrator. Not all female authors even try, let alone succeed, in writing from the male perspective. This is something Gordimer does with about half of her novels and each time I felt it was a seamless performance. The voice of the male narrator in The Sandcastle was equally convincing.

Second, I’ve written before about how much I enjoy Gordimer’s moments of insight, where, in just a few lines, she manages to explicate or illuminate a certain feeling or thought. She takes a singular experience and renders it universally understandable for the reader. Murdoch did exactly this in The Sandcastle, allowing her characters to reflect on the world with bold statements and keen observations and by giving them a voice to their precise, individual thoughts in such a way that the reader says, yes, that is exactly what that feels like.

And finally, both writers are courageous in their use of dialogue, allowing their characters to engage in complicated, weighty conversations at the risk of moving too far away from the cadence and rhythm of natural dialogue. I think Gordimer almost always gets away with this risky endeavor, and I think Murdoch succeeds perfectly in The Sandcastle.

Murdoch has an even larger oeuvre than Gordimer and although I don’t think I’ll be able to tackle it this year, I’d very much like to read her from start to finish in the way I read Gordimer in 2008. If anything I will get a copy of The Sea, The Sea and read that before the end of the year. Any other suggestions?

[belíssima dica da Carol Andreis]

I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of style. In my ambitious youth I teased myself with Homeric Greek, Dostoyevskian Russian and Flaubertian French in an effort to become more intimate with my idols. But then, in my twenties, came the devastating realisation that my native English style, despite years of patient effort, was still glaringly deficient. Writing stories was very difficult for me, writing business documents even harder. I struggled to put one sentence after another in anything like a coherent pattern. 

I started to read books on how to write. All my foreign novels went up into the attic and I refused to read anything in translation. I sought out the purist English stylists and eschewed anything showy or slipshod. 

Iris Murdoch became a favourite, followed by Terry Pratchett. 

I was appalled when I saw a television interviewer ask Iris Murdoch, “How do you account for your status as one of Britain’s best living novelists, given that you don’t really have any style to speak of?” 

Ignorant ninny! I thought. 

“I like to think I have quite a neat little prose style,” she said. 

That was telling him! 

One of the things about great style is that it often goes unnoticed. All the craft is hidden. What emerges instead is the meaning, which the reader flatters himself he has grasped easily because he is clever. 

I have received many compliments on my prose style over the years — mainly from foreigners — but there was one in particular from an Englishman that meant a lot to me. He was reading something I’d written about Stamp Duty Reserve Tax. “I like reading your booklets,” he said, “because you always make everything so clear and each sentence flows logically into the next.” 

Writing about obscure financial topics made me an expert in them because in order to explain something you have to explore it from many different angles and on many different levels. 

The same principle applies to writing novels. What makes Dostoyevsky great is his understanding and his lucidity. It doesn’t matter that his work is mediated by an imperfect translator or that he tells his stories in a rambling, discursive style with lots of digressions and debates. The souls of his characters appear luminously before you and their moral and spiritual preoccupations are laid out with comprehensive candour. Nobles and peasants, cynics and idealists are all given equal treatment. There is breadth and depth in his novels. Yet everything unfolds with apparent ease. 

The style of The Brothers Karamazov, his last and greatest novel, is the effortlessness of a professional man of letters who knew that the hardest challenge was to set everything before the reader in such a way that it could be readily understood. Reading it is one of the easiest and most pleasurable things in the world only because it’s the culmination of a lifetime dedicated to the craft of writing. 

So what happens?

The narrator of Iris Murdoch’s Under The Net, Jake Donaghue, is a complete waster who scrounges a roof over his head from whichever of his (frequently women) friends can be persuaded to put up with him. He is, of course, a writer. He’s in love with Anna who he suspects is also loved by Hugo (a fireworks manufacturer cum film magnate) who is possibly loves Sadie who is, perhaps, a bit sweet on Jake. Or is it Hugo? Either way, a washed up canine filmstar, a bookie, a floozie named Madge and a mysterious Sibylline figure called Mrs Tinckham who keeps a newsagent and a tribe of cats also come and go. In the end, everyone loves someone but not necessarily as assumed. Oh, and there is a sidekick named Finn. Did someone say ‘picaresque’?

Why on earth should I read it?

Because it’s the first and lightest of Murdoch’s novels. Philosophy permeates the text but airily, like bubbles rising through champagne. It might not have the gravitas or seriousness of later works, but (with the possible exception of The Bell), there’s a lightness of touch and an optimistic sense of the possibilities of redemption in the heart of the human experience I haven’t encountered anywhere else in her novels, though I can’t claim to have read them all.

So no caveats?

None whatsoever. It wouldn’t be my favourite or the first of her books I’d recommend (that would be The Bell or The Unicorn – I’ve a weakness for the Gothic qualities of the late sixties books) but it’s unique. Well for Murdoch, anyway.

Aha! So there is a catch?

Hmm. Well, the blend of philosophical discourse and novel wasn’t new – Sartre in particular was obviously a model and Murdoch was a philosopher before she became a novelist.  And whilst London has frequently stood in as a major character in Murdoch’s books – the spookily rendered Isle of Dogs in The Time of the Angels, for example, or the whistle stop tour of Soho and the City that ensues in Under The Net itself – the novelist who most springs to mind as resonating with Under The Net is G.K. Chesterton, the Chesterton of the fantastical The Napoleon of Notting Hill and The Man Who Was Thursday in particular.

Oh, and under what net, exactly?

The net of language, of course. We don’t get out from under it but we do learn to live with it and even to see behind it.  Under The Net is full of raised veils, from the the epic collapse of the plasterboard Rome in a film studio to the final lifting of the veils of self-deception from the eyes of Jake.  Twenty four years later, the narrator of The Sea, The Sea would relapse almost instantaneously back into his old Satyr-like ways but Jake, a creation of a less jaded writer, may even have learned to be good.

The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

Let’s start this Salon post with a confession: I have been a bad grrl and bought 3 more books for myself!

• I Am a Cat (Natsume Soseki)
• The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata)
• The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa)

I’ve got a great excuse though: I joined the new online Japanese Literature Book Group and Read-along at In Spring It Is The Dawn — and these are the first books on the agenda. I am really looking forward to it!

Another fun thing to do over there is this months Hello Japan! mini mission:

Read or watch something scary, spooky, or suspenseful, and Japanese of course!

Since I have enough to read already I decided to rent a movie that has been on my wishlist for a long time now: Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara), by Hideo Nakata. You might have heard of the American remake with Jodie Foster, but I prefered to see the original. I’ll tell you why in my upcoming review post! It was a nice Friday night activity to surprise Mr Gnoe with, especially with the stormy autumn weather that has set in

But back to bookish things. For the last three months of 2009 I am also participating in the Set It Yourself Challenge (SIY) #10. Just to keep the pressure on my challenges: I have listed all 5 books I need to read before the end of this year:

• The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
• The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
• The Pillowbook (Sei Shonagon)
• The Sea, the Sea (Iris Murdoch)
• The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata)

I have joined this Bookcrossing challenge before in 2008 and 2009; succeeding twice, failing once…

Speaking of Bookcrossing: I made a first attempt at the Bookcrossing monthly readathon. But instead of 24 I read for 15 hours and 8 in the last week of September. So technically I failed but I am actually quite proud of the result because it was an awfully busy week. You can read about my thoughts concerning the readathon in Friday’s post. Now I am really looking forward to the autumnal 24 hour read-a-thon of October 24th! I am already making a list of books and snacks to lock myself in with

Partly thanks to the readathon I finished more books in September than I usually read in a month:

• Vlinder in de wind (Butterfly in the Wind) by Rei Kimura (reviewed)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (review pending), #4 on the list of Banned and Challenged Classics
• Het pauperparadijs (Pauper Paradise) by Suzanna Jansen (no review planned)
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (review pending)

Current book: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Wednesday’s update post will tell you why I picked this book. I am ‘buddy reading’ with two Boekgrrls: MaaikeB and Manon, so one of these days I should mail them my thoughts so far!

Another exciting thing going on this week is BAFAB! Buy A Friend A Book. One of my favourite reads of the past years is on its way to a long time friend that is on a busy schedule at the moment. I’ll give the book a chance to arrive for a few days longer, so I can’t say more!
Do you BAFAB?

Challenges / Bookgroups etc.

Progress update on my challenges that I have not yet mentioned above:

• Japanese Challenge (Aug 2009-Mar 2010): read and reviewed 1/1
  (✔ finished, but intent on reading more)
• Classics Challenge (2009, entree level): read 3/6, reviewed 0/6
• What’s In A Name Challenge (2009): read 6/6, reviewed 3/6
• Personal 2008-2009 Challenge: read 8/12
• SIY Challenge #10 (Oct-Dec 2009): read 0/5

Current Bookgroup reads:

• Boekgrrls September book: Away, by Amy Bloom (read and reviewed in Dutch on the mailing list)
• Boekgrrls October book: Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (read, to be reviewed)
• Japanese Literature Book Group for November 30th: The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata (TBR)
• Japanese Literature Read-along for November 15th: I Am A Cat (part I), by Natsume Soseki (TBR)

That’s it for now. I need to get up my review of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird a.s.a.p. so that I can send this Bookcrossing book along to the next reader. Better get on with it!

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

~Iris Murdoch

http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8636094

Aunque su actitud hacia el arte es cambiante, para Platón el artista se opone a la labor de desbroce de la filosofía, y mientras el filósofo discierne la verdad, el artista retrata sombras. Para Platón en el arte todo se vuelve relativo y el artista mismo suele ser falaz y propenso a la debilidad moral. Por lo demás, el artista amenaza la estabilidad social: sus tramas truculentas falsean la religión y debilitan la cohesión, en particular la comedia con su representación de todos los defectos humanos y su celebración del acto brutal y degradante de la risa. El arte, pues, se sumerge en el mal y conforma una espiritualidad hechiza que obstaculiza la superación del hombre.

La refutación de Murdoch no es nueva, pero sí teñida de sentido común y emoción erudita. La actitud platónica hacia el arte —dice— está lejos de ser rudimentaria y se entiende perfectamente dentro de su contexto histórico y filosófico. Además, el escepticismo platónico hacia el arte reaparece periódicamente, y no sólo en primitivos tiranos, sino en figuras de primer orden (Tolstoi, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, por mencionar algunos). Cierto, no es fácil disociar totalmente el ámbito estético de la moral y puede entenderse la angustia y disgusto de algunos espíritus ante un arte que parece apuntalar la decadencia. Si se atiende a la conocida figura del verdugo nazi que de día cumplía imperturbable su deber y por la noche se conmovía hasta las lágrimas con la música clásica, es inevitable albergar dudas sobre la capacidad del arte para formar en el bien. Igualmente, si se conoce a ciertos artistas es factible que no dejen la mejor impresión de afabilidad y nobleza. Por lo demás, es posible ser bueno y justo, sin un gusto artístico refinado. Resulta fácil entonces decepcionarse de la actividad artística como formación ética y del artista como figura moral. Quizá, como lo apunta Murdoch, el problema radica en las expectativas irrealistas en torno al poder formativo del arte: si bien Platón se sentía preocupado por lo corrosivo del arte, en esta libertad radica su potencial para convertirse no en una normativa o un ejemplo incontestable, sino en un espacio de reflexión. La posibilidad del arte no radica en la enseñanza del bien, sino en la oportunidad de aprender del dolor y del mal, en eso misterioso hacia lo que apunta y que tiene que ver con las más secretas ambivalencias y contradicciones humanas.

Although I had plenty of time to maybe finish off a book or 2, I had to halt the marathon since a cousin was visiting us. Now my niece who ensures that she’s up-to-date with all the latest movies insisted that I watch Pink Panther 2. She was stunned when I showed my ignorance of such a veritable movie (that is her take not mine!)

So I sat with her to watch this funny movie – Steve Martin plays the bumbling but lucky inspector Clouseau who is assigned to the case of the master thief with the amateur Dream Team, The Tornado, who has stolen valuable artifacts across the globe against the wishes of his immediate superior Chief Inspector Dreyfus who is utterly frustrated by the lucky escapades of Clouseau. Just as Clouseau steps over the line demarcating ‘You are now leaving France’, news breaks that the Pink Panther Diamond has also been stolen. Joined by the Dream Team and a criminology expert, Sonia, the movie is full of hilarious incidents as Clouseau uses his rather ambiguous and unconventional methods to expose and capture The Tornado. But the Dream Team is questioned and Clouseau’s acts of foolishness are mocked at, when the thief manages to steal the Pope’s ring right under the nose of the Vatican security.

Then news arrives that The Tornado had committed suicide, and while the others celebrate Clouseau uncovers the identity of the real thief. He unsuccessfully tries to bring this to the notice of the rest of the team who believe that Clouseau is joking yet again but his secretary/girl friend Nicole realizes the truth. What happens next is worthwhile the watch.

Steve Martin is impeccable as Clouseau and John Cleese couldn’t be funnier as his superior Dreyfus. I unfortunately can’t say much about Aishwarya Rai’s acting as Sonia. Her presence in the film was more like the presence of an extra character to the scene. There wasn’t much meat to her character except maybe towards the end where she is revealed to be the actual thief. There is this particularly hilarious instance, where Clouseau manages to burn the same hotel twice. It’s a worthy watch and maybe addable to your DVD collection if you are a fan of Steve Martin or Pink Panther!

The next movie in line was the Elf. While the movie is funny, I can’t vouch that it is way funnier than Pink Panther. I mean Pink Panther 2 beats the list of comedy movies I’ve watched so far. The story is more or less based on the concept of the Grinch or Scrooge whichever way you’d take it.

Will Farrell stars as Buddy, a human who was adopted by the Elfs at North Pole while he was a baby. He accidentally slips into Santa’s bag while at the orphanage and well…Santa decides to introduce him to the Elf community. Sadly Buddy inability to make toys or bake cookies (routine work for the Elfs) makes him stand-out, and prompts Papa Elf to reveal the nature of his adoption. Buddy lands in New York to reconcile with his biological father Walter Hobbs who is happily married to another lady and has a 10 year-old son. While he is a publishing editor for children’s books, he is a snob who doesn’t believe in the spirit of Christmas. He initially rejects Buddy but later takes him home when he sees the picture of Buddy’s mother. The rest of the story is how Buddy and his dad reconcile through a set of circumstances that serves to bring the family closer.

And the last one in the marathon was Iris. The story is based on the life of Dame Iris Murdoch, a famed British author whose works I’m totally ignorant of. I mean I’ve stumbled on some of her books but that’s about it. Never bothered reading them yet.

Kate Winslet plays young Iris while Judi Dench plays the older one. The story revolves around Iris, her friendships, her relationships and marriage not to mention her talent with words being robbed by Alzheimer’s. Despite her forward-thinking, her boldness Iris marries John Bayley, a professor at Oxford (that’s my assumption) who is a bumbling and a timid sort of guy. While she manages the house and the relationship until the very end, Bayley is left to care for Iris when Alzheimer’s disease sets in.

The movie was kind of a slow paced one where Iris’s life unfolds in a series of flashbacks and present day scenarios but it is not until half way through that you realize her frustration at not being able to complete her latest novel due to Alzheimer’s.  Its not exactly a movie you’d watch with popcorn and coke but nonetheless watchable if only once. From the entire movie, my favorites though are these 2 quotes that I faithfully noted down for the fear of forgetting them :) -

When Iris is introduced at her alma mater and asked to say a few words:

“Education doesn’t make you happy and nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we are free, if we are, or because we’ve been educated if we have, but because education maybe the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears…tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only freedom of any importance whatsoever – that of the mind, and gives us the assurance, the confidence to walk the path our mind…our educated mind offers.”

In one of her TV interviews:

“People ofcourse are very secretive. And, for many reasons, want to appear what we call ordinary. Everybody has thoughts they want to conceal. Perhaps even quite simple aspects of their lives. People have obsessions and fears and passions which they wont admit to. I think any character is interesting and has extremes. It is the novelist’s privilege to see how odd everyone is.”

On language:

“Reading, writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty that language is capable of is something terribly important to human beings because….this is connected to thought.”

Books like these, by former evangelicals who have lost their faith, seem to be proliferating.  The Her.meneutics blog gives a good review of this one, entitled Not that Kind of Girl.

. . . after graduating and moving to New York City . . .  she bounces from church to church, gradually letting go of her moral convictions in order to “experience life” in the way she’d desired at age 8, in whispered prayers. After a brief stint with the Catholic Church (selected primarily because, as the “church of Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene and Walker Percy, it embraces literature, isn’t afraid of moderate intake of alcohol, and encourages social activism”), Bauer’s faith crumbles under the weight of her doubts and questions. Living through 9/11 as a resident of NYC presents an image of suffering she is unable to reconcile with God. “I’ve exhausted it all,” she says. “I’ve got nothing left to give him.” She desires certainty, but a philosophical ideal of truth — “Thinking you know anything makes it impossible to say that God is light” — leads her away from the church and its confident professions of faith.

What is ultimately missing from Bauer’s account is any sense of real community to support her amid her fleeting convictions. Roommates, friends, and love interests, Christian and non-Christian, come and go, and none is particularly memorable. Though Iris Murdoch’s observation that “love is the extremely uncomfortable realization that something other than oneself is real” first led Bauer to the Catholic Church, we never see her live out the “uncomfortable” reality. “If I had to love someone the way I had to love God, I would have to leave,” she says, after she has already left God.

Bauer’s is a truly thoughtful de-conversion story, and that makes it particularly heartbreaking. She seems like the kind of person you could talk to over coffee for hours. Unfortunately, hers is an all-too-common story: disaffected with the church, capital C, she gives up on God. But while I expected to mourn a lost opportunity for that gold-medal move, this book provided a reminder that we can never expect or ask anyone to singularly represent our faith. That’s something we must do every day, as persons who aspire to show not just what kind of girls we are, but also what kind of God we serve.

Lars von Trier

A recent article by Christopher Hart in the Mail has criticised Danish director Lars von Trier’s latest film Antichrist as ‘stomach-turning’, ‘revolting’, and ‘sick pretentious filth’. This is the latest in a series of outraged reactions to the film, following alleged fainting at the premiere in Cannes and a lawsuit by Christian organisations in France. Von Trier response did little to calm matters, announcing that he was commanded by God to make the film and is the best director in the world. Whilst all this controversy makes for an entertaining spectacle, and has been nothing but publicity for the film, it also serves to highlight a specifically philosophical issue: the close tie between art and morality.

Iris Murdoch saw art as the only terrain where morality is possible, because it is the only place where the imperfection of humanity can be transcended. For Sartre, art and morality are linked because morality is fundamentally creative: it is based on the free choice of the individual (‘You are free, therefore choose’). Further, art discloses the world in a particular way, offering different possibilities for human beings to use their freedom, perhaps possibilities outside of normal societal bounds.

It is therefore hardly surprising that films such as Antichrist, ostensibly aesthetic works, prompt such feverish reactions at an ethical level. This fact is exploited particularly in ‘avant-garde’ art, which revels in shocking ‘decent’ society and often takes this as one of its specific tasks. Exploiting the art-morality nexus enables the artist (ethicist?) to push ethical boundaries as well as artistic ones. The two are closely connected; one might even question the distinction between the two.

An article on the release of Antichrist can be found here

A response to Hart’s article can be found here

Related articles:

Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter-Relations to Artistic Value
By Matthew Kieran, University of Leeds
(Vol. 1, March 2006)
Philosophy Compass

Art and Negative Affect
By Aaron Smuts , Temple University
(Vol. 4, February 2009)
Philosophy Compass

I imagine Iris would have made a far greater impression on me had I known something of the person or writings of Iris Murdoch prior to my viewing the film. In fact, I suspect the nature of the storytelling (i.e., the movie’s chronological leapfrogging between past and present) might even mimic the type of narrative structure that Dame Murdoch uses in her novels, but having read none of them this point was surely lost on me. This said, I feel it best if I stick to examining Iris in light of its film qualities and avoiding a piercing examination of the story itself.

Without a doubt, Iris allows thespians the opportunity to shine, and that they do here. Dame Judi Dench plays Iris during her sunset years as the light slowly fads from her mind’s eye. She gives a masterful performance that heartbreakingly captures the disappearance of person behind the cloud of Alzheimer’s. Her honest performance creates the perfect space for Jim Broadbent to shine as her desperate and loving husband John Bayley. Broadbent is well-worthy of his Oscar win here as he deftly moves between hope, anger, love, and heartache in portraying a man desperately trying to keep his head above water while his wife slowly sinks below the tide. As for Kate Winslet’s performance as the young Iris Murdoch, she does an adequate job given she rarely has time to do much more than lose her clothing and say her lines before we jump forward in time to the end of Murdoch’s life.

Beyond the acting, James Horner provides a solid score, which has moments of true beauty. The film’s editing succeeds wonderfully at times in the shifting between past and present. Other than these two elements, the rest of the package is perfectly adequate. As for the story, I think the need for the chronological shifting was necessary to give a sense of the true loss of this great mind to a horrible disease. Even with this said, I would have liked to have spent more time with the younger Murdoch as I don’t think the audience was given much more than a hint into the character of this person who would become a significant 20th Century English literary figure.

I feel I should end with a warning concerning this film’s pacing. It is slow . . . painfully so at times. I imagine a person more familiar with Murdoch and her writings would find the story more compelling than I did, and I have few suggestions for how the pacing could be improved other than spending more time with the younger, more vibrant Murdoch. I recommend this film for those obviously interested in Iris Murdoch as well as those who want to see actors excel in their craft.

Когато майката на моя приятелка прелистила книга на Айрис, казала, че такива неща не се случват в живота, където всичко е много по-просто.

Аз пък наскоро си спомних как една вечер тичах да спускам гумите на колата на един момък, за да спася една съседка, която беше решила, че е отчаян маниак, който я преследва. Оказа се, че е кротък екземпляр, който се опитвал да й предложи сърцето си. Към днешна дата, петнайсетина години по-късно никой вече  не вярва, че ще се появи втори обожател, но аз не изключвам вероятността да се случи дори и след още петнайсет.

Преди малко си спомних и другата съседка, която всъщност ме беше въвлякла в историята, преценявайки, че съм най-хладнокръвният човек наоколо. Тя пък се беше маскирала с моето яркожълто яке, което посред лятната привечер стигаше до под късите й панталони – за да не бъде разпозната по време на спасителната операция. През цялото време ми беше смешно и нелепо като във филм с Мистър Бийн, но знаех, че се случва наистина.

Спомням си и третата съседка, на която предстоеше решаваща среща с гаджето й. Отново се бяха събрали съзаклятнически у нас, за да не будят подозрение у родителите си. Тя разтвори с размах дългия си шлифер и пищната й плът се оказа покрита с корсет и дамски чорапи. “Сега ще види, че си има работа с истинска жена!” обяви тържествено, след което добави трескаво-ухилено, че доста е внимавала майка й да не разбере, че излиза облечена точно така.

В такива случаи  ми се иска да попитам искрено като четвъртата съседка (при друг случай ) “Ама това наистина ли се случва?!?” Предполагам, че точно така се е чувствала майката на моята приятелка, когато е прелистила книга на Айрис.

Около мен са се случвали много неща, които повечето писатели не биха описали в романите си ако искат да ги смятат за реалисти. Айрис, обаче, пълни своите точно с такива неща и така ги прави да изглеждат по-истински от всички останали, въпреки че им липсва желязната режисирана логика на Агата Кристи. Айрис описва И Дзин ситуации, а те са по-кратки от сюжетни линии – започват, кулминират и завършват далече преди края на романа – точно както в живота проблясва и се разгаря, а после утихва и изстива поредното желание. Това че ние се опитваме да го превърнем в основа за нещо дълготрайно и отказваме да повярваме в ефимерността и смъртта му, превръщайки го в обсесия, е друг въпрос. Впрочем Айрис показва и това.

Понякога си мисля, че откривам Айрис във всички герои, които показва отвътре, че ги познава толкова добре, защото усещанията, чувствата и мислите им някога са били и нейни.

В тази книга с повтарят обичайни за вселената на Айрис елементи – водата, изгубилият вярата в Бог свещеник, прикритият гей, харизматичният интелект, който управлява съдбите на омагьосаните от него, младостта, която скоро ще се събуди от невинността, мъжът между съпруга и любовница. Това, което я прави различна е игривата свобода на Създателката, която решава да ни изненада с няколко щастливи развръзки.

Като много от другите й романи, и този директно описва философи и философии, поставя философски и религиозни въпроси, но и този НЕ е безцветен и снобски-мъчително-претенциозен, а е шарен и капризен като “Сън в лятна нощ”.

Докато пиша тези неща, все виждам старата, потъваща в Алцхаймер Айрис да пише в мрачната си разхвърляна къщичка или да седи сред камъчетата на морския бряг. Не мога да разбера как съпругът й може да казва “Мразя те, Айрис!” ( това е от филма по неговата книга). Тя е толкова lovable. Бих могла единствено да я прегръщам и целувам по бузите и да казвам “Обичам те, Айрис!”

I’ve been writing a bit about narrative voice lately on this humble blog, and in a recent post (about all narration actually being in first person) I brought up the unique narrator of Iris Murdoch’s novel The Philosopher’s Pupil. I’ve finished the book (finally), and the last paragraph really gives a delightful payoff in terms of narrative voice.

I noted in that other post that the narrator of the Murdoch novel makes occasional appearances as an interactive character in the story while still having omniscience regarding everyone’s thoughts and motivations, including even those of a dog. The narrator is from an old family in the village and goes by the name of N (for narrator?).

At one point N is referred to as “an impotent voyeur” by one of the characters. But N is from an established family in the town, so at another point a character states that people tend to do what N wants them to do. I love this kind of sly, self conscious reference to the role of a narrator in the story. In many ways, a narrator is both a powerless reporter and a weaver of characters’ lives.

Granted, the author is allowed to give her narrator whatever powers she wishes, but it was hard to avoid noticing that what seemed to be a mortal narrator could have such broad knowledge inside others’ heads. Was Murdoch up to something supernatural with this character perhaps? I didn’t think so since the supernatural doesn’t enter her books very often. (Secretive, controlling characters who manipulate the lives of other characters are common in her books, but they generally don’t have supernatural powers.)

The last paragraph, in a bit of meta fiction, addresses this point with a bit of playfulness. This is the narrator speaking:

“The end of any tale is arbitrarily determined. As I now end this one, somebody may say: but how on earth do you know all these things about all these people? Well, where does one person end and another person begin? It is my role in life to listen to stories. I also had the assistance of a certain lady.”

بطولة :

Judi Dench,Kate Winslet

التصنيف :

بيوغرافيا ، دراما

القصة:

يسير الفيلم بمحورين ، الأول حياة الأدبية إريس مردوك في وقت صباها، والآخر في شيخوختها حيث تصاب بالزهايمر.

التعليق:

يقدم الفيلم سيناريو غني جداً في المشاهد التي تناقش الفترة الأولى في حياة الأدبية، حوارات ذكية وملهمة، باعثة على التأمل، استمتعت بها لدرجة لم أكن أترك سطراً واحداً من الحوار يفوتني، على عكس المرحلة المتأخرة من عمرها والتي أصابتني بشيء من القلق ووضعتني تحت رحمة تساؤلات مرتبطة ببعضها “كيف سنكون عندما نعيش الفصل الأخير من حياتنا” لم أشاهد الزهايمر، بالطريقة التي شاهدته بها في هذا الفيلم قبل الآن.

أنجت كيت ونسلت وجودي دينش الفيلم قليلاً من الملل الذي ينتابه في ثلثه الأخير، فهو كحال أي بيوغرافيا لن تتدخل أي مخيلة في سبك الأحداث، هي سبل القدر فقط، لكنها هذه المرة وفي هذا الفيلم مرسومة لفيلسوفة وأديبة تتحدث كلماتها عنها.

الفيلم حاز على 7.2 في IMDB واعطيه 6 (مالي زمان طالع من صدمة public Enemies)

فاز بأوسكار ورشح لاثنتين (عن أفضل ممثلة بدور رئيسي وأفضل ممثلة بدور مساعد للنجمتين) غير الجوائز العديدة التي نالها في المهرجانات العالمية وكانت 11.

When you think about it (and you really ought to think about such things), all narration is in first person.

If you treat your narrator as an unseen character (which I think you must if you are serious about this business of writing fiction), he or she is really telling the story in first person, even if the word “I” is never used. (I’ve discussed this here and here.)

And if you don’t treat your narrator as an unseen character (or you don’t care to add this layer to your story telling), it is you who is telling the tale, so it is again in the first person, you just don’t happen to bring in your presence overtly.

The mysterious narrator of Iris Murdoch’s novel The Philosopher’s Pupil is a curious example. This is a true first-person narrated story, but a hundred pages can pass with a third-person omniscient voice (even relating to us the thoughts of a dog in the story), and then the narrator will become an active character, joining in action and conversation with the other characters.

The point of this observation is merely to emphasize how important it is to maintain voice in the story telling. Who exactly is relating your story to your reader? You must have this thought through and fixed in your mind even if you are the only one sharing drinks with your narrator, listening (and scribbling down) as he or she tells you the story of your protagonist.

Yes, you read the title correctly, the Book Foxes are branching out to other members of the animal kingdom: Jackie reads about a globe-trotting rhino and I’m interviewing straight-talking Kevin Duffy of the exciting indie publisher, Bluemoose Books.

On another note, Book Foxes we are, and love books we do, but from time to time we read a book that leaves us feeling disappointed. Some of us throw such books aside halfway through, but a few of us persist right to the end and then come onto Vulpes Libris to review them. This week we have some distinctly ‘mixed’ reviews.

We also have a write-up of Moira’s experiences at the RNA annual conference, an event so magnificent that it has already been extensively documented in the annals of Twitter.

Monday 3 – Jackie goes along on Clara’s Grand Tour by Glynis Ridley, the true story of a rhino’s travels around Europe in the eighteenth century.

Tuesday 4 – Anne finds herself rather irritated by Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand and suspects she might have been better off sticking to the first hand …

Wednesday 5 – Sam is a little worried by just how romantic he finds Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince.

Thursday 6 – Following on from the interview with Jamie Byng of Canongate Books, Lisa interviews Kevin Duffy from Bluemoose Books and discusses (amongst other things) the state of the British book industry and what can be done to improve it.

Friday 7 – Moira reports on the annual conference of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, with a theory about a rupture in the space-time continuum somewhere on the A66 west of Penrith.

Saturday 8 – Anne discovers that Vanessa Gebbie’s Words from a Glass Bubble is best taken with a pinch of salt.

I spotted these rhinos strutting around Florida and luckily I had my camera to hand. Perhaps they were doing the Grand American tour?