Evanston: a good movie and a great book
Evanston: a good movie and a great book
We watched an excellent movie yesterday, and I just finished a great book. And I do not use ‘great’ loosely.
The movie was Woody Allen’s MATCH POINT. He wrote and directed it, but it is a most un-Woody Allen movie, of which I became tired more than a decade ago. It is not a comedy, but a dramatic thriller, with an intelligent theme: how much of life is beyond our control and turns on blind chance; fine acting; and a clever twisting ending.
The book is Philippe Claudel’s BY A SLOW RIVER. It is beautiful and perfect and immediately sent me to the Internet to see if any of his other works have been translated into English. They haven’t yet, but I hope they will be.
BY A SLOW RIVER is not merely a level above the “three greatest American novels of the past 25 years” that I just read, but many levels, a whole world above them. And it is about considerably more than simply the murder of the young girl to which I alluded in the last entry.
Most criticism is ponderous, pretentious, and just plain stupid; but I am grateful that a review in the New York Times online led me to this book. Really that’s all critics ought to do: read or see everything and then point toward the few that might be worthwhile in the overwhelming sea of hyped mediocrity.
A cold front passed through last evening with sporadic downpours, one of which occurred just as Carol was cooking on the balcony. With the acquisition of a small Weber grill we have become complete suburbanites. The balcony has a roof so neither cook nor food drowned.
High temperatures this week are expected to be only in the high 50ties and lows in the 40ties. I have exchanged shorts for Levis.
Monday, September 18, 2006