The Movie-fication of Lady Chatterley

I just saw and loved the fairly new French version of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley. It was very slow and plodding in the way I love. The sex was frank (and not so plodding in the way I love) but also somehow completely romantic and touching. It was a beautiful movie.

After seeing it I immediately regretted the fact that I have been denied the romance of a crippled husband and a gameskeeper to frolic in the woods with. I wondered if Penelope the guinea pig perhaps needed a gameskeeper and decided most probably the gameskeeper career is going the way of the newspaper reporter. Anyone any good is either working at the NYT or minding large animals in Kenya. I decided not to put an ad on Craigslist for a gameskeeper.

I scrapped the crippled husband idea since in this day and age he would want all sorts of ramps and handicapped access devices installed in the house. But I clung to the gameskeeper idea.How could I find an equivalent gameskeeper-like person in my life to frolic with on the Swampscott Commons? The closest I got to it was maybe the owner of the gas station who is quite handsome and there is the added benefit of perhaps a little discount on my gas. (I know they never showed it in Lady Chatterley but I'm sure she got quite a few free pheasants and rabbits out of the deal.) The distance from my house to the gas station is pretty much the equivalent between that of her estate and the gameskeeper's cottage, however not as scenic. I am sure the gas station man will be a little shocked when I traipse down the road towards him in my nightie with a gas can, but no doubt he'll be game in the end.

Jim the Dandy

A few years ago I read Jim the Boy by Tony Earley which was a very quiet gentle book about---you guessed it!---- a boy named Jim. Now he's a young man in The Blue Star. Not as memorable this time but still a quiet and gentle book about good people, something you would feel confident in giving an elderly lady as a present.
Unless your maiden aunt is reading Sebastian Horsley's Dandy in the Underworld which I just read about today in the NYT. A rather racy British memoir about heroine, crack and prostitution from the sounds of it by a very dashing looking young man. Although with the way memoirists are being unmasked lately and Mr Horsley being "repeatedly coy about what is real and what is contrived" it may be that we discover him next week sipping tea in a worn cardigan and reading Tony Earley!

Old Young Movies Deux

In case anyone is wondering where we are in our Sunday Night Old Movies:

• Singing in the Rain Huge Hit!
• The King and I Not as popular, and then all those wives to explain....
• Some Like it Hot Record Breaking Box Office
• How Green Was My Valley What's not to love? Death, Slave Wages, Striking Coal Miners,Black Lungs, Adultery, Child Abuse....we had to turn it off.
• South Pacific Too slow and dragged out. And what's with all those tinted lenses?
• Roman Holiday A moderate hit although Liv is not big on Bittersweet endings. She likes her ending Sweet---hold the Bitter.
  

Only Connect...

Only Connect! George has suggested it is a good AT&T slogan so the E.M. Forster Estate may want to look into negotiating with them. But E.M. Forster perhaps had loftier notions for the phrase. I just re-read Howards End.

So many clever things in it.

"Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through this crisis. Pity, if one may generalize, is at the bottom of woman. When men like us, it is for our better qualities, and however their liking, we dare not be unworthy of it, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthiness stimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for good or for evil."

"So deep already was her sympathy that when he said, 'I am asking you to be my wife" she made herself give a little start. She must show surprise if he expected it. It was indescribable. It had nothing to do with humanity, and most resembled the all pervading happiness of fine weather. Fine weather is due the sun, but Margaret could think of no central radiance here. She stood in his drawing room happy, and longing to give happiness. On leaving him she realized that the central radiance had been love." (italics mine)

"Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying. Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them understood."

Oh E.M. was a clever clever man!!!

The Heart is a Boring Hunter

I started listening to Carson McCuller's Heart is a Lonely Hunter because it was read by Cherry Jones, who has the most lovely rich voice. She is a stage actress and you can tell. The first chapter was heartbreaking about an very unequal friendship between two deaf mutes, Singer and Antonapoulos, "an obese and dreamy Greek". Other characters are trotted out, a tomboyish 12 year old named Mick, a black doctor and his very sweet daughter Portia, a restaurant owner named Biff, a labor organizer and no one is as compelling. Singer is presented as a blank slate who everyone puts their dreams and hopes in to. At some point short of sitting in my car for 8 hours I gave up on the CD's and got the book. Things got worse without Cherry there to lure me in with her voice. In the end I couldn't wait to put it down. I thankfully tossed it aside three days ago wishing that it had only contained deaf mutes. Read the first chapter---skip the rest. Go see Cherry Jones in a play someday!