Faith in fiction revived

I was given Alexander McCall Smith's latest book, Trains and Lovers, to review a few days ago.  I'm a great AMS fan, but not of everything he's written. And unfortunately this book just doesn't cut the mustard. The review will be out in the Otago Daily Times soonish, so you can read what I thought then.

After that disappointment it was great, by happenstance, to pick up Anne Tyler's most recent novel, The Beginner's Goodbye at the Library yesterday. I finished it tonight. (It's just under 200 pages, but this was the hardcover version, making it easier to read.)

What a contrast! Where AMS writes a story that skims the surface, Tyler gives us characters with depth, and the humour is a delight too. The only book of Tyler's that I've read, I think, is The Accidental Tourist, which I really enjoyed. I have a funny feeling there was another one, but I can't remember anything about it, and am not even sure if I finished it. I also think it might have put me off reading any more of her books, which is a pity.

Tyler's story is about grief - the narrator's wife has died recently, and the book is essentially about him learning to move on again. It's a slow process, and the book could have been very gloomy. Instead, Tyler manages to write in such a way that we're fully involved with the narrator, and even though at times he's a bit of a prig, we still empathize with him, and not just because his wife has been killed in a rather odd accident.

There's a great deal of humour and warmth in the book, a delight in life even in the midst of a tragedy, and the very strange 'fact' that the narrator's wife suddenly starts appearing again after she's been dead for a year. Tyler can draw a character in a few words (AMS's characters, in his latest book, are scarcely drawn at all), and she can also keep on adding layers to characters we thought we'd got to grips with.

The story seems to meander, yet every step in the story is in its right place, and everything works together to form a pleasing whole. It's quite revived my faith in fiction!  :)

Favourite Hitchcocks

The Guardian has an article in one of the latest papers asking, What's Your Favourite Hitchcock?  The writer lists several in his article and then the commenters take over.   It's impossible to say any one movie by Hitchcock is your favourite. A whole range of them have things you're glad he did, even if there are things you wish he hadn't. So here are some comments about a big bunch of them that I've enjoyed - or haven't.

The ones I'm not desperate to see again, first.

I've never been able to go back to Pscyho or Frenzy because I was scared out of my wits by the first, as a teenager, and I hated Frenzy*when it first came out.  No doubt there are some plusses in it, but I'm not sure that I'll chase it up any time soon. Family Plot was a mess, and even the performances are pretty rough really. The car without brakes scene is one of Hitch's low points. The Birds is just nonsense from go to whoa; worst is the non-ending. For once Hitchcock seemed to be short of an idea. [1.8.12 Though see this post by Xan Brooks]

Let's get onto some goodies:
North by Northwest - almost perfect in every way, even if Cary Grant is only a year or two younger than Joyce Landis as his mother.
Rear Window - immensely watchable: wonderful duo in the leads, and a great cast of 'tenants' in the apartments. [I wrote about this again in November 2015]
Vertigo - this turned out to be a revelation when I caught up with it again. Apart from the long opening exposition scene, and the impossibility behind the story, it's just a dream movie.
The Man Who Knew Too Much - both versions have climaxes that are just a bit too much, but the lead-ups in each case are wonderful. And the casts! - even Doris Day does well in the second version.
The Wrong Man, and I Confess. Hitchcock's 'film noir' period, you might say; two slightly oddball movies, but still full of brilliant moments: as is often the case with Hitchcock, the movies are somehow better than their stories.
The Trouble with Harry: Hitchcock has a field day with black humour, and Mildred Natwick is just one of the many delights in this movie.
To Catch a Thief.  So-so. The story is a bit weak, and there is some dreadful back projection. Even Cary Grant can barely save this one.
Dial M for Murder Hitchcock hardly deviates from the play that this is based on. Surprisingly it works well (the play is excellently-crafted), and the fact that it was made as a 3-D movie barely counts. For another play that Hitchcock managed to turn into a fairly decent movie, check out Juno and the Paycock, one of the least Hitchcockian movies of the lot, except for the way in which the performances work in the ensemble scenes. Hitchcock was always good at shooting scenes around a table - it would be interesting to consider how many there are and how they vary - and there's a wonderful one in this movie.
Strangers on a Train - absolutely fabulous, as is the other movie in which homosexuality features strongly: Rope.  

This book is a great source
of information about Hitchcock
and his movies. 

Stage Fright. A slightly over-the-top performance from Richard Todd (one of the many leading men to disappoint Hitchcock over the years because their performances didn't sync with Hitchcock's intentions), a definitely over-the-top performance from Marlene Dietrich (even a song shot almost entirely in one take). The movie is made more delightful by a brief appearance from Joyce Grenfell, and the total hamming of Alistair Sim.
I haven't seen The Paradine Case since the 50s or 60s so can't comment on it, and I've never seen Under Capricorn. 
Likewise it's a long-time since I've seen Notorious or Spellbound, but I remember them as intriguing movies, which I'd like to catch up with again. The former has a great supporting cast; the Dali dream sequences in the latter were severely hampered by the producer's mucking around with them. [Saw Notorious again in August 2015]
Lifeboat is intriguing; not so exciting on a second viewing as when I first saw it years ago, but Tallulah Bankhead's chewing of the scenery is matched by Walter Slezak's hammy performance as a sleazy German attempting to sabotage the situation. The rest of the cast are great.
Shadow of a Doubt is good, but the best thing about it for me is the supporting cast. I find Teresa Wright too intense now.  Her family, however, are, as is so often the case, a delight. They're cast for their comic abilities rather than anything else and they bring their performances off superbly. This is the case with Suspicion too, where the English supporting players bring something to the movie that is essentially Hitchcockian - almost more than the suspense factor, I think. I like the movies as a whole, but since we know how it's going to end, now, it doesn't quite have the punch it once had.
It would be interesting sometime to discuss the comic roles in Hitchcock movies - as well as the 'table' scenes.  
Saboteur is full of great stuff (supporting cast again, particularly the circus troupe) even though Hitchcock wasn't much impressed with Robert Cummings in the lead role.  
I've never seen Mr and Mrs Smith, but I did catch up with Jamaica Inn on the Internet recently. It was an appalling copy of the movie, but that didn't make much difference. This is also one of Hitchcock's worst, in spite of Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara and Robert Newton all giving in-your-face performances. The Daphne du Maurier story is treated badly, and the filming is uninspiring. 
I last saw Foreign Correspondent*** decades ago, and remember vividly the plane crashing into the sea sequence, and also a shot of dozens of umbrellas filmed from above: one of those Hitchcock joke moments in which the hero 'vanishes'.
Rebecca, and The Lady Vanishes. Utterly wonderful movies. One with all that Hollywood could offer in the way of technical expertise, the other filmed a bit more off the cuff in England (with model trains at one point). Both have top notch leads, and wonderful supporting casts. As different as possible - one is all dark and gloomy, with little humour, the other is all froth and bubble in spite of its serious subject.  
Young and Innocent is based on a Josephine Tey story - 'based' only in the sense that one of the characters still appears by name; the rest is pure Hitchcock. Not a bad movie, and another one in which a marvellous family around a table appears. And a delightful child at a petrol pump. 
Now we start to head back into ancient days, with only one major movie still to look at: The 39 Steps. Not quite a total rewrite of Buchan's book, it's basically is a riff on the original idea with wonderful scenes and excellent playing from the leads. John Laurie appears at his best (after being given a dull, melodramatic part in Juno and the Paycock), and there are plenty of other excellent supporting actors.  
The remainder are a mixed bunch: I think I've seen Blackmail, but can't remember enough to comment; Sabotage has its points** (and like Saboteur includes newsreel footage that fits into the action) but to me it's most memorable for the performance of the boy who gets blown up on the bus.  
The remainder are mostly films in which Hitchcock is either restrained by the studio's intents, or 
working with material that he doesn't find compatible.  
So what's my favourite....too difficult a choice!

*Update 12.10.18. I caught up with Frenzy a few weeks ago. Though it still has a couple of very unpleasant and grotesque scenes, it's not a bad movie, and Jon Finch is better than I'd remembered in the main role. But it peters out at the end rather suddenly, even though the 'plot' is worked through.

**Update 16.11.20 I saw this again a few weeks ago. I'd read the original book in the meantime: it's quite surprisingly vicious, especially Mrs Verloc's behaviour after she's killed her husband. And the fellow-saboteurs are a very unpleasant lot - they barely appear in the movie. As always Hitchcock retains something of the original but recasts the story quite considerably to give it an (almost) happy ending. Not a bad movie, though there's some ponderous acting by Oscar Homolka. 

***Update on Foreign Correspondent, 2024

Some random thoughts on "Housekeeping"

I've recently finished reading Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, the first of her three novels, which I  hadn’t got round to reading before.  Like the other two that follow, it’s extraordinary in detail, vivid in imagination, and seemingly plotless.  It's surprisingly readable, and superbly written. 

At least that was my impression before I got to the end of it. 

My enthusiasm for it waned a little towards the end because, unlike the other two books Robinson has written, this one ultimately goes nowhere.  It’s a long sad story of a family broken first by the tragic death of the grandfather in a train accident, then the departure of one of his three daughters to the mission field – she’s never heard of again – and then the suicide of the mother of the two girls (the grandchildren) who are the focus of most of the book.  

The lake near the town of Fingerbone plays a huge part in the story, but there are times when the whole metaphorical approach to storytelling just about takes over, and not a great deal actually happens. By the end of the book, the younger sister has gone off to the ‘world’, you might say; she’s making something of herself even though what she’s making doesn’t seem to be much approved of by her sister or aunt.  The aunt is a drifter who finds it hard to settle anywhere.  That she stays as long as she does, caring for her two nieces, is quite something, but by the end of the book she’s taken off again, this time with the remaining niece, the one who’s the book’s narrator.  And their lives seem to go nowhere.  At least the drifting character in the other two books has something to say for himself when he appears, and has actually done something, acted in his life.  Housekeeping is about women (there’s hardly a male in sight) who can’t get up and take action.  They’re seemingly so overwhelmed by the tragedy that took place decades ago that they just drift through life as well as through the geography of the planet.  Quite why they do this is never explained in so many words; we get metaphors for it, but not much clarification.  Perhaps the book, like the others, needs a re-reading to get to grips with what it’s about, because story is almost what it isn’t about.  That’s not to say there are no stories.  The remaining aunt offers a great number of somewhat inconsequential stories – they never seem to be terribly relevant to anything, and none of them are very straightforward.   And it’s not to say there’s no action in the book at all.  Towards the end the aunt and niece try to burn the house down (there’ll be no ‘housekeeping’ after this) but are as unsuccessful at this as they are about pretty much everything else they do together.  I don’t think we’re much meant to admire the other sister who goes off and gets on with life, but at least she does do something. 

Robinson's every word is carefully chosen; nothing is out of place, and there's a philosophical thinking under her writing that's rare in storytellers.  Perhaps the narrator explains a little too much - when I say 'explains' I mean that she philosophises just a bit more than necessary.  For someone who's willing to go drifting and do nothing with her life she still thinks very deeply.  The character of the narrator is elusive in some ways; she's nowhere near as sharply drawn as the narrators of the other two novels.  She doesn't interact much; she reacts, but it's still a very passive reaction.  There's little that she does (especially as she grows older) that's initiated by her.  And her aunt: what does she do all day, except dream, perhaps.   She's also an unfocused character, almost a ghost.  She has no connection with anyone in the town and seemingly is happy to stay in the house day in and day out, or to be on her own out in the country that surrounds Fingerbone, or on the lake.  

The book is something of a mystery: what is the story that's being told here?  There are so many unanswered questions that after reading the book you feel as though you've never had any grip on it.  It's not unmemorable - Robinson creates a very particular world - but it seems to be inhabited by people who've got no grip on life themselves. 

Kiwirail just doesn't get it

Paying cheap today will cost dearly tomorrow. I know that's not quite a proverb (well at least it wasn't until a minute ago) but it applies to the way Kiwirail is dealing in regard to building 300 new flat-deck wagons. They're going to get the Chinese to build them, (in China, of course) because they claim that the price the Chinese offer is 70% below the NZ tenders. When you read more carefully you find that the 70% may apply to the highest tenderer, but it doesn't appear to apply to Hillside Workshop's tender.

"Hillside's was third-best of nine tenders but it was still 25% more expensive than the tender prepared" by China CNR Corporation.

So what did I mean by my opening proverb? What will cost dearly tomorrow? Well, for starters, if you insist on employing overseas workers (and the Americans have found this to their cost already in their insistence on outsourcing) you eventually find you have a heap of unemployed people on your hands. And how do you keep them from death's door? Oh, yes, you pay them welfare. Um, doesn't that cost you in the long run?

Okay, Kiwirail, let's make it really simple. Say that in my family I have a plumber - an excellent plumber too. I have a plumbing job. He could do it, but so could someone from Christchurch, who just happens to be staying in Dunedin at the moment. The big bonus, I seem to think, is that the guy from Christchurch is going to cost me half the price of my family member. So I go for him. The job gets done. I notice that it's not entirely satisfactory, but the plumber has already returned to Christchurch, and I can't seem to contact him - and anyway, he told me before he left that if there were any problems he'd have to charge me to come back from Christchurch to fix the problems up.

Whoops. Now I have an unsatisfactory job and no cheap way of getting the plumber back to fix it. Shamefacedly, I go to the plumber in my family. He'll fix up the other plumber's less than satisfactory work, but it will not only cost me more, it also leaves me with egg on my face.

Maybe this analogy is too obscure for Kiwirail. Let me make it simpler still: if you don't look after the workers in your own country, eventually you'll have no workers - they'll either be on the dole, or will have gone to Australia. It's a bit like the way we treat fruit consumers in New Zealand: we send all our best stuff overseas and leave the shoddy goods for those at home.

What does it say about how Government and Big Business think about the local people?

Spoilers Galore

I didn’t read Roger Ebert’s review of Derailed before I watched the movie, because he said there’d be spoilers in his review; the same applies to this one. If you haven’t seen the movie, and want to, don’t read any further.
Derailed takes a good deal of time to set itself up, and for quite a bit of its first twenty minutes or so, doesn’t seem like much of a thriller. However, all the set up is essential for the later part of the movie, and is in fact the most logical section of the movie, all up. Derailed is exciting enough in its own unusual way; certainly every time the villain (Vincent Cassel) appears things turn pretty scary. He’s one of those uninhibited creatures who can walk into the hero’s home without batting an eyelid and set about charming the wife and the daughter as though this was all perfectly normal. And then, as soon as the wife and daughter are out of the way, he literally grabs the hero by the balls and threatens him again. Nastiest of all, he manages to survive being shot late in the movie in order to turn up for the final scenes.
Derailed is one big scam: both the audience and the hero are fooled by it for a good deal of time, but it’s when the scam is finally revealed, and the hero (something of a worm) turns and becomes proactive that things cease to hold together. A major shoot-up late in the piece that leaves four characters dead is dramatic, but almost as full of holes as the characters; and the possibility that the villain could survive this without the hero knowing, or, apparently, the police (!), is absurd in hindsight. This section is a bit of a cheat really. But then the whole thing is about cheating. Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who’s job is to ‘cheat’ in the financial area – or so she tells us. In fact, she’s cheating the hero and the audience rather than anyone financial. The hero cheats on his wife – almost – and gets himself into big blackmailing difficulties as a result. We find out late in the piece that he’s cheated on his boss, by ‘borrowing’ some money from the firm, but he’s also cheated on his wife in a different way by siphoning off the hard-earned savings they’ve put together for their diabetic daughter’s future. While his intentions are good – in a sense – they just put him and his family into deeper and deeper holes. And even the boss cheats, by allowing a big account holder to walk all over the hero in an early scene without supporting him in any way. There’s another piece of cheating gone on before the movie starts too: the hero has covered up for an ex-con who’s working in his firm. Again his intentions may have been honourable, but they seem unwise in hindsight.
In spite of my quibbles, this is a satisfying movie to watch: it’s well put together, the cast are excellent (Clive Owen has the worn-out and sometimes bewildered face of Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man, and Aniston is miles away from her Friends character); the photography, design and direction are all top quality, and even with the cheating ending, it still works. Some of the minor characters are a bit underwritten: Owen’s lawyer never seems to get off one note, and the black detective who turns up late in the proceedings might seem threatening, but Owen gives him the brush-off in every scene they have together. Equally, we never know why his boss appears to be so unsupportive, or why Owen’s wife (who seems young enough to be his daughter) is apparently remote.
Obviously I’m pretty much alone in liking the movie (Ebert says it’s okay); however, there’s a fairly friendly interview with Clive Owen on the movie here.