to the lighthouse. virginia woolf. (64)

who's afraid of virginia woolf? not i, but i was confused by her. it's hard to be scared when you have no idea what is going. i am starting to realize i can not pay attention to modernist writers. as i read, i constantly lost track of who or what woolf was writing about because of her overuse of pronouns and endless addition of clauses to sentences. also there were so many commas, it reminded me of gertrude stein. without periods, my mind wonders and can not focus, so i spent most of my reading, re-reading. in fact, i started it and after being 80 pages in, started it all over again because i felt like i hadn't grasped anything. thankfully, on the second reading i felt like i was actually reading.

i started off with this virginia woolf novel because flavorpill had listed it as one of the 30 novels to read before 30. i was enticed by their description of it being a "gorgeous read" and "an artful and introspective study of time and family". however, i did not find it very profound. yes, woolf had a beautiful way of describing life and love but i couldn't find any true character in any of her characters. i found lily briscoe whiny and her obsession with mrs. ramsay was creepy. in my opinion, lily was too scared to live life and mrs. ramsay was her scapegoat for why she was unhappy in life. mr. ramsay was pompous and self-righteous. i would have joined cam and james in their silent war against his tyranny. mrs. ramsey had interesting viewpoints on life but the way she tried to orchestra the lives of others made her overbearing. (okay i get it lily, but at anytime you could have been your own person). i did have a soft spot for the atheist because his life was quite trying which resulted in him being rough around the edges. but all in all, no one gave me any deep insight for when i embark on my thirties.

as for the family aspect, yes, we all secretly want to kill our parents. i understood james frustration. however, as a late twentysomething, this frustration comes not from a parent being too blunt and inconsiderate of my feelings, but from the fact that at times i feel that i am just as smart or smarter than my parent. this makes life a challenge when a) our parents give advice and b) we want to give our parents advice.

though i will say, cam and james' secret alliance against their father is a true testament of having a sibling. when siblings aren't fighting with each other there is some unsaid bond that comes into effect when one sibling is being treated unjustly by an adult. i always say my sister and i can fight like cats and dogs but when push comes to shove we are always there for each other.

the best section was time passes, which was also very sad. it is difficult to think that the things that mean so much to me today will, as time passes, grow moldy, grow old, deteriorate or eventually die. the people that mean so much to me today may not be in my life in the future (i'm sadly already starting to experience this). and the love that i have for people and things will one day only be a memory instead of a real-life feeling. however, all of this type of talk seems so depressing for someone my age. yes, 30 is a big transition year, but i am just settling into my life versus being in its final stages. i think this type of deep revelation would be more appropriate at my end of thirties versus the beginning of them. so i should put it on my list of 40 to read before 40.

quotations (see, her writing is beautiful):

"Nature has but little clay like that which she moulded you."

"They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen through the eyes of love."

". . . how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became cured and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach."

"love that never attempted to clutch it's object, but, like the love which mathematicians bear their symbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain."

"A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on the other, and she always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her . . ."

"Love had a thousand shapes."

for whom the bell tolls. movie verison.

i went through this hemingway kick earlier in the year because of woody allen's "midnight in paris" and of the four works i read by him, "for whom the bell tolls" is my favorite. i youtubed the trailer for the 1943 film version of it but had no real desire to watch it. then the other day while checking out what movies TCM is airing this month decided to check this out.

first and foremost, this movie is long. 170 minutes long. i know the book is thick but i became so engrossed in it that i flew through the pages. the movie not so much, there were parts where i did stop paying attention. i mean the overture at the beginning confused me, i thought there was something wrong with the library's copy. also there is an intermission. that is how long this is. but i can overlook its length because it stayed true to the book and did not give it a hollywood ending. i was really scared at the end that it would be some overdramatic we live happily ever after story but thankfully it wasn't. but then again who edits hemingway?

the film stars gary cooper ("super duper". . . yes read in a taco voice) and ingrid bergman. this is my first cooper film and second bergman one. i was surprised with the casting. in my head, roberto was younger and maria looked more like natalie portman sans hair ala "v for vendetta". also bergman didn't read very spanish to me. i mean her acting was great but visually just wasn't maria.

also i hate to be mean but i thought gary cooper was horrible. isn't he some hollywood legend? any suggestions for better film of his to see? or is famous cos of his good looks versus acting ability? he is definitely drool worthy but i found him and his acting stiff. and is his voice just too famous cos i thought it was monotonous and expressionless. the voice over at the end made me cringe. i just didn't believe him, he lacked the passion i imagined roberto possessed. that last goodbye to maria did not read sincere.

also what was with all the bad make

up on the spanish? the old man is a great and sweet character but it was hard to take him seriously with the skin tone they gave him. the same thing with pilar. pilar is a strong and important character (katina paxinou won an oscar for her performance, according to the backcover) but the make up made her look silly and exaggerated. which i guess mirrors the character, but still also i pictured her fatter. but don't get me wrong, paxinou deserved that oscar.

like i said earlier i appreciated that the film stayed true to the story. i appreciated the use of "unmentionable", "obscenity" and "spit in your milk" which was taken straight from hemingway's dialogue. i loved the vignette of pilar's memory when they overthrew the nationals. that part in the book had me on the end of my seat. i am also glad they did not shy away from maria's backstory. though roberto and maria's lack of sex was expected (it's interesting to think that if a remake was made now this would be included), i think an important part of their relationship was her ability to have sex with him but in the 40s that would not have been okay with audience. i guess they covered that with the whole "you are the first man i kissed" bit. i also missed roberto calling maria, rabbit.

all in all it was worth the check out. but once again an example of how the book is always better.

ps gary cooper reminded me alot of jimmy stewart. but i love and prefer the later.

everything is illuminated. movie version.

as i mentioned before, after reading the book, i decided not to watch the movie because i was certain it would disappoint me. however, after rereading the book, i decided to give the movie a chance.

i was right. the movie did disappoint me. if i had never read the book, i would have loved the movie but that is not the case. and i understand it was a difficult book to adapt and that it would have been impossible to fit everything from the novel into a 2 hour film. but still it was only half of the book and it was not the part i wanted. i wanted to see the story of trachimbrod, it was so mythical that i imagined in done in the style of "amelie" or "big fish". but instead it was the less whimsical (but still endearingstory) of jonathan looking for augustine. i think liev schreiber did a great job, but that he chose the wrong storyline to portray.

i think eugene hutz did an amazing job as alex. he was everything i imagined alex to be and more. he was alex. and after a while i found him extremely sexy in his retro ll cool j outfits. (i recently looked up his imdb and swoon when it comes to his stache!) hutz' voice even sounded as i imagined alex would sound like. (so blonde moment: just realized that eugene is the frontman of gogol bordello and i have seen them twice at coachella!)

again i know not that movies can not be exactly the same as the book.  but there were some changes that seem to harm the story versus help it.  one thing was the friendship that grew between alex and jonathan, their closeness was missing from the movie. at the end of the book,  it was sweet to see how much helped each other grow; especially how jonathan gave alex the courage to try new things in life.  however, this was not present in the movie which was odd because they had been through a lot during the film. they shared the linking stories of their grandfathers and with alex's grandfather's ending, there good bye did not seem that special.

before i give my next critique, i will say that this movie had me in tears.  it is a very emotional and beautiful movie but i was distracted by the change to alex's grandfather's storyline.  without spoiling it for anyone, in the book, grandfather's link to trachimbrod was more powerful and complex than the movie version.  i'm not sure why schreiber changed it.  being of jewish descent may have resulted in him wanting to tell a different tale.  i googled "liev schreiber change grandfather story line in everything is illuminated" and i came across this article liev schreiber is illuminated.  after reading that article, i excuse him.  because a) his film is based on the short story in the new yorker and b) perhaps it parallels his grandfather's fate as well.  with viewing alex's introduction to his jewish background at the end could mirror schreiber's upbringing and in both cases the grandfather is the link to embrace of judaism.

please know that i don't think this was a horrible film.  like i mentioned before it was beautiful.  elijah wood was adorable in it.  i loved his large frames.  i loved how he put everything in ziplocs so that he could remember everything.  i loved how augustine's home was surrounded by sunflowers.  and i loved seeing all of the boxes that filled her house.  it was a great film and you should definitely check it out of the library or cue it up on your netflix.  and you should also read the book, neither one will ruin the other and you can get the bonus of visualizing elijah wood as jonathan.

howl and other poems. allen ginsberg. (61)

the library of congress recently released a list of 88 books that shaped america. and "howl" was one listed on it and thus i was inspired to check it out.

after reading "on the road", i decided i would have been a beat in a previous life. though i would have to be a male in that previous life cos there really wasn't a place for women among the beats, they were either sex objects or beards, plus i wouldn't want to miss out on all of the gay sex that happen between the beats. the nomadic-ness, the drugs, the rejection of post ww II conservatism and social standards, sounds glamourous but there was a dark and dirty side too but was worth the suffering.

before i start, i am not one for poetry so did not have too deep of thoughts about this so this post is not an analytical one. i loved the imagery and realized that i need to study the beats more. i will admit i did consult wikipedia for a thorough reading because i did not get any of the references. and if you read it, i suggest you do too. (ps if you want to read it, www.poets.org has it listed.)

part 1 is a look at chaos that is the beats generation, a praise of the "angelheaded hipsters" that lived as they wanted regardless of the consequences suffered. it was dirty and dangerous but also exhilarating.

the poem reads as what i what i could imagine (or would have loved) my twenties would have been if i did more drugs. it is filled with random incidents of jazzing, sexing, wandering, protesting, questioning, experimenting and living.

my favorite incident/story from the poem was:

"who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull"

which wikipedia explained to me as:

"Part of the reason Ginsberg was suspended in his sophomore year from Columbia University was because he wrote obscenities in his dirty dorm window. He suspected the cleaning woman of being an anti-Semite because she never cleaned his window, and he expressed this feeling in explicit terms on his window, by writing "Fuck the Jews", and drawing a swastika. He also wrote a phrase on the window implying that the president of the university had no testicles."

i love that story because it captured the great spirit of ginsberg.

part 2, i can admit was over my head.

part 3 is about being institutionalized which sadly was the fate of many of the free-thinkers of the time. it's sad that your unconventionality or deviant sexual behavior could resulted in shock treatment. its also horrible to think how we treat and marginalized outsiders.

all in all, it did shape america and for someone not born of the generation also romanticized it. though i am unsure i have thick enough skin to be a beat.

other poems were also included with "howl". there was a great one about walt whitman being in a california supermarket. my favorite image was "wives in the avocados! babies in the tomatoes".

there was also one about greyhound. being a frequent rider of the greyhound this was a treat and a very accurate description of the greyhound. my favorite line was "an aluminum box of human blood for Stockton" because i have actually seen human blood be delivered via the greyhound. i was at the greyhound in bakersfield, when i saw a brown box labeled "human blood" be picked up by a houchin blood bank employee.

lastly i have to share my favorite quote which is from william carlos williams' introduction:

"hold back the edges of your gowns, ladies, we are going through hell."

most talkative: stories from the front lines. andy cohen. (63)

i adore andy cohen. i literally laugh out loud (by myself) every single time i watch "watch what happens live". i wish one day to get a tweet or retweet from him. and the foursquare badge i desire the most is the andy cohen one. so when i found out he had a new book, i put my request in. 20 something transfers later and it was sent to delano especially for me.

surprisingly, i did not adore the book. the issue is that his writing is a bit too much. i get it (we are both geminis), he writes the way he talks which comes off cheesy. i mean this as no offense. i am the same way, whenever my friends compliment me on my yelp reviews, i politely explain its cos they know me and the average reader would be annoyed. and though i feel like i "know" andy cohen, the book at times had campy-ish moments.

it just wasn't a page turner nor did it have me laughing out loud. i think the best thing about this story was his coming out story and how he dealt with his homosexuality. he was honest and it is a great testament not only to homosexuality being innate with individuals but also to how accepting his family and friends were, that things are getting better. reading it reminded me of my friendship with miguel, and i wonder if he was ever nervous about coming out to me. though we had long discussions about his homosexuality during our senior year, he didn't tell me til our first year of college. i hope that as he decided to come out that he knew that regardless i would love him. i did enjoy reading about how cohen's roommate was so supportive, and how his mom and roommate used to keep tabs on him.

another thing that is interesting to think about was how scared his friends were about him contracting AIDS. i have a lot of gay friends and have never been scared of that. i guess it is because we live in a society where STDs are openly talked about and all of my friends are responsible and get tested frequently. so i am thankful that i never had to worry about them. (i also realize that it is unfair, i should worry about my straight friends too.)

i guess the issue is that i wanted it to be a bravo tell all and it wasn't. i love bravo, i even have a bravolebrities album on fb. however, the best part read like a bravo special because it was one. the chapter on the housewives reunion was pretty much that countdown of real housewives best reunion moments.

i wanted more dirt though i did learn that padma's husband was salman rushdie. it was interesting how the shows came together. it was nice to have light shed on russell armstrong's death but what about brandi in all that drama? also could have done without the oprah chapter but mainly cos i hate
oprah.

it was a nice brain break after reading "anna karenina" and it's good if you want a mindless read or something g to leave as a causal bathroom read.

anna karenina. leo tolstoy (62)

(please note: this is a long blog, but in my defense it is a long novel.)

as i mentioned in my previous post, i was inspired to read "anna karenina" because it was listed as one of the greatest novels of all time.  people are crazy about this work.  even after i finished reading it, i came across another list via flavorpill in which "anna karenina" was on top.  brainpicking's greatest books of all time (i'll discuss "madame bovary" in another post. i don't get the appeal of that book, but i may have read the wrong version.)

so would i list "anna karenina" as the greatest of all time? i'm not too sure.  i will say that i loved tolstoy's style of writing.  i enjoyed how the eyes of his characters seemed to talk on their own.

"that only proves you have no heart," she said. but her look said she knew he had a heart and that she therefore feared him."

". . . and every time they met kitty's eyes said: 'who are you? what are you? surely are the delightful creature i imagine you to be?"

 i loved how he shared the thoughts of everyone, even the levin's dog. 

and his descriptions were so picturesque and clever. one of my favorites was this description of karenin's anger:

"he dressed in haste, and as if he were carrying a cup brimful of wrath and was afraid of spilling any . . ."

i have been that angry before where you don't want to lose any steam before confronting the person you are upset with.

  i did enjoy the storylines. i rooted for levin thoughout the whole book. and his characters had such depth that i felt as though i knew them. i worried about dolly, became frustrated with oblonsky, felt bad for serezha and was proud of kitty. yet there was still something that prevented me from falling completely in love with this work.

i think what stopped me from absolute love was anna.  if tolstoy had named his work "Constantine Dmitrich Levin", i probably would have been head over heels like everyone else, but having anna as the title and thus lead character, my heart couldn't give its all. sorry romeo but a rose by any other name would smell sweeter. and gertrude stein a rose is not a rose is not a rose.

i did not believe in anna and vronsky's love. i may have said this before in another blog but i am really not one for love stories. there have been a handful that i have read and in the end (and also during) questioned this is love? and the odd thing is that i am totally one for romantic comedies. i was just in tears over "celeste and jesse forever" yet there are some literary works i just can't fall for. i will be the first to admit that my lack of a love life results in me not relating. but even then its not that i don't believe in love, i just find some things insincere. anna is an example of this. when anna gave up her son and life for "love" i couldn't understand why because it all seemed illogical and silly to me.

i understand that it was a different time but regardless of society's standards then, anna was not completely bound by them. though it was frowned upon, divorce was initially an option for her. so she doesn't get any sympathy from me in regards to that. and the whole issue of her avoiding a divorce so she could would not lose her son was illogical. if she truly wanted to be with her son she would have snuck off and found ways to be with him just has she had found ways to be with vronsky at the beginning. i guess growing up with an absent father has reared me incapable of sympathizing with anna. if she really wanted to see and be with her son, she would have found the means. furthermore, her neglect of her daughter further demonstrated her selfishness when it came to parenting.

another reason i was not invested in their romance was because i don't understand infidelity and adultery. i know it may seem contradictory to not believe in love and be against adultery but adultery is not an issue of love but respect. have the decency to let the other person know you fell out of love with them (please know that i am not biased and disliked oblonsky throughout the novel as well). i get that love can be fluid but don't cheat on a person; end the relationship and get on in life. and i get it was all the rage in certain segment of russian society but it was still a horrible and dishonest act. i am all for free love and being with you who you want but if you are married, please be monogamous (unless your partner is okay with it.)

[random current politics rant: seriously adulterers are actual destroyers of "the sanctity of marriage". god was pretty explicit when it came to the ten commandments. yet society does not marginalized those individuals or prevent their rights and access to marriage like gays. seriously christians please stop being so wishy washy when it comes to upholding your bible.]

and what annoyed me more was anna's justification for her affair. she said there was never any love in her marriage to karenin. but what did she expect, when her aunt tricked karenin into marrying her. if she wanted to be upset with someone it should be her aunt!

in the end i could not sympathize with her. her love affair was tragic because she made bad decisions throughout life. i believe she made her bed and she had to live in it. fate did not curse her but she did it to herself. i was shock by the ending to her story but at the same time understood why she did it, she was such a sad soul.

(this just occurred to me: my frustration with anna reminded me of my frustration with real housewife of beverly hills, taylor armstrong. i can not handle weak women that complain and do nothing to make a difference. anna complained about her uncertain position in life but when vronsky suggested a divorce to help her back into society, she avoided the issue. it's like do something or don't bitch.)

my indifference to anna is actually a testament to tolstoy's writing. and just as he created a character that repulsed me, tolstoy also created a character that enchanted me, levin.

it's interesting because by nature levin was an introvert but he is the one that readers become invested in. i found it endearing that he was a little rough and cold yet at the heart of it simply wanted to be a good family man.

i found his love for kitty sweet. i was sad that he was rejected by her but was happy that he did not lose hope. (see i am one for romance, it's just that levin and kitty were actual love versus the mess that was anna and vronsky). i loved how tolstoy told the birth of levin and kitty's first child from his perspective. childbirth is dangerous and scary and it was interesting to see the fear and responsibility that levin felt if kitty died during childbirth. it was even more interesting to see how levin did not connect instantly with the child. women have carried that child around for 9 months and with nursing and everything so connections are established. but for men it is different. it's like "juno" quote "women become mothers during pregnancy but men become fathers when they see the child." granted it took levin a couple of looks but it makes sense.

this is not to say that levin was insensitive but just needed to learn lessons of life. i could relate with levin when he had to deal with death. i always feel that awkwardness when someone i know has a relative that passes away. one wants to do and say the right thing but it's not always innate. and it doesn't mean that your intentions are poor just that you don't have the means of expressing them. death is a scary beast so it is fine that one does not always know how to interact with it.

last but not least it would not be a russian novel if it did not have some peasants in it! and there was some! i appreciated how levin toiled in the fields with the peasants (though he was not that good). and his inability to manage his land reminded me of my high school world history course when we discussed communism and russia. from what i remember from that class was that the intelligencia tried to apply the theories of marx but being an agricultural based economy and not industrialized like the west, it did not succeed. and i think this is what tolstoy was trying to demonstrate? he did expose how excessive bureaucracies can be. what is the point of a committee when it's doesn't regulate that segment of society? as oblonsky demonstrated it was simply to keep the rich, rich. i do not know anything about russian politics so can not go into too depth with this. however history never changes, only repeats itself so their is definitely a metaphor for america's current politics and economy.

last but not least, the incident with the clairvoyant reminded me of a 19th century class i took at ucla. one of things we discussed was how clairvoyance and séances became the fashion. so it was interesting to see both in this novel.

i think the problem for me was that going into this i expected a great love story and to me there wasn't one. there was an honest portrayal of how lives fall apart when infidelity rears its ugly head. they was also a demonstration of what hard work and dedication can get one out of life. it's funny because as i read anna, vronsky, golebishchev poke fun at the french for
their realism, i realized that tolstoy was being a ironic. what made this work great was that it was honest. he did not make his characters braver, smarter or more noble when confronted with issues, they reacted as many of us would, as people do. so i guess in this light than yes it is a great work but i do need to re-read it one more time before it gets the title of greatest of all time. (light bulb: actually that is the issue, i haven't read all the classics so i can't make that call!)

quotations:

“i think . . . if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”

"just when the question of how to live had become a little clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself--Death."

". . . but he knew his soul, it was dear to him, and he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and never let anyone enter his heart without the key of love."

" . . . if one loves, one loves the whole person as he or she is, and not as one might wish them to be."