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.

richard yates. tao lin. (55)

as mentioned in my previous post "richard yates" was my second attempt to get tao lin. [i hate to admit this but for the longest time i thought this was an allusion to yeats, though i physically saw yates, my mind processed it as yeats]. another disclaimer i have never read any of richard yates' work. "revolutionary road" has been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years now. i bought it after watching the film. tried to read it once but couldn't get into it. (ps found "revolutionary road" for $1 at the samo friends' of the library bookstore. so support that too.)

"richard yates" is about the relationship between a teenage girl, dakota fanning (but not the dakota fanning) and her twenty-two year old boyfriend haley joel osment (but not the haley joel osment). i am not fond of either of their acting but found their name usage clever. while reading my mind once again did as it pleased versus believing my eyes. instead of haley joel osment, who i could only visualize as an 8 year old that sees dead people, i visualized elijah wood but as his character in "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" kinda needy and creepy but sappily in love. which i feel made for a better read. i did see dakota fanning as dakota fanning but as a grown up version of herself from that doll photo she did as a kid:

so the novel is pretty much the story of their relationship. they met on the internet which kinda creeped me out but only cos dakota fanning is still in high school. i have always been grossed out by guys in their early twenties that date high school girls, even when i was a high school girl. their story is told through texts, gmail chat, and in person convos (it's a long distance relationship, she is in jersey and he in nyc). they also had to hide their relationship from her mother because of his age but her mom is eventually cool with it, which is odd.  (or maybe i just had strict parent/relatives).  they are both self-loathing and depressed. joel osment becomes abusive and controlling which leads to her lying and with an eating disorder.  i always find it so odd how men who date younger girls become controlling but then again they are dating young girls, not exactly the greatest self esteem to begin with. they also deal with being poor, dakota fanning eventually steals clothes from american apparel and sells them on ebay, clever, especially since american apparel is so overpriced yet kids somehow afford it. there was also a pregnancy scare in there somewhere and i was glad that child didn't happen. it all reads like some bad mtv soap opera, the east coast version of the hills. and though i have never read his works, i am assuming are an updated version of yates' works? his works were about relationships that become unhealthy? (see: revolutionary road, the movie version).

so in my google searching, i noticed that tao lin is always cited as being the voice of my generation. and at first i thought to myself "seriously? are we that whiny of a generation?" and after some more thought i realized yes. we are. throughout the novel, haley joel and dakota are constantly saying "i want to kill myself". which i found annoying. but after a glance at my twitter realized "hey, i am guilty of that shit too." i am constantly saying "omg, i am going to slit my wrist" and "fml" (which is like a motto of my generation.) so i guess tao lin is the voice of my generation. and maybe i couldn't see because his work is so accurate that i am in denial of my generation being that sad.

quotations:

"i think obese people are assholes, they take up more room." 

(if you think this quote is mean that you have never sat next to a fat person on a bus, a plane, a movie theater or at the hollywood bowl.  like seriously it is extremely unextremely unfair that your roll of fat crossed over to my seat.  get your fat in line!)

eeeee ee eeee. tao lin. (48)

i came across tao lin's "eeeee eee eeee" in a flavorpill post, the most cryptic titles in literature (and what they mean).  the description mentioned domino's (their thin crust makes it my favorite of the major pizza chains), bears, and dolphins.  the title is the sound that dolphins make.  when i explained this to my little brother, he surprisingly did a great dolphin sound.  (i wonder if anyone has ever asked for it by dolphin sound at a bookstore.)  trying to find more info about it, i amazoned it and discovered that elijah wood is mentioned in it as well.  with that cute little hobbit in it, i had to read it.

i might not be cool enough for this book.  the book is either super brillant or super bad.  i can't sort it out.  when i started it, i couldn't focus while reading it because it was all over the place.  and andrew was violent.  i kinda felt like i was on drugs.  but not a good drug trip.  but the kind where you come to and realize that you ice picked the family dog or hamster.

after the first half of it, i didn't find it provocative or interesting.  but keep on reading because i wanted to see how it all ended.  i spent most of the book waiting for elijah wood to show up and once he did, he instantly died.  womp, womp.

the book left me without an opinion, i mean i was just confused.  i googled to see what others thought of it. and read reviews on amazon.  and people were thinking it was brilliant.  plus flavorpill did recommend it, so maybe i wasn't cool enough to get it?  maybe i should have smoked pot to get it?  i don't know.

as i was googling i came across articles theorizing that lin was behind hipster runoff. so my not getting "eeeee eee eeee" made me feel even lamer. not that i want to be a hipster but i thought i was cool enough to get the thinks they like ironically. so i decided to give lin a second chance with his novel, "richard yates", i wanted to read "shoplifting from american apparel" but couldn't find that at the library.

everything is illuminated. jonathan safran foer. (38)

i first read "everything is illuminated" back in 2005.  i read somewhere that elijah wood was making a movie based on it, so i decided to read the book before the movie came out.  however, after reading the book i could not imagine someone capturing the beauty of it in a film, so i decided to not watch the film.  i knew the film would break my heart and disappoint me.  (check out my blog on the movie version.)

i loved this book the first time i read it.  and after my re-reading, i can add it to my list of favorite books of all time.  there is so much that i loved about this book and when i re-read it, it was just as good the second time around.  

the novel is the story of jonathan safran foer's (the protagonist and the author have the same name) search for a woman, augustine.  augustine is a woman in a photo that his left to him by his grandfather.  it is assumed that the woman helped him escape nazis and so foer goes on a search for her.  this is the basis and i would go into more detail but i want you to check it out and i don't want to spoil it for you.

first and foremost i loved reading alex's narrative because of his poor yet clever english.  the best description of his english was written by francine prose for a new york times review, "not since anthony burgess's novel 'a clockwork orange' has the english lesson been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio."  (i think this is on the back cover.)  alex really does butcher the english lesson but it was done brilliantly.  and just as i loved picking up the slang of that alex and his gang, i loved reading alex's bad yet clever translations.  

alex's vocabulary:

dub-  nickname:  ". . . my many friends dub me Alex"

spleening- to make angry:  "If you want to know why I always spleening her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency . . ."

to be carnal- to have sex:  "Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle and the Unyielding Zookeeper.

miniature-  little:  "I have a miniature brother . . ."

promenading- walking:  " . . . Father dubs him Clumsy One, because he is always promenading into things."

the novel is divided into two narratives, alex's letters to jonathan about the search for augustine and jonathan's family history.  as much as i loved reading alex's letters to jonathan, i looked forward to reading the sections written by jonathan.  jonathan writes about this ancestors and their lives in trachimbrod before the nazis come.  his family history is a delight to read because they are like myths and with foer's (the actual author) colorful language, there is an element of magic to them.  

my favorite myths were:

the celebration of trachimday and how they would recreate the day that trachim b died and brod was found.

tale of the dial.  which is actually a gold cast of jonathan's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who while working in a mill has a saw lodged into his head.  his statue becomes a symbol of good luck and young men pay tribute to him on their wedding day.

the wisps of ardisht.  which are a clan that are worried about running out of matches, which would prevent them from smoking cigarettes until a child figures that one cigarette can light another which results in a smoking schedule.

one myth that kinda grossed me out was, safran, jonathan's grandfather and his wimpy arm.  his arm didn't gross me out but his sex life that started at the age of 10 grossed me out.  

i also loved the list of the 613 sadnesses which were found on brod's body.  my two favorite sadnessws were the "sadness of could-have-been" and "sadness of love without a release" (i feel like this one would be a great band name.)

here is an excerpt from that part:

The following encyclopaedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Shown below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary’s wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadness are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them.) The diary from which they came was never found.

SADNESSES OF THE BODY: Mirror sadness; Sadness of [looking] like or unlike one’s parents; Sadness of not knowing if your body is normal; Sadness of knowing your [body is] not normal; Sadness of knowing your body is normal; Beauty sadness; Sadness of m[ake]up; Sadness of physical pain; Pins-and-[needles sadness]; Sadness of clothes [sic]; Sadness of the quavering eyelid; Sadness of a missing rib; Noticeable sad[ness]; Sadness of going unnoticed; The sadness of having genitals that are not like those of your lover; The sadness of having genitals that are like those of your lover; Sadness of hands…..
SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God’s love; Sadness of God’s back [sic]; Favourite-child sadness; Sadness of b[ein]g sad in front of one’s God; Sadness of the opposite of belief [sic]; Sadness of God alone in heaven; Sadness of a God who would need people to pray to him….
SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne [ss of be] ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[ti]cated birds; Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety Sadness…
INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one’s parent; Sa[dn]ness of false love; Sadness of love [sic]; Friendship sadness; Sadness of a bad convers[at]ion; Sadness of the could-have-been; Secret sadness….
SADNESSES OF SEX AND ART: Sadness of arousal being an unordinary physical state; Sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things;…Kissing Sadness; Sadness of moving too quickly; Sadness of not mo[vi]ng; Nude model sadness; Sadness of portraiture…..

(see how brillant and clever it is.  you need to check it out.)

without spoiling it for anyone, the story of alex's grandfather was so sad.  it is easy to judge however to be in that situation, i'm not sure many of us have the courage to do the right thing.  it is also a demonstration of what a challenging and horrible time in history the holocaust was.  it made monsters out of average people. 

i could go on and on about how great this book, is but i think i would give away too much.  i would also have quote after quote to the point where the blog would pretty much be just the book.  so i will stop here and just encourage you to read it.  it really is an amazing book and i love it dearly and know that you will love it dearly too.

quotations:

"if there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. love me, because love doesn't exist, and i have tried everything that does."

"one day you will do things for me that you hate. that is what it means to be family."

"the more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. it surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say i love you."

"the only thing more painful than being an active forgetter is to be an inert rememberer."

"from space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. not light, exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes."