The Book Tower

…but I’m terribly unsettled in my reading. It took me real, concentrated effort to finish Day by A.L.Kennedy, a book I’d been very much looking forward to. I usually do so well with Costa winners (Stef Penney, William Boyd) and expected to enjoy this Second World War themed novel, but it was such hard work to read that it was like trudging uphill whilst wearing a particularly heavy and bulky knapsack.

But I’m also worried about writing too many negative posts in quick succession, so I have been trying to pick my next read with care. After years of treating him coldy I’ve started flirting again with Will Self. After buying my copy of The Book of Dave I sat down to read it but I’ve realised that it’s still too soon to get back together with him; the experience wasn’t the pleasure it might have been. I closed the paperback and put it aside for another day, like ruefully putting the cork back into an ill-chosen bottle of wine.

Panic set in. I started J.G.Ballard’s The Drowned World last night. Although it wasn’t quite the sobering Self experience, the important work meeting I had looming the next day spoilt my enjoyment of the book, and then proceeded to spoil life itself until I’d got it out of the way. What to do? A trip to Borders this afternoon saved the day. Following the meeting from hell (a.k.a Stephen against the world – alternative a.k.a Stephen comes out quite well after a potentially confrontational and nasty meeting) I decide to treat myself to a few new books, including Essays in Love by Alain de Botton.

Sitting in the school library as I wait to pick my daughter up from netball I dip in to de Botton and he’s a joy to read. I feel no heavy burden. The wine is nectar. Choosing the right book shouldn’t be so difficult, I shouldn’t ponder on it as much. Do you really want to know? But when the pleasure of reading kicks in there’s nothing like it, so I feel that I need to tell you. And I bought the Duffy album too, which helps to calm the mood. A review of Essays in Love coming soon…

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A meme to keep things ticking over – if you’d like to join in.

A life. Yours. In six words.

I first heard about this when driving into work one morning and listening to Radio 4. It’s based on Hemingway’s famous six word memoir:

For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

You can’t really beat that, but I think it’s in our nature to all have a go. Oddly, Tom Stoppard was dragged in to the BBC studios to judge listeners’ own contributions but put a damper on proceedings in his total disinterest in the idea. Funny bloke Tom Stoppard. However, the one that’s stuck in my mind was this:

Two weddings, three kids. Then cancer.

Which kind of cast a dark shadow over the rest of the day.

I was reminded of the six word memoir by Chartroose and decided to have a go for myself. Here’s mine then:

Can I have a refund please?

The please is very me. But I’m sure you can all do better.

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2/5

I’ve had something of a love-hate relationship with David Cronenberg over the years. The Brood, Scanners, The Dead Zone and The Fly are all great films but I found myself distanced from his later work. It wasn’t that his films were too sickening in their content, I just got sick of Cronenberg wandering into pretentious and unfathomable territory. Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch and Crash didn’t press the right buttons for me. Lately, however, Cronenberg has moved into a new phase of film making. It started with Spider, an unfairly ignored film starring Ralph Fiennes as a disturbed man living in London. The director appeared to be moving away from surreal, experimental and gut-churning imagery to something more naturalistic (although no less disturbing). This continued with the excellent History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen as a man haunted by his ugly past, and Mortensen and Cronenberg have recently collaborated again on Eastern Promises, with the actor being Oscar nominated for his performance.

Approaching Eastern Promises by heralding a new, mature phase for David Cronenberg was an unwise thing for me to do. Unfortunately the film was a disappointment, leaving me particularly baffled as to why Mortensen has been praised so much. London is criminally underused as a setting, and the tale of Russian gangsters is totally unconvincing. Even the already much celebrated fight scene, where Mortensen fights off two would be assassins in a steam room, is incredibly overrated. Naomi Watts appears unsettled as the young English nurse drawn into a dark and violent underworld, and many of the supporting actors are miscast and consequently unbelievable.

But Eastern Promises does feature many Cronenberg stamps, where his individual style of film making shines through, and where you think this could only be David Cronenberg. There are some very subtle touches throughout; a new born baby really does look new born, blood soaked and alien to the world. Later this contrasts chillingly with a wasted prostitute, curled into a foetal position. And when he does use London effectively as a backdrop it is very memorable. The dead body washed up by the Thames barrier is one such scene, framed with macabre precision. The best things are all visual, and Eastern Promises makes it clear that Cronenberg doesn’t work particularly well with actors, so when he does settle down into plot and characterisation he fails.

Eastern Promises is therefore an oddity, a new phase for Cronenberg indeed but one he’s not altogether comfortable with. Part of him wants to experiment with the horror genre and part of him, I suspect a much smaller part, wants to make films like this.

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