SOLARIS

 Solaris, Stanislaw Lem, Harvest Books, 1970, 204 pp.

[Translation note: Solaris was written in Polish and published in Poland in 1961. The Harvest edition of 1970 was translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox. Stanislaw Lem pronounced the French translation "poor." In 2011, Bill Johnston published the first and only translation direct from the Polish to English.]

Solaris is the third of three books I read in February that have a Polish connection. The first was the historical novel Poland by James Michener. The second was Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, set in a 21st century Polish village. Solaris is by a Polish author but is set in space. This little challenge left me giddy.

I read Solaris because it is an iconic sci fi novel published in 1961 just as the space race was taking off. I read the "poor" Kilmartin/Cox translation mentioned above, not knowing until the other day that there was a better one. That may explain some oddities I noticed.

If you are interested here are two links with more about Stanislaw Lem and the two translations.

Even so, it is an amazing tale about a station on Polaris, a planet orbiting two suns and covered mainly by an ocean, possibly a sentient body of something similar to water. This ocean functions as a sort of massive brain with the power to create psychological changes in the Earth scientists who come to study it.

The novel opens with the arrival of Kris Kelvin, a trained psychologist and astronaut, who finds the station in disarray with two of the remaining astronauts acting quite deranged and a third dead. Kris is a strong, no nonsense character, brave and deliberate. Soon enough he too begins to suffer from what may be hallucinations but may be something else.

I did enjoy and admire the story. It dawns on any reader who has read much science fiction that Lem did not write a standard sci fi tale compared to American works. His book is also allegorical, humanistic instead of militaristic, and satirical about the whole space project as it is playing out on Earth. He seems to be making an examination of what may lie beneath man's quest to find life on other planets.

Each character has brought his personal psychological baggage to space. The ocean on Solaris appears to have the purpose of revealing the suppressed emotional darkness of that baggage to the spacemen, causing what appear to be hallucinations of people from each one's past.

So very creepy and disconcerting but also exciting. You wonder who will succumb and who will survive. Kris Kelvin tells this story of how he came to penetrate the purposes of the ocean. Did he? Or did he go insane? The end of the story is a somewhat murky yet somehow satisfying conclusion.

Two movies have been made from this translation. One in 1972 by Andrei Tarkovsky and one in 2002 by Stephen Soderberg, starring George Clooney. I saw one of them, not sure which, several years ago and came away not understanding what I had just watched. I have requested the 1972 movie from Netflix. 

Now tell me of your Solaris encounters, if you have any.

RED SPARROW

Red Sparrow, Jason Matthews, Scribner, 2013, 431 pp

 

I picked this up on a whim at the library because my husband and I loved the 2018 movie adaptation. (I will watch Jennifer Lawrence in anything she does.)

 

Jason Matthews is another retired CIA officer who turned to fiction. Former intelligence people write the best spy fiction in my opinion because they have lived it.

The book goes into much more detail than the movie about both CIA and Russian intelligence. Plus Putin is quite present in the story. Was he even in the movie? Even though Matthews may have overdone it a bit with all that detail, I found the novel quite informative.

Finally, the book ends with the idea that there will be more to the story of Dominika and Nathaniel. What do you know? There are two sequels! Hopefully there will be two more movies as well.

BEL CANTO: NOVEL AND MOVIE

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett, HarperCollins, 2001, 318 pp

 

 

I first read Bel Canto in 2004, before I was blogging though I was keeping a fairly thorough reading log. The novel was my introduction to Ann Patchett and I have since read almost every one of her books.

 

This is what I had to say about Bel Canto back in 2004:

"An international opera star, a Japanese businessman, his interpreter and others are taken hostage in the home of a South American Vice President. 

The power of music transforms all these people. The hostages as well as the terrorists (who are poor people from the jungle) all undergo changes. Several people fall in love across political and national and even language barriers. It has a surprise ending.

Much of what happens is fairly improbable but it is that which makes the book so charming. It is purely a work of imagination. The writing is beautiful with a nice light touch. Completely a pleasure."

I still find that a correct assessment. In 2004 I read it for a reading group discussion at my local library. This time I reread the book for Molly's Group. At my suggestion we made an event out of our meeting. We went together to watch the movie, then gathered at Molly's mom's home to discuss.

Most of us loved the book. Rereading it, I loved it even more. Also most of us felt the movie fell far short of Ann Patchett's exploration of the inner lives of the characters. I however, was entranced throughout the film and merely dubbed in what the characters were thinking and feeling because the novel was still brilliant in my memory.

Julianne Moore was excellent as the opera singer, though being a singer myself I was not convinced she was actually singing. She was not. She was lip synching to Renee Fleming who almost made me like opera.

In summary, if you liked the novel I recommend the movie despite it shortcomings. It is showing only in a limited number of theaters in Los Angeles so I predict it will not stay for long, possibly not past this Thursday. It is not nearly as bad as the negative reviews would lead you to believe.

THE PRICE OF SALT

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The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith, WW Norton (revised edition), 1984, originally published by The Niad Press, 1952, under pen name Claire Morgan, 262 pp

 

 

Summary from Goodreads: Arguably Patricia Highsmith's finest, The Price of Salt is story of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose salvation arrives one day in the form of Carol Aird, an alluring suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol into a choice between her daughter and her lover. With this reissue, The Price of Salt may finally be recognized as a major twentieth-century American novel.

 

 

My Review:

When I learned that the movie, Carol, was an adaptation of this early novel by Patricia Highsmith, I decided to read the book first. I am glad I did.

 

Because it was 1952 and she was worried about backlash in those morally straight-laced times, Highsmith published with a small press under a pseudonym. This publishing history only underscores the main point of the plot: that a woman with a young child going through a divorce risked losing that child to the father on a morals charge.

 

Said husband is portrayed as a vicious homophobe who would sacrifice his daughter's happiness to punish his wife. The story begins slowly and at first lacks the creepy tension I have found in other Highsmith novels. The young woman, Therese, who is jockeying her attempts to start a career as a set designer for theater, an insistent boyfriend whom she does not love or feel passion for, and the personal mystery of her sexual life, is one of Highsmith's most appealing characters.

 

But once the slow build of their relationship turns into a Thelma and Louise type of road trip, many issues reach climax and the creep factor enters in. It becomes apparent that Carol is taking advantage of Therese's innocence but I liked that the young woman was not a victim but went on to pursue her life.

 

The movie, though beautifully shot and masterfully acted by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, leaves out much of the nuance in the book and changes the ending. I hate when they change the ending! I felt the movie took much of the Highsmith out of the story.

 

Both did however show the destructive power of men in a society which views homosexuality as immoral and gives men the final word on what women may do with their own bodies. I don't know of other novels in the early 1950s that portray this so well, if at all. 

 

 

(The Price of Salt is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.) 

BROOKLYN

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Brooklyn, Colm Toibin, Scribner, 2009, 262 pp

 

 

Summary from Goodreads: Colm Tóibín's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America -- to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland" -- she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.
Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.


My Review:
I loved the movie made from this book. It was one of the few Oscar nominees I saw before the Academy Awards event. The screenplay, the acting, the scenery, the cinematography were all topnotch. The emotional impact was huge.

It is unusual for me to see a movie before reading the book and in this case I have to say I enjoyed the movie more. I've not read anything else by Colm Toibin. I know that he wrote a novel about Henry James. The only thing I have read by Henry James is his 1878 novella Daisy Miller. I was not enamored of his style. I found it stuffy and boring. I am just guessing, but if Toibin liked Henry James enough to write a novel about him, he must have admired him. I found a certain flatness of emotion in Brooklyn which was my problem with Daisy Miller.

So. The poignancy of homesickness that Eilis Lacey suffered when she first came to America is pretty well captured in the book but in such a stoic tone that I did not truly feel it. Same with the realization she has near the end, that one cannot go home again. The love between Eilis and Tony is also portrayed in a subdued fashion.

Whoever brought Nick Hornby on to write the screenplay for the movie was brilliant and wise. He breathed life into a quiet lifeless novel. He also changed (or added on) to the ending and again, it was a smart move.

If you haven't seen the movie, see it. I you have read the book and disagree with me, let me know.  


(Brooklyn is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET

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The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick, Scholastic Press, 2007, 533 pp

I kept putting off reading this book, winner of the Caldecott Award in 2008. A few days before the movie ("Hugo") came out, I picked it up and read it in a couple hours. It is astonishingly good and speaks to adults as well as children.

Hugo Cabret has had much sorrow and loss in his young life. Orphaned, then abandoned, he lives a secret, lonely life in a Paris railroad station, keeping the clocks running and stealing food. His fascination with an automaton, a mechanical man who can write messages, and his technical skill are the only means Hugo has of making sense of his life.

The story of how he solves the mysteries and problems besetting him is full of danger, chance encounters, determination and wonder. Hugo is a child hero in the spirit of Harry Potter, David Copperfield, and Nobody Owens. While courage and intelligence are essential to his survival, it is imagination which drives him.

Brian Selznick's illustrations are sublime. In a unique arrangement that transcends both picture books and graphic novels, those illustrations tell parts of the story in the place of text. Somehow the transitions from pictures to text and back again are seamless.

I had started to read The Invention of Hugo Cabret to my granddaughters this past summer but we never finished it. The ten-year-old read it on her own, also in anticipation of the movie. Then we all saw "Hugo" together. It was so cool to sit next to Emma and whisper about what was just like the book and what was changed. The film completely captures the wonder of the book and enhances the story with clips from the silent movies that are integral to it.

Read the book!

See the movie!


(The Invention of Hugo Cabret is available on the children's book shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. To find it in your local bookstore click on the cover image above.)

JULIE & JULIA

Julie & Julia, Julie Powell, Little Brown and Company, 2005, 307 pp

(This will be the second and final post in what I earlier said would be a three-part series, because I combined the book and the movie here. I realized that I just need to move on.)

 

 Julie Powell is one of those early examples of someone who got a book deal from a blog. As everyone in the world now knows, she spent a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blogged about it while working as a secretary at a government agency in NYC, the purpose of which was connected to rebuilding Ground Zero.

 Then she got the book deal and could quit her job. Next Nora Ephron combined Julie & Julia with My Life in France and made the movie, which I have now watched. More on the movie at the end of this post.

 Even though 2005 was five long years ago in our rapidly changing world, Julie & Julia has a very current feel. And it is hilarious. I laughed out loud and hard every few pages. Julie builds tension often, usually due to attempting some dish like eggs poached in red wine or making mayonnaise or cooking brains, and having it go wrong, whereupon she begins freaking out requiring her long-suffering husband to talk her off the ledge. Somehow, although after a while you realize that it always comes out OK, she still can make you worry that the whole enterprise will crash and burn. Everything is always OK when they sit down to eat. That is the power of butter, garlic and wine.

 I liked her scrappy, left-wing view of life and her compulsive use of the F-word, her obsessive approach to a project that was at first only vital in her own mind. She proves one of my most dearly cherished notions: that one's passion is one's destiny, whether or not it appears to be paying off on any given day.

 Since I had finished My Life in France just days before, I was already immersed in Julia Child's patterns of hyperactive cooking and in her epic stories, such as how to turn an omelette. As Julie tried to follow Julia's instructions, I was right there with her. The book is big fun and inspired my cooking even further.

 The movie: It was great, especially Meryl Streep as Julia Child. She does the voice, the thing where she is always bending over because she is so tall, and the whole feeling of My Life in France comes across perfectly. Same with Amy Adams as Julie. The only caveat I have is that if you see the movie without reading both books you miss so much of both stories, because it would not be possible to fit it all in a movie. Having read the book I could happily fill in the blanks. Still, the movie stands on its own. My husband watched it with me and was spellbound and impressed because he believes in food and he believes in love. 

 I have asked for Mastering the Art of French Cooking for my birthday. All I can say is that I better get up to walking five miles a day (I am at 3 now) because otherwise I don't stand a chance.

(All of the books mentioned in this review are available on the shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

CORALINE

The Book: Coraline, Neil Gaiman, HarperCollins, 2002, 162 pp

The Movie: "Coraline," Henry Selick, screenplay and director, February 2009

In a big departure from my ironclad policy to read the book before I see the movie, I saw the movie first this time. It is fantastic: the animation, the characters, the voices (Dakota Fanning does Coraline), the color, the sound, are all dazzling. 

I immediately read the book which is different from the movie in so many ways. Coraline finds a portal, a locked door with a brick wall behind it. It leads from her apartment into another one which is a fantasy world. In the other apartment are her "other mother and other father." At first they appear to be a dream come true. They are interested in her instead of being too busy and the food is delicious (being what we call in our house "kid food.") Coraline's room is full of interesting toys and cool clothes.

Very quickly though, life with her other mother and father becomes sinister. They want to steal her away and keep her for themselves. Worse, they seem to have captured her real parents as well as three other children and are holding these people as prisoners. Coraline summons all her bravery and resourcefulness to save her parents and free the kids. It is scary and creepy and fun.

The movie has additional characters and scenes. It also makes her real parents worse than they are in the book. But since Gaiman liked the screenplay, according to an interview with writer and director Henry Selick, I am satisfied with this example of making a good book into a story that works so well as a movie.

The most stunning change is that the book emphasizes Coraline's quest to save her parents from a shocking and evil fate. The movie, exciting as it is, comes across as a morality tale about what could happen if you wished you had different parents.

I recommend both. The book is for readers of all ages ten years old and up. The movie would work for even younger kids unless they are easily frightened or have a thing about spiders.

(Coraline, the book, is available on the fantasy shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE CITY OF EMBER, MOVIE

"The City of Ember", 2008, DVD

If a movie is made from an available book, I almost always read the book first. I have virtually no qualifications as a film reviewer and don't post many movie reviews here but I have now watched so many movies that started out as books that I feel fairly sure of my opinions in the matter. My overall opinion of "The City of Ember" is positive. The film is a good rendition of the book.

I did not exactly picture Ember the way it is created in the film but it is pretty darn close, a testament to the descriptive skills of Jeanne Du Prau and the attention paid to those by the screenwriter. Bill Murray is perfect as the corrupt mayor. The casting of the kids (Harry Treadaway as Doon and Saoirse Ronan as Lina) is also as close to ideal as I could ask for. As to the back story of Ember, how it was formed and the plan for its evacuation; I thought that was actually clearer in the movie than in the book.

The tale was altered quite a bit in the sequences when the kids solve the mystery, especially because of the addition of some technological points, but I could see how these changes made the story more visual and the action more edgy. But the added monster? So ridiculous and totally inappropriate.

My only other reservation is that the ending did not have the emotional impact of the book. But I watched this movie with my grandchildren, ages ten, seven and four. They had not read the book but could follow the story and enjoyed it immensely. Need I say more?