READING MEMOIRS
As my regular readers know, I am fond of reading memoirs. I am also fascinated by the dynamics within a marriage and intrigued by the nuances and tensions within romantic relationships in general. Here are two new memoirs touching on these and other issues.
The Victorian and the Romantic: A Memoir, a Love Story, and a Friendship across Time by Nell Stevens.
I included the full subtitle here because this little book is so much more than a memoir. It’s an enchanting, frustrating, and somewhat curious account of this young academic’s struggle to find her place in the world and to fulfill what she views as her rightful female destiny.
Nell is in love with Max, an aspiring American writer, and employs all sorts of economies and part-time projects to fund trips from her home in London to his in Boston. She even signs up for several research studies, including a sleep one that requires her to spend 14 days in a lab and be awake for 40 hours. At the same time that she’s angling to visit Max, she’s grappling with the topic for her Ph.D. dissertation. Eventually she settles on Elizabeth Gaskell and the several months Gaskell spent in Rome socializing with a group of noted writers and artists.
Although I occasionally had too much of Nell’s troubles, I found the sections on Gaskell in Rome and her relationship with Charles Eliot Norton delightful and creatively imagined. As Stevens makes clear in her short introductory note, her memoir is based on true events, but is not truly accurate; so, reader, take heed and apply salt as seems appropriate! One result is that I now want to read or re-read one or more of Gaskell’s novels. (~JWFarrington)
Strange Paradise: Portrait of a Marriage by Grace Schulman
What goes on inside a marriage is always something of a mystery to those outside it, no matter how close they are to the couple. Poet Schulman came of age before careers for women and multiple roles as professor, wife and also mother were widely accepted. She felt that her own mother had been compromised in her aspirations and her abilities in her marriage, and she, Grace, feared a loss of independence and freedom for herself. Nonetheless, she and Jerry Schulman, a medical doctor and virology researcher, wed in 1959 and were mostly together for more than 50 years. This is her account of their continuing love despite some years living apart and his long decline due to illness. But it’s also about her friendships with other poets and writers and her years as poetry editor for The Nation and coordinator of literary programming at the 92nd Street Y. As she writes, “the phrase, ‘happy marriage’ is a term of opposites, like ‘friendly fire’ or ‘famous poet.’ My marriage has been a feast of contradiction.” Informed by her poetic sensibility, her book is both bracing and poignant. (~JWFarrington)
WATCHING FILMS
In this new age of content available on iPads, smartphones and other screens, we rented these two films online and watched them on our own large screen TV. Cheaper than the price of one movie ticket, and you can make your own popcorn!
Three Identical Strangers
How would you feel if you arrived at college for the first time and lots of students were greeting you warmly as if they knew you and then called you by another name? For Bobby, this is a strange and unnerving experience, as he discovers he has not one, but two other brothers. All three were adopted and each was raised by parents of a different socio-economic class. What is the role played by heredity versus environment in one’s development, the old nature vs. nurture question, and why were these three boys separated at birth? A film that starts out joyful unfolds to a more serious and somber set of issues. A bit repetitive at points, but well worth seeing.
The Children Act
The Children Act by Ian McEwen is probably my favorite of his novels that I’ve read. I was predisposed to like the film and, with Emma Thompson, a favorite actor, and Stanley Tucci, in the lead roles, how could it go wrong? It’s a superb film and, with McEwen’s screenplay, the equal of the novel. Judge Fiona Maye handles cases relating to children’s welfare. She and husband Jack have hit a bad patch in their marriage which comes to a crisis just as Fi gets a difficult case involving a 17-year old young man. He’s a Jehovah’s Witness, who needs a blood transfusion to treat his leukemia, but his parents are refusing it. How this case plays out and its impact on Fiona and those around her is the crux of the film. Thompson is wonderful in the role with the right combination of judicial dedication and exactitude mostly masking her inner feelings. Definitely an Oscar-worthy performance!
Note: Header image of Emma Thompson in The Children Act is from an article in the South China Morning Post.
