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Different Hours: Poems by Stephen Dunn
4.0
Ever hate the fact that you've finished a book, that there's no more for your eyes to eat? That's what I've experienced with the last two books of poetry I've read, Mary Karr's Sinners Welcome and this tome.
I must say, I appreciate a poet who's not afraid to give alliteration a solid workout in his stuff. As with a nifty pop hook in indie rock music, alliteration (and some other devices) should be embraced in writing, used well if sparingly.
At 120 pages, this is a rather lengthy poetry book. It's also amazingly taut. I cannot highlight just one poem here. I'd want to paste a dozen of them in this space, maybe more. The fourth set of poems in Different Hours is particularly moving.
Dunn's poems are often startling, sometimes jarring. He's been described by some in the know as "one of our indispensable poets." This is his eleventh collection (of 14), probably his best. It took the Pulitzer in 2001. I read this and saw why.
Three of Dunn's poems here are based around quoted excerpts or typos from some of his students' work. It could be kitschy but is remarkable, how he riffs off those sentences.
The titular phrase, Different Hours, refers not only to those in one's own life, but also to all the historical and existential and philosophical moments that comprise Life on the whole. A few pieces here come from Dunn's observations of everyday life in New Jersey (burying a cat, for one), and they're stirring even as they depict seemingly mundane happenings.
"A Postmortem Guide" (written for Dunn's eulogist to come; he is approaching age 70) makes for a fitting closer. I have trouble recalling other individual poems now (call it congruous) and will certainly give this set another go soon. Some golden stanzas and phrasings contained here, some turns of phrase that just leave one quiet and pondering for a few minutes.
I must say, I appreciate a poet who's not afraid to give alliteration a solid workout in his stuff. As with a nifty pop hook in indie rock music, alliteration (and some other devices) should be embraced in writing, used well if sparingly.
At 120 pages, this is a rather lengthy poetry book. It's also amazingly taut. I cannot highlight just one poem here. I'd want to paste a dozen of them in this space, maybe more. The fourth set of poems in Different Hours is particularly moving.
Dunn's poems are often startling, sometimes jarring. He's been described by some in the know as "one of our indispensable poets." This is his eleventh collection (of 14), probably his best. It took the Pulitzer in 2001. I read this and saw why.
Three of Dunn's poems here are based around quoted excerpts or typos from some of his students' work. It could be kitschy but is remarkable, how he riffs off those sentences.
The titular phrase, Different Hours, refers not only to those in one's own life, but also to all the historical and existential and philosophical moments that comprise Life on the whole. A few pieces here come from Dunn's observations of everyday life in New Jersey (burying a cat, for one), and they're stirring even as they depict seemingly mundane happenings.
"A Postmortem Guide" (written for Dunn's eulogist to come; he is approaching age 70) makes for a fitting closer. I have trouble recalling other individual poems now (call it congruous) and will certainly give this set another go soon. Some golden stanzas and phrasings contained here, some turns of phrase that just leave one quiet and pondering for a few minutes.
The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany by Frederick Buechner
4.0
Well, a miscellany here about this 120-page book:
First, the title is a Shakespeare reference. Second, this is just a tender collection from the Pulitzer nominee now 82. From the two-'graph intro: "A story, some reminisces, a handful of poems about my family, a scene from a novel--they are the yellow leaves that hang upon these boughs that are not so bare and ruined but that they still dream from time to time of the sweet birds' return."
It might all seem cluttered from anyone else. Somehow "The Beek" makes it work. In part that's because Buechner's stuff is really to be sipped like a fine scotch. Also, he's funny as ever. He harks back to how he and a friend summoned Emily Dickinson on a makeshift Ouija board. Unintentionally funny is some of his stately, archaic language, as when he refers in 2-3 instances to [b:certain women|419594|Certain Women|Madeleine L'Engle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174585340s/419594.jpg|1866] as "handsome" (what, handsome like Sigourney Weaver is handsome? love it).
"Presidents I Have Known" finds Fred riffing on run-ins with FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. About FDR, at FB's age 8: "Each of them had hold of him under one of his arms, and I could see that if they let go of him, he would crumple to the ground...He was the most important man in the Mayflower Hotel. He was the most important man in the world. But I could see with my own eyes that if he didn't have those two men to help, he would be helpless."
That's one thing kills me about Buechner, my favorite living author: He's been around the block to know and rub shoulders with some impressive people, including Maya Angelou (friend), John Irving (student and friend), and the poet James Merrill (classmate and chum). About C. S. Lewis, who took meals at the same place, while living in London: "To my great regret I never made any effort to meet him or to hear him lecture because at that point in my life I knew nothing about him except, dimly, his name." And for goodness sake, Buechner writes a poem about family who were on the Titanic.
To note, the slave-time story behind "The Laughter Barrel," title of a piece about Ms. Angelou, is brief and plain and triumphant.
Some of his most convincing stuff comes in "Fathers and Teachers." Buechner's own father committed suicide when he was 10, and he came to respect a good many men, especially in academia, in his life. Take this eulogy for his French teacher: "My prayer for [Mr. Woods:] all these years later is that as he makes his way through the Elysian Fields he may somehow run into those handsome boys he had pictures of in his living room all those years ago, and that he may be able at last to embrace them without guilt or shame."
Yea, no one I know does compassion like Frederick Buechner.
His words about the novelist William Maxwell are those I'd shine on Buechner himself:
"It is a scandal that so few people even know his name let alone that he was one of the greatest, most human, wisest American writers of the twentieth century."
^ Indeed, if but one person checks him out due to this post, I'll have done my duty.
"Our Last Drive Together" about his late mother, "Kaki," is heartrending, especially if you've read some of his other work about her, this woman who fought late into life against age's effects on her flawless face. "I am the last rose of summer," he says from behind her eyes in one poem. Check your pulse if this stuff doesn't stir you. Sad day when the years caught up to her face.
The clip from a novel never finished, "Gertrude Conover Remembers," makes you yearn for that tome. "I married him...It was more of a beautiful friendship than a romance." The last bit of that, about eyes meeting in a mirror, is simply devastating.
The only thing out of place here is a short review of Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family poems at the end are wonderful where I went in a bit apprehensive. Those about Aunt Doozie, Uncle George, and Mattie Poor are particularly striking. So is "The Cousins," maddening, really. (Must write to him in Vermont to inquire about it; he wrote back to my last note!)
And the man's last piece, a 50th reunion address to his Class of '43, is a fitting final word, if indeed it is final. As with most things he writes, it is in the best way subtly staggering. I took 10 minutes to read the last page, so fearful that it was a wrap. When it was over I sat silently some minutes more and saw faintest tear alight on my lower lid. Truly good grief.
When he finally goes -- and we all go, even Kaki -- I just may disappear for a time.
First, the title is a Shakespeare reference. Second, this is just a tender collection from the Pulitzer nominee now 82. From the two-'graph intro: "A story, some reminisces, a handful of poems about my family, a scene from a novel--they are the yellow leaves that hang upon these boughs that are not so bare and ruined but that they still dream from time to time of the sweet birds' return."
It might all seem cluttered from anyone else. Somehow "The Beek" makes it work. In part that's because Buechner's stuff is really to be sipped like a fine scotch. Also, he's funny as ever. He harks back to how he and a friend summoned Emily Dickinson on a makeshift Ouija board. Unintentionally funny is some of his stately, archaic language, as when he refers in 2-3 instances to [b:certain women|419594|Certain Women|Madeleine L'Engle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174585340s/419594.jpg|1866] as "handsome" (what, handsome like Sigourney Weaver is handsome? love it).
"Presidents I Have Known" finds Fred riffing on run-ins with FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. About FDR, at FB's age 8: "Each of them had hold of him under one of his arms, and I could see that if they let go of him, he would crumple to the ground...He was the most important man in the Mayflower Hotel. He was the most important man in the world. But I could see with my own eyes that if he didn't have those two men to help, he would be helpless."
That's one thing kills me about Buechner, my favorite living author: He's been around the block to know and rub shoulders with some impressive people, including Maya Angelou (friend), John Irving (student and friend), and the poet James Merrill (classmate and chum). About C. S. Lewis, who took meals at the same place, while living in London: "To my great regret I never made any effort to meet him or to hear him lecture because at that point in my life I knew nothing about him except, dimly, his name." And for goodness sake, Buechner writes a poem about family who were on the Titanic.
To note, the slave-time story behind "The Laughter Barrel," title of a piece about Ms. Angelou, is brief and plain and triumphant.
Some of his most convincing stuff comes in "Fathers and Teachers." Buechner's own father committed suicide when he was 10, and he came to respect a good many men, especially in academia, in his life. Take this eulogy for his French teacher: "My prayer for [Mr. Woods:] all these years later is that as he makes his way through the Elysian Fields he may somehow run into those handsome boys he had pictures of in his living room all those years ago, and that he may be able at last to embrace them without guilt or shame."
Yea, no one I know does compassion like Frederick Buechner.
His words about the novelist William Maxwell are those I'd shine on Buechner himself:
"It is a scandal that so few people even know his name let alone that he was one of the greatest, most human, wisest American writers of the twentieth century."
^ Indeed, if but one person checks him out due to this post, I'll have done my duty.
"Our Last Drive Together" about his late mother, "Kaki," is heartrending, especially if you've read some of his other work about her, this woman who fought late into life against age's effects on her flawless face. "I am the last rose of summer," he says from behind her eyes in one poem. Check your pulse if this stuff doesn't stir you. Sad day when the years caught up to her face.
The clip from a novel never finished, "Gertrude Conover Remembers," makes you yearn for that tome. "I married him...It was more of a beautiful friendship than a romance." The last bit of that, about eyes meeting in a mirror, is simply devastating.
The only thing out of place here is a short review of Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family poems at the end are wonderful where I went in a bit apprehensive. Those about Aunt Doozie, Uncle George, and Mattie Poor are particularly striking. So is "The Cousins," maddening, really. (Must write to him in Vermont to inquire about it; he wrote back to my last note!)
And the man's last piece, a 50th reunion address to his Class of '43, is a fitting final word, if indeed it is final. As with most things he writes, it is in the best way subtly staggering. I took 10 minutes to read the last page, so fearful that it was a wrap. When it was over I sat silently some minutes more and saw faintest tear alight on my lower lid. Truly good grief.
When he finally goes -- and we all go, even Kaki -- I just may disappear for a time.
Overheard in New York: Conversations from the Streets, Stores, and Subways by S. Morgan Friedman
3.0
A delightful little jam of a book, chock-full of the (un)usual amuse-bouches we've all come to expect from NYC dwellers, thanks to the eponymous website. Guaranteed to make you feel your city and its own denizens lack chutzpah, wit, flow, and style in their speech. New Yorkers shine, the tourists typically burn, and we all float on all right.
Often I've found that the headlines written by the site/book's keepers are just as funny if not funnier than the quotes themselves. The fan-submitted quotes are often hilarious, sometimes crass, and never dull.
I was gifted this book after a fairly serious car wreck, and blast it if that friend didn't hurt me good, causing me to laugh with my full torso and spine repeatedly. (Thanks for everything, ARose.) Reminds me of a certain Jack Handey-ism: "Papa always said laughter was the best medicine. Guess that's why so many of us died of tuberculosis."
morsels, and hardly the best ones:
ODDLY SATAN LOATHES STEAKS
(A group of punks walks by the Hellenic Steaks restaurant.)
Punk: This restaurant is perfect for me: I love steaks, and I love Satan!
I EAT IN THE THIRD PERSON
Billy: Can anyone help Billy out so Billy can get dinner? Anyone? No? Thanks a lot!
-Taco Bell, Union Square
AT LEAST THEY'LL STOP TAKING AMERICAN JOBS
Girl #1: Have you heard? I read dolphins are committing suicide together in ever larger numbers.
Girl #2: Is that good or bad for us?
THE NUISANCE
Guy: Facts are such a distraction from the essence of what's really happening.
Too true, mate.
Often I've found that the headlines written by the site/book's keepers are just as funny if not funnier than the quotes themselves. The fan-submitted quotes are often hilarious, sometimes crass, and never dull.
I was gifted this book after a fairly serious car wreck, and blast it if that friend didn't hurt me good, causing me to laugh with my full torso and spine repeatedly. (Thanks for everything, ARose.) Reminds me of a certain Jack Handey-ism: "Papa always said laughter was the best medicine. Guess that's why so many of us died of tuberculosis."
morsels, and hardly the best ones:
ODDLY SATAN LOATHES STEAKS
(A group of punks walks by the Hellenic Steaks restaurant.)
Punk: This restaurant is perfect for me: I love steaks, and I love Satan!
I EAT IN THE THIRD PERSON
Billy: Can anyone help Billy out so Billy can get dinner? Anyone? No? Thanks a lot!
-Taco Bell, Union Square
AT LEAST THEY'LL STOP TAKING AMERICAN JOBS
Girl #1: Have you heard? I read dolphins are committing suicide together in ever larger numbers.
Girl #2: Is that good or bad for us?
THE NUISANCE
Guy: Facts are such a distraction from the essence of what's really happening.
Too true, mate.
The Secret Language of Sleep: A Couple's Guide to the Thirty-Nine Positions by Evany Thomas
2.0
This read (picked up cheap from McSweeney's) seemed promising, but I dig the premise and effort more than the finished product, as it turns out. At but 94 pages, 2 pages for each position description + accompanying art, it's a whimsical, informative little book. Some of the writing's engaging and clever and crisp -- what you'd expect from McSweeney's, sure -- and then some of it, well, made me want to snooze.
Classic Spoons position bats lead-off, and then it's a crazy ride through dreamland from there. Some of the positions shown are flat-out illogical, if not next to impossible (Downward Koala, Bread and Spread, and so on). As one who tends to overheat when conscious and not, some of the depictions only served to make me hot, and not in a good way. I wanted to start sweating just regarding the figures.
It's split into four sections, the Sun, Wind, Sea, and Wood sleepers. Sea sleepers fit me, as it focused on symmetry. (Even so, The Colon was one of the most uncomfortable-looking things I've seen. Yipes.) The Tetherball and Turnstile positions are laughable (or laughably great, take your pick). You just have to see this stuff to (dis)believe it.
Bonus points awarded for the asides about relational and personality dynamics, some useful nuggets, if I could remember them. Bonus points also for the legend at the start of the read that lends symbols to each position denoting such things as suitable for warmer/colder climates, can cause intense/vivid dreaming, proven morning-mood elevator, soothing for digestive ailments, promotes sleep in insomniacs, and the like.
Classic Spoons position bats lead-off, and then it's a crazy ride through dreamland from there. Some of the positions shown are flat-out illogical, if not next to impossible (Downward Koala, Bread and Spread, and so on). As one who tends to overheat when conscious and not, some of the depictions only served to make me hot, and not in a good way. I wanted to start sweating just regarding the figures.
It's split into four sections, the Sun, Wind, Sea, and Wood sleepers. Sea sleepers fit me, as it focused on symmetry. (Even so, The Colon was one of the most uncomfortable-looking things I've seen. Yipes.) The Tetherball and Turnstile positions are laughable (or laughably great, take your pick). You just have to see this stuff to (dis)believe it.
Bonus points awarded for the asides about relational and personality dynamics, some useful nuggets, if I could remember them. Bonus points also for the legend at the start of the read that lends symbols to each position denoting such things as suitable for warmer/colder climates, can cause intense/vivid dreaming, proven morning-mood elevator, soothing for digestive ailments, promotes sleep in insomniacs, and the like.
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman
3.0
Oh, how I wish I could retain more of what I read in this one! Such important notes on such all-too-human tendencies such as loss aversion, snap judgments, instincts, short-term impulse vs. long-term view, and the beat goes on.
Especially intriguing were the sections about loss aversion (how we try to avoid the pain of a loss, or seeing something as such) and value attribution, which explained how we often find it so hard, if unconsciously so, to change our takes on some things (people) after making initial judgments about them.
Started this three months before I finished it, picking it up periodically and having a lot of it fall out of my head. For shame. The epilogue helped tie it all back together to an extent. I do recall a great deal of the section about job interviewing making complete sense, and in light of how I was interviewed in that setting the last time. It's absurd sometimes, the questions asked (and not asked) and the reasons why some managers end up taking to certain applicants over others. (This just in: It ain't a meritocracy out there.)
Perhaps most compelling were the painstaking details surrounding the huge question "WHY?" as it pertained to a highly regarded pilot's inexplicable decision to put hundreds of lives in danger on a particular takeoff. Unfortunately that account got to be arduous to read. As it turned out, the writing throughout this book had a spry cadence at first and then became a bit of a slog, possibly due to my own come-and-go relationship with it.
Eagerly I took to the light shone on the Supreme Court and its own "sway" dynamics, the personalities of the justices and how they decide what cases to hear and whether/when to write opinions. Justice David Souter's take on the highest court in the land was intriguing. These authors (brothers) really snagged some high-end interviews here.
Recommended for anyone willing to admit that the titular behavior seeps into life sometimes, which should be each of us.
Especially intriguing were the sections about loss aversion (how we try to avoid the pain of a loss, or seeing something as such) and value attribution, which explained how we often find it so hard, if unconsciously so, to change our takes on some things (people) after making initial judgments about them.
Started this three months before I finished it, picking it up periodically and having a lot of it fall out of my head. For shame. The epilogue helped tie it all back together to an extent. I do recall a great deal of the section about job interviewing making complete sense, and in light of how I was interviewed in that setting the last time. It's absurd sometimes, the questions asked (and not asked) and the reasons why some managers end up taking to certain applicants over others. (This just in: It ain't a meritocracy out there.)
Perhaps most compelling were the painstaking details surrounding the huge question "WHY?" as it pertained to a highly regarded pilot's inexplicable decision to put hundreds of lives in danger on a particular takeoff. Unfortunately that account got to be arduous to read. As it turned out, the writing throughout this book had a spry cadence at first and then became a bit of a slog, possibly due to my own come-and-go relationship with it.
Eagerly I took to the light shone on the Supreme Court and its own "sway" dynamics, the personalities of the justices and how they decide what cases to hear and whether/when to write opinions. Justice David Souter's take on the highest court in the land was intriguing. These authors (brothers) really snagged some high-end interviews here.
Recommended for anyone willing to admit that the titular behavior seeps into life sometimes, which should be each of us.
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
4.0
"What I didn’t realize was that wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it."
Testify! So says the wise-beyond-years Elio, an Italian teen who engages in a mental-turned-physical affair with an American grad student, Oliver, summering at his family's seaside home. The book's protagonist, this precious Elio, is sometimes a bit whiny (shades of Amir from Kite Runner here) but provides some stark insights into the mind and emotions of a confused, romantic, ultimately agreeable adolescent. Kudos to author Aciman for how he enters the head of this one.
It's truly something to strike up a book at The Perfect Time in one's life, and that's what happened for me with this novel, which I was initially turned on to by its inclusion on the New York Times' 2007 best-of list. I'd finish it an entire year later, but it was right on time.
The affinity that the two young men in this story have for one another comes across as genuine and respectful and admirable. It's a delicate subject matter to a degree, and Aciman penned this story as though he'd been storing it up inside head and heart for decades. Maybe he had.
Elio's lust at first is replaced by very real care and affection for another, and his coming of age is heartrending and instructional. Recall the first time you fell in love, if indeed you have already, and all the wonderment and pain and joy and squalor that brought to your life. Your psyche. Your viscera. Your very body. It's violent to love someone.
Sometimes there was just a gorgeous stand-alone sentence, as with "Find Cupid everywhere in Rome because we’d clipped one of his wings and he was forced to fly in circles."
Elio's benchmark conversation with his sage father, couched in closing pages here, is probably the best father-son talk I've been witness to, in literature or in life. It's healing, touching. Truly a moving story on the whole, intense and sad and silly and serious, as with most affairs of the heart.
"I look back on those days and regret none of it, not the risks, not the shame, not the total lack of foresight. ... I knew that our minutes were numbered, but I didn’t dare count them, just as I knew where all this was headed, but didn’t care to read the mileposts. This was a time when I intentionally failed to drop bread crumbs for my return journey; instead, I ate them. He could turn out to be a total creep; he could change me or ruin me forever, while time and gossip might ultimately disembowel everything we shared and trim the whole thing down till nothing but fish bones remained. I might miss this day, or I might do far better, but I’d always know that on those afternoons in my bedroom I had held my moment."
Testify! So says the wise-beyond-years Elio, an Italian teen who engages in a mental-turned-physical affair with an American grad student, Oliver, summering at his family's seaside home. The book's protagonist, this precious Elio, is sometimes a bit whiny (shades of Amir from Kite Runner here) but provides some stark insights into the mind and emotions of a confused, romantic, ultimately agreeable adolescent. Kudos to author Aciman for how he enters the head of this one.
It's truly something to strike up a book at The Perfect Time in one's life, and that's what happened for me with this novel, which I was initially turned on to by its inclusion on the New York Times' 2007 best-of list. I'd finish it an entire year later, but it was right on time.
The affinity that the two young men in this story have for one another comes across as genuine and respectful and admirable. It's a delicate subject matter to a degree, and Aciman penned this story as though he'd been storing it up inside head and heart for decades. Maybe he had.
Elio's lust at first is replaced by very real care and affection for another, and his coming of age is heartrending and instructional. Recall the first time you fell in love, if indeed you have already, and all the wonderment and pain and joy and squalor that brought to your life. Your psyche. Your viscera. Your very body. It's violent to love someone.
Sometimes there was just a gorgeous stand-alone sentence, as with "Find Cupid everywhere in Rome because we’d clipped one of his wings and he was forced to fly in circles."
Elio's benchmark conversation with his sage father, couched in closing pages here, is probably the best father-son talk I've been witness to, in literature or in life. It's healing, touching. Truly a moving story on the whole, intense and sad and silly and serious, as with most affairs of the heart.
"I look back on those days and regret none of it, not the risks, not the shame, not the total lack of foresight. ... I knew that our minutes were numbered, but I didn’t dare count them, just as I knew where all this was headed, but didn’t care to read the mileposts. This was a time when I intentionally failed to drop bread crumbs for my return journey; instead, I ate them. He could turn out to be a total creep; he could change me or ruin me forever, while time and gossip might ultimately disembowel everything we shared and trim the whole thing down till nothing but fish bones remained. I might miss this day, or I might do far better, but I’d always know that on those afternoons in my bedroom I had held my moment."
Never the Sinner by John Logan
4.0
"I could look at them like you do, Bob. I could damn these boys for what they did. For the madness, for the brutality ... I can see the sin in all the world. And I may well hate that sin, but never the sinner."
So go the words of defense attorney Clarence Darrow, to state attorney Crowe. The scene is jazz-era Chicago, 1924, and two 19-year-olds, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, are on trial for the heinous, seemingly unrepentant murder of an acquaintance, a 14-year-old boy.
It's a true story. Leopold and Loeb harbored intellectual prowess for their years, as well as massive hubris, both, that blinded them to the fact that they were actually not Nietzsche's "ubermensch" as they fancied. Turns out they weren't so above the law, weren't perfect.
That alone is obvious by the fact that they were caught. They did not intend to be but were, and stood trial for the killing. The playbook by John Logan does well to not announce the verdict in some melodramatic courtroom scene within his pages.
Exchanges both in and outside the court between Darrow and Crowe are the benchmark addresses or monologues in this play. They get a bit talky, even for a play that at times seems to feign serving as a discourse on capital punishment, but that grandstanding is just what lawyers do, and in Chicago, and in the '20s (see: the musical Chicago, et al). The dialogue here is crisp, staccaco, but for Leopold's strangely loping opening monologue. In the hands of a top-notch director and the throats of polished performers, this show could be brought to life in a riveting way. A local production to be staged soon will do just that, with hope.
Leopold and Loeb fascinate even as they repulse. The attractive, charming Loeb seems soulless but then is let down when his mother won't have anything to do with him as Chicagoans call for his hanging; she seems to be the one person on the earth who he doesn't want to disappoint. Leopold's mother died when he was younger, and he's painted as a ruthlessly academic, learned young man with a fierce romantic bent to boot.
That the two had a sexual pact on the side of their criminal co-conspiring is intriguing, and of course given prominence. Sensational headlines delivered by adult-Newsies-styled reporters canvassing the court and interviewing the players involved tout the affair behind the crime. This was the '20s, after all, and, anyway, sex has always ruled the media.
"This is a love story," say the notes appearing ahead of the two acts. That may be, but if so, it's a rather painfully one-sided one. One of these two seems incapable of ever loving another more than himself. The murder aside, that itself is a real tragedy.
So go the words of defense attorney Clarence Darrow, to state attorney Crowe. The scene is jazz-era Chicago, 1924, and two 19-year-olds, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, are on trial for the heinous, seemingly unrepentant murder of an acquaintance, a 14-year-old boy.
It's a true story. Leopold and Loeb harbored intellectual prowess for their years, as well as massive hubris, both, that blinded them to the fact that they were actually not Nietzsche's "ubermensch" as they fancied. Turns out they weren't so above the law, weren't perfect.
That alone is obvious by the fact that they were caught. They did not intend to be but were, and stood trial for the killing. The playbook by John Logan does well to not announce the verdict in some melodramatic courtroom scene within his pages.
Exchanges both in and outside the court between Darrow and Crowe are the benchmark addresses or monologues in this play. They get a bit talky, even for a play that at times seems to feign serving as a discourse on capital punishment, but that grandstanding is just what lawyers do, and in Chicago, and in the '20s (see: the musical Chicago, et al). The dialogue here is crisp, staccaco, but for Leopold's strangely loping opening monologue. In the hands of a top-notch director and the throats of polished performers, this show could be brought to life in a riveting way. A local production to be staged soon will do just that, with hope.
Leopold and Loeb fascinate even as they repulse. The attractive, charming Loeb seems soulless but then is let down when his mother won't have anything to do with him as Chicagoans call for his hanging; she seems to be the one person on the earth who he doesn't want to disappoint. Leopold's mother died when he was younger, and he's painted as a ruthlessly academic, learned young man with a fierce romantic bent to boot.
That the two had a sexual pact on the side of their criminal co-conspiring is intriguing, and of course given prominence. Sensational headlines delivered by adult-Newsies-styled reporters canvassing the court and interviewing the players involved tout the affair behind the crime. This was the '20s, after all, and, anyway, sex has always ruled the media.
"This is a love story," say the notes appearing ahead of the two acts. That may be, but if so, it's a rather painfully one-sided one. One of these two seems incapable of ever loving another more than himself. The murder aside, that itself is a real tragedy.
The Busy World is Hushed - Acting Edition by Keith Bunin
4.0
"May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done."
-John Henry Newman
Here's a dear little play that subtly packs a wallop. Six scenes, 55 pages, 3 characters. Questions arise of God and life and love and why, and few concrete answers are given (how postmodern, right?) while the characters yet wrestle and cope to the end.
They each have their reasons to do just that. Hannah is a middle-aged widow and woman of the cloth, mother to Thomas, and apartment dweller on NYC's 122nd Street. Her home features a brimming library, and Brandt is the young writer who signs on to help her write a book about a gnostic gospel that may reveal truths about the life and words of Jesus.
Hannah has her reasons for taking on Brandt, in particular - her lone offspring Thomas has a nomadic heart and keeps disappearing and returning, ever the prodigal. In a way she brings in Brandt as an anchor for her son, and the two do begin a relationship. Brandt has his own reasons for working on Hannah's book, as he deals with the most normal and basic and wrenching thing all humans encounter: loss.
Sound engrossing? It is. I'll say no more about the plot. The dialogue is crisp and smart, incredibly well-said. Sometimes hilariously witty, sometimes heartrending.
The relationship between Brandt and Thomas felt a bit forced, but, then again, it is just that. Hannah is not above a little deus ex machina action in her son's life. Oh, these three are all too human. They are all good people also, whether or not each is is inclined to snatch that goodness for themselves.
Some things in life you just cannot brace for. Each of these characters encounters that and responds in ways revealing true (vibrant) colors.
(Need another reason to read Bunin? His play 10 Million Miles has music and lyrics by one Patty Griffin.)
-John Henry Newman
Here's a dear little play that subtly packs a wallop. Six scenes, 55 pages, 3 characters. Questions arise of God and life and love and why, and few concrete answers are given (how postmodern, right?) while the characters yet wrestle and cope to the end.
They each have their reasons to do just that. Hannah is a middle-aged widow and woman of the cloth, mother to Thomas, and apartment dweller on NYC's 122nd Street. Her home features a brimming library, and Brandt is the young writer who signs on to help her write a book about a gnostic gospel that may reveal truths about the life and words of Jesus.
Hannah has her reasons for taking on Brandt, in particular - her lone offspring Thomas has a nomadic heart and keeps disappearing and returning, ever the prodigal. In a way she brings in Brandt as an anchor for her son, and the two do begin a relationship. Brandt has his own reasons for working on Hannah's book, as he deals with the most normal and basic and wrenching thing all humans encounter: loss.
Sound engrossing? It is. I'll say no more about the plot. The dialogue is crisp and smart, incredibly well-said. Sometimes hilariously witty, sometimes heartrending.
The relationship between Brandt and Thomas felt a bit forced, but, then again, it is just that. Hannah is not above a little deus ex machina action in her son's life. Oh, these three are all too human. They are all good people also, whether or not each is is inclined to snatch that goodness for themselves.
Some things in life you just cannot brace for. Each of these characters encounters that and responds in ways revealing true (vibrant) colors.
(Need another reason to read Bunin? His play 10 Million Miles has music and lyrics by one Patty Griffin.)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
4.0
Capote's insatiable attachment to the case of a quadruple murder on a family farm in Kansas is wild. The details of his reporting and writing are painstaking, and we want them all. Some elements are factually suspect for the sake of story maybe, but it's thrilling stuff from this father of modern literary journalism.
The Storm by Frederick Buechner
4.0
This short novel is based loosely on Shakespeare's "The Temptest." (Buechner is a big fan of Bill.) Here he tells a great little story of loss and redemption. Buechner's books always have autobiographical morsels in them, and this one's no different. Two wonderful passages stand out in my mind. A great summer read at about 175 pages.