The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam

Point of view.  This novel raises questions for me about point of view; questions that I’ve never consciously asked about a novel before.  

It seems simple.  Point of view is the method by which an author shows us the world she has created; it is the “eyes” through which we see the fictional world.  In third person point of view the author is omniscient; she can tell the story in the third person as though she is a neutral observer but she knows what a character or sometimes multiple characters are thinking.  And once she tells us what a character is thinking we see the situation from that character’s point of view.

eh, what’s up doc?

It’s always nice to go to the symphony and see kids there.  And last Saturday night Powell Symphony Hall was full of kids.  And adults enjoying themselves like kids.  

The event was Bugs Bunny on Broadway.  The Saint Louis Symphony, conducted by Bugs Bunny (via film) and George Daugherty on the podium, played along with classic films starring Bugs and friends.   We learned a little local history too.

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

I saw a review in the New York Times a few months ago of a book by Jane Gardam and it sounded interesting.  I had never heard of Gardam so, while I put the book on my list, I didn’t put it at the top of the list.  I also wrote down that the book was a sequel to an earlier work of hers, a novel called Old Filth.   She probably would have stayed on my list, patiently awaiting the day she moved to the top, except that I kept running across book bloggers who were writing about her, and what they wrote was usually glowing.  So I decided I should move her higher up the list. 

Wow. 

Reading 2666 by Robert Bolaño – Week 5

This week the group read moves into the third part of 2666 – The Part About Fate  -- and the venue shifts to the United States and we gain a new character.  

Caprica

I’ve watched the first four episodes of Caprica (on hulu) and, while it is a totally different show than Dollhouse, I’m constantly reminded of Dollhouse.  

The whole question of what makes a person a person is the chief question of this show.   Briefly, a real live teenager named Zoe died in a terrorist explosion but she left behind a computerized avatar named Zoe who looks like her and has all of her memories (up to the night before the real Zoe’s death).  The virtual Zoe “lives” in a virtual world, a sort of holodeck type of world that gamesters have hacked into to “play” in through a device invented by Zoe’s  millionaire dad.  But when the real Zoe’s dad finds about about avatar Zoe he “captures” her and experimentally attempts to download her into a six foot robotic killing machine he is designing for the military (a Cylon). 

2666 by Robert Bolaño – What to think; What other People are Thinking

Now that we’ve finished two parts of the novel it seems time to start making some judgments, but I find myself at a loss.  I’m not really liking this novel.  But it isn’t a difficult read and I don’t dislike it.  I may be more tolerant of it than I am of most novels  because I only have to read 50ish pages a week.  That’s a light schedule, so I can read plenty of other things.  I might resent it if I was spending more time on it.  On the other hand, if we didn’t have a schedule, I might also be hundreds of pages further into it and have figured out what it is about. 

Kathryn Grayson 1922-2010

When I was a child I used to like to stay up late and watch old musicals on television.   One of my favorites was Anchors Aweigh with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson.  It was the best of all worlds:  tap dancing with Gene and Frank and beautiful melodies sung by Kathryn Grayson.   Not to mention Jerry the Mouse.

Kathryn Grayson had it all.  She was beautiful and she had a gorgeous voice.  She usually got to wear a beautiful gown at some point in the film.   She was sweet without being cloying.

Here she is when she was very young performing a very simple rendition of Jule Styne’s Time After Time.