The Best of Friends and The Men and The Girls by Joanna Trollope

I'm reading another one of the books floating around: The Best of Friends by Joanna Trollope. I read The Men and the Girls, also by Trollope, last year, but never got around to blogging about it.

I'm about 20% in, and my opinion of Trollope is undergoing a shift. I had thought of Trollope as a writer who liked to stand cliches on their head; in this novel she seems to be exploring a problem that does not begin as an exploded cliche.

Trollope has a website, by the way, and from it I learned that she's been named to the panel for the Orange Prize ("Celebrating excellence, innovation and accessibility, it is the UK’s most prestigious annual book award for international fiction written by a woman."). A new book is coming out in February or March: The Soldier's Wife. And, again, according to her website, she's one of six novelists that has been asked to "rework" the novels of Jane Austen (hers is Sense and Sensibility). Since I sense no decrease in interest in Austen, I bet the book will be successful and more folks will discover Trollope.

According to Wikipedia, Trollope is a fifth-generation niece of the great Victorian novelist, Anthony Trollope.

Another amusing bit of trivia about her is that, according to this article in the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/feb/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview10, she has been dubbed Queen of the Aga Saga but she protests that she's mentioned an Aga in only two of her novels. The Men and The Girls is one of them; Julia has an Aga.  And Julia would have an Aga:  not because the Aga is so expensive but because it's the best.  Julia's gift, and her affliction, may be that she is attractive, an excellent manager, one of those people who's good at everything -- except, perhaps, understanding the anguish of the mere mortals among us.  However that may be, her strength is important to her husband and her family in the crisis that occurs in the novel.

In The Best of Friends Hilary finds out, after agreeing to marry Laurence, that his best friend is a woman, Gina. Twenty years later, this friendship becomes problematic when Fergus, Gina's husband, suddenly leaves Gina and Gina, bereft, becomes a burden to Hilary and Laurence in her state of collapse.

As I read this novel I really enjoyed bits of psychological insight Trollope offers. When Gina confesses to her mother that she knows her own daughter, Sophy, blames Gina for the collapse of her marriage and is afraid to talk to Sophy because she can't bear being confronted by her anger, her mother Vi says, "You've got to do something to show her that you care."

On the whole, however, I preferred The Men and the Girls, with its cast of really improbable characters. James meets Kate at a bar when his friend, Hugh, accidentally spills beer on her. James and Kate start to go out and and two months later, Kate moves in. Kate is deliriously happy and seems not to notice or ever think about their 20-year age difference. But Kate refuses to marry James.

Hugh, James' lifelong friend, is married to a woman a little younger than Kate; Hugh and Julia met at work and Julia, Hugh's wife, seems never to have even noticed their age difference. She's an attractive, confident woman who's mapped out a life with Hugh, children, and a tastefully decorated antique house.

And then, as they say, it all goes pear-shaped. When James tells Kate that he's struck a woman on a bicycle with his car, Kate snaps, "You stupid old man," and horribly, really means it, I think. Soon James becomes taken, almost infatuated, with the woman he hit.  Miss Batchelor, his victim, is a bright, educated, lonely and impoverished woman -- older than James -- who enjoys both James' company and all the attention that follows, in a clear-eyed way.

Kate becomes jealous and moves out, leaving her daughter (not James' child) behind, and she misses her daughter, painfully. James misses Kate, and he, his elderly uncle, Leonard, his old friend Hugh, and Joss, Kate's daughter, make up a lively and delightfully mismatched menagerie, with frequent visits from Oxford spinster Miss Batchelor and later, visits from a homesick American academic wife who falls in love with James.

Both novels have slightly surprising, not entirely happy endings in which some people have to Be Brave and Get On With It.

Trollope seems to take cliched ideas -- in this case, older men married to younger women -- and turn the cliches of our thinking about these inside out and on their head. Of course, I like that sort of thing.

But I find myself feeling still confused about certain things: how can it be that Kate could fall in love with James, and Julia with Hugh, without ever thinking about the age difference? How could Laurence have a woman as his best friend for years without trying to make it something more? James is described as someone who has not made any effort to look younger, and yet he engenders love in two women and perhaps a kind of fascination, or at least enthusiasm, in Miss Batchelor. What is James' secret? And what drew him to Kate after several years of relatively contented widowerhood? I understood that Kate's feelings about James changed, but I never quite understood why.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

I was more than two thirds of the way through this novel when, as Bridget contemplated Kipling's advice in If, I realized I'd read it before. That makes it just the fourth novel I've ever read twice in my life, along with Madame Bovary, At Swim Two Birds and Persuasion. Hmmm.

I did love laughing out loud, e.g., "Sunday 31 August - 114 lbs. (Yess! Yess! Triumphant culmination of 18-year diet, though perhaps at unwarranted cost) .." (after Bridget has spent two weeks in a Thai prison).

I enjoyed the many allusions to Persuasion, from Rebecca insisting on throwing herself off a bridge, to Rebecca ending up recuperating with, and engaged to Giles Benwick, to Darcy suggesting to Bridget that she ought to take an umbrella to Thailand. And I love Fielding's style of humor -- I suppose I love the mashup of low and high culture and the abrupt juxtapositions of Bridget's insecurity on the one hand and her rather incisive sarcasm on the other.

Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastman

It's Christmas, and I'm thinking about children's books. Go, Dog, Go is my absolute favorite children's book. There's something dynamic and anarchic about the differently colored dogs (coral, green, blue and yellow) and their cars and especially, their hats. I like a nice hat!

Incendies/Something Borrowed/Everything Must Go

My own personal film festival: I could not finish watching Incendies because it was too graphic for me. I found it unbearable to watch; the violence started very early in the film. I thought it seemed very realistic and that the acting was sublime, completely convincing.

Here's some background (from the Wikipedia entry for Indendies): Incendies is a 2010 Quebec film written and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's play, Scorched, Incendies follows the journey of twin brother and sister as they attempt to unravel the mystery of their mother's life. The film premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals in September 2010 and was released in Quebec on 17 September 2010. In 2011, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Something Borrowed is a romantic comedy based on the novel by the same name by Emily Giffin. (I've never read a novel by Emily Giffin but I've read that infidelity is a theme in her work.) This story is about unfaithfuless among friends and how growth and change can lead to unfaithfullness, ironically. I seem to recall one review that I read that found it uninspired and I can understand that, but I actually felt differently about it. It had some quality of underdevelopment but I thought that the acting was good and that the issue of how changing may lead one to do something that leaves one's friends behind or in some other way seems to break faith with friends or the priorities of the past was actually a serious topic for folks in that time of life.

Everything Must Go was a comedy without laughs. That's not really true, but the laughs were few and subtle. This movie was really a drama. It was based on a short story by Raymond Carver who was a serious drinker and wrote about the difficulty of being adult when addicted in many of his stories. Of course, it's difficult to be an adult even when you're not addicted. See above, re: keeping faith.

July is a tough month: The Happiness Project

I'm on July in the Happiness Project - in fact, I've just finished it. July was a hard month for Gretchen Rubin; she was in a bad mood and everyone in her family was in a bad mood. She thought consciously about the resolutions she'd set for herself to handle parenting and family conflict issues -- and the tools she'd developed for coping with these issues - and she just ignored them. That's a very familiar feeling .. she recovered. But it shows that there are difficulties, even limits, to acquiring new behavior patterns, something any dieter could tell you.

In August she decides to read catastrophe memoirs, in part because they lend a true sense of perspective to an ordinarily very fortunate life. She also talks about giving something up: as counterintuitive as that seems, giving something up seems to also foster happiness. She also suggests imitating a spiritual master. This is one of the places in the book where she reprints posts made on her blog by followers. Some of what they said about the spiritual masters who informed their thinking was surprising and fun - Viktor Frankl was an obvious choice but Dan Savage, the sex columnist, was another surprising choice.

One day her husband asks her just how many books about Therese of Lisieux she's going to read, and after counting how many she already owns (17 plus) she realizes that St. Therese, the Little Flower, is the spiritual master she has been most influenced by and in fact has greatly, if indirectly, influenced her concept for her personal happiness project: one that will take place "in situ," that is, without disrupting her work or her family life and one that will emphasize small but meaningful changes that will be almost entirely internal.

By this time, I find myself feeling a grudging respect for Gretchen Rubin. I'm not going to read St. Therese's memoir, but I do see how it's a kind of blueprint for Rubin's own Happiness Project and how it may have influenced her to want to make a happiness project.

Rubin seems to me to be clearly not the sort of person who might have written Jesus and the Weather as a young person. But her candor in assessing the strengths, success and failure of her personal happiness project is charming.

A week or two ago, I found myself thinking, Rubin reminds me of Ann Landers. That notion seems surprising, but there is a similar quality of acceptance and practicality in both authors.

For instance, Rubin doesn't try to pretend that money isn't linked to happiness. One wants to be equal to one's peers and, she writes, relative wealth is not as important as having approximately what one's peers have. Money can't buy you happiness but it can solve some problems that, by being resolved, can promote happiness. She's forthright about the fact that acquiring things can make you feel good (she says because that feeling of gaining something feels like the growth that, it turns out, is a very important component in happiness).

She emphasizes having fun several times, and talks about different ways of having fun. She points out very importantly, that different people have fun different ways and it doesn't count as fun if it's not something you enjoy - even if you think that you should.

In September, Rubin wrote a novel. I found this amazing. It required such a large commitment of time, but she did it anyway (fast, no editing). She undertook this big project in the midst of the big project of the Happiness Project in the midst of her busy life as wife, mother, blogger.

To anyone, I would recommend reading the February chapter, in which she talks the small, practical steps she takes as part of improving her relationship with her husband. Part of her project is a "Week of Extreme Nice". It doesn't sound grand, does it (but a little intriguing, no?). The point is this: it's not really complicated; anyone can do it; it works and it's a fine illustration of how you can improve the emotional tenor of your life using the kind of tools Rubin uses: make a plan and implement it. (I have to say that making plans, implementing them, and evaluating the implementation is a big part of what she does; although the very idea of doing that, the way that she does it, doesn't really appeal to me, the results do.)

She's wonderfully practical. She begins her Happiness Project, in January, by resolving to go to bed earlier, and by cleaning out closets. Many people cannot begin something new unless they've uncluttered their mind by uncluttering their closets. It's not romantic, or dramatic, but it's effective.

Having finished the book, I have to say that it contains a lot of wisdom about how we should live now. I also have to say that it was a bit of a slog, and I consider that a problem. I wonder if finding another way to organize the experiences would have been better.

Another problem that I see is that using the diary like structure, arranged in months, was terribly clunky. It seemed to me that although Rubin experienced growth, and had tons of wisdom to share, she didn't quite succeed in making her experience into a shapely story.

And her quotations - Rubin loves quotations and she peppers her prose with them. I think it slows down the action. I also think it creates interest but it's overused. Rubin seems to me to be both a discreet and honest writer, which stands in the way of shaping an exciting narrative.

And I think it's a challenge for someone as attuned to modest virtues as Gretchen Rubin, someone who admires Dr. Johnson and Therese of Lisieux as much as she does, to write a narrative as entertaining as, say, Blood, Bones and Butter (by Gabrielle Hamilton). Rubin wouldn't make, I'd guess, the same choices as Hamilton. While both authors are good writers, the choices that Hamilton did make, good, bad, and indifferent, provide the narrative drive and spice of her account. She gets angry, and has snarky, sarcastic, critical and contemptuous thoughts, which she shares with us and we enjoy them and perhaps also enjoy some vicarious thrill. Rubin models self-control and restraint (advocating good manners, for instance, although not for their own virtue but because of how they can help us to be happier) and it's just not as interesting as Hamilton's bad girl blues.

Having said that, what Dr. Johnson, Gretchen Rubin, and people I know have in common is a sincere, unpretentious desire to know how to live, ethically, and fulfill themselves at the same time. Both Hamilton and Rubin offer answers and some of the same answers (work hard; get things done; make things; make a difference; do what needs doing) but Rubin's approach will resonate more intimately with many of those in my world. Meanwhile, I'm a little astounded by this fact: Dr. Johnson may be dull, may even be embarrassing but I see that his influence continues to pervade how we live now. (God, I should have paid more attention when we were reading Rasselas!)

What I might be reading next

Was delighted to find that my library had gotten me In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson; I know quite a few people who love that book. Was also thrilled to see that Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson, had arrived.

First of all, what a great title! Secondly, Atkinson is the author of Case Histories on which the PBS Masterpiece Theatre series was based (which I really enjoyed).

I decided to scam a look at the books my friend is reading: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (he also published Will of the World, about our friend Bill Shakespeare, a year or two ago). I can see that this is kind of an anecdotal, creative nonfiction book in which Poggio Bracciolino and the Lucretius' On the Nature of Things play large roles.

Still working my way through the Happiness Project, however. May was a good month; I think I'm somewhere in June or July.

12.15.11 Just picked up Andre Dubus' Townie and started reading in the middle. I thought it was so well written. It just pulled me along -- I had to pry myself away from it. Dubus is the author of House of Sand and Fog, an Oprah book (it was also made into a movie).

Dubus' book is a memoir about his youth and his memories of his father, an accomplished writer and professor, albeit not very "tweedy."  In his youth, Dubus goes through a long period in which he becomes passionate about lifting weights and gets into a number of fights.  At the same time, he's beginning to write.  To me, it's a strange mixture:  a  combination of academe, PBR, fistfights and a lovely descriptive prose.  

London Holiday by Richard Peck

This story is about the intersection of the lives of four American women and that of their bed and breakfast landlady.

Lesley, Margo and Julia all grew up together in Missouri and their lives have taken them in different directions: Margo is an elementary school teacher in Chicago, while Lesley has become a socialite in St. Louis and Julia owns her own interior design business in New York.

When Margo is shot by a disgruntled parent and Julia's mother dies, "Les" feels a need for connection with her old friends and proposes - or perhaps, steamrolls her friends into - a trip to London.

Les imagines a round of touristy sites and elegant tea at the Dorchester in the afternoon. But events quickly intervene: Margo is shattered when her daughter announces that she's pregnant, and Julia, who'd hoped to pick up some furniture for a new house on the West Coast, is swept off her feet by a disorganized antiques dealer in Bermondsey. Then an unexpected development finds them donning aprons to manage the bed and breakfast, and the ladies feel forced to postpone their return to America.

It all ends happily, and this is a perfect escapist read, as well as a little bit of a love letter to London. I wish I knew what prompted the author to write this story, but perhaps it was his fondness for London or the sheer incongruity of these ladies making themselves at home in Chelsea.

After I'd read it, I racked my brain, trying to put my finger on what about this book was so familiar. This book reminded me a lot of Alison Lurie's Foreign Affairs, perhaps for obvious reasons, and also of Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax novels, and especially, Caravan (also by Dorothy Gilman). Oh, and it reminds me of Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, where a charlady wins a contest and travels to Paris to be fitted for her Christian Dior "New Look" gown.

I didn't know who Richard Peck was when I began this novel, and from Wikipedia I've learned that Richard Peck was born in Decatur, Illinois, although he now lives in New York (and teaches somewhere else, I believe). He's a well known author of young adult fiction, although he's also written novels for adults and nonfiction. He started his career as a teacher and began publishing in 1970. He won the Edgar Allan Poe award for Are You in the House Alone? and the Newbery Award for A Year Down Yonder.

From London Holiday:


The row had been thrown up to shelter the workers of some earlier century, jerry-built to begin with and then badly knocked about by Jerry.  The ceilings were all down, and the scullery still had its earth floor and a single tap over a stone sink.  Above, there were two floors of bedrooms roughly boxed in with a bathroom of sorts added and a leaking loo, though the original lav was still out back.

Now that some time has passed, I find myself feeling that however down home the folks from Missouri are, however charming Julia's ability to snag a lord wearing only Talbots, what stays with me is the landlady from Chelsea - the woman who was given an house when she was discarded by her married lover and who turns it into a successful bed-and-breakfast/antiques business.  She interests me and I find myself wondering about her genesis and wishing I could ask Richard Peck about her origins.

Reading Now

Still working my way through the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

I've been reading a little in The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage by Frederick P. Hitz, which compares the reality of espionage with how it's been depicted in fiction. He mentions a lot of books by classic authors: Kim by Rudyard Kipling, The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, Ashenden by Somerset Maugham (which I'd never heard of), The Quiet American and especially, The Human Factor by Graham Greene. Hitz also mentioned Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands and Eric Ambler's A Coffin for Demetrios. He mentions books Le Carre a lot: Russia House, The Perfect Spy, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. A great virtue of this book is that it is only 188 pages.

It is interesting to find out more, and especially about their motivation, about the Cambridge Five. Generally, I think I'd enjoy it more if I'd read Le Carre or any of these books. I've just read Nostromo by Joseph Conrad, and that was sometime back .. I don't really remember it but I think it shaped my view.

Oh, and I've been reading a little of London Holiday by Richard Peck. It seems very dated but it was published in 1998. It has a very gossipy tone, and it looks backward at the eighties, mentioning the AIDS crisis and the Princess of Wales. It's about the proprietress of a B & B on Radnor Walk in Chelsea and the four American women who come to stay for a London holiday.

I brought home At Home by Bill Bryson and I read a few paragraphs from the chapter on the Plum Room and felt entirely satisfied that I would enjoy it. I also brought home The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan but I haven't even cracked it open yet.

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it; I thought it was well-written and entertaining. The author, Gabrielle Hamilton, is the chef/owner of Prune in Manhattan.

Gabrielle Hamilton has led a very interesting life. For one thing, it's fairly rare for a woman to be the chef/owner of a restaurant. Many times, cooking is a man's business. Both of her parents were interesting people and her memoir begins with her memories of her home and her parents' parties. Her mother was French, and her mother's cooking deeply influenced Hamilton's cooking; in fact, something her mother made, marrow bones, is on the menu at Prune today, I think.

She herself is a vivid person who's made some interesting choices, and she talks about them in her book. Not only did she travel in France, Greece and Turkey, picking up food lore along the way, but she attended a writer's program in Michigan. In Michigan I think she must have experienced a very different culture - both literary culture and the culture of the Midwest.

I finished this book in about three days and that's important to me because I've come to feel that when I am able to read fast it's a sign that the author is a strong prose stylist. I think Hamilton is a really good writer. Some of her sentences were very poetic.

I also think that she grapples with some tough personal issues in her book. I read the New York Times review last night and the reviewer reported that there was wasn't much connective tissue between the episodes in the book and that she failed to explain why she did some things.

I think those criticisms are valid but unimportant to me as a reader. I wanted to be entertained and I was.

The reviewer did not find her to be honest; I found her to be refreshingly candid and the gaps in exposition the reviewer noted I associate with the fact that we do not see ourselves or our lives objectively; memoirs can be beautiful, instructive and true in a number of ways but I don't think that they are ever objective. This is a story told from her point of view.

One aspect of her story I found particularly interesting was how ambition had, according to her report, hurt the relationship she had before she met her husband. Conflict over ambition, and whether it's really socially acceptable, really resonated with me.

Many people specifically enjoy reading about food and I think that they will enjoy the book. I recommend this book to foodies and to anyone who likes a good story.

Prune has a nice website with the restaurant's menu, at http://www.prunerestaurant.com.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

Loved this book.

It's a shorter book, very well written, and I read it in four hours.

I don't know how to talk about this book without revealing the ending, and I prefer not to reveal the endings of books as plot is very important to me as a reader.

(I'd looked forward to reading Pamela for years and when I read the critical introduction and found out the ending I couldn't bring myself to finish reading the book. Of course, that's ridiculous -- anyone who'd ever seen a romantic comedy would have guessed what the ending of that particular story would be -- except for me. I wouldn't have guessed. And the fact that that is ridiculous doesn't mean it's not true.)

So, I hate to reveal endings because I hate having them revealed to me.

There is an element of fantasy to this book, but you should not be misled by that. (There is perhaps more than an element of fantasy.) I view this fantastical element as a metaphor, used by the author to give the book greater universality.

I read this book for my book club.

I think the reasons I would give for why I loved this book would be that it was very well written; the plot was organized to achieve and maintain suspense; the prose was often plain and straightforward but often very poetic and always shapely; the behavior and thoughts of characters seemed psychologically authentic; and I found the discussions of food sensually appealing (in this way it seemed harmonious with my recent reading of Blood, Bones & Butter and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle).

It is hard for me to recommend this book because I think it is about the things that grieve us most deeply. Its emotional honesty is sad; in this respect it reminds me of Chekhov.

A few or so years ago I saw a wonderful production of Chekhov's The Seagull. As I walked out of the theater with tears running down my face I turned to my companion and said, "Why should I pay for the privilege of having my heart broken?" You see I am committed to the notion of a satisfyingly happy ending and not ashamed of it.

There is one little detail about this experience I have to share. As I turned to my companion, I caught a glimpse of the one the very talented young actresses in the production peeking around the curtain to spy on us and find out if we loved her performance. And, we did.

Reading Now

Yesterday I began Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton; very entertaining. I highly recommend it.

Today I began the Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. I'm only on page 38, but I think I'm going to like it very much. It's definitely a fast read.

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Andrew Garfield

This is a book about type and its modern-day equivalent, font. As the author points out, type was a big but hidden part of our lives, exclusively considered by designers, printers, and publishers. If you weren't in the "business," or some kind of business, you probably wouldn't know too much about type.

But computer fonts changed all of that, and apparently, Steve Jobs is the person who's responsible. Oh, the zeitgeist is all about font! Or, perhaps more accurately (or hopefully), it's about design.

Jobs, I understand, took a calligraphy course at Reed College, and while he didn't expect to do anything with that calligraphy knowledge, when the Apple Macintosh shipped, it had a bunch of fonts that permitted ordinary people like me to choose fonts and to consider which fonts they wanted to choose. Before that, the state of the art in the typewriter was the IBM Selectric (Garfield notes that Big Blue was the Apple of its day) and the balls could be changed. The only two type I ever saw was Courier or Prestige Elite. Well, Steve Jobs changed all that.

In Just My Type, Simon Garfield has given us a book that is part a biography of typefaces or fonts, and partly a guide.

For instance, I learned that for several years there has been a movement against Comic Sans. It's one of those fonts, along with Brush Script, Papyrus (!Ow! a former favorite!), which, when used, demonstrates the amateur status of the user.

This is a book that, instead of flouting the received wisdom, explains what the received wisdom is, for the uncool kids.

I found it surprising to learn that the same man who designed Zapfino designed Palatino (Hermann Zapf). Palatino isn't perfectly classical: if you look closely, you can see that the capital P is not closed! But it's very close to Roman lettering, and the addition of a certain expressive style gives it its charm. Whereas Zapfino is both dramatic, bold, flouncy and inconsistent - and, it's everywhere! Brush Script is a "bad" font, the choice of an immature, inexperienced designer, and makes whatever you're working on look like it was designed in the 1950's. But, why is Zapfino everywhere (in the brochure for the retirement community, on the side of the cookie box, and everywhere else) while Brush Script is bad.

Why is Comic Sans so despised? The short answer is that it's overused. (Why is it overused? I imagine because it reminds people of comics, and that there's something warm about it - it reminds me of Charles Schulz lettering for Peanuts.)

And how can Helvetica be so wonderful and so ubiquitous on the one hand, and be regarded as overused by some designers on the other hand? I guess there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

As Garfield points out, type, or font, is everywhere around us. This book will lead you to see it with new eyes and soon you'll be saying under your breath, "That's Zapfino. That's Albertus, I think!"

And, when you have used Calibri for a sign because it just seems to fade into the background and doesn't draw attention to itself, you may, like me, be stunned to read that Calibri, "is a rounded, pliable sans serif with great visual impact."

By the end of this book, you'll agree that fonts are expressive and have personality. I wonder, though, if you might feel, like me, that not everyone agrees on what that personality is.

Yes, and if you loved the documentary "Helvetica," you'll love this, too. Here's something fun: a video promoting Just My Type (this is just the sort of thing I like)(photographed in London and Manchester): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhI2LYDkkZk

And you might enjoy this, too: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole

Who is Harry Nilsson (and Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?

If you love Harry Nilsson, you will enjoy this documentary. I wanted to know about his late and early career and his family. The highs and lows of his dramatic life and long career are all discussed here.

It was a pleasure to hear some of the songs again; I was especially pleased that they included "Don't Forget Me," on the sound track. I love that song, and in a way it's very typical of Nilsson as a songwriter: it's lovely, it's poignant, and it's frank in a way that pop songs rarely are ("I'll miss you when I'm lonely, I'll miss the alimony, too"). Nilsson was a really original songwriter and while that may not have always been commercial enough to win success on the charts, as a listener I find it inspiring, gratifying and moving. Different is not always better, but here it is.

The documentary has many people who knew Nilsson talking about him, and they all feel passionately about him; if you're a fan like me, you'll find that gratifying, I'm sure. Their portrait is affectionate and tactful, but truthful: Nilsson liked to party, was competitive, insecure, willful and stubborn; managed his own career and not always well.

I think I've felt sad that Nilsson's career has been eclipsed; I imagine I feel so strongly about it because he was such a great singer and such a great songwriter and that means something to me personally. (Why do fans take it personally?) I find myself wishing that more folks would discover him; perhaps because of this documentary they will.

It's gratifying to know that a tribute concert has been organized for November 26 at Off Broadway in St. Louis. I just read a bit of publicity about it online; one of the event producers, Kevin Buckley of Grace Basement, said: "However, Nilsson, for a variety of reasons, will remain somewhat on the fringes even if more and more people become aware of his work. Something about his art and persona is strangely subversive and elusive, while his music was so beautiful and melodious. Nilsson is interesting because he's confusing. He almost went out of his way to let people know he didn't take himself too seriously."

My favorite part of this documentary appears toward the end: Van Dyke Parks is facing the viewer and starts playing some music. I found myself beaming; then he turns away as if saddened, and I started crying. I guess I'm just an Aeolian harp but I was moved by something I took to be authentic.

The Tourist

I saw The Tourist last night. I suppose I watched it to see Venice. It was so different than what I imagined, and as I tried to take it in I couldn't make it hang together in my mind.

I suppose that movie was meant to star Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, and only if it did could it make sense - or seem to make sense. I can't think of an actress with the right kind of haughty froideur - oh, Joan Crawford, perhaps.

There were several ways in which the film was different from what I expected. One was the music. I think it was meant to be very old-fashioned movie music, that would tug on your heart strings and chill you with suspense and it didn't work. I really didn't like it and found it deeply disappointing. I think I started with a stereotypical thought like, "This is just what's wrong with movies today," and came to think that, while the original precis for the music may have made sense, it undercut the meaning of the film instead of supplying it.

Let Them Talk by Hugh Laurie and other artists

Mostly I am unfamiliar with the songs on this collection but I love "Tipitina," and think it worth the price of admission alone. I really love it. I love the song and I think this is an outstanding rendition and I love Laurie's singing here.

I'm afraid that I like to imagine myself discerning but I'm very opinionated and I'm no David Denby, that's for sure.

I like variety, and I like people doing things passionately, and I like folks with lesser vocal gifts singing musically and expressively. I enjoyed this record.

P.S.: I was driving a friend to the airport and listening to this record (to "Let Them Talk," specifically), and he suddenly burst out, "I like this guy! Who is he?" and I explained that it was Hugh Laurie.

As I've been listening to this record, it's been growing on me and I am now very fond of "Let Them Talk."

Once I was attending a performance of Madama Butterfly in a 4,000 seat hall. Someone complained that the tenor, not well-known, did not have a voice big enough to fill the hall. I thought about it and I decided that it was just unfortunate that you had to have such a big voice to fill a large hall like that and that I wanted to be able to enjoy his voice as well. I want to have a chance to appreciate everyone's voice. I personally feel that the final arbiter of worth here is "Do you enjoy it?" and I am enjoying Laurie's album.

Animal, Vegetable and Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

I haven't finished this book (I'm only on Chapter 4) but I thought I'd give you a preview of coming attractions.

First, let me say that I have never read Barbara Kingsolver's fiction. If I had, I imagine I'd come to this book with greater eagerness.

Secondly, I like food and I especially like my favorite things, but I am not a foodie. I'm not a gardener, either. Kingsolver is and she is passionate about it. She takes real aesthetic pleasure in the flavors of heirloom fruits and vegetables, and a visceral satisfaction in the seasons of the year, and visual delight in the colors and flowers of the vegetables she plants. As a result, as I slog through this book I feel like the one person at the party who doesn't know anyone else.

Kingsolver has something to say, and I respect that. Truthfully, without having something to say, what is the point? It's a didactic book, and meant to be one. To paraphrase Gertrude, this book has plenty of matter - not so much the art.

Kingsolver's trying to argue that the combination of industrial style farming, genetic engineering of plants for industrial farming, the loss of smaller family farms, and the way in which we city dwellers have lost touch with the source of our food and any knowledge about it threaten our food security. She's trying to argue that the situation is serious and the need to act is immediate, and that there are things that ordinary people can do, in feeding themselves, to improve the situation.

Her husband, a professor of environmental science at a Virginia college, argues that the amount of petroleum consumed to transport out of season produce dramatically raises it cost - a cost that is invisible to us and subsidized by our government.

Her family's experiment is presented as proof that folks can take matters into their own hands, and her account is meant to show, in part, how it can be done. After living in Tucson, Arizona, for many years, she and her husband move their family to his farm in Virginia. They spend a year eating only those things that they can grow themselves or purchase from folks living nearby, and this book is Kingsolver's account of that year.

In short, they eat in season, something many of us, with our hothouse tomatoes and raspberries in winter, do not do.

The story of the year that her family spent trying to eat food that they'd either grown themselves or purchased from nearby neighbors is a little short on drama. Plenty of passion when she talks about how the use of corn syrup in many of our foods has helped to fatten us as a nation at the same time that the year-round availability of most fruits and vegetables requires shipping long distances, and that the logistics of their shipping means they arrive at our table shorn of any flavor. This, at the same time that the profit-maximizing policies of seed companies like Monsanto have led to a greatly reduced biodiversity that, if allowed to continue, will likely lead to catastrophic crop failures and widespread famine in the developed world. (I don't think Kingsolver explicitly states that famine will definitely happen, but if you're Irish you know how the story ends.)

This is important stuff, and Kingsolver is committed and passionate, and I admire her, and I find that I need toothpicks to keep my eyelids open.

The chapters on "Molly Mooching" (a local name for morels, with recipes) and "Gratitude," are delightfully engaging, full of rich, descriptive writing and probably catnip for a foodie.

"Gratitude" opens with a Mother's Day gift to a neighbor, a tomato plant. Kingsolver reports that the recipient did not say thank you, and her family refrained from saying "You're welcome." This is because of a local belief that if you say "thank you," for a plant, the plant will die.
The type of tomato this was a variety called "Silver Fig" from the former Soviet Union.

The chapter continues with a section on the May planting, an arduous task begun before school starts in the morning and continued after school lets out until well after dark. More tomato varieties are described in loving detail. Kingsolver plants a Siberian variety, bred for its ability to ripen in a short summer, helping to ensure some early tomatoes.

In June, she's embarrassed when she plans to offer some of those Siberian tomatoes to a friend only to discover that her friend, living in western Massachusetts, already has some gargantuan tomatoes.

In this chapter, Kingsolver starts to talk about a practical problem: Americans have grown accustomed not just to eating out of season but to paying lower prices for factory-farm produced food that food produced by hand on smaller farms and sold at farmers' markets can be sold for.

But Kingsolver argues that the price differential is not enough to discourage low-income food consumers and that in fact, holders of food subsidy vouchers can use them at farmers' markets. I didn't know this, and it's a big revelation to me. In fact, there are foodmobile buses - Kingsolver mentions one in Tennessee and I know of one in Austin - that take fresh produce to urban neighborhoods. I am intrigued and wonder if it is really possible for there to be a successful farmers' market in an area that's not very affluent.

The book ends on the happiest of notes, as the author and her youngest daughter celebrate the birth of their first turkey chicks on the farm, a joyous event and the realization of the author's dream to help preserve vintage varieties of turkey.

If you'd like to know more about Barbara Kingsolver's experiment, her family, or resources for learning more about Slow Food International or Slow Food USA, there's a special website (with recipes!) at http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

You can find out about Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste here: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/details/ark_of_taste/

"Cruelty to Animals" in Rebecca Wells' Little Altars Everywhere

I enjoyed Little Altars Everywhere a little bit more than Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and one of the big reasons why is the chapter "Cruelty to Animals". It's some strange cross between Flaubert and Benny Hill. I dare you to read it without laughing out loud. In fact, I think if you read it out loud to someone else you'll soon both be in stitches.

Public Speaking

I enjoyed this documentary, directed by Martin Scorsese, which presents Fran Lebowitz doing what it may be she does best: talking. It's not a completely fresh idea, and Fran Lebowitz may be a "character," but she is an independent and very entertaining woman - two things I greatly admire.

Scorsese presents her attractively and I suppose I have to wonder: what was left out? How was the narrative shaped? If I viewed the entirety of her remarks would I have been disappointed?

I remember reading something about John Huston -- or perhaps it wasn't about John Huston -- but that the best directors love actors. Perhaps the best directors love people, and that warmth is an important job requirement, and perhaps it's the warmth of admiring friendship that frames this portrait of Lebowitz.

This movie seems like an intimate portrait, although it really isn't. Perhaps it's the closeness of the camera or the fact that Lebowitz's comedy seems so personal, to spring from a unique personal viewpoint. Her comedy is observational, like Seinfeld's, but so much more personal although not really self-revealing.

I feel as though it's hard for me to come to any kind of judgment about Lebowitz, because I haven't thought about her for a long time (I read Metropolitan Life but long ago) and I suppose I shouldn't let that get about, especially if I'm an admirer of Lebowitz, because it seems to have no effect whatsoever on my extremely dull life.

Her timing is excellent and she's unafraid to use expressive gesture to help convey the import. I see now that gestures do not convey meaning; they convey punctuation.

Let me paraphrase, badly, one of the funniest things (I think) she says in the film. She's talking about her writer's block. She says something like, "I am the foremost waster of time of my generation. I didn't look at the clock from, say, 1979 to 2007, when I suddenly thought, "Hmm .. gotta get busy."

But comedy is hard, and more so for women, and I think she does it very, very well.

"Design Principles: The Studio of Jobs and Ive" in Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs

I was interested in finding out if Walter Isaacson would talk about the connection between design, production and marketing in his biography of Steve Jobs. I suspected that Apple was a perfect example of the close relationship between marketing and design that Seth Godin espoused in Purple Cow.

I've only dipped into it, but the first chapter I chose to read was "Design Principles," and in it, Isaacson does make that connection.

When Jobs returned to Apple, Jonathan Ive was already working there as a designer but was thinking about leaving: he didn't like the way that production and design was organized. After Jobs left, design became an afterthought. Engineers designed the inside of products, according the specifications of function they had also designed, and the job of the design department was to make a case that would fit.

After Jobs returned, design returned to its former role where the design of the product was paramount and the engineers were required to make the components fit - and function - in the case created by the design department.

Jobs was passionate about design, grew close to Ive, and gave him independence in the company structure so that, as Jobs said, "There's no one who can tell him what to do, or to butt out. That's the way I set it up."

Ive was influenced by a designer for Braun, Dieter Rams, whose personal design philosophy was summed up in the phrase, "Less but better." Similarly, Ive and Jobs sought the simplest design that was still functional. What Ive says about this is fascinating to me, and I'm not sure I understand it, and I certainly didn't expect it:

"Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn't just a visual style. It's not just the minimalism of the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it's manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential."

Isaacson explains that Jobs and Ive believed that design was not just the surface of the product, or the way that it looked, but its essence, which includes its function.

In the design of the PowerMacs, for instance, there was "total collaboration" between the designers, the product developers, the engineers, and the manufacturing team as the design went through many iterations.

Ive told Isaacson a story about his visit to kitchen supply store in France with Jobs. They both admired a knife but as they picked it up to look at it more closely, they saw a tiny bit of glue between the handle and the blade. That kind of detail revealed a lot about how the knife was manufactured and represented the opposite of what Jobs and Ive strove for: "products should be made to look pure and seamless."

In Ive's studio, there's a room with computers on which the designers design the models. There's a another room, next to it, a "molding" room in which the computer designs are turned into models. Next to the molding room is another room for spray painting the molds.

Jobs visited the design studio many days; he examined the different iterations of the model and made comments or involved other staff from outside the design department in questions of manufacture or strategy that arose from the design.

Ive said about this, "Much of the design process is a conversation, a back-and-forth as we walk around the tables and play with the models.. There are no formal design reviews, so there are no huge decision points. Instead, we can make the decisions fluid. Since we iterate every day and never have dumb-ass presentations, we don't run into major disagreements."

Isaacson adds that the "packaging of Apple signaled that there was a beautiful gem inside," and that seems to me to be another example of almost seamless integration, here of marketing and design.

Perhaps my view of this is exaggerated, but elsewhere in the book I read that Jobs forced folks from different departments to work together as teams, and furthermore, required that profit and loss be reported only for the company as a whole - not for each department. I think his attitude about the profit and loss reporting might be a reflection of how united he felt that the departments should be because he wanted to foster an operational process in which marketing, engineering and product design were almost unified.

Bill Cunningham New York

I loved this documentary! If you at all think you would enjoy it, make it a point to see it.

Obviously, if you love fashion, you'll enjoy meeting this man who so ardently loves fashion as well.

But what I admired so much about him was his generous and egalitarian spirit. It seems to me to be something truly special, and I was utterly charmed.

Bill Cunningham is a street photographer who writes a column for the New York Times. I've not often seen this column as I rarely have a print copy of the Times in my hand. (Sadly, this is part of what's lost in not having a print copy in your hand; you can read a specific article online but you can't enjoy the serendipity of discovery.) And, truly, I don't have his eye for fashion nor do I feel the excitement that he does about it although I do understand it. It is wonderful: exuberant and vital.

In the film, Cunningham says that fashion is the armor that we wear to protect ourselves, but also, obviously, it's a way that we express ourselves and that's wonderful. In this film, New York is where there are so many different people as well as so many people who love fashion and this film captures that.

The film shows Cunningham at work, both as a photographer and in designing the layout of his column at the Times. It was wonderful to see him at work, pairing two photos that had in common the same gesture captured in a photo taken on the fly. What I love about his photo spreads are the color, the composition, the freshness and immediacy. Of course, through his process of selection -- both in taking his photos, selecting photos for publication, and in arranging them -- his photo spreads are his self-expression, as well. This film captures his wonderful enthusiasm for design, and an unpretentious passion for people.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Purple Cow is a neat little book. It's full of short essays about the importance of a innovative marketing.

Godin argues that marketing used to be buying print, TV and radio ads. A company created a product, and it was the marketing department's job to sell it, mostly by buying ads.

Today, customers tune out ads, and marketing has to change. He advocates ideas that have been advanced by many others, sometimes under different names.

He advocates using customer loyalty and enthusiasm to get more customers. He points out that word-of-mouth is the single most effective form of marketing. Haven't you turned to a friend for advice on what to buy? Why? It's fast, it's easy, it builds a relationship, buying the product your friends have already bought makes you feel like one of the gang, and it's sometimes the very best method for making a purchasing decision.

He also talks about the importance of setting yourself apart from the competition. It might be by finding a special niche - providing a product or service first. It might be by offering the best product, or by offering the most exclusive product, or by offering the cheapest product -- or the best service. But then, you really have to provide the service.

Marketing, he suggests, needs above all to be distinctive to make itself heard amid the din of marketing messages. He talks about outrageousness. The example he uses here is a slogan for the restaurant chain, Hooters: "Delightfully tacky, always unrefined." Being tacky and unrefined will definitely turn some customers off. But it will also turn some customers on. Ask yourself: which are your customers? Like to be turned on or turned off? You don't know? Find out! Put yourself in their shoes!

He argues that you should think about outrageousness, if only as an exercise in leaping out of the box of your current thinking. It's definitely not the right strategy for every product or every customer. His point is to include every possibility as an aid to creativity and innovative synthesis.

Above all, he argues, abandon the illusion that you can avoid risk altogether by continuing to do what you're already doing, or what worked in the past, or what your competitor is doing, or what seems safely conventional or unlikely to offend. The old adage of making one product for everyone doesn't work anymore. He argues, persuasively, that choosing a marketing strategy because it's safe is less likely to work in this environment, in part because the old rules have been exploded and things are changing so fast. The only safe course, he argues, is to fight hard by taking some chances and setting yourself apart from the pack.

Interestingly, he talks about how cell phones have become boring now that everyone who needs one has one and everyone who merely wants one has one too. He talks about Motorola and how phone manufacturers are looking for the next big innovation. This seems particularly prescient in a post-iPhone world (this book was originally published in 2002).

He talks about the importance of design and how marketing might once have been primarily about how to position the product in the marketplace but is now every aspect of the product, including its design. He advocates giving designers a place on the marketing team. Steve Jobs' success would seem to be a case in point.

What's another way to set yourself apart? Be honest! He cites an example in which McDonald's in France suggested to consumers that they should not eat at McDonald's more often than once a week, an approach that reflected an awareness of different cultural assumptions about food in France.

Godin argues the importance of passion: he explains that it's vitally important to understand the needs and wants of the consumer, and if you're a surfboard company it makes sense to have a staff full of surfers. If you're a dialysis machine manufacturer, it may not be possible to staff your marketing department with dialysis patients but you can still spend time talking to your customers and use your imagination to put yourself in their place and imagine what they need.

The significance of the title is this: on vacation with his family in the country, he saw that his entire family was charmed by some cows they saw. As they continued on their journey, they saw many more cows and cows started to lose their charm. After they'd seen so many cows, the only new cow that would be likely to interest them would be a purple cow!

Seth Godin wants you, your product, and your company to be a purple cow!

Godin addresses himself to marketers and suggests that they use this fun and easy-to-read book full of mini-case histories of marketing efforts to convince managers and troops that this is the way forward. Recent history shows that he's right.

Reading now

Of course, I'm still getting around to finishing Purple Cow (a slim book). I wonder what I should do to celebrate when I finally get it finished!

I've started reading Hardball by Sara Paretsky. She's been writing a long time, and I read her first novel and several others in the V.I. Warshawsky series. I've enjoyed this series in the past because I found Warshawsk'si passion and strength attractive.

I've just started yesterday Just My Type: A Book About Fonts. This is the book I didn't know desperately needed to be written. I love it.

For instance, I had no idea that Hermann Zapf designed Palatino - man, he's my hero! I love Palatino!

Author Simon Garfield thoughtfully illustrates this book with examples of how type has been used, and I know that this will help me think about how I want to choose font. I never thought, for instance, that the use of Bodoni conveys class but I'm sure that that knowledge might come in handy someday.

I find this book easy to read, and engaging, which is my standard for having been written well. But there's something about Garfield's words I find somewhat surprising and I haven't put my finger on it yet. Perhaps it's only that he resists the temptation to give you a lot of history at the same time that he's giving you a little history.

And, I'm reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, which I find quite interesting. I'm on the second chapter, which I really enjoyed. She's clearly done a lot of research, which she frequently summarizes. She also quotes folks quite frequently, including your friend and mine, Dr. Johnson. Apparently the good doctor had quite a bit to say about happiness.

Part of the charm of the second chapter is that she neatly solves a persistent domestic problem: nagging and resentment. Actually, the solution isn't that neat because it requires thought and self-discipline. Speaking only for myself, let me say that self-discipline is hard. (Those of you who find self-discipline easy can spend this lesson working on your tact.) However, she demonstrates that it can be done. She undertakes a project called the Week of Extreme Nice, in which she bends over backwards not to criticize, not to nag, and to go out of her way to be cheerful, pleasant, and thoughtful to her spouse. And, by the end of the week, she finds that her spouse has noticed and responded. Vicariously, I find that immensely satisfying.

Oh, and I started to read 'Tis. And I've also begun Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's her account of a year that her family spent farming and eating things that they either grew themselves or got from someone nearby, eliminating the petroleum consumption that's a part of the cost of the things that you buy in the grocery store.

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza

This book is a personal account of the author's experiences during a 100-day genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Rwanda was then under attack by Tutsi rebels. The Hutu president's plane was shot down and everyone in it was killed. The ruling Hutus revenged themselves by beginning a genocide of any and all Tutsis. Estimates of the number of Tutsis killed ranges from 800,000 to 1,000,000. Everyone in her immediate family was killed except for an older brother who was then attending studying in Senegal.

After the killing started, her family asked a neighboring pastor to take her in. He hid her, along with six other women, in a bathroom just large enough to hold a shower and a toilet - the size of a deep closet. This lasted for two months, when the pastor's family judged it was too dangerous to hold them any longer and took them to a nearby camp of French soldiers.

She got through the experience by praying, fervently, and used her sense of faith and moral conviction to hold off two angry mobs.

Much of her account is about how her relationship with God deepened in this crisis and how she used her faith to survive the tremendous psychological pressure of hiding in such cramped conditions, and to rebuild her life after the genocide was over. She recounts in detail her thoughts, state of mind, and prayers to God during her ordeal.

The purpose of her book seems to be to memorialize her family, in part, and to bear witness not just to their lives but to the importance she places on her ability to forgive the killers of her family in order to live a spiritual life.

Today I learned about a new book by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. I find it hard to believe that that's true but I hope that it is.

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me about Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz

Let me say this at once and get it off my chest: I loved this book!

In this book, which uses memoir as a framework for an explanation of Austen's themes, William Deresiewicz frames the six novels of Jane Austen with the story of his own graduate school years, when he was "coming of age" like Austen's heroines.

When I started the book (some time ago, ahem) I looked at the Table of Contents and I was thrilled - because each Austen book had its own discrete chapter. This permitted me to read one chapter at a time, put the book aside, and return to it when I had more time.

I puzzled over where I should begin, and finally decided I should begin with my favorite novel, Persuasion.

I'd recently read Persuasion with my book group and when it was time for us to comment on our reading, I struggled to explain why I loved the novel so much.

I wondered if my love of this novel could merely be wish fulfillment: Anne Elliot is on the shelf for seven or eight years after she rejects the proposal of the man she loves, having been persuaded to make that decision by a dear friend who meant well. At home, she's lonely, bored, and entirely overlooked by her family who doesn't value her good qualities.

She meets Wentworth again after seven years have passed. Ironically, and perhaps cruelly, Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law move into the Elliot family home, Kellynch, after the Elliots are forced to rent it out to offset their proud and profligate spending. She is embarrassed and terribly saddened at the same time. It hurts her that Wentworth barely acknowledges their former acquaintance when they meet once again. Her sister tells her that Wentworth reported that she'd changed so much he hardly recognized her (ouch! -- Anne's sister Mary is not blessed with tact); her sister Mary and Mary's husband, Charles, immediately start speculating about which of their sisters would be most likely to marry Wentworth, "a capital match," as he's wealthy from the cargo French ships he seized as a captain in the British Navy.

All this makes Anne's eventual fate seem like a triumph, when Wentworth not only proposes to her again, but does so in a letter that is the apex of romantic declaiming ("You pierce my soul!").

But all Austen's novels end in advantageous marriages to worthy men (whether wealthy gentlemen or conscientious clergymen).

So what's so special about Persuasion?

Deresiewicz explains that he chose to write about Persuasion for his dissertation because he himself was experiencing a saddening transition. In high school and college, he had taken his friends for granted. As he began graduate school, his friends all began their adult lives, often far away, and he wasn't able to spend time with them or to share their experiences. He'd lost his own personal community.

At the opening of Persuasion, Anne Elliot has no community. Her family doesn't value her, and is happy to loan her out to a married sister to perform a variety of domestic tasks.

But by the end of the novel, Anne Elliot has a community, a group of friends clustered around the Harvilles. Captain Harville's sister was engaged to be married to one of his shipboard colleagues, Captain Benwick. Tragically, Miss Harville died before she and Benwick could marry, but this shared tragedy drew Benwick closer to the Harvilles. The Harvilles are also very close to Captain Wentworth, which is how Anne meets them -- Captain Wentworth invites Mary, her husband, her husband's two sisters, and Anne to join him in visiting the Harvilles in Lyme Regis. The Harvilles, Captain Benwick, and Captain Wentworth together form a kind of family.
Derewiesicz points out how frequently Austen uses the word "friendship" or other variations and how frequently she describes characters as a "true friend."

More importantly, he explains something that I find amazing: he shows that Anne copes with being forced to live with her family in their home in Bath, a place where she's not really included, by spending as much time as possible with her friends, old and new, but especially with the Harvilles (with their "unpretentious warmth," Captain Benwick, Captain Wentworth, and her sister's husband and his family, the Musgroves. Captain Wentworth's Navy "family" (Captain Benwick and the Harvilles) offers a new social circle to Anne, one that she can turn to for kindness, support and intellectual stimulation.

As Deresiewicz points out, Anne's lack of interest in her father and her sister and their affairs becomes so great that when she hears gossip about a scheme that threatens their happiness, she doesn't do anything about it. Implied in this situation is a rejection of the aristocracy (Sir Walter Elliot, Anne's father, is a baronet) for the rising middle class and a notion of meritocracy (the men of the Navy: Captains Harville, Benwick, Wentworth, and Wentworth's brother-in-law, Admiral Croft).

Deresiewicz concludes by saying that Austen taught him that friends are the family you choose. I suspect that that very modern sentiment is why I love Persuasion so much.

I read a review which noted that the frame of Deresiewicz's real life experiences for his discussion of Austen's novels seemed a little creaky - perhaps lacking in color and excitement. Just to prove that there's no accounting for taste, I have to say that didn't bother me at all. I'm constantly thinking about why we read fiction and lately, memoir, and I have to say that I think that one reason we read memoir is to "benchmark" - to compare our experiences with others', undoubtedly to gain wisdom and maturity and I suspect to permit us to feel better about our ourselves.

The themes that Deresiewicz addresses: who will be my friends? who will be my family? how do I relate to my father (copy him?, reject him?, forgive him?, embrace him?), how do I respect my father when I'm more American than he is? are questions that a lot of people confront. Some of them would be very interested in learning about Deresiewicz's experience and about what Jane Austen thought about these questions. Deresiewicz makes Austen relatable rather than just glamourous.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

I'm intrigued by Daniel Pink's idea that type I folks - folks who are intrinsically motivated - are not born but can be made -- and perhaps more importantly, he offers some practical advice for helping to create "intrinsically motivated" types in the workplace.

In Drive, Pink's basic premise is that we have long believed that the way to motivate people at work in business and industrial settings is with extrinsic rewards: money, benefits, recognition. Pink argues that these rewards, while necessary, are not sufficient. In fact, the highest and best performances are those that are intrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation is the pleasure you get from doing the task.

Pink argues that extrinsic motivation works very well for motivating workers performing routine tasks and can inspire them to perform such tasks more quickly. But for complex and creative problem-solving, Pink argues, using extrinsic motivation will actually narrow the focus of workers and is likely to hamper or stifle their creativity.

To support his claim, he presents evidence from a variety of experiments - one done in India for the Federal Reserve Bank by economists, including Dan Ariely of Predictably Irrational famel another done with schoolchildren; and most importantly, the candle problem, a famous experiment from the 1930's more recently recast with incentives. (Pink also used this example in his TED lecture, which you can view at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y).

The candle problem, an experiment created by psychologist Karl Duncker, goes like this:

You're given the following materials, laid out on a table next to a wooden wall:

A candle

A book of matches

A shallow cardboard box of tacks (this works better with pictures)

and given these instructions:

Attach the candle to the (wooden) wall so that the candle's wax does not drip on the table.

Typically, folks struggle trying to attach the candle to the walls with tacks or attach the candle to the wall by melting the side of the candle and then sticking to the wall.

The solution is to empty the box of tacks, tack the box to the wooden wall with several tacks, and stick the candle in the box which protects anything below the box from the candle's wax.

The experiment is designed to assess a subject's level of "functional fixedness," i.e, whether the subject can conceive of a new use for the tack box to solve the problem.

A few decades ago psychologist Sam Glucksberg wanted to test how a reward for solving the problem quickly affected the ability to solve conceptual problems. He gave the candle problem to two groups.

He told the first group that he was timing how long it took them to solve the candle problem in order to establish an estimated time required to solve the problem.

He told the second group that if they finished in the top 25% of all folks solving the problem, they would receive $5 -- and, to the faster finisher, he offered $20.

"Motivation 2.0" predicts that the group with an incentive for performance will perform more quickly. In fact, the second group, on average, took three and a half minutes longer to solve the problem.

Pink explains that the results occurred because rewards narrow our focus. A narrowed focus is distracting from creative problem solving, when you have to "think outside the box."

Pink says that goal setting, something that many of us do in our personal lives as well as our work lives, can be counter-productive. This may come as a big relief for anyone who's ever failed at meeting a personal goal!

The reason why this is important, Pink explains, is that "Motivation 2.0" often worked fairly well for routine tasks but the conceptual, nonroutine tasks of the 21st century require different behaviors on the part of employees and they need, in essence, to be self-motivated, self-monitoring and -directed and to be creative thinkers. What motivates the creative thinkers of the 21st century? Well, in part, the joy of the task itself, and also, the opportunity to have autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Pink devotes a chapter to each of these three topics: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

The last part of the book is a toolkit, and its purpose is to provide practical directions for using autonomy, mastery and purpose to motivate people (regardless of whether they're in your family or in your company). And there's a reading list of 15 "essential" books that includes, of course, Outliers.

The new research about happiness, motivation and performance, and authors like Ariely, Pink and Gladwell, give us an opportunity to listen to scientists talk about what matters in why we make the decisions we do and how we can use that knowledge to improve our lives. I think that's really exciting.

A Question of Belief by Donna Leon

Commisario Guido Brunetti is good company. He isn't tortured like Harry Hole, of Jo Nesbo's Devil's Star, and he isn't a fixer and political favor trader like Aurelio Zen.

He has his moments of cynicism and even despair over governmental corruption and the gap between law enforcement and justice.

But he's defined by his relationships - with his wife, Paola, a member of the aristocracy, an English professor and an expert on Henry James, and with his Inspector, his closest professional colleague, Vianello.

In this novel, Venice is choked by August heat and humidity. Vianello comes to him with a personal problem; his aunt is giving large sums of money to an astrologer. This conversation leads both of them to ruminate on the changing roles of men in their families.

Someone else comes to him with some evidence of judicial corruption. Both investigations proceed slowly, until, on his way to a vacation in the mountains where it's blissfully cool, Brunetti receives a phone call informing him that the principal in the second case has been murdered. Brunetti catches a train back to Venice and the investigation kicks into high gear.

This investigation really turns on the personal quirks and passions of a three families living in a luxury apartment building, which it turns out, has ties to someone of great influence.

After reading Dibdin's Zen novels this mystery seems domestic and genteel; I enjoyed this novel but found myself missing the edge in the Zen books.

On the other hand, Jo Nesbo's Devil's Star and the Zen books included moments of what I would call "grotesquerie" which I don't enjoy and didn't miss at all. I wouldn't say that they interfered with my enjoyment of the Zen books, but in the case of Devil's Star, that was the memory that comes to mind immediately whenever I think of that book.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

I've already forgotten where I picked up my used copy of Angela's Ashes, and I didn't mean to start reading it now .. I have so much to read right now. But I did start reading it and almost couldn't stop. Three quarters of the way in, as McCourt chronicled his family history, I thought to myself, do I have to read it to the end? After all, I know what happens, right? But I did have to read it all the way to the end.

After I'd read the last page, I started to read the laudatory blurbs and I had to say that of course, what makes this book is not the content but the style. And, of course, that's not exactly right: McCourt is a great storyteller, who recounts vignettes from his childhood with economy and humor, with elements of the mock heroic style at times. That leavens the grim recounting of grief and disappointment. To be honest, especially after having read Teacher Man, I know that telling a sad story in a funny way is a way of coping, and writing a funny/sad memoir is a way of healing the past, and for McCourt is a special achievement in that setting down this story is the fulfillment of a decades-old goal.

I asked myself at one point, do you see the adult you met in Teacher Man anywhere here? I thought that, after all, I met him when young Francis was asked to write an essay on Jesus and wrote one entitled, "Jesus and the Weather." Limerick's wet climate was a major character in the story.

It's that same abrupt originality that inspired the assignment, in Teacher Man, of excuse notes from famous people in history.

I imagine that many people have heard of this memoir, winner of a Pulitzer and now about 15 years old. Folks exposed to publicity for it probably already know the outlines of the story: Frank's family relocates to Ireland during the height of the Depression. In Limerick they go on the dole. Frank's father is a cliche: an old Republican, whose business in New York was escaping the long arm of the law, he's unable to support his family and can't lay off the booze. His abject enslavement to a pint is so extreme that it's funny at the same time that it makes you want to weep and scream.

It's a perfect storm of poverty: Frank's mom is a good person but she's weak: she can't control her husband and she lets her mother and sister speak to her, her husband, and her children in a way that's probably also pretty scarring to young Frank and his brothers. It's not enough that Frank's dad is a drunk; they complain about the fact that he comes from the North as if it's a communicable disease that Frank had unfortunately caught: the "odd manner". What the heck is an odd manner? Frank's grandmother also accuses her son-in-law of being a Presbyterian, laughable since he was an altar boy.

The memoir is laced with a wonderful series of story pieces that would make any playwright proud. For instance, Frank and his brothers (including their baby brother, in the pram) go out to steal food when their mother is sick. They're all deeply innocent but Michael is perhaps especially so and tells a nice lady the whole sad story of his mother's illness and his brothers' crusade to get food. Of course, the truant officer soon arrives, ending this holiday (of a kind): all the while the truant officer confronts the boys he keeps shaking his head, repeating mournfully, "desperadoes."

That is the charm of this book, the surprise and wonder of finding humor in this portrait of this family and its city.

Reading now ..

Still trying to make my way to end of Purple Cow .. dipping into Paco Underhill's What Women Want - great ideas about how to make female business travelers more comfortable in hotels - dipped into Ron Hansen's A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion which has a great title, a great cover, a great plot and is also well-written and which I will not finish - because I know it does not have a happy ending (it does have a noir quality about it - it would probably make a great screenplay) .. and Donna Leon's A Question of Belief and another bit of Deresiewicz's book on Jane Austen which I really admire.

Superfreakonomics

I listened to this book on audiobook over the summer. In many ways, it was very entertaining. It was very well narrated.

I had seen Steven Leavitt speak after the publication of Freakonomics and he talked about the importance of incentives in influencing human behavior. It was a great talk. Leavitt began by talking about his experiment in speeding up potty training by using M & Ms as an incentive. His wife predicted it wouldn't work. His wife was right.

But I have a couple of problems with this book. I have to offer my thoughts with a grain of salt: because I listened to the book on audio, I may well have lost the thread several times.

My first big problem with the book is that the last chapter, on global warming, was completely opaque to me. I really didn't understand the points Leavitt and Dubner were trying to make, and it sounded as if they were saying, "Everything you know about global warming is wrong," which might actually be happy news, but they seemed to then go on to espouse a ridiculous, Rube Goldberg solution for addressing global warming. Who knew? I guess I feel that they didn't make their case, and what's worse is that my confusion prevented me from enjoying the chapter merely as a really good story. I don't like it when someone messes with my story!

It also happens that through sheer luck, I found myself driving at high speeds when I finished the CD with the story of the high end call girl who offered her story to the authors. I was forced to listen to it a second and then, a third time. This gave me an opportunity to observe how cliched the story was and to wonder what the real point was. I suppose that it's another example of how people's economic behavior can be influenced by incentives but even that story doesn't show that everyone can be incentivized to follow a particular behavior.

But I loved learning that drunk walking is even more dangerous than drunk driving -- isn't that fact really counterintuitive? In general, I continued to find that learning about the "hidden side of everything" was entertaining if not entirely persuasive.

Clutter Rehab: 101 Tips and Tricks to Become an Organizational Junkie and Love it! by Laura Wittman

I picked up Clutter Rehab because it had an attractive cover, and in many ways this book is like a magazine article: organizing is a favorite women's magazine topic, this book is short, with numbered entries, and illustrated with attractive photos.

And, it must be said, if you're someone who avidly consumes organizing articles while you're at the hairdressers, you'll find that you've come across many of these tips before or are already using them: using a pot or vase to hold spatulas and other kitchen utensils is a method that makes them easy to see and easy to grab; using drawer organizers, closet organizers and under bed storage boxes are all popular and common ways to create more storage space or use the space you already have more efficiently (to store more stuff!).

What I appreciated about this book was the fact that it took some time to talk about root causes of clutter -- that is, how clutter accumulates -- with practical suggestions for tackling the problem of "stuff," whether they're papers, magazines, clothes, or sentimental items that are cluttering up our lives.

For instance, one cause of clutter are the sentimental keepsakes we hang on to because they represent a cherished memory or an important moment in our lives. This author suggested taking a photo of the item and then -- get rid of it! Still, I can imagine some sentiments are more powerful than the good advice to get rid of it.

What I loved best about her discussion about addressing clutter was her acknowledgement of the barriers to beating clutter and her very practical advice for coping with those obstacles. My three favorite tips: Tip No. 49, "Don't Look Up," which advises you to keep your head down while moving through a pile, or table, or closet, or room of clutter (literally -- stepping back and looking at all you have to do may make be so discouraging that you'll abandon the effort or never get starting in the first place, so just do one thing -- and then another -- and then another); Tip No. 62, "Embrace Plan B and Let Go of Perfectionism"; and Tip No. 99, "Focus!": don't let yourself be distracted by a trip down memory lane when you're sorting through clutter (if there are some old yearbooks that tempt you, set them aside and look at them after you've finished the task, using it as a reward).

Wittman has some innovative ideas, like abandoning sorting clothes by color for simply giving each family member a hamper and washing all their clothes as one load. No more struggling to match up socks. Wow!

And, yes, I've been inspired to throw some things out: historic preservation article reprints, old music scores, old computer software textbooks. I might even find some space for all of those darn books I bring home!

Laura Wittman writes that her passion for organization began when she had a new baby, experienced a job loss and suddenly found herself a work-from-home mom. In fact, many of her tips are about how to keep children's things organized, from their toothbrushes to their toys and there are plenty of new ideas for that, as well. If you're interested in learning more about her and her ideas, she has a website at orgjunkie.com.

"The Accidental Guru" by Danielle Sacks

If you look up the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction in paperback, you'll discover, if you look at all 35 books on the list, that all of Malcolm Gladwell's books are on the list.

Outliers is number 3 on the list; The Tipping Point is number 9 on the list; Blink, which I thought was a delightful book, was number 16; What the Dog Saw is number 34 (I find that especially amazing; it's a collection of articles and I think that might be less accessible to many people than a "book length" idea although I like short stories and articles, too).

I found a book at the library called Fast Company's Greatest Hits: Ten Years of the Most Innovative Ideas in Business because it had an profile of Malcolm Gladwell, by Danielle Sacks, called The Accidental Guru.

Sacks reports that since The Tipping Point made the bestseller lists in 2000, Malcolm Gladwell "has made the leap to marketing god." I find that remarkable because, after all, Gladwell is not trained in business, is not a marketer or a businessman. Yet, I think it must be true and that that's why his books continue to sit on the bestseller list.

The reason for it must be his skill as a writer. He says in this article that he strives to find phrases that are memorable and will give his readers a handle on a concept -- help them to understand and to remember it. One example is the phrase, "momentary autism" (from Blink), which he coined to express the failure of the cops in the Amadou Diallou case to read his facial expressions and body language correctly -- something that we do do most, but not all, of the time -- and led to a tragically unnecessary shooting.

Today's marketers face challenges their predecessors did not. It's simply not possible to advertise the heck out of something and by doing so, successfully create brand awareness and loyalty. It seems natural to me, therefore, that marketers and salespeople are interested in learning about the "mavens" and "connectors" that can launch a new product or service. Gladwell's discussions of these concepts from The Tipping Point and the impact of first impressions and "thin-slicing" would be of great interest to businesspeople.

Gladwell has been criticized by some for failing to communicate some of the aspects of the research findings he presents, and even his Wikipedia entry contains the criticism that his desire to show that those who are successful benefit from a great deal of luck of various kinds was motivated by guilt he feels about his own success.

To me, the lesson of this story is that Gladwell sells his ideas with his skill as a storyteller and that the persuasion of the well-told story is more important than any credential.

Reading now ..

Whew! I think it's time for a breather, at least kind of.. I'm reading Clutter Rehab 101, a book I picked up because it had an attractive cover, and which has a number of good ideas. Well worth the investment of an hour or so.

And I'm reading Seth Godin's Purple Cow, which I bet everyone else has already read but I'm finding it interesting. Also just read a profile of Malcolm Gladwell.

Outliers: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

I'm a big Malcolm Gladwell fan and I loved this book. Because I found this book more personal than any other, I enjoyed it more.

I appreciate that Gladwell often presents research conclusions or other evidence that is counter intuitive or contrary to "received wisdom."

Gladwell's thesis in this book is that there are many factors that contribute to success or simply permit it to take place that are structural. To some extent, I think we all sense that to be true. For instance, we know that because the economy is so bad now, this is a terrible time to be a new graduate. Opportunities that existed four years ago don't exist today.

I accept this premise as true and I think that quite a few other people do, too. (For instance, Fran Lebowitz made this point in the Martin Scorcese-directed documentary, "Public Speaking.") However, I'm not sure that I ever thought about it before I read -- or listened to -- this book.

I can't help but wonder if there have been readers who were misled by the title into thinking that they would learn how to be successful and were disappointed to learn that what they would learn, from reading this book, is that factors besides one's own merit and talent greatly affect our success. As Gladwell shows here, who your parents are, when and where you're born, and who your friends are may all be factors that shape your opportunities for success.

He opens the book by showing that students' hockey teams are inordinately composed of children who were born in January, February and March. That's because January 1 is the cut off; students born on that date or after are assigned to the next year's team. As coaches observe and assess students they focus on students with greater speed, strength and coordination and not coincidentally, that's often the students who have a few months on their peers.

Another example Gladwell offers is that Bill Gates' school had a computer lab. When his school ran out of resources for the computer lab, Gates and the other students were actually hired to do some computer work at a local company. Had his school not had a computer lab, things might have been very different.

I enjoyed the last chapter, about Gladwell's own mother, the most. I found his grandmother's determination to give her girls a better life very moving. I also learned that Gladwell is Canadian, from Ontario, something I hadn't known before - I'd also assumed he'd sprung, fully formed, from The New Yorker.

I listened to this book on audio and I hugely enjoyed it. I have no idea how hard Malcolm Gladwell worked on reading the book but he was right to do it because he's very good. It was a pleasure to hear him read it; he's a natural storyteller.

Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pepin

I adore this book. It was published in 2004 and is a companion to the TV series of the same name.

My favorite recipe is the only one that I've made; I don't think I'm alone in enjoying browsing cookbooks while knowing there's little chance I'll ever make any of the recipes. This recipe is called, I think, "Smoked Salmon Timbales."

This recipe is for a starter, a "timbale," which I think here is used in the sense of being like a tartlet in size.

It calls for layers of thinly sliced salmon, goat cheese with chives, red onion and apple, with a dressing of diced cucumber and capers in olive oil. It is essentially very simple and its delight to me is the combination of favorite ingredients: salmon, red onion, goat cheese, apples, capers, and olive oil. Of course, I love it - and it's so easy to prepare that even I can do it. I am both astounded at how much I enjoy this combination of flavors and how this recipe seems to deliver what it promises.

On the one hand, I never have goat cheese or smoked salmon "on hand." (Nor do I even have cucumbers "on hand" as much as I love them.) These ingredients are expensive. But, it was so easy to make .. it was a perfect after work at 10 pm meal.

Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner

Well! I've finally finished Too Close to the Falls.

I'm rather astounded by this small-town childhood memoir, set in Lewiston, New York, close to Niagara Falls. Gildiner had an amazingly eventful childhood: she saw Marilyn Monroe in her slip! To me, that's only one in a series of amazing events, not even the most exciting or surprising. I find myself feeling amazed that a small town in western New York had so many real events to offer.

For one thing, the young Cathy lived close to Niagara Falls where sledding, a favorite winter pastime, contained the danger that if you didn't control your sled you'd land in the river with its fatal whirlpools.

Cathy was really smart, really restless, precocious, and had a surprising family. Her mother didn't work, had household help, and her chief interest was local history. I find this amazing. Her father was a hard-working man who quietly accepted his more-than-surprising daughter.

At the age of four, the local doctor suggested that Cathy, because of her restless energy, go to work in her father's drugstore. There she spent much of her time with Roy, with whom she made delivery runs. As her father said, Cathy did the work of an adult. It's possible that this was the single most interesting aspect of the novel to me. I was amazed by Cathy's precocity and admired it, too. And Cathy did a bunch of other things: she was athletic, she was a gifted writer, she mingled with every part of Lewiston society.

My favorite chapter was "Roy." I liked Roy, as Cathy did. I thought that Roy and Cathy together enjoyed an enviable position: they were certainly living at the margins but their work as prescription deliverers gave them entry to every part of society. Possibly my least favorite chapter was "Mother Agnese."

I did not like Mother Agnese; I thought, frankly, that she was crazy and given her privileged background ignorance was not an excuse. Here was a world in which women were more explicitly powerless than today: I wondered if the joy she took in her vocation was partly inspired by her desire to escape the limitations of living in the "patriarchy." After all, as principal, she was powerful to the pupils of the school of which she was head. She seemed very judgmental and I found her remarks to the young Cathy to be abusive (she attacked Cathy's faith, and, in fact, attacking her in any way seems inappropriate according to today's standards). It should be said, however, that this is my view and not the author's. I may have found it difficult to divine the point of view here, or it may be that the view of Cathy, as a youngster, is very different than that of Catherine Gildiner, adult. I read the book club edition and in it there was an interview with Gildiner in which she clearly saw Mother Agnese differently than I did after reading the book.

Gildiner's description of her feelings as an adult toward Mother Agnese are far more respectful than my own would be. (Cathy was a skeptical and questioning person, which clearly put her on a collision course with Mother Agnese; Cathy was also a little bit of a Franciscan, which I also admired and which was also dangerous.) Finally, Gildiner's remarks tacitly acknowledge that they were rivals. This is what bothers me so much but it's human nature: I think Mother Agnese was so hard on Cathy because she saw her as a threat on both a practical and deep psychological level.

Gildiner said in an interview in the back of my paperback copy that it was natural for her to end the memoir when she did, just before her father sold the drugstore and the family moved to Buffalo, which I'm sure was a wholly different world. She said that she felt her childhood was innocent and that she had really changed by the time the Buffalo part of the book took place. That innocence is part of the attraction of this story.

Gildiner is also the author of a second memoir, After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties (2010) and a mystery novel about the philosophy and history of psychotherapy, Seduction.

Easy Virtue

Easy Virtue is a 2007 film by Stephan Elliott (the director of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). It stars Jessica Biel, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth and Ben Barnes. I'd never heard of it until I saw it when I was browsing the videos on Thursday; when I saw that it was an adaptation of a Noel Coward play I thought I'd be likely to enjoy it.

And I really did enjoy it very much, although in some ways it was not what I expected.

I thought that Kristin Scott-Thomas would act beautifully, and so she did. In fact, I thought I could bank on the certainty that her performance would be excellent and I was not disappointed. I had thought that Jessica Biel might be good, and I thought she was very good. Colin Firth was wonderful: his part didn't have much dialogue but what there was, was choice. His acting was beautiful, and gave the film some gravity I think, without which, it could not have succeeded.

I was surprised by the ending but it was immensely gratifying.

The film was beautifully photographed and the costumes were wonderful. They were beautifully designed; I found myself mesmerized by the very contemporary but very "art moderne" motif in the fabric of the cloche that Jessica Biel wore in one scene. I could scarcely pay attention to the dialogue.

I'd strongly recommend the commentary by the director and his co-writer Sheridan Jobbins (who has a beautiful speaking voice). They're Australians, and I'm still bewildered by all their slang, but variety is, after all, the spice of life. At the end of the commentary, Jobbins says to Elliott, her co-writer, that it's a beautiful film and I think it is. I marvel at the alchemy that permitted some very talented people to put together a jewel box of a film with the slenderest of means.

Not knowing much about the technology with which films are made I found the director's discussion of the work of the sound men fascinating as they labored to remove the sound of a hovering helicopter or to insert the sound of a grandfather clock.

Finally, the music. Very surprising and very excellent.

And yes, there's something for you here if you also loved There's Something About Mary.