Ever Walked Out?

[jameswba]

Ever Walked Out?

Actually, I was misrepresenting Of Mice and Men a bit there. The (unnamed) female character in the book behaves flirtatiously, but to all the men as a plea for attention. The film made her out to have a specific crush on the Sinise character, which rather takes her behaviour out of its context.

Now I remember reading the specific thread that was on here when Gatsby was released. I must look it up. What you say pretty much speaks for me, perhaps with the caveat that Fitzgerald's descriptions of the parties are themselves self-consciously lavish (or vivid at least) and thus a bit of an open-goal for a director like Luhrman.

[Reed John]

Ever Walked Out?

The parties are lavish and he has lots of shirts, etc, but that's not really the focus of the book.

[Patrick Thistle]

Ever Walked Out?

Cannery Row isn't too much of a downer book. Travels with Charley is a great travelogue and shows how much he loved America. But the other Steinbeck stuff I've read is bleak.

[jameswba]

Ever Walked Out?

Of course the parties and shirts aren't the focus of the book. But the way they're described, they're motifs that someone like Luhrman is always going to latch onto.

Steinbeck is thought of as sentimental, but applied to him the term doesn't mean much more than that he sympathises with 'ordinary people'. By showing human suffering, he portrays his times.

I also loved Travels with Charley, but I was somewhat startled recently, reading Paul Theroux's Deep South, to find that a journalist called Bill Steigerwald had 'proved that Steinbeck didn't travel to half the places he described'. I should check this out, since Theroux himself is known for taking the odd liberty with the truth.

[Reed John]

Ever Walked Out?

Patrick Thistle wrote: Cannery Row isn't too much of a downer book. Travels with Charley is a great travelogue and shows how much he loved America. But the other Steinbeck stuff I've read is bleak.

Those are the two (or two) I haven't read. Will add them to the list.

Despite being such a downer, he is one of the most American of great American authors, and whenever I feel shitty about America I remember that, if nothing else, it's not boring.

Which, to connect it to another fact just mentioned, is Robert Redford's view. Almost all of his movies are about America, especially the west. Not in a conservative rah-rah kind of way. But I heard him say in an interview that he's not really interested in exploring anywhere else because he's still got so much to learn about here. Like me - and Kerouac and Thoreau, perhaps - he tries to see America as a land, rather than an idea about freedom or some shit.

Of course the parties and shirts aren't the focus of the book. But the way they're described, they're motifs that someone like Luhrman is always going to latch onto.

Yeah, that was forseeable and why he shouldn't have been allowed to make the movie. When we learned it would be in 3D, I should have known it was going to be off, even though the cast was about right.

The fictitious version in Entourage directed by Martin Scorsese sounds a lot better. As I recall, Vinny Chase plays Nick. Adrian Grenier isn't much of an actor, but maybe Vinny Chase is.

[Patrick Thistle]

Ever Walked Out?

Saw Vinny Chase, thought Vinny Jones.

I know this is anathema to many Americans but I read The Great Gatsby and couldn't see what the fuss was about. Ditto with On the Road.

Catcher in the Rye I got. That was great. But not Gatsby or Kerouac.

(A Gatsby film with Vinny Jones as Nick would be entertaining indeed.)

[Reed John]

Ever Walked Out?

Patrick Thistle wrote: Saw Vinny Chase, thought Vinny Jones.

I know this is anathema to many Americans but I read The Great Gatsby and couldn't see what the fuss was about. Ditto with On the Road.

Catcher in the Rye I got. That was great. But not Gatsby or Kerouac.

(A Gatsby film with Vinny Jones as Nick would be entertaining indeed.)

I'm the opposite. I didn't love Catcher in the Rye. Read it way too late, I suppose.

Fitzgerald is just a beautiful writer. Everything he wrote is a pleasure to read, even Tender is the Night which doesn't really have a plot and just kind of goes on and on. Gatsby has a plot. It's about wealth and greed and people who don't care and people who care too much and trying to have things that are out of reach and America's hypocrisy about striving for stuff.

On the Road is more about the style and the overall vibe than the story. It probably was more powerful when it came out in the 50s. I actually didn't get around to reading it until graduate school in my early 20s (around the same time I finally got around to Catcher in the Rye). It's filled with great sentences and observations about America and youth. I read it during one of my lowest times and it made me think that maybe I should take up amphetamine abuse. Probably best that I didn't pursue that.

The recent film version, with Kristen Stewart and that guy who played Ian Curtis in Control, is meh.

[Patrick Thistle]

Ever Walked Out?

The bit I really remember of On the Road is when they are riding on the back of a truck and a guy is trying to pee off it, but the driver keeps deliberately swerving to make it difficult for him. Then once he's finished peeing, the driver pulls over and they all can get off and stretch their legs, pee, whatever.

It's very funny in the book but would be awful in a film.