Gray Matter & Other Stories - Stephen King
I read this a very long time ago. Since my library has very few good books on tape, I decided to re-experience it. I liked all of the stories but it was "Gray Matter" that had stuck with me all these years. All of the other ones, I kinda had a feeling of deja-vu. With "Gray Matter", I knew immediately I was back in familiar territory. That story haunted me the first time I read it. Perhaps because I was too young to understand horrors dealing with relationships or parenting. I remember being afraid I would turn into a mound of gray mush. That made me more afraid of the boogeyman than the story "The Boogeyman." "Strawberry Spring" was a great piece of writing in the unreliable narrator. You will probably guess what's coming, but it is still a great read. It's almost Hitchcockian in the way it lets the reader know what's going on before the narrator does. The reader has to sit and squirm, waiting for the narrator to find out what the reader already knows. This makes the narrator's comments even more freaky.
A Walk In The Woods- Bill Bryson
Bryson is an excellent travel writer. I spent a whole semester studying travel narratives, and I can say his are some of the best. He mixes the intimate aw shucks prose style of colloquial America with the understated dry wit of the British (as he lived there for 20 years). His asides are factual and interesting. Normally asides pull the reader out of a story; but when the story is a long walk along the Appalachian Trail, you welcome the respites. Bryson's unwoodsman attitude fits very well, and makes the trip even more enjoyable. The book is more like Steinbeck's Travels With Charley than An Assault on Everest. At times, Bryson is almost mocking these more stoic travel epics. It's like the fat, middle-aged every-man goes on an extraordinary journey. People can read Bryson and imagine themselves there, having all the same stupid adventures. I liken it to a mix of Richard Halliburton's classic travel narratives, if he had taken Patrick F. McManus with him. Bryson's even fatter and more cynical travel partner gives an interesting outside view that many other such travel narratives lack. Their personalities work so well together. It is like that best-friend roommate you had in college that you couldn't stand. You get on each other's nerves, but you have a great time doing it. I read In A Sunburned Country first, where the two take a trip to Australia, so I guess I knew they wouldn't kill each other by the end of this book. The lack of that surprise aside, it is still an interesting book. I'm about half-way through, I can't wait to finish.
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
This is an excellent way to tell a non-fiction story. It is written in a way that you can not know it's true. I've read other non-fiction written in a more fictional manner like Mailer's Oswald's Tale, and a dearth of bad historical fiction. This is the first one that made me forget it was real. The letter from Perry's father to the parole board is a little bit of cheating to get the backstory. The differences between the real Perry and the image of him his dad presents is interesting, and made deeper with his sister's letter. It shows how difference of perception in narration can color the reader's thoughts. Here we are given a few viewpoints, and can decide for ourselves. Too often we assume the narrating POV is correct. What if the narrator (or lead POV) is lying or insane? That's one of Lovecraft's best modes of storytelling. This story really pulls you in. Capote's craft shines in this one. I'm not a huge fan of his other works like the Grass Harp. I also have gotten sick of tired murder mysteries after reading/watching far too many in my teens. This one surpasses the masses. I like the multiple POVs that come together. It is now an old trick, often used in fantasies, but it still works. I want to find out how the characters fit together. The prose style is pretty effortless and seems to fit each POV very nicely. That is one of the hardest things to do as a writer. Too often our POV is just ourselves. This may not be too bad with one POV, but when you start to get more it becomes a problem; especially if the characters are very different in education, station, regional upbringing, and other circumstances. So far, Capote has done it pretty well.
"Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind"
Clementine's hair was a great device to show the timeline. I also love funky color hair on women, it even improved Kate Winslet. I love blue and purple, but she even managed to make green look fairly good. It was great how such a small thing could do so much for the understanding of the movie. It could have been done with hairstyles, but I liked the different colors. It also helped reveal her character.
The dark camera work did a great job of simulating memory. The fuzziness that cleared, and then grew more fuzzy, is exactly what memory would be like. It also helped in composite computer shots so the viewer couldn't se the proverbial strings. Some times Carrey was acting as Carrey, and not a character; but I thought this fit very well into the character. It felt like the character was written/rewritten specifically for Carrey. It was also a little interesting to see him as the calm, reasonable one; with Winslet the more free-spirit. Winslet did a good job in her role. She has come a long way from bumbling through a portrayal of Ophelia. She captured that walking the line craziness that I have seen too often in girlfriends and friends in the goth community. My only real complaint having been through relationships with characters much like her is that I didn't want them to end up together in the end. I wanted Joel (Carrey) to realize that his memories and experiences of/with Clementine made him who he is. Without those, he would not be the person he is, but that he would still be better of without her. You don't see that very often in movies. In this instance, that would have seemed a happier ending for me.
I watched Dark Crystal for the umpteenth time. I loved it as a kid, and it is still a great story. I wish Henson would have done more of these darker stories. It is a timeless classic. It is a not-so-simple fantasy quest tale and so much more. It has enormously broad appeal, complex plot with history and prophecy. If this were made today, it would have been done with CGI. I normally don't care too much. If the story can be done in CGI, anime-style animation, live-action, hell even claymation; if it fits the story, I'm fine. That said, I think this would have lost something if done in CGI. Perhaps it's just my raised in the 80's sensibilities. Perhaps the generation not raised on the Muppets and Fraggle Rock wouldn't think the way I do.