Your Saturday Book Review — Call It Sleep

March 23, 2013book reviewsCall It Sleep, Call It Sleep novel, Call It Sleep review, Classic New York novels, Henry Roth, Novels set in the Lower East SideMarion

I’m not sure how well-known Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep is outside of the United States. Then again I’m not sure how well-known it is within the United States.

In researching the book’s history, I found though it was greeted with critical acclaim when it was published in 1934, it didn’t sell well, and went out of print quickly. It was reprinted with some fanfare in 1964 when it became the first paperback to receive a front page review in The New York Times Sunday Book Review.

The 1964 paperback edition is the one I own, culled in my adolescence from my parent’s basement. Despite being a voracious reader, even of books written for adults, I found it a tough slog at first, but my father saw me with it and said, “That’s a great book.” The way he said “great” I knew he meant more than merely a good read, and I knew if I didn’t finish it, he would have been disappointed. Soon I found myself immersed in the world of the very young protagonist, six-year old David Schearl.

It’s quite a technical feat to write a novel in the close-third person point of view that manages to convey a world through a child’s eyes, while allowing the reader to see what he’s missing, what he can’t yet figure out. We’re in his head, but our perspective is always bigger than his. Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review — Call It Sleep →

Smash Death Watch — Now on Life Support

March 20, 2013Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review BlogSmash, Smash boring, Smash Death Watch, Smash Musical ChairsMarion

I just speed through New Guy’s songs. Is this because I am one of those olds they keep talking about who won’t appreciate them? Or is it that these songs are kind of boring? Also was that the same Gummer-girl on The Good Wife or a different one? And why don’t I like either of them? Is it them? Or does their presence remind me that there’s nepotism everywhere and life is unfair? Or are they both just a little too affected and actressy?

Of course nothing made sense because it never does. Once again we were told a whole bunch of stuff that we never knew before. Suddenly, Marilyn’s mother is vitally important to Julia. Is this a character played by an actor whom we’ve never seen? Does she have a number we’ve never heard? Again we are being asked to care about something being cut, but we have no way of knowing other than Julia’s whining about it, why we should.

When will the idiots writing this ever learn? Continue reading Smash Death Watch — Now on Life Support →

Idiots at the Opera — La Traviata Redux

March 19, 2013Idiots at the OperaDiana Damrau Violetta, La Traviata Met review, Metropolitan Opera review, Placido Domingo GermontMarion

We hadn’t planned on seeing Willy Decker’s production of La Traviata again. We saw it eleven months ago with Natalie Dessay, Marcello Giordani, and Dmitri Hovorosky. It was our first time at the Met, our first opera, and it turned us into fans, so going back to see the same production with a different cast was a little like checking up, not just an old lover, but your first.

But when we realized Placido Domingo would be singing Germont, and Diana Damrau would be singing Violetta, and we could get $20 rush orchestra seats, we couldn’t resist. Continue reading Idiots at the Opera — La Traviata Redux →

Deception Finds Its Groove

March 15, 2013Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review BlogDeception NBC, Deception reviewMarion

Apologies for this being the 3^rd television review in a week, but we haven’t gone to the opera or a movie lately, and the news is just too depressing. What else could I write about?

How we are now sending people to jail for life for pre-crime?
This depressing tale of post-partum psychosis?
The budget stalemate in which the Republicans continue to try to push through the same plan for destruction of the safety-net (specifically medicare) that cost them the presidential election?
The selection of a new pope, who at least was never a member of Hitler Youth, but believes marriage equality is Satan’s plan, and may have aided and abetted a fascist junta?

It’s enough to keep someone awake at night, which is exactly when I do most of my television watching.

Deception is one of those shows I probably would never watch on television if I watched television on television. I’m still not sure why the television machines haven’t gone the way of landlines, except it may have something to do with sports.

Because I watch online, my television decisions are usually spontaneous and most watching happens during bouts of insomnia. (That is except for a few programs I run to as soon as they are available, and a few I binge-watch.)

At first, Deception seemed like it was trying to be two or a dozen things at once, the first being a soap about the foibles of the very rich (which didn’t work out so well for Dirty Rotten Money, although I wish it had because of Donald Sutherland, the late Jill Clayburgh and Peter Krause). It’s also an old-fashioned whodunit, a thriller involving industrial espionage, and maybe some kind of commentary on race and/or class that might not have been intentional. Continue reading Deception Finds Its Groove →