O Brother, a memoir by John Niven (audiobook)

 

Listening to Niven read this hilarious, heartbreaking, stubborn memoir of growing up with and mourning his troubled younger brother.

Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard (Vol. 4 of Cazalet Chronicles)

 

Summer of '42 by Herman Raucher

 

Tore through this via Kindle at the beach, a hit novelization of a hit movie, the novel of which my father had on his shelves and I read several times during my teen years. A coming-of-age, sentimental, quasi-sexual summer spent chasing an older woman. Still enjoyable after all these years.

Vagabond, a memoir by Tim Curry

 

Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard (Vol 3 of the Cazalet Chronicles)

 

Vol. III of the series. Love loved, couldn't put it down at the beach. The war continues, the girls (in particular) get older and wiser and hurt. 

p. 23 - "Isn't it funny how men have large ones and they hardly ever cry, and ours are only good for one dainty nose blow, and we cry far more often than they do?"

p. 81 - I don't think people every get over something as terrible as that [mother's death]; it just slowly stops being the only or main thing in their mind, but when they remember it, they feel the same.

p. 82 - [St. Nazaire destroyer incident - Brits rammed destroyer against lock gates, then mined the ship, then invited many German officers on board for drink when they were to be taken prisoner, and then they blew up their own ship.]

Erasure by Percival Everett

 

Another striking novel b Percival Everett, published in 2001, the earliest of his that I've read. Semi-autobiographical, emotive, meta (it contains another satirical novel and a short story). They made a move of it, American Fiction, 20 years after it was published, which I'm looking forward to watching.

Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard (Vol 2 of the Cazalet Chronicles)

 

Volume II of the series. Great great great I'm hooked. The war starts and the kids get older. Rupert is lost in France. Zoe loses one baby and has another.

p. 13 - It's as though our feelings were simply the size of our bodies - smaller.

112-113 - She had decided that although she did now believe in God, she certainly didn't love him, she didn't even like him very much.

147 - Tragedy is never just bad luck. Tragedy is not taking everything into account, usually one own's nature. I'm not going in for tragedy - not me.

161 - but then Zoe had childish views = she was rather like an old sort of worn out child, Clary realized, and quickly put that down.

 

I don't often mention or think about theatre or TV or movies here - I watch too much of them to mention! and half at least are unspeakable - but finally caught up with the TRANSPARENT series this past month. It bedeviled and fascinated and puzzled me and energized me enough that I'm going to write a little about it.

Ostensibly about gender identity (the main protagonist, a father of three who decides in his late 60s to embrace his lifetime-closed identity as a woman), it morphs early and often - and ends - much an essay about indentity at large - particularly religious identity, and here mostly Judaism. 

The stunning (to me, at least - controversially received) Musicale Finale, a 90 minute one-off after four complete seasons, was almost all about Judaism, I think. I found the music to be delightful (if totally pop), the lyrics thoughtful and funny, and the production great. (The whole series was amazing to view, beautiful and colorful and deep). The series had to end abruptly, and without Jeffrey Tambor in the Finale, as he was fired from the production after the fourth season, following  accusations of sexual misconduct (harassment charges from trans members of the cast and production staff, ironically - he denied charges but admitted being difficult to work with).

The characters were what drove me crazy - each one completely self-centered, most very selfish (if comic). No one did a thing but worry about themselves really, throughout. But in the Musicale, the three kids don't do much - a host of non-central characters lead the parade. This was part of Slate's well-put review:

The Pfefferman children—Sarah (Amy Landecker), Josh (Jay Duplass), and Ally (Gaby Hoffmann), now nonbinary and going by the name Ari—have always been phenomenal talkers. Volatile need monsters who can only be safely interacted with through a protective screen, they unload their unruly feelings and abundant sexual energy on basically everyone with feverish, realistic linguistic verve. Highly emotional and narcissistic, with the same relationship to boundaries that kids learning to play soccer have to orange pylons—knock ’em over!—their verbal too-muchness, the never-any-small-talk mania with which they carry out their existence is so much of their charm. But the musical reduces them to non-native speakers.