Summer Reading: The Sense of an Ending

I think The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes is one of those books that people are either going to love or hate. I loved it! On the surface it seems like an ordinary story about an ordinary middle-aged man looking back on a rather mundane life, particularly his memories of his three best friends from school and his first girlfriend.  But it is anything but ordinary when our hero, Tony Webster, is forced to make contact with his old girlfriend after the death of one of his friends, causing everything he believes about his past to be challenged. The events are first presented in a linear way and then, at the midway point, they are presented again, backwards with hindsight. It is, in my opinion, a brilliant device because there are quite a few "a-ha" moments as you read the second half.  What I liked best is that we are left still guessing about what really happened with only the sense of an ending.  It is a study in character development and not a lot actually happens but I found it to be is so interesting because I think we all rewrite our personal history to suit our opinions of ourselves. The writing is absolutely exquisite.  Barnes has a way of conveying so much meaning with only a few words.  I found myself reading a particular phrase and then stopping to think about it for a while. This book is just the kind of perfect little gem that I love and I think I could read it again and again and derive just as much enjoyment as the first time. I highly recommend it knowing full-well that a lot of people might hate it.

Genius

Yesterday I saw the movie Genius and it seems as if I am the only person who liked it (aside from a few employees at the Broadway who gushed about it with me afterwards).  I guess you have to be an English teacher to enjoy this movie and, since I am one, I loved it.  It begins in 1929 when Max Perkins (Colin Firth), a long-time editor at Charles Scribner's Sons responsible for editing the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) and Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West), receives a giant manuscript and begins reading what will become Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law).  Thus begins a tumultuous relationship between the taciturn Perkins and the effervescent Wolfe, to the detriment of their other relationships, namely with Perkins' wife (Laura Linney) and children and Wolfe's patron and lover (Nicole Kidman).  The narrative focuses on their attempt to edit what would become Of Time and the River from an unwieldy 1,000 page manuscript in crates to an eventual best-seller.  This movie is probably a hard sell to most people but I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes where they walked through the city editing the book line by line.  I always tell my students that word choice is so important!  One of my favorite scenes is when Perkins takes a red pencil to the manuscript of A Farewell to Arms!  Can you imagine!  Hemingway uses so few adjectives that it is remarkable that someone could find something to remove!  Yes, I know that I am a nerd.  No one else in the theater drew in a breath at that moment.  Firth, Law, and Kidman give marvelous performances, especially Kidman as Wolfe's over the top and jealous lover.  (For some reason Linney just doesn't do it for me and she seemed rather bland).  I loved this movie, but at the end of the day, it is a movie about editing so take my recommendation with that in mind; however, if you enjoy movies about complicated relationships between interesting people you might like it.

Note:  My only criticism of this movie is that these bastions of American literature are all played by British and Australian actors.

Dark Horse

Dark Horse is another little gem that I missed at Sundance this year.  Luckily the Broadway, my favorite art house theater in downtown SLC, screens most of the Sundance selections so I can eventually see all of the movies that I missed.  I saw Dark Horse last night and I loved this inspirational documentary of how a group of working-class people from a poor mining community in Wales bred a champion racehorse.  Jan Vokes, a barmaid at a local pub, decided that she wanted to breed a racehorse and enlisted the help of the pub's patrons to create a syndicate.  Every member contributed £10 a week and eventually 23 people owned a share in the horse.  Jan bought a mare that came in last in every race she ran and had a bad temperament then found a stallion with a stud fee of £3000.  She took a second job as a cleaner at a grocery store to pay the stud fee.  They raised the foal, which they named Dream Alliance, on an allotment in their village and then, when he was old enough, found the best trainer that they could afford.   Philip Hobbs agreed to train Dream Alliance because he was "street smart and scrappy" but ultimately didn't think he could win.  At Dream Alliance's first race, the syndicate only hoped that he would finish the race but were elated when he came in fourth place.  As he began winning, he started to garner national attention and became a symbol of hope for the entire village.  The members of the syndicate are absolutely endearing and often reduced me to tears in their interviews.  My favorite scene in the documentary is when the whole syndicate, including members with tattoos, piercings, missing teeth, and sandwiches wrapped in tin foil, went to the racetrack to see Dream Alliance in his first race and, wearing badges signifying that they were owners of a horse, mingled with the aristocracy.  This is a stand-up-and-cheer movie about achieving a goal that everyone says can't be accomplished and I highly recommend it.

Note:  Dark Horse won the 2016 Documentary Audience Award at Sundance.  Good stuff!

Patriotic Celebration at Sundance

I began and ended the week with Utah Symphony performances!  Not too shabby!  Last night I saw them perform at the Sundance Mountain Resort and it was absolutely wonderful.  It has been so hot in the valley this past week so it felt really good to be up in the mountains with a cool breeze and the smell of the pine trees.  I just love listening to music under the stars!  The orchestra performed several well known patriotic pieces by John Philip Sousa (which was a great way to start the Independence Day celebrations), including "The Liberty Bell Waltz" and "The Stars and Stripes Forever."  They also played the "Armed Forces Salute" and had members of each branch of the armed forces, past and present, stand when their theme was played.  This year the cutest little old lady stood for the Coast Guard.  I would love to know her story!  The orchestra also played a lovely rendition of "The Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss II which caused the cute couple sitting next to me to sigh!  Just for fun they played several songs from the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, including "March of the Resistance" and "Scherzo for X-Wings."  I love the music from that movie.  My favorite piece of the evening was the first movement from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which they played at the Gallivan Plaza last Monday).  I certainly enjoyed listening to it again.  Have you been to a Utah Symphony performance lately?  It is the perfect way to spend a summer evening!  Go here for more information about upcoming performances.

Free State of Jones

Last night I went with my parents to see Free State of Jones which is an incredibly powerful movie about a rebellion against the Confederacy during the Civil War.  Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) is a medic in the Confederate army who becomes disillusioned after witnessing his nephew's death in battle.  He deserts in order to take his nephew's body home to Jones County, Mississippi and discovers that the Confederate army has been confiscating grain and livestock from the poor farmers in the area.  In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, he helps a widow and her daughters stand up to the soldiers, thereby placing a price on his head.  He is helped by a group of runaway slaves to escape into a swamp and is soon joined by other deserters.  Knight leads this ragtag group against the Confederate army, eventually taking control of a large area of Mississippi.  After the war, he tries to hold this coalition together to fight for the rights of the freed slaves during Reconstruction but the alliance is fragile.  Some of these scenes are very upsetting, such as when one of the freed slaves (Mahershala Ali) is lynched for registering voters and when the Ku Klux Klan burns down their church.  There is also a subplot involving the relationship between Knight and one of the freed slaves (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and a trial in the 1950s involving one of their descendants who was arrested for a racially impure marriage.  As I previously mentioned, this is a very difficult movie to watch at times but I found it to be incredibly compelling, especially since it is based on actual events.  McConaughey is outstanding as the charismatic leader, especially in the scenes where he rallies his group to action (I think McConaughey was a fire-and-brimstone preacher in another life).  I really enjoyed the use of Mathew Brady's iconic Civil War photographs interspersed throughout the movie to give historical context (something director Gary Ross also did very effectively in Seabiscuit).  The movie is quite long with a running time of 2:19 (the omission of the trial of Newton's great-grandson might have made it tighter) but I found Knight's story to be riveting.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and I highly recommend it.