Girl Detective

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo had long been on my radar. When a friend told me she was going to be in town for a free talk, it seemed like the perfect time to get around to it. That, and the library queue for it was no longer batsh1t-crazy long.

It’s a non-fiction account by a journalist about a slum in Mumbai, India. It is loosely centered around a death and series of trials, but includes a huge cast of people and tells a much broader story of poverty, corruption, and what people do to get by.

Boo made an interesting choice to narrate in the omniscient third person, but the summary at the end of the exhaustiveness of her research back this up. She didn’t put herself in the story because it wasn’t her story. And I didn’t miss her a bit, because hyper-focused Abdul, runty Samil, power-hungry Asha, and every single one of the others were so complex and interesting. Please forgive my reductive descriptors of these people–read Boo’s book to get the fuller picture.

At her talk, an audience member asked if her book made people’s lives more difficult because she named names and detailed acts of corruption. She responded that one of her goals had been transparency–all her participants had not only given permission, but sometimes insisted on using their full names and details of their lives, to better show the complicated, ethically slippery environment so different from ours in the pampered west.

I very much appreciated Boo’s afterward, in which she specifically calls out her situation of white privilege, and how and why she wrote the book. This was a eye-opening, world-expanding, thought-provoking book. One that, like the best books, leaves me with the question: NOW, what do I do now that I know what I know?

So, I have been slammed with spam and do not feel like wading through 423 comments right now, and have changed one setting, which means you have to sign in to comment. Sorry for the inconvenience, but 423 50-line spams has outdone me. If this works, great, if not, I may have to shut down comments.

Just waded through 223 entries of spam, all of which were huge and this took forever, and I didn’t find one actual comment from an actual person.

So this has me thinking. Heads up, dear readers. I think change is on its way…

For years, I snobbishly dismissed Wicked by Gregory Maguire and the musical it spawned as populist tripe. Fun for the masses, but not for me.

I can be such a snobby cuss, sometimes, no? Put me in mind of that lovely quote by William Paley:

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination.

so when one of my smartest friends posted a glowing review of Wicked the book on Goodreads, noting that it was her THIRD read (important not just for 3rd read denoting a better knowledge of the book, but how many books do we readers honor by reading 3 times?), my interest was piqued, I questioned my prejudice and resolved to read it myself.

The time was right recently, when the touring company of Wicked came to town. I got tickets with a girlfriend,and sat down to read the book. It is not an easy read, but I found it a challenging and rewarding one.

You probably “know” the broad outlines, as I thought I did, given the popularity of the musical. It is a re-telling of the Oz story focusing on the witches showing a less sympathetic side of Glinda the Good, and a more sympathetic side to the Wicked Witch, named Elphaba, pronounced EL fuh buh, in homage to Oz’s creator L. Frank Baum.

This is a fair summation of the musical but it does faint justice to the book, which is complicated, going way beyond in depth and breadth Good vs. Evil, and which witch embodies which. Maguire’s book provides the history, childhoods, and influences of Glinda, Elphaba, and many more characters who orbit around the original Oz fable and movie. There are competing religions and traditions in Oz including a variation on Christianity, as well as echoes of an older, darker tradition reminiscent of ancient, matriarchal ones that predate Christianity. There are talking Animals who are persecuted, sentient mechanical beings, a recurring mother/crone figure, and so many more elements. Throughout, though, is the question of Good and Evil, which Maguire presents as tantalizingly ambiguous.

People who claim that they’re evil are usually no worse than the rest of us… It’s people who claim that they’re good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.

The heady mix of themes includes also wind as a signifier of power, and the nature of forgiveness.But it’s complex stew of themes that is, perhaps the book’s greatest weakness and, I suspect, why so many readers dislike it, shown by 3 stars on good reads with many negative reviews. The plot is loose, and wanders. Maguire raises many questions, but answers few definitively. This can be read as challenging the reader and trusting in their ability to think, but it can also be an author not quite in control of his creation. And near the end, when the traditional Oz tail dovetails most with Maguire’s re-telling, it felt like Maguire was hampered by fitting his tale to the other.

I can see why those who liked the musical (which is great fun, and offers some complication of the Oz story just not as much as the book. FYI, it’s adapted by Winnie Holtzman, who also wrote My So-Called Life.) would read the book and dislike it. It’s far less tidy and satisfying than the musical, which demands not nearly so much of its audience. But for its weaknesses of plot and sometimes over-mysterious backstory, this book has made me think, actively, on power, religion, good, morality and so many BIG things, that I highly recommend it, as long as you know you’re in for a challenging ride.

Little behind on this. What have y’all been watching; anything worthwhile?

Miller’s Crossing. My husband’s favorite movie. I think my favorite of the serious Coen Bros. movies. They alternate “funny” and “serious”; did you know?

Breakfast Club, Magic Mike, and Bridesmaids: with girlfriends, eating chocolate, drinking wine. Cliche? Maybe. Super fun? You betcha.

The Decoy Bride. Adorable Scottish rom-com, free on Netflix, starring David Tennant.

The Sting. Part of a Redford/Newman binge. Music and movie so good.

Smashed. Husband sat this earnest indie out. Didn’t love.

Cold Light of Day. Alas, really bad.

Much Ado About Nothing. Super charming, and Sean Maher made a GREAT Shakespeare villain.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 and 2: with the kids. They loved the movies; I found all but #3 forgettable.

Killing Them Softly: decent, but with a sledgehammer message throughout that detracted.

Captain America, Avengers: girlfriends, wine, chocolates again.

Holy Motors: so weird. More of an experiment than a film. Critics loved it.

Princess Mononoke: with the kids. Glad we waited for this one; super violent.

Burn After Reading. Didn’t get great reviews, but I like it and LOVE Brad Pitt being funny. He should do that more often.

Pitch Perfect. Again. New classic. B movie, but love anyways. Aca-scuse me?

Vanishing Point. With the husband, in preparation for

Deathproof. Tarantino. As usual, overly violent, but worthwhile. Fascinatingly, passes the Bechdel test with flying colors.

Fantastic Mr. Fox: with kids, again. Love this cussin’ movie. Hot Box!

Sixteen Candles. With the GFs. Jake Ryan 4ever! Also love the scene with her dad.

Big Trouble in Little China. Kurt Russell again. Silly fun.

Rio Bravo, with the kids, who liked it lots.It’s one of my husband’s favorites, I don’t think I’d seen it all the way through. Apparently, Tarantino screens this for girlfriends to see if they’ll be compatible. One of the boys: “Dude (Dean Martin) is a really good singer!”

Men in Black, with the kids. They liked it a lot.

Prometheus. Some good stuff like my boyfriend Michael Fassbender as a non human, Idris Elba singing a line from a CSN song, and a tense surgery scene that will live in memory forever, but overall kind of a mess.

Sneakers. With the kids, who had fun.

Bring it On. Meaning to watch it since reminded of by Pitch Perfect. Fun, but not an essential.

To Be or Not to Be by Lubitsch. Lovely Criterion Collection. I see echoes of it in QT’s Inglourious Basterds.

I’m continuing to read Shakespeare’s history plays along with the adaptations on PBS of The Hollow Crown. Last Friday was King Henry IV part 2, which I did manage to read before I finished watching. I find it does help to review the play beforehand.

As I read and watch, I’m struck again and again by the enduring poetry of Shakespeare. This line:

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. (III, i, 31)

He’s talking about not being able to sleep, so it makes perfect sense in context, and is such lovely phrasing, and oh, I’m such a geek.

And oh, my crush on Tom Hiddleston just grows and grows.

Before God, I am exceeding weary (II,ii, 1)

:

I’m watching “The Hollow Crown” series of Shakespeare’s history plays on PBS, so am reading the four plays: Richard II, King Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, Henry V.

I’d never read the Henry IV plays, so part 1 was new to me. I watched the movie first, then read the play second. I wish I’d done it in the reverse. One particular scene, in which Hotspur continually insults Glendower, was hilarious to read, but I don’t remember finding it as funny during the play.

GLENDOWER

I cannot blame him: at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward.

HOTSPUR

Why, so it would have done at the same season, if
your mother’s cat had but kittened, though yourself
had never been born.

GLENDOWER

I say the earth did shake when I was born.

HOTSPUR

And I say the earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.

GLENDOWER

The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

HOTSPUR

O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam earth and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

So, basically, Hotspur told Glendower that the earth was farting on the day he was born. Lots of bodily functions and meaty insults, of which this was my favorite, though it had good competition:

Gadshill:

none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms (II.i.73-4)

This is a manly play, full of action, which perhaps explains why I found it more enjoyable than Richard II, which is full of effete, weak Richard and lots of people who stand still and speechify.

Based on this, I will try to squeeze in a read of part 2 before tomorrow.