A Single Man
Reading: A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (1964)
Reread, after a lapse of almost thirty years, because a movie has been made of it and I want to see what they did with it. That is one of my main reasons for seeing movies -- to see what they do to books I like. I am usually disappointed.
In this case, they will have to have left a lot out. The story is the last day in the life of a gay man, a professor in California, whose lover has recently died. It is entirely from his point of view, and deals largely with his thoughts, feelings, memories, speculations, and fantasies. It would be quite a feat (short of using voiceovers) to suggest all that on the basis of what a movie audience can see & hear. For instance, here is our hero, depressed in a supermarket:
We're getting maudlin, he says, trying to make his will choose between halibut, sea bass, chopped sirloin, steaks. He feels a nausea of distaste for them all; then sudden rage. Damn all food. Damn all life. He would like to abandon his shopping cart, although it's already full of provisions. But that would make extra work for the clerks, and one of them is cute. The alternative, to put the whole lot back in the proper places himself, seems like a labor of Hercules....
I don't expect to see that on the screen.
The man's lover died suddenly, and, in the end, so does he. Isherwood likes that; so do I.
Reread, after a lapse of almost thirty years, because a movie has been made of it and I want to see what they did with it. That is one of my main reasons for seeing movies -- to see what they do to books I like. I am usually disappointed.
In this case, they will have to have left a lot out. The story is the last day in the life of a gay man, a professor in California, whose lover has recently died. It is entirely from his point of view, and deals largely with his thoughts, feelings, memories, speculations, and fantasies. It would be quite a feat (short of using voiceovers) to suggest all that on the basis of what a movie audience can see & hear. For instance, here is our hero, depressed in a supermarket:
We're getting maudlin, he says, trying to make his will choose between halibut, sea bass, chopped sirloin, steaks. He feels a nausea of distaste for them all; then sudden rage. Damn all food. Damn all life. He would like to abandon his shopping cart, although it's already full of provisions. But that would make extra work for the clerks, and one of them is cute. The alternative, to put the whole lot back in the proper places himself, seems like a labor of Hercules....
I don't expect to see that on the screen.
The man's lover died suddenly, and, in the end, so does he. Isherwood likes that; so do I.