tragedy; or, nazi teachers and navy whores
Did I really just read a 500-page novel in four days? And before that, a 200-pager in a day and a half? What has my life come to? At least both books were enjoyable enough. Though I almost wish I could be ashamed of all the reading I do for school. At the same time, it gives me an excuse to ignore people.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (written by Muriel Spark; starring Maggie Smith)
In "leading out" the minds of her set, Jean Brodie uses a subtle and all the more effective combination of charisma and coercion--a bit like, dare I say, Hitler. She inspires, enchants, and seduces. Though she seems supernatural and omnipresent in the novel, coloring the girls’ experiences even when she is not around, fleshed out in Maggie Smith, she borders on the repulsive. Sandy is given such a stronger force of character in the film than in the novel, she and Brodie, at times, are in competition with each other. Still, this competition demystifies Brodie's character in the way the novel's flash-forwards do. Despite their (Brodie and Sandy’s) confrontation, it’s a pity Sandy’s line regarding the correlation between betrayal and loyalty is absent in the film. Aside from the grief brought upon by Mary’s death, Sandy seems to act out of jealousy instead of in the name of any sort of justice. Furthermore, excluding the voice over at the film's end, Brodie's influence is underestimated. More haunting is the novel's depictions of then-Sandy-now-Sister-Helena clinging to the bars of her cell while reminiscing with old friends from school. The irony is, moved from print to screen, the girls in the set are consolidated (from six members to four), treated like objects to be manipulated, impressionable minds or no.
The French Lieutenant's Woman (written by John Fowles; screenplay by Harold Pinter)
The first major irruption of the narrator of The French Lieutenant’s Woman in Chapter Thirteen is illuminating and disorienting: “we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is.” Illuminating because the narrator’s (or, as the actual novelist, John Fowles’s) purpose for the novel is to demonstrate the inexact creative process of novel-writing; disorienting because the supposedly uncontrollable nature of the characters and events demands a readiness to adapt from the audience. In some ways, the relationship between narrator and reader becomes conspirative. Though his characters sometimes “disobey” him, the narrator nevertheless addresses his audience’s presumed misgivings with narrative zeal to the point that, at times, the novel is almost an invitation for collaboration. Furthermore, the narrator intrudes by other means, placing himself in the hypothetical (yet equally plausible) endings as a character himself, the not-so-casual observer. The mere suggestion that endings are innumerable colors the novel with existentialism. That is, the characters themselves determine their ending, happy or otherwise. Ultimately, Sarah (to begin with) and Charles (by the end, whichever it may be) each discover an individual, indispensable sense of freedom. Perhaps the most translatable concept from novel to film is Sarah’s enigmatic, frustrating/alluring, sphinx-like character. The tangling of reality and fiction constructed in the film, too, is somewhat disorienting, the center of the knot being Mike/Charles. The departure to London is reversed: Anna the actress leaves while Mike the actor stays. Yet in their farewell scene, Mike is dressed and made-up in his role as Charles who, in the fiction (novel and film) leaves Sarah behind. What’s more, along with Charles the character, Mike the actor is captivated by the idea of “Sarah.” Indeed, at the film’s end, though Anna his “real-life” lover disappears, Mike shouts for the fictional Sarah. Like Sarah, Anna is direct yet elusive, willing yet manipulative, and always just out of Mike’s reach, physically, mentally, emotionally.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (written by Muriel Spark; starring Maggie Smith)
In "leading out" the minds of her set, Jean Brodie uses a subtle and all the more effective combination of charisma and coercion--a bit like, dare I say, Hitler. She inspires, enchants, and seduces. Though she seems supernatural and omnipresent in the novel, coloring the girls’ experiences even when she is not around, fleshed out in Maggie Smith, she borders on the repulsive. Sandy is given such a stronger force of character in the film than in the novel, she and Brodie, at times, are in competition with each other. Still, this competition demystifies Brodie's character in the way the novel's flash-forwards do. Despite their (Brodie and Sandy’s) confrontation, it’s a pity Sandy’s line regarding the correlation between betrayal and loyalty is absent in the film. Aside from the grief brought upon by Mary’s death, Sandy seems to act out of jealousy instead of in the name of any sort of justice. Furthermore, excluding the voice over at the film's end, Brodie's influence is underestimated. More haunting is the novel's depictions of then-Sandy-now-Sister-Helena clinging to the bars of her cell while reminiscing with old friends from school. The irony is, moved from print to screen, the girls in the set are consolidated (from six members to four), treated like objects to be manipulated, impressionable minds or no.
The French Lieutenant's Woman (written by John Fowles; screenplay by Harold Pinter)
The first major irruption of the narrator of The French Lieutenant’s Woman in Chapter Thirteen is illuminating and disorienting: “we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is.” Illuminating because the narrator’s (or, as the actual novelist, John Fowles’s) purpose for the novel is to demonstrate the inexact creative process of novel-writing; disorienting because the supposedly uncontrollable nature of the characters and events demands a readiness to adapt from the audience. In some ways, the relationship between narrator and reader becomes conspirative. Though his characters sometimes “disobey” him, the narrator nevertheless addresses his audience’s presumed misgivings with narrative zeal to the point that, at times, the novel is almost an invitation for collaboration. Furthermore, the narrator intrudes by other means, placing himself in the hypothetical (yet equally plausible) endings as a character himself, the not-so-casual observer. The mere suggestion that endings are innumerable colors the novel with existentialism. That is, the characters themselves determine their ending, happy or otherwise. Ultimately, Sarah (to begin with) and Charles (by the end, whichever it may be) each discover an individual, indispensable sense of freedom. Perhaps the most translatable concept from novel to film is Sarah’s enigmatic, frustrating/alluring, sphinx-like character. The tangling of reality and fiction constructed in the film, too, is somewhat disorienting, the center of the knot being Mike/Charles. The departure to London is reversed: Anna the actress leaves while Mike the actor stays. Yet in their farewell scene, Mike is dressed and made-up in his role as Charles who, in the fiction (novel and film) leaves Sarah behind. What’s more, along with Charles the character, Mike the actor is captivated by the idea of “Sarah.” Indeed, at the film’s end, though Anna his “real-life” lover disappears, Mike shouts for the fictional Sarah. Like Sarah, Anna is direct yet elusive, willing yet manipulative, and always just out of Mike’s reach, physically, mentally, emotionally.