Tring Book Club - The Girl With The Pearl Earring and The Beginner's Goodbye

The Girl With The Pearl Earring is an enchanting novel. It seems quite unusual in that the story is told in such a simple, linear way. No literary tricks here, no long jumps back to the past, and this time all the better for it. The writing is straightforward, and the author does not attempt to write in the vocabulary of that period. All in a good way. The characters are well drawn and life in seventeenth century Delft is cleverly described. It is not a long book, and I felt it was just the right length. As it had been many years since I saw the movie, I did not remember the ending. This was also pitch perfect. A real treat.

Having read a couple of novels by Anne Tyler, I thought that Book Club might be interested in her latest book The Beginner's Goodbye. It is only a very short piece and like me, the general consensus was that it was fine but not great. It certainly has some warmth but nothing much happens. A little domestic drama about loss that takes our vision of a loved one being still around to an extreme degree. A quiet story about normal people with a fairly implausible happy ending.

Treetop Flyers at the Shepherds Bush Empire

When I wrote about the Caitlin Rose concert last week, I forgot to mention the superb support band, Treetop Flyers. A band from London that I had never heard of. The stand out song was saved until last. Haunted House is an up-tempo classic. Every so often I here a track that defines what I love about rock music. This is one of those. Check out the live version on YouTube.

Caitlin Rose - The Shepherd's Bush Empire Revisited

I guess it must have been 54 years ago that I was last inside The Shepherd's Bush Empire. It was the day I made my first and only television appearance. You have to look on my posting of 17th February 2010 to get the full account. In those days it was the BBC Television Theatre, having opened in 1903 as a music hall and only taken over by the BBC in 1953. They left in 1991 and since then it has been a successful music venue with a capacity of 2000. Standing on the ground floor and seating on levels 1, 2 and 3.  

And so it was on Thursday that I went to see Caitlin Rose, a singer/songwriter whose latest album "The Stand In" I rated highly on my posting of 5th July this year.

I was so glad that she had her full band with her after the slight disappointments of the scaled down performances of Kathleen Edwards and Brandi Carlile. We were treated to a set that took most of the songs from her two albums together with a few great covers. Her sweet voice was on fine form and the band complemented it so well. I thought the outstanding piece was the up-tempo "Only a Clown", a clever slightly faster version than the album track. Many of her songs she calls this "sad-bitch music" so I'm certain that one Jackson Brodie is sure to include her songs on his next outing.

Love Is All You Need, Elysium and The Way Way Back

I couldn't remember anything about Love Is All You Need. Partly in Danish with subtitles, I guess it must have had a very limited release. So it was a surprise to find it shown on Wednesday morning Senior Screen. But what a nice surprise. A romantic drama about mature people starring Pierce Brosnan and directed by Susanne Bier from Denmark, it was a fine example of the genre. Set mainly on the Amalfi coast, how could it fail? The screenplay was good enough and the acting was mostly OK. Although a fairly predictable story, there was much to enjoy. And  you could always watch the scenery.

Neil Blomcamp is a really talented writer and director. His first movie District 9 was a blast, especially given it's limited budget. How would he do with huge funding? Well no aliens this time, just humans, split between the haves and have not's. We are again in the future, 2154 to be precise. Matt Damon on one side and Jodie Foster on the other. The director uses his budget to great effect and has produced another enjoyable thriller. It was good to see Sharlto Copley (the hero in District 9) back again, this time as the nasty villain.

Every so often there comes a movie that to me, smacks of perfection. The Way Way Back is one of those. This is the best film I have seen since Silver Linings Playbook. I found it comparable to Slumdog Millionaire, maybe even more enjoyable. It is all down to the writers, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash who are also directing for the first time. When you have such good writing, a talented cast are going to shine. And boy, do they. Steve Carell and Toni Collette already have children from their previous marriages, but don't deserve them. So a holiday at Carell's beach house was always going to be interesting. Next door is Allison Janney, another divorcee who is loud and overbearing. All three are brilliant. But everything is seen through the eyes of newcomer Liam James as Collette's  awkward fourteen year old son Duncan. Not a narrator, thank heavens, but he is in, or on the edge of every scene. This device works so well. His solitary explorations take him to a water park called by it's actual title in real life, Water Wizz, Here he meets Owen, played by Sam Rockwell, the laid back manager, and his gang. This is where the fun really starts. Rockwell delivers one of those performances that you will never forget, up there with the best of all time. As one critic puts it: "If this role, one in a series of sneaky-good performances that Rockwell's been delivering for years, doesn't finally earn him the recognition he deserves, I'm not sure what will". Finally, if you want a smart indie soundtrack, look no further than Linda Cohen. As I said, everything was perfection.

Back Running - Hurrah!

It was nearly six weeks ago that I last ran. The knee injury was a mystery. It could have been a result of the fall I had down the canal towpath a couple of weeks before, or just a build up of stress on the joint. The closest I came to a diagnosis was the x-ray that showed a patella alta, or raised kneecap. This can be caused by damage to a tendon. Whatever the cause, it was not getting any better for over a month.

Then quite suddenly, at the beginning of last week, I noticed an improvement. A decent walk on Tuesday brought no reaction, nor did my first swim for two months on Friday. Two more good walks over the weekend and I was ready for a run yesterday. I managed a slow mile followed by a rest and then another half mile. No reaction this morning, so I'm off out to try again.

I have missed being able to run, especially Saturday morning Park Runs.  I had just achieved a 5K Park Run PB on 6th July. Is that co-incidental with my injury? However it has meant that I have been able to volunteer a couple of times at Wycombe Park Run. I am now quite proficient using the scanner to log runners positions and times. But it will be nice to be a runner next time.

The Red House, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and the first person and other stories

This book had so much promise, the collision of two families together on holiday. But after his two wonderful books ("The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" and "A Spot of Bother") I found this new novel, The Red House by Mark Haddon, to be quite tedious. I felt that the author was trying to be too modern; frequent jumps from one character to another (sometimes ... guess which character I'm talking about). The ultra short sentences that here sound pretentious ("It all faded. Hard to feel passionate about anything now. She thought about her mother. It was physiological of course. Myelin breakdown, neural tangles. But you couldn't help wonder. Being bored of life, wanting to let go". And too much jumping back into the past. Memory is an attractive method of explaining character, but please, not all the time! Sometimes I longed to get back to the real time story. The author seemed to have lost the plot with some of his descriptions: "Airport novels shelved according to height". So although I found the book hard work, the last third at least has some forward momentum. But a really good idea got lost somewhere along the way.

Perhaps it was because I so enjoyed the first part of this book that I was unprepared for the last tumultuous third. There were times late on I wanted to give up, but the sheer force and dynamism of the writing kept me going. I was always going to read this novel after having finished the author's wonderful collection of short stories "Drown" only eight months ago. If anything, I should have waited at least a year or so, as the style of the two books is quite similar. In both, Junot Diaz writes about people from his home country, the Dominican Republic. This novel encompasses three generations of the same family. It is not told entirely in a linear form, but it mostly gains from it's occasional journey into the DR's past. The characters are colourful and their difficult lives are magically described. I will definitely read the author's latest book "This is how you lose her", but I will save it on my To Read List for a couple years.

I wanted to like the first person and other stories more than I did, being a huge fan of Ali Smith. Maybe it was because the first few of the twelve pieces in this collection of short stories were a little disappointing. Typical is the huge strangeness of number five where a woman, in bed with her married lover, muses on Beethoven's opera "Fidelio". Fortunately these are followed by some riveting blasts of language few writers can match in just a few pages. "the history of history" is an eight page wonder. A really thin slice of life, compared to a novel as a fully formed loaf. The author occasionally weaves some baffling fantasy into stories that are essentially about relationships. In one, a woman is talking to her fourteen year old self, a concept that is both provoking and funny. I would give that five stars on it's own.

As You Like It at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford

Oh what a merry dance. Maria Aberg's production of this familiar play is terrific fun. This is the same team that this time last year I saw transform the dull King John into something of a party. Although I am probably in the tiny minority (maybe of one) who thought that was better than this year's As You Like It, I still loved last night's superb performance. Inventive, colourful and full of music (by Laura Marling - here far more accessible than usual) and dance, the first half went in a flash. The movement around the stage was outstanding, and the diction was fresh and clear.

Both leads from King John were here again with Alex Waldmann as Orlando and Pippa Nixon leading the company as Rosalind. When she played The Bastard in King John I wrote on 7th September last year "Here is a star in the making. She is absolutely brilliant. No wonder the RSC have given her some big roles over the last couple of years". And she just gets better and better. Just wait until she lands some big movie roles.

I was surprised that the "Seven Ages Of Man" speech came out of the blue. But on studying the text, I found that Orlando had just left after coming across the Duke and his entourage in the forest. He had explained his predicament and on his exit, the Duke is mournful when he says "... we are not all alone. This wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play him. And that is where Jaques comes in:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I'm sure that my father could recite this piece. It does sound so familiar, especially the last line.