10 Thoughts on Woody Allen

1) The opening of the film Manhattan - that horn-blowing chord progression which announces the opening bars of the song "Manhattan" - is iconic. But I never think of Woody Allen when I hear that song. I think of Ella Fitzgerald or Blossom Dearie.

2) I've seen Husbands and Wives so many times there are scenes I can practically recite by heart. Sydney Pollack is such a lovable cad. And Judy Davis' character is so neurotic, really the standard "Woody Allen" character turned around (with added viciousness).

3) I remember being in my early teens when my mom and aunt returned from seeing Hannah and Her Sisters and complaining that it was one of the most boring films they'd ever seen. This prejudiced me for years against that film but when I finally did see it in my late twenties (on a pirated DVD in Shanghai), I thought it was really wonderful. And who can hate anything that has Dianne Wiest in it?

4) Paris at Midnight got great reviews and I have some friends who love it. Me: meh. Definitely one of his weaker films in my view. Hackneyed cliched 'writerly' writers and the girlfriend has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Plus Owen Wilson pffffft. And the nice little moral which he practically assaults us with at the end. Please. Don't preach, Woody.

5) The Purple Rose of Cairo is about dreaming when you're not a kid anymore.

6) One of his most underrated films is Alice: with Joe Mantegna (the loveable bear who loves Edna St-Vincent-Millay) and William Hurt (a big New York type prick). Plus turning invisible and listening in on an ex's therapy session: cinematic gold.

7) Manhattan Murder Mystery is about marriage (duh) but the focus is off somewhat so it becomes about murder. It's not really about murder, one has to keep reminding oneself. Even the director seems to forget it at certain points. The imagery of the city always watching, of always having witnesses, of never really being alone is both creepy and comforting. Anjelica Huston is such a smooth operator: as a kid, I wanted her to be my mother (an exotic writer with a facade of never-ending confidence). Now I'd want to be her best friend.

Don't Speak!

8) Dianne Wiest's character in Bullets Over Broadway can make me laugh so hard, tears can well up in my eyes ("Don't speak!") and John Cusack plays that role with the perfect blend of naivete and deception. Plus Jennifer Tilly is spot on.

9) I love Annie Hall  but feel the scenes in Los Angeles are inauthentic and over-reliant on a New Yorker's shallow conception of life out west. Also, though I like the film, I'm not very sure I like the character Annie Hall. How can Diane Keaton play her so ridden with neuroses but then play Carol (so ready for a dangerous adventure) from Manhattan Murder Mystery so convincingly? A good actress...

10) Good Woody Allen films (in addition to the ones noted above): Vicky Christina Barcelona, Broadway Danny Rose, Mighty Aphrodite.

Decent Woody Allen films: Melinda and Melinda, Match Point, To Rome With Love, Interiors, Radio Days.

Awful Woody Allen films: Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Whatever Works, Scoop, Cassandra's Dream, and several others...

Jenny Erpenbeck: Visitation

Jenny Erpenbeck's novel Visitation is one of the more interesting books I've read lately. It's unusual in form and tone, telling the story of a small country house on a lake near Berlin. The home is the only consistent character in the book and we hear about its Jewish owners forced to leave as WWII grips Germany, we hear about the architect who buys the home (at a cut-rate price in the chaos) from the Jewish family, we hear about the gardener who plans each square foot of the grounds meticulously, and we hear from several other key people as the story of the house and its occupants unfold. In the end, it's a history of Germany, of Europe, but on a micro-individual level.

It's a dark novel in most ways, but the writing is simply gorgeous. Everything seems one stepped removed from the dramatic tension we come to expect in a novel, particularly a novel which explores the dark side of history, but the story isn't moved forward by confrontation or painful scenes.

At certain points the novel seems more like a collection of short-stories, even essays, with titles like "The Wealthy Farmer and His Four Daughters," which catalogues a list of superstitions associated with marriage and young women seeking a husband.

I love history and books on history but one question that always nags at me when I read history is how this war or that calamity affected the individual lives of those involved: not the men in back rooms, smoking cigars and being chauffered around, but the average urban worker, the farmer, the migrant, the teacher. Visitation takes this notion and delves deep into how the outside forces of history invade the "average" person's life in personal and individual (and almost non-political) ways.

It feels like an important book and though I know little about Erpenbeck's story (she was born in East Berlin in 1967) or other work, she is definitely on my radar now with this lovely little novel.

Carte Blanche #15

For years, Carte Blanche, one of Montreal's best-known literary magazines, has been cranking out issue after issue of interesting, provocative, and funny issues chock full of some excellent poetry, stories and creative non-fiction in addition to artwork. In the spring, they began printing paper issues on demand and the latest (#15), too, is available in print.

The talented Gillian Sze

This has been a real treat the last few days: hanging on to this book on the metro, in line at the bank, reading pieces (and Q&A) by Gillian Sze, a visual tale called "The Wrecked Woman" by Kara Sievewright, poem by Tom Wayman, and many other pieces. It could be a tad smaller (it's printed beautifully though it's A4 size and I'm the type who prefers volumes that can be stashed in a pocket whenever possible) but I've really enjoyed this issue.

The magazine is one of the Quebec Writers Federation's funded ventures and the editors of Carte Blanche also produce a series of spoken word/storytelling events called This Really Happened (one at Blue Met 2012 and another one being planned for 2013). The online issue, in fact, discusses the This Really Happened event they did at Wordfest in Calgary a couple of weeks ago.

They are still working on distribution, it seems, and I can't seem to find the way to receive  the magazine in print online but I think all writers in Canada who want to see small magazines improve and continue to thrive should try and get a hold of it (or ask to see it stocked in your local bookstores while they last!).

Peter Kirby: The Dead of Winter

I've long been a big fan of crime fiction, particularly crime fiction that is connected to a city I know. I like how crime writers can act as a kind of travel guide, showing us a city or even neighborhood through the lens of its underbelly: Natsuo Kirino and Miyuke Miyabe in Tokyo, Leonardo Padura in Havana, Jo Nesbo in Oslo, and many others.

Linda Leith Publishing has recently published Peter Kirby's The Dead of Winter, a fascinating novel, a chronicle of a series of crimes which rock the church and business establishments in the middle of a bleak, dark, and cold Montreal winter.

I read the book in the space of two days a few weeks back while visiting Berlin and it was one of the best crime books I've read this year: with a detached but intelligent protagonist, a cast of characters that are eminently familiar to most Montrealers, and it made me homesick though I'd only been away a week or so. In fact, oddly, it made me crave winter. It's chilling, creepy, and terribly engaging...

A book which makes me miss a cold Quebec winter while hanging out in a funky European late summer...now that's an engaging novel...

Collum McCann's Dancer

Collum McCann's novel Dancer is one of those books which has sparked my interest in another subject. You know how you can sometimes read a book and be perfectly happy to remain in the world that the writer creates? It wasn't the case here and I have found myself several times in the last week, finding other sources of information on the subject online, in bookstores. The novel tells the story of the life and career of Rudolf Nureyev through various narrators who were close to him throughout his life. McCann writes with lyrical beauty and some passages are simply gorgeous, particularly passages about dance itself, about St-Petersburg, about the protagonist and his larger-than-life personality.

The hitch with books of this form is a niggling one that I can't get away from as I read: the constant question of what is made up, what is based in fact, and whether that's even important. After all, a life story is not a life. I can see that McCann must have done an enormous amount of research because the story is definitely grounded in facts which span Nureyev's life. The people are real. The experiences reflect the arc of the dancer's career. It's much more like a novel, of course, with invented scenes, dialogue, thoughts and feelings. But McCann doesn't change names, re-imagines real stories from Nureyev's life to move his plot along. In that sense, it's like a biography.

I find the book so interesting that I stayed up late watching a Youtube video about Nureyev's life, his Russian years, and this only piqued my interest more in this enigmatic indvidual. Though his life ended tragically, we should all be so lucky to be able to do what we want in our lives, to focus all our energies to one consuming, passionate goal and then reap its rewards.

It's the first book I've read by McCann but it definitely makes me want to read more of his work.

"If you think about it, it turns into words..."

Always on the Train

Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you.

But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash;
bird perches, miles of telephone wires.
What is so innocent as grazing cattle?
If you think about it, it turns into words.

Trash is so cheerful, flying up
like grasshoppers in front of the reaper.
The dust devil whirls it aloft: bronze candy wrappers,
squares of clear plastic - windows on a house of air.

Below the weedy edge in last year's mat,
red and silver beer cans.
In bits blown equally everywhere,
the gaiety of flying paper
and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.

-- from Ruth Stone's In the Next Galaxy

Powell's Booty...

So back from my trip out west and here is my booty from Powell's. I had to limit myself to one short trip so I wouldn't go crazy! For those of you who don't know Powell's, I'd say any trip out to the Pacific NW requires a trip to Portland in order to see the place, what has to be one of the largest bookstores in the world. One unique and excellent thing about this place is that they put the used and new copies of the books on the same shelves so it's always your choice which to buy. There are countless rooms on several floors and stacks all the way to the ceiling. Anyone who reads is in heaven!

At any rate, here is what I nabbed:

Alison Bechdel: Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For

So I've written twice recently about Alison Bechdel and because they didn't have her latest memoir, I decided to stock up on one of her cartoon strip anthologies. This will be a fast read...

Jenny Erpenbeck: Visitation

Several people have recommended this book to me and I've had it on my list of books to buy for weeks. I plan to hole up this weekend and read this one cover to cover. It's a book about Berlin which should fit in nicely with a lot of the reading I've been doing lately.

Colm Tóibin: The South

One of my favorite writers. I've read just about all of his novels (The Master is one of my all time faves) and all were interesting in their own way. But this one I haven't read which means I have something new to look forward to next week!

So, yes, lately I've been reading a lot of international (i.e., non-Canadian) fiction. That's not by choice! Well, I guess in a way it is, but the truth of the matter is that I read Canadian writers' works most of the year, particularly starting in mid to late October when we start programming the Canadian literature part of our Festival. And that continues throughout the spring when the reading is done to catch up on all the writers coming (or as many as I can, at any rate).

Late summer to early fall is my time of year to read international fiction since it's the time of year when I am most aware of what international writers are doing.

Meanwhile, I am still reading Colum McCann's The Dancer. It's a great read so far but no time to read really (I have a hard time reading on airplanes...).