[Update: the coroner has finally released a report clarifying that Corey Haim did not die of a drug overdose as initially suspected. Haim's official cause of death is pneumonia complicated [...]
I haven’t done a post today yet, so I thought I would bring up something that’s been on my mind ever since I started working on my fantasy novel – [...]
Robert W Bly is one of the most successful freelance writers in the world. He earns over US$600,000 a year and was a self-made millionaire whilst still in his 30s. [...]
Congratulations to me! This is the 800th post on this blog. I thought long and hard about what to write about for this monumental occasion, but I had my usual [...]
My supervisor recommended a number of books to read to get myself into the mood and rhythm of the type of book I wanted to write, and one of them was John Birmingham’s He Died with a Felafel in His Hand.
The title of the book was something I was very familiar with, but to be honest I didn’t even know it was a book. I had heard about it years ago as a film, a typically [insert adjective] Aussie film starring Noah Taylor. To be fair, I never watched it, and don’t intend to.
So naturally, I was not convinced that the book would be a good read. I was wrong. He Died with a Felafel in His Hand is a cracker of a book and John Birmingham is a ridiculously good writer.
The title (and the first line) of the book is a reference to one of the many housemates Birmingham lived with in share house accommodation during the 90s. The whole book (and it’s a short one — my typo-riddled library-borrowed version was 214 pages) is filled with outrageous and hilarious vignettes about all the crazy housemates Birmingham encountered and the type of things they got up to, usually involving horrific hygiene, a plethora of drugs and bizarre, freaakish, unexplainable human behaviour. All laugh out loud stuff.
It’s a very easy book to read because there is no real structure — there are chapters but he just goes from one housemate to another, from one house to another. You do kind of get lost in all of it but it doesn’t really matter because all the stories are so well-written and funny. There are also little side-stories told by his friends that are equally insane and disgusting, though it took me a while to realise that they were not Birmingham’s personal stories.
Birmingham’s voice and his style is right on the money. It’s conversational, observational, extraordinarily sharp and witty. It’s not overtly descriptive but each description manages to hit the bullseye in just a few words. Definitely someone I can learn from.
I really enjoyed He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and will most probably read it again.
5 out of 5
[PS: I can totally understand, however, why a movie version would have flopped because it could not have been very faithful to a book like this where everything is all over the place and there is no real narrative thread.]
During our trip to Shanghai we made a small side trip to Hangzhou, home of the beautiful West Lake, the famous Longjing tea, and one of the most highly rated tourist destinations in China (voted the Best Tourism City of China in 2007 by China National Tourism Association).
It was really easy, actually — just a short 40 minute bullet train ride from Shanghai.
There are plenty of hotel options in Hangzhou, but truth be told, most of them are quite old. Personally, I’m a fan of new hotels, so we went for a lesser known but very new hotel called Oakwood Residence.
Oakwood Residence is really like a serviced apartment — spacious and with kitchen facilities, but with the luxury feel of a five-star hotel. Wired internet access in the room costs money, but you can use wireless internet for free in the lobby or in the business services center.
One thing I discovered about hotels in China is that they never give you a good room on the first try. This might be the same all across the world, actually, but you really have to work for it in China.
The Oakwood has two towers. Both are relatively new but one of the towers was only completed in 2010. That was the one we had asked for but they had automatically put us in the older tower (I think furbished in 2007). So we had to ask for the new tower, and we asked for a good room on one of the higher levels. But expectedly, they gave us an average room on a mid-level floor, one that faced a property undergoing construction and had lots of noise early in the morning. So we had to keep asking and keep changing rooms (this happened two or three times — one of the rooms was in a horrible location and another was completely overwhelmed by the smell of cigarettes).
Eventually, we got it right, and we had a terrific time. The rooms we stayed in were so new and clean, had huge bathrooms, a nice kitchen area with a microwave, toaster and stove, and even a coffee machine. The television was also unexpectedly large and had free video on demand.
Those are the pros. The thing most people might consider a major con is the location, which is about a 10 minute drive (in usual traffic conditions) from West Lake. It might look close on the map but it’s farther it looks. That said, because West Lake is so enormous, you’d probably need a taxi anyway to see the various attractions, so it doesn’t make much of a difference (especially considering how cheap the taxis are). Another con is that the reception is not the greatest — they are very willing to help, but during the times we required assistance they were usually understaffed and their English wasn’t the greatest.
One thing to remember with the new tower is that it’s a short walk to the tower with the spa, gym and the business services center, and in March (when we went), it was awfully cold and hence too much trouble.
On the whole, Oakwood is definitely a place I would recommend. It’s at least just as well-equipped as the other five star hotels in Hangzhou but is significantly newer, and most importantly, a lot cheaper (if you get it on special, which they seem to be on all the time). We got rooms for a little over $100US a night.
Recently for class I had to experience Lolita in its three most popular forms — the original 1958 novel by Vladimir Nabokov and the two film adaptations, the 1962 version directed by Stanley Kubrick and the 1997 version directed by Adrian Lyne.
Novel
The 1958 novel doesn’t really need any introduction from me. It’s considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, with one of the most controversial characters and storylines in literary history. I read it for the first time last year (review found here) and wasn’t surprised that Robertson Davies once wrote that the ‘them is not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child.’
The protagonist and narrator, the pathetic Humbert Humbert, is so clever and funny that you’re momentarily willing to put his transgressions in the background and go along for the ride. Momentarily, of course.
1962 Film
The 1962 film by Kubrick was an interesting one. It starred James Mason as Humbert, Sue Luon as Lolita, Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze and Peter Sellers as Claire Quilty. The screenplay was attributed to Nabokov (and he actually got an Oscar nomination for it), but in reality it was mostly re-written by Kubrick and James Harris. Nabokov published his version of the script separately in 1974.
The 1962 Lolita was a product of its time, unfortunately, meaning it was heavily held back by censors. Needless to say, Kubrick is no prude (one only has to watch Eyes Wide Shut) to know that, but his version of Lolita was very tame, with almost none of the sexual innuendos littered throughout the novel — in fact, there was very little physical contact between Lolita and Humbert, the scenes often fading to black before anything happens.
Kubrick in fact said that if he could have done it again he would have emphasised the erotic aspect of the novel with the same weight Nabokov did, and that if he knew censors were going to be so tight he might not have made the film at all.
I liked the 1962 film a lot. I wouldn’t say it’s one of Kubrick’s best efforts but considering what he had to work with I think it was a splendid effort. The film managed to capture both the tortured soul of Humbert and his cunning. Obviously, it was impossible to replicate nuances of the book, but Kubrick came closer than I could have imagined.
I don’t know if this is a complaint, but Quilty was given a much bigger role in the film than the novel, which threw me off a bit. He didn’t really feel like a character that deserved more screen time in the book, but I guess because Sellers played him Kubrick decided to give him free reign to do his impersonations.
The other thing was Sue Lyon’s Lolita. It was a good performance but she looked too old to be the target of a paedophile. I thought she could have easily passed for 18, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.
1997 Film
This one, directed by Adrian Lyne (who was at the helm of 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and later, Unfaithful) was made at a much more liberal time, so it was more explicit in the eroticism. It was also more faithful to the original as Stephen Schiff, the first time screenwriter who penned the script, lifted a lot more dialogue directly from the book and had more voiceovers from Jeremy Irons (who interestingly also voiced the audio book version of the novel).
On the other hand, this was a completely different film that didn’t capture any of the black comedy of the novel. It’s beautifully shot, with long, sweeping scenes and this tender, moody tone. As some critics pointed out, Lyne seemed to have missed the point of the novel, creating a pure tragedy that’s all emotional torture and no fun.
I think it’s unfortunate that people will always inevitably compare adaptations and ‘remakes’ with what has come before it. It’s human nature, I suppose, but is it entirely fair? Why can’t we judge them as separate and distinct works of art?
I didn’t really enjoy the 1997 version, but I could definitely appreciate the aesthetics of it. Jeremy Irons is always good to watch on screen, and Dominique Swain showed so much promise in her first role — what ever became of her?
But anyway, I found it interesting that a lot of my classmates found the subject matter difficult to digest. They weren’t able to read and enjoy the book because mentally they could not separate the fiction from the reality and repulsion of paedophila. Stylistically, many also thought Nabokov was overrated, too clever for his own good and a bit of a one trick pony (at least in this book). They thought maybe, and there’s probably sliver of truth in this, that the book has done so well because of the subject matter as opposed to the masterful writing. I dunno. I’m still mightily impressed by the man’s wordplay and the confidence with which he can weave sentences in a language that’s not his first.
Will Lolita ever be remade again? I assume it will be, eventually. Maybe someone like Roman Polanski or Woody Allen would be a good choice to direct a movie about paedophila?
I had another extremely productive meeting with my supervisor last night, but in a nutshell — I probably need to start over with my novel. If I was impressed last time, I was even more impressed this time. Immediately, my supervisor pointed out that what I had written was not what I had planned to write.
In fact, it was the opposite of what I wanted to write. My supervisor was 100% right. After I had completed the first chapter, I looked at it and thought, this is not a bad story, but not particularly good either. However, there was something that didn’t feel right. I didn’t realise it until it was pointed out to me, but I had written exactly what I said I didn’t want to do. I said I didn’t want to write a coming of age story but what I had written was an intro to a coming of age story! The thing is, my supervisor said if I wanted to change it into a coming of age story, this would have been an excellent start. But I don’t care. I’d rather write a crap version of what I intended as opposed to a great version of what I didn’t.
Another thing that was pointed out was that I seemed to suffer from an inability to separate my scenes. I was writing it as a running narrative — this happened and then that happened and I saw this and I thought that. There was never a break in the action.
A third problem was my descriptions. As my supervisor pointed out, when you manage to come up with some brilliant descriptions, descriptions that capture the essence of a person or thing perfectly, your less impressive, more generic descriptions get exposed and become huge eye sores. That’s three of three. Hit the nail on the head every time!
If I might come across as a little down after that, I’m not. I’m annoyed that I’ll have to spend a lot of time and effort, but I’m glad I didn’t write more before discovering that I was on the wrong track. As my supervisor said, sometimes you have to write what you don’t want before you can figure out what you do want.
That said, it’s always easier said than done. There’s no guarantee that the next time I sit down to write I’ll get what I want. So what do I do? My supervisor suggests that I just try. If it’s not there, try a different approach, a different angle. Eventually I’ll get it right. Read more of the type of writing and voice I want to achieve. It might turn out that what I end up writing is better than what I intended to write.
Initially, I thought the prospect of watching a movie involving the law and Matthew McConaughey’s acting would be too much for me to swallow. But somehow, I found myself in the cinema checking out The Lincoln Lawyer, based on Michael Connelly’s bestselling book of the same name.
And I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised. The Lincoln Lawyer‘s protagonist Mickey Haller seems to have been tailor made for McConaughey (in what must be the performance of his life), and as legal thrillers go, this one is pretty darn compelling.
McConaughey is Haller, a criminal defense attorney who has no qualms representing and freeing shady characters. He is driven around in a Lincoln Town car (and hence the lame name) and has an ex-wife (who turns out to be a prosecutor) played by Marisa Tomei. One day he’s called to represent Louis Roulet, an iffy playboy played by Ryan Phillippe, who has been charged with attempted rape and murder.
That’s all I’ll go into, but The Lincoln Lawyer‘s plot is much more complex than that. There are the usual twists and turns, the dangerous confrontations and the exciting courtroom drama scenes. It’s one of those films where all the threads are eventually tied together, so you should pay close attention to or you may risk missing a connection.
Truth be told, this is a formulaic legal thriller. What makes The Lincoln Lawyer better than most other films of this kind is the strong story and, it pains me to say this, McConaughey’s charming performance. I’m used to him being a smug douche, but here he exhibits genuine range and carries the film on his back from start to finish.
Marisa Tomei is also excellent, bringing a presence to character who would have otherwise been rather forgettable, as were Ryan Phillippe and one of my favourites, William H Macy, as Haller’s best friend and investigator.
One major complaint I have was the first few scenes of the film, which were inexplicably shot with an extremely shaky handy cam that loved weird close ups. I started out thinking, if the rest of the film was going to be like this, it’s going to be very difficult to sit through. Fortunately, director Brad Furman’s style quickly settled down and prevented a disaster.
The Lincoln Lawyer is far from perfect, but it certainly exceeded my expectations. Genuinely good legal thrillers capable of capturing an audience’s attention for two fours are hard to come by these days, so I’d definitely recommend giving it a go.
I like to write about stuff. Books, film, food, travel, games, sport, whatever. Currently working on a few books. Hoping to finish one some day. Maybe.
