Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001
From: ishbadiddle@yahoo.com
Subject: This week in Ishbadiddle (2/1/01)

* State and Main -- Yankee stereotypes revealed by John Trainer

* Why Anna Karenina is too long -- Alex Joseph

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OK, I must preface this by saying that I've spent a lot of time in New England. New Hampshire, even, and Vermont. And as a satire / comedy (not always the same thing) I have to say that I enjoyed David Mamet's movie "State and Main" thoroughly and on a level that he was probably trying to accomplish.

Those people not familiar with some of the nuances and stereotypes of New England Yankees will probably find this movie somewhat funny and eccentric, but not a laugh riot.

What's good:

-- The cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman, RRebecca Pidgeon and David Paymer are the highlights.
-- The script. Enhances the cast. A llittle stylized (what are you going to do, it's Mamet) but beautiful in the way it sets up characters that are multi-dimensional with a minimum of dialogue. The actors take it from there. Also, I loved the way that Mamet doesn't feel the need to explain or justify every eccentricity he puts on screen.
-- The satire. Not the same as comedy per se, but occasionally very funny. Takes on both moviemaking and New England; those that are familiar with either one will love it.
What's not good:

-- The humor can be pretty inside. Nott everyone thinks beyond-stereotype parodies of old stationmasters is the stuff of comedy.

But overall: see the film! It's a lovely piece of work.


John Trainer

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Recently, a person I thought of as a friend recommended that I read this book by Leo Tolstoy. Strange as it may seem for someone who attended a hoity-toity institute of higher learning for a Bachelor's Degree in English, I had not read it. I do not like long books. I like Annie Ernaux, who seems to be able to say everything she needs to in 150 pages or fewer. I also like the short stories of Alice Munro and Flannery O'Connor because, well, they're short. I had read The Death of Ivan Ilyich, because even though it was not as short as the works of Ms. Munro (which can themselves be formidably long), it was not 923 pages. Anna Karenina is 923 pages.

The biggest complaint I had with this book was that it was long. This made the book quite heavy. I have a bad back, and carrying the book around began to seem like quite a burden. I wondered if I could simply tear out the pages as I finished them (or at least the irritating introduction by Mona Simpson), but soon after I started, my boy friend asked if he could borrow the book when I had finished it. Thus I could not destroy it. I thought of Mr. Coleridge and his famous albatross. Then there was the psychological burden of reading the book. There are death scenes. There are farming scenes. There are political scenes. There are scenes with moths and jam and ladies in the kitchen. I wondered if I would ever finish it. I thought that there might be a story by Borges in which someone is forced to read a book which goes on forever, and which is too tense to simply ignore. That is how Anna Karenina felt to me. It took me 4 weeks to finish.

Anna Karenina is about work. It is not about sex, as reputation has it. Nor is it about passion. It is about getting up every day and toiling hard. If you don't do this, it seems, according to Mr. Tolstoy, you will experience angst. Quite a few of Mr. Tolstoy's characters experience it, and so will you, in the course of the book, even though you will have to toil hard to finish it.

This book made me think of a lot of things, but most importantly, it made me think about the person who had recommended it to me. Did she hate me? Was this a gesture of love? Or was this intended as some sort of a "character-building" experience? Probably some combination of all three, as Mr. Tolstoy shows people are capable of. No writer, except maybe Proust, renders more completely the complexity of human motivation.

-- Alex Joseph