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chocolatepotI do think about things other than real estate/house restoration!
The Goldfinch
When this book came out (2013) I was 26, and still kind of in the "YA is the only creative fiction; adult litfic is just boring introspection" mindset; plus I've always instinctively turned away from things that are really popular until I'm forced/persuaded to consume them or they stop being popular.deadpanwalking on Tumblr has talked about it quite a bit since the film adaptation was announced and then came out, which finally made me curious enough to watch the movie and then read the book, even though I wasn't blown away by the movie.
It's Dickensian, isn't it? The slow meanders, the sprawling universe, the giant tome, the subplots and coincidences. I wonder if there's a correlation between fans. Something I found intriguing was how most of the characters talk like they're in a Noel Coward play - I couldn't tell if it was meant to be affected and unreal or if Donna Tartt and her acquaintances just talk like this all the time. They're all so cultured and erudite (except for beautiful Boris), and they ask little rhetorical questions about the deeper meaning of things. Adult men refer to their mothers as "Mommy". (I don't know why I wouldn't blink at a posh, slightly infantilized Englishman saying "Mummy" but think "Mommy" with an American accent is strictly for under-tens.)
Just before I read The Goldfinch, I happened to watch 365 Days on Netflix, and it made me realize that there are two types of people who like the "normal person among the rich" narrative. (I say "it made me realize" but as I type this I'm remembering that I kind of came to this conclusion after Crazy Rich Asians months ago.) Basically, one type lolls in the rich being understated (plain cashmere sweaters, and relatable, and the other type luxuriates in the vicarious, impossible experience of spending tons of money and having sumptuous yachts etc. When Theo goes to live with Andy, the Barbours are pretty normal people who Theo clicks with despite the fact that he knows he'll never really be one of them - they have all kinds of antiques and works of art that are just part of their apartment, not pieces that they brag about to people, and when they love them it's because the pieces are beautiful or evoke emotions. Even Hobie and Pippa are coded upper-class with their love of high culture. On the other hand, 365 Days is a fantasy about (among other things) having a rich man lavish you with high-end fashion and jewelry that you look super-sexy in. I don't think either type is superior to the other - the former is really more a fantasy about class rather than "the rich", and a fantasy about the upper class being cozy and relatable is OBVIOUSLY problematic - but I'm definitely in the former, and that's probably a good bit of why the book works for me.
Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian-American Life
Jerre Mangione grew up in Rochester's Sicilian neighborhood in the early twentieth century, then grew up and wrote a memoir about it. Publishers thought that a novel would sell better, though, so he had to change all of the names, which is kind of silly but did happen.
Mangione was a bit older than my grandfather but both were/are second-generation Italian-Americans, although my grandfather was only half-Sicilian (his father was from Naples); while my grandfather grew up in the Bronx and the Hudson Valley/Catskills area, his sister moved out to Rochester and probably would have known some of the people in the book, although it sounds like the Mount Allegro neighborhood was really vibrant in the 1900s-1920s and drifted away during the Depression due to white flight and the promise of suburban homeownership.
Most of the book is very episodic tales of Mangione's childhood and tales-within-tales from the adults in his life who'd come over from the old country. Toward the end, he grows up and becomes a writer/journalist, and he travels to Italy to write about it under Mussolini for a newspaper back here, and that was fascinating - the poverty and poor conditions his parents' generation fled was just intense (his mother's village literally didn't have its own water supply), and of course the enthusiasm he documents for Il Duce is chilling in retrospect.
The Goldfinch
When this book came out (2013) I was 26, and still kind of in the "YA is the only creative fiction; adult litfic is just boring introspection" mindset; plus I've always instinctively turned away from things that are really popular until I'm forced/persuaded to consume them or they stop being popular.
deadpanwalking on Tumblr has talked about it quite a bit since the film adaptation was announced and then came out, which finally made me curious enough to watch the movie and then read the book, even though I wasn't blown away by the movie.It's Dickensian, isn't it? The slow meanders, the sprawling universe, the giant tome, the subplots and coincidences. I wonder if there's a correlation between fans. Something I found intriguing was how most of the characters talk like they're in a Noel Coward play - I couldn't tell if it was meant to be affected and unreal or if Donna Tartt and her acquaintances just talk like this all the time. They're all so cultured and erudite (except for beautiful Boris), and they ask little rhetorical questions about the deeper meaning of things. Adult men refer to their mothers as "Mommy". (I don't know why I wouldn't blink at a posh, slightly infantilized Englishman saying "Mummy" but think "Mommy" with an American accent is strictly for under-tens.)
Just before I read The Goldfinch, I happened to watch 365 Days on Netflix, and it made me realize that there are two types of people who like the "normal person among the rich" narrative. (I say "it made me realize" but as I type this I'm remembering that I kind of came to this conclusion after Crazy Rich Asians months ago.) Basically, one type lolls in the rich being understated (plain cashmere sweaters, and relatable, and the other type luxuriates in the vicarious, impossible experience of spending tons of money and having sumptuous yachts etc. When Theo goes to live with Andy, the Barbours are pretty normal people who Theo clicks with despite the fact that he knows he'll never really be one of them - they have all kinds of antiques and works of art that are just part of their apartment, not pieces that they brag about to people, and when they love them it's because the pieces are beautiful or evoke emotions. Even Hobie and Pippa are coded upper-class with their love of high culture. On the other hand, 365 Days is a fantasy about (among other things) having a rich man lavish you with high-end fashion and jewelry that you look super-sexy in. I don't think either type is superior to the other - the former is really more a fantasy about class rather than "the rich", and a fantasy about the upper class being cozy and relatable is OBVIOUSLY problematic - but I'm definitely in the former, and that's probably a good bit of why the book works for me.
Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian-American Life
Jerre Mangione grew up in Rochester's Sicilian neighborhood in the early twentieth century, then grew up and wrote a memoir about it. Publishers thought that a novel would sell better, though, so he had to change all of the names, which is kind of silly but did happen.
Mangione was a bit older than my grandfather but both were/are second-generation Italian-Americans, although my grandfather was only half-Sicilian (his father was from Naples); while my grandfather grew up in the Bronx and the Hudson Valley/Catskills area, his sister moved out to Rochester and probably would have known some of the people in the book, although it sounds like the Mount Allegro neighborhood was really vibrant in the 1900s-1920s and drifted away during the Depression due to white flight and the promise of suburban homeownership.
Most of the book is very episodic tales of Mangione's childhood and tales-within-tales from the adults in his life who'd come over from the old country. Toward the end, he grows up and becomes a writer/journalist, and he travels to Italy to write about it under Mussolini for a newspaper back here, and that was fascinating - the poverty and poor conditions his parents' generation fled was just intense (his mother's village literally didn't have its own water supply), and of course the enthusiasm he documents for Il Duce is chilling in retrospect.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-26 05:13 pm (UTC)