The Review Revolution: Improving Culture through Kvetching

From Book to Movie, Part III: A Review of THE CHILDREN OF MEN

I think Al hit the nail on the head with his comment: only bad books seem to improve in their film versions.  Good books--which, thankfully for me, are legion!--almost never get better on screen.  And here's a case in point: P.D. James's astonishing novel The Children of Men.

I have been a fan of James's detective fiction since college, so I was intrigued when my friend Lauren Winner loaned me a copy of this 1992 sleeper at AAR last year.  (Lauren, if you're reading this, I do intend to return the book to you.)  Some aspects of the story are certainly what we expect from James: the careful, detached but dead-on observations about human behavior, the peerless vocabulary.  But the subject matter is a radical departure from her detective fiction.

The first half of the novel is the first-person diary entries of Theo, a pompous Oxford don who is plying his historian's trade even as he writes his journal entries: no one, he knows, will be around to read them in the future.  It's 2021 and the human race is dying, felled by a global infertility pandemic.  Since there have been no live births since 1995, British society is in a quiet turmoil, with a government that wishes to appear benign but is actually a steely dictatorship run by Theo's cousin.  Theo records all the quotidian details of his isolated life in this society, where depression and suicide are commonplace and people negotiate custody settlements about their pets, who have come to replace children in human affections.

Theo's sober life is interrupted by Julian, an idealistic young woman who seeks his help getting an audience with the government to hear grievances about the underside of this government's policies.  Without giving away much more of the plot, suffice it to say that Julian has an especially compelling reason for wanting to ensure a just society for the future, and when Theo learns her motivations, he is finally galvanized to begin living the life he has so far only been recording.  The second half of the novel is more traditionally James, with third-person narration and a fast-moving plot.  Theo is a participant, even a leader, and not merely an observer.

It's the second half, of course, that provides the guns-blazing trajectory of the movie.  Whereas in the book, outright war is kept just at bay by the government's uber-British concerns for civilized conduct, the film misses that tightrope walk entirely, degenerating into shoot-em-up action to compensate for its lack of finesse.  To say that the film lacks subtlety is a violent understatement. 

What was so chilling about the book is this future society's inherent plausibility. I could easily picture the dystopia James created because it was such a logical extension of the way things are now: in the book, the infertility crisis only exposes fissures that are already evident around issues like immigration, class struggle, and fear of aging.  The movie, which should have been helped by strong performances by Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, prefers to depict an all-out war zone.

Book: A

Movie: D

From Book to Movie, Part II: A Review of The Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club
Book: A-
Movie: B

How much fun is this?  A whole book about women who love to read Jane Austen--a book filled with coy plot allusions, character references, settings and themes.  What's more, it's a book that's filled with humor and hilarity.  Fowler--dare I say this?--is almost as observant about the foibles of human nature as Austen herself.  If I weren't getting enough of an Austen fix this year from the all-Jane-all-the-time marathon on Masterpiece, Fowler's book would be a happy alternative supplier of Austen's crackest crack.

And--the fun abounds!--the movie is strong too.  My husband, who had not read the book (and who, I am sorry to admit, has read no Austen at all, though he has so few other serious faults that one might overlook this), enjoyed it thoroughly.  It's a movie that is a party in its own right, and I would see it again, despite the fact that so many interesting subplots had to be cut to shrink the book to a filmable length.

Of course, much of the fun in the book is the slyness of Fowler’s emulations of the six Austen plots in the lives of her six characters.  You realize fairly early on that Jocelyn is the efficient and matchmaking Emma, but it takes more time to understand that Sylvia’s decorous restraint makes her a dead ringer for Elinor Dashwood.  Grigg’s childhood experience of being near-abandoned at a strange castle run perfect counter to Catherine Morland’s fanciful dread of Northanger Abbey.  I loved the book’s wily use of Austen’s plots and characters.

And then there is the book’s delicious back matter, absent of course from the movie.  Fowler has more appendices than the trio of endings to Return of the King, including, most entertainingly, a chronology of reviews and comments about Austen from the turn of the nineteenth century to the present.  Austenites can puff up with righteous indignation at Mark Twain’s infuriating comment that he would like to dig up Austen’s shin bone and smack her skull with it (!), or Sir Walter Scott’s scathing, patronizing review of Emma.  (Scott later changed his tune.)  And we can all cheer at E.M. Forster’s confession that he was “slightly imbecile about Jane Austen,” who was his favorite author.  I always knew there was a reason I liked Forster.

Also great fun are the discussion questions for book clubs, brilliantly presented in each character’s voice.  (“In The Jane Austen Book Club, I take two falls and visit two hospitals,” writes Allegra.  “Did you stop to wonder how a woman who supports herself making jewelry affords health insurance?  Do you think we will ever have universal health care in this country?”) Definitely worth checking out.

In short, this one is a winner either way.  The book is better than the movie--though as we've already said, that's an almost universal rule--but the movie is awfully amusing on its own, with great comedy, strong performances, and the obligatory Austenish happy ending.

From Book to Movie, Part I: A Review of The Other Boleyn Girl

This is the first of three blog reviews on recent movies, compared with their book counterparts.  Not to give away the store, but in all three instances, I felt the book was better than the movie--it differed only by how much better.  This whole exercise has made me ponder the issue of movie adaptations. (And by the way, if you’ve never seen the movie Adaptation, do rent it; it’s wonderfully clever and has hilarious asides about postmodernism, POV, and the writing process.)  Most film adaptations are so inferior to their book predecessors that I am hard pressed to think of examples the other way around.  Are there movies that improve upon the books they adapt?  The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, maybe.  Callie Khouri took an overwrought and schlocky D novel (sorry, but it’s true) and made a rather brave B film out of it.  But that is the only example I can think of, and it seems to be the one that proves the rule.  It certainly helps if you’re starting out with a rotten book—there’s no place to go but up.

The Other Boleyn Girl
Book: B
Movie: C-

I enjoyed the smutty novel The Other Boleyn Girl, a fat, satisfying yarn of sibling rivalry, palace betrayals and scheming clans.  I should have known that a two-hour movie would barely be able to contain all of the historical details that made the 660+ page tome so intriguing.  If the novel is a doublet-ripping guilty pleasure, the movie just is a mess.

I can forgive many of the necessary changes that were made to the plot, such as eliminating minor characters and accelerating the storyline so that Mary and Anne can be played by adult actors throughout. (In the book, and possibly in history, Mary was married off to William Carey when she was just twelve, and dispatched to the king’s bed not long after.)

What is harder to forgive is the movie’s total overhaul of the book’s characterizations.  All the bad guys get to remain bad, but the bad girls get a makeover.  In the book, Mary is one of the only characters we can root for, because every person around her—her parents, uncle, sister Anne and brother George—is scheming to get ahead, though George at least is an ally.  Anne in the film is almost unrecognizably human, even kind, speaking gently to her servants (would any Tudor queen have thanked her servants in that wholly American way?), showing maternal affection and concern for her daughter Elizabeth, and loving her sister Mary.  In the film, they begin as best friends whose relations are temporarily fractured by their competition for the king’s bed, but in the much more interesting book their relationship is tortured from first to last.  And in the book, their mother is one of the most calculating and ambitious members of the family, showing no love to any of her children and thinking of them only in terms of how they might push the family forward.  In the film, the mother (played by a too-little-seen Kristin Scott Thomas) is a constant, if wholly ineffectual, moral compass.

The movie takes the safe route by making nice whenever the book is more complex.  The Tinseltown version makes Anne more of a victim and Mary more of a courageous heroine than the book ever does.  At the end of the book, Mary does not plead for her sister’s life or visit Anne in prison, as in the movie, nor does she risk her own life to take care of little Elizabeth.  She wisely keeps her head down—and so is able to keep her head.  And in the movie, the incestuous incident between Anne and her brother stops short of anything really nasty, while the book darkly hints at their mutual guilt.  A whitewash all around.

My husband, who has not read the book, enjoyed the movie more than I did, and it certainly does have some merits.  Natalie Portman puts in a very credible performance as Anne, especially considering the bipolar manner in which the character is written.  The scenery is lush and the costumes are gorgeous.  But even if taken as a film in its own right, without reference to the book, too many aspects of it don’t work.  Mary’s first husband William Carey, after reluctantly turning his wife over to bed the king, entirely disappears from the movie.  At least the book has the decency to let the poor bloke die of a fever so that Mary can move on with her life.  In the movie, he just quietly vanishes and Mary remarries at the end of the story—an especially ironic editing oversight when you consider that this entire saga is about the intense difficulties of dissolving one 16th-century marriage in order to contract another.  (Henry, take notes on the ease with which this accomplished.)

What Do Publishers Mean By Emergent?

I had an op-ed piece in this week's edition of PW Religion BookLine, kvetching about the overuse of the term "Emergent." If you're interested, the article has sparked a nice discussion here and a notice in an Austin newspaper here.  (Thanks, Kelly, for making me aware of this.)

BTW, I'm especially pleased that the edited version kept my shout-out to Russell Rathbun's book Post-Rapture Radio.  What a ride that book is.  It's like the Being John Malkovich of evangelical Christianity. As a reviewer, I'm not even sure how to describe that book, and find myself in the unusual position of being lost for words.   It's like crawling into someone else's head.  It's fascinating and discomfiting.

Enough of this enthusiastic praise!  On with the kvetching.

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by Jana Riess, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 3/12/2008

I got another one of those press releases today, the kind that hypes a book submission as fresh, edgy and pioneering. Nothing unusual there. Only nowadays, Christian publishers are latching on to a new term for such books, whether or not they deserve it: "Emergent."

"Emergent" or the emerging church is a group of Christians—primarily but not exclusively evangelicals—who share some common characteristics. They're interested in postmodernism, and want to explore how to be Christian in today's pluralistic world. They are especially keen on rethinking the Christian gospel through story and experience rather than dogma. They want to reach out to the unchurched (though, like many Christian movements, seem to have their best success among the burned-out "postchurched"), and are well-connected to new technologies, especially the blogosphere. They want to simplify Christian trappings, sometimes foregoing buildings in favor of small house churches that take communion al fresco by downing grape juice in Styrofoam cups with the homeless. You get the idea.

But many of the books I'm receiving that bear the coveted label "Emergent" are not, to my thinking, Emergent at all. Some are authored by megachurch pastors, and since Emergent folks are to megachurches what locally grown organic vegetables are to fast food, I've learned to be suspicious of the label "Emergent." What it should mean is some of what I discussed above. What it increasingly means is this: The following book was written by a Protestant male under the age of 40. He probably has a goatee. He definitely wears eyeglasses that are much cooler than yours.

Part of the problem rests with the porous boundaries of a group like Emergent. As Tony Jones helpfully points out in The New Christians (Jossey-Bass, Mar.), the emerging church is not an institution so much as a conversation. And a conversation is by its nature permeable, which is helpful when you're trying to avoid church-as-usual and generate some new ideas. Yet this conversation's very openness has left it vulnerable to friendly exploitation, as the Establishment quietly co-opts the iconoclastic, anti-Establishment label Emergent. In the end, readers wind up feeling like they've been enjoying a terrific tête-à-tête with someone at a cocktail party until a brash and self-promoting interloper butts in.

Ironically, some of the books that casually brandish the label "Emergent" seem distinctly at odds with the liberal, often radical, political action espoused by many Emergent authors, including Brian McLaren (Everything Must Change, Thomas Nelson, 2007), Tony Jones, Shane Claiborne (Jesus for President, Zondervan, Mar.), or Will and Lisa Samson (Justice in the Burbs, Baker, 2007).

What I fear will be next is a trend of blurring Emergent ideas with self-help. It's easy to see how publishers would find this marriage irresistible: why not join an appealingly edgy hipster ethos with those stock-in-trade Christian books that promise improved prayer life, more effective parenting, and better abs in 30 days? But Emergent folks deserve more than becoming the book equivalent of a glossy infomercial. I'm not the only one who's uncomfortable: I can, in an utterly un-postmodern appeal to an Authority Figure, quote Brian McLaren on the subject: "It's not about the church meeting your needs; it's about joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."

The thing is, I care about this issue. I know it's trendy for the literati to scoff at the emerging church conversation and show their own bona fides by pointing out that there is nothing truly new about it from a theological perspective. (Bonus points if you can drop the names of one or two early church fathers who championed some of the same ideas.) But that been-there-done-that attitude in no way explains how Russell Rathbun's Jossey-Bass book Post-Rapture Radio (which will release in paper in June) knocked the wind right out of me, why I mark up my copies of Brian McLaren's books with arrows and exclamation points, and why I get excited whenever I discover a fresh Emergent voice. There is something special going on here, which is why the growing co-optation of the label Emergent for the same-old-same-old Christian books is so annoying. Here's hoping that publishers (and authors) can restrain themselves before the label becomes meaningless.

Anne Rice's CHRIST THE LORD

I was interviewed in USA Today this week about Anne Rice's series Christ the Lord, which is a novelization of the life of Christ.  I found the first book (about Jesus' childhood) rather stilted, but this second one definitely hits its stride.  The book is called The Road to Cana and just released on Tuesday.

The novel traces Jesus' adult life just before his public ministry, so he's around 30.  Since the Bible says nothing about this period, Rice is free to invent and speculate, putting her imagination to work alongside the prodigious research she conducted for this series.  The result is a captivating novel that manages to portray Jesus as both human and divine; he has a believable love interest he is trying to deny, family troubles, and more than the usual round of difficulties with the government. He also has a transcendent quality that is obvious to all who know him, even those who are deeply suspicious of it.  As I read it, I was impressed by Rice's ability to make Jesus into a plausible character; that's awfully hard to do with someone who is supposed to be sinless.  How can a novelist make a sinless character a fully human, fleshed-out person?  Yet Rice manages this feat. The novel is also peopled with other loving, flawed characters. It's worth checking out.

Hilla-guilt

Today (as all of you may know unless you have been dwelling in an Antarctican cave) is primary day in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.  After Super Tuesday, when this contest was supposed to be all sewn up one way or the other, journalists don't even have a name for this day.  This morning CNN called it "Crucial Tuesday."  It's Do or Die Tuesday, Now or Never Tuesday, End of the Road Tuesday. Whatever it is, it's important.

Most Ohio voters never dreamed our primary would be meaningful at this late date.  So it's been surprising to come home these past two weeks after being out for just two or three hours and find several messages on my voice mail, all stumping for my vote.  Vote for Hillary's experience!  Vote for Barack's promise of change!  Vote for the Cincinnati public schools and the zoo levy!  I'm surprised the zoo didn't go door to door with dangerous wildlife, so desperate are those folks for this levy to pass.

What these callers don't realize is that I, like record numbers of primary voters, already cast my vote last month.  I knew I would be out of town today and got an absentee ballot.  Which brings me to the Day of Judgment: Yes on the zoo.   (Who can say no to hungry baby pandas?)  Yes--of course!--on the Cincinnati Public Schools.  And yes to that fledgling upstart, Barack Obama.

I would love to tell you that I voted for Obama because his political positions most approximate my own, that his plan to lift the embargo on Cuba is necessary and timely, blah blah blah.  I would love to tell you that after a careful study of the minute differences between his and Clinton's plans for near-universal health care, I sided with his position.  I wish I could tell you that it was because he voted against the Kyle-Lieberman amendment, while Clinton supported it.  But what it boiled down to was charisma, plain and simple.  I like the man.  I'm not heading toward "Obamamania" (and BTW, did you see the hilarious SNL debate sketch a couple of weeks ago?  Too, too funny), but I confess I feel hopeful and optimistic about an Obama presidency.  And at the end of the day, though we are loathe to admit it, most of us vote this way, and justify those gut-reaction ballots later with a political veneer.

The last time I felt this way about a political candidate was 20 years ago, when I was a brand-new voter.  At 18, I signed up to work on the presidential campaign of another Illinois senator, Paul Simon, may his beautiful soul rest in peace.  I adored Paul Simon.  I loved his politics, I loved his counter-cultural bow ties, I loved his passion for the poor.  I loved the fact that he had written books on history, politics, marriage, religion, you name it.  The guy was a true intellectual and a gentleman.  (Which, of course, is why he never had a chance.  Not long after I got the thrill of shaking Sen. Simon's hand at a Boston rally, he dropped out of the race.)

It's wonderful to feel a little hope again.  But this time, my joy is tempered with a strong dose of Hilla-guilt.  I feel terribly sorry for Hillary Clinton, who has worked so hard and done so much for America.  She has survived vilification and betrayal and come out on top, only to see her well-deserved nomination stolen by this rock star who came out of nowhere.  And she'll never have the consolation of being able to say, "It was just about politics."  It's not about politics; it boils down to personality, this year more than ever since her political positions are virtually indistinguishable from her rival's.  The bottom line is that despite being a Wellesley sister and a Democrat, and despite having great respect for her amazing achievements, I preferred someone else.  And I feel incredibly guilty about that.

But Hillary should cheer up.  She's got my husband's vote, so we will happily cancel each other out today.

The Cincinnati Kid

Dear Mr. Reilly,

I hope I am one of about 5,782 people from Cincinnati who have alerted you to one of the most inspiring sports stories we've ever seen.  But just in case the other 5,781 are asleep at the switch, here is a clipping about our incredible local athlete, Dustin Carter, who just made state in high school wrestling.  He is also a quadruple amputee.  I have been following his story with tremendous interest in the paper.  I don't know jack squat about wrestling, but I know a great heart when I see one. 

Best wishes,
Jana Riess

This is a copy of a note I sent to Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly this morning, after reading in yesterday's paper that Dustin Carter has achieved his dream of making the state tournament in wrestling.  I am so inspired by this young man, I just can't tell you.  I think he would be a terrific subject for Reilly's weekly column about people in sports.  You can watch Dustin here on YouTube; check it out.

And speaking of Reilly, I recently read his hilarious and touching book Hate Mail From Cheerleaders and now consider myself a fan of his writing, even though I don't subscribe to SI and don't follow any of the sports that SI subscribers would consider actual sports (i.e.. anything other than gymnastics and figure skating).  The book has about 100 of Reilly's favorite columns from the last few years, taking on the heroic and inspiring as well as the bad-boy excesses of Barry Bonds and his ilk.  Some of the columns are wet-your-pants funny, and others brought me to tears.  It's a  great collection.

Lent: It's That Time of Year Again

Whoa ho!  Lent has snuck up on me this year.  I can't remember it ever being this early.  And suddenly it is time to hunker down and get serious about faith and whatnot.  (Well, not before a fun Carnival pancake supper at my husband's church tonight.  And hey -- I just learned that the word Carnival means "farewell to meat" -- the idea being that Shrove Tuesday was the last time old-school Catholics could eat meat for a good six weeks.  Isn't that a cool etymology? I never gave that word any thought.)

As many of you know, Phil and I have tried many different kinds of Lenten sacrifices through the years -- giving up shopping, meat, sugar, chocolate, and I can't even remember what else.  This year we are going to be listening to the New Testament for about a half hour each day.  I am very impressed with the new audio Bibles-- fully scored dramatizations of the Bible done by casts of professional actors--and am looking forward to this time of focused reading (er, listening).  I have already started listening to The Bible Experience from Zondervan, and will alternate between that and the new audio NT from Thomas Nelson.  When it's all done I will be reviewing both Bible dramatizations for Books and Culture. Even though I've barely started, I can already tell you that listening to Scripture is an invaluable complement to reading it.  The Bible was intended to be understood orally, not read silently or privately, and there's something uniquely powerful about these dramatized audio BIbles.  They are completely different from the dry, stilted and-it-came-to-pass recorded books of yesteryear. 

What are you doing for Lent this year? 

Take That, Delta Airlines!

For the last year or so I've been assiduously hoarding my Delta frequent flier miles.  The goal: to fly to the Outer Banks this summer for our semi-annual beach vacation with Phil's family, so as to avoid a 15-hour drive.  Our vacation is planned for the end of June, and so I called in November to make the arrangements. I had about 90,000 miles to work with, the result of a lot of travel in the last year as well as purchases on a Delta credit card.

But November was already much too late to snag a coveted "award seat" for summer travel at the 25,000 mile rate.  If we wanted to spend 50,000 miles per ticket, well, there was tons of availability!  But for 25K there was nada, zip, nothing, no way no how.  And that included flying from Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville, Dayton or Columbus on dates all around our proposed travel dates. Aaaaugh.

Not to be deterred, I tried to use the miles for a later trip we'd planned to South Dakota, with similar results.  Apparently Delta opens up what few seats it saves for award travelers exactly 10 months beforehand, and the ticket agent told me I needed to call the exact morning 10 months before the trip if I wanted to have the best shot at seats. 

I then tried to use Delta miles for a business trip to California in May.  That trip is on my own quarter, so I thought it would be great if I could use miles.  No dice there, either, at least not for the dates I need (which is admittedly Memorial Day weekend).  Strike three.

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.  Isn't that the saying?  I took this to heart and stuck a knife in dear old Delta airlines.  When messing around on the SkyMiles page I discovered that Medallion members can take advantage of something called "Medallion Marketplace."  Basically, this is a little shoppers' paradise where road warriors like me who can never use their FF miles for actual award travel can trade in miles for gift cards to various stores.  Wow!  It was amazingly easy and I am now the proud owner of enormous gift cards to Lowe's, Circuit City and the Pottery Barn.  Phil is buying lumber and materials to build us bookshelves; we will re-tile the bathroom floor; and I am buying drapes for the downstairs. 

Thank you, Delta Airlines!  I travel all over the country to earn miles so I can be a more comfortable homebody.  There's irony lurking in there somewhere.

AP/CNN Story on Mormonism in the Public Eye

I am quoted in a news story today about how individual Mormons are responding to the increased media scrutiny Mormonism has faced because of the Romney campaign. Jennifer Dobner did an excellent job with the story, and her knowledge and experience exemplify what I was trying to convey in the quote: I think the media has improved a hundredfold in how Mormonism is covered now versus five years ago. (I sound very cranky in the article, but I am not misquoted or quoted out of context; I really am that cranky.) Most journalists I talk to do a great job, and I haven't seen that many media gaffes at all during the campaign.

But I question whether the nuances of Mormon belief that journalists are trying so hard to understand and get right are filtering down to ordinary folks, who seem to hold to a lot of strange ideas about Mormonism.  Some of those people write to me privately at this blog address with friendly questions about my faith ("Do you really think you'll be having sex for all of eternity?" Answer: Only if I get very, very lucky), and lots of Bible verses.  It's hard to know what to say when Mormon beliefs are taken so badly out of context.  I guess that is why I get a little cranky. 

The AP sent a photographer to the house the other day to take a portrait, which I don't think was used.  I asked him where he would like to set up, and he asked, half-jokingly, if I had a giant poster of Mitt Romney we could use as a backdrop.  I told him that might not be appropriate given that I am a Democrat and my big dilemma is whether I will cast my primary vote for Hillary or Barack on March 3.  But old stereotypes die hard, don't they?  At least he was super nice about it.

One thing that's been good about all the attention is that some churches are inviting Mormons to come and speak, explaining the basic tenets just so people can hear it from a Mormon's own perspective.  I just heard today from a former bishop of mine who was asked by an Episcopal congregation to come and do an informal talk about Mormon beliefs.  As I said in the article, I do get tired of explaining over and over what Mormons believe, but I'd rather have people ask actual live Mormons like me than go consult an anti-cult book that was written by some "expert" who has probably never deigned to attend a Mormon Sunday service.