Movies and Books

I don't watch too many movies, but the ones I enjoy the most are usually based on books. Sometimes I have read the book first, but other times the movie comes first and I find out that there is a book.

For example, this year, I went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (basically because I adore Bill Nighy) and discovered that it was taken from a book originally titled These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach. I enjoyed them both.

Also this year I came upon the books Millions and Framed written by Frank Cottrell Boyce. I read Millions first and then rented the movie version. On the other hand, I found Framed on Masterpiece Theatre and that led me to the book. 

I tackled The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas in July for the "Paris in July" blog challenge and managed to watch three versions of the movie all of which were very different. Each included and excluded different parts of the adventure told in the book. All of them were terrific. 

Others I have read and watched this year include All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. In both cases the books were better although I don't really spin my wheels bothering with that argument. I try to take each book or movie on its own merits.

Two other movies I saw this year were Bell, Book, and Candle - for obvious reasons - and 84 Charing Cross Road. BB&C had many bookish aspects to it. It was originally a play and then was adapted for the big screen. Since I plan to read a play or two in 2013, perhaps it will find its way onto my TBR pile.

I own a copy of the book 84 Charing Cross Road and have slipped it into my Books to Be Re-read stack. Make that Re-Re-Re-read. I never grow tired of reading it.

Conversely, I rented The Hunger Games (star Jennifer Lawrence is from my hometown and I was curious to see her in action) but I have no desire to read the book.

What is your take on the book/movie idea? Do you enjoy seeing the characters On Screen as well as On Page? Any favorites?

Ciao, Tuscany

Tuscany, Italy

My Mayes Marathon is almost complete. Just of few pages more and I am finished with Tuscany - Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, and Every Day in Tuscany. I hate to say this but I am almost put off Italy by this last in the series. Way too many perfect friends, perfect homes, perfect outdoor meals and the perfect wines to go with all. Not to mention a perfect grandson. And, lest I forget, way too many Italian terms splattered across the pages. Even though she translates, it slows down the enjoyment for me. Frances, you are beginning to bore me but I will carry on to the end.

I did finish The Enchanted April. It was a very sweet book. I think I came to like Lady Caroline the best. And I certainly couldn't see anyone else but Joan Plowright as Mrs. Fisher. Perfect casting there. I have heard good things about another of Elizabeth von Arnim's books - Elizabeth and her German Garden. Another one for the long, long list of Books to Be Read that I keep on my computer.

It seems I have finished three books all at once. Isn't that the way, though. But, oh joy, that just means I will be starting at least three new books from my list.

My Friend Flicker

Yesterday I took my laptop to the repair guy because the screen kept flickering. Annoying. I figured the screen was going out. Of course, just like when you take your car to the mechanic to investigate the rattling noise and all is quiet, or you take yourself to the doctor because you are not feeling well and immediately feel better as you sit in the waiting room, the flicker refused to flick. I left the computer with him as he said he would check for viruses and updates and maybe it would start its jumping jacks.

It never did. I picked it up today and he said the screen stayed motionless. OK. I brought it home, hooked it up and of course it started to flicker.

I turned it off and turned my mind to what the problem could be. Over a slice of 2-day-old pizza I decided maybe my Internet connection was loose. I approached the U-verse box with caution and wiggled the two wires. I turned on the computer. No flicker. Sigh. I hope it is fixed. The box must have gotten jiggled when my housekeeper swept the floor.

Darn. There is still a bit of a flicker. Oh dear. And here I thought I had solved the problem. So now I have disabled the wireless connection to see if that will stop the jumping about.

I was disappointed that I didn't get to post yesterday. I did try to post via my Nook Color, but I could only get a keyboard on the screen to type the headline. When I tried to write text, the keyboard disappeared.

Another disappointment is that my faithful DVD store does not have a copy of Under the Tuscan Sun. Neither does my library. I have a shout out to friends in case someone has the movie on her DVD shelf.

Have begun Bella Tuscany and am just as immersed in Italian life as I was with Under the Tuscan Sun.

L'incantevole aprile

Returned two mysteries to the library that just wouldn't do. One was too dark and one was too annoying. The author of the second one had the narrator cutting off pronouns at the beginning of sentences. For example "Must talk to grandmere about this." or "Can't let Claude know about that." or "Am confused." She wasn't the only one.

It was disorienting because she didn't do this all the time, but often enough that it sort of jolted me. Sometimes I couldn't figure out if she was talking to herself or if someone was talking to her. It would have been all right if these were journal entries... Anyway, I let Murder on the Riviera go.

Finished Under the Tuscan Sun. I very much enjoyed Mayes's writing style. It was a bonus that I had been to Cortona, the town in Tuscany that she calls home, and that I had some recent experience with contractors having just gone through a remodel of my own. Of course, I didn't have to contend with a language barrier, but I could identify with workers not showing up and unsuspected complications with the project. This is the second book I have read this year about house restorations in foreign countries. Do I see a pattern? Maybe I just love reading how others have dealt with their projects. And the distant locales add to the fun.

Started The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Van Arnim on my Nook Color. I am enchanted. I am enamored of Lady Caroline, such a beauty, who just wants to be left alone. And surprises herself discovering that she just wants to think. And then Mrs. Fisher who wants to be left alone with her memories. Lotty who knows they are all in heaven and only good things will come of it. And dear Rose who is so unhappy and would so like her husband to love her.

Things are going to change, I am sure. I have seen the movie but reading the story goes much deeper into each character's thoughts and motivations. And then of course there is the fact that the four women are in Italy. Sigh.

Shakespeare and Company

An added weekend bonus: my order from Amazon arrived yesterday. I dove into the copy of Paris Was Ours edited by Penelope Rowlands.

I read "My Bookstore High" by Jeremy Mercer a 10-page excerpt from his book Time Was Soft There about living in Paris. This being about a bookshop in Paris I figured it would be about Shakespeare and Company. It is, but it is about a little more than a visit or two to the famous Left Bank bookshop. Mercer lived at S&Co. while down and out in Paris. George Whitman, who owned the store, let young writers live and work there. Whitman died in 2011 at the age of 98 and his daughter Sylvia Beach Whitman runs the store now.

Of course, the daughter was named after the Sylvia Beach who first opened the bookstore known as Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 1919 and attracted many writers of the time including Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. It closed in 1940 during the German occupation of France and never reopened.

In 1951 Whitman, like Beach, also an American, opened Le Mistral, an English-language bookstore in Paris, and in 1954 changed its name to Shakespeare and Company as tribute to the original.

So Mercer tells a part of the tale of coming to live at the bookstore and how he learned to eat cheap in Paris by going to art openings and munching on the treats served there. In this excerpt, he and three new friends who live at the store go to a student cafeteria and get a fine meal of salad, lamb, roasted potatoes, green beans and yogurt for about two dollars. During the meal, one of them jumps up occasionally and snatches bread and cheese left by other diners to take back to the store for late-night snacks.

Of course this is all leading up to telling you that I have visited Shakespeare and Company on both of my trips to Paris. It is quite an experience and the narrow aisles are always crowded. When you buy a book there, they will stamp the title page with the seal: Shakespeare and Company * Kilometer  Zero  Paris.

The book I purchased on my last trip is a collection of essays by Czeslaw Milosz titled Proud to Be a Mammal. An odd selection I admit. The title page warns that these are essays on war, faith and memory by the Polish author and poet who died in 2004.  Odder still is that Mr. Milosz is mentioned by Frances Mayes in Under the Tuscan Sun which reminded me that I had this book. She met him at her university and had to introduce him to an audience sternly reminding herself not to call him 'Coleslaw' which is what she called him in her head before learning how to correctly pronounce his name.

I have no idea how his name is pronounced, so Coleslaw it will be from now on.

Under the Tuscan Sun

Piazza della Republica
Cortona, Italy

Leaving the Paris of Balzac and the farmyard of E.B. White and moving on to the sunny climes of Italy. I am probably the last person on earth to read Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. I haven't even seen the movie. But, I have been to Cortona, the hill town that Mayes falls in love with, where she buys Bramasole, a rundown farmhouse, (aren't they all? Where would be a story if the house was ready to move into?), and begins to tell her tale.

I bought the book about a year ago, but had not even opened it to page one.  About three months ago I bought the sequel - Everyday in Tuscany - and upon reading the back cover of that learned that there is a previous sequel - Bella Tuscany. So I have the first and the third. Guess I am going to be looking for that second book (even though it got pretty rotten reviews on Amazon).

I remember Cortona well because you park your car and take an escalator to the top of the town to the Piazza della Republica. That was a first. This is where I had a much deserved cappucino, served in a blue and white cup and saucer, after a tour of the Etruscan Academy Museum with all its lovelies.

After reading only one chapter of Mayes's book yesterday, I had to hurry to the kitchen to saute garlic and onions in olive oil, put the pasta on to boil, and then load the mound with cooked spinach and cheese. Molto buona for sure.