Day: April 1, 2006

I’ve wanted to see Howl’s Moving Castle for some time. When I did, I’m not sure what I saw.

Original, bizarre, a wonderful mishmash of ideas and cultures, harkening especially to The Difference Engine, where William Gibson and Bruce Sterling looked at computers as they might have existed in Victorian England if Charles Babbage had been successful. (Good book, by the way.) Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t restrain himself to those threads, though.

I couldn’t imagine where the various ideas came from and how it ended up in a Japanese animated movie, with voices from Billy Crystal, Lauren Bacall, Christian Bale, and others for the American release. But it’s all from a book…Diana Wynne Jones wrote the novel.

Whoa.

An 80 from Metacritic for the film, by the way, with several glowing reviews.

I found The Secret Ways (1959) the least appealing of the three Alistair MacLean books I read over vacation. Preachy and hardly believable, despite interesting opening pages. The movie did not a get a flattering review from the New York Times reviewer in 1961, who asked

Is it possible, you wonder, that the shrill, broad melodramatics of this Universal release stem from Alistair MacLean’s original novel?

Hmmm… guess he enjoyed the book more than me.

There is a train sequence which reminded me of Breakheart Pass (written much later) and The Great Train Robbery (also written later), so maybe there is more original here than I thought.

But I’d pass, given the opportunity to make the choice once more. I do have two additional MacLean novels handy, but I’m putting the snacks aside until I need to cleanse the palate once more.

The next snack in my MacLean binge was Breakheart Pass (1974). Written for the movies (that’s where the link goes), Breakheart Pass runs along its (train) track and doesn’t stop for much. I recognized immediately that I had read it before, but no matter. I think the movie might be enjoyable, since the book felt like a screenplay. The novel even included a graphic detailing the different cars in the train (story is set in the 1870s or so), and a list of characters!

I wonder if the book sold well or not. With my media business hat on, I applaud the idea of the “release windows” being so close together! The book was published only a year before the movie was released. I think this one might have been better only as a movie, though.

During my vacation, I went on an Alistair MacLean binge. The first of the three tales I polished off was Ice Station Zebra (1963).

If you read MacLean, you read for the action. Ice Station Zebra hits on that count. Yet the first-person smug narration was more emblematic in this one. I haven’t been reading as many omniscient narrator books where so much is withheld from the reader along the way. Only in the wrap-up does the narrator hold forth, in dialogue, and explain all the hints he’s been dropping all along as inner monologue. Sort of maddening, but at least the action never stops to let you get too frustrated with the smokescreens.

Many of MacLean’s novels and stories were made into movies, including Zebra, but I haven’t seen this one. I probably have read this one before, but I wasn’t totally sure. I treated Zebra (and the following ones) as brain candy, and I left them in the vacation house for some other escapist to enjoy.

When I’m posting about books, I always think back to Phoebe-Lou Adams from The Atlantic Monthly. Phoebe-Lou is no longer with us, sadly. I did not know her very well, as I was at the magazine quite late in her career, and I was (frankly) a bit intimidated by someone 60 years my elder.

Yet, in three to five sentences, Phoebe-Lou could distill the essence of a book and give you a point of view which left you shaking your head at her tartness or admiration…or sometimes both. And she did this month after month, decade after decade, for maybe a dozen books each issue. I can only aspire to be so eloquent and brief all at once.

In the April, 2006 issue, The Atlantic seems to have returned to the concept of Brief Reviews, with Cover to Cover. However, while it’s useful to have summaries of a few dozen new books, there is no opinion in these precis.

The New York Times article :Death by Smiley Face: When Rivals Disdain Profit” muses on how businesses must now compete with those who are not motivated first and foremost by money. Whatever I think about this from a media point of view, I think it’s a nifty part of 21st century life that enough people can contribute this kind of time and energy to anything not directly insuring their survival. May seem obvious sitting in the United States, but the human experience isn’t so wonderful everywhere (even here), so let’s not forget to celebrate (occasionally) when people rise above the bare minimum and actually make each others’ lives better, in whatever small way.

The CNET reference which triggered my filters to this article in the first place:

Another example of genius ideas from people who don’t seek Internet riches is Chowhound.com. This nine-year-old site features community-generated restaurant review boards in various cities and steadfastly refuses to accept restaurant advertising. Rather than continue to grovel for donations and make a few dollars selling Chowhound books, the founders sold the company last month to CNET Networks, a Web business known for its reviews of technology products, for an undisclosed amount. Unlike Chowhound, whose independence and spirit it has vowed to maintain while helping to spiff up the site, CNET.com is chockablock with ads.