One of the Best Ever Books-"The Catcher in the Rye", 1951

WARNING: VULGAR AND IRREVERENT!
It took the author about 10 years to finish the book, but you couldn't tell by the perfect flow. I read it in 6 hours, couldn't put it down. I can't remember that happening ever before. I'm not a fast reader. The dialogue is incredible in this mini-biography re: many men. Problem is, it is told by some moron who's thinking stuff like "she was lousy with rocks". I would call this J. D. Salinger thing a novella. All the more incredible for a classic. 9 STARS if you can take it.
JI

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One of the Best Books of the '30's-"Grapes of Wrath"

...or "The Human Condition", John Steinbeck's 1939 landmark story of human compassion and cruelty, of hope and hopelessness in an intriguing vernacular gets 9 of 10 stars. Despair has no answer for the will to exist.
JI

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Decades' Best Books-An American Treasure Disappoints

MARK TWAIN's (Samuel L. Clemens) "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and other Essays and Stories" 1900, gets 6* of 10 out of respect. In fairness, most of the compilation is from the 1800s. My opinion: read "Huck' Finn".
JI

More bad "Best of the Decades'" from a well-respected published source. In other words, we disagree:

PAT CONROY's "The Prince of Tides" 1986, this is too wordy for a good story (which it is). 5*. JA
ANNE MORROW LINDBERG's "Gift from the Sea" 1955, 4*. The best thing: short, worst: aristocratic. JA
SHERWOOD ANDERSON's "Winesburg, Ohio" 1919, some good descriptive phrases in a story of repression. 5*. JA
MILES FRANKLIN's (Stella Maria Sarah Franklin) "My Brilliant Career" 1901, 6* and surprisingly well written by a teenager near the turn of the century. JA
JEFFREY EUGENIDES's story published in 1993, "The Virgin Suicides", is best of what? Best hip 1990's story? In my doddering old age I hadn't been cognizant of the romanticizing of suicide. I didn't get it but the story's worth 7*. It at least has one of my favorite lines: "Don't waste your time on life". JI
JACK FINNEY's 1970 novel "Time and Again" carries the usual 7* blah blah blah review. "It's a good story with a couple of interesting turns". He tries his hand at historical fiction, and knows his NYC history. JA

Hey, where's "The Wind in the Willows" (1908, K. Grahame) on the '00's best list? Oh for the love of Toady, Mole and Water Rat!

The best of the 1700s: "Gulliver's Travels", 1726 and revised 1735, J. Swift (real title, get this, "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships"), "Robinson Crusoe" (the first novel in English? I was surprised how little of the book was about R. C.'s man Friday. I think that you will be also. The book is written in "Old English" vernacular. That's a struggle. No pain no gain. It's worth the trouble.), D. Defoe, 1719.

And the 1800s? Not the S. L. Clemens "...Hadleyburg..." thing. I guess "Call me Ishmael." if you will.

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"The Women", T. C. Boyle, 2009

This book had me running between the dictionary (half of the time for non-existent words, but you'll know what Boyle means) and the computer (to look up referenced people and architectural feats). And it was a marvelous labor. (Most places are real, characters not.) The morphine addict is insane, by the way. Actually, FLLW. seemed to make everyone insane. And yet this story is infused with Everyman. I comprehend the angst in the book too well I fear. Boyle shows that he writes as well from the feminine as the masculine. I would nominate this novel as one of the decade's top ten. Tom (the author) is lucky enough and sincere enough to live in one of Wrieto-San's (this term coined by one of the fervent fictional characters, Tadashi Sato) concoctions, the George C. Stewart House. His other top five novels are (opinionated): "Riven Rock" (his best and another historical novel; worthy of a best of the 1990s), "The Road to Wellville" (about the Kellogg cereal nut), in a different vein would be "Tortilla Curtain" (his 2nd. best), "Budding Prospects" for stoners, and "East is East" with a worthy Japanese main character (like "The Women").

Ang Lee

"Lust, Caution" (original theater release 2007) is the English "translation" for this A. L. flick. Despite it's cultural chasms, it's an appealing challenge in which the good girl sexes the bad guy for the cause, to ensnare him. Something goes wrong though. She becomes his lover instead of his mistress, as she had intended. She should have eaten the cyanide. I had thought I would, but I liked the film. In the end, I got enough interpretation.

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As a Directorial Debut, Just Not as Good as "Blood Simple"

Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York" is the most disorienting and disconcerting movie that I've seen since "Eraserhead". Yeah, yeah, that one's a cult classic. C. K. wrote "Adaptation" (o.k.), "Being John Malkovich" (good), and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (lousy, and ruining our great physical comedian, Jim Carrey). Syn... is loaded with good actors, but it still got ruint. Roger Ebert said "See it twice". I wish I wouldn't have seen it once. This is a story about a paranoid who spends about 100 years filming in a New York City replica. Touchingly stupid. The film seems to be 100 years in length. Even Philip Seymour Hoffman didn't save this one for me.
Speaking of which P. S. H. is my new fave actor. Good gosh, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper are as senile as I am. Philip is never brilliant, just great. Effective is his modus operandi. I guess his first major flick was "Boogie Nights". I don't remember him, just Burt and the girls. This guy is in his early 40's, so we hope to see much more from him. Can you imagine the same person playing Truman Capote and a parish priest (no, not in the same movie) equally effectively? Philip pulls off anything that he tries.

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Directed and Produced by...

Charles Ferguson. As I watched the documentary "No End in Sight", I had to wonder. Does the nickname "Rummie" mean "Rum Dumb" or "Redrum"? He seems to be the only one "getting" the jokes in his press conferences. By instigating (with distinguished help) the abolition of the pro-U.S.A. Iraqi military squads (and putting them out of work), he achieved, presumably accidentally:
1) An effective genocide, by "allies" against U.S. troops.
2) Anarchy of the worst kind in Iraq.
3) Creation, perhaps, of a solid 3 country bloc against us (of fundamentalist extremists). Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, as a single, focused entity, will be a powerful "Axis of Evil".
Oh well, stuff happens Henny Penny. Comical.

It occurs to me that no North American administration (hopefully) will ever foster the expose' like the Bush guys of the early 21st. century.


Robert Redford. Oh alright, he's not an off-beat director. But he does have an off-beat persona. I had resisted seeing "The Legend of Bagger Vance" for years. Looked sappy. I didn't realize that it was a "sweet" golf movie. I love golf! And I liked the movie. Will Smith, great. Matt Damon, great. J. Michael Moncrief, great. Charlize Theron, you know. It's the first time that I thought I was wrong and I was right. What?

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