Old news by now, I’d say, but still news: “Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning” (NPR):
Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.Related reading
The New York Review Books volume of Helen Keller’s writing, The World I Live In (2012), has a few pages of notes identifying sources for quoted material, but many such passages are left unidentified. Having looked up the unidentified bits in Keller’s prose (thank you, Google Books), I thought it appropriate to share them here, for anyone who might looking. They reflect a great breadth of reading and are someimes quoted imperfectly, from memory perhaps, or from a faulty source.
Format: quoted material, page number in the NYRB edition, source. I have left poetry unlineated where Keller quotes it without line breaks.
From The World I Live In (1908)
“there’s a sound so fine, nothing lives ’twixt it and silence” (10)
A sound so fine, there's nothing lives
’Twixt it and silence.
James Sheridan Knowles, Virginius, 5.2 (1820)
*
"Kind letters that betray the heart’s deep history,
In which we feel the presence of a hand” (16)
Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand —
One touch of fire, — and all the rest is mystery!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dedication to The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
*
“dormouse valor” (10)
To awake your dormouse valor, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver.
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601–1602)
*
“may right
Her nature, shoot large sail on lengthening cord,
And rush exultant on the Infinite” (96)
Jehovah Lord,
Make room for rest, around me! out of sight
Now float me of the vexing land abhorred,
Till in deep calms of space my soul may right
Her nature, shoot large sail on lengthening cord,
And rush exultant on the Infinite.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Finite and Infinite” (1850)
*
“put life and mettle into their heels” (105)
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
Robert Burns, “Tam o’Shanter” (1791)
*
“idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean” (105)
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1834 text)
*
“high and disposedly” like Queen Elizabeth (106)
Agnes Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England (1840–1848). When Sir James Melville, envoy from Mary, Queen of Scots, was asked by Elizabeth which queen was the better dancer, Melville said that Mary danced ”not so high or disposedly“ as Elizabeth. Strickland takes that to mean that Mary danced like ”an elegant lady.“
*
“a rakish craft” (110)
’Twas Fiddledeedee who put to sea
With a rollicking buccaneer Bumblebee:
An acorn-cup was their hollow boat —
A rakish craft was their acorn-boat
Madison Julius Cawein, The Giant and the Star: Little Annals in Rhyme (1909)
*
From “Optimism: An Essay” (1903)
“the source and centre of all minds, their only point of rest” (136)
Thou are the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, eternal word!
William Cowper, “The Task” (1785)
*
“the evil but ‘a halt on the way to good’” (136–137)
The world an image of the divine, everything perfect of its kind, the bad simply a halt on the way to the good.
Richard Falckenberg, History of Modern Philosophy from Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time (1893). From a chapter about Nicolas of Cusa.
*
“labored, foredone, in the field and at the workshop, like haltered horses, if blind, so much the quieter” (138)
The dull millions that, in the workshop or furrowfield, grind foredone at the wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-horses, if blind so much the quieter?
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution (1837)
*
“Now touching goal, now backward hurl’d,
Toils the indomitable world” (141)
Now touching goal, now backward hurled —
Toils the indomitable world
William Watson, “The Father of the Forest” (1912)
*
“There are no substitutes for common sense, patience, integrity, and courage.” (144)
Harvard Baccalaureate Sermon, June 18, 1899. Author unidentified.
*
“whose bones lie on the mountains cold” (145)
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold
John Milton, Sonnet 18 [On the Late Massacre in Piedmont] (1655)
*
“Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth this autumn morning!” (152)
Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,
This autumn morning!
Robert Browning, “James Lee’s Wife” (1864)
*
“fashion of the smiling face” (153)
And in the midst of the winter, when his life runs lowest and he is reminded of the empty chairs of his beloved, it is well he should be condemned to this fashion of the smiling face.
Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Christmas Sermon” (1888)
*
“Drill your thoughts,” he said; “shut out the gloomy and call in the bright. There is more wisdom in shutting one’s eyes than your copybook philosophers will allow.” (153)
He records in his early diary how he said to a friend, depressed by painful reflections, “Drill your thoughts — shut out the gloomy, and call in the bright. There is more wisdom in ‘shutting one’s eyes,’ than your copy-book philosophers will allow.”
Letters of John Richard Green, ed. Leslie Stephen (1901). Green was an English historian.
*
“pasteboard passions and desires” (154)
After our little hour of strut and rave,
With all our pasteboard passions and desires
James Russell Lowell, “Commemoration Ode” [Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration] (1865)
*
“They are more precious than gold of Ophir. They are love and goodness and truth and hope, and their price is above rubies and sapphires.” (158)
Biblical phrasing. For instance: “It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire”; “No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies” (Job 28:16 and 18, King James Verson).
*
“the achievements of the warrior are like his canvas city, ‘today a camp, to-morrow all struck and vanished, a few pit-holes and heaps of straw’” (159)
Truly it is a mortifying thing for your Conqueror to reflect, how perishable is the metal which he hammers with such violence: how the kind earth will soon shroud-up his bloody foot-prints; and all that he achieved and skilfully piled together will be but like his own “canvas city” of a camp, — this evening loud with life, tomorrow all struck and vanished, ”a few earth-pits and heaps of straw!”
Thomas Carlyle, “Voltaire” (1829)
*
“paints yet more glorious triumphs on the cloud–curtain of the future” (160)
Seldom can the unhappy be persuaded that the evil of the day is sufficient for it; and the ambitious will not be content with present splendour, but paints yet more glorious triumphs, on the cloud-curtain of the future.
Thomas Carlyle, “Signs of the Times” (1829)
*
From “My Story” (1894)
“though fled fore’er the light” (166)
’Tis as the light itself of God were fled —
So dark is all around, so still, so dead;
Nor hope of change, one ray I find!
Yet must submit, though fled fore’er the light,
Though utter silence bring me double night,
Though to my insulated mind
Knowledge her richest pages ne’er unfold,
And “human face divine” I ne’er behold
Yet must submit, must be resigned.
Morrison Heady, The Double Night (1869). Heady was a deafblind poet. The Double Night is a long poem, dedicated “to the Shades of Milton and Beethoven.”
*
“How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid” (171)
Of all the beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene’er he met them,
Called them “Hiawatha’s Brothers.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
*
“Into each life some rain must fall” (177)
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Rainy Day” (1842)
*
“Love, — no other word we utter, Can so sweet and precious be” (179)
Trust —no other word we utter
Can so sweet and precious be,
Tuning all life’s jarring discords
Into heavenly harmony!
Herbert Newbury, “The Sweetest Word” (1867)
*
“Love is everything! And God is Love!” (179)
These words seem to be Helen Keller’s own. They are introduced thusly: “Every day brings me some new joy, some fresh token of love from distant friends, until in the fullness of my glad heart, I cry: ‘Love is everything! And God is Love!’”
Three related posts
Helen Keller on horizons : On lines : On tolerance
From xkcd : “Cursive Letters.” I like that L : swing for it!
Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)
[It bears repeating: Writing by hand need not mean cursive.]
[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, DVD, TCM, Vudu, YouTube.]
Two Trains Runnin’ (dir. Sam Pollard, 2016). This documentary looks back at events in Mississippi in the summer of 1964: the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and the efforts of two trios of white blues fanatics to find Son House and Skip James. The two trains, or narrative threads — racist brutality and music — never quite come together, despite a coda about the relationship between music and political change. And the contemporary performances that crop up between interviews and documentary footage ring painfully false: musicians in costume (hats, overalls) offering sad approximations of music they no doubt love (“Freight Train” is the worst). Best moments: Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Newport Folk Festival, playing “Shake ’Em On Down” as dancers move about him; Skip James, also at Newport, unfilmed but caught in photographs, singing “Devil Got My Woman” — a moment of high art that the filmmakers treat with the reverence it merits. ★★★ (YT)
[Gotta point out: Henry Vestine and Alan Wilson, both of whom figure in the story, were founding members of Canned Heat. Why’d they leave that out?]
*
From the Criterion Channel’s Gothic Noir feature
When Strangers Marry (dir. William Castle, 1944). Elaine thinks parts must have been left on the cutting-room floor; I think this B-noir is more subtly constructed than we first suspected. It’s the story of an Ohio waitress, Millie (Kim Hunter), who marries a salesman (Dean Jagger) after three dates and follows him to the big city (New York), only to find that he’s not in town and that she doesn’t really know what he’s all about. Robert Mitchum plays another salesman, a former suitor eager to lend Millie a hand. Strong overtones of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, and a bonus: what must be the most consequential mail chute in all film. ★★★★
The Sign of the Ram (dir. John Sturges, 1948). Intense psychodrama in a big old house, and something of a twin to Guest in the House (dir. John Brahm, 1944), in which a newcomer to a family undermines relationships. Here it’s a second wife, Leah St. Aubyn (Susan Peters), who does the damage: paralyzed from the waist down after saving two step-children from drowning, she mistrusts her husband (Alexander Knox), fears the imagined wiles of her new secretary (Phyllis Thaxter), undermines her older step-children’s romances with appalling lies (thereby keeping the children from leaving her), and gets a steady narcissistic supply from her youngest step-child, all while writing sentimental verse for newspaper publication. This movie was Susan Peters’s first and last after the hunting accident that left her paralyzed. Her performance here suggests a great loss to film. ★★★★
Lightning Strikes Twice (dir. King Vidor, 1951). Actress Shelley Carnes (Ruth Roman) travels to a dude ranch for her health and falls in love with local rancher Richard Trevelyan (Richard Todd), just acquitted of murdering his wife. But if he didn’t do it, who did? Zachary Scott plays Trev’s lecherous friend; Mercedes McCambridge does lots of emoting as the co-owner of the dude ranch. The confusing directions for driving to the ranch suggest to me the problem with the movie: too many odd, puzzling points — why, for instance, does an old ranching couple have an enormous portrait of Trev above their fireplace? ★★★
*
The Holdovers (dir. Alexander Payne, 2023). It’s 1970, and Paul Giamatti is Paul Hunham, a teacher of classics at a Massachusetts boarding school, bowtied, lazyeyed, pedantic, pompous, and punished by being assigned to watch over the small band of students stuck at the school over the Christmas and New Year’s break. One of them: Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a smart, rebellious student beset by family woes. Also wintering over: Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), head cook, and the mother of a recent graduate. All I’ll say is that The Hoidovers is the kind of movie that I’m willing to follow wherever it goes — it’s just that good, and I suspect it might be the best new movie I see all year. ★★★★ (DVD)
*
Outside the Law (dir. Jack Arnold, 1956). This year I’ve seen movies about Johnnies: Johnny Saxon, Johnny Eager, and here’s Johnny Salvo (Ray Danton), a paroled con and war hero, up for a pardon if he helps catch a gang of counterfeiters. Nothing much to see here, but son-father conflict (Danton and Judson Pratt) and a love-hate triangle add some interest, and the musical score — from five composers, including Henry Mancini — is consistently interesting. But for a story focused on tracking down the sources for the counterfeiters’ materials, there’s mighty little on the screen about paper. My favorite line: “Come on, Bormann, firms twice your size don’t use half the stationery you do!” ★★ (YT)
*
Shadow of a Doubt (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1943). The story of a serial killer, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten), paying a visit to his sister’s family in Santa Rosa, the Newtons: Joe (Henry Travers), Emma (Patricia Collinge), and their three children, most especially, young Charlie (Teresa Wright), the namesake who shares a deep bond with her glamorous uncle. I never tire of this movie. Watching it this time, I paid attention to the ways in which Thornton Wilder’s screenplay keeps the viewer off balance, making it possible to forget now and then that Uncle Charlie is — hey, wait a minute! — a serial killer. My favorite scene, forever: the library at closing time. ★★★★ (CC)
*
The Steel Trap (dir. Andrew Stone, 1952). Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright as a married couple, Jim and Laurie Osborne, with the weirdness factor lessened by Wright’s changed appearance (her hair is blonde) and her minimal role. It’s really a one-actor movie, with Cotten as an assistant bank manager whose interior monologue lets us into his plan to make off to Brazil (no extradition) with his wife and a heavy suitcase of cash from the vault. He has one weekend to pull it off before the bank switches to its winter hours: he must develop a persuasive story to tell his wife (a weekend getaway to manage a big bank deal), arrange care for his young daughter (who is supposed to follow), and obtain passports and schedule flights, with contingencies complicating his scheme at every turn. The movie has lots of suspense (certainly at least a four-dollar-rental’s worth) and strongly suggests that anyone is capable of becoming a criminal: “We have only so many days, so many hours, so many minutes to live, and we’re suckers if we don’t cram into them all the happiness we can get away with, regardless of how we do it.” ★★★ (V)
[I learned about this movie from Jerome Wesselberry’s review of Shadow of a Doubt. Jerome, whoever she is (the name is an alias), is a very smart watcher of movies. Thanks, Steven, for recommending her channel.]
*
The Bottom of the Bottle (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1956). Joseph Cotten as Pat Martin, “P.M.,” an Arizona attorney and rancher. He’s stuck in a loveless (and likely sexless) marriage to Nora (Ruth Roman), and he’s now confronted with the unexpected arrival of his brother Donald (Van Johnson), a convict and recovering alcoholic who’s escaped from Joliet (which everyone pronounces as Jolly-ette). Too many histrionic moments, but strong performances from Johnson and Roman. Cotten does a good job of suggesting just how much of his family history he’s been trying to forget: “Spend your life building up something worthwhile, and along comes the past.” ★★★ (YT)
*
Come Live with Me (dir. Clarence Brown, 1941). Modern marriage: a publisher and his wife are both having affairs — he with Johnny Jones (Hedy Lamarr), a Viennese emigre about to be deported unless she marries. Enter Bill Smith (Jimmy Stewart), a down-and-out writer willing to marry Johnny in exchange for a chunk of money. But can these two ever really fall in love? Yes, Hedy Lamarr is astonishingly beautiful, as Bill points out, but walking away with the movie is Adeline De Walt Reynolds as Bill’s wise old grandmother, who makes everything come out right, and it’s in her pastoral world that Bill recites, sort of, a bit of Christopher Marlowe’s poem. ★★★★ (TCM)
*
Four Daughters (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1938). Sweet nonsense, mostly, with Claude Rains as a music master with four unmarried musical daughters (Lola Lane, Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, and Gale Page). A variety of eligible men are on and off the premises, the most charming of whom is a composer (Jeffrey Lynn), the most interesting of whom is an embittered pianist and orchestrator (John Garfield, in his first film role) who grows fond of the pluckiest sister, Emma (Priscilla Lane). Things get surprisingly dark as the movie nears its end, before everything turns to sweet nonsense once again. A bonus: lots of Gershwinesque music at the piano, the work (I think) of Max Rabinowitz and Heinz Roemheld. ★★★ (TCM)
*
The Razor’s Edge (dir. Edmund Goulding, 1946). “The road to salvation is difficult to pass through, as difficult as the sharp edge of a razor”: so says an anonymous Indian holy man (Cecil Humphreys), paraphrasing the Upanishads, in this adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel. There, and here, a traumatized WWI veteran, Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) sets out in search of the meaning of life, working as a laborer yet hobnobbing with a wealthy set (Anne Baxter, John Payne, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, with Herbert Marshall as Maugham, a wise elder passing through now and then). Tragedies befall the set, as Larry keeps his eye on the prize — which is what, exactly? On the one hand this movie feels like sheer malarkey; on the other it’s an assembling of great performances, particularly from Baxter and Tierney. ★★★★ (TCM)
[The movie’s themes were timely: “There was a surge of American GIs joining monasteries after the end of the Second World War, seeking solace and refuge in a violent and increasingly complicated world.” Here’s a short film about the last days of an American Trappist monastery founded by 1947 as a daughter house of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani (where Thomas Merton was a monk).]
Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)
On BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Lauren Laverne asks her guest to choose a luxury item to take with them to their desert island. Here’s Greta Gerwig’s answer:
“I just know I would go absolutely bananas if I didn’t have something to write with. Anything, any pen and paper is fine; I will write on anything. But there’s a brand called National Brand that has green paper, which apparently is good for your eyes — I don’t know if that’s true — and it has really narrow rule pages. And then I love Smythson paper, that thin blue paper, and that is a true luxury item. And then pens, I like the Micron pens, those are good. Zero-point-one is the thickness I like.”[My transcription. National Brand (singular, corrected from Gerwig’s plural) does make spiffy notebooks. If the company has a website, I can’t find it.]
[Some cross-talk follows: Laverne says she didn’t expect such detail, and Gerwig apologizes. Laverne reassures her: “You can’t get too granular for me. I’m loving it.”]
“And then if I could pick ‘typewriter,’ it would be an IBM Selectric II, but I don’t know if I can plug anything in. It’s like the typewriter of offices in the ’80s, and when you plug it in and then you turn it on, it sounds like the Death Star, it’s like [makes a noise]. And it’s a sound that makes me feel like, okay, good, now it’s time to write. And I feel like I like switching between writing by hand and writing on a typewriter, because I can type faster than I can write by hand.”
Analog Zits : “Doing it this way feels more ‘writer-y.’”
A related post
Writing by hand (advice for students)
From today’s yesterday’s Nancy:
[Nancy, July 20, 1950. Click for a larger view.]
Nancy, like Sluggo, has beautiful handwriting. And she’s using a dip pen.
But it’s a runaway gorilla, not Sluggo, at her window.
Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)
[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, TCM, YouTube.]
Hi-Jacked (dir. Sam Newfield, 1950). A truckdriver on parole finds himself under suspicion when his cargo of mink coats is hijacked. As trucker Joe Harper, Jim Davis (later of Dallas) looks like a cross between Burt Lancaster and Elvis Presley, but he unmemorable on the screen. Sid Melton provides odd comic moments in a movie that ends up with four or five people dead. What keeps this movie from a one-star rating: diner scenes with Iris Adrian as a waitress with an endless supply of snappy patter. ★★ (YT)
*
From the Criterion Channel’s Method Acting feature
The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964). “Sol Nazerman, the walking dead,” shouts a fellow Holocaust survivor. Nazerman lost his wife, his children, his friends, and his ability to feel for anyone, as his management of his East Harlem pawnshop makes clear. His life in the present is mostly a matter of his dealings with a lone employee (Jaime Sánchez), who sees him as a mentor, and a crime king (Brock Peters), who uses the pawnshop for money laundering. Into this present comes the insistent intrusion of the past, in brief or not-so-brief flashes on the screen, all of which make me think that post-traumatic stress is never truly post. ★★★★ (CC)
*
Strongroom (dir. Vernon Sewell, 1962). Relatively short and totally gripping: three aspiring young criminals lock over a just-closed bank and lock the manager and secretary into a strongroom. One of the robbers is supposed to leave the keys in a phone booth and notify the police, but something goes wrong, leaving the victims to be found — somehow — or else die a slow death over a holiday weekend. There’s meaningful dialogue between manager and secretary (the locked-in-a-room trope), but the real story here is that of the keys, with strong elements of due diligence and devotion to duty. ★★★★ (YT)
*
Outside the Wall (dir. Crane Wilbur, 1950). Richard Basehart is an interesting player in the world of noir: he didn’t have the looks for it, and here, as in Tension (1949), he plays something of a sad sack who rises to the noirish occasion. As Larry Nelson, he’s a man of thirty, pardoned after fifteen years in prison, inexperienced in all ways of the world outside prison. He seeks tranquility in a low-paying job at a sanitarium but finds himself in complicated trouble with vicious gangsters (Harry Morgan, for one) and beautiful nurses (Dorothy Hart and Marilyn Maxwell). Some great on-location footage makes the movie, here and there, a Philadelphia version of The Naked City. ★★★★ (YT)
*
The Sin of Nora Moran (dir. Phil Goldstone, 1933). Pre-Code in its frankness, but postmodern in its structure. Nora (Zita Johann) is sentenced to be executed for a murder she did not commit. The interest here comes from the narrative, which presents the movie’s story via montages and flashbacks that make it difficult to know what has happened when. This obscure (I think) movie deserves to be better known. ★★★★ (YT)
*
Blind Date, aka Chance Meeting (dir. Joseph Losey, 1959). An affair between a young painter (Hardy Krüger) and an older married woman (Micheline Presle) goes wrong, and the painter finds himself the prime suspect in a murder. If it had been made a steamy quarter-century later, it might have been an erotic thriller. But it’s just fine as is, though a bit slow-moving. There’s a Hitchcock connection, a strong one, but I can’t name the movie without giving everything away. ★★★ (YT)
*
The Unseen (dir. Lewis Allen, 1945). What a difference a year makes: this movie is a sequel of sorts to Allen’s The Uninvited, but it’s not nearly as good. Here we have a young governess (Gail Russell of The Uninvited) caring for the young children of a grumpy windower (Joel McCrea) in a big old house right next to a big old closed-up house with mysterious goings-on. I appreciated the overtones of The Turn of the Screw, but there are zero chills, zero thrills, and the story is painfully implausible. ★★ (YT)
*
Circle of Danger (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1951). This movie would seem to have every advantage: a great director, fine writing and cinematography (Philip MacDonald, Oswald Morris), a capable cast, led by Ray Milland, and a title that promises (à la Ministry of Fear) some satisfying noir. But where is the danger? The story is reminiscent of The Third Man: an American (Milland) comes to post-war England to find out the truth about what happened to his brother, a volunteer with British forces who was shot in the head, apparently by one of his fellow soldiers. On the way to the quick, anti-climactic ending, too much time is devoted to a baffling courtship that pairs Milland and a writer of children’s books (Patricia Roc) who’s always put out about his showing up late and who really needs to get over herself. ★★ (YT)
*
The Seventh Veil (dir. Compton Bennett, 1945). First there was The Seventh Victim (1943), then The Seventh Cross (1944). This film is far less compelling, the story of a concert pianist, Francesca (Ann Todd) controlled by her second cousin, Nicholas (James Mason). When Francesca attempts suicide, a psychiatrist (Herbert Lom) steps in to plumb her past with the aid of narcosis and remove the veils that hide the secrets of the mind. Some great concert scenes (I watched always afraid that something would go wrong), but the pace is slow and the movie doesn’t even try to justify its ending — an ending that made us yell at the TV. ★★ (YT)
*
Spy Hunt (dr. George Sherman, 1950). A crazy premise: a vital piece of microfilm is hidden in the collar of one of two black panthers on a train traveling from from Milan to Paris. When the train is sabotaged and the freight car derails in the Alps, the panthers escape, the hunt is on, and a small group gathers in an Alpine inn run by a kindly doctor (Walter Slezak): the animals’ handler (Howard Duff), a journalist who wants a story (Märta Torén), a big-game hunter, an artist who wants to sketch the panthers, and another journalist. But how many of these folks are enemy agents? Torén’s coolness under pressure, Irving Glassberg’s cinematography, two truly menacing beasts, and a suspenseful scene with gunpowder make for a superior film. ★★★★ (YT)
*
The Catered Affair (dir. Richard Brooks, 1956). It’s a Marty world, with a family living in a Bronx apartment: a cabdriver father (Tom Hurley), his wife Aggie (Bette Davis), children Jane and Eddie (Debbie Reynolds, Ray Stricklyn), and Aggie’s brother Uncle Jack (Barry Fitzgerald). The problem at hand: Jane is marrying a fellow (Rod Taylor) from a family a greater means, and the young people want a simple wedding, but Aggie is determined that it be a grand affair. I wanted to like this movie much more than I did: Borgnine, Davis, and Reynolds are fine (even if Reynolds makes an improbable daughter), but Gore Vidal’s screenplay (from Paddy Chayefsky’s play) is condescendin’, Barry Fitzgerald’s Irish shtick is insufferable, and the saccharine ending makes me squirm. ★★ (TCM)
*
One Way Street (dir. Hugo Fregonese, 1950). The film begins with lines from an unidentified “Song of a Fatalist”:
Waste no moment, nor a single breathThe plot is simple and compelling: a doctor (James Mason) serving a crime boss (Dan Duryea) and his henchmen makes off with the boss’s girlfriend (Märta Torén) and loot. The couple flee to rural Mexico and make a new life, with the doctor as a venerated healer of humans and horses — but there’ll be trouble ahead, or behind. Overtones of “The Appointment in Samarra,” Out of the Past, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre run through the story. ★★★★ (YT)
In fearful flight from Death;
For no matter the tears that may be wept,
The appointment will be kept.
I asked ChatGPT to produce twenty-line poems in the styles of major American poets. A number of tentative conclusions: ChatGPT has difficulty distinguishing “in the style of” from a hazy idea of subject matter. And ChatGPT assumes that almost all poets write in quatrains of iambic tetrameter, with clumsy rhymes and inspirational messages. At times I was reminded of the calypso section of John Ashbery’s “Variations, Calypso and Fugue on a Theme of Ella Wheeler Wilcox”:
Gazing at the Alps was quite a sightHere are the exhibits. Chat GPT didn’t provide titles for its poems. You may provide a laugh track.
I felt the tears flow forth with all their might
A climb to the Acropolis meant a lot to me
I had read the Greek philosophers you see
A life of simplicity,ChatGPT has a little information about Gertrude Stein:
With words that cut like knife,
Her thoughts, so deep and true,
Still echo through the time.
Her spirit, wild and free,
Her verse, a mystery,
A world of insight and power,
A soul that feels no cower.
A heart that knew true pain,
A mind that sought refuge in verse,
A voice that spoke of love, loss,
And truths that we still traverse.
Her quill, a tool of grace,
Her words, a healing place,
For those who seek a meaning,
Her legacy, still gleaming.
So let us raise a glass,
To Emily, our guiding star,
Whose words still touch our hearts,
And will forever be a part.
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,Wallace Stevens GPT exhorts us to cherish and bask in beauty:
A simple statement that everyone knows,
It’s a symbol of beauty and grace,
A color that brings a smile to our face.
But words and their meanings are complex,
And the truth of what we say is often vexed,
So we repeat and repeat with care,
To make sure the meaning is always there.
And Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
A reminder of all that nature bestows,
A symbol of life, and its constant flow,
Of growth and renewal, in rain or in snow.
So we hold tight to the words we say,
And the truth that they hold, every day,
For Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
And its meaning will never, ever, go.
The world is a dream, a mirage of hue,ChatGPT has enough information about William Carlos Williams to produce a poem about a red wheelbarrow while avoiding meter and rhyme. But that’s about all it has:
A dance of shadows, a play of light and dew.
Its beauty lies in the eye of the beholder,
A kaleidoscope of colors, forever bolder.
The sky is a canvas, a masterpiece of blue,
The clouds, a symphony, a chorus of hues.
The trees sway in the breeze, like an endless show,
A gentle rhythm, a song of life that flows.
The stars shine like diamonds, in the endless night,
A constellation of wonders, so distant, so bright.
The moon is a mystery, a story untold,
A whisper of secrets, that forever unfold.
So let us embrace this world with open hearts,
With grace and wonder, with joy and art.
Let us cherish its beauty, its mystery and might,
And bask in its splendor, till the end of light.
The red wheelbarrowLangston Hughes GPT has “heard the blues.” He too wants us to appreciate beauty. Because poets love beauty:
Glazed with rainwater
beside the white chickens.
A simple thing,
yet so much depends
on its functional grace.
The tool of the farmer,
carrying weight with ease,
rolling through fields of green.
A symbol of hard work,
of the toil and sweat
that brings sustenance to life.
Without the wheelbarrow,
the farm would grind to a halt,
leaving only emptiness.
But with it, the earth yields
a bounty to be shared,
nourishing body and soul.
So let us give thanks
for the red wheelbarrow,
a humble hero of the land.
Verse 1:John Ashbery GPT also encourages us to appreciate beauty. And look — he’s plagiarizing Wallace Stevens GPT:
I’ve seen the sunset, orange and gold
Over fields of cotton, the story untold
Of those who worked the land, in scorching sun
and rain
With calloused hands, they toiled, they sought to
sustain
Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, so rich and so bold
With a spirit unbroken, a soul that won’t fold
I sing for the weary, the tired, the worn
For the ones who’ve been burdened, it’s a brand
new morn
Verse 2: I’ve heard the blues, the lament of the night
With a voice that’s so sorrowful, but filled with
delight
For it tells of the struggles, the pain, the strife
Of a people seeking justice, a better life
Chorus:
For I am, &c.
Verse 3:
I’ve walked the streets, of cities so bright
With neon lights, and the sounds of the night
For the Harlem Renaissance, it was a time of pride
With artists and writers, who sought to defy the tide
Chorus:
For I am, &c.
Outro:
So let my voice echo, through the streets and the
skies
For all to hear, for all to realize
The beauty in life, the beauty in rhyme
For a brighter tomorrow, for a future that’s truly
mine.
The world is a strange and shifting place,Frank O’Hara GPT wants to stay in the city:
A maze of colors, sounds, and shapes.
Its mysteries are infinite, untold,
A labyrinth of secrets waiting to unfold.
The trees sway in the wind, the rivers flow,
The sky is vast, and the clouds aglow.
The world is a never-ending surprise,
A constant change, a flicker in the eyes.
But even in this chaos, there is peace,
A stillness that whispers, a gentle release.
The world is a tapestry, woven with care,
A masterpiece of life, beyond compare.
So let us embrace this world with open arms,
With wonder and grace, with joy and charm.
Let us cherish its beauty, its secrets untold,
And bask in its radiance, till we grow old.
I am walking down the street,And then I wondered: what if I tried an unmajor poet? Here’s Amanda Gorman GPT:
The city’s lights shining bright,
I hear the sounds of cars and feet,
As people hurry through the night.
I feel the wind blow through my hair,
And see the stars up in the sky,
It's moments like this I can’t compare,
This feeling makes me want to fly.
I think of all the friends I’ve made,
The memories that will last a lifetime,
And I’m so grateful that I’ve stayed,
In this place that’s always been so kind.
I see the city’s endless rows,
Of buildings tall and grand,
And I know that everyone knows,
This is where they want to stand.
So I’ll keep walking down the street,
With a smile upon my face,
And I’ll remember this moment sweet,
This time and this place.
Verse 1:With that chorus, Amanda Gorman GPT is ripping off Langston Hughes GPT. And Gorman GPT repeats the same curious verse-chorus-outro structure. But that structure isn’t reserved for Black poets. T.S. Eliot GPT uses it too:
Amidst the night, I stand so tall
With words that carry weight, words that will
enthrall
My voice a beacon, a lighthouse in the sea
Of doubts and fears, it’s a symbol of freedom,
you’ll see
Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth and its fire
With a spirit unbreakable, a soul that won’t tire
I speak for the silenced, the broken, the torn
For the ones who’ve been crushed, it’s a brand new
dawn
Verse 2:
My pen is mightier than the sword they say
With each word I write, I pave a brighter way
For those who’ve been oppressed, I am their voice
With my words I heal, with my words I rejoice
Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, &c.
Verse 3:
The world is listening, and I won’t be still
With every rhyme, every line, I will uplift and heal
For I know what it’s like to live in pain
But now I rise, now I soar, and I won’t refrain
Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, &c.
Outro:
So let my voice echo far and wide
For all to hear, for all to take pride
In the power of words, the power of rhyme
For a brighter tomorrow, for a future that’s truly
mine.
In the still of the night, I hear the city moanI was hoping for “A future that’s bright, for me and for you.” I guess I’ll have to write my own poem.
With the sounds of the traffic, a symphony alone
For the city is alive, with a life of its own
And the shadows they dance, to a rhythm unknown
Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, a part of the scene
With a mind that’s so restless, a soul that’s so lean
I wander the streets, in a daze and a trance
In search of the truth, in search of a chance
Verse 2:
In the heart of the city, I see the people move
With a pace that’s so frantic, they’ve got nothing to
prove
For the city is a maze, with a life that’s so cruel
And the ones who get lost, they’re just another fool
Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, &c.
Verse 3:
In the mind of the city, I feel the emptiness grow
With the weight of the world, it’s a burden I know
For the city is a world, with a life that’s so low
And the ones who find peace, they’re just letting
it go
Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, &c.
Outro:
So let my words flow, with a rhythm so pure
For all to hear, for all to endure
For a world that’s so bleak, for a world that’s so true
For a future that’s bright, for a future that’s brand
new.
Beneath the streetlights, I stand and ponder,Even Bukowski ends with a message of hope. On his gravestone though: “DON’T TRY.”
Of all the drinks I’ve had, the nights I’ve squandered.
With worn out shoes, and a broken soul,
I roam the streets, seeking a new goal.
The city is alive, with neon lights,
And laughter ringing in the endless nights.
I walk the alleys, with a bottle in hand,
Looking for solace, in this lonely land.
The raindrops fall, like tears from above,
As I remember the women I’ve loved.
With lipstick stains, on cigarette butts,
I find comfort, in my drunken ruts.
I write my thoughts, in a crumpled notebook,
Of life on the edge, and the streets I took.
With every word, I pour out my heart,
And hope to capture, what tears me apart.
So I’ll keep drinking, and I’ll keep writing,
Until I find meaning, in this endless fighting.
For in the words, and in the whiskey’s flow,
I’ll find redemption, and a way to grow.
In the news today: “Alarmed by A.I. Chatbots, Universities Start Revamping How They Teach“ (The New York Times).
If I were still teaching, I’d adopt five strategies to counter the chatbots:
~ I’d assign frequent short in-class writing and make and keep copies of all work.Irony, irony: It’d be especially wonderful if the rise of chatbots were to bring about a resurgence of writing by hand. Not cursive, just writing by hand.
~ I’d assign longer out-of-class writing with highly specific prompts, and I’d test those prompts against the chatbots, provided that I can get through. (ChatGPT always seems to be at capacity lately.)
~ I’d require that students meet with me to talk over their ideas for outside-of-class writing.
~ I’d ask students to initial out-of-class writing before turning it in, to signify that what they’re turning in is their own work.
~ And I’d remind students that just as a cashier can immediately sense that a bill is counterfeit, and just as an appraiser can immediately sense that a work is a fake, a professor of English can immediately sense, or at least suspect, that written work is not genuine student writing. (Yes, it’s true.)
[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, Disney, Hulu, TCM, Tubi, YouTube.]
Totally Under Control (dir. Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger, 2020). The story of the previous U.S. administration’s response/non-response to COVID-19. Much of what’s here will already be familiar, but to see it all at once, in the space of two hours, is overwhelming: the cynicism, the dishonesty, the ignorance, the utter incompetence (and now in 2021, there’s still more evidence, and still more). For me the most revealing part of this documentary is the account Max Kennedy Jr. gives of his volunteer work with a Jared-led task force that sought to purchase PPE and failed to secure a single mask (see also this short New Yorker piece). The previous administration committed crimes against humanity, and no one has yet been held responsible. ★★★★ (H)
*
Terror Street, aka 36 Hours (dir. Montgomery Tully, 1953). It’s a most unusual day and a half: an American pilot (Dan Duryea) sneaks into England for a quick visit to his wife — and the next thing he knows, he’s waking up in her apartment, next to her murdered corpse. He enlists the aid of a pretty neighbor (Gudrun Ure), who for some reason instantly believes in his innocence, which he now elects to prove by DIY methods, evading the authorities and finding the killer himself. A most improbable story, with echoes of The 39 Steps. But Duryea, wooden to the core, is no Robert Donat. ★★ (YT)
*
Dear Santa (dir. Dana Nachman, 2020). We didn’t know what to watch, so we made a desperation pick — and it proved a good one. The documentary’s subject is the USPS’s 107-year-old Operation Santa, which makes children’s (and adults’) letters to Santa Claus available to people interested in providing presents. Lots of postal scenes, lots of postal workers who identify themselves as elves, lots of kids talking about Santa and writing letters, lots of grown-ups (and kids) shopping for, wrapping, transporting, and delivering presents (but this year’s work will be all through the mail). Yes, we signed up, right after the movie ended: USPS Operation Santa. ★★★★ (H)
*
Across 110th Street (dir. Barry Shear, 1972). Duke Ellington liked to point out that Harlem had far more churches than bars, but there are no churches here, only bars, tenements, a dry cleaner’s, and a parking garage. The premise is simple: three Harlemites commit some very ill-considered crimes and find themselves hunted — by the police, the Mafia, and a Harlem crime boss. Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto square off as dueling cops: a crusty old racist who breaks rules (and heads), and a college-educated younger Black man who refuses to play dirty. The bonus for our household: cinematography on location by Jack Priestly of the television series Naked City. ★★★★ (CC)
*
Street of Sinners (dir. William Berke, 1957). A rookie cop, John (George Montgomery), is paired with a beaten-down oldtimer, Gus (William Harrigan), on “the street,” whose undefined boundaries define life for its denizens. The king of the street is Leon (Nehemiah Persoff), whose eponymous bar is the gateway to alcoholism and worse for all who enter. On the one hand, this movie is bad; on the other, it’s so bad that it’s almost good — without, as they say in Ghost World, going past good and back to bad again. The best moments come from Geraldine Brooks as Terry, a beautiful alcoholic who invites John to dinner and offers frantic drunken assurances that she can be fresh and clean. ★★ (YT)
*
Nazi Agent (dir. Jules Dassin, 1942). It’s Conrad Veidt’s movie. He plays not two but three roles: a courtly stamp and rare-book dealer, Otto Becker (in the United States illegally); Otto’s twin brother, German consul Baron Hugo von Detner; and “Baron Hugo von Detner” — in other words, Otto poses as his brother to get the goods on Nazi plans for sabotage. Frank Reicher (Captain Englehorn in King Kong) has two great scenes as a loyal servant. The best moment: the glass of milk. ★★★★ (YT)
*
Johnny O’Clock (dir. Robert Rossen, 1947). The plot is not much, or too much — difficult to follow, but who cares? Just soak in the noir atmosphere. O’Clock (Dick Powell), a junior partner in a casino, is at the center of things, with Thomas Gomez (his boss), Lee J. Cobb (his police nemesis), and Ellen Drew, Nina Foch, and Evelyn Keyes (the ladies) all orbiting around him. Great ultra-noir cinematography by Burnett Guffey. ★★★★ (TMC)
*
Heat Wave, aka The House Across the Lake (dir. Ken Hughes, 1954). An America lead or two (Alex Nicol and Hillary Brooke) and an English cast: the same premise as Terror Street, and the same producer, Anthony Hinds. Nicol is Mark (heh) Kendrick, an American writer abroad; Hillary Brooke (passing for English) is Carol Forrest, a wealthy married woman who collects additional partners. Sidney James is the actor of real distinction here, as the long-suffering Mr. Forrest. With strong top notes of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. ★★★ (YT)
*
The Picture of Dorian Gray (dir. Albert Lewin, 1945). Great performances from George Sanders (top billing) as Lord Henry Wotton, dropping epigrams at rapid pace; Hurd Hatfield as Dorian Gray, for whom every gain or sorrow is merely “an experience”; and Angela Lansbury as the doomed Sybil Vane, gamely singing her specialty, “Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird.” Opulent sets, great black and white (Harry Stradling), and an air of decadence and corruption whose details are never made clear. “It’d kill her,” Dorian says of the letter he threatens to send to a friend’s wife. The wonderful thing about this movie, for me, is its naturalization of the supernatural: Dorian’s perpetual youth is just a fact of London life that people accept. ★★★★ (TMC)
*
The Beatles: Get Back (dir. Peter Jackson, 2021). It’s John, Paul, George, and Ringo — or Paul, John, George, and Ringo — or Paul and John, and George and Ringo — and Billy Preston. It’s a wonder that the Beatles put up with their director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg (not for nothing was he rumored to be Orson Welles’s son). A rare opportunity to see the work of creating music. I’ve already written a long post. ★★★★ (D)
*
The Last Laugh (dir. Ferne Pearlstein, 2016). The limits of what can be considered funny, with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman, and many other figures in comedy. Among the topics considered off or within limits: Hitler, the Holocaust, rape, the n-word, and September 11. The most compelling parts of the documentary: conversations with survivors of the Holocaust about the role humor played in their survival and the role it plays or doesn’t play now. With the comedians, though, a sameness sets in. ★★★ (T)
*
Assignment Paris (dir. Robert Parrish, 1952). Cold War intrigue in Hungary, as reported by the intrepid journalists of the New York Herald-Tribune’s Paris bureau. Cocky, persistent Dana Andrews and Ingrid Bergman-like Märta Torén are reporters; George Sanders is their editor; Audrey Totter has an Eve Arden-like turn as a hard-drinking, wisecracking also-ran. Dig Andrews’s cryptic communique from Budapest and the way his colleagues work it out. The best moments in the movie are the extraordinary scenes with Sandro Giglio. ★★★★ (YT)
Related reading
All OCA movie posts (Pinboard)
The New York Times reports on cursive handwriting in a Maine school:
For years, screens have replaced notebooks, keyboards have subbed in for pens and digital life has revolved around the printed word.But it bears repeating: writing by hand ≠ cursive handwriting.
But at a small school in Maine, cursive handwriting thrives, with two students recognized in a national contest last week for their skills crossing T’s and dotting I’s with precise and legible shape, size, spacing and slant.
Once again, research has shown:
A study of Japanese university students and recent graduates has revealed that writing on physical paper can lead to more brain activity when remembering the information an hour later. Researchers say that the unique, complex, spatial and tactile information associated with writing by hand on physical paper is likely what leads to improved memory.Related reading
Barack Obama, in “an adapted and updated excerpt” from A Promised Land, his forthcoming memoir:
I still like writing things out in longhand, finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness.His tools of choice: a pen and a legal pad.
If I were teaching a writing course, any level, I’d ask my students to write this essay:
What blame should be assigned to administrators and students for the rising number of COVID-19 cases on campus, and why? Do administrators and students share equally in the blame? Or does one group deserve a greater share?[Today’s Trump* news makes this essay feel a bit pointless. Things happen.]
This essay is meant as an exercise in moral reasoning, not legal judgment. These questions ask you to consider broad questions of responsibility, not particular cases. You may present and explain your reasoning by comparing the situation at hand with hypothetical situations, by making distinctions between different kinds of error or wrongdoing, by considering implications (if . . . , then . . .), by developing a relevant analogy — whatever seems appropriate. You should consider objections to your argument too. Think of yourself as writing an essay that explains your reasoning.
Alice James, in a diary entry dated January 6, 1892:
It is reassuring to hear the English pronouncement that Emily Dickinson is fifth-rate — they have such a capacity for missing quality; the robust evades them equally with the subtle. Her being sicklied o’er with T.W. Higginson makes one quake lest there be a latent flaw which escapes one’s vision.Long before I kept a blog, I kept a commonplace book, writing out passages of all sorts by hand. I found these sentences quoted in a letter from Lorine Niedecker to fellow poet Louis Zukofsky, February 14, 1952. I just checked, and the quotation is accurate.
A sentence by Ed Yong, writing in The Atlantic about “How to Pandemic Defeated America”:
No one should be shocked that a liar who has made almost 20,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency would lie about whether the U.S. had the pandemic under control; that a racist who gave birth to birtherism would do little to stop a virus that was disproportionately killing Black people; that a xenophobe who presided over the creation of new immigrant-detention centers would order meatpacking plants with a substantial immigrant workforce to remain open; that a cruel man devoid of empathy would fail to calm fearful citizens; that a narcissist who cannot stand to be upstaged would refuse to tap the deep well of experts at his disposal; that a scion of nepotism would hand control of a shadow coronavirus task force to his unqualified son-in-law; that an armchair polymath would claim to have a “natural ability” at medicine and display it by wondering out loud about the curative potential of injecting disinfectant; that an egotist incapable of admitting failure would try to distract from his greatest one by blaming China, defunding the WHO, and promoting miracle drugs; or that a president who has been shielded by his party from any shred of accountability would say, when asked about the lack of testing, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.”Roy Peter Clark: “If Yong has written the sentence of the year, and I believe he has, he can thank the semicolon.”
“Lawmakers and defenders of cursive have lobbied to re-establish this old-school writing pedagogy across the country, igniting a debate about American values and identity and exposing intergenerational fault lines”: The New York Times reports on the politics of cursive writing.
I am happy to see that this article distinguishes between handwriting and cursive writing. Cursive is just one way to write by hand.
Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)
Benjamin Dreyer, Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. New York: Random House, 2019. xviii + 291 pages. $25.
The first two sentences of the book’s introduction made me wonder what I was in for:
I am a copy editor. After a piece of writing has been, likely through numerous drafts, developed and revised by the writer and by the person I tend to call the editor editor and deemed essentially finished and complete, my job is to lay my hands on that piece of writing and make it . . . better.That second sentence: shouldn’t we expect better of a copy editor? I see several problems: The break between “been” and “developed” makes the sentence difficult to navigate. “Developed and revised”: already implied in “numerous drafts.” “Essentially finished and complete”: also redundant, and “essentially” is, essentially, an empty modifier. And besides, if a writer and an editor know that the manuscript is going to a copy editor, how can it be finished? It’s ready for the next step toward publication.
I am a copy editor. After a writer and an editor have seen a piece of writing through numerous drafts, my job is to take that writing and make it better.Or:
I am a copy editor. After a writer and an editor have seen a piece of writing through numerous drafts, I take that writing and make it better.I think I just did.
Place yourself in the background.In Dreyer’s English, the writer is everywhere, in the kidding/not kidding subtitle, and most insistently in 208 footnotes that digress in all directions. The first note, for instance, refuses to name a famous name from a party on the Upper East Side: “It’s not name-dropping if I don’t drop the name, right?” The second footnote names the name and recommends the name’s “svelte little memoir.” “Seek it out,” Dreyer says. A little of this stuff goes a long way. And Dreyer’s English is going right back to the library.
Write in a way that draws the reader’s attention to the sense and substance of the writing, rather than to the mood and temper of the author. If the writing is solid and good, the mood and temper of the writer will eventually be revealed and not at the expense of the work. Therefore, the first piece of advice is this: to achieve style, begin by affecting none — that is, place yourself in the background.
Our household’s two-person Four Seasons Reading Club sometimes finds it necessary to leave a book unfinished. So it is with John Williams’s 1960 novel Butcher’s Crossing. We never made it out of the third chapter. By page 24 I began to tire of Williams’s approach to narrative:
In the darkness he walked across his room to the small table, which was outlined dimly beside the window. He found a match on the table and lit the lamp beside the washbasin. In the mirror his face was a sharp contrast of yellow brightness and dark shadow. He put his hands in the lukewarm water of the basin and rinsed his face.Hemingwayesque, perhaps, but these actions, unlike, say, those of Nick Adams in “Big Two-Hearted River,” are inconsequential. There’s nothing behind them, at least not that I can see: everything in the novel is described with the same tedious exactness. And the writing — dimly, sharp contrast, dark shadow, of the basin — is kinda slack.
The sight of the whisky had calmed Charley Hoge; he took the glass in his hand and drank rapidly, his head thrown back and his Adam’s apple running like a small animal beneath the gray fur of his bearded throat.That overwrought simile. And the narrator refers to this character by both first and last names every time he’s mentioned. Elaine, too, reached her limit on page 30, with a bit of corny dialogue about “whores”:
“Some of them even get married; make right good wives, I hear, for them that want wives.”Them that want right good reading might look to Williams’s Stoner. But this novel of life out west, where men are men, and women are whores, and Adam’s apples run like small animals, isn’t it.
