THE ANGEL'S GAME

MY LATEST BOOK REVIEW:

THE ANGEL’S GAME – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

All of the hype about this book got me hyped. I brought the heavy, hardback tome home with anticipation. Like all book worms, I long for nothing more than to get lost in the pages of a big, bold, new world. Sometimes my husband has to send out a search party to bring me back from the clutches of a story’s pages and wean me, kicking and fighting, into reality.

I quickly sat down to read the first 30 pages and thought, okay, I see what the author’s doing here, and brought the book to my car the next day, plopped it down in the passenger seat and shut the door, thinking with satisfaction, that I was above the hype. A few days later for some unknown reason I felt compelled to bring the book back into the house and circled it suspiciously for a few days. I reasoned with myself, it’s not like I loved the character (yet) or the story (yet), while the book just stared back at me poker face, with the suggestion of a smile. “Be practical,” I told myself, I took the time to hunt it down, so I may as well give it a second shot, so I did. When I shut the pages the next time it was with indignation. I couldn’t believe I was falling for the hype. And then whammo, just as it happens with all crushes, I soon realized, I was in love with this book.

It’s such a seductive story, complex and flirty with both floral and full-bodied gothic notes from the regions of Barcelona and France. Just when I think I have it figured out, I realize I don’t and am so glad that I don’t. There’s nothing better than going on a pleasurable reading adventure and not knowing what’s coming next.

The story begins, my friends, (pause) ---you see, this here is a sure sign of being hooked---when you start thinking in the accent and cadence of the narrator. The story unfolds in the Barcelona headquarters of The Voice of Industry, a place seething with journalistic envy.

Seventeen year-old, David Martin gets a chance at writing a story and quickly gains a following. But, David longs to write something of substance. Soon, a mysterious admirer leaves a calling card, an invitation that will place him at the crossroads of mystery, tragedy and romance.

Gothic mansions, towers, labyrinth-like libraries and mysterious strangers, both sinister and angelic quickly appear, and everyone seems to have an ulterior agenda. Choices are presented, and ambition, loyalty and goodness are served-up on the same platter. The story continues to open as you delve deeper and more inextricably into its clutches. The question is--- how will you get out? Is there another door? Are you in a house, a library, a castle or another reality?

Zafon has won me over; I am a minion now too. I’m sure his fans out there are thinking with amused-smug expressions, was there ever any doubt? I know that when I am done I am going to go out and pick up his other two books, preferably the hardcover editions, because they are such gorgeous books. The three novels are interrelated and can be read in any order. I haven’t finished yet, I am half-way through, but Zafon’s pen is so masterful, there’s no doubt in my mind I won’t love the ending.

Stephen King calls it, “One Gorgeous Read.” Elle Magazine says, it’s, “Diabolically good.” The New York Times Book Review calls it, “Magic.” And that about sums it up.

By the way, does anyone have the key or know the location to that wonderful library of Forgotten Books? I promise I won’t give away its whereabouts!

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Song of Achilles and Song of Bellini's Romeo & Juliet

BRANDO (sort of, okay, Opera-Brando):

Mercury News writer, Richard Scheinin, says, “Run as quickly as you can to War Memorial Opera House. That's where mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and soprano Nicole Cabell will astonish you as Romeo and Juliet in "The Capulets and the Montagues" by Vincenzo Bellini.” 

What more is there to say?  I attended the matinee production last Sunday and I can vouch that the vocals are flat-out spectacular, as is the acting.  Oh, and by the way, the stunning, steam-punk style costumes are by Christian Lacroix.  I loved the trousers and matching vests, and dark leather jackets.  DiDonato’s mezzo-soprano, androgynous, swagger in the "trouser role" of Romeo was dominating, smile inducing and believable. Her diction, intelligence and powerhouse voice were exquisite.   

In the role of Giulietta, lyric-soprano Cabell’s shame and passion was evident in her body language.  I could feel all of the torment in the simple gesture of her bent head, and her face veiled by her long dark curls.  And then, she would lift her head and belt out this effortless creamy bel canto.  And that camisole!  It was like a meringue, a puff of elegance and innocence.  I want to go again.  Brava, San Francisco Opera.  You guys rock!  Here is a link to the costumes and another review by Opera Warhorses: 

http://www.operawarhorses.com/2012/09/30/joyce-di-donato-nicole-cabell-sing-beautifully-in-bellinis-bel-canto-capulets-and-montagues-september-29-2012/

BOOKS:  THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller

I still remember my beloved, elementary school, workbooks.  I wish that I could remember who published them.  They were classics-themed, about the Titans and demi-gods, Prometheus, swift-footed Achilles, Aphrodite, Hera, Heracles, Athena and Zeus.  My teacher could not understand why I read ahead of our exercises while everyone else groaned at the new lessons.  But, I longed to delve further into that feeling, I wanted to find out what happened next, who was seeking vengeance, ransoming a captive, influencing a war, gambling with another’s life, or making a sacrifice to appease one of the gods.  In retrospect, this was the other piece to the puzzle of my father’s oral tradition that involved war and myth, the Greek Classics is also where I first fell in love with heroes and myth.  Not since reading Homer’s Iliad in high school have I touched that magic again, until now, with Miller’s book.  

Miller’s tense, exciting, inventive, powerful, and captivating adaptation of Homer’s Iliad centers on Achilles and Patroclus’ story, and took me back to that same exhilarating time, when to read about the gods, was to step into a thrilling, dangerous world.  The novel centers on the relationship between the two young boys, and builds to encompass the idea of soul mates, prophecies, fate, cataclysmic choices, promises, ambition and the cold savagery of the Trojan War.  I mean, who doesn’t long for that?  Her narrative is exactly as Time describes, “wildly romantic”.  It is the winner of the 2012 Orange Prize.  USA Today calls it, “Fast, true, and incredibly rewarding…A remarkable achievement.”  It is the best book I’ve read all year.  I devoured it in three days.  http://www.madelinemiller.com/

Wolves Buddhas and Double-Doubles

BOOKS:

Julie Otsuka’s – THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC – I’m halfway through this lean yet muscular book.  Her writing is elegant and understated.  With stylistic bravado, Otsuka manages to convey worlds and lives using the plural “WE “for the Japanese women who came to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’.  Like an impressionist painting, to take a step back, is to see the harrowing, heartbreaking, hopeful, tenuous, and occasional joy of the journey in its entirety. 

Carol Rifka Brunt’s (young adult) TELL THE WOLVES I’M HOME – Is a different coming of age story about the bond of a young girl, June and her Uncle Finn, the renowned reclusive painter.  "The only person in the world who has ever understood her."  When her Uncle falls ill, June finds comfort in the unlikeliest of places; a mysterious stranger her mother is bent on destroying.  It’s a heartfelt, compassionate book about love and loss and what makes someone shine so brightly in our hearts that they live forever. 

It’s about how we hurt one another without trying, by simply moving forward in our lives into adulthood and the people we inadvertently leave behind.  The parallel theme of siblings depending on one another and the jealousies and misunderstandings along the way rings true and deep.  Brunt’s book is a charming, beautiful debut.

From the book flap:  An emotionally charged coming-of-age novel, Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a tender story of love lost and found, an unforgettable portrait of the way compassion can make us whole again.

BRANDO:

RENTAL:

GATTACA – (1997) Starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law.

For its ambiance and thought provoking premise.  I don’t know how this one slipped by me years ago.  I’d forgotten how Jude Law has a shadow quality to his performances that conjure up ideas of the dark life he’s lead.  He’s riveting.  In the not too distant future, society has the tools to pre-implant children with the best hereditary traits of their parents.  These people are known as ‘valids’.  Those born the old-fashioned way are known as ‘in-valids’ because of their predispositions to such things as diseases, ‘heart trouble’ and physical inferiority.  I wouldn’t be ‘valid’ for sure at 5’2 and with my bad eyesight (glasses/contacts needed) I’d be a goner. 

The in-valids get the menial jobs and the valids get jobs like the space program, that apparently takes off behind the Marin Civic Center ( ha ha.  It was great to see the Frank Lloyd Wright building put to terrific use and fit right in with the futuristic society).  Also interesting is the pool treadmill, I don’t know if it was in use back then, but I’d recently seen an interview with Michael Phelps and I believe he had something similar in his gym.

The movie is thought provoking for its idea of pre-empting/meddling with destiny, the result is seen symbolically in Ethan Hawke’s swimming competitions with his genetically perfect brother.  And then of course there’s the genetic profiling and the lengths someone like Ethan Hawke will go, to beat out what society has set for him, in order to find his own place in the world.  I’m still not convinced (spoiler coming) the professor killed the dead guy and that Ethan didn’t.  Maybe he was in cahoots with the doctor who let Ethan get on the space shuttle for exactly the same reason. 

Nabokov’s use of doubles.  I think Vlad would have loved the use of doubles in this film.  First there is Ethan Hawke’s alias and his old self, and then there is his battle with his brother, both indistinguishable in the dark as they compete in the ocean.  The ocean scenes were genius.  In the dark you couldn’t tell who was winning, who was the stronger of the two.   And then there’s Ethan’s revelation at the end when his brother asks how he does it?  Ethan's answer could be his motto for life---Spoiler coming----“I never save anything for the swim back.”  More intriguing is Ethan and Jude Law’s characters, like two parts of the same person.  In the end, each gives something invaluable to the other.  And, as with doppelgangers (at least in literature and the movies), one has to die so that the other can live.

DAYBREAKERS: Ethan Hawke (again).  Coincidentally, I also caught this Ethan Hawke film.  Maybe it was Ethan Hawke marathon week or something.  Also, coincidentally (is that a double double?) this movie is set in the future, the year is 2019.  And a plague has devastated mankind.  Interesting in that the cure (spoiler coming) comes from the infected blood of someone who has survived ‘daybreak’.  It’s a different kind of vampire movie.  The movie is more about politics and ethics than teenage crushes and the dangers of first love (although I like that too! Can’t wait for the last installment of Twilight) or even horror (Salem’s Lot).  Once again, Ethan Hawke is in a movie about a dominant race taking advantage over an inferior (?) one. 

But I think hands down, my favorite Dracula is Gary Oldman’s creepy, long nailed, white-haired-bouffant-flowing, red velvet floating, separating-shadow creeping, furious warrior in red-looking Samurai ( that bears a striking resemblance to The Last Samurai’s warrior armor) Vlad in Bram Stoker’s-Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version.  I don’t even think that’s a sentence.  (Two Vlads.  The impaler and the writer.  Another double-double. Must be a full moon).

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

Keira Knightley in ANNA KARENINA with Jude Law and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kickass).   Gosh the cast looks so promising.  This will be Keira’s third collaboration with director Joe Wright who worked with her on two of my favorite, cinematically gorgeous, movies:   ATONEMENT and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (I still can’t believe that was Carey Mulligan playing the silly sister, what was her name, Kitty?  But of course I can because she was sooo good.).

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA – The animated cartoon with Selena Gomez as the little vampire that wants to fly the coop.  Because I love all things safe-scary-halloweeny. 

 THE MASTER – starring Joaquin Phoenix (I’ve missed him!) and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  My husband and I love all things PT Anderson.  And I’m really looking forward to this story of a young naval veteran returned from war who is mesmerized by a charismatic leader.  Reviews are out and raves for Hoffman and Phoenix are jumping off the page.

LINCOLN – Starring Daniel Day Lewis and Joseph Gordon Levitt as Lincoln’s son.

BASEBALL: 

What?  SF Giants and Oakland A’s in playoffs!  Wheh-hew!  Go Cali!

Ma ma mia good pasta!

On Friday I got together with family and friends for possibly the best spaghetti I’ve had in…ever?  I know that’s throwing down the gauntlet.  But I love all of the ingredients for puttanesca:  spaghetti w/ tomatoes, capers, anchovies, black olives, chilli flakes & garlic.  The pasta itself is handmade and served al dente. 

We also had:  PIZZA AI FUNGHI CON OLIO DI TARTUFO

Mozzarella, fontina, mushrooms, white truffle oil, which was really incredible, you could taste the garlic on the mushrooms and my niece ordered a dungeness crab appetizer that was insane.  I almost don’t want to give away the name because I don’t want them to be too busy.  AND it’s in my old neighborhood.  I grew up around the corner on Andover. So delicious, I want to go back right now and it’s only 10 am….It’s a gem and owned by a husband and wife duo.  He’s from Rome Italy (so there you go), and it’s called VEGA.  http://www.vegapizzasf.com/about/

Creepy Cool Series I want to read

This Spanish author has one of the Creepy-Coolest websites I’ve seen in awhile.  I’m very interested in reading his series of gothic-literary books.  They are in no particular order.  You can read one book and it will give you a little about the other characters at different times in their lives, but he describes them in an interview as being like a Chinese Box, “arranged as a labyrinth with different points of entry.”  Each book has a “different tone, a different texture.”  The Author is Carlos Ruiz Zafon

http://www.carlosruizzafon.co.uk/shadowofthewind.html

Book Gorge

I gorged on books last night at the library.  I had like a full on book shopping spree.  What a rush!

James Baldwin’s – THE PRICE OF THE TICKET

Ann Patchett’s – STATE OF WONDER

Rick Moody’s – THE ICE STORM

Austin Wright’s – TONY AND SUSAN

And this is after buying:

Raymond Chandler’s – FAREWELL MY LOVELY

Stewart O’Nan’s – LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER

Stewart O’Nan’s – SONGS FOR THE MISSING

My First Opera Blog

Hi There.

Just sharing my first 1 page blog for SF Opera here and what I've been up to:

http://sfopera.com/About/Backstage-at-San-Francisco-Opera/June-2012/Don-t-Drop-Nixon.aspx