Sunday Sundries, 224

1. HBOW (Human Beings of the Week)--my friends Chris and Michelle, who saved a seat for me at the crowded coffee shop on Saturday--and for numerous other kindnesses I'm generally too clumsy and clueless to thank them for. Dear friends ...

2. I finished several books this week ...

     - The first, via Kindle, was the first P. I. novel by Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling), the first in what now has become a series of novels (and a TV series on BBC One--which I won't watch until I've finished the novels). The Cuckoo's Calling (2013) introduces us to Strike, a P. I. in London, a wounded Afghan War vet (he's lost part of a leg), down on his luck for the nonce, living in his office, broken marriage, etc.

He has a temp working for him, Robin Ellacott (25), a young woman who turns out to be a bright and fascinating character in her own right. Strike is working on a case of a supposed suicide of a super model (who apparently leaped from a tall building and met the unforgiving street). Hired by one of her relatives, Strike bumbles around for a bit, then ...

I liked the novel a lot--except for (near) the very end when he has a long conversation with the person he has identified as the killer. Pages go on as he explains why he believes this person is guilty (notice I'm not even giving gender clues!). I thought it was a bit ... much. (I'm betting she won't do it again in the subsequent novels, which, of course, I have to read now!)

     - Next was the new novel by Jay Parini, The Damascus Road: A Novel of Saint Paul (2019). I love Parini's work--have read all of his novels, his biographies of literary figures (Frost, Vidal, Faulkner), and a lot of his poetry and criticism. I coaxed him to spend a day with us at Western Reserve Academy  (April 20, 2012). I had retired by that time, so colleague Jeannie Kidera handled well all the many particulars of his visit.

Anyway, Parini employs two narrators--Luke and Paul himself--as he proceeds through the famous Biblical account of Paul's pre-conversion behavior (participating in the stoning of Stephen), through the road-to-Damascus epiphany, his preaching, his travels, his successes, failures, writing, escapes, death.

Parini, the son of a Baptist minister, has written other books on Christian subjects, so he is not coming to this project as a skeptic. Nor does he accept everything in the accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (he notes, for example, the many legends already circulating during the life of Paul and Luke and the others).

An interesting character is James, the brother of Jesus, who does not come off all that well.

But ... a powerful story of a man consumed by his passion, a profound believer who will not surrender a whit, will not fear death, will not avoid a dangerous encounter.

     - As some of you know, I've been reading my way through the novels of Wilkie Collins (1824-99), a prolific writer, friend and colleague of Charles Dickens. The most recent one I finished was The Two Destinies (1876), not one of his major novels, I fear. It tells the story of two children, George and Mary, who love each other as children, and, as they enter later childhood and early adolescence, they become more serious. But there is a class difference between them, so ... no way their union is going to happen.

George's family (the higher class) quickly move away, and the boy and girl lose touch, lose track of each other. But will they find each other again?

Prophetic dreams, spectral appearances, near misses, and George 's slow recognition of what's going on (George, who appears to be a dimmer bulb than he need be--virtually every reader will see what George does not)--all tumbles us toward a conclusion that will not surprise anyone.

Still, Wilkie Collins can write, and wending my way through his sentences and paragraphs is always a pleasure.

     - And, finally, I finished (for now) my journey through all the works of Kate Atkinson, whom I discovered quite by accident while reading a little notice in the New York Times (July 2018--link to the notice). I've read her "literary novels," her mysteries featuring Jackson Brodie (books that are every bit as clever as her novel-novels--a new one will be out in June!), her collection of short stories, and now ... her play, Abandonment (2000).

It's something of a family story--some sisters (one adopted), a mother, a friend, a workman (who's helping one of the sisters replace some of the wood in a house she's just bought), and ... some characters from the past who used to live in the house.

All sorts of issues emerge as the play progresses--sibling rivalry, sex (of all sorts), murder (!), family history (the good, the bad, the ugly), and, of course, a resolution of the surprising sort that Atkinson often employs. Lots of lines to like--like this one: "I can't imagine being dead. ... How can the self be obliterated?" (37). And this one: "I suppose real love is where you have no choice" (97).

Of course, it's far more fun to see than to read a play. On the page, it takes a while to figure out who people are--to keep them separate; this is not an issue at a performance. So ... I'm glad I read it--but wish I could see it!

3. We finished watching the Netflix film The Highwaymen about the pursuit of Bonnie & Clyde. Interesting, the differences between it and Arthur Penn's 1967 film about the duo. At the end of the Penn film, you felt kind of "Aw, that's too bad"; at the end of this one, you think, "They got what they deserved."

You rarely see B&C in the Netflix film; the focus, instead, is on Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, who play two former Texas Rangers re-employed to hunt down B&C. They are both great--some wonderful scenes between them--and with others.

One wee problem: Why are all the vintage cars in such good shape?!? Link to some video.

4. We're also nearing the end, via Hulu, of season 2 of Fargo, which, at times, has all the weirdness you associate with the Coen Bros. (who did the original Fargo film in 1996). Grim stuff, this season--gang warfare in Minn. and N. Dakota. Lots of blood and viscera. But also fun to watch for its visual style--for its sanguinary humor--and for some of the performers.

Link to some video.

5. Last Word: A word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from dictionary.com

pseudepigraphy  [soo-duh-pig-ruh-fee] noun

1: the false ascription of a piece of writing to an author.

QUOTES: If de León was the author, his exercise in pseudepigraphy was among the most successful in history.

-- Ezra Glinter, "A mysterious medieval text, decrypted," Boston Globe, June 26, 2016

ORIGIN: The noun pseudepigraphy comes from Late Latin pseudepigrapha, a neuter plural adjective (from pseudepigraphus) used as a noun meaning “books or writings falsely titled or attributed to Hebrew writings supposedly composed by biblical patriarchs and prophets.” Pseudepigrapha was borrowed unchanged from the Greek compound adjective pseudepígrapha (from pseudepígraphos), composed of pseudḗs “false” and the Greek combining form -grapha, neuter plural of -graphos “drawn or written.” Pseudepigraphy entered English in the 19th century.