PASSING LOVE

Passing Love by Jacqueline E. Luckett - This story takes place in the years of and after World War II in Mississippi and Paris. I love that the main character is 56 years old, and that she gets the news of her life when she decides to finally follow a long-held dream to visit Paris. The author has written the book so that the back story is also the front story which is about a girl in her 20s. Sometimes the writing and words were not to my taste, but the author's style is sincere. In any case the story and characters put this book front and center as a must read. Per the quote on the book's cover...."C'est Magnifique!"

PARIS WITHOUT END

Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway's First Wife by Gioia Diliberto - Last summer I enjoyed The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's marriage to his first wife, Hadley, narrated by Hadley. This book, Paris Without End, is the exhaustively researched and cited story, with every last detail, including lots of photos of Hadley, her family, Ernest and Jack, called Bumby, their only child. The print in the version I read is super small and light, and of course, it's the same story, only longer. Much longer. So I looked at all the pictures, read the captions and skipped large swaths of the book to get to the end. But it still is a good story, so I ended up reading the last half in its entirety. If you want to know about Papa and Hadley, and you prefer non-fiction, then read Paris Without End. If you love fiction, and could be satisfied with a more abridged version, then The Paris Wife is your book.
If you just want a delightful and unusual read about Paris in the 1920s, then read Paris Portraits (I reviewed it on 12-7-11) and then watch Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris in that order. Save yourself a LOT of time.

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - Here's one! I can't imagine what book will be able to top this for awhile. It's the story of Victoria, a girl who graduated out of the state foster care system in California. Chapter by chapter she tells us what's happening now, and what happened in the past, and how she learned to use the Victorian "language of flowers" to process and proceed through life. At the end of the book is an index of flowers and their meanings, and I wish I had known about it at the beginning of the book. I would read the guide before reading the story, and know that the guide is there if you need it. I can't do this book justice without giving more away. It's so delicious to go into a story unknowing, so that the story unfolds for you alone as you read it. Choose this one next.

A DIFFERENT SKY * VIDAL SASSOON: THE MOVIE

A Different Sky by Meira Chand - This historical fiction is an excellent way to learn about Singapore and what happened there between 1927 and the late 1950s. It is a story of love, a story of of ethnicities, a story of brutal war and a story of survival. The author writes to the five senses with her descriptions of the place and times, but lets the reader flesh out the characters through their personalities. I loved these people and the toughness they found within themselves to survive the hardships and tortures they endured. The author weaves politics into the story, and yet there is an enduring goodness or sweetness that each character seems to carry within. Mei Lan, Howard, Raj, Rose, Cynthia, Wilfred and Second Grandmother are some of the characters you'll meet and come to love.

Vidal Sassoon: The Movie - Vidal Sassoon died a few weeks ago, and his obituary mentioned a documentary that had been made about his life. This was the man who changed the world of fashion and hair with his geometric "Sassoon" haircut in the 1960s. His story is a rags to riches tale that took him to the height of success. He was an artist and entrepreneur, as well as a great personality and all around likeable guy. The movie was made a couple of years ago, and his charm and continued success drive the story of his life in which he also reflects upon the down times and how he coped with them.

On the home front, I made a tremendous amount of progress (for me) in the last two days. I decided that I would not wait for anyone to have a garage sale, and made plans to dispose of all the rest of the stuff that had been cluttering the living room, foyer and dining room. I took some nice things to our local thrift store, and a kind freecycler who loves to pick up stuff and re-distribute it took a huge load, and I have another four bags to leave out for an Amvets pick up tomorrow morning. In addition I have some books to donate to our library book store, and I took a few of my ads off Craigslist since the stuff was gone. That freed me up to post some other things on Craigslist, which I did. There is still more to go, but I feel as if I've made some serious progress. The clothes rack is down and the garage sale tables are put away. It feels great to not see all that stuff when I walk down the stairs. Who knows, I may even get around to painting this summer! I'm going to continue to read books about getting rid of stuff, and I'm gong to try not to go to as many garage sales. This might work, since the more stuff I get rid of, the less I feel like escaping this place, and the more I feel like doing projects that are fun and that I've long planned to do.

TINY FURNITURE

Tiny Furniture - Lena Dunham wrote, directed and starred in this movie about a girl who moves home after college. Her mom is a photographer of small things, and the girl doesn't seem to know what to do with herself. (It's really good to graduate from college with something lined up, people. You're young, you have energy, and your mind is as sharp as it will ever be, even though the common sense hasn't been fully engaged yet. Which means you don't need to hang around sleeping for any longer than a week). Alright, then... Tiny Furniture is good, especially if you haven't yet seen Girls, which is the HBO show that Dunham scored after her success with Tiny Furniture. If you have seen Girls, then you'll be familiar with some of the actors and situations and even the New York of Tiny Furniture. I think the way to watch Lena's work is to know that you're in real time as you watch. The plot is going to advance about as far as you advance in a week when you're twenty something.
Sometimes it's fast relationship-wise, and sometimes slow. Same for jobs, social life, and all the ways you get to waste your time when you're in your twenties. Fast and slow and lots of talk about it all. The world advances, so it all happens with technology, but it's basically the same stuff and fun to watch and think about, and a relief to know that it's behind you, although bittersweet because of the loss of just that unique kind of fun that only happens when you're that young. It's a great title, too, right?

BLOOMS OF DARKNESS * THE HARVEY GIRLS * MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld - A compelling book about an 11 year old boy named Hugo. In the early 1940s he and his mother live in the Jewish ghetto, and she makes a plan for his safety. The story of Hugo, although narrated, is as if Hugo is telling it himself. The language is simple and spare, yet the story is full. At some point, the story becomes existential and happens on different plains, but the reader is free to experience it a simple way or in a way that holds deeper meanings about existence, religion, and survival.

The Harvey Girls - This is a 1946 musical starring Judy Garland as a girl from Ohio who travels out west in the 1880s in order to get married. Upon her arrival she finds out that her romantic letters had been written by the owner of the local speakeasy on behalf of a goofy groom. So she decides to work as a waitress at the new Fred Harvey restaurant. Except the judge in town wants to put the Harvey House out of business because he gets kickbacks from the speakeasy. He says that once the nice Harvey girls come to town, the cowboys will stop frequenting the speakeasy in favor of marriage and church. I'm not usually a lover of musicals, but thanks to remote control fast forwarding technology, this was a delightful movie.

My Week With Marilyn - Huh? I guess it's easy to critique the critics after the fact, but seriously, although this was an OK movie, it was seriously over-hyped. It began with much promise and warmth, but as it progressed I found it to be long and even preachy. Michelle Williams plays a skinny and inconsistent Marilyn, at times ethereal but not capturing that thing about Marilyn Monroe that was solid and big, yet so unusually vulnerable. It would be difficult to do, but a larger more solid actress might have pulled it off in a more believable manner. Or maybe one has to read the book.

ME and YOU

Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti - I enjoyed this little story told by a young man about a time in his life and the relationship that freed him from himself. It's very fast, very self-contained, and not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did. I love short stories because as I've said before, they are like little gifts, wrapped up and presented to the reader who unwraps them quickly and reveals the present. Sometimes the present is right there and obvious, other times the present grows on you and works its way into your thoughts and life. And, as I searched for the book cover image just now, I discovered that a movie was made and shown at Cannes this year, so I'll be able to watch this one come to life.

These past few days, I've been at my dining room table with a lifetime of photos taken by my Auntie Kaye who died two years ago and left them all to me. Granted, I asked for them! There were duplicates upon duplicates of people, houses, trips and scenery. Tons of negatives and lots of picture envelopes inside of envelopes. I've got them tamed now, but nowhere near down to the essence that I'd hoped for. Valerie and Joanie have been helpful on the phone and email as I've thrown away. I have this idea that a picture is a magical image that captured a special moment in time no matter how bad it is. Gradually I'm letting that go, because as Valerie says, "who cares?"
or "You're the only one who cares, so why do you want all these pictures, Dianne?"
It started like this:I had already done some sorting, but still had pictures in frames, two albums, and shoeboxes full of who knew what. I sat on the other side of the table, and methodically went through the shoeboxes, envelopes, took the pictures out of the frames, tackled the albums and ziplocks full of pictures, and continued sorting into decades, events and sides of the family. I got it down to this: which looks worse, but is actually an improvement, because I'm down as many pictures as you see on the floor. Once those pictures were out the door, I took a break and went through my own two photo boxes full of organized and labeled negatives and extra pictures that didn't make it into albums last time I dealt with photos which appeared to be in 1997! So, all my negatives are gone, and I was able to condense my backups into one photo box. My next goal is to get all my Auntie Kaye photos into the second photo box. I've got a lot of photos to mail off to family members, and then I'll make myself a scrapbook of Auntie Kaye and Uncle Bob, and then I will be finished. Sooner than later, I hope. This was a sickly enjoyable ordeal.