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The Top 10 Literary Adaptations of 2014

December 29, 2014 in Book Matters, Film Matters, Listing

In February of this year I began covering one of my all-time favorite topics–the intersection of books and movies–for the estimable site Word and Film.  It’s a job I adore, especially because it allows me to focus on literary adaptations.  Here are the top 10 of 2014.

10) Tie: “Wild” and “The Imitation Game”
The adaptations of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and Andrew Hodge’s biography of Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who helped end World War II, are about as divergent as two lone-wolf epics can be – except that they’re both so satisfying to watch. If the films are also just a wee bit slick, they feature such beautifully complex performances (from Reese Witherspoon and Benedict Cumberbatch, respectively) that we scarcely mind. What would this season be without a prestige biopic or two? Continue Reading →

No Condition for Love

December 28, 2014 in Book Matters, Quoth the Raving, Sabboytical, Spirit Matters

From a 1984 interview with author Edna O’Brien:

Interviewer: Some think your preoccupation with romance verges at times on the sentimental. You quote Aragon in answer: “Love is your last chance, there is really nothing else to keep you there.”

O’Brien: But my work is concerned with loss as much as with love. Loss is every child’s theme and writers, however mature and wise and eminent, are children at heart. I might, if the gods are good to me, find that my understanding of love has become richer and stronger than my dread of loss.

Interviewer: Is that why, in nearly all your novels, women are longing to establish a simple, loving, harmonious relationship with men, but are unable to do so?

O’Brien: My experience was pretty extreme, so that it is hard for me to imagine harmony, or even affinity, between men and women. I would need to be reborn.

The Church of Forgiveness

December 27, 2014 in Church Matters, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

It is the end of the year, and I have been musing on forgiveness. In general, I find it a totally bullshit concept–one that people widely tout but rarely practice. And that’s too bad. As I said to a friend today, when a person claims forgiveness that they do not really feel (as is so often the case), their declaration shuts a door with a finality that open resentment never could. I frankly do not see the point of extending forgiveness to a person who is not requesting it, anyway; such a pardon is a condescension, even a self-abnegation. True forgiveness is a contract between two beings who are spiritually progressing by mutually transcending their comfort zones: by courageously addressing their culpability; by honoring active vulnerability with grace. That said, in the absence of such hard-won peace, I see the point in releasing anger and acknowledging the beauty that lives in even the most harmful individuals. Such a fearless act, especially when unaccompanied by codependence, is one of the finest ways we can love people, including ourselves, at their most unlovable.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy