Review of a classic movie; Rebecca – available at Lane Cove Street Library

Lane Cove has eleven Street Libraries! How good is that! In the Cove have documented them here.

One of the local street libraries offered up a surprise lockdown find - Rebecca, a movie that won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It is a 1940 Alfred Hitchcock black and white classic.

Rebecca is the former wife of Maxim de Winter. As the movie opens Maxim completes a rapid holiday courtship of a young lass. Prior to departing from the holiday, they marry and return to Maxim’s large seaside country estate.

In entering the house, the new Mrs. de Winter discovers that she is expected to repeat the same duties of the former wife. She stumbles in adapting to the task of running the household; Mr de Winter at one time accusing her of acting like an upstairs maid. A dark old housekeeper keeps the spectre of Rebecca alive.    

While the title character is never seen in the movie, she influences the whole plot.

Yet to settle in the house, the new Mrs. de Winter - aged in her twenties - dons the spectre of Rebecca with hope that she may be a better fit to the expectations of the house servants. Maxim’s rapid response comforts his new wife:

Mrs. de Winter: I wish I were a woman of 36, dressed in black satin with a string of pearls!

Maxim de Winter: You wouldn't be here with me if you were.

A turning point in the movie comes when the new Mrs. de Winter finally takes control. This is marked by the removal of items that maintain the memory of Rebecca. Hitchcock masterfully marks this moment through a confrontation of the new Mrs. de Winter and the long-serving housekeeper.

Like all good movies there is a dramatic plot twist and a solid ending. I'll not offer any spoilers other than to say that Rebecca's lasting presence is felt. 

Enjoy the movie rugged up with hot chocolate and homemade ginger snaps. It is yours to watch on collection from the street library on the corner of Centennial Ave and Elizabeth Parade. The DVD is unmarked and includes some added features.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Review of book; Love, Clancy

Richard Glover has published a book for the time. In the upside-down-ness of COVID19 it is tantalising to see the world through the eyes of a dog. And, the dog, a handsome young canine named Clancy, is no ordinary dog. Standing by Richard’s side in a park, not flinching a muscle, Clancy turned to Richard pondering why Richard would want to throw a perfectly good ball away!

Clancy’s letters home to his bush-based parents hold many laugh-out-loud moments. A particularly funny moment was in Richard’s recognition that in commencing, but not finishing, numerous COVID19 lockdown projects, Richard could make more mess in a single room than Clancy ever could.

There are many fond moments. In seeing through Clancy’s eyes, the reader has an opportunity to re-assess what is important. Top of the list is chicken dinner, a scratch behind the ears and a regular 9pm cheese snack. After inhaling dinner in seconds, it is essential to stare at the plate with expectation that additional chicken will fall from the sky.

Regular accounts of Clancy’s diggings (oil yet to be discovered in a Leichhardt backyard) had me wishing that Clancy had joined me for my own COVID19 lockdown project. Unlike Richard’s lockdown projects mine drew to completion! A twenty metre length of ag pipe was laid with much manual shifting of dirt and clay. The slope of the trench had to be dug to ensure that water would run. Clancy would have been a helpful laborer. I would have happily paid in chicken: 

“That is a good straight line Clancy, and the slope at the base is perfect, here have a chicken leg."

“Hey! Clancy, that 60 degree bend exiting the garden bed is worthy as an illustration in a mathematics textbook, here have some chicken breast.”

The book is available at all good book shops. I borrowed a copy from Ryde Library (North Ryde branch) using their excellent reservation service. This post links from a Goodreads review where I scored five out five stars.

Shalom, Ozhamada

 

[334 words] #goodreads #agreatread #books #loveyourlibrary #book #literature #covid19

Review of book: The History of the World According to Facebook

Okay, I see the big “A Parody” warning on the front cover. I get the joke. Numerous posts on Facebook throughout time starting with the Big Bang itself. There’s a list of notable people throughout time including: Adam, Moses, Joseph and Mary, US Presidents and Mark Zuckerburg.

Yet, the premise is thin and the concept is warn by page 4. Carl Sagan may like the Big Bang but he would have taken a long time to hit the like button.

I rated as 1 out of 5 stars.

One highlight was Neil Armstrong’s status update – a misadventure of auto-correct:

“That’s one small step for man, one gonad swap for a manatee”

And, is it possible that Martin Luther once posted a request for someone to lend him a hammer?

In the introduction the author, in 2011, was prescient of COVID-19: 

“Again, enjoy! And wash your hands”

I found this book in a street library and then returned to another street library.

This review links from my Goodreads account.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

#goodreads #agreatread #books #streetlibrary #streetlibraryaustralia #streetlibraryadventure #loveyourlibrary #book #literature #covid-19

Review of novel, Don’t Upset the Choir

Don’t Upset the Choir is a brief, cheerful book sharing the author’s travel around England volunteering as a chorister in many church choirs. The book was long on my household’s bookshelf with the household inhabitants unaware of its providence. A COVID19 clean-up led to a desire to get rid of the book.

On finishing the book we passed it onto a local chorister.

 

To summarise the main themes…

 

To the author’s chagrin:

>go-it-alone organists or domineering organists

>vicars that change hymns at the last minute

>unfamiliar tunes to common hymns

 

To the author’s joy:

>participating in many different choirs

>common hymns sung well

>sunshine, or rather, lack of rain.

 

The book has wonderful illustrations, one of which I have included above. A learning to Vicars from the book: the choir does not listen to your sermon.

This post links from my Goodreads account where I rated it five stars.

 

Shalom,

Ozhamada

#goodreads #agreatread #books #book #literature

Review of The Post-Birthday World, did not finish

It is rare for me to put down a novel prior to reading the first twenty pages. The threshold point of twenty pages is a feature of a rule established through experience – if the novel has not ‘grabbed’ me by the 10% mark I turn to another novel. Life is too short for a bad novel.

However, The Post-Birthday World had me searching for another novel before the end of the second page.

The problem was a simple one.

It was there in the first paragraph.

First paragraphs of novels play a very important role. One famous opening paragraph brilliantly frames the whole of the novel. This priceless opening is from Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man

 in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

 

The first paragraph of The Post-Birthday World is:

“What began as coincidence had crystallized into tradition: on the sixth of July,

they would have dinner with Ramsey Acton on his birthday.”

 

And the problem is with a single word: “coincidence”. For, one recognises before page two is over that there was no coincidence at all. There is instead a contrivance.

The contrivance of dining as a foursome.

The meal enjoyed by two couples, arose through the scheming of the invitee. The invitee, a married woman named Jude, found her husband poor dining company (page 2: “One-on-one he had bored her silly”). The invitee could not bear dining with her husband alone. The motive of dining as more than a couple lies in Jude’s sharing of her husband’s fame: “Maybe Jude had loved dragging Ramsey out to impress colleagues but was not sufficiently impressed on her own behalf.”

Unpacking the distinction between coincidence and contrivance, I recognised:

>The effort of starting the tradition was deliberate. The author identifies that on the part of the invitee: “Jude had seemed driven to nail down a foursome so that her illustrator could meet her husband, Ramsey”. The author also identifies the nonplussed manner of the invited female of promoting the notion of the event to her male partner: “[Irina] Jude wants me to meet her husband Raymond or something”. So, the initiating event arose clumsily yet intentionally.

>In contrast, a dining tradition that would begin by coincidence would most likely require a chance of meeting of the diners at the same restaurant. Perhaps the coincidence would arise as two couples both approached the same restaurant with individual bookings for tables of two. It would not commence through any degree of effort. 

>Any element of coincidence is overridden by the invitee’s driving desire to have another couple accompany her at the meal.

The coincidence/contrivance distinction perhaps illustrates poverty of other aspects of the novel – hence the ‘did not finish’. Why continue when other clangers are likely to be found. The Guardian’s review of the novel recognises the laboured nature of the main male character’s fame; his snooker playing. The Guardian cleverly suggests that: "the novel snookers itself through repetition".

Where Pride and Prejudices opening paragraph sets the scene of the whole novel and whets the appetite, The Post-Birthday World’s opening paragraph grinds.

Definitional

Coincidence: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

Contrivance: the use of skill to create or bring about something, especially with a consequent effect of artificiality.

I found the novel in a street library. I returned it to a different street library. A neighbour may enjoy the novel better than me.

This post links from my Goodreads account where I rated it one star.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

#goodreads #agreatread #books #streetlibrary #streetlibraryaustralia #streetlibraryadventure #loveyourlibrary #book #literature

Review of The Girl Who Played with Fire (two stars)

I offer a review of this second book in the Millennium series after rating the first book as 1 star. There was a period when my book-reading acquaintances were reading and sharing their views on these books and they were all agog at the quality of the story. I’ve found the series poor, however, I find myself in an odd situation of rating this second book as 2 stars. At such rate, I hope to rate the fifth book in the series 5 stars.

 

The novel is better than the first in the series as there is more depth to the plot. The reader is challenged to hold competing threads together. I particularly appreciated how the main female had a significant absence from the book – all the while hiding up in an apartment that was within reach of the action. The re-entry of the main female was very well timed and allowed for a successful webbing together of all the competing threads.

 

A few failures:

 

>This novels reveal of Salander’s evil papa had a Star Wars “Luke, I am your father” feel about it.

 

>The notion of a diminutive female riding a burly Harley Davidson motorcycle failed.

 

>Don’t bother readers with details of the main female character’s mammoplasty unless the enhanced assets are going to play a part in the novel; Salander is not the type of lass that ranks feminine charms highly in her arsenal of skills. Her fuller jugs were probably only added to the book with a view to a screen play – although I’m open to some weird plot twist in book three; Salander disguised as a wholesome waitress at a Munich beer hall during an Oktoberfest event.

 

>Salander, who is suffering enough from a sad history of psychological and physical abuse, does not also need to be on the autism spectrum – yet, that part of the story seems to be a setup for book three.

 

>Salander seeks to keep her new abode a secret, yet Ikea workers are welcomed to complete both delivery and installation of furniture. Ikea workers must be the most upright of all workers in Sweden; not open to any bribe to reveal customer details.

 

>There are a few moments where the translation from Swedish to English seems to fail.

 

A suggestion:

 

>The inclusion of a double page map that depicts all the towns that are named in the story would assist foreign readers in following the story.

 

And, a very Swedish idea:

 

>If you are incredibly rich you still purchase Ikea! Yet being rich means you pay for both the shipping and installation!

 

Subjects covered:

 

>mental illness and treatment, psychological and physical abuse, giantism, sex trafficking, police investigation, investigative journalism, homosexuality, murder.

 

Body count:

>four

 

I have book three to read yet will break from the series to read another book for now. I do hope I can rate book three to 3 stars and then ultimately book five as 5 stars.

 

This review links from my Goodreads account. I found the book, along with book three in a Street Library. I returned the book to a second street library.

 

Shalom,

Ozhamada

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