Chance - the musical !
9/10
I’m having a sudden urge to raid Paul Auster’s works, following up ‘Mr. Vertigo‘ with ‘The Music of Chance‘, a book I had long-neglected but somehow - like an Auster character, perhaps - convinced myself I had already read. This is probably because of the low-key but cultish film adaptation starring [...]
Book Review: Paul Auster - The Music of Chance
November 21st, 2008 · 1 Comment · Fiction
Tags:chance·debt·fate·fortune·freedom·gambling·money·Paul Auster·poker
Book Review: John Updike - Rabbit Redux
September 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · Fiction
Apocalypse redux!
8.5/10
Following on from my post about John Updike’s seminal ‘Rabbit, Run‘, ‘Rabbit Redux‘ is the second in Updike’s quartet of novels chronicling the life and times of America as seen through the eyes of everyman Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Written - as with the other three - at the tale end of one decade (here, [...]
Tags:1960s·America·Black Power·civil rights·free love·freedom·Harry Angstrom·John Updike·Rabbit·suburbia·USA·Vietnam
Into the Wild - Sean Penn
July 21st, 2008 · 1 Comment · Film
Wildly overrated
4/10
‘Into the Wild‘ is an apaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling true story about Christopher McCandless, a middle-class graduate who dropped out and hit the road in search of “ultimate freedom” in Alaska. Sean Penn’s treatment of the story is an embarassingly self-righteous and romanticised interpretation that says much more about the [...]
Tags:Alaska·Alt-country·America·Americana·capitalism·Catherine Keener·Christopher McCandless·Eddie Vedder·Emile Hirsch·freedom·Jena Malone·Jon Krakauer·Marcia Gay Harden·road movie·Sean Penn·wilderness·William Hurt