Went to the Art Institute with my mom and aunt and in the
hall on the way to the textile installation and the Lichtenstein show, I
saw this ridiculously loveable cutie lion (my new favorite object).
Other end of the hall to balance things out was this grumpy disapproving
head.
It's getting to be that time of the summer, when I start wishing summer could stretch on forever and ever and ever. By the end of August, I'm usually dreaming of wool sweaters and crisp cool walks with Dan and the pooch. But right now, cicadas revving up at sunset every night, lightning bugs winking off and on across the lawn, the distant hoot of children playing the last round of tag before their moms call them in. . . it can feel like the most perfect time of the year.
You read a few perfect books in a lifetime, I think. . . And David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is one of those books. It is ambitious and expansive and big. Truly. It's about big things all of which are difficult to explain--and none of which I want to, because you ought to get to experience this book without spoilers. But it's made up of 6 connected stories, though I'm not sure they're actually connected so much as sitting inside one another like Russian nesting dolls. Except by the time you finish the novel, you find that the smallest doll within the set is also the largest and contains the other stories, just as much they contain it.
And the Wachowskis have gone and made a film version. The preview makes it looks impressive and the Wachowskis have no end of talent at creating impressive visual effects.
But I admit to being disappointed that Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are the
leads. I think this particular movie would have been better served with less well-known actors. And also that rather than adequately create connectivity
between the stories, they have used a trick of repetitively using the
same actors throughout. That could simplify this and make
the story about reincarnation--which I neither believe in, nor think the
original novel was about. The novel was about the actions--no matter
how small--of one man in time rippling out to create the world we end up
with hundreds of years later. Strangers affecting strangers lives not just
today, but forever and ever, across time, for good and for ill.
And nevertheless, I can't wait until it comes out. I'm super excited. If it's even half as good as the book. . .
