Some Intriguing Quotes

Men like women who write. Even though they don't say so. A writer is a foreign country. – Marguerite Duras, French novelist

If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud. – Emile Zola

There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman. – Emile Zola

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. – Gloria Steinem

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. - Bertrand Russell

I realized all the really good ideas I had came to me while I was milking a cow. So, I moved back to Iowa. - Grant Wood, Iowa native and painter.

John Kennedy once said to a assembled group of scholars in the White House, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh. – Malcom Muggeridge, editor of Punch

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. - W.B. Yeats

I wake up every morning determined both to change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult. - E. B. White

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. - Doris Lessing

A happy family is but an earlier heaven. – Sir John Bowring

No matter how you feel, you get up, clean up, dress up and show up. – Anonymous

Book Review: "Summer" by Edith Wharton

I've been on vacation in California for the past few days -- my first non-Disney California vacation in years and years -- and while lounging around the hotel room I started and finished "Summer" by Edith Wharton.

I really liked it.

I've been embarrassed before in recommending books no one else enjoyed, and I must admit that Edith Wharton's most famous novel, "Ethan Frome," is the most depressing book I've ever read, bar none. (It's also one of the most memorable!) So what did I like about "Summer"?

It's the story of a young woman who was saved from a life of squalor on "the mountain" to live with guardians in a small town who raised her completely as their own. After the female guardian's death, the man makes an inappropriate advance on the young woman in his care. She rebukes him, and they continue to live in the same household despite her disgust. Over the summer she becomes the constant companion of a well-to-do young scholar who visits the town to study its architecture. She falls in love with him very gradually...Wharton does a masterful job describing their unfolding relationship and all of its consequences.

"Summer" isn't a long book (just 194 pages), but because of Wharton's rich language and vivid imagery I wouldn't call it a 'quick read.' I never feel compelled to finish reading a book if I lose interest in it, but "Summer" definitely held my interest. (I carried it with me everywhere I went in case I had a minute here or there to read.) As I neared the conclusion, I could foresee three or four possible endings and had to find out which one Wharton would choose. Suffice it to say that the book itself was very controversial in its day (published in 1917).

Here is a sample sentence from p. 61 of the book:
"He had made her feel that the fact of her being a waif from the Mountain was only another reason for holding her close and soothing her with consulatory murmurs; and when the drive was over, and she got out of the buggy, tired, cold, and aching with emotion, she stepped as if the ground were a sunlit wave and she the spray on its crest."

Other books by Edith Wharton I've read (all of which I recommend, even if the first was more than a bit depressing): "Ethan Frome," "The Custom of the Country," and "The Age of Innocence"

Movie Review: "The Invention of Lying"

What an awful, awful movie!

I had two good reasons for seeing this film: 1) Ricky Gervais, who wrote, directed and starred in it, and 2) an interesting premise.

But it was really, really, painfully bad.

I sat in a packed movie theater for two hours and hardly heard a chortle. While I found a few of the movie's details mildly amusing, I laughed audibly maybe twice. So if it wasn't the comedy it was supposed to be, what was it? A pseudo-intellectual 'let's pretend' exercise with no redeeming qualities.

Warning: If you disregard this review and see "The Invention of Lying" anyway, don't say I didn't warn you!

SIDE NOTE:

Before the movie, I sat through the usual line-up of previews of coming "attractions" - all of them looked bad, too. What is happening?! I've come to the conclusion that Hollywood needs me.