dirac

Not to flog the dying horse, but I did, too, I admit. As I said earlier, I'm sure Fournier did not mean to hurt or offend, but I do not see how you can interpret the phrase any other way or accuse the reporter of putting words in her mouth. The ownership of cats is the standard joke aimed at single women or women sans children, and the remark, however offhand, suggests plainly that these unfortunate ladies have nothing else in their lives, having failed - for whatever reason - to reproduce, and Fournier has been saved from this dire fate. (I have two cats and a very tolerant dog. I feel certain they are not child surrogates. I would say more but I have to take them to soccer practice.) Thanks to all, BTW, for providing a lively discussion on very complex issue - I've enjoyed reading all the contributions to this thread!

Some of them sure do. That puts it in a nutshell, I think.

carbro writes: Well said.

Thanks, Helene. Although I quite disagree that there's no one out there reading 'Harlot's Ghost,' obviously. It's a Mailer book for people who really like Mailer. (I could have finished it, but I became distracted unavoidably by something else and never returned to it.) 'The Executioner's Song' is the Mailer book for people who don't really like Mailer, although it's a great book.

Marga, I wasn’t really thinking of that kind of individual circumstance, sad as it certainly is. (Also, I think the matter of whether the absence of children is voluntary or not isn't quite to the point.) At this juncture I should probably note that we should avoid speculation about individual circumstances. Not aimed at you, Marga - just a general reminder.

She’s also danced with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Guess Kain and Farrell are bad role models.

Yes, when he should be logrolling. He's got nerve. That said, if Wolcott keeps this sort of thing up he’s going to jump the shark into crankdom if he doesn’t watch out. Very grateful for his occasional links to our little site, too.

I'ms ure defensiveness does play a role here. It's easier to have children and still carry on with your career than it was, but that doesn't mean that difficulties and hostility, overt or otherwise, don't exist. Thank you. The adjective ‘tacky’ sprung to my mind, too, but I was trying to be nice. A good point. I think in the latter category we may actually be regressing in this department. It seems to be difficult, sometimes, for the moms to express these perfectly sincere and admirable sentiments while avoiding the kinds of implications that you mention, aurora. One sees what they mean -- but. It’s not necessarily intentional, though. (As bart notes, a simple rephrasing can take away the implied sting. Kyra Nichols talked about the effect having children made upon her in Ballet Review not too long ago and she struck exactly the right notes, I thought.) Of course, there are occasions when the 'sting' is intentional, I fear.

With the note that the fuss was largely stirred up by Tina Brown, who solicited letters to the editor taking issue with Croce. This is not to say that the piece wouldn’t have drawn any comment otherwise, but the ‘controversy’ was to some degree a pseudo-event.

I’ve never gotten around to The Deer Park. I have Armies of the Night on my bookshelf, and haven’t read that either, embarrassing to admit.

The books I like: An American Dream Of a Fire on the Moon Parts of Barbary Coast His campaign convention pieces Harlot’s Ghost – okay, I didn’t read the whole thing The Executioner’s Song Why Are We in Vietnam? Marilyn – he did it for the moolah and it’s fast and lazy, but it’s also got great stuff only he would think of

I had hoped we'd made some progress in thirty years, but I guess not??

Thanks for the link, papeetepatrick. A very nice quote from Gore Vidal in the article: I can think of many ways in which Mailer’s writing annoyed me even when I liked it and yet I was always grateful to have him around. I, too, find it hard to believe he’s gone – he was on Charlie Rose not long ago talking about his Hitler book and seemed very hale. But at that age one never knows. He may very well have been the last of his kind – our Big Writer in journalism and fiction, the successor to Hemingway in that role, for better and worse. I’m not sure if it’s possible for a novelist to hold that kind of position in our culture and public life any more (or even if today’s writers aspire to it). May he rest in peace – although he probably won’t be too happy resting in peace and will doubtless be working on a way to harangue us from the Great Beyond.

canbelto writes (from the General Reading forum):

bart writes (moved from the General Reading forum): Just finished Nureyev.

This article appears in today’s edition of The Globe and Mail. Jennifer Fournier and Stephanie Hutchison talk about combining motherhood and dance. I’m always pleased to read about dancing moms who are still able to continue their careers – it’s a nice change from the old days, when it was much harder -- but I confess to being struck by Fournier’s comments about great ballerinas without children having only “cats and memories.” I'm sure Fournier didn't mean anything by it – hey, at least she didn’t say “barren women” -- but is it just me or is that remark a trifle insensitive? “I may not be the world’s most interesting dancer, but at least I have a husband,” Fournier did not add...... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/lifeMain/home

Most of the story unfolds in flashback, a tricky thing to do if not handled with skill (there's a flash back after about fifteen minutes and you don’t get back to the starting place till the film is almost over, but you don’t feel confused or irritated).

We are lacking in great composers, but you don’t necessarily need great ones, good ones will do almost as well. Tchakovsky and Stravinsky were indeed great, but it was also important that they came from a culture that loved, revered, and understood the art form. It’s my impression, and this is related to Helene's point, that many composers today might think of ‘trying their hand’ at a ballet, but it would be only that – doing something that might be challenging and interesting but is essentially outside their central concerns. I don't want to hear any music by the yard. It's bad enough getting it from Minkus.

I thought the brevity of the men’s sex scenes was in clear contrast to the relative candor with which the collapse of Ennis’ relationship with his wife is shown. (There are no equivalent scenes between Jack and his wife, but they’re clearly intended to be the lesser couple in terms of plot interest.) The point of the sex in ‘Lust, Caution’ is that merely having the characters talk about it (as the Tang Wei character does, late in the film) wouldn’t be enough – it has to be seen. Her speech has greater impact because we in the audience know exactly what she’s talking about. I haven’t. I’ll have to look for it. It’s venturing off topic, but what did Jack do that was so horribly decadent? (No, Ennis didn't do any cruising and it's impossible to imagine him doing so, but I couldn't decide if that was because he wasn't really all that gay or he was merely not that highly sexed - Jack was enough for him, as Ennis' wife would have been enough for him if he'd been genuinely straight. Whereas Jack you can imagine looking around a bit even if circumstances had been different and Ennis and he could have lived together.)

They move the story forward, and we learn things about the characters we wouldn’t know with a more discreet presentation -- and the presentation is not discreet; not hardcore by my definition, but as close as a major film is likely to get. (Lee’s previous movie, ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ is probably better, but I think it was hurt by the kind of discretion that ‘Lust, Caution’ rejects. We really did need to know more about Jack and Ennis in bed.)

I saw Lust, Caution recently and it was excellent. The reviews that I saw beforehand were middling, but as the reviewers seemed for the most part to be focused too intently on thinking up endless variations on lines like ‘Too much caution, not enough lust’ or the reverse to actually say much about the film, I ignored them and went. Synopses of the plot are readily available so I won’t bother, but suffice it to say that Tony Leung Kar-Wai and Tang Wei are marvelous (he gets top billing, but it’s her movie; she carries the story and is in almost every scene), the movie looks great, and the running time of almost three hours is not that big a deal and I don’t understand the many complaints. Ang Lee takes his time, we all know this, relax and watch. (I did think that three hours might have allowed for a little more political context than we get.) The plot is cousin to “Notorious,” only this time the Claude Rains character is a hot number. The sex, and there’s less of it than you might have been led to expect, is graphic but crucial; without it there’s almost no movie.

A sad postscript. Peter Viertel survives his wife by three weeks. ‘White Hunter, Black Heart’ is a good book.

I have only seen Gomes on film but judging from that this is indeed bad news for ticket holders (as well as Gomes, of course, and I extend my best wishes for a speedy recovery).

It is hard when the bookstore is right next door (less of a problem for me than it used to be, alas, with so many of the used bookstores closing their shutters). I still wind up buying more than I can read. I figure I'll get to them eventually. vagansmom writes: Good to hear from you, vagansmom. I know how you feel - I read a lot of things in school I couldn't really appreciate at the time. I thought I did, of course, but it's only later in life that you realize what you missed back then.

That's bad news for both of them, depending on how old that study is and what subjects it covered.....