Wonder Boys

 Wonder Boys

By Michael Chabon

Wonder Boys was one of my favorite movies in my late teens and early 20s. It features Toby MaGuire,
Francis McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Douglas. I'd always known it was based on a book, and came across it one day while visiting the library with some students and thought I'd check it out to see how well it conformed to the book.

It turns out, Wonder Boys is an ideal example of what people mean when they say a book is "cinematic". From what I could tell, the screenwriters of the movie barely had to change a thing. The dialogue, the scenes, the setting -- it was all there in the book. It was, in fact, just like watching the movie again. There were, of course, small differences. Grady Tripp's physique -- he's no small, svelte Michael Douglas in the book -- is one. We also learn much more about Grady's future-former wife, Emily, who, it turns out, is adopted, from Korea, into a Jewish family that moved full time out into the Pennsylvania countryside after the patriarch's retirement. 

I do wish I'd come across Chabon's book first. I think I would have liked it a lot. And it would have allowed me to create pictures of the characters in my head. As it was, all I could picture were Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr., Frances McDormand, and Toby MaGuire. All well. I need to read more Michael Chabon.

The Last Revival of Opal and Nev

 The Last Revival of Opal and Nev

By Dawnie Walton

This is the story of an interracial rock duo from the 1970s -- as well as the magazine-editor working to tell

their intertwined story. Nev is a British songwriter trying to find an electrifying partner when he stumbles upon Opal in a Detroit nightclub. It is Opal's sister who has the voice, but she who has the panache of a star. The two put out a record that is destined for obscurity until one night when their record label puts on a showcase of its talent headlined by their one hit-maker, the Bond Brothers. This southern-rock band attracts an audience of Hell's Angel-like bikers who are obscene and loud -- and riotous when Opal, who has been eyeing warily the Confederate flag the Bonds like to use as a prop at their show, reveals that she has stolen it and gathered it around her like a diaper. A picture of a wounded Nev hauling an even more wounded Opal out of the theater makes a splash in the Times and Opal and Nev ride the attention to a new record, fame, and a small fortune.

Oh, and the drummer for the band, Jimmy Curtis, is killed in the melee. He happens to be the father of the editor/reporter hoping to tell Opal and Nev's story ahead of a reunion tour, LenaSarah "Sunny" Curtis. The book switches back and forth between interviews with Opal and Nev, Sunny's narrative, and other bits of media, all of which are designed to make the book read like the "real" thing; there are even footnotes. In her research, Sunny interviews the sole surviving Bond brother, who claims it was Nev who told his drugged up former self that Opal had stolen his stars and bars and started the riot that night. It's a fact that has the potential to blow the Opal and Nev reunion tour up -- if anyone believes it. It also provides a window into an exploration of the role that race and gender play in the music industry (and world as a whole). 

All in all, I found this to be an engrossing book. I wonder, though, whether its realism adds to it or detracts from it. The series of events are so tied to real events that it sometimes felt tedious to re-read them. I was certainly ready for it to be done when it was over.

Wolf Hall

 Wolf Hall

By Hilary Mantel

I picked this up after hearing of Mantel's death. I'd picked it up before at my parents' house, and was
surprised to find its beginning pages far more interesting than I'd imagined. It follows the rise of Thomas Cromwell -- not the other famous Cromwell, Oliver -- during the reign of Henry VIII. It was a time of great societal change in England as Henry's failure to produce an heir with his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and his wandering heart led him to an impasse with Pope Clement that ultimately produced the English Reformation. 

Cromwell's position of power in guiding these affairs was surprising given his "low" birth. He was the son of a blacksmith whose violent beatings sent the younger Cromwell fleeing to Europe, where he served in various armies. When he became Henry's master secretary, he became the first person without a "noble" birth to hold such a position, and it seems as though Cromwell's suspicion of a system that ranks people based on their ancestors parallels his thoughts about papal power. Mantel, I've read, has also reimagined Cromwell, who, though I'd never heard of him, was traditionally depicted as conniving and power-hungry. Mantel's Cromwell, meanwhile, is generous and tolerant and wise.

What struck me in reading the book was just how much a hold Christianity had on people back in the 1500s. Henry's excommunication and subsequent break with Rome seemed to cause an international crisis. Meanwhile, people are being burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English. Everyone is so darn certain of their afterlife in heaven that they are willing to die for their support of this or that interpretation of religion. Then again, one wonders if we have now replaced religion with something else. Republicans across the nation, after all, have plotted violence against Democrats. Or maybe it is that people susceptible to religion are predisposed to follow blindly, though I know that is an ungenerous characterization. 

Whatever the case, I will say that by the end of this book's 600 pages, reading about the political machinations of 16th-century England became a bit...tedious. The problem with historical fiction is that the outcome is usually known. It seems like getting there could take fewer pages.