Brett Dewing

Early Calvino stories

Revisado: 04-06-25

Without Calvino’s later masterworks, this collection would not have merited translation. Calvino is finding his voice here but is still working in Realism. While the prose is good, most of these stories lack what Aristotle would call endings. Each tale wanders for about 15 minutes and then just stop. A couple stories feel whole and worthwhile (“Robbery at a Bakery”, “A Goatherd at Luncheon”), but most are frustratingly lacking in a clear purpose or complete narrative.

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Haters gonna hate, I guess

Revisado: 12-08-24

It is so fitting to write a book about the development of Sunday in the Park with George. And what an emotional rollercoaster it was!! And most of the disagreements and misunderstandings were never talked about between the concerned parties until Lapine started writing this book!

It’s very distracting that none of the interviewees read their own words. It’s constantly disorienting to hear the narrator say “Bernadette Peters” (etc) and then hear someone else’s voice. I got used to Len Cariou as Sondheim, but he’s Len Cariou. The random readers frustrated me no end!

The best revelations: the way Bernadette’s mother (and aunt!!) died and the final reveal about Lapine’s grandfather!

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Oh, so he is a creep…

Revisado: 06-11-24

It’s no secret: I love the films of Quentin Tarantino. But after reading his book of film criticism (is that what we’re calling it??), I have realized that those films are the only thing about him that I like in the least.
QT is widely known as The Ultimate Film Geek, and his movies are intricate homages to all the films he loves. But, let no one ever confuse that with film knowledge. It is now clear to me that as brilliant as Quentin truly is, he is a brilliant technician and not quite the passionate artist I may have once supposed. He is simply…passionate.
Cinema Speculation is basically a collection of his thoughts on a long list of 1970s movies (or, you know, real cinema…). And those thoughts are mostly of the “it was soooo coooool” variety. I have only seen two of his central subjects (Deliverance and Taxi Driver), but his ideas about them — especially Deliverance — are the opposite of mine. I don’t mean that he didn’t like the film but I did. No, I mean that his entire framework for thinking about cinema is different than mine. Tarantino is obsessively concerned with the plot of the movies he loves and what makes them exciting (or awesome or amazing or thrilling or many words I will not repeat here). It’s not that he has no sense of how movies mean, but it’s not something he seems to care about overly much. Ultimately, he feels that they should elicit cheering and laughter and rude remarks from the audience. If there’s something they can think about later on, well that’s neat, too.
Tarantino may have encyclopedic knowledge of movie history, but the only entries he cares to include in that encyclopedia concern exploitation movies, horror movies, and action movies (oh, and the completely legitimate but hypocritically demonized adult film industry). I had no idea that words like “sleazy” and “lurid” and worse could be used as compliments. In Quentin’s world, they appear to be the height of praise. He wants envelope-pushing gore and violence (and he wants to speak about it in crude sexual terms).
Not only do I not share many of QT’s criteria for a good film, but I cannot bring myself to speak about anything in the gutter-reveling jargon that he clearly loves to hear coming out of his mouth (or poor narrator Eduardo Ballerini’s mouth, who is one of my favorite audiobook readers and does an uncanny Tarantino impression). In fact, after listening to over ten hours of Tarantino’s thoughts on shlock-n-shock stock (I just made that term up, and I’m pretty excited about it already), I cannot tell you what I think of Tarantino the man without coopting his puerile vocabulary…which I will not do.
I think it is highly likely that Quentin harbors a love of movies that goes beyond the grindhouses of the 70s, but he seems embarrassed to admit it. Tarantino’s own films are slyly editorial and even sometimes critical of the genres they ape. I cannot believe that this is an aspect that I am simply projecting onto them, but I do now admit that part of it must be in my viewing more than his arrangement.
I’m not sure that Cinema Speculation does Mr. Tarantino any favors. Its purpose instead seems to be a kind of street-cred and cachet with those who go to the movies to yell abuse at the screen.
Although his films are rarely overtly sexual, his writing is painfully so (a fact I first discovered in his novelization of Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood). It seems obvious that the man is an unaware misogynist who thinks his buddy relationships with women (including his mother while growing up) and his eagerness to fight for women’s power of choice to self-objectify or even commoditize their bodies makes him the ultimate feminist. (He also clearly thinks he is an honorary Black bro.)
At times like this, I am glad that I believe in the work’s separation from its author, because thinking about this man and his dumb opinions whenever I watched his films would sicken me.

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BTW, not the Hitchcock story

Revisado: 05-04-24

I suppose with the insane productivity of Chesterton, some of his books are bound to be bad. Sad.

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I’m so sad it’s over…

Revisado: 03-07-24

Somehow, 200 Italian folktales did not satiate me. It brought forth fascinating questions about the purpose of folktales, the way they cross-pollinate, and the nature of the human imagination. And I always think this narrator fits Calvino like an Italian leather glove.

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Another triumph for King, mauled by an awful reader

Revisado: 04-30-23

Thomas King is a national treasure, and this novel follows closely after Green Grass, Running Water and Truth and Bright Water in quality. I don’t know why or how anyone chose this reader, though. It’s like listening to a book read by Casey Kasem. Every phrase is read as if it were some potential prize on a television game show. I pushed through and got used to him, and he does do a great job rendering Crisp, but I can’t think King would approve. But the material surpasses the performance.

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There are few books as audacious and ravishing

Revisado: 01-31-23

I can hardly speak of Chesterton’s crowning text. It is the rarest of books, and it batters me every time.

Instead, a few words about the production. When I first heard Peever’s voice in a short excerpt, I thought it far too stuffy to carry this most comical and grace of books. But after listening to his entire performance, I find no fault. In fact, his seems the perfect voice for The Man Who Was Thursday. I am less enchanted with the occasional music, but my only real complaint is that it swallows the last word of the book in its fanfare. A worthy production of an incredible work.

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Delightful Chesterton lunacy

Revisado: 01-23-23

An irresistible book by the irrepressible G K Chesterton, the man who best exemplified both the joy of fun and the seriousness of living! I did find the narrator far too broad and dramatic during Chapter One, but I soon settled into his style, which is well-suited to the material. I reckon the only reason this novel is lesser known (at least among Christendom) is that the 21st century constitution wants to leap in to defend all people from any poke or broad depiction. I wonder, though, if it is not Chesterton’s own country and sex who get the butt of the equal-opportunity levity.

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Where’s the rest of the book?

Revisado: 12-26-22

I am a devotee of Woody, and I have this in hardcover, so I’m sad to say that I can’t rate this audiobook any higher. It’s not complete! I was disappointed when the advertised foreword was skipped, but when I got to the last story (the longest and best in the book), it only included the second half! I’m very confused. Surely there’s been a mistake somewhere. Even aside from that (unforgivable) shortcoming, Woody’s writing here is oddly florid and overwritten. The stories often start with pointless framing devices and end abruptly. And, worse, Woody sounds like he’s tripping over his own words. As the recording progresses, he finds a rhythm, but at least half of the book is read as if he had never seen the text and didn’t know where the sentence breaks were, let alone how to alter his thin range of tone. I love you, Woody, but maybe it’s time to get someone else to record your audiobooks…even the sound quality was subpar, as if (and who would doubt it) he recorded it on old equipment in his apartment. I guess he forgot to send one or two of the files to Audible?? It’s a real shame, and I’ll definitely have to see about returning this one. Did it go through a quality check? Or am I the only one who got an incomplete recording?

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This is abridged!!

Revisado: 11-29-22

What?! How can you sell an abridged novel without labeling it abridged? I basically just wanted four hours of my life, because I’ll never know if the actual book is any good. This certainly isn’t. And Elliott Gould does a terrible job! I could hardly stand to listen to him. And now I see I didn’t have to — because it’s abridged! This is not a book you can abridge (if such a thing exists)! We don’t read Heller for the plot! No wonder it was so oddly horrible. Seriously, do we get a refund on this scam?

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