Member: English99

Well, that thematic arc is quite timely, and thematic of another Chicagoan, too.

It must be quite a feat to compare the movie and the book in the case of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Jack Nicholson is so dominant in that movie that his personality becomes the movie. What is there left to say about the book? I never did get around to reading the book for that very reason.

Too bad you had to drop the Isherwood book. That was probably the best of the lot, as a far a reading matter.

Time spins away quickly here in Alaska...wheeling around the clock face (pun alert) and, in a matter of weeks, the wife and I shall be clocking into Wheeling, West Virgina. Enjoy the pix of great wild North on my home page, they shall soon become the more domesticated Ohio River.

Peace,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 7:55 pm (EST) on Apr 8, 2009

Hi Eng99,

Thought I'd check in and see how the film course is going. I'm just finishing up reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. That, too, was made into a movie. All this bantering in the national news about socialism, stimulus etc. made me want to revisit old Ayn and try and figure out how she hypnotized Alan Greenspan, the school bus driver who put us in a ditch...no wait, that was an Egoyan movie, The Sweet Hereafter. Sorry, I just get confused in mid-February...the monoxide and all.

Peace,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 5:55 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2009

i eaves-dropt on your confab with ganeshaka and thought of a good book-film for you. barry lyndon. happy holidays.
pgt

posted by Porius at 2:34 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2008

Finally, Edith Wharton: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0923585/

Gillian Anderson was great in The House of Mirth.

posted by Ganeshaka at 3:22 pm (EST) on Nov 29, 2008

And further more...

John Huston's Wise Blood was a fascinating movie based on Flannery O'Connor's short novel. Brad Dourif's best role ever. (Huston's direction of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano was ambitious too. But that's a tougher longer read, and, despite Albert Finney, the movie isn't as good as the book.)

John Sturges diection of The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway's short novel. An interesting one man show by Spencer Tracy, nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe.

The Haunting - starring Julie Harris, taken from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House

Henry James' The Turn of The Screw is short and classic. The Frankenheimer/Ingrid Bergman version is the one I remember.

OK, Ok I'll stop now. Thanks for the fun exercise!

By the way, the wife and I went on a house hunting trip to West Virginia in October. We flew to Chicago and rented a car. The return drive was memorable. We hit Monday afternoon traffic on I-90 in a furious rainstorm, trying for a 7PM departure from O'Hare. It was more fun than an action movie. I tried to crawl into the back seat a lot, and made low moaning noises like a cat on the way to a vet. My wife, though, could drive NASCAR or run white lightning. So we made it with an hour to spare.

Oh, one more thought. I'm currently reading Kristin Lavransdatter a 1000 page trilogy which would make a great HBO series in the hands of the right people. Maybe the Deadwood crew. Liv Ullman, with Sven Nykvist, made a film of the first book in the trilogy, and the film was huge in Norway, but the international critics didn't like it so much. I'd love to see Kristin made into a trio of films like Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy which is based on a classic in Bengali literature, and which I once had the pleasure of viewing in a long long summer afternoon at the Thalia theatre in New York.

posted by Ganeshaka at 2:13 am (EST) on Nov 29, 2008

Hi Heather

Off the top of my head (well sorta)

Apocalypse Now - Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Blade Runner - Phillip Dick's Do Androids Drea of Electric Sheep
A Clockwork Orange Directed by Kubrick - written by Anthony Burgess

would be three great movies from shorter reads by good to excellent writers?

posted by Ganeshaka at 9:50 pm (EST) on Nov 28, 2008

Hi English 99,

I so want to take a class in Medieval Literature called Olde English 800. Now there's a class that would be over-subscribed. Prospectus summary: The Miller's Tale or Miller's Tail (of the Dog That Bit Me)? (You've probably heard variants on this joke before, right?)

Seriously, you are to be commended for thinking outside the box, and leading students to Librarything. I followed the links to your useful weebly blog entry - which I bookmarked. I, too, became aware of LT via that NPR show this March. The site has been an enormous stimulus and learning tool for me.

Have you checked out the Thomas Jefferson page at LT? It's special because it actually includes "reviews" - opinions excerpted from his letters and other writings. I just assumed he would have a high opinion of Plato, for example, but that's not the case. He truly "disses" him.

I see you have a copy of The Crescent and the Cross in your collection. How did you come across it? It's way out of print and way obscure. Have you read it yet? It's a really picturesque and kind of gothic portrait of the Fall of the Byzantine Empire. The author paints a vivid picture of a crumbling Constantinople, with abandoned buildings, half empty marketplaces, debased currencies, and a bureaucracy that was part fantasy.

I enjoyed checking out your group member's libraries. And here I thought "Zane" was the name of that Grey guy who wrote a lot of westerns. I stand corrected, inspected, and redirected to Zaneland, uh huh!

Peace,
Ganeshaka

posted by Ganeshaka at 1:09 pm (EST) on Jul 16, 2008