Month: September 2014
Book Review: Marianne Dreams
Sometimes I stumble on books in the strangest of ways. Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr was referenced in a blog article on feminism, and was not cited favorably. All the same, I was so intrigued by the premise—and hopeful that the complaint might be exaggerated—that I read the book anyway.
Marianne lives in England somewhere during the first half of the twentieth century and, as children did then, falls ill with a fever and must spend weeks in bed recovering. She draws a house with a pencil she finds in her mother’s sewing box—and when she falls asleep, she dreams of the house she drew. She soon realizes that whatever she draws with the pencil will come to life in her dreams, including Mark, a boy more seriously ill than Marianne, and also sinister watching stones Marianne draws in a fit of temper. Marianne and Mark have to work together to regain their health and to escape the dangers in their shared dream.
Blog Hop: Reading a Hundred Years From Now
Time for another Book Blogger Hop question: How will we be reading in 100 years’ time? Will there be any printed books left? How about ereaders? What might they look like?
Such an interesting question! I am sure much has been written on the subject by people far better informed than I, but here’s my particular theory on it… Continue reading “Blog Hop: Reading a Hundred Years From Now”
Imaginary Illustrations #4
This week’s Imaginary Illustration is for the book-lovers…which is probably all of you! 🙂 Another quote from my upcoming novel, The Storyteller and Her Sisters.
Movie Review: A Face in the Crowd, starring Andy Griffith
I previous wrote a rather sentimental tribute to Mayberry and The Andy Griffith Show–and praised the themes of Barry Manilow’s CD, Fifteen Minutes, on the corrupting influence of fame–and strangely enough, I’ve now found a movie that combines the two! A few years before landing in Mayberry, Andy Griffith starred in A Face in the Crowd…and was not playing the Sheriff Andy Taylor we know and love.
The movies opens with Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal), who arrives at a small-town jail looking for material for her local radio program. There she finds Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith), locked up with his guitar, under a week’s sentence for drunk and disorderly conduct. Dubbing him “Lonesome Rhodes,” she convinces him to come host at the radio station. His mix of humor, stories and singing takes off, catapulting Lonesome into national fame. But Marcia finds herself in the role of Dr. Frankenstein as fame goes to Lonesome’s head and he spirals out of control.
IMDB tells me this was Griffith’s film debut, and that it has been described as “stunning.” It really is. It was filmed before The Andy Griffith Show, but the context now is unavoidable, and I think it strengthens the movie. While I can’t imagine Andy Taylor ever in jail for being “drunk and disorderly” (actually, that could make a good plot, if it was a mix-up…), Lonesome still seems rather like a rough-edged Andy Taylor when we first meet him. He’s got the accent, the guitar and the big grin–and you can almost ignore the feeling that there’s something just a bit off about his open-mouthed laugh. Continue reading “Movie Review: A Face in the Crowd, starring Andy Griffith”
Tales of the Marvelous 