Friday Flashback: Rec. #121: The Woman in White

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Wilkie Collins wrote The Woman in White in 1859. The nice thing about early mystery novels like this is that the authors aren't so self-conscious about trying to give readers some new twist on suspense. 

Collins was able to be one of the first to mix fresh elements --- an amateur detective, multiple narrative voices --- with the sinister counts, insane asylums, and secret societies of Gothic fiction.

Comparable to: A bit like someone smooshed a Dickens novel with Northanger Abbey, and then put Oliver Rathbone (a barrister from Anne Perry's William Monk series) in charge of getting to the bottom of things.

Representative quote: "Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service."

You might not like it if: Sinister counts, insane asylums, and secret societies are too lurid for your tastes.

How to get it: It's borrowable, Kindle-able, and buy-able. There's also a 1998 BBC adaptation starring Justine Waddell, Andrew Lincoln, and Tara Fitzgerald.

[Originally posted 5/8/11.]

Rec. #394: Twinsters

What: In this wonderful documentary with a terrible title, a young woman living in France and one living in California stumble across each other thanks to social media. They begin to suspect that they are actually twins who were separated at birth.

What starts out like a particularly twist-filled episode of a genealogical detection series like Who Do You Think You Are shifts somewhere along the way into an incisive look at what it means to belong to a family and a country and a person. Fascinating and lovely.

Representative quote: "Our names are Samantha Futerman and Anais Bordier. We grew up our entire lives without knowing about each other. We believe that you are our mother."

Similar to: Twinsters would make a smashing double feature with Sarah Polley's doc Stories We Tell (Rec. #343).

How to get it: Streaming on Netflix

Friday Flashback: Rec. #15: Saturday Night

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: It's a testament to Susan Orlean's skill that her first major book, Saturday Night, holds up so well twenty-five years later. Each essay is devoted to one way that people around the U.S. spend the traditional weekly night out. 

Through the book, we get to spend Saturday nights with people who are attending a quinceanera, babysitting, polka dancing, hosting a Park Avenue dinner party, and keeping watch in a missile silo, among other things.

Comparable to: Orlean's style has remained pretty consistent, so if you've read any of her later essays or books, such as The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup or the The Orchid Thief (inspiration for the movie Adaptation), you'll know what to expect.

Representative quote: "A short guy in a duffel coat, who looked as if he were trying to intersect with a blind date, stood a few feet away, smoothing his hair every few moments and breaking into a weak smile each time a girl veered in his direction, then, as she veered away, smoothing his hair again and frowning." (on a Saturday night in Harvard Square)

You might not like it if: The only Saturday nights you want to hear about are your own.

Connections to other Wreckage: The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup is Rec. #126.

[Originally posted 1/14/11.]

Streaming Suggestion of the Week #23: Please Like Me

Stream what: Australian television show about Josh. He's about to turn 21, his girlfriend has broken up with him, he's realizing he's probably gay, and his mum is quite ill. 

It's a comedy. Mostly. Sort of.

Stream why: Please Like Me is abso-freakin-lutely brilliant. Flush with muted humor when it should be, bleak when called for, and clever throughout.

Stream where: Hulu

Read more: Rec. #307, Quote from a Fictional Character #54

Friday Flashback: Rec. #243: Innocence

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Innocence is a Florentine comedy of errors, as told by the impressive Penelope Fitzgerald, who manages to fit a villa, postwar malaise, a farm, a neurologist, English friends, an aging count, the Italian Communist party, and the aptly named Aunt Mad into just over 200 pages.

Comparable to: In her ability to deftly bind up a lot of story into a slim volume, Fitzgerald's closest match is Jeanette Winterson.

Opening lines: "Anyone can tell when they are passing the Ridolfi villa, the Ricordanza, because of the stone statues of what are known as 'the Dwarfs' on the highest part of the surrounding walls ... Strictly speaking they are not dwarfs, but midgets, that's to say they represent adults of less than 1.3 metres, pathologically small, but quite in proportion."

Representative quote:"Incidentally, it's struck me recently that in a non-medical sense you understand almost nothing about women."
"I understood enough to marry and produce four children, and I can't remember noticing any particular difficulties."
"That's precisely what I mean."

You might not like it if: You've filled your quota for Florentine comedies of errors for the year, thanks.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Fitzgerald didn't write very many books, but what she did write was excellent. Such as: The Beginning of Spring (Rec. #342), The Blue Flower (Rec. #164)The Gate of Angels (Rec. #79).

[Originally posted 6/6/12.]

Rec. #393: I Love You Again

What: I Love You Again is a classic William Powell/Myrna Loy farce. There's amnesia! And a con man! Swindles! Exes falling back in love!

Representative quote: "Ever since you got off that boat you've been chasing me like an amorous goat. You've tried your darnedest to make me fall in love with you and now you have. So from now on I'm going to do the chasing, and believe me, brother, you're going to know you've been chased."

Connections to previous Wreckage: See more of the immortal pairing Powell and Loy in Libeled Lady (Rec. #229) and The Thin Man (Rec. #319).

Quote from a Fictional Character #84

"Riding a hobbyhorse to death is flogging a dead metaphor."

--- Unnamed dinner party guest,

Pulse, Julian Barnes, 2011

(Rec. #380)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #99: Company

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: The practically perfect Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company, starring the practically perfect Raúl Esparza. He makes me want to cry, he's so good.

Comparable to: In 2005, John Doyle directed a revival of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. He introduced the innovation of having the actors double as the orchestra. It was so remarkably effective that he did it again when he directed Company. Again, remarkably effective!

You might not like it if: You think all musicals = sweetness and light. This one has its darkness, but it's true, true, true.

How to get it: It was recorded live for PBS's Great Performances series and is available on DVD. (Not to be confused with the New York Philharmonic Neil Patrick Harris version, which, granted, is also pretty good.)

Connection to previous Wreckage: Bryan Fuller devotees might recognize Raúl Esparza from his role on Pushing Daisies (Rec. #233) as Alfredo Aldarisio, would-be suitor of Olive Snook. (One of the very terrible things about the cancellation of Pushing Daisies is that he and Kristin Chenoweth never got to do a duet.) 

As a bona fide member of the Bryan Fuller Repertory Players, he also shows up in Hannibal (List #29).

[Originally posted 4/8/11.]

List #58: Happy Birthday, Muriel Spark

Who: Novelist, biographer, and critic with a dry, posh-Scottish voice and an eye for cruelty.

Memento Mori, 1959

The Girls of Slender Means, 1963

(Rec. #305)

Loitering with Intent, 1981

(Rec. #13)

(Personal Wreck #2)

(QfFC #73)

(List #56)

A Far Cry from Kensington, 1988

Symposium, 1990

Open to the Public, 1997

(Rec. #107)

(List #7)

Aiding and Abetting, 2000

(Rec. #220)

(Personal Wreck #5)