Three Germans I Wish Were World-Famous

Also published on Positively Smitten.

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If my grasp on the finer details of my mother-tongue weren’t so rusty, I would be writing this in German. It’s an unfortunate side effect of living twenty years in Canada, four of them at an Anglophone university, and an addiction to North American geekdom. However, just because I can’t write essays in it, that in no way means that I don’t still understand it, or that I have lost the ability to be moved and inspired by my native culture. Here are a few artists which I admire very much, and which I really believe would be a valuable contribution to today’s US-dominated global village. People should remember that there is more to our country than World War II, the Berlin Wall, and Angela Merkel’s hairstyle.

1. Michael Ende

A few of you may have heard of three rather embarrassing children’s movies from the 1980’s called The Neverending Story. He wrote the book. I can assure you, those movies are anything but faithful, except maybe for the first one – which still leaves out the heart and soul of the story. It’s about an eleven-year-old boy named Bastian, who is basically us – all the awkward, lonely people who have ever clung to fiction as an escape from an uncongenial world. In his case, literally, as he’s transported into the dying world of Fantastica and given the task of using his imagination to bring it back to life. A dream come true, right? Yes – but also a nightmare, because when an unhappy eleven-year-old has the power to do anything and be anyone he wants, there is no knowing what the consequences might be, for him and for both worlds.

This story is the backbone of my existence as a writer. My mother read it to me when I was six, and since then, I have never cracked it open without some new and wonderful discovery. It’s like a Dali painting: dreamlike, eerie, bursting with the unexpected, and yet with its own internal logic. And it’s not the only book he wrote, either: there are Momo, The Night of Wishes, and Jim Knopf, all of which are just as magical, and which  should have fanfiction pages filled to bursting, if not for the fact that no other writer can do Mr. Ende justice.

2. Herbert Groenemeyer

Remember Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, Petrarch’s Laura collection, and countless other works of love poetry by a white male for centuries? The ones that claim to immortalize their beloved without ever mentioning what she (or he) is like? Well, not this one. This man writes songs about women that are actually about them. Whether they are real or not, you can see and hear them perfectly in the music: the cold-hearted woman holding on to a dying relationship for vanity’s sake (“Airplanes In My Head”); the exasperating Stepford wife with a need for constant harmony (“Love Like Glue”); the golden-haired poet struggling against terminal illness (“The Way”).

Unlike some men, Mr. Goenemeyer is not afraid of being vulnerable. I’ve seen him in concert, singing his heart out until I thought the microphone would explode. I was so happy when he brought out his English-language album, I Walk, and I wish for as many people as possible to hear it.

3. Judith Holofernes

Her real last name is Holfelder, but the reference to the sword-wielding Biblical assassin is well chosen. This Judith’s weapons of choice are her songwriting mind, her mouth, a microphone, and the instruments of her three fellow members of the band Wir sind Helden (We Are Heroes). Her targets are consumer culture (“Die Reklamation”/”Return Counter”), the objectification of women in the media (“Zieh’ dir was an”/”Put On Some Clothes”), even the music industry itself (“Zuhälter”/”Pimps”). (I wish I could show those, but the video in the link is the only one I found with any decent English subtitles.) She has spoken out against tabloid magazines, especially a famous one called BILD, which she sees as a political tool with an insidious effect on its readers. She is a practicing Buddhist and has released a single in Japanese. And she does all this with a lively sense of humor, a rapid-fire Berlin accent, and a lovely, quirky style that’s all her own.

What I admire most of all, though, is the band’s ability to quit while they’re ahead. In 2012, they went on an indefinite hiatus in order to focus on their families. Whenever I read about the latest celebrity divorce or drug scandal in the newspaper, I’m amazed at how the basic instincts of caring for yourself and your loved ones seem to die out as soon as you become famous. Who knows? If more actors, singers and athletes took a break every few years, we might end up with a much higher quality of entertainment.

I realize that there are groups much more under-represented than one wealthy, mostly white country in Europe. But when I saw The Monuments Men last week, with all its dead Nazi horses being kicked for the hundredth time, I just had to write something. I understand that the atrocities of World War II should never be forgotten, but no one reduces the USA to a nuclear bomb or Canada to residential schools. There is so much more to my country, to every country, than the worst of it.

Anyone who’s reading this, please consider reading Goethe, watching The Lives of Others or Mostly Martha, or following one of my links.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Holofernes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuxaM-vNU-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj8pgVnH6KY

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15619.Michael_Ende

Review: Tiger Lily

Cover Summary:

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.


As a stand-alone novel, this book is wonderful. As a companion to Peter Pan, however, it does not quite work.

This is not the Neverland of the book. Not because it's so much darker, because it's really not. If you've read Barrie's work as an adult, you will notice that Hook's vendetta against the children is truly disturbing, that the Lost Boys have trouble finding enough to eat, that they enjoy killing pirates far too much, and that Peter's "innocence" leaves them in danger of being abandoned or forgotten at any time. These things are the same in Tiger Lily; unfortunately, the magic that makes Neverland so alluring despite the darkness is sadly diminished. Ms. Anderson takes a lot of liberties with the setting and characters, so much so that they are barely recognizable: Tinker Bell can't speak (except to readers as the first-person narrator) and therefore cannot be her snippy, feisty self with Peter; no one can fly; the English arrive in Neverland by a series of convenient shipwrecks; the Lost Boys are teenagers with the hormones to prove it, including Peter; and the ending - though I won't spoil it - is deeply objectionable to any fan of the original. The only thing I really liked about the setting was its solution to the mystery of aging in Neverland: its inhabitants stop aging at the most defining moment of their lives. This is why the pirates grew up, but the Lost Boys didn't. It's ingenious, and results in some very interesting reflections about life, death and change.

Several characters from Barrie's work were reinterpreted, a procedure that was rather hit-and-miss. James Hook was a hit for me; seeing him as a child laborer who lost his hand to a machine, and whose gentlemanly affectations are all self-taught, makes a lot of sense to me. There is such a theatrical quality about him to begin with, and such a desperation, that the two versions of him mesh well together as adaptations are supposed to do. Smee was a miss; he is supposed to be an innocent, pathetic character who cannot be dangerous if he tries, not a Jack-the-Ripper-style psychopath who dreams of strangling young women. Tiger Lily and Wendy were misses too; while I like Ms. Anderson's Tiger Lily much better than Mr. Barrie's, as a far stronger and more complex character, I believe the author (in the form of Tinker Bell's narration) was rather unfair to Wendy in comparison. It's as if their roles in Peter's life were reversed: in the original, Tiger Lily worships him, while Wendy is the one who takes him down a peg when he needs it. In this book, Tiger Lily is praised as the independent warrior, while Wendy earns quite a bit of undeserved narrative hostility for being too feminine and too submissive towards Peter. Most girls can sympathize, I'm sure - we all worry too much about not fitting in with the feminine ideal, and envy girls who we think can do it - but I don't believe we should be worrying so much. I don't believe there is any "wrong" way to be a woman. To be fair, that might also be what Ms. Anderson was trying to say, but the message didn't quite come through.

I wish she had written about a real-life aboriginal tribe instead. It might have meant a little more research, but I'm sure she could have pulled it off. The scenes in the Sky Eaters' village were by far my favorites, especially those involving Tiger Lily's adoptive father, a crossdressing shaman who calls himself Tik Tok in honor of a clock that washed up on the shore. He is a very wise and compassionate person, and the advice he gives to Tiger Lily about being proud of who she is is something every parent should tell their child. When she bitterly remarks that the other villagers find her ugly, he replies: "They do, but we are a small village, and we have narrow tastes. Who knows how many other people in this world would find you beautiful?" Moon Eye and Pine Sap, Tiger Lily's friends (insofar as her reserved nature is capable of friendship) are also very likeable. The way in which Phillip, a shipwrecked Englishman, disrupts the Sky Eaters' society with his Christian beliefs are sadly reminiscent of North American history. Ms. Anderson does not hesitate to bring several shades of gray into the conflict, since neither side has any bad intentions, but things still spiral into tragedy.

Finally, the language was off. I realize that Neverland is timeless, but if you are going to have your characters live in tribal settings, travel in sailing ships, work in shoe factories during childhood and carry a colonialist attitude towards the Natives - let alone a fairy narrator, for goodness' sake - you just cannot have them using words like "fan", "goner", "hi" and "okay". Next thing we know, we'll hear Peter Pan wearing baggy pants, using an iPod and referring to the Lost Boys as "dude".

Not a pretty picture, I know, but there you have it. If you've never read Peter Pan, please read this, as a thoughtful and original coming-of-age story in an unusual setting. But if you have read Peter Pan, the more you love it, the more you should steer clear of this.

Deborah Meyler: Mixed Treats

A classmate at Concordia once told me that the measure of a really good book is that it's good on every page. I find that to be absolutely true. I can open Deborah Meyler's The Bookstore on any page and unearth a jewel.

Ready? Here we go:

"If I rang out the bells to celebrate, would they sound dully, would they ring true? My mouth is full of champagne. I hold it there for a second or two. It is expensive and yeasty and tart. It is glorious. I won't be allowed any more for months on end. I think of swans singing before they die, of butterflies with cornflower-blue wings living for a day, and then I swallow." - p. 143

"You are young. You have everything ahead of you. When you have lived so long as I have, seen so much as I have seen, the savor goes out of your life. Perhaps it is best, so we do not cling on. You have chlamydia, but treatment is simple." - p. 105

"I am not going to put up with the lipstick-mouth toilet seat any longer." - p. 232

"Cameras are receptive - they are just holes that let in light. But because men use them more than women, we get different words, words that don't really go with what happens. Imagine if men went around saying, 'Hey, I'm just going to grab my camera because I want to receive some photos.'" - p. 51

"She is looking from me to Luke. A false light dawns.
"Oh! You are the father!" she says to Luke. She strikes her knee with her palm, in exasperation that she didn't see this before."
"No, ma'am, I am not," answers Luke. He injects profound thankfulness into his voice.The old lady shakes her head.
"I thought you were kind of a good fit."
"But thank you, Luke," I say. "That was very courteous of you." - p. 182

"All the errant 'I love you's in the world don't have such an effect, they don't spark bonfires, either of tragic or magnificent dimensions. The spark they send out into the world whistles on a brick and dies." - p. 298

"Maybe the daydreams of ravishings on the sofa are hormonally induced. After all, in my present state, even Thiebaud's paintings of hot dogs have an undesirable effect." - p. 97

"That thing that Hamlet says - there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Not quite true if you're stuck under a grand piano, not quite true for genocide, but surely it must be true about love." - p. 89

Somebody give this lady an award.

The Bookstore Fan Cast

Emma Watson as Esme
She's English, she's beautiful in a modest, healthy way, she can be strong but also vulnerable, and I have this irresistible mental picture of her calling Mitchell an "evil little cockroach" and punching him in the face. Someone has to do it, after all!

Hayden Christensen as Mitchell The golden boy with a dark side ... this is for anyone who cringed when Padme married Anakin and wondered, "Girl, what are you thinking?"

Eric Bana as Luke
He has a way of saying much more with his eyes than with his mouth, which is important when playing a taciturn character. Look at this photo - isn't that exactly the way Luke would look at Esme, much to her confusion and dismay?

Ellen Page as Stella
She was hilarious as the snarky title character in Juno. Besides, since she came out recently, she might enjoy contributing to LGBT representation in the media. Or not, as the case may be.

Review: The Bookstore

Cover Summary:

A witty, sharply observed debut novel about a young woman who finds unexpected salvation while working in a quirky used bookstore in Manhattan.Impressionable and idealistic, Esme Garland is a young British woman who finds herself studying art history in New York. She loves her apartment and is passionate about the city and her boyfriend; her future couldn’t look brighter. Until she finds out that she’s pregnant.

Esme’s boyfriend, Mitchell van Leuven, is old-money rich, handsome, successful, and irretrievably damaged. When he dumps Esme—just before she tries to tell him about the baby—she resolves to manage alone. She will keep the child and her scholarship, while finding a part-time job to make ends meet. But that is easier said than done, especially on a student visa.

The Owl is a shabby, second-hand bookstore on the Upper West Side, an all-day, all-night haven for a colorful crew of characters: handsome and taciturn guitar player Luke; Chester, who hyperventilates at the mention of Lolita; George, the owner, who lives on protein shakes and idealism; and a motley company of the timeless, the tactless, and the homeless. The Owl becomes a nexus of good in a difficult world for Esme—but will it be enough to sustain her? Even when Mitchell, repentant and charming, comes back on the scene?

A rousing celebration of books, of the shops where they are sold, and of the people who work, read, and live in them, The Bookstore is also a story about emotional discovery, the complex choices we all face, and the accidental inspirations that make a life worth the reading.

I am not sure whether I can do this book justice. I honestly believe that, a hundred years from now, professors will write theses about it and assign it to their students – and even if they don’t, they should.

Deborah Meyler is the twenty-first century’s Jane Austen and Charles Dickens all rolled into one. This may sound like an odd combination, but she has the dry wit, sharp observation, and feminine strength of the former, as well as the idealism, sense of social injustice and energetic descriptions of urban life of the latter. Also, like all the best authors, she is not afraid to bring up controversial topics – homelessness; prejudices based on class, race and sex; the abortion debate; emotional abuse – and present them in a natural, unforced, compassionate manner that takes into account more than one point of view.

Esme Garland is a heroine after my own heart. Not just because she loves books, or because we’re the same age, but because she is so real that I half expected her to be sitting across from me in the armchair when I looked up, smiling from under uneven bangs, teasing me in her gentle English voice for losing track of time. If this book were a movie (which it should be!) I would cast her as Emma Watson.

She has a timeless quality about her – the problem of an unexpected pregnancy and a faithless lover is timeless, after all – but at the same time, her way of coping with it is very much the way of a highly educated, feminist, modern woman with a promising career ahead of her. She thinks carefully about her options, and – with the blunt and sensible advice of her friend Stella – makes a decision that is right for her, without being in any way judgmental of the decisions of other women in similar situations. This is not to say that she’s cold or detached, though, quite the opposite. Her emotions run very deep, and not just the “acceptable” emotions either: much as she comes to love the baby, she does have moments of resenting it for its father’s cruelty and for the added complications to her life.

She is not perfect. She is initially very naïve, and I wanted to shake her sometimes for not being able to see through Mitchell as the selfish, soulless creature he really is. She is afraid of confrontation (which she blames on being English, but this German-Canadian reviewer often feels exactly the same), which makes it very satisfying to see her slowly learning to stand up for herself. She also has a lot to learn about privilege (money troubles or not, she is still a white, heterosexual Cambridge graduate), how it should not be taken for granted, and that being less privileged does not make anyone less worthy of respect. I especially liked the scenes in which DeeMo, a black homeless man, contrives to both keep up with her in intelligent wordplay and call her out on her own prejudices. Moments like this between Esme and the regulars at The Owl stand in sharp contrast to Mitchell and his family, who are perfectly aware of their privilege and use it to control and humiliate others.

Mitchell, the other main character, is another brilliant creation of Ms. Meyler’s – and unlike Esme, a terrifying one. While it is easy to see why she would be overwhelmed by him at first, with his dazzling good looks, formidable intelligence and powerful charisma, the ugliness beneath the surface comes slowly, but surely, to light. He is a man who always has to be in control: when she tries to initiate anything, even lovemaking, he shoots her down and makes her feel guilty for even trying. He cheats on her, and then expresses surprise when she is hurt by this, because he thought she knew that they weren’t “exclusive”. He was raised by a mother every bit as heartless and controlling as he is, and there are moments I even pitied him in that toxic environment. However, it eventually becomes clear to Esme – and the reader – that wanting to “save” an abuser is no reason to stay with him, and that no matter how much you love someone, it doesn’t make you entitled to be loved in return.

The third main character is New York itself. You might think there is nothing left to be said about it, but there always is, and Ms. Meyler says it exceptionally well. She has lived there herself, even worked in an independent book shop like The Owl, and it shows. The genius is in the details: how Esme wakes up around Christmastime to the sound of the Korean deli owner downstairs meticulously sawing Christmas trees into shape; how the rain falls through the subway grates; how her accent gives her trouble communicating with shopkeepers when she pronounces “butter” with a “t” or “tuna” with a “ch”; how she enjoys the intensity of the seasons and the speed of life compared to her home. It’s also interesting to see how her views of New York and of England both change according to her moods, and how artistically aware she is of this. A park she went to in the spring with Mitchell, blooming with roses and graceful statues, becomes a graveyard in the autumn when Mitchell breaks up with her. She has attacks of homesickness for a version of England that she knows is idealized and not quite real, but she can’t help feeling it. She is an art student, accustomed to stepping back from her own emotional response and analyzing it, in a clear and objective way, at the same time as she’s still caught up in its impact. This gives her first-person narrative voice a unique quality that is hard to describe, but impossible (for me at least) not to admire.

Finally, I loved all the references to works of art, especially books, in this story: what they mean to different characters, how to define their value. Esme’s friend Stella is a photographer who loves her work because it captures a moment long after it has passed. Esme herself swims against the current of modern art by preferring paintings that make her feel happy. She and Luke have a beautiful conversation about their respective passions, paintings and music, and how they change as your perception of them changes.

The owners of The Owl deal in secondhand books because of the history and emotional weight to them, and they struggle to keep the store going in the face of Amazon, e-readers, and big chains like Barnes and Noble. They believe in the importance of connecting with customers and allowing them to discover books by chance, instead of by automatic recommendation. In this sense, the story reminded me of the movie You’ve Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, and also of the bookstores, cafés and libraries I know and love in real life, where people know my face and chat with me of an afternoon. 

These are places worth holding on to, even and especially in our digital age, and with more authors like Ms. Meyler, I hope we will.

Ten Things Wrong With "Winter's Tale"

 (Also published on my Tumblr.)

10. Colin Farrell’s hairstyle in the first half of the movie. Why would a street thug who depends on unobscured vision allow his hair to flop distractingly over his right eye? (No matter how handsome it makes him look.)

9. Was Peter raised entirely by Irish immigrants? It couldn’t have been Pearly Soames, since they met when Peter was already an adult. If not, there is no excuse for that fake accent.

8. How does Pearly expect his henchmen to do their jobs if he doesn’t give them any directions? Romeo was right; that redheaded girl whose silhouette he drew in blood could have been anyone. It’s pure coincidence that they found Beverly, and later Abby. Even a demon should be efficient.

7. If Willa is a child in 1895, and still alive in 2014, that would make her over 120 years old. How is that possible? And why is she still old, as opposed to the unchanged Peter and Pearly? At least their long lives were given some kind of explanation.

6.. The most prominent non-white character, played by Will Smith, is Lucifer. Seriously?

5. If you’re going to reference Native American culture, do it properly.  There’s no way Peter’s unnamed friend’s tribe, whoever they were, could have had only “ten songs”, and “everybody has a miracle inside them” sounds a lot more like the inside of a Hallmark card than any Native philosophy.

4. On that note, they should have made up your minds which myth to follow. Christianity and Native religions don’t exactly gel, one being dualistic (Holy Trinity versus Lucifer) and the other pluralistic (ancestors and animal spirits). As the concepts of good and evil in this movie are completely Western, they should have just called the horse an angel and be done with it.

3. Dying people are not beautiful. They are not graceful, curvy, light-footed and rosy-cheeked. They are not angels who talk to strangers about “the whole world being connected by light” – or if they ever do, it takes a lot of anger, denial and grief before they reach that state. Tuberculosis was called “consumption” for a reason; because the victims coughed blood, shrank down to skin and bones, and seemed to burn out from the inside. Falling in love with someone in that state would take a very unusual person indeed; if done right, it might have made the story much more interesting.

2. I’m no doctor, but even I know that it’s insane to make a fever patient sleep in a tent or walk barefoot in the snow. Instead of helping Beverly, those measures would have only made her worse.

1. Death by Sex. The single worst scene in the movie. Instead of being tragic, it was so disgusting and bizarre that I almost laughed when almost-naked Colin Farrell hauled almost-naked Jessica Brown Findley’s “dead” body out to the greenhouse. I kept expecting her father to catch him. Besides, in this day and age, we really should have a healthier attitude than the Gothic-horror-esque “if she asks for sex, she’ll die from it” – except, perhaps, for the Twilight fans in the audience.

Review: Teen Spirit

Francesca Lia Block, critically acclaimed author of Weetzie Bat, brings this eerie and redemptive ghost story to life with her signature, poetic prose. It's perfect for fans of supernatural stories with a touch of romance like the Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

After Julie's grandmother passes away, she is forced to move across town to the not-so-fancy end of Beverly Hills and start over at a new school. The only silver lining to the perpetual dark cloud that seems to be following her? Clark—a die-hard fan of Buffy and all things Joss Whedon, who is just as awkward and damaged as she is. Her kindred spirit.

When the two try to contact Julie's grandmother with a Ouija board, they make contact with a different spirit altogether. The real kind. And this ghost will do whatever it takes to come back to the world of the living.

Francesca Lia Block's latest young adult novel is a haunting work about family, loss, love, and redemption.

Congratulations, Goat Girls and Beautiful Boys. The magic is back!

For those who don't know, that was a reference to the two anthology titles containing, respectively, volumes 2-3 and 4-5 of Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat series, all five of which are now sold under the title Dangerous Angels. They are her best work, wildly creative and utterly unique, and while none of her later works could possibly compare, Teen Spirit comes closer than any of them since Necklace of Kisses in 2005. And I'm not just talking about her style, which was certainly in abeyance while she was working on Pink Smog or The Elementals (A history teacher named Mr. Adolf waxing enthusiastic about WWII? The sulky, Mary-Sue-ish tone in which she describes author-avatars Weetzie and Ariel being criticized for "overwriting"?) but - for lack of a better term - the "wholesomeness" of the story. The author of Pretty Dead and The Waters and the Wild - two of the most infuriating, defeatist, morally corrupt endings I've ever read - seems to have finally remembered what she knew by instinct in 1989, namely that death is not, in fact, romantic, and guess what? Life is a thing worth celebrating after all.

Of course, it takes Julie and Clark a while to learn this lesson. Which is perfectly understandable, since they are both in mourning for a beloved family member, with all the personal demons that entails. I really admired Ms. Block's way of handling the complexity and individuality of grief, and the way even people who love each other very much have trouble understanding each other's feelings. Losing a charming, witty, inspiring grandmother at sixteen is, after all, not quite the same as losing your mother, best friend and only child-care supporter in your mid-forties. Julie and her mother, Rachel, have to struggle to hold their broken family together, especially when Rachel looks for solace from the unsavory Luke. (Nasty as he was, though, the image of a middle-aged man shirtless and wearing fishnet tights is almost hilarious.) The clash between "Why can't you be the strong mother I remember?" vs. "Why can't I depend on someone for once?", while not logical, was very understandable. Clark's rather different kind of grief, a half-resentful loneliness for a twin brother who outshone him in talent, strength and charm, adds yet another layer of interest and sympathy to the story.

Also, Clark is adorable. He wears a different silly hat every day, loves Joss Whedon, and he cooks. Seriously, I wish I had one of my own.

Speaking of him leads me to the love triangle, which isn't much of one, but which I enjoyed anyway. Picture Stephenie Meyer's The Host, only in reverse and with ghosts instead of aliens, as Clark's twin brother Grant begins to possess his body in a desperate bid for the love he was denied during his lifetime. Grant is, it must be admitted, much sexier than Clark (on the surface, at least), given his passionate intensity and the power Julie has over him by (inadvertently) calling him back to life. Clark, like many other "good boys"in YA literature, has an unfortunate tendency to blandness (at least in the beginning - trust me, he improves). For a moment there, I was honestly terrified I'd end up with another Pretty Dead on my hands, but thankfully, Ms. Block did not justify that fear.

Just for the record, ladies and gentlemen: dead people are not sexy. Even if they don't happen to drink blood. (Or sparkle.) And a man who shows you kindness and respect (by swallowing his skepticism to participate in one mystic ritual after another; by telling you how beautiful you look; even by not kicking you to the curb for being attracted to his ghostly twin) is not boring or weak; in fact it's the very opposite.

And yes, I realize I just effectively spoiled the ending for anyone paying attention. However, if I hadn't, how was I supposed to say exactly what I liked about this book?

Other things I liked were the supernatural aspect, the cultural diversity, and the setting. Ms. Block's trademark urban fantasy style comes through very nicely when the presence of ghosts is signaled by an ambulance siren as well as inexplicable smells and colors. As for Daiyu, Tatiana Gonzalez, and Ed Rainwater - Chinese, Mexican and Cherokee healers whom Julie and Clark consult about the ghost - I may not be the best judge as a white person, but I found nothing offensive about any of their portrayals. In fact, little details such as the milagros, the ground pearl cosmetics, Ed's wry comment about "native enlightenment", and the implied underlying unity of compassion and common sense in their various methods ("It must come from you") are very much in this story's favor. And of course, L. A. is still L. A., as always in Ms. Block's novels: polluted yet still beautiful, artificial and natural, illusory and real, so vivid as to become a character in its own right.

In the words of Julie's boss, "Why do girls have to grow up to appreciate the really special ones?" Ms. Block certainly has grown up since Weetzie, and though it's taken her a long time, she has certainly produced something special I can appreciate.

Playlist: Anna Karenina

(A message to eventual purists in the audience: Try not to cringe too much. The point isn’t to be dignified, deferential or setting-appropriate, but to keep the powerful and complex emotions of the story alive in people’s hearts, 21^st-century-style. I like to think that, instead of rolling in his grave, Leo Nikolayevitch would be amused or even flattered.)

Dolly to Stiva

“I’ve been cheated by you since I don’t know when,
so I made up my mind it must come to an end.
Look at me now!
Will I ever learn? I don’t know how,
but I suddenly lose control;
there’s a fire within my soul.
Just one look and I can hear a bell ring.
One more look and I forgive everything, oh … ”
- ABBA, “Mamma Mia”

Kostya to Kitty
”A waltz for the chance I should take,
but how will I know where to start?
She's spinning between constellations and dreams,
her rhythm is my beating heart.
So she dances
in and out of the crowd like a glance.
This romance is
from afar, calling me silently … ”
- Josh Groban, “So She Dances”

Vronsky to Anna

“Beauty queen of only eighteen,
she had some trouble with herself.
He was always there to help her,
she always belonged to someone else.
I drove for miles and miles and wound up at your door.
I’ve had you so many times, but somehow I want more …
- Maroon 5, “She Will Be Loved”

Anna’s Dilemna
”I feel it in the air as I'm doing my hair,
preparing for another date.
A kiss upon my cheek as he reluctantly
asks if I'm gonna be out late.
I say I won't be long, just hanging with the girls;
a lie I didn't have to tell.
Because we both know where I'm about to go
and we know it very well …”
- Rihanna, “Unfaithful”

Jealousy (Kitty, Dolly & Lydia)
”Who's that girl? Where's she from?
No, she can't be the one
that you want; that has stolen my world.
It's not real – it's not right –
it's my day – it's my night!
By the way,
who's that girl living my life?”
- Hilary Duff, “Who’s That Girl?”

Anna to Karenin

“Lie to me, betray me,
scream out loud, only don’t be silent.
Chart a course for me,
give me something, anything to feel.
How far have you already gone?
I see you struggle with every word.
Your heart beats without a sound.
You are silencing our love to death.”
- Ina Müller, “Du Schweigst” (“You Are Silent”)

Karenin to Anna

“Oh, how come I deserve to be
the fool that he makes out of me?
At least you could have given me a clue!
You could have had a one-night fling,
and in time I'd forget evyerthing,
but I've got no chance.
I'm left no time to understand.
If you could see you've hurried love … ”
- Herbert Grönemeyer, “What’s All This?”

Kitty to Kostya
”So this is me swallowing my pride,
standing in front of you, saying, "I'm sorry for that night
and I go back to December all the time.”
It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you,
wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine.
I'd go back to December, turn around and make it all right.”

- Taylor Swift, “Back to December”

Seryozha
”It ain't easy growing up in World War III,
never knowing what love could be, well I've seen.
I don't want love to destroy me like it has done my family.
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I'll be better, Mommy, I'll do anything … ”
- P!nk, “Family Portrait”

Kostya and Kitty’s Marriage

“You are golden,
precious as a prayer flying up through the air
while the rain is falling.
Golden, timeless as a kiss; baby, I don’t want to miss
another perfect moment.”
- Lady Antebellum, “Golden”

Kostya to Nikolai

“Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
somewhere among all the bitterness.
And I could have stayed up with you all night
had I known how to save a life.”
- The Fray, “How To Save A Life”

Anna’s Suicide  

“Through the crowd, I was crying out
and in your place there were a thousand other faces.
I was disappearing in plain sight.
Heaven help me, I need to make it right.
No light, no light in your bright blue eyes.
I never knew daylight could be so violent.
A revelation in the light of day:
you can't choose what stays and what fades away.”
- Florence + The Machine, “No Light, No Light”

Karenin and Vronsky in Mourning

“ … and when I say that I don't care,
it really means my engine's breaking down.
The chisel chips my heart again;
the granite cracks beneath my skin;
I crumble into pieces on the ground.”
- Elton John, “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore”

Levin Family/Karenin to Annie

“For one so small, you seem so strong.
My arms will hold you, keep you safe and warm.
This bond between us can’t be broken.
I will be here, don’t you cry … ”
- Phil Collins, “You’ll Be In My Heart”

Kostya’s Epiphany
”Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found;
was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed.”
- traditional, “Amazing Grace”

Review: Anna Karenina (2012 film)

Also published on Positively Smitten.

(I don’t know if spoiler warnings apply to such a famous classic, but just in case: don’t read this if you don’t want to know the ending. And don’t read this if you’re expecting professionalism; like Anna herself, I can’t be calm and objective about a story like this.)

It took a long time for me to accept the value of tragedy in fiction. I used to feel that, since real life can be disappointing and frustrating enough, why look for the same thing in your books and movies? I still would rather have a happy ending than not, but I’ve learned to realize just how powerful a story can be without one. They make you think about them long after the last page or the end credits, wondering what went wrong and how it could have been avoided, which can often lead to new insights about human nature you might not otherwise have reached. They grab you by the throat and don’t let go.

And yes, in my case, they inspire fanfiction. I may be the only person in the world who ships Team Karenin; see further down as to why.

Joe Wright and Tom Stoppard’s version of this classic Tolstoy novel is my favorite adaptation, with the 1977 BBC miniseries in second place. These are the reasons why:

1. It’s the shortest. I know how that sounds, but having suffered through all ten episodes of Anna and Vronsky’s dysfunctional relationship in the 1977 version, brilliantly done as it was – not to mention the book – I did appreciate the more merciful speed of this one. I could have wished for more of Levin and Kitty, but their key scenes were mostly there, and the best part of a film is that a single shot (Domnhall Gleeson looking up from his scythe in a blaze of autumn sunlight) can be worth a thousand words.

2. It’s a banquet for the senses. The rich costumes, the hauntingly lovely soundtrack combining Russian folk songs and Dario Manelli’s compositions, all the good-looking actors involved, and most especially the setting. They filmed most of it inside an old theatre, which lends a magical, surreal quality to the story that none of the other versions have: for example, the train rides are represented by Anna’s son’s toy train; it only takes a short climb of a ladder from the Scherbatskys’ luxurious party to Nikolai’s dump of an apartment; during Anna and Vronsky’s fateful first dance, all the other dancers freeze in place; musicians with brass instruments roam freely during the changes in scene. This idea also pointedly underscores part of Tolstoy’s message, namely how staged and artificial high society really was at that time. When Levin flings open the theatre doors and walks out into a dazzling winter sunrise, it represents that desire for a simple, honest life in harmony with nature which sets him apart from nearly all the other characters.

3. Jude Law. Just … Jude Law. I had no idea the man could be so brilliant (or so handsome with a beard, spectacles and uniform). He takes the character of Karenin, whom most of the films dismiss as a cold-hearted bureaucrat whose spitefulness gets in the way of Anna and Vronsky’s epic love story, to a whole new level. This Karenin is anything but cold-hearted; instead he feels everything so deeply, from his love for Anna to the terrible pain and anger caused by her betrayal, that he has no idea what to do with it. So he suffers quietly while everyone around him bursts into tears or shouting, and when he warns Anna to stop, he hides behind abstract ideas of duty – which, unfortunately, is the worst line to take with her, because Anna simply doesn’t think that way. She thinks in terms of romance, and her husband’s gestures (kissing her hand at the train station; using condoms to protect her fragile system from further pregnancies) are just too subtle to register next to Vronsky, who follows her everywhere, flirts with her shamelessly in public and tells her things like “You are my happiness!”. No wonder all of Karenin’s tight control finally breaks toward the middle of the film (although that’s still no excuse for shoving a pregnant woman, just so you know) and he falls under the influence of Lydia who, religious hypocrite that she is, is the only character who even gives a damn about his well-being.

I honestly believe that, in the beginning, it wasn’t even about Vronsky. Anna just wanted passion from somebody, and the young soldier happened to be the first one who showed it to her. If only Karenin had been just a little more brave, a little more honest – quite frankly, a little more jealous – they could have had a real marriage that lasted, and his steady reliability would have been much better for her in the long run than Vronsky’s impulsiveness. Or else, if only Anna hadn’t completely lost her mind after her daughter’s birth (to be fair, maybe it was post-partum depression) and decided to hate the man who forgave her, instead of the man who almost helped her kill herself when they started that pregnancy in the first place …

Oh, I could go on for hours. That’s how frustrating these over-120-year-old fictional characters can be for me. I wanted to throw something at all three sides of this love triangle – and, at different points in the story, hug them. They don’t call Leo Tolstoy a genius for nothing. And Jude Law and Keira Knightley deserve every award they’ve ever received.

There. That’s the end of my fangirl tirade. Returning to my review …

4. The not-quite-tragic ending. I know this rather contradicts my opening paragraph, but it’s true. One of my criticisms of most of the other films (and even the book) is that they show so much less of the aftermath of Anna’s death than I wanted to know. Instead, in the book, we get one of Tolstoy’s very long lectures about the Crimean War and Levin’s very slow path to spiritual awakening. We get small hints of Vronsky’s reaction (enlisting in the said war), and Karenin’s (adopting Anna and Vronsky’s neglected baby) but Stiva’s unchanged cheerfulness does not ring true, and we never find out Kitty’s, Dolly’s or Karenin’s true feelings about the grisly suicide of someone they care about at all. In the 2012 version, we get at least a few glimpses: Karenin reading in a meadow with sober serenity as Seryozha and Annie play together; Stiva smoking alone in the dark as his family gathers for dinner; and, most importantly, Tolstoy’s elaborate statement of faith crystallized into a single heartwarming moment as Levin’s baby son reaches for his finger.

So much for the “pros”, but I must admit I have some “cons”as well. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is decidedly the weak point of the film. His Vronsky comes across as a shallow, selfish boy who is even more incapable of controlling his hormones than Anna, who at least has the grace to feel guilty about what she’s doing. Also, their physical love scenes come across as not so much sensual as gross; my mother, watching along with me, said they reminded her of octopi wiggling their tentacles. This may be deliberate, to show how inadequate a relationship is based on nothing but lust, but it doesn’t do much to win sympathy for them as a doomed couple. It’s not until later, when they are forced to rely on no one but each other for emotional support, that their love becomes a little more credible. And by the time Anna’s jealousy and Vronsky’s inability to deal with her had driven them to the breaking point, I honestly did feel like crying. No one, no matter how shallow or selfish, deserves to have his love crush herself under a train.

Also, the dialogue was weak in some places, but that probaby couldn’t be helped; trying to compress the work of a long-winded nineteenth-century author into a form that twenty-first century attention spans can handle couldn’t have been easy. Still, when a disenchanted Kitty after Vronsky’s rejection asks her older sister: “Why do they call it love?” and Dolly, holding her baby, replies “Because it’s … love”, or when Vronsky, on being asked by Anna why she loves him, says “You can’t ask why about love”, it does not sound profound or wise so much as vague.

And by the way, just to quibble a bit more, the latter quote does not strike me as the best choice for a poster tagline. On the contrary, the  whole story is one brilliant, beautiful network of proof that every lover should ask why. If the answers are “because she’s forbidden”, “because he’s hot”, or “because I’m bored in my marriage”, those answers are wrong, and the solution is to run the other way before you end up spattered across the railway tracks. But if the answers are “because he/she’s the other parent of my children”, “because my faith tells me to forgive”, “because his feelings are still the same after I broke his heart a year ago”, “because we think so much alike we can communicate via alphabet blocks” or “because she doesn’t bat an eye at taking care of my consumptive, alcoholic brother and his prostitute companion”, by all means go ahead.

“There are as many loves as there are hearts”, a genuine quote by Tolstoy used in the opening frames of the film, would have made a much better tagline. There’s simply nothing like the original.