From Woody Allen's "Apropos of Nothing."
Also: "I always took to anything that required solitude, like practicing sleight of hand or playing a horn or writing, as it kept me from having to deal with other humans who, for no explainable reason, I didn’t like nor trust. I say 'no reason' because I came from a large, loving, extended family who were all nice to me. It’s like I was a genetically born louse."
Julien Sorel is the protagonist of "The Red and the Black." I had to look it up... even though I read "The Red and the Black"... about 50 years ago. Do people still feel like they need to have read "The Red and the Black"? Well, back in the old days, we did.
As for the Sub-Mariner and Hawkman — never even heard of them.
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94 comments:
I believe Joe Rogan has said many times that most comics are misanthropes. I'm pretty sure he's not the originator of that idea either. It probably is a generic feature.
Titania would be proud:
"HOLY HATERS! Marvel introduces woke characters Snowflake and Safespace"
It’s like I was a genetically born louse.
Many people think so, Woody.
Yes, you all need to read "The Red and the Black". But even more "The Charterhouse of Parma'.
Well, back in the old days, we did.
Yes, and I started reading The Red and the Black back in the old days and still haven't finished. It would be fake but accurate to say I savor one letter at a time on alternate Sundays.
My ex-husband was always pushing "The Charterhouse of Parma." Sorry, I never got around to that. He was also always pushing "Sentimental Education" over "Madame Bovary." At some point, you have to rebel against all the things you're supposed to read.
From the Wikipedia article on Stendhal:
"Vladimir Nabokov was dismissive of Stendhal, in Strong Opinions calling him "that pet of all those who like their French plain". In the notes to his translation of Eugene Onegin, he asserts that Le Rouge et le Noir is "much overrated", and that Stendhal has a "paltry style". In Pnin Nabokov wrote satirically, "Literary departments still labored under the impression that Stendhal, Galsworthy, Dreiser, and Mann were great writers.""
But in “What’s Up Tiger Lilly”, Allen’s use of the formula for the egg salad sandwich created the first egg McGuffin.
My observation from the late Fifties to early Sixties you were pretty much either a Marvel or a DC guy.
Namor the Submariner was a little more subversive than the typical comic book superhero. He was from Atlantis. He was one of the first three "super heroes" for what is now known as Marvel comics. Maybe Meade remembers him. I am your vintage and I was always looking for Submariner issues but he was not as popular or as available as Superman or Batman.
The only comic books I read as a kid were Mad Magazine and "The Adventures of Asterix."
I read The Red and the Black 40-some years ago, and remember the name Julien Sorel but not much else. Lots of other books I read in those days have had a more lasting impact. But often I have to read a book a second time to appreciate it. I picked up Charterhouse of Parma on a strong recommendation but haven't gotten around to cracking it open.
How is Raskolnikov anyone's literary hero? He murderers two women with an axe for no good reason, goes insane for most of the novel, lives in filth, is unemployed, barely eats anything and nearly dies, ruins his sister's engagement, refuses help, befriends a prostitute, and then basically turns himself in.
Sub-Marnier is Marvel's version of Aquaman. Hawkman is a DC hero, with both golden age and silver age versions. he originally appeared in 1940, just two years after Superman. The golden age Hawkman had a companion named Hawkgirl. The silver age Hawkman had a companion named Hawkwoman. The two versions often met during the JSA-JLA team ups.
My observation from the late Fifties to early Sixties you were pretty much either a Marvel or a DC guy.
I started reading in the 1970's, and loved the JSA and JLA. As I got older I preferred the Marvel books.
My bad. Sub-Mariner came first. Aquaman is DC's version of Sub-Mariner. (who first appeared the year after Superman)
Notice how Allen shows off his knowledge of high literature while telling us that he's just an unpretentious reader of comic books.
Now I want to read it.
"Notice how Allen shows off his knowledge of high literature while telling us that he's just an unpretentious reader of comic books.”
Mark Twain once said that it’s impossible to hide your true self in an autobiography.
Never tell a spouse or significant other that he/she "should" read something. Or even that he/she "might want to read" something because it's something he/she "might like."
Such suggestions roughly fall into the same category as telling someone to "calm down," and elicit rough the same response.
Also, never EVER lend books to anyone. At least those that you want to get back.
I remember reading The Red and the Black many years ago. I remember it as a very good book, but not worthy of the read again file. Iirc, Julien Sorel was sorry he missed out on the government sponsored massacres of the Napoleonic years. Many chances for glory back then.....It's a legitimate classic, but some classics are classier than others. I feel vaguely guilty that I haven't reread Madame Bovary as an adult. I did re-read David Copperfield and some other Dickens' title. It's worth the trouble. Whatever Dickens' moral failings, he was a great writer.
I used to spend my paper route money on Archie comics, but the superhero stuff has always left me cold. One time about four years ago at a party, one blonde lady I had a little bit of a crush on, and a brunette whom I was always a little bit hot for kissed me on the cheek at the same time and I was like “Finally! Betty and Veronica! I am Archie!”
"My literary heroes were not Julien Sorel, Raskolnikov, or the local yokels of Yoknapatawpha County; they were Batman, Superman, the Flash, the Sub-Mariner, Hawkman."
"Yes, and Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny and Archie Andrews..."
How many 10-year olds read Stendahl, Dostoevsky, or Faulkner? Not many. I read more Disney comics and Mad Magazine than I did adventure/superhoero comics like Batman or Superman. The Superhero genre didn't appeal that muuch to me. On the other hand, Mad Magazine wasn't around during Woody's childhood.
I never read Stendhal for a class, but I read The Read and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma in both English and in Spanish. 40 years later, what do I remember of them? Very little to nothing at all. But a lot of Faulkner still sticks.
Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, was the son of a human sea captain and an Atlantean princess. He swore vengeance against humanity after a warship was torpedoed and sank, causing death and destruction in Atlantis, making him the comics first anti-hero. He's notable in that he appears in the first super hero crossover story where he attacks NYC and battles The Human Torch. He later ended up, like most of the Timely Comics (precursor to Marvel Comics) characters, exclusively fighting Nazis.
Ann Althouse said...
My ex-husband was always pushing "The Charterhouse of Parma." Sorry, I never got around to that. He was also always pushing "Sentimental Education" over "Madame Bovary." At some point, you have to rebel against all the things you're supposed to read.
3/29/20, 9:03 AM
I like and agree with this idea of rebellion. Maybe one reason why I will never read Infinite Jest (until maybe the day I rebel against that idea).
A similar type of rebellion is when you go back and re-read the things you’re supposed to grow out of after high school and college, and still enjoy them. I never read in high school, so what do you expect?
Comics is also were I got into reading, though kids’ storybooks were also important. Comics were a good foundation for developing your own sense of aesthetics. It has the literary component, as well as the visual.
"Literary departments still labored under the impression that Stendhal, Galsworthy, Dreiser, and Mann were great writers.""
Drieser is probably one of the worst "Great" writers ever. I've never liked an American Tragedy, and can only praise one of his novels: Sister Carrie. According to james Cozzens, Drieser received massive amounts of praise not because he was a great writer, but because he bravely fought the censors and refused to revise his work to meet their objections.
Mann has probably fallen further in value than any early 20th Century Novels. He was praised to the skies and thought a literary Giant, but except for "Death in Venice" who reads his massive tomes?
Judging by the extracts, I'm going to assume that Woody is more interested in entertaining us than telling us the truth. But then, what does it *really* matter what his early life was like? To me, the amazing thing about Allen is how early he became a success, and how he made the jump from Comedic Writer to Stand up comic and then to Movie producer/director. And he did it with little help from anyone.
Drieser is probably one of the worst "Great" writers ever.
Steinbeck, too.
As for the Sub-Mariner and Hawkman — never even heard of them.
Never heard of Sub-Mariner & Hawkman!? Heavens to Betsy!
How about Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law?
Woody's memoir would have been better if Bellow or Roth had written it. It sounds a bit like they did. That mixture of high and low is very reminiscent of Bellow.
Is the book "literature"? Does it matter? I'm not sure the old distinctions and categories are really still valid, but it could be a superior celebrity memoir, something people have forgotten but are happy to read when they stumble on it. Or maybe not.
Faulkner is more memorable than Stendahl. I think one reason is that we are so familiar with the setting, the character types and the way of life. We know that world from film, photos and television. Even if you've never been to Mississippi (and very few of us have been to Faulkner's Mississippi of a century ago), there's a lot that's familiar to you, that you can understand and in a way even visualize. That's harder with novels set in 19th century France, especially Stendahl, since since so much of the drama is internal and setting doesn't play as important a role.
Boris Badinov (not Johnson) used the surname of the famous crone-killer as an oath or interjection signaling frustrated rage, as in Raskolinikov! Moose and squirrel have escaped my fiendish trap! Natasha, honey-bunch, don't tell Fearless Leader. He'll take away my Double Cross.
Of course, Woody Allen had some built in advantages. He was Jewish, and he lived in NYC, the center of show biz, radio, TV, and nightclubs. Imagine if you were funny and you lived in some small town in the Midwest. You'd have no night clubs or Catskills to practice your stand up, and if you wanted to make it big, you'd have to physically move to NYC or LA and hop you could "Break In" to Show biz. And you probably wouldn't know any other comics, or be able to walk down the street and "take in" some local comic at a Nightclub that you could learn from.
So, living in NYC was an advantage for Woody, at the start.
Is Raskolnikov anyone's "hero"?
Steinbeck, too.
No, I disagree completely. Drieser is a terrible stylist. He's awful, sometimes he sounds like a German who just learned English. No, Steinbeck is much better.
I've always told people Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell, Fundamental Mechanics of Fluids by I. G. Currie and The Theory of Groundwater Motion by M. King Hubbert are must read classics, however, no one ever bothers to pick them up. Too busy with Madame Bovary, I suppose...
Mad Magazine then graduated to National Lampoon for me.
I was reading Martha Gellhorn's letters the other day, and she was confidentially predicting in the early 70's that Hemingway and Faulkner would rapidly fade away and be forgotten. No one would care about Hemingway's "Macho Bluster" or Faulkner's "cornpone stories". Young people were just too "Hip" and "urbane" to care about them anymore. Of course, she got it exactly wrong. People seem to forgotten Sinclair Lewis though - the most popular novelist of the 20s 30s, and early 40s. Even his Failures outsold Hemingway and Faulkner.
Raskolnikov is the anti-hero!
Steinbeck was testosterone, alcohol and nicotine inspired/fueled. Good Times
Woody was also pushing Sentimental Education. Remember him talking into his tape recorder at the end of Manhattan? It's read less and taught less than Madame Bovary so it's fresher: it hasn't been put through the academic/critical machinery so much. More of a "man's book" too, probably.
The point of Stendahl for a lot of readers was the psychological nuances, watching emotion lead to emotion and idea lead to idea. I believe in life he had a reputation for gusto, a zest for living. The critics find that same passion in the novels, but it doesn't come across so much for us now. That may have more to do with us - with how we live, what we read, how we entertain ourselves - than it has to do with Stendahl.
Saul Bellow, My favorite line from him was “Augie, Ikey, Mikey, Sam. We’re the boys who eat no ham!”
Death In Venice was good because it got me to read Faust. It does have that plague element that maybe makes it fresh again.
Richard Brookhiser had a theory of "minority moments." The Forties were the Irish Moment: Bing Crosby, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Cagney, Pat O'Brien, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
The Sixties were the Jewish moment (starting in the Fifties and going into the Seventies): Bernstein, Sondheim, Sontag, Bellow, Roth, Malamud, Dustin Hoffman, Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen.
The turn of this century he saw as the gay moment. You could also find an Italian-American moment in the Seventies, though Brookhiser didn't: Scorsese, DeNiro, Pacino, Coppola, Sinatra revival.
Brookhiser sees assimilation ending these "minority moments," but they tend to linger. JFK building on the Irish moment. The Sopranos following through with the Italian moment.
This moment theory probably has legs: the way the commerce of culture works, whether it's agents, editors, executives or other gatekeepers or influencers think is, look how big Bing Crosby is, you need to find me another Bing Crosby.
I realize there is a self-serving element to this vision, since it elevates what I enjoy anyway, but I have always felt that comic book heroes reach deep into our collective consciousness and express our mythos far more than most literary fiction of the present or even the past. Probably past literary fiction is better at it because what has survived the passage of time to become our canon usually started off as popular fiction with a wide readership. Comic books are our era's Iliad, the biblical era's, uh, bible, and comic book movie blockbusters are the likeliest of our cultural product to survive time's capsule and speak of us to future generations.
Everything important in life that I learned as a child, I learned from Looney Toons and Hanna Barbara. Life lessons like don't chase Road Runners, be very afraid of anvils, never trust rabbits serving tea, etc.
The movies seem unimaginative partly because many of them are, but also because we just keep telling ourselves the same stories over and over and over again. I think Campbell was right about that one. How else to explain the enduring popularity of Star Wars movies, which have mostly mediocre to bad acting (Harrison Ford excepted), shitty dialogue and a tremendous grip on our collective unconscious?
And you can get anything you need at Acme (Amazon)--Bezos must have absorbed similar lessons to Yancey.
Anvils for sale.
indeed yancey, what do kids face today, three hours of the today show or good morning America, that's a nameless horror, cartoon network still has some good material but not everyone gets it, and weekdays you have jerry springer and other hellspawn,
The "Irish Moment" in Chicago went on much longer, into the 90s actually, although its geographic scope was steadily diminishing. Still ongoing in select neighborhoods: e.g., on the South Side Canaryville is still Chicago's Hell's Kitchen, Bevelery its Lace Curtain bastion, Mt. Greenwood the Irish working class and city/municipal workers (cops, firemen, streets 'n san, etc). The North Side Irish neighborhoods are still firmly Irish, with all the traditions and outlook that entails. Edison Park on the far northwest side remains, per capita, one of the most Irish enclaves in the country, I think second only to Far Rockaway (not sure about that).
In New York City, the last remnant of the Irish Moment hung on in Hell's Kitchen until the late 1980s, when the Westies were finally eliminated from the scene.
Everything important in life that I learned as a child, I learned from Looney Toons and Hanna Barbara. Life lessons like don't chase Road Runners, be very afraid of anvils, never trust rabbits serving tea, etc.
Most of all, NEVER linger in front of a painting of a railroad tunnel on a cliff rock face.
I read both Stendahl tomes in translation, but what slogs they were. Just grueling to me, and a step in freeing myself from that particular canon.
Mann similarly. Dreiser, Wolfe, Papa, and Count No-Count, if a writer doesn't grab me from the get-go, I don't waste my time.
As for comic books, in a Toynbeean pattern they've moved into the academic canon as Graphic Novels, and keys to the modern mind.
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Superheroes suck
I'm fascinated by how we absorb and transmit culture, and what makes something stick while other writers and films don't. Why did the first Indiana Jones movie have such a big impact. Why was the first one so memorable and the later films (good in their way) not? What made Casablanca -- regarded as a throwaway "B" movie by everyone, and considering they were rewriting the script each day, no one had any confidence in it -- became a quotable classic?
I've been meaning to read Stendahl ever since I understood from a British newspaper quiz I took back around 2000 that it was about the Battle of Waterloo (IIRR). I see that Gutenberg has an english version.
Bill Peschel, wait! The Charterhouse of Parma is about the battle of Waterloo the way GWTW is about the battle of Atlanta, or MSNBC is about facts.
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Like expecting fap-fodder in Lolita
Namor the Sub-Mariner is from the Atlantis of the Marvel universe, similar to Aquaman in the DC comics. I am not a comic reader, but from what I have absorbed he is a most peculiar character for comic books, very much both an anti-hero and an anti-villain whose loyalty to anyone or anything other than Atlantis is always in question. At one point he was simultaneously a member of a team of superheroes while at the same time also on a team of supervillains. He was not a spy for either group; he just joined both and didn't bother to tell either group that was what he was doing. Both groups found it plausible that he was on their side. He also had a thing for Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four. He shows up in Marvel-based video games sometimes, but I don't think he has appeared in any of the movies yet.
Hawkman is definitely B-tier in the DC comics, but he's high enough on the B-tier that he gets pushed when a DC production needs another hero. It says something that when they made the Justice League cartoons they used Hawkgirl instead and no one complained, and while he was part of the 1970s Justice League in Challenge of the Super Friends he's less memorable than some of the tacked on diversity heroes they invented. (Apache Chief is awesome!) Part of the issue is Hawkman's skill set is too similar to other, more popular heroes. He can fly and he has enhanced strength, but so do Superman, the Green Lantern, and, when's she's not being nerfed, Wonder Woman, and his powers pale in comparison to the Flash and would also to Aquaman if he's not in his "I can talk to fish" comics dungeon. The other part of the problem is his backstory has been so snarled with contradictory origin stories over the years that he's extremely difficult to work with. It says something that DC comics tried to fix this continuity snarl and failed so badly that they basically scrapped the character for a while. You can find the history of this mess here:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ContinuitySnarl/Hawkman
"I'm fascinated by how we absorb and transmit culture, and what makes something stick while other writers and films don't. Why did the first Indiana Jones movie have such a big impact. Why was the first one so memorable and the later films (good in their way) not? What made Casablanca -- regarded as a throwaway "B" movie by everyone, and considering they were rewriting the script each day, no one had any confidence in it -- became a quotable classic?"
In other words, why does quality matter?
The Red and The Black is my favourite novel.
Read it twice, plan to read it in French.
Sounds like Woody has an active fantasy life. That is his claimed experience seems very fraudulent.
I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the theater the weekend it opened. I hadn't turned 15 yet. I knew I was watching a true classic while I was taking it in the very first time. I understood this even better years later when I realized how much my parents had enjoyed the film- something that escaped me that first time. That kind of cross-generational pull for any art is pretty rare.
yes raiders was a classic, I thought temple of doom, was a little over the top, I didn't get the panic that occasioned the pg 13 ratings, then crusade brought things back, and then it died, crystal skull is like galactica 1980, not to be spoken over,
"Do people still feel like they need to have read 'The Red and the Black'? Well, back in the old days, we did."
Back in the day, we *felt like* we had to read it...in French.
Is Zelig the Jewish Forrest Gump?
tim in vermont
Saul Bellow, My favorite line from him was “Augie, Ikey, Mikey, Sam. We’re the boys who eat no ham!”
While Saul Bellow did write The Adventures of Augie March,, the "no ham" line is from Phillip Roth, in Portnoy's Complaint.
Ikey, Mikey, Jake and Sam,
We’re the boys who eat no ham,
We play football, we play soccer–
And we keep matzohs in our locker!
Aye, aye, aye, Weequahic High!
— Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
"Why was the first one so memorable and the later films (good in their way) not?"
One reason, that both Star Wars and Raiders were new exciting and a breath of fresh air. Especially if you were a young boy. You need to remember how UNPOPULAR films were in the 70s with the General public. Just one crappy arsty film or downer film or "serious adult" film after another. Not much for people who wanted ADVENTURE.
Why did the first Indiana Jones movie have such a big impact. Why was the first one so memorable and the later films (good in their way) not?
Something in me wants to scream "Nazis!" for why the first was so good, or "Kate Capshaw!" for why the sequel wasn't so good. The original concept appealed to people, but once you got that, the movies didn't have much to add to it. It was similar to the old serials that inspired the movie: concept interesting, but not enough novelty in the later episodes. Sequels that outdo the original are rare. Maybe Godfather II, maybe The Empire Strikes Back.
I'm surprised Roth didn't win a Nobel Prize. He was a bad enough writer. Maybe if he'd been trans-gendered.
Agree sequels are almost always worse. If you consider Ford's Calvary Trilogy, I think "She wore a yellow ribbon" is better than Fort Apache, and Rio Grande is at the same level as "Yellow Ribbon". Batman "the dark knight" is better than the first movie. Another Thin man is better than The Thin Man. So, a few exceptions. Godfather II is much better than Godfather I. I never got the hype over Brando's performance, even though I like Brando.
I thought the 2nd Raiders was better than the first. The first one starts like gangbusters but soon loses steam.
Saul Bellow isn't a bad author, just an incredibly dull one.
Comic books were a legitimate populist art or entertainment. A lot of people have nostalgic feelings for them. I feel like the movies and the "graphic novel" ruined the comics. Much of the appeal was the clunky "homemade" or "lowbrow" quality that they had. Also the ads. That world - x-ray speks, sea monkeys, squirrel monkeys, Charles Atlas, Palisades Park, exploding army hand grenades, a real-life working submarine that was probably made out of cardboard - was at least as interesting as whatever was happening in Metropolis or Gotham City.
BTW, the comic-book industry just collapsed. The only comic book distributer, just stopped.. distributing. Comic book stores are shaky operations in the best of times. Many, if not most, will not come back from this even if Diamond restarts.
The Submariner (which nobody reading comics at the time realized is supposed to be pronounced sub-mariner, like "ancient mariner"..) was one of Marvel's first revivals, tying the "silver age" superheroes to the "golden age". Johnny Storm (the second Human Torch and founding member of The Fantastic Four) found him living as an amnesiac bum on New York's Skid Row, burned off his beard with precision flame and kick-started his memory.
Hawkman's current run is decent. He has realized his history is so tangled and he keeps reincarnating because he did awful things in a prior life, and now he has to make it right. Of course as I said above, the industry just collapsed, so who knows if this run will continue.
"I didn’t like nor trust"
I didn't like OR trust.
In 1974 I took a Comp. Lit. class on Moby Dick. The professor was an affable guy, good teacher, but he must have been an expert on The Red and the Black because he mentioned it every ten minutes even though the subject was Melville. Frankly, it put me off Stendahl forever.
I did meet my future ex-wife in that class.
Everything important in life that I learned as a child, I learned from Looney Toons and Hanna Barbara.
Early Popeye is the college education. Olive Oyl teaches many lessons...
I declare marshal law on Ford's Calvary trilogy! Or maybe cannon law.
DGMW, I read comic books--Ghost Tank, Sgt. Rock, Johnny Cloud--and ordered some of the stuff. The 'wargame' was glorified battleship; the bathtub submarine worked once [I blame my little brother]; and the tank my cousin Jim got was a cardboard strip of 1 kidpower, downhill.
Agree that Bellow's a dull fellow.
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But I got a kick out of Ravelstein
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John Ford is my favorite director. What's wrong with the Cavalry Trilogy?
I love Godfather 2 for the flashback scenes. They're mostly taken from Puzo's novel, while the Roth/Havana material is original for the movie, and very confused.
Something in me wants to scream "Nazis!" for why the first was so good, or "Kate Capshaw!" for why the sequel wasn't so good
I was 29 when "Raiders" came out and so old enough to understand it as an homage to Saturday serials where you were left hanging on "how is our hero gonna get out of this! Come back next week to find out". And he does get out (either magnificently or stupidly) but ends up in another pickle at the end before the week's feature motion picture.
So that alone, great fun. Great writing and great wit. (we can thank Lawrence Kasdan for that). But most of all....great villains!
And that is why Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the most disappointing movie of all time.
We had already heard that it would a prequel to "Raiders" and so that meant More nazis!, More Belloq! More Marion! (maybe even the story of his breaking her heart). So many possibilities and none of them impossible.
And what do we get? A story that doesn't even touch on it being earlier in his life. No reason to call it a "prequel" at all. And worst of all...no Lawrence Kasdan. Just the yelling and screaming that set the tone for The Goonies.
What a huge letdown.
it wasn't horrible, the scenes in china, showed promise, but bogging down in India, with the thuggees, that was more of a mystery was problematic,
But no Belloq, no melting nazis, no Ravenwoods. Just chilled monkey brains and yelling, yelling, and more yelling.
kate capshaw, did get on my nerves for a good stretch of the film, like Sharon stone would do in king solomons mines a few years later, Kathleen turner had a similar role in romancing the stone, but she underplayed it,
Roughcoat, rcocean used the term "Calvary trilogy." That's like "marshall" or "cannon" law.
Someone on soc.hist.war. or the like once asked about "World War One canons." I told him they were large bores.
I thought it was funny, and so did some others.
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YMMV
Someone on soc.hist.war. or the like once asked about "World War One canons." I told him they were large bores.
The few, the proud, the ones who know that Usenet is..
>>Canaryville is still Chicago's Hell's Kitchen
The purported setting of Shameless, though the scenes actually filmed in Chicago were mostly filmed in North Lawndale, on the West Side around Cermak and Holman, a bit west of Kedzie, and not exactly an Irish neighborhood now or ever for that matter.
I believe the Chicago filming for The Chi was also largely in North Lawndale. I couldn't get through more than about one episode, but the geographical focus of the show was on 79th Street between Ashland and Halsted, less than a mile from where I grew up. That was then a largely Irish set of neighborhoods, with also a lot of Germans, slavs (particularly Lithuanians a bit farther west), and (especially around 69th Street) Italians, though very different now. Often went to the Highland, a movie theater at 79th and Ashland (now some sort of church), and the more glamorous Capitol theater, at 79th and Halsted (now a vacant lot). We walked to both many times. I'm sure Roughcoat is familiar with the area, since the original location of the South Side St. Patrick's day parade was centered around 79th and Ashland. Leo high school still functioning and doing the Lord's work with ample alumni support just off 79th Street, but with a greatly diminished student body.
--gpm
the only "The Red & the Black" i've ever know is by Blue Öyster Cult, and i'm pretty sure it's about homosexuality in the Royal Canadian Mounter Police
I also read "The Red and the Black" about 50 years ago. I recall it being considered the first modern novel. Can't remember why.
I got to Nancy's comment:
Yes, you all need to read "The Red and the Black". But even more "The Charterhouse of Parma'.
And applaud the recommendation; then I continued reading the comments and will add that I hesitate to tell anyone he needs to read anything in a milieu where Messrs Nabokov and Dylan are the arbitri elegantiarum. To each his own, sure, sure.
Fabrizio del Dongo is the anti-Holden Caulfield. Something like that.
La Rouge et La Noir sounds like a Champaign. I remember reading it because it was the thinnest Classic I could pick for a classic report.
Surprise. It’s really a fun book to read. Go Julien, go.
Fabrizio del Dongo is the anti-Holden Caulfield. Something like that.
That would be Julien Sorel, who shows much drive and ambition. Fabrizio, if I remember correctly, doesn't.
I could be wrong, though. It seems like he did manage to get himself into a lot of trouble.
I have read some of Galsworthy's short stories. Best user of the English language I've read. Better than Fitzgerald.
Anyway, why does Woody Allen bring up Julian Sorel and Raskalnikov in particular?
The only answer I can think of is that they are both characters that aspired to be more than they were and came up a cropper in the end.
I have made many mistakes in my life. One was pronouncing "Submariner" like "submarine" instead of the correct sound of "The Ancient Mariner".
THEOLDMAN
I was a rabid comic book collector, discovered The Marvel Age of Comics in 1962 and relegated DC as the second choice until I gave all comics up in 1980
Anyway, why does Woody Allen bring up Julian Sorel and Raskalnikov in particular?
The only answer I can think of is that they are both characters that aspired to be more than they were and came up a cropper in the end.
The theme of the young man from the provinces trying to make his way up the social scale in the capital was a major theme in 19th century French literature (also found in the Sentimental Education). It was something that would have resonated with a striver from the outer boroughs trying for success in Manhattan. Crime and Punishment shares that theme and adds existential and psychoanalytical heft.
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