The Cue Card: Books, Movies, Music and More

My book club recently picked “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” because it seemed a more uplifting, lighter story than the dark, heavy reads we usually get to. And it turned out to fill that niche quite nicely.  It’s a satirical, different kind of novel that builds on the theme that having faith in the impossible can be quite a good thing.  

Written in the form of emails, letters, reports and diary entries, the novel is about a British fisheries scientist (Dr. Alfred Jones) who is called upon to somehow introduce salmon and fly-fishing into the country of Yemen.  It’s all part of a dream of a visionary sheikh who loves fishing and believes it will have a beneficial effect on his country. The British prime minister’s office latches on to the idea as well, in its search for a positive, feel-good story about the U.K. coming out of the Middle East instead of war.   

Yet to Alfred the idea is totally absurd as salmon aren’t suited to the Yemen’s desert conditions. Regardless he's pressured into the project, coordinating it with help of the sheikh’s U.K. agent Harriet Chetwode-Talbot.  The two make a dynamic team (one nerdy, the other sharp and elegant) along with the sheikh who inspires them to reach beyond what seems possible to reach their goal.  Along the way they face various obstacles, including self-serving bosses and politicians, who are spoofed in the book as pompous asses, as well as Dr. Jones’s unhelpful, unloving wife who provides no encouragement and takes off to another country for work.

Will the project succeed? Will Harriet get together with Alfred? You won’t know until the very end.  But the nice thing is it inspires you to believe in salmon in the Yemen, as it does Alfred, whose life is transformed by the project. In that way, it’s all quite uplifting. My only qualms with the whimsical book is that the narrative is a bit uneven with its various dispatches from different characters; some of which you want to read, others not so much. And the ending seemed perhaps as whimsical to believe as its salmon-in-the-desert premise, continuing its fairy tale-like quality.

Regardless I’m looking forward to it being released as a movie on March 9 with Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. I suspect it will be a bit different than the book version, with more comedy, romance and perhaps a brighter ending.

I heard this was the “It” book of last summer, enthusiastically backed by the legion of Ann Patchett fans that now seem to be everywhere. I was just a tad leery because I didn’t care for her last novel called “Run,” but alas, “State of Wonder” is a whole different can of worms and much better. Like the Amazon world it conjures, “State of Wonder” is teeming with a wide range of issues, layers and characters.

It’s about a pharmacologist in Minnesota, Marina Singh, who is sent to the Amazon to find out the circumstances surrounding her work colleague’s death and the scientist he went to meet, the eccentric Annick Swenson. Swenson is Marina’s former medical school mentor whose research on a new fertility drug in the jungle has been shrouded in mystery. Marina is sent to find her and investigate the progress on the new drug. But once she gets there, her world is turned upside down by the tribulations she faces and the miracle drug she witnesses.

Part “Heart of Darkness” mixed with a little “Island of Dr. Moreau,” “State of Wonder” is influenced by various works, including “Orpheus and Eurydice” and the Werner Herzog film “Fitzcarraldo,” according to Patchett. (In light of this, I’m curious to rent the 1982 Herzog film, which I haven’t seen.) I found the novel to be an adventurous, engaging read; it definitely keeps you going and places your feet firmly in the heat of the Amazon. But I thought the surprise ending a bit abrupt, flung together and sort of dropping off after its initial jolt, leaving one like a wet rag to wonder about the loose ends it leaves.

After wading through its dense jungle and contemplating malaria and the fertility of women over a certain age, I’m sort of Ann Patchett’d out at the moment but will definitely return to her books in the future. For more on her and “State of Wonder” check out her recent appearance on the Colbert Report, the independent bookstore Parnassus she co-owns in Nashville, and her hour on the Diane Rehm show.

Granted, many critics took the much-anticipated “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” to the woodshed and beat it to a pulp. The local paper’s review called it “extremely disappointing”; the New York Times’ review called it “kitsch”; The Washington Post labeled it “cloying sentimentalization” and “insufferable”; and The New Yorker review longed for the main character to shut up. And yet the film has nabbed a few Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. It’s almost reminiscent of director Stephen Daldry’s last film “The Reader,” which drew Oscar nominations and a win for Best Actress despite criticism of its humanizing depiction of a Nazi guard.

Similarly “Extremely Loud” takes on an emotional, weighty subject matter, this time the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Adapted from the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, the film unfolds through the mind of an 11-year-old boy who has Asperger-like symptoms and is dealing with the death of his father in the World Trade Center. The boy, Oskar, finds a key in his deceased father’s belongings and goes on a city-wide search to try and find the lock it will open, feeling that it will keep him connected to his dad and tell him something more. It’s quite an emotional treasure hunt from there as the grieving boy journeys all over NYC over many weeks meeting sympathetic strangers to try and find the lock and answer.

So far so good? Not to critics who bemoaned the film’s adaptation of the novel and its sentimentality. Also the boy’s precocious depiction drove some crazy, and others felt the story’s suspension of disbelief was too great. But despite a couple hokey parts, I thought the film quite powerful. Did it use the World Trade Center tragedy to manipulate emotions at every chance? Did it turn it into kitsch? I think it’s for everyone to decide. Personally I was surprised at how negative some of the reviews were and actually how good and moving and well made the film was. The actor, Thomas Horn, does a good job as the hyperactive boy, and the supporting performances by Viola Davis and Max von Sydow were excellent as usual. I remembered 9/11 and navigated the film without feeling overly cloyed. Now if only the film’s title were less of a mouth full. I never seem to get it right. Extremely what?

The British espionage film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” finally came to our neck of the woods where we had been patiently waiting to see it since before Christmas. And this is a Commonwealth country mind you. So what’s with the late distribution?!

Well it turned out to be an intriguing film (well worth the wait), though not necessarily an easy one to figure out. As the final scene played out and the credits rolled, I heard a woman behind me say “I still don’t understand it.” And perhaps quite a few others didn’t understand all of it either, which is not too uncommon for a film based on a John le Carre novel. Murkiness lurks in the world of high-stakes espionage after all. It definitely helps if you’ve read the novel it’s based on or his others before seeing the film. More importantly if your spouse has read the entire le Carre cannon then you’re in luck, picking a brain and piecing the film methodically together when it ends.

On the basics, it’s not that hard to grasp. It takes place during the Cold War as a retired British intelligence veteran (George Smiley) is secretly hired back to uncover a mole within the top levels of MI6. Smiley suspects the mole is responsible for a failed mission in Hungary in which an MI6 agent has been shot and tortured for info, and subsequently he learns Moscow’s been behind the mission in order to remove the threat within MI6 of the mole’s discovery. Ultimately Smiley closes in on the double agent, setting up a trap for him to be caught.

It’s quite ingenious, the whole spy plot, and the Cold War paranoia feels palpable. Gary Oldman as Smiley is subtle but terrific, rarely speaking but moving his eyes behind coke-bottle glasses and out-maneuvering his adversaries. Oldman is very deserving of his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for this, though the category has stiff competition from George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The whole cast in "Tinker" is superb, and the film leaves you wondering long after it's over about its details and conclusion. I can’t help thinking it was snubbed of nominations in the Best Picture and Best Director categories, but it did get one for Best Adapted Screenplay.

I heard quite a bit of criticism about “The Iron Lady” before I saw it on opening night, and yet I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite entertaining and interesting. The Hollywood biopic of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher definitely has raised hackles on both sides of the political aisle. For many liberals, the film goes too easy on Thatcher and her Tory policies, humanizing her despite her hard-line stances. For conservatives, the film shows her in too unflattering a light with dementia in later life, at a time when the real Thatcher is still alive. Some, too, don’t like the film for showing a dementia-suffering Thatcher talking to her dead husband throughout it, and for relying on too many flashbacks. Others say the film reduces her life to a series of superficial montages and lacks substance.

But I would disagree and say see it for yourself because the film is quite captivating. “The Iron Lady” doesn’t exactly presume to be an end all on Thatcher’s life and rule, but makes the prime minister come vividlly to life thanks in large part to Meryl Streep’s brilliant performance. The film also doesn’t shy away from her controversies and touches on many of Thatcher’s thoughts and the riotous events during her tenure. From what I’ve read, “The Iron Lady” doesn’t entail gross inaccuracies, it’s pretty straight on in terms of her chronology and policies.

The film combines some real footage of her time in power and delves into her life with flashbacks, looking back on her past from her later years when Thatcher has dementia. Although it seems quite risky to portray her with dementia conversing with her dead husband who comes to her in visions, it works impressionistically in the film by uncovering a side of the once powerful leader that is quite revealing. The filmmakers and Streep defend the portrayal of her dementia, saying it’s a part of real life and should not be covered up. As for the film's controversial Iron Lady, they seem to leave her policies up to viewers and to posterity.

Surprisingly, the prime minister is only shown once with President Reagan (and none with the queen?) during the film, which seems a bit too little, considering how much they're linked in that era. But go see “The Iron Lady” at your own whim or viewpoint but do see it.

"Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" was a perfect novel to end 2011 on. It's a witty, entertaining read about a retired British army officer who's a widdower living in a small English village. Sixty-eight-year-old Major Pettigrew is old-fashioned and set in his ways (definitely a character! he calls them like he sees them), but then at the start his brother dies and he meets Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper, also a widdower who shares his love of literature and begins to broaden his perspective. In due time, the Major is smitten with her, but prejudices of the snobby village residents (a bit harsher versions of Hyacinth in PBS's "Keeping Up Appearances") and their families come between, threatening to end their chance at romance.

The novel hums along on the happenstances of the retired Major, who like it or not, is apart of the village mileau, out golfing, duck hunting and attending family functions and parties. His son, Roger, is an obnoxious social climber who doesn't exactly share his father's polite charm. How the Major placates him and the brash villagers while his affections for Mrs. Ali grow is quite a hoot -- not to be missed. Nor is the ending of this adorable story, in which the Major dashes into action in the nick of time. Hip hip hooray for the Major! An unlikely but lovable hero.

I agree with the New York Times' Janet Maslin who wrote: "It's about intelligence, heart, dignity and backbone. “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” has them all." For sure, it does. Amazing, too, that it's such an assured debut novel. The English-born author Helen Simonson gives plenty of insight into the small-town life of her home country. But it's her gifted storytelling that makes it such a delightful and easy read.