Month: September 2002

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More fictional therapy.

I am reading Pilgrim by Timothy Findley. From the blurb:

For Jung, this man becomes an embodiment of the psyche’s mystery. Claiming to have no past history but to have simply arrived one day at consciousness, Pilgrim lives in a limbo outside individuality and subjectivity. He’s everyone and no one. Is he a messenger? Or is he a basket case? As the novel gathers momentum, we realize that Pilgrim is a character much like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, traversing gender and time, a witness. But whereas Woolf is a feverish and emotional writer, Findley is philosophical and dry, playful and slightly pretentious. Imagining conversations between Pilgrim and Henry James, Leonardo da Vinci, and Oscar Wilde, this novel is like a party full of beautiful guests.

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Hammett

While at City Lights I got drawn into Dashiell Hammett because of the local colour. On the plane home I read The Glass Key, quite fun. Apparently the basis for the Cohen’s Miller’s Crossing (1990). The original movie: The Glass Key, (1942), sounds good, but not available in the store here. Nice review of it by Alexander Walker

I almost cry when I see and hear the vanished virtues of the old-style Hollywood thriller: terseness, tautness, a laconic attitude to life, but also a commitment to the values that make it worth living and not just killing for.

This bio: Dashiell Hammett [1894-1961] is useful. The man was persecuted in the McCarthy era. Here is a pic I found:

I get onto a roll, I now have a video out: Hammett (1982) directed by Wim Wenders. Perhaps more on that later.

Later: It was awful!

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Wedding Trip

I did say I’d keep a travelogue here, and we are on our way,but no, I am keeping this more psyber. However I do have a weblog, more private, and will send you the URL if you like, just email me. This does look like the last post here for a few days though as we travel up the Californian coast.

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