I read Endless Love many years after first seeing the movie and it was an interesting experience illustrating how much more meaning and intensity you can squeeze out of a novel vs. a film like that. That's one that has stuck with me.
Oh my gosh. I've read almost every one of the books you list here, but am speared by your final named book, Haruf's. How I've adored him. How I've loved his stories across time.
I would say the story of the Good Samaritan is a story with moral vision, but no moral agency. The man gets rescued by the good Samaritan without exerting any agency, but in the story as a whole, we see a vision of a world governed by morality.
One can also imagine a story with moral agency (a protagonist tries to do good things) but no moral vision. An example would be Hans Fallada's EVERY MAN DIES ALONE, about a couple who fail relentlessly in an effort to resist the Nazis. It's a great book, but ultimately the portrait is of a world ruled only by power, where morality is meaningless (the world that we would indeed have had if the Nazis had won!)
I've mentioned Nathan Hill's "Wellness" before, and at that time you hadn't read it yet -- I hope you have in the meantime! It is not only my favorite longing for a girl opening ever, but the romance here plays second fiddle to reflecting the craziness of modern life, and modern "wellness" marketing, with a few jabs at modern art thrown in for good measure. It's a love story, but it's so much more, and laugh-out-loud funny too.
I gotta be honest, I bogged down on Wellness and didn't finish it. I got to a part where the narrative wanted me to venture way back in time with the characters and I found myself uninterested in that experience. I was ready for the story to advance and it instead reversed. Not saying this is a mistake or a flaw in the book because I didn't finish it to be able to evaluate it that way, but it threw me out of the narrative with enough momentum to prevent me from finishing.
Thanks for the reply -- I read it when it first came out, so don't remember if I felt a bit bogged down in it or not. Sometimes a book might speak to us, and other times the it doesn't. I did love his "The Nix" too, and want to reread it some time.
YA novels featuring love as a theme: Finally a question I have some expertise in! I was going to point first to Rainbow Rowell but you beat me to it (her other YA novels besides Eleanor & Park are also excellent). Also This Is Why They Hate Us by Aaron H. Aceves, a book that I can't recommend enough; though the title makes it sound depressing, it is actually very funny despite some heavy subject matter. All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir.
'80s movies are so strange in the way that they portray human behavior and relationships. (That said, I used to think 16 Candles was the funniest movie ever... then I got a little older and started noticing the blatant racism and sexism.)
80's teen comedies are very much of their time, which I think is okay. We can still appreciate them for what they were while recognizing those things you note and reflecting on what that means. I sketched out some notes on a possible essay contrasting the John Hughes films with "The Kissing Booth" film series (I haven't read those books the movies are based on) and how young people feeling freer to just go ahead and have sex changes the valence of how relationships are dramatized. Taking the "achievement" of sex off the table as something worthy of dramatic tension seems liberating in terms of being able to tell a more interesting story.
I'm a big fan of Ishiguro in general, but Remains stands head and shoulders above everything else. I think it has to do with two things:
First, part of what Ishiguro cultivates is an air of unreality, where you're never quite sure what is real or not. Remains certainly has that too in the sense of you're never quite sure what actually happened and what is in Stevens' head; but because the core setting is so vividly banal and straightforward that the sense of unreality works without also creating a sense of queasiness and unease that I sometimes feel when reading Ishiguro's other books. The revelations in Remains strike one like an earthquake on what had felt like solid ground versus some of the other books where they feel more like quicksand in a marsh; still shocking and revelatory but you were kind of expecting something along those lines even if you didn't know quite what it would be.
The second difference is that Remains is so funny as well as heartbreaking. And while most of the humor is wry, some of it is literally laugh out loud funny. This paragraph, in particular, is one of my favorites in all of literature:
"I realize that if one looks at the matter objectively, one has to concede my father lacked various attributes one may normally expect in a great butler. But those same absent attributes, I would argue, are every time those of a superficial and decorative order, attributes that are attractive, no doubt, as icing on the cake, but are not pertaining to what is really essential. I refer to things such as good accent and command of language, general knowledge on wide-ranging topics such as falconing or newt-mating - attributes none of which my father could have boasted..."
"Newt-mating" is such a ridiculously brilliant choice there.
Giovanni's Room is an all time favorite emotional read. As is anything by Kent Haruf, just reread his trilogy last year - that was for our book club trip to Colorado Springs and Salida!
My all-time favourite ‘love story’ - Scott Spencer’s Endless Love. Pitch black.
I read Endless Love many years after first seeing the movie and it was an interesting experience illustrating how much more meaning and intensity you can squeeze out of a novel vs. a film like that. That's one that has stuck with me.
Oh my gosh. I've read almost every one of the books you list here, but am speared by your final named book, Haruf's. How I've adored him. How I've loved his stories across time.
I just re-read Haruf’s books and and was gutted anew. I love them.
I would say the story of the Good Samaritan is a story with moral vision, but no moral agency. The man gets rescued by the good Samaritan without exerting any agency, but in the story as a whole, we see a vision of a world governed by morality.
One can also imagine a story with moral agency (a protagonist tries to do good things) but no moral vision. An example would be Hans Fallada's EVERY MAN DIES ALONE, about a couple who fail relentlessly in an effort to resist the Nazis. It's a great book, but ultimately the portrait is of a world ruled only by power, where morality is meaningless (the world that we would indeed have had if the Nazis had won!)
I'm going to throw Chain Gang All-stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah into the mix. This book has a lit to say but at its center is a love story.
Interesting choice and as I think about it, the love story ultimately plays a very important role in how the story resolves. Excellent.
I've mentioned Nathan Hill's "Wellness" before, and at that time you hadn't read it yet -- I hope you have in the meantime! It is not only my favorite longing for a girl opening ever, but the romance here plays second fiddle to reflecting the craziness of modern life, and modern "wellness" marketing, with a few jabs at modern art thrown in for good measure. It's a love story, but it's so much more, and laugh-out-loud funny too.
I gotta be honest, I bogged down on Wellness and didn't finish it. I got to a part where the narrative wanted me to venture way back in time with the characters and I found myself uninterested in that experience. I was ready for the story to advance and it instead reversed. Not saying this is a mistake or a flaw in the book because I didn't finish it to be able to evaluate it that way, but it threw me out of the narrative with enough momentum to prevent me from finishing.
Thanks for the reply -- I read it when it first came out, so don't remember if I felt a bit bogged down in it or not. Sometimes a book might speak to us, and other times the it doesn't. I did love his "The Nix" too, and want to reread it some time.
YA novels featuring love as a theme: Finally a question I have some expertise in! I was going to point first to Rainbow Rowell but you beat me to it (her other YA novels besides Eleanor & Park are also excellent). Also This Is Why They Hate Us by Aaron H. Aceves, a book that I can't recommend enough; though the title makes it sound depressing, it is actually very funny despite some heavy subject matter. All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir.
'80s movies are so strange in the way that they portray human behavior and relationships. (That said, I used to think 16 Candles was the funniest movie ever... then I got a little older and started noticing the blatant racism and sexism.)
80's teen comedies are very much of their time, which I think is okay. We can still appreciate them for what they were while recognizing those things you note and reflecting on what that means. I sketched out some notes on a possible essay contrasting the John Hughes films with "The Kissing Booth" film series (I haven't read those books the movies are based on) and how young people feeling freer to just go ahead and have sex changes the valence of how relationships are dramatized. Taking the "achievement" of sex off the table as something worthy of dramatic tension seems liberating in terms of being able to tell a more interesting story.
For the most heartbreakingingly unconsummated love, it has to be Remains of the Day.
That is a devastating book. The patience with which it unfolds and the payoff of that patience is astounding.
That'a great way of describing Remains.
I'm a big fan of Ishiguro in general, but Remains stands head and shoulders above everything else. I think it has to do with two things:
First, part of what Ishiguro cultivates is an air of unreality, where you're never quite sure what is real or not. Remains certainly has that too in the sense of you're never quite sure what actually happened and what is in Stevens' head; but because the core setting is so vividly banal and straightforward that the sense of unreality works without also creating a sense of queasiness and unease that I sometimes feel when reading Ishiguro's other books. The revelations in Remains strike one like an earthquake on what had felt like solid ground versus some of the other books where they feel more like quicksand in a marsh; still shocking and revelatory but you were kind of expecting something along those lines even if you didn't know quite what it would be.
The second difference is that Remains is so funny as well as heartbreaking. And while most of the humor is wry, some of it is literally laugh out loud funny. This paragraph, in particular, is one of my favorites in all of literature:
"I realize that if one looks at the matter objectively, one has to concede my father lacked various attributes one may normally expect in a great butler. But those same absent attributes, I would argue, are every time those of a superficial and decorative order, attributes that are attractive, no doubt, as icing on the cake, but are not pertaining to what is really essential. I refer to things such as good accent and command of language, general knowledge on wide-ranging topics such as falconing or newt-mating - attributes none of which my father could have boasted..."
"Newt-mating" is such a ridiculously brilliant choice there.
Giovanni's Room is an all time favorite emotional read. As is anything by Kent Haruf, just reread his trilogy last year - that was for our book club trip to Colorado Springs and Salida!