Village of Secrets. (2014)

     Caroline Moorehead. Village of Secrets. (2014) Subtitle: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France. Not so much defying as deceiving. The people of Le-Chambon-Sur-Lignon were able to save an astonishing number of children from deportation to the death camps. A handful of pastors and other community leaders were able to lead this effort partly because of the collusion of officials outside the region, the deliberate sloppiness of the police, and because external agencies (nowadays called NGOs) could operate until the USA entered the war, but mostly because this part of France is remote and in those days was ignored as of no economic or political account, whose inhabitants were ignorant and backward. That gave them a certain anonymity; they could hide behind their stereotypes. When you are fooling people who think they are smarter than you, it pays to play up your supposed inferiority.
     Nevertheless, the risks were real. The deprivations suffered by the Jews were terrible. Their self-delusion that as citizens of France they were safe are pitiful to contemplate: when thugs are in power, legal and cultural protections are meaningless.
     This is one the few books I did not finish. After reading two-thirds of it, I decided I didn’t need any more details. The people did what they did at great risk to themselves. Not a pleasurable read: the knowledge that so many children were saved from death is offset by the knowledge that they suffered from the loss of their families, most of whom died in the gas chambers.
     The book is well-written. Moorehead is one those historians who can write a story As a record what good people can do when they follow their conscience and use their wits, a story worth reading. It’s also a semi-comforting account of how the Nazis weren’t nearly as efficient as we have come to believe. You may be able to finish the book. ***

The Ark in the Garden. (1998)

     Alberto Manguel, ed. The Ark in the Garden. (1998) A well-made little book, a collection of fables or parables about current politics, economics, values. Margaret Atwood’s, A Christmas Lorac which inverts the Scrooge story, is typical: a reminder that our present version of capitalism is dysfunctional, a polite word for an appalling reality. The major theme is the disconnect between our understanding of ecosystems and our economic values. The common notion is that we can choose between “the environment” and “the economy.” That’s like believing we can choose between eating and breathing. We’ve become insane.
     The minor theme is freedom, the freedom to be what one is without unjust constraints, whether those constraints are our obligations to others, or limits on our choices, or others’ indifference. These two themes I think are related by a more abstract one: the necessity of growing up.
     A good book. ***

Katherine Hall Page. The Body in the Snowdrift (2005)

     Katherine Hall Page. The Body in the Snowdrift (2005) The part-owner of a ski resort in Vermont dies. Faith Fairchild accompanies, Tom her Episcopal priest husband,  to a birthday party there, organised by and for her father-in-law Dick Fairchild. The ski resort is owned by family friends, the Staffords. Faith finds the body when she rises early for a solitary ski. Both families are dysfunctional, but Dick Fairchild is oblivious. The resort is on the edge of financial collapse, it needs a successful season. A lot of odd incidents occur, culminating in murder. Faith subs for the chef who has mysteriously disappeared, and whose body later is spread over the slopes by the snow-making machine. Faith somehow “solves” the murder, the murderer corners her, but her nephew and the daughter of one of the resort owners save her. The murderer and his evil genius (the aging-hippie Stafford sister) are unmasked. So that’s all right.
     The book is both over- and under-written. The plot is too slight to carry the tale. Hall Page really doesn’t have much interest in how a sleuth works, she’s far more interested in naming brands and dropping literary and culinary hints that the alert reader can use to suss the cultural markers necessary to pass as one of the beautiful people.
     The dysfunctional family is far more interesting than the crimes, but Hall Page’s narration suffers from pop-psych analyses and resolutions, not to mention dialogue in which everybody talks the same way. Characters are like those 2D figures whose arms and legs move and whose faces stay stuck in a stiff grin. Even lead-character Faith is a stereotype. The ambience is barely there; the setting is described in generic terms, so that there’s little sense of place. Much of it reads like a sponsored travelogue.  In fact, the whole book reeked of product placement.
     So why is this a best selling series? Basically, it’s a romance, a genre that has developed multiple sub-genres, all of which require serious suspension of disbelief. Here, there’s the gimmick that Faith is a master chef who owns a catering business, thus is an Independent Woman, despite having a husband and two young children. Some of her recipes are included in every book: to my very amateur eye, they seem simple enough for anyone to make, and rely on well-tried combinations of flavours. Besides being a great cook, loving wife, and good mother, she’s also a sleuth; but we don’t see any sleuthing beyond Faith’s puzzlements and speculations.
     Then there’s the heavy use of brand names. Plus a  story and language that require no concentration whatever. Cliches and familiar tropes lead the reader along the well-worn paths of semi-plausible fantasy. You can read this while daydreaming about schussing down a black diamond run then canoodling in front of a fire.
     The only tension is the what-will-happen-next variety, which is enough to keep a semi-attentive reader turning the pages. I confess that sometimes I am such a reader, but even so, it took me several sessions to read this book, prompted more by a sense that I ought to finish the book before writing about it. Moderately good of its kind. More literate than most examples I’ve come across, hence a *½.

Star Over Bethlehem (1965)

     Agatha Christie. Star Over Bethlehem (1965) The mystery novels contain hints that Christie was a believer, especially her brief comments on guilt, innocence, and just punishment. This collection of stories and poems gives us a fuller impression of her beliefs.
      In I a Mrs Grierson knows that her dislike of people compromises her good works, done from moral conviction. She wishes that she could like the people she helps. A stranger on a water taxi wears a seamless robe. Tempted, she touches it, the touch transforms the way she sees and feels about her fellow humans. In the Cool of the Evening tells of an autistic boy who meets a stranger in his garden. With the stranger, he invents names for the odd animals that result from a nearby radioactive spill. His mother, embarrassed by him, doesn’t recognise his gift, and wishes he were normal.
     The last story, Promoted to the Highest, is a fantasy in which fourteen saints, depicted in an ancient fresco in a country church, petition to be allowed to return to Earth to continue their work. Dying for their faith wasn’t enough; they need to live it. Their request is granted. The recipients of their miraculous powers are rather disreputable. Christie shows her suspicion of mere respectability here as much as in her mysteries.
     I think this slight book should be more widely known. Christie strings clues and misinterpretations together just as she does in her mysteries. The stories  achieve their purposes. They’re parables, relying on outline of plot and character in order to prompt the us to think about puzzles that are difficult to pose any other way, and whose solution will always be provisional. Philosophers may be satisfied with abstractions. The rest of us want concrete experience. Christie delivers. These pieces remind me of C. S. Lewis. ***

So’s Your Aunt Emma (1942)

     So’s Your Aunt Emma (1942) Zasu Pitts leads a cast of B-list actors working their way through a script concocted by someone who thinks a good idea is enough. The good idea is that a respectable old maid travels to the city to see the boxer son of the man she didn’t marry, gets entangled in gangster double crosses, and of course manages to  bring everything to a successful end. Love and justice triumph, as do the wholesome values of Aunt Emma.
     But the script hobbles along, the acting is merely competent, the photography ranges from average to awful, and the narrative pace is too slow even for 1942. One of those movies that could have been much better. The title is a catch-phrase of the times. Look in Wikipedia for more details.
     Definitely a B movie, second half of a double bill.  Mildly amusing as an example of Hollywood product. **

The Peanuts Movie (2015)

     The Peanuts Movie (2015) See the IMDb information here.
     One of the charms of Schulz’s Peanuts was his line. He could put more expression into a squiggle-mouth than many artists could put into a whole canvas. He was also a great writer: it’s not easy to make a three- or four-panel strip tell a story, or imply a larger one. Unlike many strips, Peanuts had a backstory that Schulz continually developed. So although the kids lived in a timeless universe, things did happen, our knowledge of the characters deepened, and their relationships became more complex. Just how Schulz managed this with a cast of almost pure stereotypes repays careful study, but this review is not a thesis.

     When any well-loved cartoon is converted to a movie, many in the audience, including me, will watch with a critical eye. How well does the movie capture the look’n’feel, the ambience, the quirkiness of the source? The answer here is, very well. The producers decided to model the characters in 3D, but to keep their faces 2D. Their mouths and eyes and eyebrows are the expressive squiggles of Schulz’s strip. That makes the movie visually very appealing, and dialogue almost unnecessary.
     The story is simple enough, Charlie Brown falls in love with the Little Red Haired Girl that has just moved into town. But he’s too bashful to talk to her, too afraid that she will look down on his dorkiness, too much conditioned into accepting the role given him by his classmates, especially Lucy.
     There are sub-plots. We see Snoopy as the WW1 Flying Ace fighting the Red Baron, every character gets at least one scene centre-stage, kites are Charlie Brown’s nemesis, and so on. For us who grew up with Peanuts, or whose children did, the movie is a nostalgia trip. Everything ends well, there’s a preachy moment when the Little Red Haired Girl explains why she likes Charlie Brown, but otherwise the movie is a well-done riff on the perennial Peanuts themes. Recommended. ***½

Take Five by Dave Brubeck at Montreal in 2009

One of the great jazz standards is Take Five. Dave Brubeck made it his own. There are many versions available on line, but this 2009 Montreal Jazz Festival video is one of the bests. Brubeck was near the end of his life, and he just lets his crew take the tune to wherever they want to take it. Lovely sax, cello, bass, and drum solos. ****