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Marj
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:18 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Hey Mel!

Your preaching to the choir! Wink

Maybe she WAS referring to the descriptive passages or even the inner voices. I'm not sure?

Anyway it was worth mentioning, just to get someone to disprove the point. And you sure did!

Kate,

I think it's amazing how we each gravitate to one character rather than an another. I disliked Alice when she first appeared. I thought, "Oh No. Another Mom to gum up the works." But Cunningham would have none of that! I really grew to admire her, even though her choices were such an anathema to me.
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Melody
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:24 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 2242 Location: TX
Marj wrote:
I really grew to admire [Alice], even though her choices were such an anathema to me.


Marj, could you elaborate on this point? Sounds like you have some interior dialogue of your own itching to come out.

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My heart told my head: This time, no.
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ehle64
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:24 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A
I really found Sissy Spacek perfect casting as Alice, too. I mean there are a few actresses that can go from lost housewife in the 70s smoking pot with her 14-year old son and listening to Laura Nyro, to 50s-early 60s ish widow in Arizona who's having an affair with an Indian who apparently knows how to fuck, LOL. It's a shame that that part of the novel was left out, too. I mean, Spacek's hair grows out and she wears denim, but I thought her (Alice) finding some semblance of home or life in Arizona after Ned's death was a very great part of the whole of the novel. Also, that beautiful scene with the ashes as she drives Jonathan to the airport was truncated to a bit when she visits her "granddaughter" in Woodstock.
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Melody
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:42 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 2242 Location: TX
Ehle, I believe this movie is the worst adaptation of a recent novel that I've never seen. Did Cunningham write the screenplay? And will he be present at that B&N thing on the 7th? I believe I have some questions for him myself.

Truncated my ass. Two can play that game: In my adapted version of The Hours -- SPOILER -- Richard Brown is already dead. Clarissa is too upset to buy the flowers. Laura Brown has a 14-minute crying/hiccupping interior monologue in which kissing the hot neighbor lady, alcohol and lumpy birthday cakes are prominently featured.

...........

I'm going to bed before I write something really stupid.

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chillywilly
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:02 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8250 Location: Salt Lake City
Melody wrote:
Do y'all remember the first paragraph of the book? The chapter is called "Bobby."

Having just barely starting the book this last week, that first chapter grabbed me and intruged me enough to continue reading... that was until I got a call that one of my clients tonight needed their wireless network fixed... doh.. So we continue to read tomorrow night.

But I wanted to post to say I wish my busy ass life would allow more time to read.... but I'll make an effort to at least read and watch as I continue the book.

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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend"
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Marj
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:10 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Hey Mel,

Now that's something you need never worry about!

How to 'splain? Alice made a choice, which was probably very common in the sixties, to stay with a man, who I think she actually did love, but felt no passion for. No passion? It was more of a love/hate relationship.

Wait! I take that back. The sixties was a time when women were beginning to rebel against these kind of choices. But I suppose you can't generalize?

While I think Alice really had "some" kind of love for Ned, it certainly wasn't the kind of love that would keep me from leaving. I could never stay with a man if my feelings were as conflicted as Alice's.

This is not to say, I don't value companionship, trust and security. In some ways, I thought Alice felt trapped. Maybe similarly to Laura Brown, in The Hours. Not the same, but similar. But that feeling of being trapped? Now that frightens me. I could never live in this kind of situation.

And I didn't!
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Kate
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:17 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1397 Location: Pacific Northwest
One more note before bed; Alice did the things she did out of loneliness and desparation. She is the quintessential Mom-friend wanna be. I felt very sorry for her, but also was angry with her for not paying enough attention to her own needs that she used her son to fulifll them. Then, she takes from him the one thing he can call his own. This is what I loved about this book, I could just feel how pissed Jonathan was when she intruded. I would have been pissed too.
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ehle64
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:17 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A
Not to digress, but fuck it. . .

What I love most about Cunningham's characterization of Laura Brown is that she was the total outsider. She seemed content in that. Then the jock decided he wanted her, she was approachable and he obviously wasn't the Cary Grant of the football team. It was the fucking 50s and even little girls like Laura weren't able to distinguish between their life's passions or being swept away into some fantasy land with mr. right. That's a generalization, I think many girls were able to distinguish, but probably the majority, not. Then after the whole seduction into a "normal" life, she completely ruins @ least 3 lives to be the person she wanted to be in the first place. A librarian. After all of this, I have to say that comparing Alice to Laura Brown was very astute, marj. Thanks.
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Kate
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:23 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1397 Location: Pacific Northwest
OK, now I have to see The Hours.

Night all.
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Marj
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:44 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Wade wrote:
Quote:
It was the fucking 50s and even little girls like Laura weren't able to distinguish between their life's passions or being swept away into some fantasy land with mr. right.


Don't you think this is more a function of 'need', rather than decade? I would venture to guess, it's still happening?

Kate wrote:
Quote:
Now I have to see The Hours.


And now I have to read the book!
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ehle64
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:54 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A
I'm sorry, I'm a male child of the 60s so would probably never know. Only my older sister was born in the tail-end of the 50s and she never let that crap seep into her life's ambitions. I think you're probably right, it is happening, but not on such a scale as the 50s seemed to represent.
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Marj
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 1:41 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Wade,

I absolutely agree! But I'm fading fast.

More tomorrow.

Nite...
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Marj
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:46 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Second Wind, Damn!

What I wanted to say, Wade, was not only do I agree, but I'd venture to guess Cunnnigham does too. Clearly he set's Laura Brown in the 50's for a reason! Yet, I can empathize with women of any decade that get "swept away" and what I empathize with is the "need."

What I give Cunningham credit for is that A Home was written before The Hours. If one didn't know that, they might think Alice was an extension of Laura Brown. Not literally, of course. She wasn't AS trapped as Laura Brown. Could that be a function of the new decade?

I think Alice had found quite a bit of wiggle room, even before Ned died. And as I think about it, this could be why she thrived on the escape she found with the boys? Could it have been her first taste of what was to come?

Obviously, I'm speculating since I haven't read The Hours, and don't know Laura Brown's inner voice, or even if she had one? And I certainly can't read MC's mind. But it's fun anyway.
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Marc
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:54 am Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
wow this book forum is coming together beautifully. I've got to get off my lazy ass and start reading. I was initially dismayed by how unfocused this forum was, but marj you are doing a great job of keeping the juices flowing. And ehle, your patience has paid off, A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD finally seems to be getting the respect you felt it deserved. I'll get my hands on the book and dive in soon.
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Marj
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:02 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Marc,

Thanks and I hope by now Wade, knows how terribly grateful I am to him?

And Marc, as much as this book is the kind of book you want to luxuriate with, you'd better hurry if you want to join us. *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*
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