Umberto Eco/Christian Slater's Ass
My friend misfitred/teaspoon mentioned this about Umberto Eco in my last post:
"Oh, The Name of the Rose... How I love that book... But then I'm a medievalist. I'm supposed to love that book. The end breaks my heart (all those books! oh the humanity!) but it's apocalyptic so I guess it's okay. Have you seen the movie? With Christian Slater looking like a deer in headlights for THE ENTIRE THING? Much as I love Sean Connery, I think Ron Perlman did the best job in that one..."
We'll get to Christian Slater and the miscast (in everything because I hate him) Sean Connery later -- let's start off with Umberto Eco.
I have this weird relationship with Eco. After The Name of the Rose and Focault's Pendulum (or "Fuckoff's Pendulum" as my friend Urian the Cranky Reader calls it. Clever? Maybe not. Does it make me laugh every single time? Yes, oh God yes.) -- his novels kinda fall off into the crapper.
I wanted to like The Island of the Day Before. And I purchased Baudolino thinking maybe this time the book wouldn't suck. But it did. And now I have this shelf full of Eco, like I'm a fan or something. (I also own a copy of Kant and the Platypus, a book that is too smart for me to read because, dear reader, I am dumb*. I'd rather you hear that from my own mouth than reading it on some bathroom wall where all the smart people hang out.)
The thing I've come to realize about Bert is that he's frustrated by fiction. Not the idea of fiction, the way Ben Marcus is; I mean that Eco wants fiction to do certain things -- and it won't. Not for Bert. And maybe because it can't. Let's take The Name of the Rose. Strip away the every-frickin'-page history lesson (and I kid a little there with the "frickin'" -- I loved that medievalist stuff, and the stuff about Inquisition, and that peek into early monastery life) and all you really have is a pretty lackluster mystery. A lackluster mystery that someone like James Patterson can only dream of writing, sure, and for serious, Jim? Enough with the nursery rhyme titles. But mostly what Eco wants to do is to cram as much of his research into the novel as possible. Characters aren't necessarily developed; insights into human nature aren't so much forthcoming; what you do get, though, is a lot of history. And, if'n you like the period Eco's writing about -- that can make for an enjoyable read. Elevated beach read, if you will.
I just couldn't bring myself to be terribly interested in The Island of the Day Before. I always found something else to read when I should have been reading it. Backs of cereal boxes. Two issues of Martha Stewart's Living. (Hydrangeas? Who knew?) The instructions for how to use Zach's Neti Pot. Mostly I think it's my fear of maps. And Baudolino was another failed experiment, even with the dangling literary carrot of a meeting with Prester John.
The thing is? The thing that sucks? I'll probably buy The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana when it comes out in paperback. And I wish I had a good reason why. It's the same impulse, I think, that keeps me fanning my goodwill towards Eugene Levy, even though he doesn't seem to care that this goodwill is tested every time he plays a white man interacting with black/youth culture. Eugene: you don't need to say "Fo' shizzle" to make me like you. I already do. Now go find Christopher Guest.
In closing, the movie version of The Name of the Rose is good for only one reason: Christian Slater's ass. Sure, I'm creeped out that he was only 15 when he made the film, and that 15-year-olds probably shouldn't be showing off their nekkid backsides on film. (I imagine somewhere after this film first opened, someone found Roman Polanski in a fit of paroxysm muttering, "But...! But...! But...!") My only excuse? I was 14 when the movie came out -- so in my mind that makes it less creepy, my fascination with Christian Slater's ass. As I've grown older, it has grown older.
Sean Connery? Feh. I don't get the appeal. I don't think he's a good actor. And, at least according to IMDb, several much better actors were talked about for the role of William of Baskerville -- including Michael Caine (another on my goodwill short list) and Ian McKellen.
It's nothing personal, Sean Connery: but I hate you.
____________________
* Mini-entry as a footnote: Kant and the Platypus may be one of the scariest books I've ever read. It's about language (which is a bit like saying that Moby Dick is about sailing, and about as useful), the way we speak and understand things and each other -- stuff I feel like I do every day. And yet -- I don't get how we do it. Umberto Eco apparently does. And Umberto Eco wrote this book to explain. But I can't understand a book about how to understand language -- and yet I speak every. single. day. How can I do something I don't know how to do? And even this time here, with you, in this footnote? I'm not even really explaining myself well. Why you're even reading this and not someone smarter who will actually help you in the world is beyond me. Just say nice things about me as you go; and give my love to James Taylor...
"Oh, The Name of the Rose... How I love that book... But then I'm a medievalist. I'm supposed to love that book. The end breaks my heart (all those books! oh the humanity!) but it's apocalyptic so I guess it's okay. Have you seen the movie? With Christian Slater looking like a deer in headlights for THE ENTIRE THING? Much as I love Sean Connery, I think Ron Perlman did the best job in that one..."
We'll get to Christian Slater and the miscast (in everything because I hate him) Sean Connery later -- let's start off with Umberto Eco.
I have this weird relationship with Eco. After The Name of the Rose and Focault's Pendulum (or "Fuckoff's Pendulum" as my friend Urian the Cranky Reader calls it. Clever? Maybe not. Does it make me laugh every single time? Yes, oh God yes.) -- his novels kinda fall off into the crapper.
I wanted to like The Island of the Day Before. And I purchased Baudolino thinking maybe this time the book wouldn't suck. But it did. And now I have this shelf full of Eco, like I'm a fan or something. (I also own a copy of Kant and the Platypus, a book that is too smart for me to read because, dear reader, I am dumb*. I'd rather you hear that from my own mouth than reading it on some bathroom wall where all the smart people hang out.)
The thing I've come to realize about Bert is that he's frustrated by fiction. Not the idea of fiction, the way Ben Marcus is; I mean that Eco wants fiction to do certain things -- and it won't. Not for Bert. And maybe because it can't. Let's take The Name of the Rose. Strip away the every-frickin'-page history lesson (and I kid a little there with the "frickin'" -- I loved that medievalist stuff, and the stuff about Inquisition, and that peek into early monastery life) and all you really have is a pretty lackluster mystery. A lackluster mystery that someone like James Patterson can only dream of writing, sure, and for serious, Jim? Enough with the nursery rhyme titles. But mostly what Eco wants to do is to cram as much of his research into the novel as possible. Characters aren't necessarily developed; insights into human nature aren't so much forthcoming; what you do get, though, is a lot of history. And, if'n you like the period Eco's writing about -- that can make for an enjoyable read. Elevated beach read, if you will.
I just couldn't bring myself to be terribly interested in The Island of the Day Before. I always found something else to read when I should have been reading it. Backs of cereal boxes. Two issues of Martha Stewart's Living. (Hydrangeas? Who knew?) The instructions for how to use Zach's Neti Pot. Mostly I think it's my fear of maps. And Baudolino was another failed experiment, even with the dangling literary carrot of a meeting with Prester John.
The thing is? The thing that sucks? I'll probably buy The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana when it comes out in paperback. And I wish I had a good reason why. It's the same impulse, I think, that keeps me fanning my goodwill towards Eugene Levy, even though he doesn't seem to care that this goodwill is tested every time he plays a white man interacting with black/youth culture. Eugene: you don't need to say "Fo' shizzle" to make me like you. I already do. Now go find Christopher Guest.
In closing, the movie version of The Name of the Rose is good for only one reason: Christian Slater's ass. Sure, I'm creeped out that he was only 15 when he made the film, and that 15-year-olds probably shouldn't be showing off their nekkid backsides on film. (I imagine somewhere after this film first opened, someone found Roman Polanski in a fit of paroxysm muttering, "But...! But...! But...!") My only excuse? I was 14 when the movie came out -- so in my mind that makes it less creepy, my fascination with Christian Slater's ass. As I've grown older, it has grown older.
Sean Connery? Feh. I don't get the appeal. I don't think he's a good actor. And, at least according to IMDb, several much better actors were talked about for the role of William of Baskerville -- including Michael Caine (another on my goodwill short list) and Ian McKellen.
It's nothing personal, Sean Connery: but I hate you.
____________________
* Mini-entry as a footnote: Kant and the Platypus may be one of the scariest books I've ever read. It's about language (which is a bit like saying that Moby Dick is about sailing, and about as useful), the way we speak and understand things and each other -- stuff I feel like I do every day. And yet -- I don't get how we do it. Umberto Eco apparently does. And Umberto Eco wrote this book to explain. But I can't understand a book about how to understand language -- and yet I speak every. single. day. How can I do something I don't know how to do? And even this time here, with you, in this footnote? I'm not even really explaining myself well. Why you're even reading this and not someone smarter who will actually help you in the world is beyond me. Just say nice things about me as you go; and give my love to James Taylor...
posted by Mike at 11:26 AM
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