So good. The acting is terrific, especially Henry Fonda, who is as close to the perfect Tom Joad as any one not in one’s own imagination. At the opening I found John Carradine as Jim Casy a bit phony, but that evened out over the course of the film.

It is a radically different story than the novel, due to the removal of the last scene and the more traditionally optimistic (since I believe the novel’s ending is one of hope) conclusion. That’s fine with me, although disappointing. I realize the novel’s ending is difficult and not necessarily well-suited for film.

But the movie also leaves out some parts that, while less significant individually, could have a great deal of influence over the rest of the story.

I love the turtle at the opening of the novel: crossing the road and getting flipped over, but continuing on (at least till Tom comes by to pick him up for Winfield). It might be heavy-handed as a metaphor for the family, but I think it’s effective.

I don’t understand why so many productions seem to leave out the Wilsons, the couple the family encounters at the beginning of their journey. The Joads have to stop for Grandpa’s death anyway, and the scenes with the Wilsons show how ordinary people could count on each other, a theme to be both contradicted and repeated throughout the story.

Other changes lead, I feel, to the family being treated more as a symbol than as individualized characters, and these changes also detract from the effectiveness of Jim Casy’s overarching messages of humanity’s one spirit and the problematic nature of sin and morality. The film ignores Noah’s difficulties and his leaving, as well as Pa Joad’s guilt at Noah’s condition.  Uncle John’s guilt over the death of his wife and its impact on his feelings for others, especially children, is also not shown, and its lack makes some of the scenes that are included in the film (the hungry children at the camp) less effective.

I did love it, and am happy to have finally seen it. But it makes me wonder what surprises I’m in for when I finally read Gone with the Wind.

So Far:

Finished in January 2012:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya Angelou.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Michael Lewis.

Reading Right Now:

God is Not Great. Christopher Hitchens.

Death Comes to Pemberley. P.D. James.

James’ “sequel” to Pride and Prejudice is, so far, a whole lot of fun and true to the spirit of the original. My favourite line:

“[Mr. Bennet] and Darcy rapidly came to the conclusion that they liked each other and thereafter, as is common with friends, accepted their different quirks of character as evidence of the other’s superior intellect.”

And G., I promise I’ll be done with my current reads in time for our Gone with the Wind February Challenge!

*Just kidding. I haven’t actually been counting, and it would be way higher than that.

I read different books on my e-reader than I do in print…I buy things that I wouldn’t want to take up space but still want to own. Most of the print books I’ve bought in the last year have probably been for other people (although that could also have had something to do with leaving the job where I got huge discounts on print books).

I’m not as determined about making sure I read everything. If there’s a chapter in a non-fiction book that’s beyond me, I skip it. If a novel isn’t “working” for me, I don’t stick it out like I used to. And I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. A big part of this is coming to the realization that I’ll never be able to read all the books one “should” read…I don’t finish something just because I’ve started it; I can move on to the next thing.

It’s not all about disposability; some of my ebooks are duplicates of print books I own that are early editions; my mother did me a great service getting me beautiful early copies to read as a child, but now I appreciate being able to leave them on the shelf.

Whether you’re reading e- or p-, I hope you got one or two good books for the holiday!

Christmas Trees

by Robert Frost

A Christmas Circular Letter

The city had withdrawn into itself

And left at last the country to the country;

When between whirls of snow not come to lie

And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove

A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,

Yet did in country fashion in that there

He sat and waited till he drew us out

A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.

He proved to be the city come again

To look for something it had left behind

And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;

My woods—the young fir balsams like a place

Where houses all are churches and have spires.

I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.

I doubt if I was tempted for a moment

To sell them off their feet to go in cars

And leave the slope behind the house all bare,

Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.

I’d hate to have them know it if I was.

Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except

As others hold theirs or refuse for them,

Beyond the time of profitable growth,

The trial by market everything must come to.

I dallied so much with the thought of selling.

Then whether from mistaken courtesy

And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether

From hope of hearing good of what was mine,

I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”

“I could soon tell how many they would cut,

You let me look them over.”

“You could look.

But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”

Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close

That lop each other of boughs, but not a few

Quite solitary and having equal boughs

All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,

Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,

With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”

I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.

We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,

And came down on the north.

He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:

“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant

To let him have them. Never show surprise!

But thirty dollars seemed so small beside

The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents

(For that was all they figured out apiece),

Three cents so small beside the dollar friends

I should be writing to within the hour

Would pay in cities for good trees like those,

Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools

Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!

Worth three cents more to give away than sell,

As may be shown by a simple calculation.

Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.

I can’t help wishing I could send you one,

In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

The depth of character evoked in the stories is impressive considering the short format…but they’re not over-explained, over-worked. They live, and we know them no better and no worse than we would those people who share our lives.

The protagonist of the final story, especially, is going to be on my mind for a while.

A Good Man, straightforwardly enough, is a meditation on what makes a good man, which is always a more complex exercise than it seems. For some, it’s a position of leadership–here, Sitting Bull, having learned the wisdom in his old age not to confront a raging man, but losing his people’s trust. For some, the love of a good woman–Michael Dunne, wanting to be his “very best self” for the woman he loves. Moral uprightness comes with its own complications, as Joe McMullen, James Morrow Walsh, and the protagonist (although the other characters are so well-realized it almost feels inaccurate to call him so) Wesley Case have learned.

These complications lead, perhaps, to an understanding that forgiveness (and self-forgiveness) is an integral part of goodness, and to the suggestion that joy is key to a proper response to a world of tragedy.

In my last year of university, for the first term, I was having kind of a rough time. I wasn’t sure my boyfriend (now husband) still wanted to be with me; I was taking more than a full course load and also TAing for someone with whom I apparently couldn’t communicate very well. I was coming to the end of school and didn’t know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to do it.

I thought about what I loved, and it was sharing with people about art and culture. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher although I think I’d be suited to it; I’ve had enough teachers who haven’t been drawn to the profession that I didn’t want to join them. And when I thought about how else I could do what I loved, something struck me that I’d never thought of, or had actually actively tried to avoid, till then: libraries.

The process afterwards was long; I spent two years (that I loved) continuing to TA and figuring out what to do, then another year at school in London. 6 months unemployed; a year and a half at a job that wasn’t the right fit. But I have it now. And it all went back to a split second of inspiration in the early spring of 2005.