The Blue Flower

(Penelope Fitzgerald) I thought that Penelope Fitzgerald’s novalised (geddit?) part-biography of the poet and philosopher Novalis would help me straighten out the Penelopes Lively and Fitzgerald and stop me from confusing Novalis and Nerval.   Of course Lively and Fitzgerald are virtually indistinguishable, both being women who have won the Booker Prize.  By an incredible coincidence, each is  English and has one “e” in her surname.  It is also easy to see how I have confused the two male writers – after all, Gerard de Nerval was the pseudonym of Gerard Labrunie who took his lobster Thibault for walks about bits of France while Novalis was the…

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Dominion

'Non preoccuparti, we left Winston in the car.' (Chamberlain, Mussolini, Lord Halifax & Count Ciano at Rome Opera, Jan. 1939)

(C J Sansom) Smog, smog smog.  There is a lot of smog in this novel, which serves to hide the holes in this rather unlikely  plot.  But it’s an ok read if you believe in “holiday” books. World War I is known only as The Great War because there was no World War II.  Halifax succeeded Chamberlain.  England surrendered and Churchill is now an underground resistance leader.  How differently things actually turned out!  It’s all very well until the erstwhile surprisingly amiable and hands-off Nazis turn a bit nasty and start to disappear people.  Importantly however, Germany’s most effective means of domination is to control Europe with finance rather than jackboots.  How…

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Midnight Cowboy

Are we there yet?

(Dir. John Schlesinger) (1969) A glorious story of two World Class Losers.  If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere, but Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) are freezing to death, living in utter squalor and their prospects of success as hustlers are approximately nil. This is a great, bleakly charming and square-toed study of marginal depravity, with two towering performances (both suggesting an incongruous naivety), great direction and keen settings about some of the most scummy parts of the city.  The deep sadness of the scenario is mitigated by a profound compassion,…

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The Slaying

May 10, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | AUSTRALIANIA |

Fred Phillis ('Earn your pay with 18 goals on the day')

Central District v Glenelg 1975 The day dawned ominously on this minor round game.  Glenelg would make yet another Grand Final that year, were near to full strength, and hungry.  They had beaten the Dogs earlier in the year by a lazy 23 goals.  Centrals were struggling, had had shocking luck with injuries and were forced to play boys who had started the season in the Under 17s.  Glenelg wanted to go into its finals campaign with a full head of steam and wanted its mercurial full forward, Fred Phillis, to get near to his century so as not to prove a…

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Foxcatcher

May 10, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Drama Film, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

The 'ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist' (front left) at Penn U.

(Dir. Bennett Miller) (2014) The historical facts are unedifying and abstruse.  John Eleuthère du Pont was an heir to the du Pont family fortune, his personal fortune assessed at about $200m (U.S.).  A decidedly odd fellow, he was nevertheless a man of some accomplishment as an ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist (and fantasist). He was also a sports enthusiast and established a wrestling academy at the family estate for a tilt at the Olympics.  It was in pursuit of this that the Schultz brothers, world and Olympic wrestling champions, came to live on the du Pont estate, Foxcatcher Farms.  The relationship seems to have been interesting,…

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