The Varnished Culture's Thumbnail Reviews
Regularly added bite-sized reviews about Literature, Art, Music & Film.
Voltaire said the secret of being boring is to say everything.
We do not wish to say everything or see everything; life, though long is too short for that.
We hope you take these little syntheses in the spirit of shared enthusiasm.
The Trial
(by Franz Kafka)
An offense to natural justice, this nightmare procedural (originally entitled ‘The Process’) has K finding all about how but nothing about why. Kafka’s famous novel interprets both the times and the inhumanity of the human condition.
The Aeneid
(by Virgil)
Iliad begat Aenid begat Commedia…Virgil links two classic works 2,000 years apart with a masterpiece of his own, wherein Aeneas goes to Rome and wreaks Trojan revenge on the successors of Attic Greece, with everyone satisfyingly getting what’s coming to them. Full of images and phrases resplendent either in English or in dodgy Latin.
Thus Walter Pater (in Appreciations) “I am reading over again the Aeneid, certain verses of which I repeat to myself to satiety. There are phrases there which stay in one’s head, by which I find myself beset, as with those musical airs which are for ever returning, and cause you pain, you love them so much[1]. I observe that I no longer laugh much, and am no longer depressed.” ([1] Earworm.)
Virgil should not be overlooked: he should be drilled into the heads of schoolchildren (for their own good, to cure their terrible mental stooping!) And should any educator object to or shirk this responsibility, they shall go to a place where the locals ausi mones immane nefas ausoque potiti (purpose dreadful deeds and get their way).
TVC recommends the modern translation by Robert Fitzgerald or the crusty, the fin-de-siècle (1890) rendering into English prose by John Conington, if you can’t find the Loeb 2 volume edition by Fairclough & Goold, that is.
The great conclusion, as rendered by Virgil (per Conington): “‘What, with my friend’s trophies upon you, would you escape my hand? It is Pallas, Pallas, who with this blow makes you his victim, and gluts his vengeance with your accursed blood.’ With these words, fierce as flame, he plunged the steel into the breast that lay before him. That other’s frame grows chill and motionless, and the soul, resenting its lot, flies groaningly to the shades.”
Giordano’s painting of Aeneas deciding to stick it to Turnus
Talleyrand
(by Duff Cooper)
When told that those who fell in with Napoleon had “betrayed the cause of Europe”, Talleyrand replied that was “a question of dates”. A legendary survivor, his apparent inconsistency seems to have less to do with a lack of morals than with the exigencies of geopolitics.
This elegant biography of the wily, oleaginous and adaptable diplomat-statesman, serving French Kings from Louis XVI to Louis-Philippe, was written by Duff Cooper, who knew a thing or two about difficult men (and women).
Continue Reading →Wise Blood
(by Flannery O’Connor)
You can almost hear Father Ted saying, “Those Protestants; up to no good as usual.”.
A slight but hysterical piece of southern Grand-Guignol in which O’Connor, in stark muscular prose, shows us why warmer climes tend to grow lusher fruit (viz., the evangelists in northern Queensland, the Spanish Inquisition, etc.). O’Connor presents her freak show without explanation, comment or censure and you close the book as if you’ve just escaped the weird tent, gasping for air.
Continue Reading →Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(dir. M Nicholls) (1966)
Fortify yourself before attending a party at George and Mildreds’.
More Albee-inspired drink and depravity with great overheated performances (a big tick in particular for Sandy Dennis).
‘I am, George.’
Sabbath’s Theater
(by Philip Roth)
An extremely funny bucket of filth, King Lear and Fool combined as a depraved and exiled puppeteer, keeping us in suspension, bearing and grinning it and beating a dead whore, alive and cooking….
Continue Reading →Laughter in the Dark
(by Vladimir Nabokov)
Also known as Kamera obskura, “meant as an elaborate parody” but “one of my worst novels” is in fact a pitilessly cruel, slamming-door joke on a cuckold who is morally, aesthetically and physically blind.
Continue Reading →A Likely Story
(by Donald E. Westlake) (1984)
Very funny tale of hack writer (of “The Pink Garage Gang”, “Coral Sea”, “Golf Courses of America”, etc.) trying to get up a Christmas Book with contributions from various real celebrities that respond with a mixture of indifference, misunderstanding or hideous enthusiasm, while contending with a mother-obsessed editor (‘I’m fine…I’m peachy. Destroyed at f****** lunch with a writer. Home a basket case.’)
Continue Reading →
Atlantic City
Those were the days
(directed by Louis Malle) (1981)
Atlantic City, a style-free Las Vegas with saltwater, is the perfect place for Malle to probe America’s dark corners, with Burt Lancaster (a small time chiseller and errand-boy, seeking an emotional resurgence) and Susan Sarandon (a cocktail waitress down on her luck) playing a great pair of losers. How something so seedy can bloom so sweetly is a tribute to the entire cast and crew.
Continue Reading →
Animal Crossing – 3DS
I have 5 million bells in the post office bank but that old meerkat or whatever he is, is not impressed with the state of my house. Everytime I start doing the place up, inspired by the show houses, I get distrac- ooh look, a new snowdrop! there’s a sheep with earrings! I’d better go sell some fruit. The game does raise some moral questions. I have a second character whom I created solely for the extra storage space. Poor, neglected little Freesia. It’s like having a clone who’s kept only for body parts. A pointless, repetitious, sickeningly cute must-have game for the grrrl gamer.
And another thing:
