Dave's Fiction Warehouse

Ian McEwan's Atonement remains one of my favorite novels, so it was just a matter of time before I got around to seeing the movie. Mostly, I was curious to see how a director and his screenwriters could make sense of a such a nuanced work, one that relies so heavily on interior dialog. I'm impressed. Although I've not yet talked with anyone who saw the movie without first reading the book, the film deserves the praise it's getting, and I'll be recommending a few key Oscars -- just as soon as my Academy credentials come through. Best supporting actress won't be among them, though. Saoirse Ronan is fine as the young Briony Tallis, but the character is later played by two other women, neither of whom particularly resemble her in appearance, mannerism or emotional demeanor. Should this matter? To me it does. Sorry, Saoirse (I hope I'm pronouncing that right), but you've got a long career ahead of you. In many ways, Atonement is an old-school film, much ...

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt ... wait, this just in: There are no regular readers of this blog. Perhaps it has something to do with the infrequent updates, which now coincide roughly with lunar eclipses. And maybe the reason for that is, I haven't read any fiction worth blogging about for the last couple of months. Yes, I know it's out there; I just haven't read it. In fact, I haven't done much of anything except play a dumb computer game called "Lord of the Rings Online" and go to work. No excuses here; I'm going to lay it all off on Seasonal Affective Disorder. Won't you please help? So. No books on the nightstand; let me talk about work. For the past year and a half, my job has consisted of editing letters to the editor. It has exposed me to the dark underbelly of this community -- a world of querulous oldsters, mostly, and a few other bitter souls to whom the rules of grammar and spelling are further evidence of Mainstream Media eli...

Personally, I don't care if this writers strike never ends. The longer it goes on, the better I like it. We're already seeing big dividends: the cancellation of this year's Golden Globes. Instead of the usual parade of vain and vacant actors and their unusual wardrobes, it'll be a one-hour press conference Sunday night. Now there's some compelling television: CSPAN with Botox. I won't be tuning in, but if you do there's no need to touch that remote: The press conference will be followed by a rerun of American Gladiators . I like the strike for two reasons. First, it's useful to occasionally remind Americans that actors don't think up those wise and witty things they say, that without printed words written by others, they can't even give each other awards. Second, it is proving what many have longed thought true: It really doesn't matter what's on TV; people will watch it anyway. A rerun of American Gladiators ? The contempt this sh...

Meh. That's my reaction to the first episode of the The Wire , Season 5, which premiered last night on HBO. I had debated whether to watch it at all, since Netflix had delivered the first disc of Season 4 only a couple of days before. The quandary: whether to watch the new season as it airs weekly, or hold off until I get through Season 4. I chose poorly. I regret tuning in last night, since it opened with one of those "previously on The Wire " montages that pretty much spoiled any surprise the Season 4 discs might have held. Aarrgh. Sometimes I miss the days of Dallas , when if you missed an episode, you were just out of luck until the show went into syndication years later. But I'm still interested in this final season of The Wire , since it evidently focuses on the collapsing newspaper industry, via a fictional Baltimore Sun. As someone who escaped the real-world collapse (only slightly dazed and brushing off bits of debris), I'm happy to see it exploited for ...

Another holiday season has come to a close here at the ancestral manse. Today in a rare burst of energy I took down the tree and the somewhat austere decorations I'd thrown up around the front door. The cats watched it go with the same blank puzzlement they'd accorded its arrival. Unlike us, they have no sense of time passing, no reference with which to mark another year gone by. They have no vague unease at things undone, of possibilities wasted. They do not rue overeating and overdrinking. Perhaps somewhere in the periphery of their feline minds, they'll miss not having ornaments to bat to the carpet, but that's about it. We're not so lucky. Like Janus, the Roman god for which this month is named, we gaze forward and we gaze back, ignoring the present. There's a reason lists are so popular at this time of year. It's the reassurance of enumerating the things we've done, the hope in adding up the things we mean to do. Also, for writers, it's a lot ...