Grey Gardens

Adam introduced me to another of his 'film picks' last week and I have to say it was the best one yet.  We saw the documentary Grey Gardens made in 1975 by the Maysles brothers.  It is a look into the lives of mother and daughter Edith Bouvier Beale and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, relations of Jackie O, who were living in a squalid estate in East Hampton.  It was a vouyeristic look into the lives of this once prominent society family, much like some of the books I have recently reviewed (see Wendy Burden's Dead End Gene Pool and Ivana Lowell's Why not say what happened?)  Grey Gardens could be equated with the worst episode of Hoarders (complete with cat urine).  It is truly enlightening to see how others live behind closed doors.  I went on to watch the movie version starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, which very closely resembled the documentary.  I don't know which version I enjoyed more.  Upon further research I found this blog has amazing photos and background information.
People are fascinating creatures and it's always interesting to get a glimpse into other's lives.  A much tamer look can be found in the January 2011 issue of Marie Claire, which profiles international womens' lifestyles including how much they spend on shoes!  The article by Lea Goldman 'What it costs to be me' is on page 82.  A look into my life is certainly not as interesting as the women in the article.  My weekender for this weekend would be:  $6.00 for 2 loads of laundry and $12.00 for dinner with my daughter's Girl Scout troop on Saturday night.  Ok, maybe I'm not quite shattering the librarian stereotype!

Fragments of Marilyn Monroe

Fragments:  Poems, intimate notes, letters by Marilyn Monroe is a new book composed of snippets of the star's writings.  I loved all the photos between chapters which show her reading.  It seems uncharacteristic of the public persona of Marilyn Monroe, but she enjoyed leisure reading and expressing her thoughts on paper.  I was highly impressed by some of the titles that were found in her 400+ volume private collection (I suppose if we believe they were all read by her - I mean, sure, War & Peace may be on my bookshelf, but it doesn't mean I've read it).  A great deal of intelligence and critical thinking is shown by her introspective letters, poems, and organized lists, but like the 'Jekyll & Hyde' personality Monroe herself claimed to possess, these fragments also reveal her delicate emotional state and self-doubts.  The great aspect of the book's format is that the reader can see the documents in their original format, but read their text (typed on the opposing page) without having to decipher Monroe's script and scribbles.  This is a look past outward appearances to the real heart of Marilyn Monroe.

The Passage

You know the feeling when you are halfway into a book and you're not really sure you want to invest any more time in reading the rest?  That was how I felt about Justin Cronin's The Passage.  This book sounded great in the pre-pub summaries, and there is a really neat accompanying website Enter the Passage. This epic (over 700 pages) was exciting in the beginning, but quickly turned monotonous.  The reason it is so long is that Cronin tells this futuristic tale of viral beings in excruciating detail; at times with no need to do so.  The list of characters is also long, with detail and introspective views into their lives so that the reader really feels connected, but then characters are taken with the virus and the reader has to make friends with a new cast of characters.  I believe I was about 450 pages into The Passage when I decided I really didn't care what happened next, I just really wanted to know how it would end.  I read the 300 odd pages between this point and the end without much enthusiasm, only to find the ending to be unfulfilling and I realized I could have skipped to the last sentences to figure it all out.  This was also extremely heavy (another strike in my book - I prefer my workout time to be separate from my reading time).  I know there were several nights that I was pulling for the extra blanket at the bottom of the bed only to  find it weighed down by The Passage.  I struggled with this book, both physically and emotionally.  My opinion:  Wait for the movie.