On Sunday, opened up the day with an interview with Andrew Pierce on his new show on LBC radio. He was really quite anxious about the state of Lady Thatcher's health, and less anxious about the state of the health of the Tory party. This was only his second show, but he is clearly enjoying himself. I joined James and Tara, my son and daughter-in-law for lunch, before we went on to see Vantage Point at the cinema. The premise of the film is quite brilliant - you watch the assassination of a US President in Spain for 20 minutes, as recorded on the TV news, and you then follow the lives of 6 people in the crowd, fast reeling back to see the assassination from their point of view. In typical Hollywood manner, they spend the last 20 minutes tying these six peoples' lives together with a long car chase during which the hero (Dennis Quaid) manages to kill all the baddies and save the President's life. If they had come up with a truly clever Hitchcock ending, it would have been a masterpiece, rather than just another piece of floss from Hollywood.
4 Comments:
Yes indeed; Vantage Point threads the needle just a bit too-easily; it's like a mad cross-breed of Rashamon and In the Line of Fire.
In the spirit of Lent & Easter,I need to make a modest confession; the intention today was to say that I had read "Prisoner" and how good it was, etc-etc.
In fact, almost as soon as I bought it, I locked it in my trusty old suitcase for an upcoming holiday in April.
However, within several hours it was like the scene in Superman; The Movie, were Clark Kent is called to the barn by the glowing green crystal that becomes The Fortress of Solitude. No resolve, you see, I couldn't look away.
I read it in 72 hours, and although nobody really 'cares', here is my opinion;
The unspoken thought of regular readers is; "How close will this get to the peak that was Kane and Abel?"
All the books are enjoyable, & I can't see K & A ever being topped, but this beautiful, dark, fantastically thought-out effort is its equal, and if you don't go out and read this for yourself, you will, as Bill Murray once said, "Die and go to hell"
There's no doubt, great adversity has peaked JA's skill, and it is marvelous that this has happened.
Or, more to the point, as Ambassador Dryden (Claude Raines) says to General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) in Lawrence of Arabia, "Before he did it, sir, I would have said it couldn't be done"
Sorry for the rant, but as a a varied book-lover it really hit the spot, but I actually wish I had held-off until Majorca......
I'm off to see Vantage Point this afternoon.
I have to disagree with Anonymous who just completed P.of B. in 72 hrs. and said, "thought-out effort is its equal, and if..."
In my humble opinion, having just finished reading P.of B. last evening, it does not equal K and A.
As much as I was excited to read Prisoner in roughly 4 days or so, it does not compare to the depth of detail, story and character development of K and A.
In fact, I found myself wishing the courtroom scenes early in Prisoner would, "get on with it" and get back to the Danny storyline.
There are a couple of other reasons which have to do with believability:
Danny
1. To go from illiterate to 4th place in a University essay writing contest in a short 2 yrs. is just not believable to me.
Judge [Spoiler Warning]
2. He puts a hold on the case near the end after Spencer is caught in the injured leg lie. This would just not happen in courts in my part of the world.
However, having said what I have said, and as a reader of all things J.A. since Not a Penny.. P. of B. is still an amazing yarn, just not to be compared with K and A.
Anon number 2; your comments are honest and fair, but I personally think its one of the great labours to sustain a compelling story for near 500 pages; for that matter, to do the same trick over a period of four different decades takes some beating.
To take an utterly random example, I am currently reading a recent biography of Lincoln that is, in many ways, the masterpiece it has been considered, but at the same time, I can't honestly say that every page of detail completely holds my attention..........
To anon. 1 from anon. 2...
Well said!
Quite right on both the over 500 pages comment and the over 4 decades comment.
Prisoner adds to the amazing body of JA work to date and as I reflect on the stories written and the work [1000 hrs. for prisoner and countless revisions] which requires such effort [agony as JA has said], I am in awe at what goes through my mind as I read.
As I read the story I find myself both engrossed in and lost in the words. Any writer who can hold my mind captive for that long can only be described as brilliant.
Thank you for the discussion.
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