Assorted capsule reviews
The Master, by Colm Tóibín: At times a little inert, at times a little obvious in its efforts to spin together Henry James’s biography into the structure of a novel; nonetheless, it got increasingly absorbing as it went on, and it’s quite moving at the end. Among the best parts are the moments where Tóibín imagines James finding the initial ideas for his novels and stories. It made me want to read The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl (and reread The Aspern Papers and What Maisie Knew); it also made me want to pick up Leon Edel’s biography.
The current exhibitions at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, where I had several
hours’ layover in between bouts of travel: Loved the medieval Italian manuscripts — among my favorites: St. Jerome in the Gualenghi-d’Este Hours (number 19 in the "Comparative Images" list) — and the Dutch still lives. (This is saying something, as still life isn’t usually a genre of painting I get.) It did my heart good to be there; as a teenager, I used to go there with my dad. Looking at the paintings was like walking through the galleries with him again.
This year’s MLA: I didn’t go. But the very best of luck to those of you who had interviews (this includes you, T., darling).
Amtrak: Schizophrenic. South of DC, the Amtrak experience is a nightmare of hours-long delays, nonexistent customer service, and infuriating refusal to explain the reasons behind any of the above. North of DC, the train is still a viable way to get around,* and the Quiet Car (TM) is a fantastic idea. Every train should have a Quiet Car for those of us whose greatest nightmare is being trapped in a seat with someone who wants to narrate their life story.
House: Is my new favorite show. The phrase "addictive as Vicodin" comes to mind, even though I’m sure that phrase has been used before. (My holiday vacation included a mini-marathon with friends who’ve got the DVD of season 1. We were united in our boundless admiration for the brilliant and hilarious Hugh Laurie.)
Brokeback Mountain: Still haven’t seen it, but it’s coming to Charlottesville in a week, and to a theater I can easily get to, no less. Huzzah. [Update a week later: Still haven’t seen it, because every showing I’ve tried to get to has sold out before I got there.]
* Still: high-speed rail service between Charlottesville and DC can’t
come fast enough, and to all those currently whingeing about how this is
a bad thing because DC residents will move to C’ville, I say: you
try making that trip on Amtrak. I hope you enjoy the specially chartered Greyhound bus
they put you on when your train turns out to be seven hours late, or fails to show up at all.
I’m glad to find another House fan. Even though the show is really formulaic, I can’t help but love it. And Hugh Laurie, meow!
Wasn’t there another medical mystery show with the same formula? I watched a few episodes and found the characters and the dialogue boring in the extreme. What I love about House is the way it manages to be so great even when you know they’re going to reach the surprise diagnosis because there are only 5 minutes left. (That, and I totally agree with your meow!)
House is indeed addictive; I think it’s awesome that Hugh Laurie plays a brilliant doctor with a drug habit and a crutch. Not that the two are mutually exclusive… And thanks for the good thoughts about MLA, A.–I have one flyback so far! I’m trying to come up with a great 18c poem to teach in an intro to poetry class. Probably “A Description of a Morning.” Thoughts?
Amtrak doesn’t own most of its rail lines. They were never capitalized sufficiently to buy or build much track, except out in the far West. The lines here are owned by freight companies. Amtrak leases them and gets the lowest priority for use. If CSX or Norfolk Southern decides to cram through an unexpected shipment of coal or widgets, the Crescent or the Cardinal gets fucked. VRE uses freight lines, too, but they signed prioritizing agreements. This is why they’re never late. VRE trains run no faster than Amtrak trains (speed is governed by the block scheduling that American railways use and the condition of the line (usually awful)). They don’t need to. They just avoid delays from the freight system. High speed rail is a nice thought, but we might start out by joing the rest of the industrialized world by treating our national passenger rail system as a national passenger railway system and not in the absurd Thatcherist fashion we now do. That’s not likely, either.