Đang tải dữ liệu
I’ll Take You There Introduction of the ebook: I’ll Take You There
Đánh giá : 3.25 /5 (sao)
New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb weaves an evocative, deeply affecting tapestry of one Baby Boomer’s life—Felix Funicello, introduced in Wishin’ and Hopin’—and the trio of unforgettable women who have changed it, in this radiant homage to the resiliency, strength, and power of women.
I’ll Take You There centers on Felix, a film scholar who runs a Monday night mo New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb weaves an evocative, deeply affecting tapestry of one Baby Boomer’s life—Felix Funicello, introduced in Wishin’ and Hopin’—and the trio of unforgettable women who have changed it, in this radiant homage to the resiliency, strength, and power of women.
I’ll Take You There centers on Felix, a film scholar who runs a Monday night movie club in what was once a vaudeville theater. One evening, while setting up a film in the projectionist booth, he’s confronted by the ghost of Lois Weber, a trailblazing motion picture director from Hollywood’s silent film era. Lois invites Felix to revisit—and in some cases relive—scenes from his past as they are projected onto the cinema’s big screen.
In these magical movies, the medium of film becomes the lens for Felix to reflect on the women who profoundly impacted his life. There’s his daughter Aliza, a Gen Y writer for New York Magazine who is trying to align her post-modern feminist beliefs with her lofty career ambitions; his sister, Frances, with whom he once shared a complicated bond of kindness and cruelty; and Verna, a fiery would-be contender for the 1951 Miss Rheingold competition, a beauty contest sponsored by a Brooklyn-based beer manufacturer that became a marketing phenomenon for two decades. At first unnerved by these ethereal apparitions, Felix comes to look forward to his encounters with Lois, who is later joined by the spirits of other celluloid muses.
Against the backdrop of a kaleidoscopic convergence of politics and pop culture, family secrets, and Hollywood iconography, Felix gains an enlightened understanding of the pressures and trials of the women closest to him, and of the feminine ideals and feminist realities that all women, of every era, must face. …more
Review ebook I’ll Take You There
This is my first dip into Wally Lamb, and unfortunately, I’m staring at his earlier works, unread on my shelf, hoping that they contain the gems my friends talked about. Because this latest book of his did nothing to urge me on further. He checked all the PC boxes on feminism, family, dysfunction, loss, and other topical issues, so blatantly that I almost thought it was going to be satirical, but no, it was taking itself seriously. On the other hand, he writes with compassion, and the pages flow This is my first dip into Wally Lamb, and unfortunately, I’m staring at his earlier works, unread on my shelf, hoping that they contain the gems my friends talked about. Because this latest book of his did nothing to urge me on further. He checked all the PC boxes on feminism, family, dysfunction, loss, and other topical issues, so blatantly that I almost thought it was going to be satirical, but no, it was taking itself seriously. On the other hand, he writes with compassion, and the pages flow smoothly, even though the content has much to be desired. What kept me going was the smooth writing, and the tenderness he evokes. I wanted to care about the characters, too, and the events, but they were too wafer-thin to relate to.
There are aspects of this domestic drama that have wide appeal and significance: dysfunctional family, mental health problems, grief, secrets, communication breakdowns, and regret. But, redemption was advertised too transparently, and at every turn, so any tension that was attempted lost steam before it even got going. This is a book that thinks for you, and with a sweeping and reductive grasp of legitimacy.
The first half of the book read like a YA novel, the way it simplistically raised emotional, psychological, and family issues like a paint-by-number set. Lamb then engaged in some deeper issues—particularly one mental health disease that I know quite a bit about (and have worked with patients with this problem)—and I was shocked at how easily the author dispensed with it. (I don’t want to give spoilers about what it covers). And then there was the largely reliable narrator trying to show how unreliable he thought he was. It was twee in the most banal way, with a dearth of organic material.
Lamb took no risks, and the exposition sections were stilted with what read like borrowed enactments, and read like a Wikipedia research reconstruction. I even felt insulted on occasion that the author was so lazy about drawing us in, with stale buzzwords and overused truisms, sketching cut-out characters and boilerplate scenes. Felix’s dialogue with his daughter added nothing to the story, and there didn’t seem to be any family problems under the surface. As a youth, we saw the drama unfold with his parents and sisters, but in a hackneyed way. As an adult, we know he is divorced with an adult daughter who is too facilely healthy and balanced. The scenes with his ex were trite, as their issues were too shallow. The problems they DID have, such as Felix not appreciating feminism (really?), dwindled out to bromides.
It’s a short book, and if topics like the history of The Miss Rheingold competition appeal to you (he made it appealing, on a fact-by-fact basis, but not as a novel insertion) then you may enjoy it. It had its moments. But the feminist angle was just too antiquated. He is in version 1.0, i.e. he is bringing up basics that have been covered for the past 40 years, but he added nothing new to the table.
By the end, I saw what Lamb set out to do—to reveal how the past presses on the present, and how it affects our future. Too, he attempted to bring up the age-old Venus and Mars arguments between men and women. Felix, the film professor, was able to enter the past by seeing scenes from his life on film, brought to him by former feminists that were in the film industry before women’s employment and professional rights were part of the mainstream. They were powerful women in media, nevertheless, before being quashed one way or another. But, it didn’t resonate as poignant to this story of Felix’s relationships.
There was just nothing fresh or invigorating to this novel. I kept thinking of the movie with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep, “Defending Your Life,” but without the droll humor. It was a corny book, and perhaps it was partially autobiographical. ?? It seems possible, because the author was trying too hard to make a statement via platitudes. It is difficult, I have heard, for some fiction writers to stand back from a quasi-fictional memoir about their own histories. It appeared that he wrestled with how to advance truth-in-fact vs. truth-in-fiction.
I think that Lamb could have continued to draft this book and go deeper into the characters and story, rather than the surface narrative that he wrote, and the juvenile dialogue. Perhaps if this had been written and published in the early 60s, he would have been ahead of the curve. But, as it stands, I think it could have merit for younger readers in the YA sector, but for those of us who are seasoned readers and mortals, it just didn’t take me anywhere. …more
Chia sẻ ý kiến của bạn