*Theme - Loss of childhood* - Wednesday 6 April 2022
READ: Olive Kitteridge (2008) by Elizabeth Strout
Tristan’s Mum recommended this novel and it was an inspired choice. To varying degrees, and as the ratings below confirm, we all found much to enjoy and appreciate.
The novel is a series of interlinked short stories centred around the citizens of a small coastal town in Maine, not least the eponymous Olive Kitteridge who is a wonderful character: straight talking and brusque, but this belies a perceptive, caring side which she usually keeps well hidden.
The cumulative effect of the short stories gradually start to pack an emotional punch, stories which shine a convincing light on the drama and disappointments of ordinary lives. That it's also sporadically funny only makes the reading experience even richer and more satisfying.
For a novel which contains a lot of incident and tragedy and which includes violence, loneliness, suicide, death, eating disorders, divorce, murder, religious fundamentalists, hate, infidelity, trauma, hostage taking, and more, this is ultimately a positive and joyous book. A celebration of the everyday and the commonplace, and a reminder to make the most of the time we have whilst we still have to repair relationships, fall in love, help someone, etc. Ultimately it's these moments which give life meaning and value.
This is small town life writ large and a very worthy Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner.
Thanks Tristan’s Mum
Nick 9 / Tristan 9 / Nigel 9 / Keith 8 / Roland 9 / Robin 8.5 / Hamish 8
LISTEN: 50 Song Memoir (2017) by The Magnetic Fields
Stephin Merritt has never been afraid to think big, at least as far as his music is concerned, and his ad-hoc group the Magnetic Fields enjoyed their breakthrough with the wildly ambitious 1999 set 69 Love Songs, a three-disc collection featuring, yes, 69 songs about love. While that album bests 2017's 50 Song Memoir by 19 tracks, in nearly all other respects, 50 Song Memoir is a project of even greater scale and scope. Begun as Merritt was celebrating his 50th birthday, 50 Song Memoir finds him embracing pop songs as the medium for an autobiography, with each of the 50 tracks representing a different year in his life.
But is it any good? Most of us found it a bit meh. Hamish dubbed it the triumph of concept over content however Nick and Robin were very positive,
WATCH: Rocks (2019) directed by Sarah Gavron (Netflix)
We all enjoyed this social-realist adventure written by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson and directed by Sarah Gavron about a multi-ethnic community in East London which evokes the spirit of Ken Loach’s Kes or Céline Sciamma’s Bande Des Filles. It’s about a group of year 11 girls and a Nigerian British girl nicknamed “Rocks”, who whilst no great academic high-flier is really talented at cosmetics. Her dad is dead and she lives with her troubled mum, who has had, as a social worker delicately puts it, issues managing her medication.
Rocks has the responsibility of minding her kid brother, Emmanuel and there’s trouble when Rocks’s mum absents herself from the family home.
A low, British indie gem that is the antithesis of a Hollywood blockbuster.
HBG endorse it: 10 March 2022 -> 6 April 2022
The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) dir by Tarik Saleh
Operator Starsky (Ukrainian YouTuber)
House of Maxwell (iPlayer)
I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017) dir by Macon Blair (Netflix)
Best bits montage at the end of the final BBC Kermode & Mayo podcast
Things Fall Apart podcast by Jon Ronson (BBC Sounds)
The Ukrainian flag (again)
Putin (BBC Sounds)
The South Downs Way
Top Boy (Netflix)
Winchester (English City)
Boiling Point (2021) dir by Philip Barantini (Netflix)
The Gentlemen (2019) dir by Guy Ritchie (Netflix)
The Witch Finder (BBC iPlayer)
Sherlock Holmes (2009) dir by Guy Ritchie
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) dir by Guy Ritchie
