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The Hourglass Sanatorium
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 192
This, a peculiar Polish masterpiece from 1973. Based upon Bruno Shulz's "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.", which I'm not sure I have or haven't read; but the story revolves loosely around a man going to visit his father in a Sanatorium where the ordinary rules of time don't apply. Fantastical sets, Art-Nouveau in ruins, covered in spiderwebs and dust, the halls of memory, tied up trunks and bureaus, a graveyard with ravening wolves, examination rooms in surreal decay, inexplicable incidents...it becomes a parable of memory, the pretext of visiting his father leads him to relive and reexamine various stages of his life, the aesthetic alone makes it worth the watch, the opening train ride (a conductor leading any number of lost souls), the crowds of people - active or silent, frozen in time, it reminds you of a live action version of The Quay Brothers "Street of Crocodiles" (also by Bruno Schulz), or a darker, more surreal Jodorowski; rooms (memories) are entered, left, and then sealed behind, doors opening up to surreal tableaux, his father surrounded by bare-breasted flappers and prostitutes digressing upon Steak and Mushrooms, the stuff of indigestion and bad dreams...
A surreal masterpiece. You can read the wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hourglass_Sanatorium
or watch it on YouTube here (for free!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8nHhstKtEA
Note: The YouTube version is low res and the colours are so-so. This could benefit from a restoration.
Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 154
So this, my first check-out from the library, a proper Oprah Book Club Pick, a staff recommendation.
Enjoyable, a woman author (my daughter was giving me grief, not my fault that men write more to my taste than women...) - enjoyable, quirky, amusing, but a little lighter than I'm used to. I don't mind light, quirky, etc - but I'd prefer it in slimmer volumes.
While I can understand it's popularity, I'm a little perplexed at the reviews. I mean - not bad - but a long way from being great.
Bad Trips - Edited by Keath Fraser
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 133
"A sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious collection of writing on the perils of the road"
So begins an anthology of travellers tales that more or less go badly. Some, I've read before, Peter Matthiessen, Wilfred Thesiger, Eric Newby, others were new to me.
An overrepresented sampling of Canadian and western authors, and - given the date of publication, 1990 - well, the world was a very much different place. That, at least, I like.
The stories, for the by and large, the excerpt from the larger tale doesn't for the most part compel me to read the entirety. Perhaps, in such instances as the tales by Graham Greene or Dirk Bogarde or Umberto Eco, make me want to read the entire volume, capture the entire sense of the journey or novel, but - as an anthology it fell rather flat in my eyes.
As an introduction to authors I haven't yet read - and many I won't, it was fine, but it's soon to back to the bookstore with this and search out something a little more substantial.
Robert Byron - First Russia, Then Tibet
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 152
Robert Byron, the Penultimate Travel Writer, on Visiting Russia and Tibet in the early '30's.
His visit to Russia, perspicacious observer of customs, intelligent, entirely at odds with the revolution and the 5 year plan, rejecting all offers to tour the factories and means of production instead spending his time in the churches looking up the Icon Painters Roublev & Theophanes, studying Byzantine art, visiting the portrait "Our Lady of Vladimir", making his notes on architecture, the mood and disposition of the populace.
He's erudite, well educated, informed, the ideal travel writer.
Then, by Aeroplane to Iraq, which takes a week as they are forever stopping in Spain, Italy, Greece, Africa, Turkey - for lunch, to overnight, to visit and see the sights, take on petrol, pick up mail, much like a jaunty automobile trip, visiting all the furthest flung outposts of the Empire, stopping at abandoned forts and castles still populated with the dressed skeletons of the former inhabitants.
Once upon a time he was the norm, for an educated man of privilege, now he would be rarer than...well.
His descriptions, Darjeeling, the climb into Tibet, the oft-repeated instances of British Bad Behaviour and unfavourable reporting on their customs (culturally insensitive, and Byron after his own fashion continues the tradition) in Tibet had made them rather unwelcome visitors, and so he's travelling without the certainty that he'll be allowed in...
British Tourism hasn't changed much.
Comical but cruel descriptions of the locals, stooping to the scathing, his descriptive powers are unsurpassed, every course of every meal is detailed, his descriptions of the flora, fauna, customs, he epitomizes the British Nobleman Abroad, easy manners, privilege, his condescension towards the local people and custom.
It's a great read, and I while I frequently find I share his views (or means of expressing them) it also is a reminder to question my prejudices, again, it would be as interesting to read some of the local commentary made upon him. A much different travel writer than Alexandra David-Néel, who covered the same ground but in an entirely different fashion not even a decade before.
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