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I wish I could tell you that I’ve been a paragon of thoughtful reading lately, but it wouldn’t be true. Honestly, since the election and some weeks before, my concentration has been shabby at best. Rather than reading one book with great pleasure and voraciousness, the pile of books by my bedside has been growing.
So rather than share with you one remarkable tome that I’m devouring, I thought to tell you about four books sitting on my night table and why they caught my attention. I also watch movies for both pleasure and insight, so I’d like to share with you the four movies I’ve seen over the last week during this holiday period. Perhaps you’ll find something useful for your list. Then I’ll ask about your book and movie lists.
None of the books would fall under the category of escapist entertainment. All of them may be linked by the theme of confronting and overcoming adversity—and the consequences of failing to do so. Perhaps none make that point more than W. G. Sebald’s On the Natural History of Destruction, which examines the physical and psychic reality of Nazi Germany after the war. Over 130 cities and towns were bombed and in some cases flattened; over 600,000 civilians died; some seven-and-a-half million Germans were homeless—and yet, Sebald explains, as the survivors began about the business of repair, they were also already resisting national guilt and denying their horrific past like amnesiacs.
I’m also re-reading Frank McCourt’s 1996 classic Angela’s Ashes, which depicts his miserable childhood amid extreme poverty in Ireland—with prose that is often devastatingly beautiful. I’ve picked up from my shelves the never-read 1776 by David McCullough, which is serving as a companion piece to my just-read, Founding Fathers: A Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis. In these dark and confounding times, returning to our nation’s war-torn beginnings feels necessary. And I’ve just started The Demon of Unrest, the new book by one of my favorite nonfiction writers, Erik Larson, which narrates the heartbreaking months after Abraham Lincoln’s election and the attack by secessionist Confederates on the federal Fort Sumter, igniting our country’s deadliest war that pit Americans against Americans. You might have gathered I’m looking back to help make sense of what lies before us.
Meanwhile, I saw this week Blitz, the just-released film by Steve McQueen streaming on Apple TV, which brilliantly takes you inside the German blitzkrieg on London in 1940. I’ve seen other excellent films on the topic, including Hope and Glory and The Darkest Hours. But this film not only succeeds in bringing you close to the horror, it paints a human picture of the internal conflicts in everyday life, particularly for a bi-racial family trying to survive the bombing while dealing with the bigotry of their fellow Brits. (For the record, I’ll always check out a film starring the gifted Saoirse Ronan, who here plays the white mother here of a nine-year-old Black son.) I also re-watched Parasite, the 2019 Korean film that deservedly won the Oscar for Best Picture and beautifully articulates the stark reality and consequences of extreme inequality. It was a stunning watch on the big screen five years ago, but a quieter, more intimate experience absorbing it now at home.
I also saw two movies on the big screen with my family, just before Thanksgiving. One was A Real Pain, a comedy written, directed and starring Jesse Eisenberg, who travels to Poland along with Kieran Culkin (who plays his cousin) to see the place where their grandmother escaped the Holocaust. Less about that larger epic history and more about the conflicted relationship of the two cousins, the film combines easy laughter and tender emotion in nearly equal portions. Lastly, I doubt you need me to describe what Wicked is about, but this origin story for The Wizard of Oz was not only an entertaining and touching rethinking of who’s the “good” witch and who’s the “bad” witch—and why—it reawakened my own sense that the original film is an allegory about the rise of fascism. The way the wizard rules over the beleaguered inhabitants of the Emerald City—he being a weak con artist who relies on fear—makes it hard to miss its relevance for our own times. So much for simple escapism. Maybe you’ll be able to simply luxuriate in its breathtaking singing and visual delights.
So what books are you reading? What movies have you seen? Feel free to share a list like I did. Or maybe you have greater concentration than I do right now and can recommend one book and one movie that’s captured your attention. While I’ve included a number of older works, I’d welcome hearing about new works of fiction and nonfiction that you are enjoying. I’d love it if today’s prompt provides a portfolio of possibilities for the coming month as we head toward the holidays and time permits more reading and watching.
As always, I look forward to reading your insights and the opportunity for this community to share with each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.
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