The Schleicher Spin

With his ambitious novel, Serena, Ron Rash creates a new American legend.

The Great Depression enshrouds the nation.  In the Western Carolina highlands, George Pemberton and his indomitable new wife, Serena, are forging a powerful timber empire come hell or high water.  If someone or something gets in their way…there will be blood.  This is the milieu of dread where Ron Rash’s new novel, Serena, lingers.  Three things soon stand in Serena’s path:  her husband’s bastard child, Jacob; the child’s young mother, Rachel Harmon; and a groundswell of conservatism looking to incorporate the Pemberton timber tracts into a national park.  Thus two women come at a crossroads, both empowered by their innate wills to survive:  Serena feasting off her insatiable greed while Rachel is driven by the unstoppable love for her child.

From the opening passage, Rash grabs us by the throat and never let’s go:

When Pemberton returned to the North Carolina mountains after three months in Boston settling his father’s estate, among those waiting on the train platform was a young woman pregnant with Pemberton’s child. She was accompanied by her father, who carried beneath his shabby frock coat a bowie knife sharpened with great attentiveness earlier that morning so it would plunge as deep as possible into Pemberton’s heart.”

It’s refreshing to read a novel so well constructed.  Rash tells his story with precise details, simply and chronologically, without overly flowery descriptions or “look, Mom, no hands” style wordplay.  His novel is designed as the type of thing English professors love to teach, as close to a perfectly structured book as one would find in modern literature, and one that most of them would also kill to have written.  With careful restraint Rash slips in his metaphors while he classically uses foreshadowing and foils and judiciously inserts brief flashbacks to slowly develop characters, each new revelation like a layer of onion peeling off, and likewise could bring a reader to tears.  His sense of reality is gritty and textured while his scope of imagination scales mythic heights.

Though many advanced reviews have compared Rash’s magnum opus to Shakespeare (and that comparison is more than apt), the author blends liberally elements from other classic time periods.  Like the ancient playwrights of Athens, he turns the supporting cast of camp workers into a Greek chorus, commenting on, cowering to, and philosophizing about the Pembertons and the fate of their empire.  Like the most chilling of Gothic novels, he creates a brooding and picturesque sense of place where the dangerous beasts of Appalachia, the pillaged timber and smoky mountains mirror the unchecked ids, capacities for violence and shades of darkness lurking in the psyches of the main characters.

Ron Rash’s Serena reads like a great film, his arrangement of words evoking powerful images that flicker in our minds, his prose giving birth to characters so real you feel like you can touch them.  Though it clocks it at close to four-hundred pages, Serena is full of crackling period dialogue and gut wrenching action that will make your blood boil.  Serena is nothing if not ferociously entertaining.  There’s rarely a dull moment.  Witness a brutal knife fight in the first ten pages, a thrilling bear hunt about sixty pages later, or a battle between a komodo dragon and an eagle about three fourths of the way through.  However, as it winds down, the novel loses some of its narrative momentum where the action becomes episodic and choppy.  While there was never the momentous showdown this reader had dreamt of, the book’s finale packs a potent bite, though an unnecessary (and thankfully brief) coda in the closing pages should’ve been cut to allow the reader’s imagination to run wild.

With George and Serena Pemberton, Rash has given us two towering, unforgettable, unrelenting characters rivaling the greatest any man or woman has conjured since the beginning of time.  Yet for all its epic swells of literary brilliance, it’s the small moments that will haunt the reader long after the pages have been turned…like Rachel visiting her father’s grave and recalling a moment involving “a moth in the twilight…a touch of the hand” (page 51).  And as you turn the pages of Serena, watch your hand tremble, and let your imagination soar on the wings of a moth through the sooty mountains of your soul’s darkest dreams.  Then you’ll realize an inescapable truth:  Serena has devoured you.

Written by David H. Schleicher

CAPTION:  Both Stone and Bush entered Yale in the same year.

Waiting for the final ball to drop…, 18 October 2008

Author: David H. Schleicher from New Jersey, USA

With his “in the moment” biopic W. the normally volatile Oliver Stone wisely saves his judgments for history when hindsight will be 20/20. Achingly subdued and slightly satirical, Stone plays it straight and to the bone. Here he presents us with the early years of our current lame duck president, showing Dubya rushing a frat-house at Yale, meeting Laura at a barbecue, living in the shadow of his father and brother, his troubles holding down a job, his failed bid to become baseball commissioner, and his defining moment when he gives up drinking and becomes born-again. All of which leads us to his first term and the Iraq War quagmire, where Dubya honest-to-goodness truly believes “God” wanted him to become president and that Iraq did have those rascally WMD.

In the lead role, Josh Brolin is an endearingly bumble-headed Dubya, and Stone presents him as a simple-minded man with good intentions who has been crippled by his “daddy issues” and has surrounded himself with the most cynical, self-serving, and corrupt administration in modern American history. The supporting cast is a hoot, with highlights including Thandie Newton eliciting big laughs just with her facial expressions as a wicked and moronically faithful Condi Rice, Elizabeth Banks giving a winning portrayal of Laura Bush, and Richard Dreyfuss playing Cheney as the most insipid megalomaniac American politics has ever seen.

Stone accomplishes three major coups here that should surprise those who expected a one-sided liberal smear job. First, he humanizes George W. Bush. The director does this with savvy editing showing the back-story of why Dubya does the things he does (i.e. why he uses nicknames for everyone or why running three miles every day is so important to him), and then juxtaposing that with the inane decisions he has made as president. By utilizing actual transcripts from press conferences, news coverage, and meetings, Stone and scribe Stanley Weiser allow Bush and his administration to speak for themselves, and it’s both comically cathartic and occasionally frightening to see it dramatized so well. Second, he redeems the presidency of George “Poppy” Bush (a somewhat miscast but still effective James Cromwell) by showing what a restrained and thoughtful Commander in Chief he was compared to his naive and too-eager-to-please son. Thirdly, he redeems the legacy of Colin Powell (a surprisingly good Jeffrey Wright), who is shown here as the only person in the administration with any hindsight or foresight, and the only sane voice who questioned the motives for entering Iraq, though he eventually caved in and played along. His “f-you” to Cheney towards the film’s final act is priceless.

As the actual presidency still has a few months to go at the time of the film’s release, Stone’s biopic was never written a true ending, leaving us with a symbolic image of Dubya looking up to the sky in center field waiting to catch a ball that will never drop. It may be another twenty years before we can pass any accurate judgment on Dubya’s legacy, and likewise, Stone’s film will have to wait. It’s going to be a long time before anyone catches all those balls George W. Bush’s administration threw up in the air.

Originally Published on the Internet Movie Database:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1175491/usercomments-46

With a friend visiting from out of town, we decided to kill some time by taking a short drive down to Batsto Village for a casual hike on a beautiful day.  Driving down the White Horse Pike through Hammonton, the “Blueberry Capital of the World” sign was impossible not to notice.  When I mentioned there were some wineries in the area, my friend began to wonder if they made blueberry wine.  Right on cue, the unassuming and nicely appointed Tomasello Winery appeared up on the left.  Lo and behold, Tomasello Winery is famous for their fruit wines, including, of course, a very tasty blueberry wine.  The winery offers free wine tasting, a helpful and personable staff, and very affordable locally made wine.  I highly recommend it, and being a mere thirty minutes from my neck of the woods, I’ll be sure to return.  I left the winery with a bottle of their signature blueberry wine and a bottle of their vintage port.  For more, visit:  http://www.tomasellowinery.com/

Just a bit further down the White Horse Pike from the winery, we made a left onto Route 542 towards Batsto Village.  South Jersey often gets a bad wrap for its lack of scenery, but this is a beautiful stretch of well maintained farmland on the edge of the Pine Barrens that rivals any of the best “country drives.”  Nestled in the heart of Wharton State Forest, Batsto Village offers hiking trails, a beautiful lake, and historic buildings (including an old sawmill) left over from its days of iron and glass making during the 19th century.   For more, visit:  http://www.batstovillage.org/

Below are some photos I captured while walking through Batsto Village:

Written and photographed by David H. Schleicher

SPOILER ALERT:  Her hair does catch on fire!

With the debates and baseball playoffs still holding most of my attention, films have had to take a backseat.  So I’m eschewing my traditional review format here for the moderately successful The Duchess.  Saul Dibb’s “inspired by a true story” costume drama about the Duchess of Devonshire is a fairly entertaining run-of-the-mill feminist bodice-ripper.  It’s one of those movies impeccably shot, full of costumes and pageantry, and featuring A-class acting that is hard to dislike, but just doesn’t have that special “it” due to our familiarity with this stereotypical story of a woman of immense wealth and power who is forced to chose between her true feelings and what society demands of her.  In the titular role, Keira Knightley acts the hell out of her part, and for the first time, seems to fully inhabit that old-school ”Movie Star” mold.  Ralph Fiennes, as the Duke, delivers a master-class in the portrayal of an elitist creep.  It’s another classic turn from the chameleon-like British thespian who really should have had an Oscar on the mantle a long time ago.  Featuring hearty doses of smarmy satire and stuffy 18th-century social mores, The Duchess is no Barry Lyndon, but it fits the bill as an HBO-style production of Masterpiece Theater.

However, I couldn’t help but think the best things about this recent trip to the cinema were the trailers, and thoughts of the film teasers oddly plagued my devouring of the main course.  Yes, there was the preview for Oliver Stone’s inexplicable W (opening next week) which looks funnier and funnier with each new TV spot.  But there were also two subtly thrilling trailers for some prime-time Oscar bait:  In one corner, we have what looks to be a stunning film adaptation of a controversial stage-play that touches on the Catholic abuse scandals among other heady topics starring a habited Meryl Streep, a frocked Philip Seymour Hoffman, and a perfectly cast Amy Adams as a naive nun.  I have faith no art-house film buff will want to miss Doubt.  In the other corner is Sam Mendes seemingly stirring and evocative adaptation of Richard Yate’s novel, Revolutionary Road, staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as a young couple on the brink of emotional ruin in a 1950’s suburban purgatory.  The cinematography and the acting in this, as in Doubt, looks to be amazing.  While a perfectly adequate The Duchess will quickly fade from memory, these two films, based on their trailers and pedigree, look to be the type that viewers and critics will write home about at the end of the year.  I can’t wait.

To watch the trailers, visit:

W:  http://www.wthefilm.com/

Doubt:  http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/doubt/

Revolutionary Road:  http://www.revolutionaryroadmovie.com/

CAPTION:  Thank god we’re off that sinking ship!

BIDEN VS. PALIN

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday!

He’s a train-riding hothead with a Donald Trump comb-over from the second smallest state of Delaware.

She’s a moose-hunting redneck, tongue-tied, Tina Fey look-a-like from the biggest state of Alaska.

And they’re going head-to-head for one night only from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

THE DATE:  Thursday, October 2, 2008

THE MODERATOR:  Gwen Ifill from PBS

THE FOCUS:  A no holds-barred VP smack-down.

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And here it is, for all you Debate Party maniacs –

Your official Drinking Game Initiative:

TAKE A SHOT (or a sip or however you do what you do) WHENEVER:

-Biden mentions his home state of Delaware

-Palin mentions her home state of Alaska or hometown of Wasilla

-Biden uses the phrase “more of the same”

-Palin refers to John McCain or herself as “mavericks”

-Biden refers to Palin’s “inexperience”

-Palin uses some quaint Dan Rather-like colloquialism that makes no sense or tells a folksy story to avoid the issues

-Either one of them talks about their kids or their sons serving in the military

-Either one pretends to know anything about the economy or offer solutions to the current meltdown

-The voting record of Obama or McCain is mentioned

-If the topic of discussion turns to energy, energy independence, or drilling for oil off-shore and in the North Slope of Alaska

-If the “bridge to nowhere” is mentioned

-If the term “community organizer” is mocked by Palin

-If Biden mocks the town of Wasilla or Alaska in reference to Palin’s credentials

-If the foreign policy credentials of either one becomes a topic of debate

-If either one of them lays claim to their running mate ”reaching across the aisle”

-It’s a social if someone mentions a moose!

-Drink whatever is left if Biden loses his cool, steps down from the podium, and looks like he might walk across the stage and smack Palin across the face.

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The Surgeon General strongly recommends heavy drinking up until November 2nd.  After that, you better sober up and VOTE on November 4th.

FOR RULES TO THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE DRNKING GAME:

http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/presidential-debate-drinking-game/

Written by David H. Schleicher