A Prose by Any Other Name

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“You may notice that a book’s first sentence can often tell 

you what sort of story your book contains” 

– Lemony Snicket

Indeed, the first sentence of a book can tell a lot about its content, which is why the first sentence of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita can be quite overwhelming for some readers. It’s not often that a book welcomes you with an extended foreword, which is clearly there to showcase the writer’s literary achievements:

"Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male," such were the two titles under which the writer of the present note received the strange pages it preambulates.”

Alas, poor Readers! The worst has yet to come. For you see, not only is the title of this article shamelessly ripping off poor William Shakespeare, but it is also the style of writing that Nabokov has chosen to tell the story. Knowing this, you ask yourself: Do I want to continue reading this book? If you managed to survive the Foreword without using the book as firewood, then there is still hope. The story starts in a similar pacing found in the Foreword, with Humbert Humbert, our unreliable narrator, expressing his affection to a woman named “Lolita”. After a while, the reader starts to realize that dialogue does not exist in this universe and all the events that happened is told from Humbert’s erratic perspective.

In fact, you can say that this entire book is unreliable. The long, over-exaggerated and extravagant prose gives the setting of a Dickensian England, but in reality this was set much closer to 1950s America. It is hinted throughout that Humbert is addressing a court; he used words like “Ladies and gentlemen” and “Your Honor” but actually, it’s a memoir; a long confession letter written when he is in his dying hours. Readers must keep in mind that reading “Lolita” is similar to reading a personal diary in that memory a flimsy concept. Events jump around, so nothing is in a linear timeline.

The characters would often misread each other’s actions and intentions, for instance: Charlotte assumed that Humbert married her for love, when really he did it to be closer to Charlotte’s daughter “Lolita” (or Dolores), and eventually had a sexual relationship with her. Action and pornographic images in this book are very tamed because they are either mentioned in a quick verse or fragmented throughout the paragraphs. Humbert’s recalled events are not boring per se; rather the amount of description is sometimes unnecessarily poetic. For example, Humbert’s thought on drowning Charlotte in the lake are highly romanticize but in the end it amounted to nothing because he dismissed the thought after forming it due to conviction. Readers can interpret this as sets an ironic mood or pointless.

Overall, “Lolita” is a love story gone wrong. Readers with great interest in poetic writing will highly enjoy this story. But to those who cannot even read past the first sentence: Expectation is the root of all heartache. I hope that fireplace keeps you warm.  

Where the f*ck was Amy?

Greetings, fellow Lit and Media scholars! This week I played a producer, took a look at Chasing Amy's screenplay, and ripped it to shreds. How exciting! I tried to give as much direction to the tone and build up as possible but I did go off to some rants here and there (mostly at the end). Nevertheless, please enjoy another opinionated literature:   

This story’s theme is either surprises or deceiving the audience. At first, I saw this as a story about two artists, Holden and Banky, and their struggling lives with Holden as the major focus of the two. However, it became a love story when he eventually meets and falls in love with a woman (Alyssa) who turns out to be a lesbian (or bisexual?). After the reveal of Alyssa, the film quickly jumps into serious LGBT discussions between these three characters with Alyssa as the median to explain to Holden and Banky that “gender standards” is not necessarily a solid way of living. In a way, this is very consistent as a whole because the twists and turns are the fun parts of a chase (Chasing Amy—get it?).   

Set in New Jersey (or at least the Tri-state areas), the atmosphere of the film feels like a slice of life movie. Settings from this script range from a typical bar scene to swing sets in a park to generate a “small town feel”—highly recommend Middle to South New Jersey. Music accompaniment to their scenes could be something complementing but not too overbearing on the characters—heavy metal for Alyssa and jazz for Holden, maybe? 

There are hardly any action but the dialogues are heavy in each scene. Perhaps a shot-reverse-shot is not recommended when filming because repetitive composition could destroy the mood and the character development of the scene. There are a lot of sexual scenes in in this film, some of which are flashbacks; highly recommend using very unique compositions to frame the character’s dialogue or act out the scenes that the characters recall.

Rain is the ultimate deux ex machine for drama; if you need an audience to cry buckets make the skies cry too. However, I failed to cry of sadness (or happiness) at this scene, rather I’m angry and frustrated. I had thought the script would begin it’s descending climax here, with Alyssa rejecting Holden’s confession and stick to her morals that she preached throughout the film. But no, she gave him a chance of a relationship thereby tossing everything she stood for in the first and second act out of the window

In retrospect, this probably would have gone with the motif of the film: surprises and deception but to me it was a road to predictable failure. And I was right!  From the moment Alyssa and Holden met each other it was obvious that their relationship (platonic or otherwise) was doomed to fail: he is insecure and wants everything to have a concrete affirmation while she is confident and would like an undefined view of the world. The two cannot be more polar opposites—and no, opposites rarely attracts, especially with this big of a gap.

If I were watching this film, I would have left at the confession scene, which is ashamed because the movie’s title is explained several scenes later. The “Chasing Amy” explanation has a lot of dialogue too; perhaps some visuals here? Or at least have clever framing if the budget is low.

The ending is bittersweet but well deserved. Still questioning why Alyssa gave up her values in the first place but at least she snapped out of it and returned to being Alyssa in the end.

A Novice Screen Play

This week, I attempt to write a screenplay and what a horrible experience it was...

Seriously, I give screen writers much more credit now that I walked their shoes. It was quite the challenge to translate text to motion picture, I often wondered if I omitted too much or not enough. Overall, I think I might have down played this scene too much. I wanted to add more from the text but I never want to bore the audience, so a lot was taken out due to time constrains and keeping interests.

So, without further adieu, I present my first and last screen play. Enjoy!

It's pretty novice. 

O to Z

My first exposure to L. Frank Baum' s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was last year (2011) in Children's Literature class. Granted, I was not the right age to read this book seeing as the intended audience was children ages 8-10 but as an adult I find the writing simply entertaining. Afterwards, we learned about the author's background and what inspired him to write such a masterpiece.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz follows the story of a little girl going from a humble farm in Kansas to the majestic Emerald City. Along the way, she meets varies good characters as well as bad ones. But unlike a certain movie, she remembers her adventure and continuously return to OZ as a good witch in-training and eventually a co-ruler of OZ.

It's not a wonder why The Wizard became an American classic rather it used the most fundamental American ideas. Baum tried to capture the American spirit in Dorothy through her actions, attitude, and achievements. She is the embodiment of the American Dream, going from rags to riches and beyond. The story of Dorothy is what we, as Americans, have been told from childhood could be possible to us if we work hard enough.