Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
...reminded me that Andrew Lincoln, the actor from Christmastime favorite Love Actually who also plays Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead, was also in the 2009 BBC miniseries production of Wuthering Heights. (His character's name in Love Actually is Mark, and Mark is declaring his love for the wife for his supposed friend Peter.)
Best. Edgar Linton. Ever.
He even gets to be a little bit sexy and we, the viewer, get a little preview of the butt.
So I did this.
Well, he IS. He should have been nicer to Isabella. And to dogs.
But the 2009 production is what introduced Catherine actress Charlotte Riley to Heathcliff actor Tom Hardy, and the couple has been together in real life ever since. They're on Season 4 of Peaky Blinders together -- although not in any of the same scenes. Which is a real shame, because her posh character May is bad for Tommy Shelby, but she might have been great with Alfie Solomons.
Yep, I binge-watched the entire fourth season of Peaky Blinders on Christmas Eve. It also had Adrien Brody, my beloved Geoffrey Fife from The Thin Red Line. I did not love the way he played his character Luca. It seemed like he was doing an awkward impression of Marlon Brando in The Godfather.
Although not played by an actor on the show, it was mentioned that one of Luca's rivals was a Chicagoan named Alphonse Capone. You know who has played Al Capone?
First things first: I haven't seen the Season 5 finale of True Blood yet. Just the other day, I tweeted:
Tara says, "Pam and me - never gonna happen," but I so hope it does. #TrueBlood
— Erin O'Riordan (@ErinORiordan) August 26, 2012
Yesterday I happened to stop by Dorothy Surrenders, and I got a little bit of a Season 5 spoiler: Pam and Tara kissed. Yes!
Speaking of kisses, the other night I dreamed Adrien Brody kissed me. I was sitting beside my father at the time, and it was more of a friendly/chaste kiss than anything lustful, but it was still pretty darn nice. So much nicer than the dream I had in which William Shatner kissed me. You know who I really wish Adrien Brody kissed, though? Nick Stahl.
http://pinterest.com/pin/46936021087438916/
Nick Stahl has a small role as Ed Bead in The Thin Red Line, and Brody plays Cpl. Jeffrey Fife. In James Jones' novel, Bead is a clerk who works under Fife, and the two have an arrangement to take care of each other sexually (even though they both swear up and down that they're not gay). When the 19-year-old Iowan Bead is shot in the side, Bead calls for Fife to come hold his hand. Fife momentarily worries about what the others will think, but instinctively puts his arms around Bead as Bead dies. You won't see any of that in the movie, but in the book, it's a very moving, poignant scene.
I shall return to reading The Thin Red Line after my Jeopardy! tryout, in mid-September.
Speaking of films based on literature, yesterday I watched Raintree County, the second movie Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift starred in together (after A Place in the Sun, before Suddenly Last Summer).
This one's literary backup is a lengthy 1948 novel by Ross Lockridge Jr. I can promise you now, I have no intention of reading the 1000+ page behemoth - I read Gone With the Wind several years ago, and though I quite liked it, I have no immediate need to read another sprawling Civil War epic. Lockridge, it should be noted, is another of my fellow Indiana-born authors; Meg Cabot was born in his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. The fictional location, Raintree County, is in Indiana, and the raintree of the title is a mythical plant allegedly planted there by Johnny Appleseed.
The hero, John Shawnessy (Clift), is a dreamy, idealistic, romantic poet and, eventually, schoolteacher in the late 1850s/early 1860s. He and his youthful sweetheart Nell (Eva Marie Saint) are perfectly matched, but his head is turned by Southern belle Susanna (Taylor). As revealed in the trailer, she gets him to marry her by tricking him into thinking she's pregnant - but Susanna has serious mental health problems.
Actually, Susanna has a lot in common with Sawyer on Lost. Her mother, jealous of Susanna's Cuban-born nanny, jumped to the conclusion (perhaps correctly so) that Susanna's father and the nanny were having an affair, shot them both to death, then set the family mansion on fire to cover up the crime, killing herself in the process. Nine-year-old Susanna was rescued by one of the family's slaves. She still has the creepy-looking burnt doll that was saved from the fire along with her.
John makes a valiant effort to make his marriage to Susanna work. When she runs off to the South with their young son during the early days of the Civil War, he decides to join the Union army effort in hopes of finding her. I said:
Montgomery Clift looks super hot in his Union uniform, but I do not dig the Civil War beard.
— Erin O'Riordan (@ErinORiordan) August 28, 2012
As a Union soldier, he probably fought against the ancestors of Kentucky-born Robert E. Lee Prewitt. Either way, he finds his son, is wounded, and eventually gets reunited with Susanna, now confined to a mental institution.
He takes her home and attempts to care for her back in Indiana, where after the war he resumes teaching and considers a career in politics. But Susanna escapes into the swamp, where she drowns, a probable suicide. John fears their son may have met the same sad fate, but he and Nell find the unfortunate little boy safe, though grieving his mother, in the swamp.
That's the end of the movie, but I hope that in the book John goes on to a happy second marriage with the still-unmarried Nell. Nell has never stopped loving John.
My favorite scene in the movie? The bathtub. John has agreed to run a foot race against Flash, a friendly rival. Flash has an unusually high tolerance for liquor, and the young, inexperienced John tries to match him drink-for-drink. John's friends then attempt to sober him up for the race by throwing him into a bathtub and throwing cold water on him - and prompting me to say:
Monty in the bathtub - so hawt.
— Erin O'Riordan (@ErinORiordan) August 28, 2012
Shirtless Montgomery Clift in From Here to Eternity (take a look here) was perfectly shaved/waxed and had flawless abs. In Raintree County (filmed four years later) he still has fantastic abs, but went with the more natural, unshaven look. Either way, this is a beautiful, beautiful man. I rank Monty's bathtub scene up there with Christian Bale's shower scene in American Psycho - not that we get to see much, but just in terms of how happy it makes me.
As I noted, I watched The Thin Red Line (1998 version) yesterday. I became very curious about how the character of Pvt. Witt developed in the original James Jones novel. Was he really intended to be such a saintly figure, bonding with the natives and helping fellow soldiers through the passage between life and death?
Unable to cope with the gap in my literary knowledge, I went
to the library and checked out its yellowed copy of The Thin Red Line. Lightly
penciled on the first leaf is “This book belongs to B. Asher,” and the volume
is redolent with sweet old-book smell. It looks the same as the first edition pictured here. From Jones’ 1962 work, we learn
the following about Witt:
He is 21 years old and from Kentucky. He pronounces fire “fahr.”
His first name is Bob.
Witt is both proud and stubborn.
He first appears on page 100. He’s considered a troublemaker
by the first lieutenant, Welsh (played by Sean Penn in the movie), and by the
captain, Stein (called Staros in the movie, and played by my old friend Elias
Koteas – whom I remember fondly from the J.G. Ballard/David Cronenberg Crash,
which I’ve now managed to mention twice this week).
Witt will fight you - but his own bro code means that he'll give you a verbal warning before he throws a punch.
Witt’s a bit of a drunk - but,
Jones admits, many of the men at Guadalcanal are. In one scene, he gets drunk, falls down and cuts his cheek on a rock.
He has malaria. His appearance is gaunt and faintly yellowish.
He
expresses to Cpl. Fife (played by Adrien Brody in the movie) his anger and
bitter disappointment at not being allowed to fight with C Company. On page 208, we learn that Fife Stein thinks Witt’s desire to
rejoin C Company, even though it places Witt in greater danger than his
stretcher-bearer job, is terribly romantic, “Like something out of Kipling. Or
Beau Geste.”
Page 309 informs us that Witt’s camaraderie with C Company is passionate and “almost sexual.” Several times in this novel, various
characters experience sexual arousal from combat situations, and sometimes they
have sexual feelings for their fellow soldiers. (This, I think, is what some early readers of Jones' novels found so objectionable in the mid-20th century.) Witt himself does not express any overt sexual intentions toward the other men. (Fife worries that he - Fife - might be gay, but he also knows that he likes women. Bi for the win!)
On page 310, Witt meets the scout Ash, whom we learn will
eventually die of gangrene after being wounded in the knee. Witt offers to help
Ash walk back to camp with him, but otherwise isn’t particularly comforting
toward him. However, later in the novel, Witt is comforting to Gooch,
who dies in his arms. Gooch and Witt have both been boxers in the army (Robert E. Lee Prewitt, the central character in From Here to Eternity, is also from Kentucky and refuses to box after accidentally blinding a man).
Witt does not sacrifice himself for Fife and the others in
the book – he’s alive at the end of the novel. He’s transferred and promoted to
sergeant.
The nobility, philosophical bent and self-sacrifice Witt displays in the film,
then, are products not so much of James Jones’ novel as of Terrence Malick’s
screenplay. These are some of movie-Witt’s lines, from http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0007307/quotes:
Private Witt: I remember my mother when she was dyin', looked
all shrunk up and gray. I asked her if she was afraid. She just shook her head.
I was afraid to touch the death I seen in her. I couldn't find nothin'
beautiful or uplifting about her goin' back to God. I heard of people talk
about immortality, but I ain't seen it.
Private
Witt: I wondered how
it'd be like when I died, what it'd be like to know this breath now was the
last one you was ever gonna draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she
did, with the same... calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I
hadn't seen.
Private Witt: I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was
just my imagination.
Private
Witt: Maybe all men got
one big soul everybody's a part of, all faces are the same man.
IMDB also says that Terrence Malick (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000517/bio) has a
degree in philosophy from Harvard as likes to use philosophical themes, and
that a hallmark of his writing is narration by one or more characters. Maybe he wanted a more uplifting version of Witt to temper some of the darker themes in Jones' novel?
In conclusion, while I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading the book, it's a very different experience from the movie, especially when it comes to the character of Witt. You should read James Jones because his contributions to American literature are, according to the New York Public Library Literature Companion, winning the National Book Award for From Here to Eternity and, in Eternity, Line and Whistle, summing up the pre-war, wartime and post-war experiences of "ordinary servicemen" in a crucial part of 20th century history. Whistle is the full title of the third book in the trilogy, by the way. Prewitt/Witt becomes Prell in the third book.
I first heard the sad news here from Rhetta Akamatsu: legendary pop/rhythm and blues singer Etta James passed away earlier today after suffering from leukemia.
Some day I really, really need to read T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do: Blues Women Past and Present by Rhetta Akamatsu. Etta James is the subject of Chapter 13. Nineteen other women are featured in the book, starting with Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and finishing with Koko Taylor.
My all-time favorite rock book is She's A Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll by Gillian G. Gaar. (I own the original 1992 edition and the expanded 2002 edition - the true book nerd must buy the expanded version of a book she already owns.) Gaar places James in the "Roots" chapter. Gaar writes:
"Etta James was another performer with roots in the R&B scene who eventually found success on the pop charts. Born Jamesetta Hawkins in 1938 in Los Angeles, James sang in the church choir as a child. She later moved to San Francisco with her mother and in her teens formed a vocal trio with her sisters Abbye and Jean Mitchell. The trio auditioned for Johnny Otis...and Otis brought them to L.A., where he had the girls record a song they had written, 'Roll With Me Henry.'"
The song was released in 1955, and in 1960 she moved to Chess Records, where she recorded her first Top 40 hit, "All I Could Do Was Cry." Considered racy by '50s standards, "Roll With Me Henry" was re-recorded as "Dance With Me Henry" by another performer, Georgia Gibbs.
Going on tour was James' first encounter with the brutally-enforced segregation of the American South, Gaar writes. She was once threatened with a shotgun for refusing to use a bug-infested "Colored" bathroom. She only escaped by apologizing to the man who pulled the gun on her.
Not that it was in James' nature to submit. She told Rolling Stone in 1997, "I've had people say to me, 'Can't you be more feminine? I would go, 'Feminine? Why do I have to be feminine?' Does that mean I have to put a little apron on and bake some cookies or something?" James also said she was a feminist before she knew what the word meant.
Gutsy, rebellious, unabashedly sexual, unique and undoubtedly talented, Etta James will be missed by music-lovers and by those who look up to strong women.
Some of you will watch Cadillac Records in her honor. You may recall that James was miffed that Beyonce, who portrayed her in the film, performed her signature song "At Last" at the inaugural ball for President Barack Obama when James herself was available to do so. She seemed to have forgiven Lady B, though. (According to the Rolling Stone interview, James was a fan of Mary J. Blige's style, and not-so-much of Toni Braxton's breathy voice.) So I don't think James would be offended if you do.
Just remember what I said in "5 Dudes," though - Adrien Brody enacts ethnic stereotypes in his role as Leonard Chess. Don't think that I endorse said stereotypes.
I do, however, heartily endorse interracial snogging in films.
Images: Roland Godefroy (Creative Commons); public domain; Louis Ramirez (Creative Commons)
Am I a little late to jump into the Anthony Weiner fray? Maybe so, but this isn't really about an ex-Congressman with an awesome Muslim feminist wife and a sexting habit. This is book blog, damn it, and the inspiration for this one is The History of Love of Nicole Krauss, a nice Jewish book like your mother always wanted you to read. It happens to be what I'm reading right now.
As you may have guessed from previous blog posts about Hanukkah and "Spicy, Earthy, Sweet," in addition to being Irish on my dad's side, I'm Jewish on my mom's side. I belong to the Templin family, formerly of Warsaw, Poland. That's right, I'm straight-up ghetto. Ethnic Judaism comes to me straight through my motherline: my mother is Jewish because her mother was Jewish, because her mother was Jewish, and so on and so forth.
The History of Love is not my favorite Jewish fiction ever. That might be Nomi Eve's The Family Orchard, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief or possibly Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen. I like it, but I don't love it. I understand why my alma mater chose it for the college's first-ever book club selection, because it's well-written and charming, but nonetheless it fails to knock my socks off.
And speaking of socks off...
Call it tribal identification, or simply acknowledge I have widely varying tastes in sexy, but I like the Semitic look. I kinda think Weiner's hot. Jewish Mayhem magazine has the Hebraically hot chicks covered, so this post goes out to the five Jewish dudes I'd most like to see lewd.
1. Adam Levine
Wish granted! The Maroon 5 lead singer took it all off for a Cosmo photo shoot, with only his Victoria's Secret supermodel girlfriend's hands to cover up his junk. Someone on Zimbio commented that this photo makes him look like there's not too much to cover. To that person I say, Israeli-American dudes are internationally world-famous for having not so much the inches, but the fatness. Beer cans are often referenced in comparison.
(In her book Thanks for Coming, Mara Altman went to Israel to test this theory.)
He has a lot of tattoos for a Jewish guy. He was the inspiration for temple cantor Ilan Kauffman in "Bat Mitzvah" and "The Hope."
2. Harrison Ford
I wrote a bit about the Harrison Ford thing already...part of it's historical, left over from the days of Star Wars, part of it is yet another one of my old-guy crushes (cf. Gabriel Byrne, Jean Reno, Liam Neeson), and part of it is, well, he's Irish and Jewish, too. Great combo.
As an added bonus, he's married to Calista Flockheart who, in addition to being completely sexy in her own right, touched her lips to the lips of Christian Bale in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Excuse me if I space out for a few moments thinking about Harrison Ford kissing Christian Bale...
3. Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz
Lenny sings. He rocks out. He looks great with long hair or short hair. Either way, I say "Let Love Rule." Does he not have the most kissable lips?
Added bonus: Neneh Cherry wrote the song "Buddy X" about him, and it's one of the great '90s female anthems.
4. Jakob Dylan
Bob Dylan's blue-eyed baby got the looks and the voice! No visible tattoos on this Jewish rock star, but I'd still like to check.
Jakob Dylan was probably my #1 celebrity crush of the '90s. Guy crush, I mean. Uma Thurman was the actual #1. I borrowed his first name for the husband of my fictional ancestress, the pirate Raven Rachel Templin.
5. Eli Roth
This guy you either love or you hate. I think he freaked some people out with Hostel, which I have not seen. As The Bear Jew in Inglorious Basterds, IMHO he managed to be hotter than Brad Pitt. With that buff body, he looks like a hot Krav Maga instructor.
Honorable Mention: Adrien Brody
Do I hate almost all of his movies? Yes. Cadillac Records especially, as it seemed to hit every Jewish stereotype in the book. He walks around saying, "The money!" like he's starring in an episode of The Jew, The Italian and the Redhead Gay. Written by Louis Farrakhan, directed by Borat? Maybe. Even if he makes me say, "Et tu, Brody?" and makes terrible film choices, I still want to kiss his badly-reset Hebrew nose.
That's my list. Blog symmetry dictates that I go out on the note I came in with. So, for your viewing pleasure, I close with a gratuitous photo of Huma Abedin's dude. Dignified? No, but kinda fun nonetheless.
, Markus Zusak's 
or possibly 
by Gish Jen. I like it, but I don't love it. I understand why my alma mater chose it for the college's first-ever book club selection, because it's well-written and charming, but nonetheless it fails to knock my socks off. 
, Mara Altman went to Israel to test this theory.)
