Best Novels of the Western World

How many times in my life have I thought to myself, "This is the best book I've ever read!" And then, later, "No, that one wasn't, but this one is."

A few days ago I saw Kim lying in a pile I had brought up from the basement, and picked it up. All I remembered about it was the movie with Errol Flynn, and that little boy who called Mahbub Ali "Muhboobly;" apparently I had never read the book. It has Jenny's notes in it. It was hard to read, the print being so tiny and the pages so age-darkened. About a third of the way through it, I found it on free Kindle, and although easier on myopic eyesight, it was aggravating, with all the misspelled words and missing parts. I had to peer into the paperback many times to make sense of garbled passages on Kindle. I finally finished reading it this morning.

*

If anybody ever tells you that Rudyard Kipling was not a serious writer, just read Kim. If you remember it from the movie and think you wouldn't like the book, be assured that Kim doesn't remain a little boy all the way through. And Mahbub wasn't anything like Errol Flynn. I'm going to look for a newer edition with larger type, so I can re-read it whenever I want to.

Whassamallayou?

I can't figure out why, but every once in a while I think of Tojo Yamamoto, a wrestler whom Daddy and I used to watch on TV. He tried to scare the other wrestlers with fierce looks, and when he talked at all, he ran all his words together and left out a lot of syllables.

I Googled him, and found out he had a sort of ordinary real name, Harold Watanabe, and he shot himself dead in 1992. What was the matter with you, Tojo? Well, he had diabetes and was too miserable to live.

(Photo may be subject to copyright, but I don't plan to use it for resale or any kind of profit.)

The real question implied by the title of this post is, Why doesn't anyone ever comment on my "Book Reviews and Movie Comments" (a feature in the left column of this blog)? Agree or disagree, but say somepn.

Steve and his crew are outside, blowing leaves off the porch and driveway, chopping down rosebushes, grinding up leaves, chopping off shrubbery, and cleaning the gutters. "How much do you want me to chop off?" he said, and I said, "Just chop until you get tired." You have to be severe with plant life, or it'll take over the lot and intrude into the rooms. Especially the kind of plant life that this lot grows. The roses are the only thing I've planted that will grow here; otherwise it's trees, shrubbery, grass, weeds, and nameless aliens; you can sit and watch them grow.

Great movie

One day last week, TCM ran "Advise and Consent," a 1962 movie made from the book by Allen Drury published in 1959. This book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960, and is (in my opinion) one of the best political novels ever. The film is almost as good as the book, just a few details changed for convenience. It concerns the Senate confirmation hearings on the President's nominee for Secretary of State, who in the 30s or 40s may have been a Communist. Here's the cast:

Henry Fonda as Robert A. Leffingwell (the nominee)
Charles Laughton as Senator Seab Cooley
Don Murray as Senator Brig Anderson
Walter Pidgeon as Senate Majority Leader Bob Munson
Peter Lawford as Senator Lafe Smith
Gene Tierney as Dolly Harrison
Franchot Tone as The President
Lew Ayres as Vice President Harley Hudson
Burgess Meredith as Herbert Gelman
Eddie Hodges as Johnny Leffingwell
Paul Ford as Senate Majority Whip Stanley Danta
George Grizzard as Senator Fred Van Ackerman
Inga Swenson as Ellen Anderson
Edward Andrews as Senator Orrin Knox
Paul McGrath as Hardiman Fletcher
Will Geer as Senate Minority Leader Warren Strickland
Betty White as Senator Bessie Adams


The bit part of Senator Adams was Betty White's first movie role. Sen. Munson was one of the late roles of Walter Pidgeon, an excellent and very good-looking actor.

Julius Caesar - 1953 movie

I had my to-do list all ready about 10:00, got up to start a load of laundry, and noticed on TV guide channel that Julius Caesar was on the Turner channel. I flipped it on, and for the next hour and a half I stood transfixed in front of the TV. I thought I had seen this movie before, but I must have been mistaken.

Since then I've spent nearly an hour fighting the pop-ups on my computer, which are determined to sell me a spyware system. Also sold another book, which makes three I've got to go pack and mail.

Julius Caesar is Brutus's play, although in this movie, Brando's brief appearances as Mark Antony may seem to be the highlights. James Mason excels as Brutus, John Gielgud is Cassius and Louis Calhern a rather moth-eaten Caesar.

Brutus's excuse or self-justification for killing Caesar was fear that Caesar would become emperor, thus ending the Roman republic. It was sort of like, "If you had known in the 1930s what Hitler would do, and if you had the chance, would you kill him?" But by killing Caesar, the conspirators ensured what they most feared: Octavian and Antony took over, and when Octavian had got rid of Antony, he made himself emperor (Augustus Caesar), and goodbye Republic.

Added at 5:45 p.m.: They ended the movie with Antony's speech, "This was the noblest Roman of them all" and left off his final comment: "let's away, /And part the glories [divide the spoils] of this happy day." Otherwise, as far as I could tell without the book, it was true to Shakespeare's play. So, the best writer of all wrote the original screenplay for one of the best movies of all.