“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
Whew! Talk about a page-turner.
Chris Bohjalian's The Lioness i“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
Whew! Talk about a page-turner.
Chris Bohjalian's The Lioness is a fast-paced and riveting odyssey through the open savannas of East Africa. In the words of Bohjalian himself, the novel is set in a time of transition, both for East Africa and Hollywood, the Golden Age of which was in the process of closing its previous chapter and opening the doors for a more daring, more adventurous culture of film-making in American cinema.
The Lioness focuses on an eclectic cast of characters surrounding a Hollywood starlet, superstar actress Katie Barstow who is currently at the top of her career and one of the ruling people of Hollywood, who invites her close friends on a safari through the Serengeti... only for things to go horribly wrong in the process.
“Too often you couldn't mine the recollections that might keep you sane, but instead held close the memories that someday would kill you.”
At a swift length of a bit over three hundred pages, it might be difficult to imagine that a cast of a dozen characters could be developed well enough to hold our attention. But Bohjalian proves us the opposite. Each characters gets their own viewpoint chapters, and while each chapter remains short and brisk, it all adds to the multi-dimensional character development that guides each character's arc. The main story on the safari adventure in 1964 is frequently interrupted by various bits and pieces from the characters' past interactions, deepening our understanding of their relationships, their lives and their individual stories. Usually, such an approach would make me roll my eyes to the back of my head; after all, most of the time, if non-linear storytelling approaches are chosen, it turns out that one of the stories is more interesting than the other, which weakens the impact that pretty much half of the book has on you. Not here, though. Bohjalian knows that the safari tour gone wrong would not be half as interesting without some understanding of the characters involved, and he also knows that a mere investigation of the impact of the Cold War on Tanzania would not be half as thrilling as a standalone plot vehicle. His solution to this problem was to interconnect two vastly different worlds: the open savannas where wild animals are lurking in every shadow, waiting for one mistake of yours to strike and kill you, and the glorious world of Hollywood where humans are lurking in every shadow, waiting for one mistake of yours to strike and kill you. One of the kills is literal, the other is figurative, but aren't they still the same? The parallels are a defining feature of the linearity in The Lioness; you get the deeper insight into the celebrity culture of the early 1960s and the way Hollywood treated both its most and its less prominent stars, and you get an unhinged adventure during a safari in the open wilderness.
Back in 1964, the 'good old-fashioned Hollywood picture' was on the verge of dying out, overshadowed by the soon-to-arise innovations of the American New Wave; grittier, colder, darker works that would replace the hopeful, dreamlike bliss promised by Hollywood's Golden Age that loved to feign its façade of virtue and role model function, when reality looked vastly different behind cinema curtains. At that time, safari pictures such as King Solomon's Mines, The African Queen, Hatari or Mogambo were not yet affected by post-colonial reevaluations that would later highlight them in a less courteous light. The Lioness is a story set exactly during that era of transition, a point of time where, it seems, the paranoia of the Cold War and the impending horrors of the Vietnam War would shape the people for years to come, but they were still holding onto the bliss and splendor of happier times.
[image]An image from the 1962 movie "Hatari" (dir. Howard Hawks)
The Lioness was my first exposure to Bohjalian's writing, but certainly not my last. The writing is on-point here, with no unnecessary filler moments to drag out the plot, and the character work is phenomenal (advice: take a few notes on each character to avoid confusing their names all the times, like I did). A really solid novel that I don't really have any actual complaints about! On that note, does anyone have any recommendations for which of Bohjalian's novels I might check out next?...more
"In the distance he could see the clay hills, white and clean against the heavy pallor of the sky. Something black rose from behind them, like a smudg"In the distance he could see the clay hills, white and clean against the heavy pallor of the sky. Something black rose from behind them, like a smudge at first, then widening, becoming deeper. The smudge became a cloud; and the cloud divided again into five other clouds, spreading north, east, south, and west; and then they were not clouds at all but birds."
[image]
Today, du Maurier’s novella is more well-known for the iconic Hitchcock adaptation it fueled. In 1963, Hitchcock brought the shocking premise to the big screen in visceral fashion; an obvious departure for a director who you probably would not have expected to tackle something that typically counted as B-movie material after a string of classic successes (Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho). After directing Jamaica Inn and Rebecca to strongly varying degrees of success, Hitchcock was already well-versed in adapting du Maurier, but The Birds might have proven his strongest deviation from the source material in how basically only the premise was taken. As we all know, The Birds turned into a massive success, one that frightened millions of people since.
However, that does not mean that du Maurier’s 1952 novella is not worth checking out on its own. If anything, Hitchcock’s decision to alter the source material significantly, introduce different characters and relocating the setting turns both into fundamentally independent works that share nothing but their premise.
[image]
What both works have in common, however, is the eerie atmosphere and the achievement of turning birds into some of the creepiest creatures in existence. If Hitchcock did not succeed to make you see birds with different eyes, then du Maurier definitely will. At least I will now definitely be more hesitant to ride past the flock of ravens in the park during my bicycle ride to work each morning.
This novella is a very short read; depending on your speed of reading, you will probably need to set aside between thirty minutes and an hour. It's worth it! Preferably to be read at night, or while a flock of crows is sitting in the trees across your window....more
I can't even begin to describe how much this book fascinated me as a child. Although the hardcover edition I own already begins to fall apart due to tI can't even begin to describe how much this book fascinated me as a child. Although the hardcover edition I own already begins to fall apart due to the time which has passed and the thousands of times I opened the pages, it still enthralls me to even think of the amount of time I spent with this book in my childhood, fascinated with animals as I was back then. The wonderfully elaborate descriptions of each single mammal allowed this to become a fascinating work which I'd even call a must-read for everyone interested in animals and their habitats....more
Who doesn't know the famous Spielberg movie with a shark as the big bad guy who wreaks terror on an entire town, with three men going on a mission to Who doesn't know the famous Spielberg movie with a shark as the big bad guy who wreaks terror on an entire town, with three men going on a mission to kill the shark before he kills even more people?
[image]
Just one year before the release of the movie, Peter Benchley's novel Jaws was published which the movie was adapted from. (Personal confession here: I never watched the movie, so there was nothing I could compare the events in the novel with. I practically went into it blank apart from the knowledge of a shark being around in this tale.) It's fairly easy to summarize this book: There is no heavy or particularly complex plot; you get to see the shark early on, then you are introduced to some of the main characters who live in the town the shark has focused his attention on, then the shark reappears one hundred pages later, we have a dozen unnecessary subplots again which, of course, deserve no conclusion, then the shark stops by for a few pages again and the author cuts his own book off in the middle of a scene, leaving his reader hanging in the air.
Benchley started out on a very strong premise, delving into the shark's POV and making his reader believe that the shark is actually allowed to be one of the main characters. But after the second page, we would only meet him again through the eyes of other characters - and apart from that, it all went downhill pretty fast. The author did, however, succeed at drawing a picture of society in a small town by outlining how almost everyone in this town beared prejudices towards other people and acted in a judgmental way (with the one single exception being the shark who killed without making a difference between whether his victim is old or young, black or white, rich or poor). So at least you can say one good thing about sharks: they treat human beings equally.
The novel is more about the decline of a marriage than anything else, yet it was a shark which was originally promised in the blurb, and we didn't get to see that shark for major parts of the book. I know I'm probably in the minority with my opinion, but I didn't give a damn about Matt Hooper or Ellen or Chief Brody or who they had flings with and why they betrayed each other. Benchley didn't allow his characters any depth; he just created one-dimensional, unlikeable beings which happened to be present when a shark attacked at the shore of the smalltown. What's perhaps even worse: Benchley gave the villain role to the shark, made us want to see the shark get killed, but after the first half of the book, I found myself rooting for nobody but the shark. Remember: the book is called Jaws, the cover features a shark, the premise of the novel consists of a shark attack, and yet more than half of the book is about the police chief's frustrated wife who has nothing to do at all with the shark. This basically results in the book bearing the terror of a shark attack in the 10% of the novel when the animal is actually present, and being incredibly boring and suspenseless in the other 90%.
I did manage to finish the book in the course of a few hours, but that didn't mean I liked it at all. Sometimes a premise can be as promising as this one, but if the characters don't work and the dialogue is horrible ... then there is nothing to redeem that book. Which, of course, doesn't mean that other readers might not look at this book as an amazing piece of writing. The blurb of my copy promises that "the novel reaches a climax without having a rival when it comes to tension and drama". I'll say only one thing about this: Don't believe that blurb....more
A very profound and insightful collection. Of course I haven't read every single one of those 9000 pages, but I did read a lot of it back as a child wA very profound and insightful collection. Of course I haven't read every single one of those 9000 pages, but I did read a lot of it back as a child when I was obsessed with animals from all over the world. Those living in the South American and Southeast Asian jungles were the ones I loved reading about the most....more
If you are an adult looking for a children's book to read, then this will be the perfect solution for you. Enjoyable to both adults and children, it oIf you are an adult looking for a children's book to read, then this will be the perfect solution for you. Enjoyable to both adults and children, it offers memorable characters, sweet moments and deeper moralistic implications. I wish my parents had given me this book to read back when I was a kid myself, as it would probably have turned into a book beloved by me. ...more
Fabian {Councillor}
>
Books:
animals
(23)
Loading...
