Baloney sunset

I recommend The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, which was just about as feel-good as a film about a man with locked-in syndrome (normal thought processes, nearly complete physical paralysis) could be without being saccharine. The narrative was not what I expected - actually considerably more straightforward and realist than I thought it would be. Its lasting impression will be, for me, the thought that if a man who dictates one letter at a time with his eyelids can write and publish a book, WTF am I doing? It certainly challenges those of us who complain about too little time or writer's block or the lack of a room of one's own. I'm sure our hero wouldn't have minded trading for any or all of those little impediments.

Here's one of the hero's therapists, looking down on me:



By the way, this actress has the best scene in the film. In one of their therapy sessions, the hero says he wishes for death. She lashes out fiercely, with a "How dare you," calling his statement "obscene" and "selfish." Moving for the viewer and, one is convinced, moving and attitude-adjusting for the recipient of the tongue-lashing.

I also enjoyed Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, though I didn't know when I was getting into it that it was one of his four "Catholic" novels (I'd read and adored the other three). The style and timing of his narratives make them such pleasures to read. But I must say I didn't like the way the novel ended, getting almost preachy and non-realistic through the introduction of magical elements (miracles). Then, what do you know, I find this on the Internet, from none other than Graham Greene himself:

"I realized too late how I had been cheating the reader... The incident of the atheist Smythe's strawberry mark (apparently cured by Sarah after her death) should have had no place in the book; every so-called miracle, like the curing of Parkis's boy, ought to have had a completely natural explanation. The coincidences should have continued over the years, battering the mind of Bendrix, forcing on him a reluctant doubt of his own atheism."

I don't know quite what to make of the fact that I was so much of one mind with the author's self-criticism. It pets my pride a bit and really enhances the sense of fellow-feeling I often have with authors I admire. I feel I have so much literature to get through that I never go back to reread novels, but I'm feeling that maybe I should reread the other Catholic novels, which I last read (I think?) in college. On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be reading at all, just writing.

Graham Greene apparently didn't make an interesting photo subject. The best I could do is a W.C. Fields-looking Greene pouring a drink: