On Stage: Coraline,
the Opera
In the 16 years
since it was published, Neil Gaiman's Coraline
"has
developed a passionate fan base, selling more than a million
copies" and
been adapted as a stop-motion movie, video game, comic book
and Off Broadway
musical. The latest addition to this list is the Royal
Opera's avant
garde adaptation
Aletta Collins
directing an "angular, complex score" score by
Mark-Anthony
Turnage for Rory Mullarkey's libretto, the New York Times
reported. The
production will be staged at the Barbican in London, March
29 to April 7.
Noting that
Coraline "is more than a match for operatic heroines like
Leonore in
Beethoven's Fidelio or Rosina from Rossini's The Barber of
Seville," the
Times wrote that the role is shared in the new production
by the sopranos
Mary Bevan and Robyn Allegra Parton.
"She's such a
strong female character," Turnage said. "She's powerful;
she's going to
solve these things. I've got a seven-year-old daughter.
She's too young to
read the book, but she saw the film, and she was very
taken with
Coraline." He added that he hopes the audiences for the opera
will come from all
walks of life: "A lot of opera directors are making
opera for other
opera directors, and quite a few opera composers are
writing for their
peer group."
Gaiman told the
Guardian
he is not
concerned with the cutting and condensing of Coraline required
for the stage:
"Everything changes when you move from medium to medium.
Sometimes it makes
sense, sometimes you sigh, sometimes you urged it to
happen."
The opera is being
advertised as suitable for audiences eight or older.
Asked if it was
any easier producing work for children, Gaiman replied:
"It's harder,
and you need to be more aware of what you're doing. Adults
are more forgiving
and more willing to put up with being bored than
children
are."
Meredith Vieira to
Host PBS' The Great American Read
Television
personality and journalist Meredith Vieira
will host The
Great American Read
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz36530094,
a previously
announced
eight-part TV series
May 22 on PBS
stations with a two-hour special event. Vieira will take
viewers on a
journey across the country to uncover the nation's 100
most-loved novels,
the people who love them and their authors. As host
of the series, she
"will tie together the overarching themes of our
national love of
literature and guide viewers on a search to discover
America's
best-loved book," PBS said.
"It is a
privilege to partner with PBS to bring The Great American Read
to viewers across
the country," said Vieira, who is known for co-hosting
NBC News' Today
and serving as moderator of ABC's The View. "The power
of reading is
extraordinary--it allows us to escape to new worlds,
introduces us to a
diverse range of people, opens our minds to different
ideas, and allows
us to keep learning no matter our age or background.
The Great American
Read offers a forum for readers to express what
titles and stories
they're passionate about and share how novels
impacted their lives. I am honored to be a part
of this discussion."
The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce was a highly anticipated novel, since her "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" was a bestseller and popular with book groups. I am sure that there are a number of people who will fall in love with this novel, which follows the same trajectory as the "Pilgrimage," with weird characters who are reclusive and shy and have a passion for things no one else cares about. I was drawn in, initially, by the main character, a record store owner who seemed to have had a horrible childhood with a bizarre mother who refused to parent him, insisting that they been seen as "equals" and that her son, Frank, call her "Peg." I liked Franks depth of joy for all sorts of music, and how he describes songs to Ilsa is almost magical. However, as the novel progresses, I became more impatient with Franks inability to get over his mother's cruelty and develop a relationship, just as I became impatient with Ilsa, who had an equally bizarre manner of introducing herself to Frank, by fainting in front of his record shop. Here's the blurb: It is 1988. On a dead-end street in a run-down suburb there is a music
shop that stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of
every kind. Like a beacon, the shop attracts the lonely, the sleepless,
and the adrift; Frank, the shop’s owner, has a way of connecting his
customers with just the piece of music they need. Then, one day, into
his shop comes a beautiful young woman, Ilse Brauchmann, who asks Frank
to teach her about music. Terrified of real closeness, Frank feels
compelled to turn and run, yet he is drawn to this strangely still,
mysterious woman with eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she
seems, and Frank has old wounds that threaten to reopen, as well as a
past it seems he will never leave behind. Can a man who is so in tune
with other people’s needs be so incapable of connecting with the one
person who might save him? The journey that these two quirky, wonderful
characters make in order to overcome their emotional baggage speaks to
the healing power of music—and love—in this poignant, ultimately joyful
work of fiction.
Kit, the shop's "assistant manager" is a total mess of a young man, who breaks everything he touches and seems to be none to bright to boot. Somehow, we are supposed to see him and his destructive behavior as charming, though he eventually burns down Franks store. Why Frank keeps this stupid teenager (I assume he's a teenager) on, when it would behoove him to tell Kit to shove off, to go home and care for his elderly parents, is beyond understanding. Just because someone is blindly enthusiastic and optimistic, in a non realistic manner, doesn't make them a good employee. At any rate, I wanted to shove Kit off a bridge after about 50 pages of the novel. I was also not a fan of Maud, the tattoo parlor gal, who nurses a crush on Frank and seems eternally pissed off. Her foul mouth and rude behavior seemed totally inappropriate, and she never seemed to cotton to the reality that Frank didn't find her attractive or interesting in terms of a dating relationship. But, in the end, Joyce pulls a flash mob rabbit out of the hat and sets everything right for a too-fast HEA. Though the prose was good, the plot had some potholes that made me want to give this book a B-, and recommend it to anyone who is a fan of music on vinyl.
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore is April's book for my library book group. A work of non fiction, this book tells the story of the girls who painted watch and clock faces with radium, a radioactive substance, during the latter years of World War 1 all the way into the Roaring 20s and the Great Depression. Here's the blurb:
The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark dangerThe Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.
Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.
But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.Publisher's Weekly: British ghostwriter Moore traces the lives of more than a dozen American women who were employed as luminous watch-dial painters as early as 1917. She tells how these women, some barely in their 20s, were enchanted by high pay and the allure of the paint’s luminescent substance: radium. Carefully researched, the work will stun readers with its descriptions of the glittering artisans who, oblivious to health dangers, twirled camel-hair brushes to fine points using their mouths, a technique called lip-pointing. By the end of 1918, one out of six American soldiers owned a luminous watch, but the women had begun losing their teeth and entire pieces of their jaws. Moore describes the gruesome effects of radiation exposure on these women’s bodies, and she spares nothing in relaying the intense emotional suffering of their friends and families during subsequent medical investigations and court battles. In giving voice to so many victims, Moore overburdens the story line, which culminates with a 1938 headline trial during which a former employee of the Radium Dial Company collapsed on the stand and had to testify from bed. Moore details what was a “ground-breaking, law-changing, and life-saving accomplishment” for worker’s rights; it lends an emotionally charged ending to a long, sad book.
I agree with PW that the storyline of this book is overburdened with redundancy and often melodramatic excerpts from lawyers speeches and newspaper articles that reek of yellow, sensationalized journalism. These melodramatic moments provide unexpected levity in an otherwise gruesome and boring book. The constant descriptions of the effect radiation has on the mouth, teeth, bones and organs of otherwise healthy young women's bodies were horrific and, after awhile, redundant and depressing, as readers know that these women are going to die in pain, with little or no help from the company that made them sick. While it is important that we learn from these court cases, and that we honor and remember these young women whose lives were thrown away so carelessly by these dial companies, I felt that the book could have been edited down by at least 100 pages and still have gotten the point across. The prose was similar to long form journalism, so it read like a serial piece for a newspaper. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about worker's rights and compensations and the origins of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA.
Better Read Than Dead and Sense of Deception by Victoria Laurie are two MM paperback paranormal mysteries that I picked up for a song at The Sequel bookstore in Enumclaw. Better Read Than Dead is the second novel in the series, and does a decent job of introducing our psychic heroine, Abby Cooper. Sense of Deception is at the other end of the list, having come out in 2015, so Cooper is married to a hot FBI agent that she's only dating in the second book. Here's the blurbs: BN.com, Abby's not a private investigator; she's a psychic intuitive who works
with a crew of spirit guides to foretell the future. And it's crystal
clear that Abby's in for plenty of trouble in Better Read than Dead.
A favor for a friend has landed her at a Mob-connected wedding, where
she finds herself reading tarot for a hit man! Now the father of the
bride has made Abby an offer she can't refuse -- an offer that's
interfering with both her personal life and her professional efforts to
aid the police in their search for a violent rapist. Can she balance the
psychic scales and see her way clear to a future where justice
prevails? This outing by author Victoria Laurie (herself a psychic who
has assisted in criminal investigations) indicates a long and happy
future for Abby Cooper.
Sense of Deception: In New York Times bestselling author Victoria Laurie’s
thirteenth Psychic Eye Mystery, Abby Cooper senses a convicted killer is
innocent, but she’ll need hard evidence to save the woman before it’s
too late…
A ticked-off judge has tossed Abby in the slammer
for contempt of court, and during her brief but unpleasant stay she
learns the story of a condemned woman who is confronting a far more
serious sentence. Skyler Miller has been found guilty of murder and
faces the death penalty. Everyone believes she’s guilty, including her
own family and her ex-husband—everyone, that is, except Abby, whose
finely honed intuition tells her this woman doesn’t belong behind bars. With the help of her husband Dutch and her friend Candice, Abby launches into her own investigation to clear Skyler and find the real killer. But after a final appeal is denied and Skyler’s attorney scrambles for a stay of execution, time is running short—and the list of suspects keeps growing. There’s no margin for error as the life of an innocent woman hangs in the balance. . . .
I was actually surprised by the smooth and elegant prose Laurie uses to create her cheeky and fun characters, as well as keeping her fast-moving plots going. These two books were like hot buttered popcorn at a movie...delicious and the perfect addition to a days entertainment. I devoured both within an afternoon, and was left wanting more. Abby is smart, but often comes off as a bit of a naive optimist and her reactions are often immature when she doesn't get what she wants. Still, I liked Abby and her friends and boyfriend, and I would like to read more books in the series. I'd give these two an A, and recommend them to anyone who wants some light and fun reading that will distract them from the world around them for awhile.
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