The Girls in the Picture (a novel) by Melanie Benjamin

The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin is, in the same vein as Song of a Captive Bird, a historical novelization- and a very good one at that.

This book follows Hollywood's first power duo of two friends who became the first movie star and first major woman screenplay writer respectively.

Following the journey of Frances Marion and Mary Pickford from 1914 until 1969, we see two women find their own in a world that is not at all soft to women. Many times throughout the book their gender roles and struggles with everything their male costars didn't have to came to light. Even abortion was touched upon- albeit pretty late in the story considering all the flings alluded to.

One thing that didn't sit well with me was that the book is a huge feminist message and I love it! But when Birth of a Nation is released in 1918 their reactions to it are classic film school, "no one had ever seen this, we wanted to do that, etc." never once is race mentioned.

For the uninitiated Birth of a Nation is a KKK marketing movie that managed to breathe life into the struggling organization. It's praised to this day as the pioneer of most film techniques we still use today, and is taught as such in film school. By ignoring its underlying message, I feel Melanie Benjamin undercut her own; you can't place one struggle above another, and you certainly can't erase one struggle in order to better highlight your own. It wasn't until the very last act of the book that anything about race was mentioned again, in the context of Mary's (also famous movie star) husband being asked if he was "actually a darkie" as he had very sun tanned skin for the day. That's it, race is never mentioned again.

I was also disappointed by the prose in this book, unlike the last few I have reviewed which lifted off the page like a song, this book was written more like a conversation. It was engaging and well done, but not exactly the calibur of speech I would expect from a New York Times bestselling author.

To recap: The Girls in the Picture is a very well written look into the early cinema scene, a beautiful retelling of a friendship between two strong women and their careers. The Girls in the Picture is also a book with no non-white characters set in a time where the highest praise for a film was saved for a pro-klan picture which made me feel like a huge avenue Benjamin could have gone down was wasted.

That being said, I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in film and film history. I found myself popping over to wikipedia and youtube to follow the bread crumb trail to old forgotten movies and movie stars, it was a real treat to be learning about something I had no clue even existed.

That's it for this week- and I know I technically cheated as the book was released 16 Jan 2018 but you'll have to take my word for it that I read it before then. 

The Ensemble (a novel) by Aja Gabel

The Ensemble made me feel like a kid at the adults table. I was both fascinated by everything being said, and the prose used in saying it, but also totally lacking in enough background to understand the richness of what was being said.

I loved the way this book was written. It was clearly written to feel like a musical movement, and it achieved that aim. I typically take notes while reading my weekly books. A small corner of the page is kept for my favorite quotes. This was the first book that I filled, then over filled the little quote corner.

Aja Gabel flings you into the deep end of the lifestyle, terminology, and relationships of a quartet. There are five main characters: two violinists, a viola player- violist?, and a cellist, the fifth is the quartet itself. Their group is a living, breathing, growing, maturing character in and of itself, and I love that it both was a stand in for life and at the same time was their life.

Though the backdrop may have been foreign, the growing pains of a career, the passage of time going both too slowly and too quickly, were all themes the reader can understand and identify with. Each character is flawed, and each character grows, Gabel managed to juggle all five equally. I appreciated that each music choice fit well with the theme of the group, with the general tone of the chapter.

Despite the characters' very clear thoughts on listening to music while reading being both heinous and an impossibility, I found that reading The Ensemble was much improved while listening to the various pieces the group was practicing, performing, or simply reflecting upon. I learned a lot more about classical music and composers than I expected to when I grabbed this novel off of the shelf, and I don't regret it in the least.

I won't lie, though, with as little as I do know about music and professional musicians, reading this book was like watching a movie through a keyhole. It was a slog to get through some parts, but the parts that were clear were totally worth it, and I enjoyed every chapter once I had picked up the thread or looked up the term that had previously been alphabet soup on the page to me. In an odd way Aja's confidence in her audience to understand this new scene she had thrown them in to reminded me of my first time reading Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I understood what was happening, but was reading through the fog that was the forgotten language and foreign ranching terms.

In the end I would recommend this book to anyone who pursues a passion of their own relentlessly, anyone who loves classical music, and any chamber music musician in your life. I also recommend it to anyone who loves delicate prose and deep emotion without dialogue.

That's it for this week, thank you for reading! If you have book suggestions let me know.

Happy New Year! In 2018 the post frequency will change!

Now that I've got a few books up, I'm going to slow the posts down to one every two weeks. This will allow me to focus a little more on my work as well as keeping me from reading all the time which I would love to do, but alas, my life doesn't facilitate that.

I hope everyone's resolutions allow for creativity and books! If anyone has a recommendation for future books, feel free to let me know. Happy 2018!

-Bekah