What are you reading?

[RedRiver]

I'd love to see that movie. What's the name of it? I'm not familiar with this case. The last public hanging in this country took place in my hometown! My mom wanted to go, but her father wouldn't let her. This would have been mid 1930's, I believe.

[JackFavell]

I am not quite sure of the title, I think it was called Dance with a Stranger, with Miranda Richardson.

[charliechaplinfan]

Dance With a Stranger with Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett if my memory serves me well. I think it was based loosely on the story, it's a good film. It was this execution and along with Derek Bentley's another movie Let Him Have It along with the wrongful hanging of Timothy Evans for a murder at Rillington Place, later found out to be a man called Christie, another movie 10 Rillington Place, that drove the death penalty from this country. Ruth Ellis remains an elusive character and this book is another example of the deals day on kindle books at Christmas.

[JackFavell]

We never get such good stuff on our deals of the day.

10 Rillington Place, I never want to see that movie again. It was very good, just way too creepy for me. I don't think I could sit through it again, watching Sir Richard A. makes me queasy...

[charliechaplinfan]

I know what you mean, the actual case was far worse. So grim that the poor husband of one of the tenants was hung for murdering his wife, who had actually popped downstairs to have an abortion and had been dispatched by her landlord. It's a depraved case and Sir Richard who played a very good part, I'd rather see in sweeter roles.

I'm reading about the 1950s housewife, we weren't as far along with fridges, cars, washing machines, vacuum cleaners etc as the author assumes but were these really staples of the average American household. Were they? Did every house have a great big refridgerator in the 1950s or were many hankering after them like our householders were?

[JackFavell]

I can't imagine we were that far along either, maybe a bit farther ahead since we didn't have the war waging literally on our doorstep. I'm pretty sure my dad mentioned the ice box when he was growing up in the thirties and 40's, not sure about the 50's.

[charliechaplinfan]

I think we have a very fond image, probably coming from movies and magazines of huge kitchens with all the mod cons. There's probably more than a grain of truth in it but I imagine that there were still a section of the population that were just scrapping along and getting by. I think there might be still some of that feeling around but one only has to look at the news reports to know that economic woes are as rife in the US as they are in Europe.

I've been watching The Dustbowl by Ken Burns. I knew quite a bit about it but Ken Burns brings everything out of the subject and brings a complete understanding. It's too easy to blame the farmers for over ploughing but it's really not that simple, they were doing what they thought was best and following a dream of leaving a homestead for their sons, nothing more or less than our parents have done to leave something for us and what we'll do for our children, hopefully. It's made me want to reread The Grapes of Wrath, the film is very good but it can't pack as big a punch as the book does. Amazing people who were stretched to the edge of their endurance and beyond. I've listened to Woody Guthrie often but only now can I unravels the lyrics properly. Yet there will be a general ignorance in both our countries for some who have never heard of how people suffered between the wars and how many things out of their control challenged them.

I've put Sanora Babb's book on my wishlist, what a pity the market couldn't support two books about the Dustbowl.

[JackFavell]

It's heartbreaking reading about or seeing photos of those families, all across the country, children turned out because parents couldn't support them, dads leaving to look for work and traveling across the country, only to find nothing in the end, or getting killed along the way. We think we have it rough if we have to do without a cell phone.

[charliechaplinfan]

I know, or if our internet connection goes down. I'm not sure if tested I would have had the strength that these people had. And to hear all these tales from the children who went through every twist and turn with them, there was no hiding from the storms and failure of the crops. I thinking I'm going to have to buy the Sanora Babb book, Steinbeck spent some time with the migrants in the camps but Sanora followed them and stayed with them over a period of months. I'm hoping for a book that is about the actual families.

[JackFavell]

There must be ones out there somewhere. Have you ever looked at the Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Ben Shahn, and Arthur Rothstein photos? I'm sure you must have. They tell more in a picture than a thousand words could.

[RedRiver]

John Ford's film of Steinbeck's novel is wonderful. But the book has so much more depth. I'm so glad we have both of them!

[charliechaplinfan]

I don't think a better version of Steinback's novel could be brought to the screen, I'm glad we have both too.

Those photographs, they tell so much, perhaps that's what's given this Ken Burns documentary the edge over the others, at least for me.

I'm really jumping around with my reading, as I have so much piled up instead of buying another book I've reading a biography of sorts about Sylvia Plath then I'm going to try to revisit The Bell Jar, I'm not really a great poetry lover but I might feel like trying some after the biography.

[JackFavell]

Sylvia's bio is very interesting reading, she's a fascinating subject. But you'll need some light reading after.

[charliechaplinfan]

Yes, that's what I thought. The biography I'm reading is also looking at all the biographies that have gone before and what side they've come down on ie do they hate Ted Hughes or blame him for Sylvia's suicide or have they tried to right the balance by saying that Sylvia was far from perfect. Whlist trying to give a balanced view of Sylvia's literary merits. I admit I've avoided the poetry because it was written so soon before her death. Included in this biography are letters from Ted Hughes to the first biographer who chose to divulge th edetails of Sylvia's suicie, someone who was a friend and his children by Sylvia then 11 and 9 not having been thought of and how they would have to bear up to the tragedy of which they knew nothing. It's a murky story. I never watched the Gwyneth Paltrow film about her, I never pictured Gwyneth being anything like Sylvia.

An appalling aside, the woman that Ted Hughes went to after he'd split up with Sylvia also gassed herself in the same way, the only difference is she gassed the daughter she'd had with Ted at the same time.

Chris has told Libby to read Of Mice and Men, even he cried at the film. I said she's too young, she'll get through it but it's too sad. She will of course read it now I've said she's too young.

[JackFavell]

That's awful. I don't remember if I read that part of the story but I don't remember it.