For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching DVDs of Ibsen plays, Strindberg plays, and Chekhov plays in order to understand Stella Adler’s analysis in Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov. Stella Adler had an acting career (you might have seen her in Shadow of the Thin Man (1941). She founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in 1949. Her students included Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, Dolores del Río, Robert De Niro, Elaine Stritch, Martin Sheen, Manu Tupou, Harvey Keitel, Melanie Griffith, Peter Bogdanovich and Warren Beatty. Stella Adler was generally considered the best acting teacher in the U.S. After reading Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov I have a more detailed understanding of what these playwrights were attempting in their works. Adler confesses that Chekhov is her favorite writer. But his plays are usually failures outside of Russia because international actors don’t grasp Chekhov’s story-telling technique. The actual story happens in the past or off-stage. If you’re interested in theater, I highly recommend this book. GRADE: A

Daniel Mendelsohn writes essays that provoke me to read more books. For example, when Mendelsohn reviews a new translation of The Iliad, he causally mentions that Alexander Pope’s translation of The Iliad (which took Pope seven years to produce) is one of the best translations EVER. So, of course, I had to try to dig up a copy of Alexander Pope’s translation of The Iliad. Luckily, I found a free ebook version on AMAZON. Mendelsohn is also the celebrated translator of C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Mendelsohn likes to sprinkle lines from Cavafy into his essays which then motivates me to want to read Cavafy. Topics Mendelsohn tackles range from Avatar to Susan Sontag. Each essay makes you think. GRADE: A
Table of Contents
FOREWORD………………..ix
The Wizard (James Cameron’s Avatar)………………..3
Truth Force at the Met (Philip Glass’s Satyagraha)………………..19
Why She Fell (Julie Taymor’s Spider-Man)………………..37
The Dream Director (Aleksandr Sokurov’s The Sun)………………..51
The Mad Men Account (Mad Men)………………..65
Unsinkable (Why We Can’t Let Go of the Titanic)………………..81
Battle Lines (Stephen Mitchell’s Iliad)………………..103
In Search of Sappho (Anne Carson’s If Not, Winter)………………..121
Arms and the Man (The Landmark Herodotus)………………..139
The Strange Music of Horace (J. D. McClatchy’s Horace, The Odes)………………..159
Oscar Wilde, Classics Scholar………………..179
Epic Endeavors (Three Novels on the Classics)………………..195
After Waterloo (Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma)………………..213
Heroine Addict (The Novels of Theodor Fontane)………………..223
Rebel Rebel (The Poems of Arthur Rimhaud)………………..241
The Spanish Tragedy (Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sepharad)………………..259
In Gay and Crumbling England (Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child)………………..275
Transgression (Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones)………………..291
But Enough About Me (The Memoir Craze)………………..311
His Design for Living (Noël Coward’s Letters)………………..333
On the Town (Leo Lerman’s Diaries)………………..349
Zoned Out (Jonathan Franzen’s The Discomfort Zone)………………..365
Boys Will Be Boys (Edmund White’s City Boy)………………..381
The Collector (Susan Sontag’s Reborn)………………..399

P. G. Wodehouse is one of the great writers of the Twentieth-Century. He was prolific, talented, and witty. I’ve read dozens of Wodehouse books, listened to many of them on audio books, and watched TV adaptations of Wodehouse (mostly by the BBC). Now, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters shows up to reveal even more about this comic genius. In a letter to Lawrence Durrell, Wodehouse writes about where the idea Jeeves (the iconic valet) came from. Plenty of other insights are revealed in these 600+ pages. Wodehouse wrote every day, sometimes up to 4000 words. His writing methods and thought process is on display in these letters. If you’d like to read Christopher Buckley’s review of P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters just click here. This book is a must-buy for Wodehouse fans.

Tracy Kidder, writer of award-winning books like The Soul of the New Machine, House, and Among School Children and his long-time editor, Richard Todd (not the Jets QB) write about their writing relationship. Topics include style, grammar, memoirs, essays, and the editing process. Tracy Kidder shows how he takes a book from idea to published text. Richard Todd shows what editors really do (at least, what the good ones do). If you’re interested in improving your writing skills, Kidder and Todd provide valuable commentary. There’s also a nice appendix of useful writing guides. GRADE: A

Plenty of my health-conscious friends recommended that I try Fage (pronounced Fa-yeh) Greek yogurt. I did and came away impressed. There are only 6 grams of carbohydrates per serving. The texture of the yogurt is smooth and creamy. I jazzed the Fage yogurt up with some peach slices and walnuts. Yum! Yogurt has been shown to lower blood pressure when eaten regularly. And, the active cultures in the yogurt keep your digestive system in tip-top shape. If you’re a yogurt fan, give Fage Total Greek Yogurt a try. GRADE: A

This collection is worth the money just for The Cherry Orchard with Judi Dench. Astonishing performance! All of Chekhov’s major plays are here: Platonov, The Wood Demon, The Proposal, The Wedding, The Seagull, An Artist’s Story, Uncle Vanya [1970 and 1991 versions], Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard [1962 and 1981 versions]). If you want to understand the Russian soul, these plays reveal it. And, yes, this is another prelude assignment to my reading Stella Adler’s book on classic playwrights. A review on Adler’s insighful book is in the works…I’m working as fast as I can. Teaching eight courses this semester is slowing me down! GRADE: A

This 1999 version of Miss Julie delivers a contemporary performance of August Strindberg’s 1888 play about sexual repression and class warfare. Miss Julie is an aristocratic young woman who decides to seduces her father’s valet. After the sex, Miss Julie and the valet find that they have nothing in common. They begin to despise one another. Strindberg’s claustrophobic setting and the noir perspective on relationships between members of different social classes may grate on some viewer’s sensibilities. But the play and the movie show that women’s options a hundred years ago were bleak. I liked the performances of Saffron Burrows as Miss Julie, Peter Mullan as the valet, and Maria Doyle Kennedy as the valet’s girl friend. This is another movie I watched in order to understand Stella Adler’s analysis of Strindberg’s work.

Paul Tough’s How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character is a book parents, grandparents, and teachers should read. Paul Tough argues the context that learning takes place is at least as important as the child’s IQ. Tough shows that discipline, focus, and someone saying “No” to kids boosts educational performance. “Kids who do well in school tend to do well in Life,” Tough says. It’s also true–and I’ve seen it first-hand–that kids who don’t do well in school tend to struggle to find and hold jobs. Parents, grandparents, and teachers can help kids gain grit (not giving up), curiosity (motivation to explore and learn), and character (building relationships that last). Our educational system is addicted to testing and political garbage like “No Child Left Behind.” Instead of forcing teachers to “teach to the test,” our school systems should be helping teachers to work with students individually to build their strengths. GRADE: B+