god i love michael cunningham...
i've been reading him from the very beginning, and 'a home at the end of the
world' is very high in my list of novels, one i've given to several people.
'flesh and blood' is also great, though a little bit similar to a large
class of 'family epic' type novels. i was so happy that 'the hours' won the
pulitzer, but i held off reading it for the longest time because i really
wanted to read 'mrs. dalloway' first. but i just can't get through it. i
can't relax into the stream of shifting consciousness flow of it. i used to
be better at that, but i just haven't been able to with 'dalloway'. so
finally i said fuck it and read 'the hours' and just loved it. so go
figure. haven't seen the movie yet, but totally looking forward to it.
sunday new york times recently had a wonderful article by cunningham about
the experience of seeing his ostensibly completely uncinematic novel turned
into a very satisfying for him movie.
and every one of michael cunningham's musical choices looms large in my
life, except that i've listened to very little verdi. i can totally imagine
that listening to philip glass is the perfect background to writing. i
can't imagine writing in silence, but you really want music that can recede
to the background without being insipid, and glass' music mostly achieves
that.
interestingly enough, i was reading a profile of harvey weinstein, the very
hands-on producer who runs miramax, and has invited glass into many
filmscores. the profile was being written during the late stages of making
'the hours' and weinstein was having terrible problems with phil's music.
"no, you're overemphasizing dramatic points, being sappy" etc. etc. don't
know how the dispute played out, but have heard very good things about the
score. anyone have comments?
patrick
np - dizzy gillespie - manteca
>Article by writer Michael Cunningham ("The Hours") on the Philip Glass
>site:
>
>Extract:
>
> < Each novel I've written has developed a soundtrack of sorts; a
>body of music that subtly but palpably helped shape the book in
>question. I don't imagine most people who've read any of my books could
>readily see their connections to particular pieces of music, but I have
>long been aware that A Home at the End of the World evolved, in part,
>from Laurie Anderson's Big Science, Joni Mitchell's Blue, and the
>Mozart's Requiem; that Flesh and Blood derived from the operas of Verdi,
>Neil Young's After the Gold Rush, several albums by The Smiths, and Jeff
>Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah; and The Hours from
>Schubert (particularly Death and the Maiden), Brian Eno's Music for
>Airports, Peter Gabriel's Mercy Street, and, for reasons I can't begin
>to explain, Radiohead's OK Computer. The one constant since I started
>trying to write novels, however -my only ongoing act of listening
>fidelity- has been the work of Philip Glass. >
