Thursday, May 8, 2014

Book Review: Sycamore Row – Grisham Brings Back Jake Brigance

Sycamore Row
By John Grisham
Doubleday (2014)
ISBN: 978-0385537131

Book Review: Sycamore Row – Grisham Brings Back Jake Brigance

Sycamore Row by John Grisham is a patiently constructed novel with deep moral conflicts, multilayered characters, and carefully developed storylines that keep intertwining until everything culminate in a final verdict. This is not a violent page-turner or a fast-moving action suspense, such as The firm or other Grisham novels, but a fully developed legal drama with deep roots in the good old South.

Sycamore Row picks up where Grisham’s very first novel left off. A Time to Kill (1988) was famously written by Grisham when he was still a young attorney, who rose up at dawn to put in an hour or two of writing before starting his lawyerly day.  The result was a story that combined complex legal, moral and human issues seamlessly, a novel many considered to be Grisham’s best book. Sycamore Row does justice to its prequel as it delivers equivalent intensity within a similar social unease in the context of whites and blacks facing injustice, adjudication and redemption.

Attorney Jack Brigance is back with the new case, almost as unpopular as the Hailey murder case in A Time to Kill. In Sycamore Row, he is tasked with defending the handwritten will of the wealthiest citizen of Ford County, Seth Hubbard, who killed himself after a long battle with cancer. The handwritten will cancels an earlier will, prepared by a prestigious law firm, that left his fortune to his children and grandchildren. The last minute, handwritten will bequeaths the bulk of Hubbard’s fortune to his black maid. The ensuing battle brings onto Grisham's wide canvas a large number of characters, including the unlikely heiress and her many family members, the disinherited family of the deceased, and many lawyers representing various parties and interests. We’re back at the Clanton courthouse before Judge Atlee, where the scars from last year’s Hailey trial have not yet healed.

Grisham is very good at weaving social issues into legal and human conflicts. In Sycamore Row, he does it again with issues of wealth and racism in the context of southern white-black history. The large cast of characters might be hard to follow throughout the long story, but the main players are well-developed and as alive and human as the characters in A Time to Kill. Sycamore Row takes us on a detailed journey, from the moment of the suicide through the discovery of the various legal documents and shocking facts (before and during the trial). The story leads to a satisfying conclusion that ties up closely with the painful and shameful past of injustice (and worse) in the deep South, going back all the way to the era that followed actual slavery with crimes no less horrendous.

In summary, for lovers of legal drama and trial fiction, Sycamore Road is as good as it gets. For astute readers, some surprises may not be wholly surprising, and to readers with professional legal background, some courtroom developments might seem unrealistic. But this is no more than nitpicking because, in all fairness, a real-life trial transcript will never make for an exciting novel, which must move along without getting stuck in the mind-numbing mud of legal humdrum. With Sycamore Row, John Grisham keeps up the pace, builds up the suspense, and makes us think hard and feel deeply while we turn the pages. True to the reputation he has built since A Time To Kill, Grisham is at the top of his game.

* Avraham Azrieli writes novels and screenplays.  www. AzrieliBooks.com

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Book Review: Sailing Alone Around the World: First Solo Circumnavigator Tells His Story.

Sailing Alone Around The World
By Joshua Slocum
New York Century Co. (1901) (Pan American edition. Illustrated by Thomas Forgarty and George Varian.) (Currently available from various publishers. )
ISBN: 978-0486203263
Subject(s): Memoir, adventure, sailing.


Book Review: Sailing Alone Around the World - First Solo Circumnavigator Tells His Story.

Sailing Alone Around the World is a firsthand autobiographical story of Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail singlehandedly around the world. The book, first published in 1901, would be considered an “old book" if not for the fact that, by any other measure, it is a timeless story. Slocum’s personal words, illustrations, and maps combine to create a literary gem that serves as a memoir of adventure travel, a motivational and spiritual guide, and a lesson in modesty and resilience.

Sailing Alone Around the World is the story of an aging sea captain who, in 1893, found himself out of work, out of prospects, out of plans, and out of dreams, but somehow managed to put himself back to work, create his own prospect, make a daring plan, and pursue a new dream. In doing so, Slocum not only succeeded in realizing his seemingly impossible dream, but also succeeded in turning himself into a record-setting global hero, whose voyage was followed closely by newspapers in every country in the world. His is a timeless story of courage, of defying the odds and the naysayers, and of changing the world of sailing—and of dreaming—forever.

Before 1895, Joshua Slocum was a professional ship captain in an era of transition from sailing ships to steam ships. Like many commercial captains of that generation, he took his family along on the ships he captained while delivering cargo from port to port in different parts of the world. Rather than be away from his family for months or years at the time, his wife and children traveled with him. But in an era that life expectancy hovered somewhere in the mid-forties, Slocum at fifty found himself unemployed and without prospects of future employment. An acquaintance gifted him the decrepit remains of a small boat called the Spray. It was a 37-foot oyster sloop, whose wood had rotten away and left little of its original structure and none of its seaworthiness.

Slocum, an endlessly curios self-educated maritime expert had a good working knowledge of shipbuilding, which he applied to restoring the Spray, bringing it back to its proud, seagoing past. The boat was designed for coastal work, not for ocean crossing, but that did not stop Slocum. After he sailed the Spray locally up and down the New England coast, a publisher suggested a journey around the world—alone! No one has ever done that, let along in a small sailboat, but Slocum was undeterred.

Sailing Alone Around the World chronicles Slocum’s three-year journey, beginning in 1895.  He crossed the Atlantic to Gibraltar, then back west to South America, struggled valiantly through the traitorous Strait of Magellan, and sailed across the Pacific. He paid visits to various islands, visited New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and then crossed the Atlantic for the third time, arriving back in Massachusetts with his sailing log at over 46,000 miles.

Slocum writes in a conversational, unassuming voice of a man who knows what he is doing and faces the elements with even temper and a cool mind. His descriptions and illustrations of fascinating foreign lands, many of them unexplored at that time, as well as sea and land animals, are priceless. The challenges that nature threw in his way across the vast oceans nearly destroyed him and the Spray many times. He faced pirates, savages, thieves, and a variety of mechanical and technical breakdowns, each potentially fatal. Defying all odds, he returned home to write the book while becoming a household name and serving as a role model for countless courageous sailors who risk their lives circumnavigating the globe even today.

The book’s fluid prose is clear and straightforward so that even the modern reader quickly forgets how long ago it was written. Between the lines, we can tell that Slocum was a humorous man, who took life seriously, but didn’t take himself too seriously. He risked his life repeatedly in a pursuit of a dream, but he writes about it with no pretentions. On the contrary, he makes it sound as if anyone could have done it.

An amusing anecdote tells of Slocum’s meeting with the popular, long-time president of the South African Republic, Paul Kruger, a man of German descent who was deeply religious. When Slocum was introduced to President Kruger as someone who was sailing around the world, the president became upset and insisted that Slocum was selling on the world, not around it. There followed a meeting with the president's team of scientists who were busy proving (at the president’s insistance) that the world was indeed flat and not round as most of people knew. With his typical humor, which got him through other tight spots throughout his long journey, Slocum made light of the disagreement and agrees to consider the world flat while he was on land. Thus earning President Kroger's affection, Slocum enjoyed extensive sightseeing trips across the magnificent South African topographical wonders, vibrant wildlife, and fascinating tribal cultures.

Even when describing horrendous conditions and near-death experiences at sea, the author tells his story matter-of-factly, explaining how he contended with each crisis in a practical and logical way. When he describes how he fell off his boat during a violent storm while trying to change sails, he mentions casually the fact that he had never learned how to swim. “What is the point?” He asks. In other words, it was the opinion of this lifelong seaman that, when a person falls off in the middle of the ocean, he is better off drowning quickly than treading water for long time only to suffer a slow death. Considering that his trip took place before radio or any of the modern communication devices that and can alert rescuers the distress, his logic appears sound, though extreme.

In summary, Sailing Alone Around the World is a fascinating story, well written, and suspenseful. It provides a snapshot of an old world, barely on the verge of modernity, yet it creates a panoramic snapshot that provides unique perspective and a spectrum of details without comparison. For those who love sailing, or any kind of extreme adventure, this book is obviously a must. Yet its appeal would be strong for anyone who appreciates human stories of overcoming incredible odds and setting a new path for others to follow. Reading Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World is as close as it gets to the literary equivalent of taking a journey around the world.

Avraham Azrieli writes novels and screenplays. www.AzrieliBooks.com

Film Review: The Big Wedding (2013): De Niro, Keaton, Sarandon, and Heigl Deliver a Modern Family Farce

The Big Wedding (2013)
89 min; Comedy
Tagline: A long-divorced couple fakes being married as their family unites for a wedding.
Director: Justin Zackham
Writers: Justin Zackham (screenplay), Jean-Stéphane Bron (motion picture "Mon frère se marie")
Stars: Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Katherine Heigl, Ben Barnes, Topher Grace

Film Review: The Big Wedding (2013): De Niro, Keaton, Sarandon, and Heigl Deliver a Modern Family Farce

The Big Wedding is part comedy, part parody and part jeopardy game of who is who, who is with whom, and who the hell could have so much fun when your character's backstory foretells a tragedy. Yet, The Big Wedding somehow manages to deliver big laughs, deep sighs, and even a few wet tears. And it's no wonder, as the film is basically a ruckus and joyful get-together of mostly A-list stars on a quickie break from serious roles.

The patriarch of the groom’s family, Don, is played by Robert De Niro, who recaps his Fokker Family role, but without the paranoid spy gear. Here, De Niro is an aging sculptor who, while not shown actually sculpting anything, sports the expected long locks, facial hair and behavioral oddities, perhaps resulting from the stress of keeping all the character’s fictional balls in the air: He is (1) the father of a young physician, Jared (Topher Grace), who still lives at home and is abstinent from sex (unlike his father), (2) the father of an estranged daughter, Lyla (Katherine Heigl), who loves/hates him, (3) the adoptive father of Alejandro (Ben Barnes), who is about to marry the daughter of the deeply disliked couple next door, (4) the ex-husband of his children’s mother, Ellie (Diane Keaton), a woman he cheated on with her best friend, yet he still loves her (can you blame him?), (5) the lover, in a long  cohabitating relationship, of another beautiful woman, Bebe (Susan Sarandon) who is Don’s ex-wife’s ex-best-friend, and who helped him finish raising the children and complete a lot of house renovations, (6) a recovering alcoholic who still drinks, (7) the host of the wedding, including Alejandro’s biological mother, Madonna (Patricia Rae), a devout Catholic whose abhorrence of divorce forces De Niro to also pretend that he is (8) still married to his ex-wife. If for nothing else, it’s worthwhile to watch The Big Wedding just for the opportunity to see De Niro juggle all these conflicting roles without rolling his eyes (on camera) even once.

Diane Keaton as Ellie plays the betrayed wife, who had left Don after he cheated on her with her best friend, Bebe. Ellie has been away from her children, from the house of her dreams, and from the husband she loved. Now she's back for the wedding, and upon her arrival, she surreptitiously watches her husband fooling around with his live-in lover (her ex-best friend) in the kitchen. But despite all that potentially enraging past events, throughout the movie Diane Keaton seems happy to the point of constant giggling. If there is any bitterness or resentment, we never see it. She is warm to her ex-husband and to her ex-best friend and tries to make everybody as giddily happy as she manages to be. Perhaps Keaton had so much fun making this movie with such a terrific group of people that she couldn’t bother with her character’s painful past or otherwise muster the appearance of hostility towards those who had basically destroyed her perfect life.

The deepest feelings expressed in this film belong to Lyla (Katherine Heigl), the estranged daughter who had taken her mother's side and distanced herself from her father (and is now experiencing a breakup in her own marriage). Heigl’s emotional portrayal of this complex character reliably conveys the complex array of feelings a daughter experiences towards such complex parents. Yet she manages to go along with the over-the-top spirit of this movie, with dramatic fainting and projectile vomiting. As always, Heigl is a class act.

Susan Sarandon (as Bebe) similarly delivers an expert performance in a complicated and contradictory role that pulls in different directions. The real kicker, though, is Robin Williams, a funnyman whose brilliant potential seems to be constrained here by scripted dialogue and tight directing, barely allowing him to show his incredible talent in a role of Father Moinighan, an alcoholic, racist, and cynical priest. One can only imagine what Williams would have done with this role if he were only allowed to go wild.

Alejandro, played by Ben Barnes, is the adopted son turned Harvard graduate and multi-linguist, who is fluent in Spanish, English, Chinese and much more. The young Barnes manages to deliver an excellent portrayal of a character who could have appeared silly. He is charming, emotional, and funny. His fiancé, Missy (Amanda Seyfried) also has to balance conflicting pressures, especially in contending with her parents, Muffin (Christine Ebersole) and Barry (David Rasche), who are rich/poor, snobby/pathetic, and righteous/sex sinners. Seyfried capably goes along with the insanity underlying this story.


In summary, The Big Wedding is a farce of modern life with every known complication thrown in for good measure. Moviegoers should expect a riotous yet improbably story delivered by a group of incredibly good actors having fun on the screen. In fact, they're having so much fun that it’s hard to suspend disbelief about the huge bags of skeletons that each one of them is supposed to be schlepping around. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter as The Big Wedding is meant to be as good as fresh popcorn—light and airy, fun and crunchy, and not intended for the haughty, discriminating connoisseur.

Avraham Azrieli writes novels and screenplays. www.AzrieliBooks.com