I just saw Mirrormask for the first time and how I wished I would have seen this on the big screen.
The astonishing setpieces remind of the less ambitious The Cell (with my namesake) and also a little of the Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, but it reminds me strangely enough mostly of a book. Of course the obvious connection would be with Alice in Wonderland and all the similar books thereafter with the precocious young English girl in a somewhat dangerous and fantastic land. However, and I don’t know exactly why, but it brought to mind the Gormenghast Trilogy.
I read the books years ago and I read it backwards. I was over at a friend’s house and his mother, an anthropologist, and I were talking about books and she suggested this one. She went to lend me the books but could only find the third volume. I borrowed it and read it, then found the second in a used book store, read that and then finally the first. What made this a unique experience, not that reading it properly wouldn’t be, is that Mervyn Peake went mad halfway through the writing of the third book, and it is quite obvious. There is a moment where what has been a fairly dark but subdued narrative and landscape suddenly becomes utterly anarchic. Its one of those rare literary moments when you put down the book and just look into the distance stunned.
The trilogy as a whole is the tale of Titus Groan, the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. I used to describe it to others as a cross between Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens; or as, and this offended more than a few, Lord of the Rings for grownups. There is an amazing passage in I think the first book where the description of someone’s forehead ends up going on for about 5 pages and involving birds and caves and whatnot. All in all a remarkable work and the best character names ever devised: Steerpike, Dr. Prunesquallor and Nannie Slagg among others.
That movie looks totally awesome. I didn’t know it was from Jim Henson Productions.
Several months ago I saw a clip from it, the ‘Closer to You’ song scene, and her eyes freaked me out. I’ll have to give this a viewing.
And after your description of the Gormenghast Trilogy, I also wanna read that. . . though the Lord of the Rings for grown ups thing sort of intimidated me, since I’ve never managed to read Lord of the Rings in its entirety.
Comment by amuirin — October 12, 2007 @ 10:41 am
One thing I didn’t go into that it was a great “green” film in that though multicoloured it had those green Amelie tinges all through.
I have offended many with the LOR statement. One of the conditions of my last relationship was that I actually had to watch all three of the LOR movies. Had already seen the first and was annoyed by it. Found that I liked the 2nd more. 3rd I can’t remember now but I did see it.
I also had problems with the book years ago and can’t say I’ve read all that much of it. My reaction was similar to the one attributed to the English don Hugo Dyson who met the latest bulletin from Middle Earth by (according to Tolkien’s son Christopher) “lying on the couch, and lolling and shouting and saying, ‘Oh God, no more Elves’”.
Comment by aos — October 12, 2007 @ 11:02 am
This is brilliant. I’m done with the net for today. I’m hoping more and more people comment on this so that it stays in my “my comments” queue which in turn will remind me to come back here and read it again so that the names of the the things that you mentioned stick in my mind and I do something about that.
Comment by Mr. Hand — October 14, 2007 @ 11:16 am
He didn’t exactly go mad — he had rapidly-progressing early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Comment by davidrochester — October 14, 2007 @ 10:10 pm
You are right. I do stand corrected. The madness was an old and impoverished explanation and I did see the update but didn’t pay it due attention. The effect though was the same.
Comment by aos — October 14, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
I want to thank you for your remark about LOTR.
I like LOTR. I am generally fond of books for kids. I think it is a book for kids.
As for what Amuirin said about LOTR, I think it takes the kind of patience that twelve year olds have but adults don’t to make it through the thing.
I’m immature. That’s why I’m still able to read it.
Comment by Mr. Hand — October 15, 2007 @ 10:35 am
I keep intending to write a post about children’s books. I took a course in them and ended up reading the first of the Pullman trilogy, the first Harry Potter and a few others. Found the Potter quite good and the Pullman great. For some reason I have not followed up on this. But I realized at some point its so much context. The best childrens book cannot step into the ring with the best adult book. Its like a lightweight trying to take on a heavyweight. No matter how good they are, there is only so far that style and talent can take you. The adult range just gives so much more possibility for depth and resonance throughout the narrative.
This doesn’t mean I don’t like childrens books: faves are Roald Dahl’s Twits Mathilda, George’s Marvelous Medicine, Gaiman’s Coraline and the Pullman I mentioned. But none would make it onto my ten best list.
Comment by aos — October 15, 2007 @ 10:50 am
I donno.
I think a children’s book actually can resonate, with innocence and images and simple, straightforward rendering of actions and emotions you can transcend the most provocative, fine wrought or complicated works.
Your mention of the twits put into my mind another Roald Dahl called ‘Danny, Champion of the World’. You wouldn’t look at the language and go hmm… pulitzer prize material, but the world he created was so real, I went to sleep and dreamed that place, that emotion, that skinny treed woods. Another work that transcended for me was Madeline L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light. There was one more, an old book I found in the library where the girl comes down in the middle of the night and sees the chess pieces laid out, and they are ivory and something strange, magical comes into play. When a book becomes your dream, and in the dream you almost touch something that fills your soul with awe…
No adult book has ever done what these three did. And I adore Barbara Kingsolver, I’ve read her till the pages are worn out. Phillip Roth, Alice Sebold, even Crichton, they’re so fucking good, but they can’t do magic.
Only a kid’s book can do that.
Comment by amuirin — October 15, 2007 @ 11:44 am
I know what you are saying re the magic but I would say that Mark Helprin in Winter’s Tale might surprise you. He is one of the most optimistic writers I have ever read, the most able to render light, and wonder. Flann O Brien’s 3rd Policeman, one of my top five books of all time, manages to convey openmouthed wonder as well though all in all a little dark. Give me time, and I bet I can come up with others, science fiction and fantasy I’m sure hold plenty of examples.
And I’m not on about the simplicity all that much. I think simple writing can be the best, its more the restriction of knowledge and vision. It all has to do with the layers that a life lived builds up and works in all those subtle gradings into the black and white start through the distinct rainbow to the older muddying. (I think there are those who shut down over time and for those childhood may be richer but the rich child should become the richer adult).
Comment by aos — October 15, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
optimist.
The rich (meaning creative/imaginative) child is most at risk to find the act of growing up an act of rape and the demolishment of wonder, aren’t they?
Maybe I’m a pessimist, but it seems to me that learning well how the world works tends to close doors instead of open them.
Comment by amuirin — October 15, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
I go the other way. You know that quote about magic just being science we don’t understand yet? I think that science and nature and life, are magic even after they are understood. My sense of wonder is greater than it was as a child, and it is through more knowledge of the world ie the posting with the successfully larger planets and suns….that is magic and wonder to me. And what about the magic of first love? Losing Santa is a small price to pay to gaining the universe.
Comment by aos — October 15, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
but first love is magic because it is first love… it’s that same thing, the unknowing.
After 55 relationships whre you see your patterns, and know what yer doing wrong, and start again with a sigh because you can’t really help it, this is what you do, magic all gone.
If you understand first love to be an initial attraction spurred by contrasting immune systems that express themselves through pheremones, and if you know that all your interactions are almost pre-programmed through the dance of evolution, and that all the special, amazing things you say to that person and they say to you have been said already, and said better, by the countless generations who did this same dance countless times before, not so magical.
I think the giant planet post was awe inspiring because it didn’t present answers so much as inspire child-like questions. What if we are the community clinging to the bottom of a flower petal in some awesomely larger scheme of things? It wasn’t the scientific explanation, it was the pathway to more unanswered questions that made it so cool.
Comment by amuirin — October 15, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
Science is as much questions as answers and the inspiration to science is wonder. Scientists, often as not, are wonderstruck creatures, and often are among the more imaginative people.
55 is a big number for relationships and I would have no idea what it would be like if they were real full fledged meetings. But I’ve been eating food all my life, and I still manage to run into fresh new flavours. Besides the magic resides not in the explanation, as you put it, but the experience around the imagination. An explained sunset is no less, in fact, I would argue it is more beautiful, than an unexplained one. You get the sunset AND the explanation.
Comment by aos — October 15, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
I agree with amuirin about books for kids being able to inspire. In a certain sense LOTR has the kind of depth that suits adults — if one reads it carefully one will notice that the voices of the characters change subtly in different social situations. One of the things that I like about it (as compared to say Harry Potter) is that reading it aloud by my children is a pleasure. The words flow ever so pleasantly from the tongue. The whole created world with a convoluted myth system behind it is a mixture of childlike and adultlike. And, yet, I still feel that the vision is essentially childlike and so I like saying that LOTR is for kids.
I think aos is essentially right about science but is not as emphatic as I would like to be. The explanation can be a thing even more beautiful than the phenomenon being explained. It can open doors in the imagination of the understander.
I’m in the same boat as aos and the 55 relationships. I’ve only had one. I’ve noticed that that one is not the same as it was when it started. We aren’t silly teenagers trying to grope one another. We’re comfortable having spent more than half our lives together and expecting to see the rest of them that way too. I don’t think knowing that other people have their own love lives in any way detracts from ours. Maybe other people are more deeply in love than I am. Maybe other people are better lovers. Maybe our kids aren’t the cutest, smartest, nicest kids in the world. Whatever. I’m not those other people and my sweetie isn’t in love with them and they’re not the ones returning her love. Our kids are the ones who’ve known me since they first knew people and who’ve bathed in love coming from my sweetie and me.
Comment by Mr. Hand — October 15, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
Well put Mr. Hand. Its not a competition or even a comparison if done right.
Comment by aos — October 15, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
hm.. i just want to notice that set of this movie (i mean- masks, decorations and so on) are really looking like beeing inspired by lithuanian - polish artist, s. eidrigevicius :
http://www.muziejai.lt/informacija/D_Streikuvienes_str.htm
well, at least i felt like inside in his paintings or photos
Comment by cinematique — November 20, 2007 @ 10:03 am
The first picture is great. I don’t have any information about film makers and actors, but for sure this movie is a masterpiece of art.
Comment by LOTR fan — December 6, 2007 @ 9:00 am
[...] The bridge from childhood Making the cut Mark Helprin: Character description Marketing novels Mirrormask My culture ravaged: My culture was [...]
Pingback by BookPage: Book Bibliography: Articles « Revenge of the Castanets — May 30, 2008 @ 10:02 pm