Inside Jacket

I’ve just finished reading Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and must say, in all sincerity, it is one of the best books I have ever read. I’ll confess I was reluctant to read it at first – it had been on the bestseller lists and I feared that it was just another book that achieved greatness by hype.

But I was wrong. The book deserved to be a bestseller -  in its own right.

Somehow, Sebold manages to capture the pain and angst of a family experiencing a horrific loss – the murder of their daughter, sister, friend. You can understand the actions of the individuals which could, offhandedly seem irrational, irresponsible or even hurtful. But because you feel their pain, you can understand why they do the things they do.

The sadness is tempered by the fact that Susie, the victim, narrates the story. It’s not that the sadness isn’t there – it most certainly is – but somehow, her presence is comforting. Perhaps it’s this that people suffering such a loss are looking for and that Sebold has skillfully captured.    And no matter what your beliefs are about death and what happens thereafter, there is nothing offensive or off-putting about Sebold’s tale and you can actually view what happens from many different angles.

Having read the book, I fear the movie which is due out in December. Could a film adaptation really do this book justice? Fortunately, the movie was put into the very capable hands of director, Peter Jackson which leads me to believe, okay hope, that this will be the best adaptation that there could be.

But that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it. The characters were so real to me,  I know that the actors will not match what was in my mind. And viewing the trailer confirms that. Susie doesn’t look like “my” Susie, even Holiday the dog doesn’t match. Also, as I feared, the movie seems to have to spell out some of the details that you simply pick up when reading the novel and looks perhaps to focus more on the hunt for the killer than the story does.

Saying that, I probably will watch the movie – I have a couple of months to psyche myself into it and to have the book pale in my memory. I do strongly recommend that the book be read prior to seeing the movie so that you fully “get” what Sebold was portraying and not the “Hollywood” interpretation.

It has also just been announced that The Lovely Bones has been chosen for this year’s Royal Film Performance. The Royal gala is a charitable event with all money raised going to  The Cinema & Television Benevolent Fund (CTBF), which helps families connected to the film and TV industry who are experiencing financial struggles.

But I say it again – read The Lovely Bones now before seeing the movie in December.

He may be moody and not that handsome but Mr. Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was named the most romantic literary character in a Mills & Boon poll. I guess most people can overlook the insane wife locked up in a room thing.

Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice fame, often a favourite, took third place while Bernard Cornwell’s character Richard Sharpe trumped him at second position.

The results of the survey were announced earlier today at the Cheltenham Literary festival. Apparently guests were served pink champagne by scantily-clad waiters. Interesting . . .

U.K. National Poetry Day has “fallen” today—it is apparently, like Easter and the Feast of Artemis, determined by the moon—and taken a theme: Heroes and Heroines. “Poetry celebrates heroes of all sorts from sporting heroes to mums and dads.” True, and heroes and heroines have long been the subject of poems, from Coleridge to Glück, although it’s not all as hunky-dory as the Poetry Day’s neon Web site might have you think.

It might also not quite reflect the poetic mood of the Brits, who just voted T. S. Eliot their favorite poet, a man whose verse cannot be said to celebrate “sporting heroes” or “mums and dads.” “Celebrate” might not be the first word that comes to mind, and Eliot not the first poet, but no matter. In a way, Eliot’s victory (over Donne, Yeats, and Thomas, among others—not a woman in the bunch) as the crowning jewel in Britain’s day of poetry makes up for the treatment he receives, year in and year out, in the U.S. equivalent. We get thirty full days to celebrate poetry, and because they happen to occur during Eliot’s cruellest month, his reward is having his most famous lines quoted out of context, over and again, by millions.

The 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction had been awarded to the odds on favourite Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall, a historical novel about the life of King Henry VIII’s advisor Thomas Cromwell.

Along with the prestige of winning the Man Booker Prize, Mantel will also receive a nice fat £50,000 cheque and of course a massive spike in book sales. Upon accepting the award she was quoted saying “I can tell you at this moment I am happily flying through the air,” and if previous Booker sales are any indication she won’t be flying economy.

The book has been selling well for several weeks, pushing prices of signed Wolf Hall copies to over $300, it seems that even if they we’re not placing bets with the bookies people were wagering that Mantel would bring home the prize.