Fiction: “Nerve” by Dick Francis

Note from the Future
I started writing this entry on Sunday, April 14. Being a Mainer, I have incredibly close ties with the wonderful city of Boston. I have family and friends who live in that city, and the idea of taking something as pure and fun as the Boston Marathon and turning it into a scene of terror and heartache is unconscionable. So, please just note that this entry may sound disjointed after about halfway through, and also note that Boston is like, the second-worst city to mess with (New York obviously being the first). We will find who did this and there will be no mercy, count on that.

Okay. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I’m currently experiencing a tinge of Book ADD. I was (and actually, still am) in the middle of reading two romance novels that weren’t truly holding their interest when I finished reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I quickly needed to find something else that would work as a Lunch Break Book. My morning pretty much went like this:

SHIT I need something to read! But none of my books are interesting me! What can — no Grisham — I — OH LET ME JUST GRAB THIS *yoink*

As I (think I’ve) said before, I have read all of Dick Francis’s mystery novels over the course of my life. Now I’m just re-reading them. Nerve was … my second? Third? I know I read Banker first, and Twice Shy was another early read … I know Nerve was high on that list, because I think it may be one of the first novels of his ever published? *scampers off to Wikipedia* Wow. According to that bastion of knowledge, Nerve was the second novel published. Yay for being right!

Nerve‘s jockey is Rob Finn. Finn’s new to the jockeying world, relatively, and pretty much makes his living riding horses that ‘real’ jockeys wouldn’t take. Now, I could digress into a whole conversation about ‘amateur jockeys’ versus ‘professional jockeys,’ but I’m not going to. Suffice to say that Finn is a professional jockey, as he gets paid for riding the horses, but he’s the low jockey on the winner’s pole. So instead of saying ‘real’ jockeys up there, maybe I should have said ‘better’ jockeys.

Anyway. Nerve begins when one of Finn’s jockey friends kills himself after a race. At the racetrack. In front of everyone. Yeah, it’s weird.

And then more friends get hit with bad luck: one guy loses his job because, honest to god, cars keep blocking the road he lives on with no way to get around them. (Oh, PS – this book was written in the early ’60s, before cell phones and actual roads in Britain. SORRY BRITS but you know it’s most likely true?) Another jockey gets super pissed and starts losing races.

As for Finn, he ends up picking up some races when another friend breaks his leg, and now Finn is a winner. Like, he’s got a hot streak going. Which only causes more anger coming from Angry!Jockey.

Until one day, Finn’s horse takes a fall and Finn becomes slightly concussed. Once he gets back on the literal horse, however, the horses don’t run as fast. They don’t respond to his prods or his kicks, and all of a sudden, Golden Boy Finn is now constantly coming in last.

I’m not going to give the mystery away, other than telling you that the losing of Finn’s nerve (Significance of Title, BOOM) is not a result of his concussion and something much more sinister. The book’s a good read, and it has clearly been a while since I read it, because I did not remember any of the plot.

Speaking of plots and things I didn’t remember, I should mention that there should be a trigger warning on this book, though (luckily) not for violence: Finn is in love with Joanna. Joanna is his first cousin – their fathers are brothers. I … I am not sure how that makes it less icky, but apparently (back in the sixties) it wasn’t considered incest, and it probably isn’t according to the definition of the word, but I don’t know if I moved my dictionary last year and I don’t want that search to be stored in my browser history. While the entire relationship throughout the book is platonic, it is an emotion that Finn (and Joanna) struggle with, so if that stuff weirds you out, I thought you should know. Because I care.

SPEAKING OF CARING. Now that I’ve sort of got your attention. In addition to That’s What She Read, I also run another blog, Movies Alaina’s Never Seen. And I’ve started thinking about ways to either make the blogs better, or to do different things with them… either way, I’m seeking feedback and I’d love as many people to participate as possible. So far I have two responses, and one of them is my sister. While her point is absolutely valid, one cannot analyze data and make cohesive decisions with only two points of data.

If you have a few seconds, please take my feedback survey. It’s only ten questions, and even if you don’t read either of these blogs routinely (or at all — maybe you found me doing a Google Image search or something), I’d greatly appreciate any and all possible feedback. Thanks so much!

Grade for Nerve: 3.5 stars

An Interruption: Take my survey!!

Hi everyone!  I haven’t stopped reading; in fact, I’ve got a review in the queue that I’m polishing before posting, so stay tuned!

But if you happened to turn in before I got off my ass and did that, here’s the thing.  I’ve been contemplating ideas on how to … not change, or improve, or even enhance the blog, but … I dunno, maybe something to switch things up?  Don’t get me wrong, I like the way the blog is formatted and its appearance (and WordPress?  Unless that Able theme can give me three columns and different colors for free, suck it, I’m keeping my Andreas09 theme!  So maybe stop asking?), but maybe adding something new to the mix won’t be a bad thing?

To be honest, this stems from when I remembered that the past two Aprils, I kind of maybe invited Alaina’s American History Month when I read the Roosevelt biography and also Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.  In an attempt to keep up the tradition I made on accident (much like watching Goldfinger on Christmas Eve for so long, or now saying “Scomps” whenever I make a toast), I went to Books-a-Million yesterday and found a bunch of actual history books so I don’t break it.

And I thought: what if I do a different theme every month?  Maybe May becomes Classic Literature month?  Not that that’s all I’m going to read in that month, but at least one book will fall under that category?

Or, what if I decide to read Game of Thrones a chapter at a time and write/Tweet about it?  (Much like Muggle Hustle – and if you haven’t read that, GO CATCH UP, THAT GUY’S THE SHIT)  Would people think it’s funny?  Would it just end up being a waste of time?  What if my friend Jen and I worked together and we turned Game of Thrones into a saucy puppet show?  WHAT ABOUT THAT?

So … I created a survey.  Yay!  Because I’m open to feedback, and this seems to be the best way to solicit it.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, the survey also covers my other blog, Movies Alaina’s Never Seen.  If you don’t frequent that site, that’s okay – but if you want to fill out the answers based on what you think it’s like, that’s not only also cool, but most likely also hilarious.)

So if you love me — and even if you only feel some fairly strong platonic feelings — hell, even if you hate me but don’t quite wish me dead, I’d greatly appreciate your feedback.  It doesn’t mean I’ll follow the advice (I’m quite like Alice in Wonderland in that regard), but it’ll make me think critically about the choices I make.

Plus, some of the answers to the questions are HILARIOUS.  You don’t want to miss out on that.

So … Please take my Feedback survey!

Thank you very much for participating.  And I promise, I’ll get back to my reviews posthaste.

Drama: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by Tennessee Williams

So if you’re a reader of Movies Alaina’s Never Seen, then hopefully you’re familiar with a subset of that website, Insomniac Theatre. That’s where I DVR a classic movie off of Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and live-blog it, just like I do when I watched the Star Wars movies and how I will eventually get fricking Shawshank Redemption off of my list. Because NO, I’m STILL not ready to watch that. I’m going to need a day off and oh so much wine to get through that one.OH GODDAMMIT. SERIOUSLY?! I DIDN’T EVEN PLAN THAT. *OR,* because I am currently at my parents’ house without my DVDs and/or Netflix, and the only options of what to watch is Due Date (on TBS, so all the swears are cleaned up), When Harry Met Sally, which is on Oxygen (or as I call it, The Commercial Channel [sorry Oprah]), or FUCKING SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION on AMC. I just — WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, CABLE?!

OH LOOK IT’S THE PLACE WHERE THE WARDEN SHOOTS TOMMY WHILE DUFRESNE IS IN THE HOLE I’VE ONLY SEEN THIS PART FIVE TIMES HOW CAN PEOPLE WATCH THIS MOVIE TO THE END EVERY DAMN TIME??

Uh, ANYWAY. I tape a lot of movies and have started watching them without blogging it, because not that many people care that I watch obscure Bette Davis movies? But this past month, I found myself taping a lot of movies that were adaptations of Tennessee Williams plays. I’d watched Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a couple of times, and I’d heard great things about Suddenly, Last Summer and The Night of the Iguana was supposed to be “hot stuff,” according to the Hayes Code. I was halfway through Iguana when I realized that both movies had been shown on the same day. Knowing that TCM sometimes does theme days, I muttered to myself, “What, is it Tennessee Williams’s birthday?”

When I Googled it — which is what the cool kids do nowadays — I learned that Tennessee Williams was born on March 26.

That’s my birthday.

Fuck.

I mean, seriously? I’ve always believed somewhat in the idea of past lives and regeneration and, I don’t know, mystical energies being passed down throughout the ages. Or something. And I’ve considered myself a ‘writer’ for at least the past six years, the lack of published works notwithstanding. So the new knowledge that I shared a birthday with one of the greatest American playwrights? I felt 10% proud, 10% inspired, and 80% failure for not getting anything done by the age of thirty.

So, in an effort to push the lever more towards ‘inspired,’ I dug out my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and read it.

Now, as I said before, I’ve watched the Newman-Taylor film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a couple of times. And I enjoy it every time I watch it. I love Elizabeth Taylor, so much so that I actually sat through Liz and Dick to see how bad it was (Poor LiLo; I just can’t help but feel for that kid). But knowing what I know about the Hayes Code and how film adaptations tended to water down what actually happened in the stage versions, I was excited to see what the differences would be between the film adaptation and the original, written, staged edition.

The plot is, obviously, the same: Maggie and her husband, Brick, are visiting at Brick’s childhood home to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. Neither Maggie nor Brick want to be there; Brick is finding his solace in a bottle, after going out at three a.m. to run some hurdles in an effort of nostalgia (resulting in a broken leg), and Maggie is trying to turn Brick’s attention from the bottle to her body. Brick’s brother Gooper (not making that up) and Gooper’s wife Mae are rubbing their fertility in Maggie’s face (although not literally; taken literally, that’s incredibly gross). Family is very important to the Pollitts, and Mae and Gooper have five kids to Brick and Maggie’s zero. Mae is nearly proud to learn that Brick is not sharing Maggie’s bed, and there’s an insinuation that he may have been in love with his high school pal, Skipper, but that is cleared up as the play goes along.

And that’s all I’m going to say about the plot. The play is definitely something worth reading – and I’ll continue talking about that in a minute. But plays are not meant to be read; plays are meant to be performed, and plays are meant to be watched. So if you’re intrigued as to how the play ends and who ends up with whom and if people are redeemed and if there’s a happy ending, check your local theater times to see if there’s a company in your area putting it on. If not, find a copy of the Newman/Taylor version. In all honesty, not a lot changed thanks to the Hayes Code; just references and language. It’s not like the movie’s ending is a complete 180 from the original theatrical version. I highly recommend the film version, and I’m putting a lot of faith in theatre companies today when I say that I hope the company putting it on in your neighborhood will do the play justice. But it should be good.

To get to the whole “reading” part of it: for me, it’s both a different experience and yet not for me to read a play. It’s different because I haven’t read one in a very long time, and I’ve never reviewed a play that I’ve read and not seen performed live. The not part comes in because in high school and college I acted in plays, and my last year at college I took Playwriting, so I know the mechanics of writing a play for the stage. But it has been at least … oh shit, when did I write — no wait, Dead Man’s Chest came out in 2006, so it has been seven years since I’ve written my last play.

Okay, I just made myself a little sad.

The reason Dead Man’s Chest and 2006 are important markers for my own History of Playwriting is because that’s the year I went to Springfield, MA to watch Dead Man’s Chest with my good friend Sarah, and on the ride back to her house we discussed her coming up to my former place of business dressed as a pirate because it would be hilarious to confuse my co-workers (now that I’ve been out of there and it won’t have any effect on my career, I used to work at L.L. Bean and there is a trout pond in one of the lobbies; imagine a pirate loitering around that for a day), and I wrote what I now consider to be a cross between The West Wing and Waiting for Godot with a soupcon of Monty Python thrown in entitled The Pirate in the Lobby. And that’s the last play I ever wrote. *sad*

So I wasn’t unfamiliar with the form. What I didn’t know and truly appreciate right now is that Tennessee Williams loved stage directions. I’ve had different philosophies about that and struggled with it in my own writing — too much authorial intent in the stage directions won’t always allow the actor to develop the character through his/her own methods; too little and the playwright might not see his/her play staged with the same undertones he was looking for. The biggest piece of advice my Playwriting professor gave us was that once the script was complete and someone wanted to direct it, we as the writer needed to step back. Our piece was out in the world now, out there for others to interpret. The most stressful stagings of plays came when the playwright was whispering in the director’s ear. Lots of little egos — oh shit, that’s a quote from something that I can’t quite recall.

The line that I … felt most, for lack of a better term, was in the Notes for the Designer. Mr. Williams describes how he wants the set designed and the lighting and the setup and all of that, and he is very explicit that the duration of the play takes exactly as long as the time spent on-stage. That may not seem important or significant, but it adds a sense of urgency to the proceedings. Plays very rarely take place in ‘real time.’ And think about your daily life: pick an event that happened with your family. Would it be interesting enough to hold the attention of an audience for two-plus hours, encompassing family drama, mystery, sex, and the all-powerful struggle between life and death?

And that is why Tennessee Williams is an American hero and great man of letters. And why I am feeling super inadequate and yet determined in the wake reading this play.

Grade for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: 4 stars