"We Had More Than Any Two People In The World. And Then We Fell Down. First You, And Then Me. Yes, It Makes It Even. We're Down Here Together. But We're Not Up High Any More. Our Beautiful Mountain Is Gone."

About three quarters of the way through The Postman Always Rings Twice, I found myself wondering what the title of the book was intended to mean. Because there was absolutely no mail delivery in site anywhere in this novel. 

And while clocking in at a short 116 pages, man, was there a lot of story jam packed in there. The book tells the story of Frank, a vagabond who finds himself at a diner in southern California, where he is offered a job by Nick Papadakis (referred to throughout the novel as "the Greek"), which he accepts and after seeing the Greek's wife, Cora, in the kitchen, he immediately lusts for her. Turns out, Cora isn't all that happy in her marriage, and takes an immediately liking to Frank as well (I use the term "liking" loosely, as they pretty much just start bangin right off the bat). And so the 2 of them hide their relationship from the Greek and make plans to murder him, which goes awry (both times). 

The writing in this novel is terse and almost like gunfire. It gets very much to the point but still has a way of alluding to events and feelings that the characters are having in a very successful way. The relationship between Frank and Cora is very intense, violent, and impulsive, which is also how the writing felt. 

My initial thought of the meaning of the title was how it relates to the events in the novel...that you may not get away with something on the second try. But after slightly more research (ok, Wikipedia research), James M. Cain indicated in a conversation with screenwriter Vincent Lawrence that the title referred to the anxiety he felt waiting to hear back from publishers about his submitted manuscripts and that the postman would ring twice when he had news. After Cain discussed it in more detail, he decided that the phrase was appropriate to describe Frank's situation by the end of the novel: that he may have avoided fate the first time, but not the second. So I guess I wasn't all that far off in my assumption. And I love the seeming obscurity of the title in regards to the content of the story. I am a fan of things that make you think and come to your own conclusions, which this certainly did. 

I haven't seen either of the 2 film versions of the novel (the 1946 version with Lana Turner and John Garfield or the 1981 version with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, which I hear has some pretty intense sex scenes, which fits in pretty well with how it was described in the novel), but definitely would like to see one, if not both. James M. Cain went on to write Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce, both of which became hit films and he became well known as a crime noir writer, although it sounds like he wasn't very fond of any kind of label being ascribed to his writing. 

All in all, this was a quick and intense read, one that I appreciated very much. It's intriguing to me to see writers who can do so much with so few words, versus some of the other writers I've come across recently (I'm looking at you James Joyce and Gertrude Stein). 

Up next is Light in August by William Faulkner. I've never read anything by Faulkner so I have no idea what to expect. Wish me luck. 

219 to go. Happy St. Patty's Day!

"He Existed. Not Many People In The World Knew How To, Even If They Had The Money."

I have never seen the film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley, although I was aware that the different characters were played by Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, so the entire time I was reading the book, I pictured all of them as the characters. Which normally I'm not a fan of (I like to create my own vision of who they are and what they look like based on the author's description, not based on a casting director's preference), but in this case, I kind of appreciated it. Although Gwyneth Paltrow felt a little miscast to me, but I'll wait to firm up that opinion until I actually see it. Which I'm very much looking forward to. Because I'm certain that after seeing the movie (and reading the book), I'm going to want to ditch it all and go live on the Italian seashore with sojourns up to Rome and Venice. And live like a rich American ex-pat (which I am most decidedly, not). 

I won't give a lengthy recap of the book, but the main gist of the story is that Tom Ripley is a bit of a hustler in New York and is given the opportunity by a rich businessman to go find his son, Dickie Greenleaf, in Italy and try to convince him to return to the US to be around for his sick mother and to eventually take over his shipping business. But once in Italy, Tom develops a significant attachment (love?) for Dickie and the two form a fast, tight friendship. But the situation changes, and Tom makes a decision that he would prefer to continue his adventures in Italy and Europe as the person in Dickie that he idolizes. 

The portrait of Tom Ripley is an excellent one. Of an insecure, petulant person who craves being accepted. So moments when people even present a hint of making fun of him or seeing him as a lesser person than he sees himself cause him to flip the switch in his mind and lose it emotionally, usually acting out in a violent way. He was a very convincing sociopath who, for the most part, didn't seem like a sociopath. And oddly, I kind of found myself rooting for him; rooting for him to "get away with it". And it kind of ruined the suspense of the ending for me knowing that there were 4 books written by Patricia Highsmith about Tom Ripley's "adventures". So sorry for possibly having ruined the ending for you too. 

I loved having this book in the mix. I haven't read a good suspenseful type murder book in a while, particularly one that was coupled with such a  solid portrait of the villain/main character and told from his point of view. I'd highly recommend it, particularly if you haven't seen the movie and don't know much about the book (as I did); I think I enjoyed it more this way. But I cannot wait to see the movie. 

The next book I've already started on is The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Similar to The Talented Mr. Ripley, I'm aware that this is a movie with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, and so I find myself picturing them in the 2 main roles, but beyond that, I don't know anything about the movie or storyline. This is a pretty short book so I'm guessing I'll be through it by the end of the weekend. Knocking books off the lists like a boss! 

220 to go. 

Side note: so I am painfully aware that in just over 7 short months, I will be hitting my 40th birthday. And while the original intent of this blog was to read all of these books by my 40th birthday, I have realized perhaps that I didn't fully appreciate the size of the task when I first started doing this in 2012. Because across the lists, which the duplicates removed, there are 326 books, and when I stared in 2012, I had already read 72. So yes, in just less than 7 years, I've only read 34 books...just slightly short of the 254 that I needed to read. My second post over on this blog pointed out how feasible this would likely not be (I would have needed to average about 3 books per month), so I'm not surprised that this didn't happen. In all fairness, I have been mixing in other non-list books, which brings my total read in 79 months to 42 books. So rather than 2 books/month, I'm averaging closer to 2 months/book. I hope to up this in the coming days, but in the meantime, I'll just keep moving that bar farther out. We'll reassess once the dreaded 4-0 crashes down on my head. 

Happy Saturday!