Month: March 2005

Reader David C. alerts us to a section of the German cultural magazine Perlentaucher‘s English-language site that’s devoted to this season’s books by Arab authors.

Although I like Clint Eastwood as much as the next person, I thought Million Dollar Baby was dreadful (far inferior to an another boxing movie Girl Fight, for instance) and so I quite agree with Tim Goodman’s assessment of the script by Paul Haggis.

Prior to the gimmick that swung the movie, audiences already had to endure some hoary old dramatic devices. First, Clint Eastwood (best director winner; best actor nominee) as the curmudgeonly old trainer who never took a boxer to the title. He’s a good man who worries about his fighters like family, but he’s cheated of his best and rightful shot. Then Morgan Freeman (best supporting actor winner) as the wise ex-fighter who got his title chance prematurely (making him the yin to Eastwood’s yang) but has paid for it the rest of his life. Yet his love for the sweet science keeps him living in the gym on a rickety bed, cleaning up spit.

Their lives change when they meet Swank (best actress winner), the heart- of-gold waitress just trying to live the dream. Of course she’s from the South. Of course her family is awful trailer trash. Of course she calls the Eastwood character “boss.” He’s the father she never had. She’s the daughter who loves him — instead of the one sending his letters back.

Perhaps it’s a testament to the acting of this trio that audiences get as far as they do without a cynical shake of the head. The aforementioned cliches are almost acceptable until the manipulative shenanigans in the ring.

And–might I add–those manipulative shenanigans were a chick version of the one used in Rocky, in which another (white) boxer fights a (black) boxer who plays dirty.

Sam Lipsyte’s Home Land has won the first annual Believer award. The award announcement raves

A Niagara of verbiage-droll, profane, raucous, sad-provides the energy for a social satire so merciless and heartfelt that it inspires in the reader a weird faith. Family life and the inescapable hierarchy of school are Home Land’s fattest targets, but the author’s packing blunderbuss, playfully blasting recovered memories, neo-sincere modern rock, academic plagiarism, and internet fetish porn. Lipsyte seamlessly-and bravely-grafts the most exquisitely ornate sentences to an overall vibe that’s as intimate as conversation. You will not laugh as much this year, even as you look down at the void that Lipsyte’s words so gorgeously, nervously cross.

I managed to miss this, somehow: Mohamed Choukri’s cult classic, Al-Khobz Al-Hafi (For Bread Alone) has been made into a movie, starring none other than the enormously talented Said Taghmaoui (if you don’t know Taghmaoui, you’ll probably remember him for his role as Captain Said in David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and as the Beur youth in Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, among many others.) Those not familiar with Choukri get a little background from the Morocco Times:

Born during a famine in the Rif mountains, Choukri moved with his family to Tangier. His childhood was spent in abject poverty; eight of his brothers and sisters died of malnutrition or neglect. During his adolescence, Choukri worked for a time as servant to a French family.

Following one of many family disputes, he left the house at the age of 11, embracing a life of homelessness and petty crime. He then returned to Tangier, where he experienced the violence of the 1952 independence riots. These early experiences provided him with material for his first and most famous book, “Al-Khubz Al-Hafi” (For Bread Alone) written in 1972 but not published in Arabic until 1982.

At the age of 20, he decided to learn to read and write classical Arabic – a decision that transformed his life. After mastering the language, he became a teacher and writer, finally being awarded the chair of Arabic Literature at Ibn Batuta College in Tangier. Choukri died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 64.

I once met Said Taghmaoui, when he was at the Sundance Film Festival to promote Hideous Kinky, in which he co-starred with Kate Winslet. (The movie is based on Esther Freud’s novel by the same name.) He was surprised to see another Moroccan in Park City, Utah, shook my hand enthusiastically, and was extremely charming. Doesn’t hurt that he’s got so much talent. I do look forward to seeing the movie, if it ever comes out in the States.

Azadeh Moaveni is interviewed over at MWU! about her new book, Lipstick Jihad, which, you guessed it, has a veiled woman on the cover. At least this one’s talking on her cell phone though, instead of looking frightfully and submissively at the camera. (I kid, Azadeh, I kid.)

MWU!: In the past decade, several books have been published by either Western journalists or Iranian-Americans about their experiences in Iran. What would you say distinguishes your memoir?
Moaveni: It’s an exciting time to be an Iranian writing about Iran because there is so much to write about. Azar Nafisi’s book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, has had a tremendous impact on the interest in the topic. Also, many of these accounts do not cover much the developments after 1997. My book picks up where others have left off. The election of President Khatami created a dramatic opening in debate which changed the Islamic Republic from below. There was a convergence of the election with the maturing of a post-Revolution generation huge in number, fearless of authority, informed about politics and engaged politically. This youth became the cultural force for changing Iran from below.

Moaveni appears on March 4th in NYC, where you can listen to her read from her memoir.

The latest in Robert Birnbaum’s interviews is with Robert McCrum. They talk about “Scotish roots, the Battle of
Culloden, his stroke and the aftermath, his career arc, why he likes PG Wodehouse, how he came to write a biography of Wodehouse, writer’s societies, fantasy literary dinner parties, short biographies, Glenn Baxter, Jonathan Ames’s “Wake Up Sir!”, The Observer, recent Nobel Prize winners, “facts too good to check”, London, Martin Amis, reading Proust, Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, VS Naipul, The New York Times, and Nick Hornby” among other things.