“White Oleander” And Other Films From Novels

Not too long ago I talked to you about a depressing but wonderful book entitled White Oleander. Like many best selling novels, this one was recently made into a movie. Today, I want to say a few things about this particular novel adaptation, but more importantly, about the whole practice of adapting novels to film, and also a bit about how one ought to judge such efforts.

First, take a moment and count up what you would take to be genuinely successful novel to movie adaptations. I bet it didn’t take long, and I bet you didn’t have to use both hands. Indeed, some of you may still be trying to count enough even for the first hand. The very idea of making a movie from what has been a successful novel is a conservative one; Hollywood hates taking real risks. American movie makers would rather do Rocky 14 or Halloween 6 than risk a good script with a good cast that has not yet been stamped with the mass marketing seal of approval.

Sometimes old novels, especially if they are about the rich, can be made into visually sumptuous film feasts in which all the marvels of expensive contemporary cinematic techniques can be used to visually stupefy the audience. I have in mind here some of the more or less successful adaptations of Henry James and Edith Wharton novels, all of which could be gathered together into a “Lives of the rich and famous” genre. And while I don’t intend simply to pan such efforts, anyone who has read, for example, the complex and intricate House of Mirth by Edith Wharton or the exquisitely detailed The Golden Bowl by Henry James will realize immediately how the movie adaptations failed in almost all ways to do justice to the novels. This was not simply a failing of the particular movie makers; such complete and phenomenologically rich novels cannot be condensed to the screen without losing most of what was excellent in the books. Some of the eight-to-ten hour public television serializing of novels has done a better job of capturing the original complexity of the books, but it is simply not possible in the ninety to one hundred twenty minutes allowed to mainstream movies.

Indeed, realizing how much novels depend on the reader being able to ‘see’ inside the heads of characters, characters who can be both actor and commentator in key scenes, and how novels can sometimes ‘play’ the same scenes several times through the prismatic viewing screens of different characters, one can see the utter audacity of trying to render such complex material in a few visual scenes. How long does it take to read a good novel? How much of what makes the novel a good one is simply extraneous to what might be called the core of the novel? My answer is, “Not much.” The goodness, the excellence, is in the detail

I used the word ‘render’ quite intentionally; think of that word in its sense of reducing to essence or boiling down, clarifying. Now, were films really able to render novels in the sense of boiling down or clarifying, reducing to their essences, that would be a profound and noble undertaking indeed. But novels, at least really good ones, are not meant to be boiled down, to be stripped to their essence. Indeed, it they are really good novels, then their goodness will dwell in their detail, in their complexity, in their life-likeness. In novels, we can sometimes see the development of a character over months, even years, occasionally even over a lifetime. I tend to think that even in the case of novels, the best ones cover relatively short periods of time with only general hints of past and future. But if this is true of novels, it seems to be to be even more true of successful films. Films that cover a day, a week, a month, a year can be much ‘fuller’ and more life-like than those that attempt to cover decades, lifetimes.

But suppose we simply admit (what seems to be true) that films cannot provide the character richness and development possible in novels, and that it is an unfair expectation that they do so. Certainly, many film buffs would insist that films must be judged on their own merits—on how well they do what they can do rather than on how they fail to do what they cannot. How, then, ought we to view and judge films that are adapted from novels?

I suppose what we ought to do first (in our attempt to be fair) is to try to ‘forget’ the novel when we go to see the movie. If we are forever comparing the film to the book, we will find the film wanting in so many ways. Similarly, I want to claim that there are films that are successful only because the film-makers depend on an audience who watches the movie simply as an extension or visual addition to a story-line they already know and love, to a book already read. In such cases, the movie does not have to tell the whole story; the audience will fill in the missed scenes, the internal dialogue, the unseen pasts and futures. (Think for a moment of the Harry Potter books and movies, or even of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings).

Better, I want to claim, to try out films on those who have not read the book. See if much of the important ‘message’ of the novel comes through; see if the characters seem full and believable to these ‘innocent’ viewers. If the film is a really good one, then it should be able to stand on its own. Perhaps it will not be as profound or as rich as the novel, but it will be complete and comprehensible as far as it goes. If films pass this test, then they are good films whether or not they live up to the novels from which they are adapted.

Even with these generous criteria, my list of successful movies adapted from novels does not increase that much, but it at least doubles, probably triples. And, getting finally to the movie “White Oleander,” I would have to say that the movie succeeds as a statement that stands alone, and even further, that it does quite a good job of capturing at least some of what was so haunting and important about the book.

I was fully prepared not to like this movie, and this was perhaps because I liked the novel so much and was so skeptical about the very possibility of rendering it in film. Michelle Pfeiffer is simply superb as the beautiful but icy and self-absorbed mother, a bit too sweet and Michelle Pfeifferish in the first few scenes, but she grows into the hard bitten and icily beautiful character described in the novel. Alison Lohman, who has to play a girl of about thirteen who develops slowly into a scarred and world-wise eighteen year old, does a very good job, especially if she is not compared to the much more complex and conflicted girl, Astrid, in the novel on whom her character is based. Before seeing the movie, I winced at the choices of actresses to play other characters (e.g., Renee Zellweger as the lonely and reclusive actress and foster mother, Claire), but in fact, they all did very well, again, especially if not compared to the naturally richer and more complex characters in the novel.

Of course, so much of the novel is left out; two of the five foster-care situations faced by the young Astrid are simply skipped over. Each omission takes away, I think, from the believability and development of her character, and also from the progressive disintegration of her relationship with her mother. This makes the ending of the movie less poignant and less fitting with the whole. And an even more serious failing is in the decision by the film-makers not to include more of the early relationship between the mother and daughter, which would in turn have provided more context for the crime at the center of the movie and a much fuller picture of the mother. This omission they try to make up for in a few flashbacks, but I know, had I not read the book, I would find the flashbacks more confusing than illuminating and the crime less believable than it is in the book.

So, am I recommending that you see the movie? Yes, and especially if seeing the movie might lead you back to the book. Perhaps that will also put you in a good position to decide on my criteria for judging novel adaptations.

The Lifetime Writings of Iris Murdoch

This morning I want to depart from my normal course of reviewing a current novel and, instead, talk to you about the lifetime writings of Iris Murdoch. A few weeks ago, Jan Haaken and I talked to you a bit about the movie, “Iris”; while we were both somewhat disappointed with the movie, we ended by agreeing that, at least, the popularity of the movie might get some people to actually read Murdoch and might serve as well to slow her disappearance from the public mind. Shortly after our review, I was urged by a number of friends to write some sort of editorial about Murdoch’s philosophy as an attempt to correct the impressions made by the movie as well as simply to provide some overview of her work that was woefully lacking in the movie. Although the movie has come and gone, it still seems appropriate to try to say something of the importance of Murdoch.

If the movie were all one had to go on in trying to decide what Murdoch was about, her work would seem pretty vacuous indeed. Let’s face it, though Judy Dench did a great job of portraying the older Murdoch, the movie was more about Kate Winslett’s bare breasts than about Iris Murdoch’s philosophy. As Jan remarked to me (and mentioned in our joint review), all we learn about Murdoch in the movie is some vague claim that we ought to be free along with an endorsement for free love. Neither does any justice to Murdoch’s views. Indeed, one of her major disagreements with both Anglo-American, analytic philosophers and Continental, existentialist philosophers, centers on their endorsement of free will and duty as central to morality. While Murdoch sees little agreement between these two warring traditions, she insists that analytic philosophers have centered morality on the concept of duty, and the moral person is the one who, often heroically, uses leaps of will (against natural inclination) to do their duty, to do the right thing. Existentialists, while not thinking much of the concept of duty, nevertheless insist that freedom is everything; indeed, Sartre in his characteristic hyperbolic way, insists that he is nothing but his freedom. Remember his little shibboleth that is supposed to unlock the meaning of existentialism? Existence precedes essence; we (as human beings) have no essence, but instead we create our essence by our acts of choice. You are what you choose; you are what you do.

Murdoch, although sympathetic to Sartre and to his attempt to really make philosophy count in everyday life, to live his philosophy, nevertheless takes him to task for his claims about what she calls the much vaunted freedom of the will. Murdoch insists that the works of Marx and Freud have altered the intellectual landscape forever, and that it is not free will (or even the concept of duty) that is central to morality. Indeed, we are determined by our natures to be selfish; we are self-interested naturally, though not necessarily. We can (to some small extent) overcome our natural tendencies to see everything through the veil of our selfish cares and concerns, but this occurs (when it does occur at all) not through heroic acts of will in dramatic moments of decision, but, rather, via the painfully slow and incremental establishing of habits of really looking at others—seeing them not through the veil of our cares and concerns but as they really are. Morality, properly understood, is simply truth applied to ethics; i.e., seeing the real needs of others and acting on those needs. Thus, it is neither will nor duty that is central to ethics, but the good. Indeed, the title of one of her most famous and most important philosophical essays is “The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts”.

Murdoch’s moral philosophy is not unique to her, nor is it a complex or completely worked out view. To put is simply: Murdoch believes that good is real (it is not, as Sartre would claim, created by choice or by the will); it is not relative to the individual (or tribe, or culture). The problem with much of analytic philosophy (according to Murdoch) is that while it correctly rejects Sartrean (and similar) attempts to place value in the subject (to make it subjective and relative), it attempts to come up with a successful analysis of good; i.e., to come up with some property or set of properties that all good things share and by virtue of which they are good. Murdoch, agreeing with an Oxford philosopher famous to academic philosophers though not to others, G.E. Moore, insists that while good is real, is an objective feature of the universe, it is simple and unanalyzable. There is no property that all good things share except their goodness.

So, good is real; the concept of good is central in ethics, and people come to be good not by heroic acts of will, but by the day to day accretion of the habit of attending to others. But why write novels instead of simply writing good, clear, discursive essay if one wants to put forward this theory of morality? Well, Murdoch believes that since good is not analyzable, cannot be broken down or analyzed further, the best that we can do to portray good is by pointing to it. Murdoch supposes herself to be agreeing with Plato in claiming that metaphor is not simply a useful tool in displaying good, but a necessary one. She reminds her readers that Plato often uses the metaphor of the sun when speaking of good, and invites us to again think about his allegory of the cave. Plato, usually so successful in analyzing difficult and pivotal concepts, seems here to resort to metaphor. Likewise, Murdoch, in her novels, intends to show us good in the concrete acts of characters immersed in life. She intends also to show us, clearly and convincingly, the myriad ways in which we are blinded by self, the ways in which not only the will to power can lead to self-absorption (and consequently moral blindness), but many other things that are not normally seen as selfish. For example, guilt can, easily and completely, return the gaze to the self, and though guilt may be understandable, may even seem morally required, guilt rarely if ever leads us to good. Resentment, grief, guilt, even what gets called love (especially of the romantic and sexual variety) are ways of being self-absorbed, and thus are also ways of going wrong, of not being good.

Murdoch writes novels not to take the place of discursive essay, and indeed insists that discursive essay has its part to play in doing ethics. She simply thinks that it is not enough, especially if the attempt is not simply to talk about morality but to make people better, to help them to really see. Novels concretize, put into context, good acts and good people, but even more clearly, they show us how people ‘go bad’, how and why they usually miss the mark . It is one thing to say that deceit leads to deceit, that lies accrue and gather and destroy, it is quite another to show how this happens. One simple lie, often enough told to ‘spare’ another some unpleasant truth, begins an entire network of lies and obfuscation. In one of her best novels, A Fairly Honorable Defeat, there is a good and successful homosexual relationship between two men who rank among the best of Murdoch’s characters (characters who are so often dark and selfish and deceitful); the relationship is one of very few I can think of in her novels that seems to be a really good and mutually caring, mutually seeing one. But a skillful enchanter (and there are so many skillful enchanters in Murdoch’s novels) decides, just for the fun of it, to test this relationship, and he does it by the simply machination of getting Simon (the younger and more naive of the lovers) to cover a possibly embarrassing admission with a lie. The reader has to stand by in horror as a series of cover-up lies ensues; no one horrible in itself, but deceit (Murdoch shows us) destroys trust and intimacy.

But I am trying to do too much here too fast. Let me end by saying simply that you ought sometime to pick up an Iris Murdoch novel, and I’m tempted to say that any one will do. Read through it expecting it to say something important, expecting it not to simply be pessimistic or simply mocking the human condition. In fact, pick up one of her essays on ethics (say from the excellent collection “Existentialists and Mystics”), and read what she has to say about morality. And then read another of her novels, or read the same novel again. I think you will see that Murdoch is getting at essential truths about the human condition, and that she is doing so with the intention of making us better, making us wiser. Perhaps you will even come to agree with me that Murdoch is a very good ethicist, and one of the most important novelists of the century.

Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg

I want to talk to you this morning about another little city book. I mean by that expression, a book short enough and engaging enough to be read by busy city workers in a few days rather than a few weeks or months. I have talked about this author before, Elizabeth Berg. The title of the little book I am reviewing today is Range of Motion.

As I have mentioned before, I prefer talking to you about books that are current to me and about us, here, now. Were this not my guiding principle, I may not have discussed this book today, because I do not think it is a great book, and there are plenty of great books I might have chosen instead. Still, I think the underlying message of this book is an important one, and the author is so emotionally astute that one always gets considerable insights that are simply asides to the main story.

Iris Murdoch, one of the truly great novelists and philosophers of the last half of the 20th century likes to remind us over and over that the world is chancy and huge and that there is no external telos—no human independent purpose for human existence. As maddening as it can be for a reader, Murdoch often takes us through some long and painful development of a character, brings that character very close to some sort of world-shaking realization, some momentous reconciliation, and then a page or two later, allows our emerging hero to die due to a fall on the ice, a traffic accident, or some other whim of chance. And while the reader may be crushed by the chance turn of events, and mad at the author for letting it happen, Murdoch’s intentions are very deliberate; she wants her novels to mirror life, and life is full of chance turns, of what is so often called luck. As the current (and I think excellent movie) “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” reminds us, if we do not believe in luck, that is often enough simply an indication that we are experiencing a run of good luck, and we have become so used to it that we think somehow we have earned it, that we deserve it, that it is meant to be. But nothing is meant to be, and the test of our characters will occur when our luck changes, when we are faced with some sudden illness or death of a loved one.

Range of Motion is about just such a chance event. A young couple with two young children who, unlike many of us, is not only happy but aware of their happiness and of their luck in love has it all tumble down in a moment. The husband is struck by ice falling off of a roof, and from that moment, the lives of all four change drastically. In a coma that it seems unlikely he will ever awake from, his wife, Lainey, visits him daily, first in the hospital, and then in a long-care nursing home, trying to bring to him each day some part of his life that might miraculously awaken him from his long sleep. Most of the staff at the nursing home laugh at her feeble efforts; they have seen too many cases of this sort, watched confidence change to hope, hope to despair.

On the jacket of this book there is a review that calls it the love story of the year, and I suppose one could see it that way. But I doubt that is Berg’s intention. Yes, Lainey loves her husband, Jay, and continues to love him even as he lies silent and helpless. But she also wonders if she should go on hoping, if she should keep her children hoping. Is it a favor to them to keep her doubts to herself? Shouldn’t she at least attempt to start some new life, if not for herself, then for her children? And how could this have happened, to her, to them? How could she have allowed it, how could he have deserted them? And on and on with the unanswerable questions, while in her lucid moments, she sees it for what it is, simple chance. She and her children do not deserve the loss any more than they deserved the happiness that had before.

Although I have no way of knowing whether Berg has ever read Murdoch, one could easily believe that she has taken this theme of the huge and chancy world laid out by Murdoch and decided to do a kind of phenomenology of luck, show just how chance plays itself out in the lived-life of some particular family. This particular story reminding us all as readers not to be smug, not to suppose so quickly or so easily that those who are less fortunate somehow deserve their misfortune, that they have somehow fallen from grace. Our protection, our safety-net, is an illusion; we are only a chunk of ice, a traffic accident, a virus away from pain and death and hopeless despair.

Of course, I have no intention of giving away any of the particulars of the story, and even in what I quote from the book, I will quite intentionally omit any parts that give away the outcome. But don’t expect a good outcome, either in your own life or in the lives of these characters. Chance is real, destiny is an illusion. But let me have Lainey (and I am supposing Berg) speak for herself in the Epilogue:

I am living on a planet where the silk dresses of Renaissance women rustled, where people died in plagues, where Mozart sat to play, where sap runs in the spring, where children are caught in crossfire, where gold glints from rock, where religion shines its light only to lose its way, where people stop to reach a hand to help each other to cross, where much is known about the life of the ant, where [gifts are as accidental as losses], where the star called sun shows itself differently at every hour, where people get so bruised and confused they kill each other, where baobabs grow into impossible shapes with trunks that tell stories to hands, where rivers wind wide and green with terrible hidden currents, where you rise in the morning and feel your own arms with your own hands, checking yourself, where lovers’ hearts swell with the certain knowledge that only they are the ones, where viruses are seen under the insistent eye of the microscope and the birth of stars is witnessed through the lens of the telescope, where caterpillars crawl and skyscrapers are erected because of the blue line on the blueprint--I am living here on this planet, it is my time to have my legs walk the earth. ... I am saying that all of this, all of this, all of these things are the telling songs of the wider life, and I am listening with gratitude, and I am listening for as long as I can, and I am listening with all of my might.