Aperto, Chiuso.

Aperto, chiuso translated from Italian to English means, "open, close." This was the title and theme of Updikes short story about two American tourist in Italy. The story revolves around George and his thoughts while touring Italy with his third wife, Vivian. Vivian was his mistress during his 2nd marriage, and his new wife. They travel around in a rented fiat, which is quickly running out of gas. This, and George's wild driving causes Vivian to be constantly nervous and frantic. They visit churches and memorials during their trip, but George's desire for other women becomes a strong theme in the story. Vivian is aware of his thoughts but doesn't voice it until the end of the story.
I selected this story hoping that more Italian phrases and words would appear, and they did. I know a good amount of Italian and Updike does an excellent job of using the foreign language to express confusion for George and Vivian. They are constantly trying to understand the workings of Italian culture and run into problems due to their lake of knowledge. Knowing what these words mean made the story comical because George incorrectly translates almost everything.
Updikes other stories were more interesting and this one kinda let me down. He does reference Hemmingway and other famous authors during the story, which further expresses his intelligence, but I felt like the story didn't convey the level of emotions and feelings his other work had. I still like Updikes writing, but this story didn't live up to my expectations.

Falling Dog

Donald Barthelme is without a doubt the strangest author I have ever encountered. His writing is very sporadic and weird. The story is about a dog who jumps out of a window and lands on a man. The man, who is never given a name, then tries to return the dog to its owner. While the story seems normal, it is written in a James Joyce stream-of-conscience style. He is constantly asking himself what the dog is thinking or how does a dog pass judgement on people. The characters are also weird because they are so many, and they are only in the story for brief periods. They're relevance is almost meaningless, and he incorporates strange rants, probably derived from the authors own issues. Little meaningless poems litter his writing, and drive the reader away from the story. It was difficult to read, and made me want to put the book down. I really didn't like the story, and after finishing it, I tried to read another one of his short stories. I was met again with unorganized writing that may or may not explain Barthelme's personal life.
Barthelme also uses homophobic language by referring to people things as "gay" or "flaming." I found this to not only be offending, but entirely unnecessary. While these words are still thrown around in film, literature, and common life, the use of them was blatantly intentional and insulting. While he may have a cult following, I am definitely not interested in reading anymore of his material.

John Updike: Wildlife

Updikes short story, "Wildlife" is about a man returning to his home town to visit his son. Since he had left 10 years ago, the town had gone down-hill. The forest is growing in, and restricting the town. The deer have become a huge problem to the citizens too. If they aren't eating from the people's gardens, they are spreading Lyme disease from the infected ticks they are carrying. The main character, Ferris, discusses how much the town has changed, but is glad to be "greeted by the familiar proportions of the buildings, the erratic layout of the streets, and unexpected souvenirs of his past."
The story is strange because Ferris offers very little emotion about the changes. The tennis court he once worked so hard on, is now littered with trash and the once pristine fences are laced with ivy. The people of the town, and Ferris' former wife have all become hippies. They don't want to kill the deer even though they are a huge problem, and don't want to cut down or remove and plants growing. Only at the end of the story does Ferris show any real emotion. He discovers symptoms of Lyme disease on his son, and quickly rushes him off to the hospital.
It was a nice story, not too exciting, but well written and enjoyable. I will be reading more of Updikes material.

The Wind is Pink

"The Sky is Gray" is a strange short story about a eight year old Louisiana boy names James. It has a huge underlying theme of pride, but hints on faith, courage and the necessity of civil rights action. James's father is gone, off to the army, which leaves James in charge as the eldest male. He is taught not to cry or complain or ask for any help. He has to set an example for his younger siblings. His whole family knows that he has a tooth ache, but he fights off going to the dentist because his family has no money. During his trip downtown, a fight breaks out in the dentists' office. It is an argument over faith verses reality. One young man open admits his loss of faith, but declares that people must fight the injustice in the county. He questions why grass is called green and not black, and states that the wind is pink. His whole defense is that the white man established the rules of words, and they are used to keep blacks down. It seems strange now, but during the civil rights movement, I can understand the radical thoughts of a young black man.

Tomorrow the movie

While Tomorrow was not my favorite movie, it was slightly entertaining. The movie did not keep to the script, but elaborated on Jackson Fentry's life. I personally liked the other part of the story better. I enjoyed how the attorney did some detective work on Fentry to figure out why he had stalemated the case. Faulkner did a good job of bringing everything together in the end, and I did not feel the same way with the movie. The court case seemed to be undermined by Fentry's mundane life.
The attorney barely makes it into the movie, and his nephew, who narrates Faulkner's version, is non-existent. The only really solid resemblance is when Sarah's brothers come to take away Jackson and Longstreet. I remember from the story Fentry ordering his son to run, but he doesn't and tries to help his father. I even felt like the actors hired for their parts looked more like southerners than Duvall did. Duvall's rendition of a southern man feels like it should be mocked in Scary Movie 5. His low mono-tone voice is different from all the other southerners, and seemed out of place.

Tomorrow

"Tomorrow" by Faulkner is a short story where the narrator tells a story about an old strange man, and a court case.  The story is really about why the case turned out how it did.  The old man, Jackson, is the only man in a jury who will not agree with the rest.  The whole story finally leads up to why he is so stubborn.  Jackson's whole life was hard and dreary.  The only woman he ever loved refused to marry him until she was on her death bed.  Even his own child was not of his blood.  He worked hard on either a farm or a sawmill his whole life, and didn't have any schooling.  But he loved his son, despite the fact that it was not his.  His "son" eventually was convicted of a crime.  Jackson even believes his son was wrong, but refuses to allow a guilt plea.  Nobody, except for the narrator, his uncle, and Jackson, ever know why Jackson acts the way he does. 

Memento

After seeing the movie a few years ago, I was expecting a little more from the original story. The movie's plot of revenge can easily be drawn from the short story. The tattoo's don't line up perfectly from my memory, but the representation is there. I don't remember if the character in the movie was named Earl, or if he had a bell, but the part where he is looking frantically for a pen to write down a memory does make it into the movie.
The story is pretty cool thought. The character constantly waking up in weird situations with strange notes makes the reader wonder how he got there. Unfortunately, the journal entries to himself do not really allow the reader understand know Earl's recent past. Some man obviously killed Earl's wife, and that accident lead to his amnesia. During every day, he is working to get his revenge, and it appears as though he does in the end. The last bit about his ride in the cop car in handcuffs lets the reader know he got his revenge. Unfortunately, Earl doesn't have a pen to write down that he finished what he needed to, so the end is bittersweet.

The Killers

The 40's and 60's versions of "The Killers" share only a few qualities. Max and Al are in both movies, and Nick Adams is too, but George, Sam, and Ole Anderson are not seen in the 60's version. While one takes place in a restaurant, similar to the true written story by Hemmingway, the other movie's setting is a school for the blind. Hardly any correlation can be found between the two works, except a shared Title.
The 40's edition of "The Killers" stuck true to the story, except for a few changes in character names and locations. The 60's version reminds me of an old James Bond film, Goldfinger, in the way in was shot. The technology and film style are similar, with corny acting and primitive sound effects. While sticking to the script is important, but it depends on how you want to tell a story. I only saw the first few moments of the 60's film, and it appeared as though it was just a continuation of the story. Nick Adams bites the bullet pretty early, so maybe after he moved out of Summit, he found himself caught up with Al and Max unintentionally.
The 40's rendition really played out how I pictured it in my head when I read the script. I enjoyed it, but feel as though the rest of the movie is almost unacceptable to do. Hemmingway wanted the story to end with the death of Ole, and a scriptwriter took the story and created his own. I would almost like it better if the main scene would have been a climax, as opposed to the beginning. Maybe a little background on Ole and how he got himself into such trouble. The 60's version shares such few qualities with the original piece, I feel that it shouldn't even share the same title. It was strange to watch the two killers be so stealthy instead of audacious like Al and Max in the 40's piece. They shared such few characteristics between the two movies, that it's hard to say they are the same characters.
Overall, I really liked the story, even though it is short and strange, that style is intriguing. If the 60's version would have kept somewhat to script, I might have enjoyed it more.

The Killers

This story was very good, but very strange at the same time. The way the Al and Max spoke was similar to that in-your-face witty way that European actors talk in movies. The mystery as to why Ole Anderson was doomed to be killed, and how Nick and George tried to help him reminded me of some Sherlock Holmes stories I have read in the past. Obviously “The Killers” is about 50 years older than the debut of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth, but the British dialect instantly made that connection for me.
Aside from that, I really enjoyed the short story. The title gave it away that Al and Max were up to no good after their first lines. I feel like maybe a situation like that could have arisen in the 1920’s. A guy gets involved with the wrong crowd and upsets someone, so he gets a hit on him. Even the fact that George was held up for a few hours by a couple of dark strangers in big coats is believable for that time period.
The characters, Al and Max were also very interesting. I knew they had bad motives from the beginning of the story, and they acted like they had done it a million times. They were rude, but professional, and also pretty funny, in a demented way. Normally, repeated insults like, “bright boy” would annoy me, but I’ve always been fond of mobster movies and books. You never know what a wiseguy is up to, and the unpredictability really attracts me. George was the coward, but I was half-expecting Nick Adams to be some sort of hero, not just an average guy with good morals. The fact that Hemmingway made him just a regular guy made the story much more believable and authentic.