Captives by Todd Hasak-Lowy
My rating: 3/5 cats
i am not a lapsed jew.
i am not in a struggling marriage.
i do not have a child in that awkward tadpole-to-frog stage of new independence.
i do not live in l.a.
so, really, what does this book have to say to me?? who knows? there is a lot of fine story in here, but i think i liked his short stories better. this seemed to need a little more time to ripen or solidify or whatever image of completion works best for you. there is a lot of potential here, but it ultimately feels unresolved—too many balls in the air. there are so many themes he wants to explore, but they are too massive for a novel of this size: violence (cinematic, political, cultural, personal), hollywood, the jewish diaspora and the tradition of judaism vs. the faith of judaism, israel as a reality vs. as a symbolic entity, plus all these smaller concerns of the family (including pets) and relationships and personal midlife crises.
the great irony here is that daniel (weak, underdefined experiencer of said crises) discusses at great length the problem of screenplays getting taken over by directors or the studio or actors’ interpretations and tampered with to make successful (i.e. “commercial”) films, but that this would, with a little tightening and padding, make for a very interesting and probably successful movie.
there were three things in this book that were also in “retard ranch”, but i can only remember 2 of them right now: steven spielberg and a loving/awed reaction to a c-section scar. not bad, not bad at all…
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