"Karakter"

No, I have not suddenly lost the ability to spell. Karakter is a Dutch film by Mike van Diem that we were required to watch in our film studies class on Wednesday.

I can just hear my commenters now..."Oh, the poor thing has to sit in class every Wednesday night watching movies? How awful! What a horrible class that must be!"

Well, last week's wonderful Dersu Uzala would have made me agree with the satiric comment above. However, Karakter is another matter altogether. One of the most depressing things I've ever seen! Now, don't get me wrong, Dersu Uzala was a little depressing, too -- but that was because I liked Dersu and I didn't want to see anything bad happen to him, as it unfortunately did. Karakter was depressing simply because it was depressing, not to mention that I didn't want to see hide nor hair of the characters (except for maybe one) ever again in my whole entire life!

I'm not going to waste your time and mine giving you a detailed synopsis, partly because I don't want to talk about it. Just take my word for it -- you *do not* want to see it. If you already have seen it, you have my heartfelt sympathy. Please sign yourself up for therapy.

So! Anyway! On to cooler things. On Tuesday we had an exciting Hemingway class. Well, I was excited, anyway. I doubt I moved many of my classmates to a similar interest. The professor was impressed, though.

We were reading Hemingway's A Way You'll Never Be. In that story, the narrator, who is assumed to be Hemingway's famous Nick Adams, has apparently been wounded in the first World War. We know it is a head wound (and not a knee wound as some researchers seem to assume) because Nick's friend Major Paravicini says that it "should have been trepanned." (As faithful readers of my blog and Clair's will know, I am very excited about trepanning, or trephining.)

The resident MD of the class spoke up and told the class about trepanning (which I was prepared to do if he hadn't). I then raised my hand and waved it about wildly. Dr Harley called on me. I blurted out, "Nick has a wound to the right temporal lobe!" Dr Harley looked a little bewildered, so I continued, "Nick's talking a lot in this story -- he can't stop himself. He's talking on and on about grasshoppers. Damage to the right temporal lobe of the brain will cause a loss of inhibition of talking and recall of non-verbal material, like grasshoppers and fishing and all that! So you see, it must be some kind of right temporal lobe thing."

"Well, *that* is *fascinating,*" Dr Harley proclaimed, eyes glowing (he is a self-confessed Hemingway aficionado). "I would very much like a copy of your notes, if I may!"

Pleased, I grinned and agreed. I was glad that my news had been taken so well. Normally Dr Harley has an answer for everything Hemingway. We are talking about a man who went to the library and rummaged through old papers and microfiche until he located an old copy of the Saturday Evening Post from the exact week he deduced to be the time frame for Hemingway's Crossing the Mississippi. So he figured out exactly which Saturday Evening Post Nick was reading and what he would have found interesting -- baseball and the like. Then he photocopied it and went through and highlighted every reference to World War I. It was very interesting. He passed a copy of it around in class; I was thrilled to see a short story by Louis Joseph Vance, an author with whom I am familiar. He wrote such enjoyable novels as Terence O'Rourke: Gentleman Adventurer and The Pool of Flame. I loved those books when I was young, and I love them still.

But I digress. Actually, there was something else I was going to discuss...but I can't remember it now. I'll think of it later.

OH! I remember now! I was going to say CONGRATULATIONS to Russell Crowe and his wife Dani -- they're expecting again! And congrats to Charlie, 'cause he's gonna be a big brother! All right, all together now for the Royal Navy Cheer: HIP HIP HUZZAH! HIP HIP HUZZAH! HIP HIP HUZZAH!!!! I'm so happy for them. A baby is a wonderful blessing.

That's all for now!