Shutter Island

So because this blog is new I am taking selfish liberties to reminisce on my recent experiences with literature and film. I’ve recently completed the novel Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Part of me began this novel only to pass it upon completion over to my future brother-in-law. We don’t have much in common but we stand on the loosely-packed and level ground of books and movies, and that makes for juicy conversations that only he and I truly understand. I gave him Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith for Christmas, one of my very favorite books and an absolutely brilliant debut novel from the author, and he had minimal hopes about the book after unwrapping it, so when he came to me positively bubbling once he had finished it, I was so excited, I loaned him my sleek hardback copy of the sequel, The Secret Speech. He loved that one even more. And though Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men didn't have quite the same effect and wreaked absolute havoc on his literary tastebuds and I'm still planning on having him read McCarthy's The Road, which, by the way, finally releases on film at the end of this month. I was so thrilled to find someone else who got equally excited as me regarding books that I didn’t think twice about offering my brand new, not even cracked open once for the sole exception to flip the pages breathing in that heavenly new book smell, book, all despite my weird mental deformity about anyone reading any of my books before me. This deformity, I might add, also makes for quite the expensive hobby. Unlike other sensible readers who cherish their local library card, gaining new cracks in the plastic with every borrowed story, checking out book after book without cost, my deformity has me feverishly running to Barnes and Noble to sniff new copies of books that don’t even interest me all to settle on the ones that do. Tom Hanks said it best in "You’ve Got Mail," “We’ll get them…We’ll get them with our discounts, our deep arm chairs, and a cappuccino… we’re going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants.” By God, they were right and have I yet mentioned that "You’ve Got Mail" is my favorite movie of all time? I’ll get into that savory rationale some other time.



I initially had seen previews for the film that appealed to me and although I missed it on the big and expensive screen, we Virginians who live near the greater metro Richmond have the benefit of the ancient Byrd Theater. A theater in all of its vintage glory, if you can imagine, quite reminiscent of the theater where John Wilkes Booth decided that he had a pair of cowardly balls. Sorry, Abe. The Byrd Theater charges under $2.00 to see films that are on their way to soon become the newest DVD craze and makes my wallet do cartwheels in my purse since my new book fetish normally has it projectile vomiting money. So, I am planning on seeing the film in the next few days so stay tuned for the update. As far as the novel goes, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had the perfect eclectic mix of an eerie setting, disturbing dreams, creepy characters, and a downright challenge to the very concept of reality in the ending pages that will have you pouncing through the final chapters of the book like Tigger in the Flowerdew Hundred. I won’t spoil it for you, but the end of the book will leave you guessing, unsatisfied, and savoring that feeling in the pit of your stomach that will have you wondering, what the hell just happened here? From what I understand, the film doesn’t provide the same feeling but rather answers all of your questions quite affirmatively, which is unfortunate. This makes me breathe a coffee-drenched sigh of relief that I read the book first, as for this particular title it would have been quite the disaster had I been subjected to these two forms of media in the reverse. The melting pot of emotion that the original text sifts through your insides, I assure you, is an absolute rarity, a true Shutter Island.