Dig Out Your Library Card

My friends tell me I’m optimistic to a fault sometimes. Silver linings? Shoot, the clouds above my head have platinum linings. With bling. When life hands me lemons, I’m likely to make homemade lemon tarts and distribute them to my neighbors. So, in the midst of this financial train-wreck, this market-equivalent-of-the-movie-Glitter, it should come as no surprise that I’ve found something positive. I’ve rediscovered a forgotten treasure. The local library. I’d become so accustomed to ordering books online or grabbing a couple of titles at Target or running to the big-box-book-store (say that five times fast) at lunch, that I’d been neglecting the library. Now, though, with Suze Orman and her fantastically white teeth yelling at me every other day from the TV, and food prices going up faster than Hilary Clinton's blood pressure after a Palin rally, I’m trying to tighten my belt and get what I can for free. Hence, my visit to the library this week. The library is a bit like the local outdoor market. You never know what’s going to be available. You might plan on making plum sauce for dinner, but end up serving chilled melon soup, instead. That’s what happened at the library. I wanted to check out The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Not only were all copies checked out already, there were also over 70 hold requests in line before me. Looks like I’ll be buying the book (don’t tell Suze) if I want to read it sometime before 2010. After my initial disappointment, I remembered Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates – the 1961 book made into a film coming out this fall, starring Leo and Kate. And it was available! I have to shout out a huge thank you to the man or woman who decided to make this book into a movie. If not for your interest, I don’t know that I would have ever heard of this book, or this author. The book is a masterpiece. No wonder Yates, who never achieved huge commercial success, was known as a writer’s writer. Revolutionary Road is so….real. And it’s heartbreaking. Frank and April Wheeler’s sense of suburban suffocation and loss of self is palpable (NPR has a brilliant discussion of the book’s theme). It permeates every page. And it’s entirely relevant (and rather depressing in a “what has become of my life” sort of way). If not for the 9:00 dinners, constant drinking and smoking, and absence of cell phones, the Wheelers could be living in any number of subdivisions in any number of cities in America today. They could be your neighbors. They could be you. Yates has incredible insight – putting words to feelings that most Americans have felt, but don’t know how to articulate – like the revulsion a man sometimes feels at the sight of his children, even though he loves them; like the immense hopelessness one feels when faced with the same mundane, unimportant job every day; like the awkward tension seeping into a room when friends realize they have nothing to talk about anymore. Each character is meticulously described. And I don’t mean simply hair color and shirt style, etc. I mean I know these characters. I could tell you how they would react in any number of situations. And, more importantly, I know why they act the way they do. I have no doubt Yates created intricate biographies for each of his characters before putting pen to paper, and we, the readers, now reap the benefits of his diligence. For the movie to do the book justice, it will have to be detailed. Each word and set piece and thread of cloth must live and breathe the story (I’m thinking of The Ice Storm). If it does, I think the movie just might work. Sam Mendes is at the helm, and if past movies are any indication, he pays attention to the details - almost in a hyper-stylized way (see American Beauty; Road to Perdition). Kate Winslet could tell an entire epic with one look, so she’s a natural choice. I’m more apprehensive about Leo. Frank Wheeler is the cornerstone of the book – he must be perfect for Yates’s vision of American disillusionment to come across. My fingers are crossed that he pulls it off. In any event, though, I’m thankful the movie was made, because it will introduce an entirely new generation to this book. And we have much to gain. As do our therapists.