BOOKS: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Ma,” writes Ocean Vuong to his mother, “You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood.” His memoir, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, is a delicious flood, a cascade of memories told in an impressionist style in vivid prose that approaches poetry. He is a young boy at the beginning and a young man by the end, but the path between is no straight line. It is a series of experiences, impressions, recounts of stories handed down from mother and grandmother, not chronological but emotionally true, presented in the form of letters to his mother. His words and phrases are like brushstrokes in an impressionist painting, splashes of color up close that converge on images as you step back to regard them in perspective. His grandmother fled Vietnam after the war in search of the soldier who fathered his mother; his mother fled an abusive marriage. Their experiences are absorbed into him through their tales and their scars: a revving car engine can conjure helicopters, and his father’s violence against his mother flashes in his mind in an unexpected way as he has his first sexual experiences. Immigrant life, coming of age, and coming out are all well-trod themes, but his voice is so fresh and his memoir so beautifully expressed.

FILM: Emma

When we first meet the “handsome, clever, and rich” Miss Emma Woodhouse, she is inspecting flowers in a greenhouse, discriminatingly pointing out the perfect blooms to be cut for a bouquet. “No, not that one,” she tells a trailing servant with the shears, “the one beside it.” Emma is an exquisite flower herself, perfectly composed, her hair perfectly curled, and perfectly confident that she can match people as easily as she selects flowers. Alas, the fact that everyone in this corner of Georgian English countryside looks up to her causes her to overestimate her own talents, causing some consternation and complication along the way to marrying everyone off Jane Austen style in this delightful comedy of manners. Emma is brought to life by Anya Taylor-Joy, giving her the confidence and cleverness of Lady Mary Crawley but tempered with the humanity of Lady Sybil (as well as her well-meaning meddlesomeness). I have to confess never having read the Austen novel, nor seen any other adaptation (not even Clueless), so I came to this fresh and didn’t really know how the romantic convolutions would end up. In the end, I didn’t do a much better job than Emma of sizing up the characters, though in fairness, I think the screenplay by Eleanor Catton and director Autumn de Wilde does a clever job of making us see the world as Emma does. The characters are all charming including Johnny Flynn as the dashing Mr. Knightley, Bill Nighy as Emma’s kind but perpetually chilly father, and the suddenly ubiquitous Josh O’Connor as the vicar. The countryside is sunny and beautiful. The music is a very effective mix of classical (Mozart, Haydn) with traditional English folk music. And who knew a minuet could be so steamy? It’s a very enjoyable romp.

Sichuan Impression, Grom, and Rodin

For my off-Friday adventure today, I wanted to check out a Rodin exhibit at the Pepperdine University Weisman Art Museum. But first, I thought I should go to a Chinese restaurant, since I’d heard people were avoiding them out of fear of the coronavirus. Indeed, I went to the usually bustling Sichuan Impression in West LA and found it was nearly empty at noon. I was happy to support them, ordering a heaping plate of “hong-xing” diced rabbit with peanuts, scallions, and sesame, all doused in chili oil, along with an appetizer of “impressive dumplings”. From there, I headed to PCH and up the coast to Malibu, where I stopped at Grom for gelato – espresso and mint chocolate chip. It was a beautiful day, a bit cloudy over the ocean, but when I turned onto Malibu Canyon Road, the light on the hillside, with its outcrops of sandstone and stands of eucalyptus, was just stunning. The exhibit – Rodin and Women: Muses, Sirens, and Lovers – was fascinating. With the emphasis on Rodin’s women, there were no Burghers, no Shades, no Balzac, and no Thinker. But there were some much loved familiar figures, including Eve, the Paolo and Francesca variations, and The Kiss. But there were also works I had never seen before. The Benedictions, a pair of winged spirits descending from Heaven, was meant to be a topper for a World’s Fair Monument to Labor that was never built. A Fallen Caryatid labors under the weight she bears. Several busts of women who were his models and muses exemplify that expressive motion that Rodin uniquely captured – these bronze faces look like they are about to turn, about to speak. I learned that Rodin eschewed professional models who struck formal poses; he preferred untrained models, and he directed them not to hold still but to continually move around so he could study their motion. It’s no wonder that so many of his sculptures capture figures in mid-movement so naturally that our minds can’t help but “see” the movement.