After seeing Malcolm Gladwell in an interview with Charlie Rose and receiving as a graduation gift a $50 gift certificate to Borders, I decided to pick up his latest book, What the Dog Saw (referred to hereafter as WDS), a series of essays collected from his work as a staff writer at The New Yorker. While somewhat disappointed to learn later that all of the essays appearing in WDS also appear free of charge on Gladwell’s website, I enjoyed the hefty, 410-page volume immensely, putting it down only for the occasional breath of fresh air or evening of Team Trivia. The book reads a bit like a greatest-hits collection, and like greatest-hits collections, it serves as a perfect introduction to the author.
Category: Reviews
For generations, directors have tried to make Shakespeare more palatable for general (read: non-Shakespeare-reading) audiences with varying degrees of success. Directors of Shakespearean dramas for contemporary audiences generally handle the ever-growing gap betwixt the Bard’s time and today in two ways. Some choose to update the setting (see Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet or Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet 2000); others choose to update the script (see 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew). Rick Miller, creator, writer, and sole performer of MacHomer, has updated the script, the setting, and the players themselves of Macbeth, changing it from the Scottish tragedy to a Springfieldian comedy.
Mamet has been accused of being anti-feminist at best and misogynist at worst. Yet certainly we can’t say that he wants us to admire the “world of men” in this real estate office, or to agree with the characters’ attitude toward women (or toward anyone outside their white male world).
What are we to make of the influence of women in the play? What of Mrs. Lingk, who ruins Roma’s deal and indirectly brings about Levene’s final fall? What of the “ex” Levene mentions early in the play, the one who “kicked out” of another deal? What of Levene’s “daughter? And what of Harriet Nyborg, even, who serves Levene store-bought crumb cake and, along with her husband, agrees to sign a contract for land she has no intention or means of purchasing?
How are we to deal with the presence/absence of women in Glengarry Glen Ross? How might you construct an interpretation of the play that takes these women into account?
Consider the following passages from an excellent essay on the play by Coppelia Kahn called “The Absent Mother in King Lear.” Kahn argues that Lear’s transformation over the course of the play involves his gradual understanding of–to put it bluntly–the woman in himself.
At one point in the book Persepolis, Marji’s father tells her that “politics and sentiment don’t mix,” and yet much of the book’s power comes from precisely that combination–on the one hand, there are the horrible realities of the revolution and the war; and on the other hand, there is the example of Satrapi’s family, whose strength and love really do become a means of survival for Marji.
Taking into account both the book and the movie, how do you react to the father’s statement that “politics and sentiment don’t mix.” Do you think that Marji herself believes that? Do you think the women in her family–her mother and grandmother–would agree with the statement?