Ruben "Hurricane" Carter Passes

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

The Story: Hirsch, James (2000) 
Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter
New York: Houghton Mifflin Company

The Song:
Bob Dylan lays this travesty of justice raw
during The Rolling Thunder Revue Tour
with his song Hurricane, from the album Desire (1975).
(Above is an alternate master.)

From the Wikipedia Contributors: "Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014) was an American middleweight boxer who was convicted of murder and later freed via a petition of habeas corpus after spending almost 20 years in prison."

Rubin Carter, Requiescat in Pace.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude", Redux

Gabriel García Márquez

This giant of modern writing passed away April 17th -- yesterday -- at the age of 87.
Señor Márquez, Requiescat in Pace. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27073911

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A good cure for thinking the United States, capitalism, and magical realism are correctly called American is our fine, current Latin American literature. Garcia Marquez' masterwork should be a fixture in every library -- at home and for the public -- in North and South America. Truly a masterpiece and object lesson for nortes'. Verdaderamente instructivo.

.

A Film of an Unfilmable Novel: Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" (2012)

For all of my 56 years, it was assumed this classic, genre'-defining, beat generation novel was unfilmable. But, as usual, patience pays off.

New Film on J.D Salinger (2013): Finally, Confirmation That There is a Vault of Unreleased Work

J. D. Salinger

The beginning of access to the unpublished works of J.D. Salinger is foreseeable. I've waited three decades to say I'd confirmed my hope -- my craving just to know, well, more about the Glass family. This unseen work from Salinger's six decades of self-imposed exile may indeed be published soon.

 The public seeing, indeed discovering, this treasure may be on the horizon.

Robert Jordan's guapa

I just finished rereading Hemingway's story of the mountain resistance fighters in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). This time, I looked up the word guapa, a Spanish term of endearment, roughly translating as "My lovely". Once that Sicilian thunderbolt hits Roberto, rabbit and guapa are his only ways of addressing his crop-headed beauty Maria. 

I'm glad I looked it up.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951): Brando Breaks Out

Tennessee Williams

Marlon Brando, 1947

I just finished rewatching director Elia Kazan's 1951 film of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, the breakout film role for Marlon Brando combining his raw talent and "method" acting style in creating his character Stanley Kowalski. While the story clearly revolves around Vivien Leigh's character Blanche, one can't help but notice Brando's dominating presence.

As for Blanche, she gets to go first. flustered upon arrival, the last leg of the trip done by steetcar -- Blanche notes, "Daylight never exposed so total a ruin." She is clearly in a mental state or ruin.

The Wikipedia contributors, discussing Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer prize winning play and it's acclaimed screen adaptation discussed here, put it this way:

Tennessee Williams plotted out a narrative of powerful allegory. The story line unfolds as the drama of life primed by two divergent forces on an unavoidable collision course. It is the dreamscape world of culture and refinement represented by Blanche DuBois in conflict with harsh, unadorned reality epitomized by the character of Stanley Kowalski.

When all the money was gone, when Belle Reeve, the family mansion in Auriol, Mississippi, has been recklessly mortgaged into oblivion, sisters Blanche (Vivien Leigh) and Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter) were faced with a dilemma. Blanche, failing to save either Belle Reeve, or her virtue, comes to"visit" Stella and Stanley living in the back end of the New Orleans French Quarter. Blanche is in very fragile condition. Stanley, on the other hand, is as a raw force of nature, contemptible of the airs of wealth and refinement Blanche displays.

Stanley is also suspicious of why Blanche left her family home in Mississippi, which in turn is breaking up his sensual paradise with Stella. Stella is forced to choose her allegiance -- no simple matter. But as the play evolves, Stella stays neurtral but sympathic to Blanche's situation.

The longer Blanche stays, the bolder Stella becomes, leading to dangerous arguments, the result of Stanley's growing frustration. After one violent fight between Stella and Stanley, Brando enters American film culture histroy with this passion-driven scene.

It's a credit to Williams and Kazan that, once the forces of the Production Code got through toning down the film, the carnal lust between Stella and Stanley remains apparent. Moreover, the conflict Blanche's presence brings to the small Kowalski apartment, and Stanley's disdain for all Blanche represents, remain forcefully intact.

Marlon Brando, building on his starring role in the original Broadway production of the play, began changing screen acting permanently, bringing his own style of method acting, 'whereby actors create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters, developing lifelike performances.' (For more, see Method Acting.)

Brando, here and in subsequent roles such as Terry Malloy in Kazan's 1953 On the Waterfront, paves the way for such talents as Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Al Pachino, and this year's Academy award winner for best actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. But in Streetcar, as Stanley Kowalski, Brando is himself an emerging talent, bringing a raw, brooding, lustful intensity to his performance that made Stanley the perfect foil to Blanche's delicate, fragile and fading refinement.

When these forces collide, Tennessee Williams' and Elia Kazan's solid craftsmanship shape a successful powerhouse drama starring the multi-talented combination of Vivien Leigh, Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, giving us a rarely equaled work of art on film.

All I will say beyond that is see the Kazan film. If I haven't convinced you, the trailer below just might.

Complementary Presentations of "Lord Jim": Conrad's Book and Brooks' Film

Redux

Jim (Peter O'Toole): .... I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men who, for a split second, do something out of the ordinary. That's all.

Though truly divergent works of art, with more than a few threads of a central theme, Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim (written 1899-1900) and Richard Brooks' 1965 film of the same name are both adventures worth taking. Each work stands on it own merits, Conrad's accomplishment standing as one of the great books in modern English.

I read the book first and highly recommend starting with it. Then the film may serve as, not an equal, but a fine supplementary work of art. Supplementary in the most important sense in that it is an action adventure film with its serious themes stripped down, but still looming. While Conrad's novel is a meticulous examination of the diverse elements of the human character and and "simple twists of fate", the novel brings the characters into sharp focus. The film's outstanding cast truly bring the characters to life.

So take a South Seas adventure from the late 19th century and learn a little about what heroes and courage are really all about.

Inside an Artist's Overwrought Soul: "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" (1991)

Francis Ford Coppola in the Philippine Jungle Shooting
Apocalypse Now (circa 1976)

Francis' wife Eleanor Coppola co-directed and narrated this examination of the literally maddening process of her husband Francis making his modern adaption of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), the Viet Nam war epic Apocalypse Now (1979). The result is this excellent complementary documentary to the film, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991).

A unique, gripping look at a film director as artist working under the most extreme conditions imaginable -- conditions that drive him to the edge of insanity. The project: film, in the Philippines, the definitive Viet Nam war film -- using Conrad's classic novella for the structure and certain themes of the story. (Filming Heart of Darkness is a project Orson Welles attempted on a smaller scale but could not get made. Welles then went on to make Citizen Kane instead.)

The documentary also gives us an look behind the scenes at more than one member of the production being pushed beyond their limits. Just one example of the challenges Francis Coppola met to get this film made was directing a troubled Dennis Hopper (see clip below). Such challenges came by the dozens and pushed Coppola to the brink -- and to new heights of creativity.

It's been my belief for a long time that the better we understand our (i.e. the U.S.) role in Viet Nam, the better we understand ourselves. Both the film and also this complimentary documentary help. As a little something extra, Francis and Eleanor add a fine commentary on the documentary.

I can't wait to see Apocalypse Now Redux (2001) again soon.

Don't Rewrite Mark Twain

Special Comment: An Associated Press (AP) article carried today by The Washington Post reports on a new combined edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer where the word "nigger" will be removed and replaced with "slave".

This would be a crime against literature. Twain scholar Steven Railton of The University of Virginia is quoted as calling this "a terrible idea." According to the article,

The language depicts America's past, Railton said, and the revised book was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing. Railton has an unaltered version of 'Huck Finn' coming out later this year that includes context for schools to explore racism and slavery in the book. 'If we can't do that in the classroom, we can't do that anywhere,' he said.

As one might expect, a quotation from Twain himself says it best. Back to the AP: "Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the right word and the almost right one was 'the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.'"

Censoring the word "nigger" from Mark Twain's books robs our culture of the knowledge of a part of the word's historical context. How can students understand the meaning and impact this word has had if we pretend it never existed? In every work Mark Twain published he worked to use "just the right word". We don't get to change them.

Data on Gold Coast Bluenote: An Apparently Popular Post on the Film "To Kill a Mockingkingbird"

The post that, far and away gets the most hits here at Gold Coast Bluenote (GCB), is a discussion of the film made from Horton Foote's screenplay -- based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel -- for the 1962 film starring Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird. My hypothesis is that a substantial number of students assigned to read the book or see the film may find my 2007 GCB post, 'It's a Sin to Kill a Mockingbird', because the post's title is a line directly from the film. Image and article searches, therefore, using primarily but not exclusively Google search engines, hit home here.

I find it a good time, to repost this modest effort up front for those who might otherwise miss it.

Now, 'to play it again, Sam' so to speak, let's revisit my discussion of director Robert Mullingan's inspirational film:

_______________________________________________________________

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.
(- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 23, spoken by the character Atticus)

Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird inspired many a young social activist and prospective lawyer to follow Atticus' example and seek social justice, whatever the personal cost. These young idealists would drop like flies as the realities of the real world closed around them. But a few survived to carry the torch for the equality of all men and women under the law.

And the film's impact stretches even further.

The Story of Movies Foundation uses the film To Kill A Mockingbird in the The Story of Movies as a way to provide middle school children a ".... guide to [the] students in learning how to read moving images. Although teachers frequently use films in the classroom, film as language and as historical and cultural documents is not widely taught. ...."

Lovers of great books -- me, I plead guilty -- are becoming fewer and farther between as the electronic media age progresses and instant visual and audio gratification becomes the status quo. But Harper Lee's novel survives as assigned classroom reading and Robert Mulligan's 1962 film adaptation still inspires idealists young and old to this day.

A large part of the credit goes to Gregory Peck for his performance in the role of Atticus Finch. Peck brings a sense of moral certainty, legal ethics and talent, as well as compassionate single-parent wisdom to the role that is truly astonishing.

Thanks Ms. Lee, Mr. Peck, and everyone who contributed to the creation of this film; I am re-inspired and given hope for humanity every time I see this film masterwork.

_______________________________________________________________

J. D. Salinger Passes On

This past Wednesday J. D. Salinger died of natural causes at age 90. While I mourn the passing of this great writer, I have a selfish little secret to confess. I've always assumed that while in seclusion these last 50 years, he was still writing and just tucking it away "in the vault." I selfishly hope some of this material, if it exists, is posthumously published. I'm dying to see what he's been working on.

Most importantly though, goodbye Mr. Salinger. You brought me much joy and insight.

Lord Jim: Conrad's Book and Brooks' film

Jim (Peter O'Toole): I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men who, for a split second, do something out of the ordinary. That's all.

Though truly divergent works of art, with more than a few threads of a central theme, Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim (1899-1900) and Richard Brooks' 1965 film of the same name are both adventures worth taking. Each work stands on it own merits.

I read the book first and highly recommend starting with it. Then the film may serve as, not an equal, but a fine supplementary work of art. Supplementary in the most important sense in that it is an action adventure film with its serious themes stripped down, but still looming. While Conrad's novel is a meticulous examination an array of the elements of the human character and and "simple twists of fate." While the novel brings the characters into sharp focus, the film's cast truly bring the characters to life.

So take a South Seas adventure from the 19th century and learn a little about what heroes and courage are really all about.

Absolutely Essential American Cosmic History

Joseph Conrad: "The Horror, the Horror!"

".... Climbin' Up the Topsails, I Lost My Leg ...."

The Dropkick Murphys performing I'm Shipping Up to Boston (lyrics by Woody Guthrie; performance included in The Departed soundtrack)

Celtic punk age-of-sail seaman's folk ballad -- well, punk ballad (?) -- that brings to life the violence of a winter storm at sea. This song, as used in the video above, and, as slammed brilliantly into The Departed soundtrack, is a searingly truthful illustration that urban life in America today can be as violent as any storm you'll encounter. Rock with a vengeance.

Epigram: For hints as to why Woody Guthrie wrote an age-of-sail poem, a great place to start is the section in Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie: A Life on Guthrie's "military service" on troop ship convoys crossing the Atlantic to the European theater of World War II -- a hero with a guitar instead of a gun। Honestly though, the fact that Woody wrote these lyrics is a mystery I'm still trying to unravel.

Billie Dawn contributed to the preparation of this post.

J. D. Salinger: Then and Tomorrow

Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger (1961)

Nine Stories, J. D. Salinger (1953)

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction, J.D. Salinger (1963)

J. D. Salinger's released body of work covers a time when the U.S. was at a cultural watershed moment. Old social systems were crumbling, and alternative culture (the Beat Generation, the Dharma Bums, The Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary) was growing with ferocity. Salinger was and remains a harbor of serenity from the surrounding chaotic storm. I like storms, but I also like safe harbors.

The Catcher in the Rye gets all the attention it needs. Here I want to make sure you've been properly introduced to the Glass Family, in three of Salinger's finest released (in book form) works: Frannie and Zooey, Nine Stories, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction.

These short stories and novellas are unparalleled, timeless, visionary. I agree with contemporary critic Janet Malcolm who argues the novella Zooey is Salinger's masterpiece. Malcolm also addresses eloquently the way Salinger was short-sightedly brutalized by some critics regarding the works listed above.

Regarding Zooey, Ms. Malcolm sets the stage for us as such:

.... In "Zooey" we find the two youngest Glass children, Franny and Zooey, in their parents' large apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Salinger's use of recognizable places in New York and his ear for colloquial speech give the work a deceptive surface realism that obscures its fundamental fantastic character. The Glass family apartment is at once a faithfully, almost tenderly, rendered, cluttered, shabby, middle-class New York apartment and a kind of lair, a mountain fastness, to which Salinger's strange creations retreat, to be with their own kind. Twenty-year-old Franny, who is brilliant and kind, as well as exceptionally pretty, has come home from college after suffering a nervous collapse during a football weekend. ....

The other place to begin your acquaintance with the Glass family is Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters has it all: Zen wisdom, a picture-perfect view of Manhattan in the 1940's, brutal yet tender satire, belly-laugh humor, and intolerance for intolerant people. As I write this, I'm taking my 4th or 5th crack at rereading Seymour: An Introduction and trying to break through to its core meaning. I've been trying for 30 years, and this time, I think I've climbed to level one comprehension. (Point being: don't start with Seymour: An Introduction.)

Nine Stories is highly recommended here most importantly for a non-Glass-family story: For Esme' with Love and Squalor. This short story is one of the finest I've ever read. Salinger biographer Paul Alexander documents both the enduring popularity and critical acclaim this tale receives. Don't get me wrong, Nine Stories has a great deal to offer, but I'm just crazy for Esme'. A friend of mine loves A Perfect Day for Bananafish best. Teddy is also masterful. The total collection is pure joy, if viewed through a Buddhist lens.

Salinger quit publishing his work in 1965, but has apparently continued writing. I for one can't wait to find out what he's got tucked away in his vault. Once you've read Frannie and Zooey, Nine Stories, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, chances are you will also be impatiently awaiting the release of more Salinger.

Now, to close, a little self indulgence on my part. Even if you never read a word of Salinger's work, I'll be quite content if you read the long quote (actually an uncredited long quote from another time and culture), used by Salinger in the first several pages of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. Seymour Glass, oldest and most revered of the Glass children, reads the following story to comfort his 10 month old baby sister, Franny, who is up crying during the night with the mumps:

Duke Mu of Chin said to Po Lo: "You are now advanced in years. Is there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your stead?" Po Lo replied: "A good horse can be picked out by its general build and appearance. But a superlative horse -- one that raises no dust and leaves no tracks -- is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The talents of my sons lie on a lower plane altogether; they can tell a good horse when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend, however, one Chiu-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray see him."

Du Mu did so, and subsequently dispatched him on the quest for a steed. Three months later, he returned with the news that he had found one. "It is now in Sach'iu ," he added. "What kind of horse is it?" asked the Duke. "Oh, it is a dung-colored mare," was the reply. However, someone being sent to fetch it, the animal turned out to be a coal black stallion! Much displeased, the Duke sent for Po Lo. "That friend of yours," he said, "whom I commissioned to look for a horse, has made a fine mess of it. Why, he cannot even distinguish a beast's color or sex! What can he possibly know about horses?" Po Lo heaved a sigh of satisfaction. "Has he really got as far as that?" he cried. "Ah, then he is worth ten thousand of me put together. There is no comparison between us. What Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external. He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to see. He looks at the things he ought to look at, and neglects those that need not be looked at. So clever a judge of horses is Kao, that he has it in him to judge something better than horses."

When the horse arrived, it turned out indeed to be a superlative animal.

Less is more.

Ernest Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream"

The modern incarnation of the eternal El Floridita in Havana, Cuba

When I was younger, I read Hemingway's Islands in the Stream for the fishing stories, local-Caribbean-color narratives and the crisp Hemingway prose. Now, upon rereading it after setting it aside for a decade, I find depth and solace in the struggles of the older men. Struggles with loneliness, death, lost love, duty, and facing life with half a century behind them.

The bar pictured above is a setting in the middle section of the three movement novel that is the book: I. Bimini, II. Cuba, and III. At Sea. (The fourth book in this series was separated and became the novella The Old Man and the Sea.)

As I read, Hemingway alter ego Thomas Hudson and I are in the car right now, dressed and ready to travel from the Finca Vigia to Havana, with a long stop at El Floridita -- (Wikipedia: .... El Floridita, also renowned for its Hemingway associations [read one of his regular bars], claims to be the “birthplace of the daiquiri”.) Papa Hemingway had his frozen daiquiris as doubles without sugar. The bartender, as a matter of bar policy, would leave the shaker with the customer. It contained another drink and a half.

When Papa was slumming it in Key West, he hung out at Capt. Tony's -- not the current location of Sloppy Joe's. In Havana he could get "uptown" past the slums, to the Gold Coast if you will, at El Floridita in the mid-1940's. There were old friends to see, some to avoid -- great old stories to be told and new rum-induced anarchistic toasts to be made. The things we fill our lives with, in war, to make them seem worth living. And then she walks in -- love and death and learning to handle both.

As you could not escape The War in Rick's Cafe' Americain in Casablanca, you cannot escape World War II even at El Floridita. In the end, Hemingway teaches here that all that's left is duty. Truly.
**********

'It's a sin to kill a mockingbird ...'

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.
(- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 23, spoken by the character Atticus)

Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird inspired many a young social activist and prospective lawyer to follow Atticus' example and seek social justice, whatever the personal cost. These young idealists would drop like flies as the realities of the real world closed around them. But a few survived to carry the torch for the equality of all men and women under the law.

And the film's impact stretches even further.

The Story of Movies Foundation uses the film To Kill A Mockingbird in the The Story of Movies as a way to provide middle school children a ".... guide to [the] students in learning how to read moving images. Although teachers frequently use films in the classroom, film as language and as historical and cultural documents is not widely taught. ...."

Lovers of great books -- me, I plead guilty -- are becoming fewer and farther between as the electronic media age progresses and instant visual and audio gratification becomes the status quo. But Harper Lee's novel survives as assigned classroom reading and Robert Mulligan's 1962 film adaptation still inspires idealists young and old to this day.

A large part of the credit goes to Gregory Peck for his performance in the role of Atticus Finch. Peck brings a sense of moral certainty, legal ethics and talent, as well as compassionate single-parent wisdom to the role that is truly astonishing.

Thanks Ms. Lee, Mr. Peck, and everyone who contributed to the creation of this film; I am re-inspired and given hope for humanity every time I see this film masterwork.

'A Divided Civilization Subjected to Scrutiny'

From WashingtonPost.com:

Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize

By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 11, 2007

For six decades, British novelist Doris Lessing has written works of fiction that explore the sometimes painful intertwining of the political and the personal. Today, those efforts landed her the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature.

In awarding her the prize-of-all-writing-prizes, the Swedish Academy championed Lessing as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."

Lessing's work had been of great importance both to other writers and to the broader field of literature, academy secretary Horace Engdahl told Reuters news service. He said members of the academy had discussed her as a potential laureate for years.

"Now the moment was right. Perhaps we could say that she is one of the most carefully considered decisions in the history of the Nobel Prize," Engdahl told the wire service. "She has opened up a new area of experience that earlier had not been very accepted in literature. That has to do with, for instance, female sexuality." ....

Congratulations to Ms. Lessing.

Epigram: I learned later in this day that her watershed masterpiece is her 1962 novel The Golden Notebook.

Jack Kerouac's "On the Road": 50 Years and Runnin' Strong

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one noble function of the time, move."

(Jack Kerouac, 1951, through his character Sal, Chapter 6, On the Road)

And move we soulmates of Dean and Sal did. Travel, music, relationships, touching souls: the priorities in our lives. For me, there's no better book to have with you on a train ride from Rome to Vienna that Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

As Wikipedia notes, Kerouac wrote his masterpiece in a coffee-only burst of creativity lasting 3 weeks, patching together notes made of during middle and late 1940s cross-country roadtrips. The original scroll manuscript of 1951 was heavily edited for ultimate publication six years later.


September 5, 2007 marked the 50th anniversary the release of this iconic accelerating train ride of a novel. The Beat Generation leaves us nothing better than this, save perhaps the music,"tea", wine, and this quixotic existential searches we call our lives.

Less is More

For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway

I knew nothing of the Spanish Civil War, clan underground armed resistance, Russia's positive role in fighting Franco, writing, love, or wormwood absinthe before I read this book. Even Hemingway helped spoil the movie, but the book stands as one of his greatest literary achievements.

Truly.