Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey

 

In his new book Poems & Prayers, the actor Matthew McConaughey offers up some intimate thoughts in both prose and verse, divided into themed sections. I found this work to be a mixed bag. Some of the poems seem contrived, while others are beautiful, simple, and insightful. The pages of prose often make for thoughtful reading. Overall, the book cries out for the guidance of a sharp editor. 

In some poems the wordplay is quite clever, while in others it's overwrought. In a poem called "Daymares" - about small, almost unnoticeable daily habits we have that wound those close to us - McConaughey remixes a common expression in the line, "the pets that we peeve." This made me laugh; after all, who hasn't left a beloved pet feeling that way? This is McConaughey at his most witty.   

There's also wordplay that reads more like word salad: "I take a scroll down the Rolodex of my memory's lane." You really have to work to wrap your mind around this awkward line. It sounds to me - who spent several years in an earlier career creating and evaluating therapeutic programs for nursing home residents - very much like something a person with dementia might say.

Some poems are so packed with metaphor and cryptic symbolism that the meaning is lost on me. The poems "Fallen Leaves" and "The Mess I Made" are examples. Removing a few stanzas would make these poems more polished and coherent. A poem called "Capably Able" is full of clever rhymes and imagery, but there is so much going on in it that I can't make sense of the whole.

Then there are the prayers, most of them written in verse form. McConaughey expresses a traditional Christian religiosity, in which he offers prayers to a father figure, examining his own flaws and asking forgiveness and redemption. These felt a bit exhibitionist to me, yet his discussion of why we pray is perceptive. 

What I found much more interesting in both his prose and his poetry is the expression of another kind of spirituality he has but never labels as such: a distinct sense of the yin and yang in the operations of the universe. In a reflection on page 75 he wrote: "Consequences go both ways. With every decision, choice, action, there will be a give with the take, a credit with the debit...something good and something bad." On another page: "If you make a profit in one place, you're gonna get a debt in another."

Elsewhere, a yin/yang sensibility is expressed by an entire poem called "Back to the Future," every line a reference to complementary opposites. On another page is an untitled, elegant little poem about doers and dreamers; they have opposing qualities and the world needs both types of people. McConaughey's book highlights his belief in and practice of Christianity while not overtly acknowledging this more intuitive side of his view of life.  

McConaughey's prose feels less forced, and in places is just as lyrical as his best poems here while summing up some worthy insights. He believes in the necessity of difficulties in life in order to mature. He believes in post traumatic growth for those willing to take a hard and critical look at themselves. He is big on personal accountability.  

Crown Publishing slipped up with this publication, though; the book needs tighter editing. There are grammatical errors throughout - apostrophes where they shouldn't be, and redundancy of both words and thoughts within single sentences in several places, as well as excess in some of the poems. Correcting these errors and trimming away some of the confusing lyricism would result in a more polished book.  

- Marianne W. 

The Wolf Man by Philip J. Reed

 

I am so excited about a small Missouri press called DieDie Books! Currently they offer four titles (with one upcoming) that are each a deep-dive into one horror movie by a single author. 

I love that concept. I love to hear or read someone who is passionate about something (especially books and movies!). And these books are very pretty white-and-black volumes with original cover artwork. The one that I was drawn to was The Wolf Man, the movie which strikes me as the sensitive boy's favorite of the Universal Studios monsters. 

The werewolf as a monster is rich with symbolism, but Reed helped me see that the appeal of this movie has a lot to do with Lon Chaney, Jr. as the awkward, doomed main character Larry Talbot. He has zero chemistry with the lead actress Evelyn Ankers and a complex relationship with his estranged father. They are bound by love but find each other impossible to understand. Larry can never match his father's hopes and expectations or integrate into his society. 

Reed absolutely loves the tension between the script and what the actors bring to life (for example, with any other cast Ankers would be playing his love interest), all centered around the tragic, doomed lead actor. Reed sees so much pathos in Lon Chaney, Jr. and this book is actually more of a deeply felt meditation on the man through the lens of The Wolf Man. 

It's so raw and emotional, in fact, I was sometimes taken aback, a little embarrassed. That feeling made so much sense when I got to the afterward and read that Reed died by suicide before finishing the final edits. Those gaps in polish -- a repeated phrase here, pages of obsessively repetitive sentence structure (like that bird that got into the Library the other weekend, bashing itself against the glass, sensing what it needed but unable to reach it), were evidence of a man becoming undone. And so this book is a portrait of existential despair through the prism of Lon Chaney, Jr, through the reflection of The Wolf Man. 

It's heavy, amazing, intense. 

-Michael G. 

Cocktails with George and Martha by Philip Gefter

 

"Never again. It is like having an elephant sit on your chest for two hours."

    - My mom, remembering seeing the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

"It is still the truest rendering of love in marriage that I know. Call me a romantic."

    - From the preface, Cocktails with George and Martha

Ever since we learned about the custom of exchanging roses and books for San Jordi's Day on April 23rd (thanks, Helen Oyeyemi!), my partner and I have been dedicated observers. This year I received Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I don't think this had anything to do with how many martinis I drink, but it could be related. 

I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and could watch it just about any night. Like the author Philip Gefter, I find it a story about love in marriage, albeit through a scathing, harrowing perspective. From the beginning, Albee's dialogue crackles and Taylor is electric herself as the acerbic Martha. Burton transforms himself into the brilliant, embittered George and they ricochet off each other through the course of a drunken, vicious afterparty. George Segal and Sandy Dennis are perfect as the unwitting guests who fall prey to George and Martha's games. 

It was fascinating to learn about the behind-the-scenes of the movie. Gefter starts with a biography of playwright Edward Albee and describes the controversy that boiled around his play. Up until then, most marriages portrayed on tv were fairly conflict-free with delineated gender roles. Serious arguments, if there were any, would be conducted behind a closed door (off-screen). The dynamics between George and Martha, not to mention their antics, were condemned by some critics as obscene. That said, it was a sensation and touched on something in the zeitgeist.

Gefter links Martha's frustration ("She's discontent") with Betty Friedan's "problem that has no name" from her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique. Women were increasingly "discontent" with their lot and Albee unleashed onto the world a character who expressed all her frustration, resentment, and disappointment with terrifying articulation. Though it arose out of a particular era, Virginia Woolf remains a vital and vicious portrait of a marriage. It is about a specific, dysfunctional marriage, but it's also, ultimately, about marriage in general, and how frightening it is to live a truly examined life, bereft of illusions. 

The making of Virginia Woolf is laden with absolutely fascinating characters: Albee and his almost supernatural intelligence and wit, successful at such a young age; the obscenely glamorous Elizabeth Taylor and powerhouse husband Richard Burton, whose fame (infamy?) as a couple drove so many of the choices that were made about the movie; careful, introspective, insecure, and ultimately daring producer Ernest Lehman; and finally, perhaps the real star of the book, auteur Mike Nichols, whose work on Virginia Woolf seems to say to create a masterpiece you may need to be uncompromising, manipulative, and alienating.