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Fake Accounts

Published February 9, 2021 Novel , Politics Leave a Comment
Tags: A Gate at the Stairs, Catapult, Fake Accounts, I Married a Communist, Lauren Oyler, Lorrie Moore, Philip Roth

Fake Accounts
Lauren Oyler
Catapult 2021

Reviewed by Bob Wake

The engine for Lauren Oyler’s razor-sharp debut novel is revealed in the opening pages when the unnamed narrator makes an unexpected discovery: “My boyfriend was a conspiracy theorist.” Like the McCarthy era dissected in Philip Roth’s I Married a Communist, Oyler’s narrative is a deep dive into another equally destabilizing period in American history: the beginnings of the Donald Trump presidency in 2017. Addiction to social media is a central theme, for sure, but Oyler’s already notorious career as a take-no-prisoners literary and cultural critic ensures that every essayistic detour and aside in Fake Accounts is freighted with brilliance and wit. Lorrie Moore seems a clear influence here, especially Moore’s darkly funny post-9/11 novel, A Gate at the Stairs (2009). Both novels feature a politically suspicious boyfriend and part-time jobs for their respective protagonists as nannies for a harried mother.

The Humbling

Published January 27, 2015 Cinema , Current Cinema , Literature Leave a Comment
Tags: Al Pacino, Barry Levninson, Birdman, Buck Henry, Catch-22, Greta Gerwig, Philip Roth, Rain Man, The Graduate, The Humbling, Wag the Dog

HumblingPoster Late night streaming on Vudu: The Humbling is an adroit adaptation of Philip Roth’s novella. Co-scripted by Buck Henry, who adapted The Graduate and Catch-22 for Mike Nichols. Al Pacino as a morose suicidal actor. Greta Gerwig is his bisexual love interest. Zaniness ensues. Comparisons to Birdman are not misplaced: The Humbling employs fantasy sequences (in a departure from Roth’s novella) that dramatize Pacino’s scrambled state of mind, including a Birdman-like dream of Pacino locked out of a theater mid-performance. The movie substitutes a more ambiguous ending than the novella’s brutal finish, but it’s well worth a look. Directed by Barry Levinson of Rain Man and Wag the Dog.

Adaptation

Published March 3, 2009 Current Cinema , Literature Leave a Comment
Tags: Elegy, Philip Roth, Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates, Salman Rushdie, Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dying Animal, The Reader

Mumbai-born novelist Salman Rushdie made news last week while speaking at Emory University in Atlanta. Story here and here. His remarks concerned recent movie adaptations of literary works. He hated Slumdog Millionaire (“patently ridiculous”) as well as its source, Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A (“a corny potboiler”). Also in for a drubbing, The Reader (“leaden, lifeless movie killed by respectability”) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (“doesn’t finally have anything to say”).

No word on what he thought about two other literary adaptations from 2008, both of which I admired: Revolutionary Road, based on the great novel by Richard Yates (discerning movie-going friends concur that Kate Winslet’s performance was stronger here than in The Reader), and Elegy, based on Philip Roth’s novella, The Dying Animal. If you haven’t seen Elegy (beautifully directed by Isabel Coixet, best known for The Secret Life of Words and My Life Without Me), take a look and see if you don’t agree: Penelope Cruz, like Winslet, gives a stronger performance in a different 2008 film than the one for which she was nominated and won an Oscar.