Richard Yates: Revolutionary Road

[Bjorn]

We might as well have a thread for it, and since Thomas asked...

Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

Watch young Frank Wheeler, husband of April and father-of-two in his late 20s, work in the garden of the Wheeler's home in suburban Connecticut. He's breaking out stones in the backyard, dragging them to the front and using them to build a brand new path from his house down to the driveway. It's tough, sweaty work, the kids keep getting in the way and it's doubtful if he's ever going to finish it, but that's what it means to be a Man; you do the job, you support your family.

Watch young April Wheeler, wife of Frank and mother-of-two in her late 20s, acting in the local community theatre's production of The Petrified Forest. Despite having given up her naive ideas of becoming a model or actress when she married, we're told she's the only good thing about the play; she knows her lines, she understands her part, she's the last one to fall apart when everything starts going wrong and the play ends in disaster. Not that she doesn't eventually fall apart; everyone's an amateur here, after all.

She must have spent the morning in an agony of thought, pacing up and down the rooms of a dead-silent, dead-clean house and twisting her fingers at her waist until they ached; she must have spent the afternoon in a frenzy of action at the shopping center, lurching her car imperiously through mazes of NO LEFT TURN signs...There's been a ton of films and novels about American suburbian angst in the past 15 years or so, so it stands to reason that Revolutionary Road (set in 1953, published in 1960) has had a revival. But in a weird way, though Revolutionary Road predates all the other stories, it also anticipates them: Frank and April are very well aware of their situation. They're not the ones to blithely settle down and wait for promotions, grandkids and death while the rose bushes grow; they're self-described intellectuals, goddamnit, they know what their parents got wrong, they have plans and aspirations, they know that there's so much more to life than being good neighbours and following the flock. They're the post-war generation, they're the perfect family on the cusp of a brand new world, they're the ones who are going to build a new road out of old stones.

And it's all going to go to hell.

Revolutionary Road is easily one of the best reads of the year for me. I don't know what it is that does it; the stark realism; the beautiful prose that stays down to earth without ever becoming dull, descriptive without being flowery, with just enough sneaky irony to underline the earnestness, show-don't-tell like very few can do it; the multi-faceted, well-drawn characters and the way he sets them up against each other without using any far-fetched plot elements - just lets it play out and coldly takes them where they need to go, not for the sake of making a heavy-handed point but just because that's what happens to these people. One of the blurbs has Kurt Vonnegut declaring it the Great Gatsby of his generation, which is a perfectly valid comparison, though personally I can't help thinking of Rabbit, Run - with the added twist that Yates gives the story a more interesting (and by extension horriffic) spin than Updike; where it's hard not to think that Rabbit Angstrom is an asshole who deserves what he gets, and the people who suffer from his shenanigans are victims, there aren't really any bad guys in Revolutionary Road. Sure, they have their less admirable sides - Frank especially - but there's no conscious malice here, at least not to start with. The road isn't paved only with good intentions but also with a certain set of deeply set ideals, ideas, power structures and personal backgrounds that slowly but surely bring everything crashing down. And what makes it all the more chilling is that these are the sort of people who are supposed to know better, who think they have the intellect, education and fresh ideas to do things in a new way - and given everything they've come from, everything they still don't see, can't not end up where they're headed.

We tend to forget that "revolution" means "full circle"; the very word itself belies the notion of forging a brand-new path. And even the best intentions for how to make the world better tend to end in a reign of terror. Revolutionary Road is so deliciously detailed, so subtle, and yet hits me like a ton of bricks.

*****

[Colette Jones]

This was one of my favourite reads of 2007, and my first Yates. That was a very good year for me from a reading standpoint so it ties with a few others (my first Greene, Lessing, Enright).

Here are some of the comments I made about RR at the time:

<In response to someone saying, about the film> "It will be Mendes's first time directing his wife."

Well, that's good to know.

It brings me straight a point I would like to make about http://palimpsest.org.uk/forum/images/smilies/redstars.gif Revolutionary Road http://palimpsest.org.uk/forum/images/smilies/redstars.gif .

This brilliant literary work is the best justification for the Women's Liberation movement I have ever seen.

It could have even started the movement if any of the women in 1961 had time to read it between washing, ironing, and looking after the 5 kids. Undoubtedly a good number would recognize themselves in at least some of April's predicament.

The book reads like it could have been written today, a well researched period piece. Given that it was published in 1961, Yates was oddly prescient of major issues to come. The aforementioned feminist movement and legalised abortion being the two that hit me the most.

Wonderful wonderful book, thanks for the recommendation people.

<and>

People say men are more confused now, but I don't agree. Who would want to be Frank?

[saliotthomas]

.

Frank is a exemple of how to keep faith in oneself by involving i nothing.Only experience can break ones hopes or ambitions,so he just avoid life.He can then be spitfull with the failure and mediocrity of others.
We all know people who will write a book someday and are therefore the hardest critics. They know they have it in them somewhere,they just need time.We all have some unkown ressource that someday will come out and make us special.
The only quality of Frank is to be with April.She is the mirror showing this worthy image of him,like a well cut suit.She is a first rate girl he says and therefor he must be first rate himslef.All Frank resisde outside of Frank.
April is a true woman,she is "female" as john(a madman) put it.A real humain being,consistant and original.She just stay to long with this grown up boy that Frank is.
I found the novel very classic as opposite to baroque.All is explain,nothing ticks out or is artificial.It is compact and every part as its place.I would love to seen someone trying to abridge it.A perfect consturction.
It is a mine of literary found,of perfectly felt situations.What make a great novel if not the truth of its observation,the fact that even so the lives of the protagonistes are very different from ours, we feel there sorrow,there joy and hope.Richard Yates excelle at this.
I true little masterpeice.And i'll bet the skin of my arse it shall be a classic.

[Colette Jones]

salliotthomas and Bjorn, you both write wonderfully about this novel.

[Colette Jones]

Here's more I wrote at the time, on a different forum (includes the quip about Frank from my post above):

The reason I sympathised with April is she believed her husband's "revolutionary" ramblings to be his true feelings and basically he was just waffling. He knew it but she didn't. She wanted to believe in that ideal and eventually realised it was all a load of crap. A lot of people, men or women, will reach a conclusion that their so called beliefs were not correct, or are no longer relevant, with less drastic consequences. She didn't adapt but instead acted on it, and in that way I think she could be seen as a proponent of Women's Liberation even though it didn't exist as an official movement at the time.

The way Frank tried to justify himself was superbly written. And when he brought up penis envy I thought I was going to split a gut. I think some of the things he did were fairly typical though. People say men are more confused now, but I don't agree. Who would want to be Frank?

I guess I see April and Frank and their relationship quite differently than a lot of people here - I saw them as fairly typical of the era, whereas others have indicated how they were flawed personalities and not at all typical.

[JPS]

A bit of trivia regarding the title: Yates went to the same private school I went to, though many years earlier. It's located on an estate, and he and his mother lived in a handsome little gatehouse on it (where John Cheever and his family would eventually live years later, while I was a student there). Just down the road, virtually bordering the estate (and school's) property, is Revolutionary Road. He probably looked at that sign every day.

[titania7]

Bjorn,
Your review of Revolutionary Road is positively magnificent. I'm planning to go ahead and purchase this book, rather than waiting for the library to get a copy in (so far, it's been nearly a two month wait, and 7 people are still ahead of me).

It sounds like this book makes a powerful statement in many ways. It shows how quick we are to give up our dreams in the face of life's responsibilties. So many of us want to build "a new road out of old stones," but we're controlled by the ideals that we were raised with, the beliefs and traditions that we cannot let go of. Yes, our worlds can come crumbling down. I've seen it happen. It's easy, too, to look at our parents and grandparents and say, "Hey, I'm not about to make those mistakes." Then we find ourselves heading in the same direction and wonder if we'll be able to turn back around in time. Patterns tend to evolve in our lives. No matter how hard we try, we often find ourselves drifting into the same pattern that our ancestors' lives followed. All we can hope is that, unlike Frank and April, we're not only aware that we want things to be different, but also, we're willing to do anything we have to to make them different. You have to think outside the box sometimes if you don't want to end up in a prison of your own making. Sometimes we forget we create our own destinies. We like to attribute our decisions to other people, when we were the ones who made the choices we now regret. What was true in the 1960s is still true today. Many of us are still living other people's lives, rather than embracing the spirit of individualism and non-conformity.

I must read this book. It sounds incredibly powerful. In fact, it sounds life-changing. That's the answer I was looking for when I asked Colette, on the Classic vs Contemporary thread, whether or not one of Richard Yates' novels had changed her life. I still don't know if Revolutionary Road changed her life, but I can easily see it might change mine.

The last paragraph of your review sums this novel up brilliantly. You say the prose is beautifully written yet down to earth...profound yet starkly realistic. Man, it sounds extraordinary. You know, I think I'll just splurge and buy two or three of Yate's novels, rather than just this one. He sounds like an author who has a heck of a lot to say.

Congrats on that review, Bjorn. Splendid work indeed.

~Titania

[Beth]

Many of us are still living other people's lives, rather than embracing the spirit of individualism and non-conformity.


...and herein lies the rub. Yates takes the notions of individualism and non-conformity and explodes them all over the place. Titania, I think you'll really enjoy Revolutionary Road. As a faithful Yatesian, I practically had me hand over me heart the other night when Kate Winslet praised him to the rafters immediately after winning her Golden Globe for the film. And to hear that he's hot down at the local library to boot? Watch out, Atlanta!

[Morten]

This brilliant literary work is the best justification for the Women's Liberation movement I have ever seen.

It could have even started the movement if any of the women in 1961 had time to read it between washing, ironing, and looking after the 5 kids. Undoubtedly a good number would recognize themselves in at least some of April's predicament.

The book reads like it could have been written today, a well researched period piece. Given that it was published in 1961, Yates was oddly prescient of major issues to come. The aforementioned feminist movement and legalised abortion being the two that hit me the most.

Wonderful wonderful book, thanks for the recommendation people.

<and>

People say men are more confused now, but I don't agree. Who would want to be Frank?

It's interesting you make this point because Yates was something of a misogynist, if I'm not mistaken. And yet he wrote Revolutionary Road and The Easter Parade, which I highly recommend, two novels rather sympathetic towards women in the mid-20th Century.

[Colette Jones]

It's interesting you make this point because Yates was something of a misogynist, if I'm not mistaken. And yet he wrote Revolutionary Road and The Easter Parade, which I highly recommend, two novels rather sympathetic towards women in the mid-20th Century.
Very interesting - I think there is a biography of Yates which some here may have read (was it Stewart? John Self?). Once I get a few more of his books read, I think I'd be interested in that biography. On the evidence of the two books you mention here, I certainly didn't have him pegged as misogynist!

[Colette Jones]

I must read this book. It sounds incredibly powerful. In fact, it sounds life-changing. That's the answer I was looking for when I asked Colette, on the Classic vs Contemporary thread, whether or not one of Richard Yates' novels had changed her life. I still don't know if Revolutionary Road changed her life, but I can easily see it might change mine.
And I'm still not quite sure how to answer that question, but here goes:

It didn't change my life any more than any good book changes my life - I enjoyed it immensely and am really glad I read it and would recommend it to just about anyone.

I don't look for books to change my life; I'm quite happy with my life as it is at the moment, but if I'm looking to change it, I don't think I'll be picking up a piece of fiction to serve that purpose.

I hope that doesn't sound glib - it is not meant to. I just don't need a book to be life-changing to be good. I read for enjoyment. If I end up a better person in some way, great, but that's not why I open the book in the first place.

[titania7]

Thomas,
I like what you have to say about this book. I knew, when you gave it ***** on the "Recently Finished Books" thread, it must be spectacular.
I think there are people like Frank, who (and I haven't read this book; thus, I go merely by what you say) are so afraid of failing that they don't try. You can't be disappointed by life if you don't expect anything. As for April, it sounds like she completes Frank, and that his self-worth is completely tied to her. As you say, she is like a mirror, showing the most worthy image of him "like a well cut suit" (splendid analogy, by the way).

I particularly appreciate your remark about what makes a great novel. I think you're right--it's beyond the truth behind the observations. It's also about the characters and whether we connect to them and feel the emotions they are going through. Does the author manage to bring us into their world, no matter how different it may be than ours? It sounds like Richard Yates more than accomplishes this challenging feat.

I'll be ordering this book later today, along with Easter Parade and another Yates novel. I've been more than convinced of this book's exceptional value from the comments I've heard from you, Bjorn, and others on this thread.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Thomas.

Best wishes always,
Titania

[titania7]

I don't look for books to change my life

I think perhaps you interpreted my remark a bit more literally than I intended ;). What I meant when I spoke of a book changing a person's life is that a book--just like a film or a casual encounter with someone whom we may or may not ever meet again--can alter our perceptions of the world we live in. It can influence the choices we make and can also broaden our understanding of people and human nature.


I'm quite happy with my life as it is at the moment, but if I'm looking to change it, I don't think I'll be picking up a piece of fiction to serve that purpose.

Again, what I said was not intended to be taken that literally. I don't think anyone who had at least an adequate amount of common sense would allow a book to alter their life choices. However, there are profound truths in books that we might not have discovered on our own. And these truths can give us added wisdom and can even increase our level of discernment, empathy, and/or compassion. At least, I have found this to be the case. Each one of us is different and we all read for different reasons. There was a point in my life when I was very ill and literature actually made the difference in my wanting to live. So, as you see, there are instances in which books really can be life-changing.


I hope that doesn't sound glib - it is not meant to. I just don't need a book to be life-changing to be good.

Neither do I. In fact, only 1/3 of the books I've ever read are what I would describe as "life changing."


I read for enjoyment. If I end up a better person in some way, great, but that's not why I open the book in the first place.

For me, the literature that I find most fulfilling is both educational and entertaining. Obviously, since I read a lot of philosophy, enjoyment is not the thing I look for most in books. I see literature as an opportunity to continue growing and learning--a chance to continue expanding my mind and my intellect. Like you, Colette, I don't open a book because I think it will make me a better person. But isn't it great when it does? :)


~Titania

[nnyhav]

FYI The reveiwers weigh in, from bookforum.com (http://www.bookforum.com/):
"From The New Yorker, like men betrayed: James Wood (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/12/15/081215crbo_books_wood) revisits Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (and more (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/hitchens-suburbs) by Christopher Hitchens; and more (http://www.slate.com/id/2207635/) from Slate; and more (http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=3f86ee5f-7896-4a52-af9b-e86b2387f3e4) from TNR; and more (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3251) from Bookforum)."

(my own TBR lost too long to consider for now, perhaps anon)

[Max Cairnduff]

I just finished this myself, I've written it up on my blog over at www.pechorinsjournal.wordpress.com (http://www.pechorinsjournal.wordpress.com).

In short, I thought it tremendous, remarkably well written, unsparing in its observation of character, a marvellous examination of the conflict between the lies we tell ourselves and the reality we live.

There's a lot in it, the tragedy of Frank's ultimate cowardice and his essentially conformist nature which he lies to himself about. April, her ambitions and her attempt to save them both.

It's also a condemnation of conformity and how it can throttle us, yet also a condemnation of how we can snobbishly look down on others thinking ourselves nonconformist, it's a novel with many possible interpretations and the one I took on my blog is very much only one of several that's possible.

But at the end, it's the writing that makes it shine, the total lack of sentiment, the ruthless honesty, the examination of failure of ambition and of a profound cowardice and of a dishonesty so great that the main person lied to is the liar themselves.

Tremendous piece, like others here I can't recommend it too highly.

[liehtzu]

I started this book the day before yesterday, borrowed from a co-worker, but finished it (the last 400 pages or so of its 460-odd in a cheap trade paperback edition tie-in with the film) yesterday on an early morning bus ride, then waiting for my Thai work visa in Chiang Mai (3 hours), then having lunch, then having a beer, then the bus ride back, and finally at home right before shut-eye last night. It is rare that I get through a book that long in a day, but it is also rare that I get such large blocks of waiting.

Here's what I think.

It is a fine book, but far from flawless, as the NY Times blurb on the back dubs it (Does the flawless novel exist?). I have my problems with it, and I will try, in my fumbling way, to put my finger on some of them.

First of all, the trajectory is painted in the opening chapter: you just know that the book is going to be a downer and that it's going to end badly for the main characters from the get-go: thus any glimmers of hope that crop up you know are also going be extinguished somewhere further down the line. The operative word, used by the "insane" character (meant by the author I assume to be the sanest one of all here) is hopeless. It is a long novel about hopelessness, and very early on I thought to myself that it was wildly unlikely that the man, the woman, and the kids would make it all the way to the end. Someone would have to die. Which is fine: the author is intelligent, he knows that the finale of his suburban tragedy isn't going to come as a real shock to anyone. But seeing it coming way down the line blunts the impact.

The book is about a man, a rather intelligent man who is not nearly as intelligent as he believes himself to be, a man who condescends and feels superior to the dead suburban souls and the office coat-racks around him, but who is too silly to see that he is drowning in the same quicksand. He is a man who slowly murders his wife and kids and finds ways to feel the wounded one, the righteous one, and never comes close to figuring out that the sickest of the sick puppies is he. There are times that the author cuts really close to the bone charting the mentality of the main character: the educated type who snickers and is superior, the closet drunkard, the narcissist, the one who's got Big Plans that he's always a stone's throw away from achieving if only his environment didn't drag him down so. Frank is one of those fellows who poisons the air around him: on the surface intelligent, good-looking, "nice," he seeps black tentacles that strangle everyone in his vicinity.

I agree with Frank, and have no doubt that the author does, too: suburban America is a dead plain. "Life" in America is designed to drain the spirit and the dreams of the individual, leaving man and woman a hollow gourd. Even more depressing than Revolutionary Road is Henry Miller's The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, which is worth quoting at length:

I had to travel about ten thousand miles before receiving the inspiration to write a single line about America. Everything worth saying about the American way of life I could put in thirty pages. Topographically the country is magnificent-and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak.


We are accustomed to think of ourselves as an emancipated people; we say we are democratic, liberty-loving, free of prejudice and hatred. This is the melting pot, the seal of a great human experiment. Beautiful words, full of noble, idealistic sentiment. Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world beside the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment? The land of opportunity has become the land of senseless sweat and struggle. The goal of all of our striving has long been forgotten. We no longer wish to succor the oppressed and homeless; there is no room in this great, empty land for those who, like our forefathers before us, now seek a place of refuge. Millions of men and women are, or were until very recently, on relief, condemned like guinea pigs to a life of forced idleness. The world meanwhile looks to us with a desperation such as it has never known before. Where is the democratic spirit? Where are the leaders?


To conduct a great human experiment we must first of all have men. Behind the conception MAN there must be grandeur. No political party is capable of ushering in the Kingdom of Man. The workers of the world may one day, if they ever cease listening to their bigoted leaders, organize a brotherhood of man. But men cannot be brothers without first becoming peers, that is, equals in a kingly sense. What prevents men from uniting as brothers is their own base inadequacy. Slaves cannot unite; cowards cannot unite; the ignorant cannot unite. It is only by obeying our highest impulses that we can unite. The urge to surpass oneself has to be instinctive, not theoretical or believable merely. Unless we make the effort to realize the truths which are in us we shall fail again and again. As Democrats, Republicans, Fascists, Communists, we are all on one level. That is one of the reasons why we wage war so beautifully. We defend with our lives the petty principles which divide us.



And yet I wonder if Yates doesn't stack the deck against Frank and April a little too much (perhaps because at my worst I can be rather Frank-like? or simply that I like to think that I would have taken the absurd, totally irresponsible leap that Frank refuses to? does the book cut a little too close to my bones?). The fights and reconciliations are repetitive. The characters repeatedly bang their heads against the wall. They are weakly battling the spiritual death that they do not realize has claimed them some time ago (only at the end does April see it). The book does an exemplary job of portraying its milieu, but it is hopeless and cold - it is the depths of despair. The common word to describe it, it seems, is "depressing," but I don't mind depressing... but there was something clinical, something pitiless and heartless, some hollowness to the book itself.



Anyway, anyone should feel free to take issue - I just finished the book, I'm writing this cold, and I haven't very well sorted out just how I feel about it.

[Colette Jones]

Hmm, lietzhu, maybe you knew too much about it before you started. (I certainly did not see the end coming). I don't like to know anything about a book before I start. If I'd read your review, I wouldn't bother with the book, for example.

[liehtzu]

Actually I knew nothing at all about the book before reading it other than that it was a "rediscovered classic," they made a recent movie out of it, it was set in suburbia, and it was "dark." More than that could have been gleaned from the cover of my trade paperback.

As for giving too much away in my review, I thought I left it vague enough, though if I gave too much of the game away I apologize. However, I will say now that if someone wants to have NO IDEA OF THE PLOT OR EVENTUAL OUTCOME OF REVOLUTIONARY ROAD DO NOT READ MY PREVIOUS POST. I hope that helps. Otherwise I could just delete it, or one of the admins could, or whatever. I won't lose sleep. I wanted to point out that I felt the trajectory of the book was easy to chart, not that I have astonishing powers of observation. I simply feel silly typing SPOILERS AHEAD. And I gotta ask: Did you think that the book would end cheerfully?

And I may have given the impression that I did not like the book very much or that it was not worth reading, which is not the case. Any book that I get through in a day must have me in its thrall. The thing is that I felt there were some very real shortcomings to the novel and wanted to feel them out some. I did not do so just to be contrarian, or to piss on everyone's parade.

Also, looking back, perhaps the perceived weaknesses of the novel are due a factor completely unrelated to it: the glut of suburbia-is-Hell books and films (one, American Beauty, directed by the same fellow who directed the film of Revolutionary Road who, for an Englishman, demonstrates in this duo his keen interest in the very American suburbia-is-Hell theme). I realize that Revolutionary Road beat most of them to the punch (but not quite; there were precedents: see Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows), and it is unfair to burden the book with the predictabilities and and shortcomings of those that followed.

[Colette Jones]

And I gotta ask: Did you think that the book would end cheerfully?
No, but that's quite different from knowing what you give away in your review, namely that someone is going to die.

I simply do not read threads about books I haven't read yet, but some people do. It's not for me to say whether you should have indicated a spoiler. It illustrates why I, personally, won't read reviews before I read a book.

[Max Cairnduff]

liehtzu,

I agree that it's obvious from the outset that any hope is doomed, the arc of the novel is all there in the first chapter. The book may contain surprises of how we get where we're going, but where we're going is never really in doubt.

For me, the hope was a way though of showing what was at stake, what the price paid by the characters was. Put another way, what could have been, had Frank in particular not been what he ultimately was, a man content with (even desirous of) mediocrity as long as he had the dream of being something more.

So for me the elements of hope did make a better novel, even though I knew that the hope would inevitably be dashed.

And no, no novel is flawless. Which is good, if one were after reading it we'd all have to take up another interest as we'd never have the hope of reading something as good again. Now that's what I call hopelessness.

[Colette Jones]

And no, no novel is flawless.
The varying reviews of books illustrate that one man's feature is another man's flaw, and no one can be completely right about any book.

The thing is that I felt there were some very real shortcomings to the novel and wanted to feel them out some. I did not do so just to be contrarian, or to piss on everyone's parade.
I appreciate the differing views on a book - it shows that there's more than one way to interpret it. I suspect that's one of the things that separates good literature from the not-so-good.

[Max Cairnduff]

I appreciate the differing views on a book - it shows that there's more than one way to interpret it. I suspect that's one of the things that separates good literature from the not-so-good.

Absolutely, contrarian views expose to us aspects of works that we might otherwise miss.

[saliotthomas]

French have a gift acrobatic and ridiculous film titles translation,i think this time they broke the record.
Recolutionary road becomes Noces rebelles.:confused:
Noce meaning wedding and rebelle well,you know.

Depressing.

[Colette Jones]

That is awful, saliotthomas. How could they manage that?

[Bjorn]

Poor translations of (movie and book) titles might be a good thread in itself. For the most part, I'm pretty glad that Swedish film distributors have more or less given up on trying to translate movie titles; they just figure we know what titles like Atonement or Quantum of Solace mean in English. And if we don't, then hey, there are pretty pictures on the posters as well.

Besides, Revolutionsv?gen would just look weird.

[saliotthomas]

Now that you mention it Atonement was Reviens-moi :(
(come back to me !)

Terrible.

[Mirabell]

THomas Bernhard's novel "Verst?rung" (meaning haggardness, derangement) is translated into English as "Gargoyles".

:confused:

[Clarissa]

Translating titles is tricky.

In German Schlink's Der Vorleser is infinitely better than The Reader with the notion of reading aloud to someone in the German that is completely lost in the English. However, I would not have been able to come up with something better.

That being said, I enjoyed the book but skipped the film. Winslet is not for me.

[Flower]

I havent read the book but seen the film the other night. But Im definately going to read the book!

Thomas and Colette, I think you hit the nail with your descriptions of Frank and April.

"Frank is a example of how to keep faith in oneself by involving in nothing. Only experience can break ones hopes or ambitions, so he just avoid life. He can then be spiteful with the failure and mediocrity of others."

I think thats what a Charletan does! And the only way, he can keep on holding on to the belief of himself as being above everybody else, is his wife, the first rate girl. Frank is afraid to take a hard look at himself, to face the difference between what he is actually capable of doing and what he is dreaming about. He is scared that he is just an ordinary man like everybody else.


"The reason I sympathised with April is she believed her husband's "revolutionary" ramblings to be his true feelings and basically he was just waffling. He knew it but she didn't. She wanted to believe in that ideal and eventually realised it was all a load of crap."

Yes she believed him and when she put him to the test, he failed big time! In the film, the move to Paris, becomes the big test.

I think that she did not notice and did not check up on all his ideas. To him they were great concepts in his head, concepts which could feed his selfimage of being a man who was more than the ordinary. She didnt stop to think what he has actually done in life to proove all those wild ideas, besides thinking and dreaming about them!

I somehow think that both Frank and April were hoping for the other one, something outside themselves to make them feel alive, to be real and true in life. And that is the biggest mistake of all! You can live a whole life believing that and then always blame the other person, society, the circumstances etc etc., that things didnt turn out the way they were supposed to.

I dont understand why they actually moved to the suburbs? wasnt that the first mistake?
Or was it one of life?s temptations of getting them to conform? like Frank?s promotion? like the pregnancy? There will always be things and opportunities which takes you away from being true to yourself and away from doing what you know in your heart that you should be doing.

To me the film and the book still is relevant to us after so many years cause it asks the deep existential question about life; The freedom of choice and how to take respondsibility for your actions and choice and live with the consequences.
Frank is caught in dreams of himself and his possibles, but doesnt dare to take them to a test in real life. April seeks a man to release the possiblities in her and sets her hopes on a man who has nothing to show for his dreams and ideas.

I just came to think of another film by a great author/playwriter, Arthur Miller "Death of a salesman". Its the same deeply rooted human questions which are the theme. Dunno if any of you ever seen the film with John Malkovich and Dustin Hoffman?

Cant wait to read the book and get all the full brilliant written dialog from Richard Yates! :)

[Colette Jones]

Thanks, Flower. I'm sure you'll like the book. I haven't seen the movie yet but I intend to.

[lionel]

This is one of my favourite bits from Revolutionary Road:

'He found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didn't try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders. Then, ashamed of himself, he bent over and carefully set his drink on the grass, got out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

'The whole point of crying was to quit before you cornied it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted: let yourself go and you started embellishing your own sobs.'


I'd risk saying that the expressions 'cornied it up' and 'embellishing your own sobs' were made up by Yates himself: they brilliantly sum up the sheer theatricality of the moment, and still work if there's no audience. Wonderful, incisive psychology.

The film's well worth seeing too, but don't expect too much folks.

[saliotthomas]

This is one of my favourite bits from Revolutionary Road:

'He found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didn't try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders. Then, ashamed of himself, he bent over and carefully set his drink on the grass, got out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

'The whole point of crying was to quit before you cornied it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted: let yourself go and you started embellishing your own sobs.'


I'd risk saying that the expressions 'cornied it up' and 'embellishing your own sobs' were made up by Yates himself: they brilliantly sum up the sheer theatricality of the moment, and still work if there's no audience. Wonderful, incisive psychology.

The film's well worth seeing too, but don't expect too much folks.

Nice one Tony.I also very much like this bit.
It has to be said that it come just after his wife take so much plaisure in discribing the fate of the Wheeler.

[Clarissa]

I preferred the book to the film even if I saw the film before I read the book. Usually, when I do this I regret it because the actors keep on cropping up in my mind's eye when I am reading the book. This did not happen. Perhaps because Yates's description did not really match the actors - this was particularly the case with Kathy Bates, an actress I have admired ever since I saw her in Fried Green Tomatoes with the magnificent Jessica Tandy.

[lionel]

I'm pleased that you too enjoyed that quotation, Thomas. But to return to a point you made some time ago:


French have a gift acrobatic and ridiculous film titles translation,i think this time they broke the record.
Recolutionary road becomes Noces rebelles.:confused:

Yes, Les Noces rebelles is a pretty silly translation. But the French also have a gift for revolutionary activity, of course, and a literal translation just wouldn't have worked either, as I'm sure something entirely different would immediately have been (mis)understood. To me, Yates's title Revolutionary Road refers to two things: ironically, to the asphyxiatingly conformist country that America, in the 1950s, had become since the American Revolution; and to the very idea that the Wheelers have of breaking free from this societal straitjacket. Obviously, the double meaning can't be conveyed in translation, but we still have a problem, don't we?

[lionel]

Kathy Bates, an actress I have admired ever since I saw her in Fried Green Tomatoes with the magnificent Jessica Tandy.

Ah! A beautiful film, I agree, and one that you can easily watch several times and still love. However - and note that I'm not entirely removing myself from the thread - like the film of Revolutionary Road, there are some inevitable losses. The film Fried Green Tomatoes, for commercial reasons, plays down the lesbian content in the book, and (although I may be wrong) I don't believe we hear anything in the film of The Weems Weekly, Whistle Stop's very amateurish but very lovable - because so idiosyncratic - bulletin.

Great to learn that someone here also likes this, though.

[saliotthomas]

I'm pleased that you too enjoyed that quotation, Thomas. But to return to a point you made some time ago:



Yes, Les Noces rebelles is a pretty silly translation. But the French also have a gift for revolutionary activity, of course, and a literal translation just wouldn't have worked either, as I'm sure something entirely different would immediately have been (mis)understood. To me, Yates's title Revolutionary Road refers to two things: ironically, to the asphyxiatingly conformist country that America, in the 1950s, had become since the American Revolution; and to the very idea that the Wheelers have of breaking free from this societal straitjacket. Obviously, the double meaning can't be conveyed in translation, but we still have a problem, don't we?

But wait.
That was the title of the film and to be honest some are better kept In English.Most French understand the word Road as for revolutionary,it's close enough.
I since bought the book for my dear mother,and the title is.....Tada.... Fen?tres Panoramique (Panoramic windows)
If Noce rebelles is stupid,like a teenage movie,Fen?tre Panoramique is cosmic.Just why*.



*In fact,an exemple of French snobery and fake intellectualism.Brain fart.

[titania7]

Ah! A beautiful film ("Fried Green Tomatoes"), I agree, and one that you can easily watch several times and still love.

Great to learn that someone here also likes this . . .

I love "Fried Green Tomatoes," Tony! I also enjoyed the book by Fannie Flagg. Yes, it was a positively beautiful film--witty, well-acted, and thoroughly absorbing!

And in regard to Revolutionary Road (the book, ladies and gents, not the film), I'm still going to be writing a review of that and posting at at my Divine Comedy blog. Of course, I'll post the link here at our beloved forum. All I need to do is re-read the book first, and I procrastinate when it comes to re-reading books. It's a dreadful habit that I'm doing my best to break! ~sigh, sigh, sigh~ But unless you do at least try to break a bad habit, you'll never get rid of it. Aren't I right? ;)

~Alexis (Titania)


"And the girl would not stop reading books. The more she read,
the more she wanted to read, until finally, she did nothing but
read, and all her friends had disappeared. Her books were now
the only 'people' she had to turn to."
~AW

[lionel]

I since bought the book for my dear mother,and the title is.....Tada.... Fen?tres Panoramique (Panoramic windows)
If Noce rebelles is stupid,like a teenage movie,Fen?tre Panoramique is cosmic.Just why*.

*In fact,an exemple of French snobery and fake intellectualism.Brain fart.

You know, Thomas, I reckon Pet de cerveau would make a better title than La Fen?tre panoramique!

[Colette Jones]

Kathy Bates is to be admired in every moves she's been in, and excellent actress. I too enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes (book and film).

[lionel]

I love "Fried Green Tomatoes," Tony!

That is wonderful to hear, Alexis! (Didn't you say that somewhere before? No, must be my imagination.)


I also enjoyed the book by Fannie Flagg.

Yes, let's not forget the book, which is also different in that it's far more episodic. But I'm OK with episodic.


Kathy Bates is to be admired in every moves she's been in, and excellent actress. I too enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes (book and film).

Towanda!

[learna]

Yesterday I finished reading "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates( I saw the film, as well). The plot is definitely interesting and what's behind it, psychological moments and an occurrence of some wonderful dialogues. But I can not say that I like the style that even deverted me from reading( I had not expected anything ornate that can not be proper for such story) but I have a ground for suspicion that my impression maybe occured due to a translation.

[Liam]

I have a ground for suspicion that my impression maybe occured due to a translation.
Why read it in translation??? Your English ain't bad!

I liked the film version well enough. Kate was superb, as always. "Fuck who you like..." lolz. I don't fancy watching it a second time, though--

[learna]

Liam, THANK YOU, you words mean something for me! :)



I liked the film version well enough. Kate was superb, as always. "Fuck who you like..." lolz. I don't fancy watching it a second time, though--


Kate is indeed great in that film that was made quite qualitatively . That was an exeption when I saw the film before reading.