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“For the rest of his life, Eddie O’Hare would believe in fate. After all, the second he set foot on shore, there was Marion.”
These lines amply demonstrate John Irving’s brilliance, of course, but I also love the timeless symbolism of a water passage into a new realm of existence, in this case the birth of love for Eddie (as well as the birth of his manhood, or his passing from boyhood to manhood), and perhaps a kind of re-birth (in Eddie’s likeness to one of her dead sons) for Marion.
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The movie version of the novel, which captures only the first third of A Widow for One Year, faithfully captures the essence of the novel, and I enjoyed it a lot, with but three reservations.
First, I think Kim Basinger was miscast. This is a tremendous role for an actress of her age, and I found her to be a complete disappointment. From Irving’s description of her in the novel, Marion has to be STUNNING. While Kim Basinger is a good-looking woman, certainly, I don’t think she’s stunning. Some examples of the kind of look this required are Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven-Year Itch,” and Sophia Loren in “El Cid.” Watching those movies, when those women come on screen, your jaw drops and your eyeballs pop out of your head, they’re so incredibly luminous and beautiful. That is not the case with Ms. Basinger.
Second, while Jeff Bridges is a fine actor, and great in this film, I think he has forever tarnished his legacy by becoming the voice of Hyundai automobiles. Now whenever I hear him speak, I expect him to start shilling for the car manufacturer. It takes me out of the story, which is really a tragedy because his performance here is otherwise excellent.
Third, I didn’t like the time shift from 1958 to the ’80s. To me, it made the episode with Mrs. Vaughn less realistic and therefore less comical and effective.
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“When, if only for a moment, the novelist steps out of the creator’s role, what roles are there for the novelist to step into? There are only creators of stories and characters in stories; there are no other roles.”
I love this quote because it suggests the POWER, the omnipotence, of storytelling — that it’s all a story, and you’re either creating it or being manipulated by someone who is creating it. And, yes, “manipulate” is the perfect word there. As the creator (writer), I manipulate the events, the characters, etc. for an effect I am trying (desperately!) to achieve… at other times (when reading or just living life, perhaps) I am being manipulated (hopefully pleasantly) by the creator. It’s a big part of the joy of both writing and reading (or listening!), in my not-so-humble opinion.
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“And there was yet a meaner, more selfish reason for Ruth’s tears. It was that reading Yeats had discouraged her from even trying to be a poet; hers were the tears a writer cried whenever a writer heard something better than anything he or she could have written.”
And God DAMN if that isn’t truetruetrue about the ending of A Widow for One Year.
