Yester-day, I finished reading The Pig Did It, by Joseph Caldwell. Although it has some genuinely amusing movements and clever notions, it was on the whole a disappointment.

The book rests upon the author's recognition of how an obsessive desire to be loved by some particular person is often mistaken for romantic love of that person, but really is no such thing. However, the author, in turn, appears to have confused that recognition for a positive understanding of love, whereäs he displays no such thing, in a book which is about love.

In an interview, Caldwell said

Stories really reveal… people. I mean, even if you're telling a tale, uh, what you do is that it tells about people, and people can identify with other people. Y'know, they can say Oh yes, I have feelings like that, Oh yes, I'm capable of that, Oh yes, I've done that, or Oh yes, I wish I'd done that, and that's what, uh, keeps somebody reading, because they're… when we read, we're really reading about ourselves. …to a great degree. …if it's any good at all. Because we recognize, in the characters, aspects of ourselves that are set down, possibly, or one hopes, with a, uh, perhaps a clarity or with an interest that hadn't occurred to the reader about himself, before that.

I think that he's at the least largely correct here. Well, the central character is, by-and-large, an ineffectual ninny. It's a bit of a stretch to imagine the reader saying Oh yes, I wish I'd done that!, and those who are saying Oh yes, I'm capable of that! or Oh yes, I've done that! either imagine themselves to be ineffectual ninnies or lack even the efficacy to recognize a ninny.

Returning to the matter of love, another character ultimately falls in love with this protagonist, but there's no explanation as to why. He does a poor job of most of the tasks to which he has been appointed, literally stinks most or all of the time that he is in her presence, and treats her system of values as bizarre (which, indeed, it seems to be).

For his part, he has been falling for her, even as he wrestles with concern that she might have committed a homicide, which homicide might have been some act of jealous rage. A moral of the story seems to be that when one gives one's heart to another — to any other — one accepts a risk that this other person might in fact be a murderer. Well, true; but ordinarily that giving of one's heart is based on so firm a presumption that the other person is not some wanton killer that the presumption, like that of the ground not swallowing one up, isn't even conscious; and without that presumption one wouldn't fall in love.

Love indeed isn't the same thing as a desire to be loved; but it also isn't some intrinsically mysterious attraction. It's nearly tautological that love is about personal attributes that one values, though one may not recognize oneself holding those values and imputing those attributes to an object of one's affections, and though one may be terribly mistaken in that imputation.

Now I shall envy a German woman.

And here's a happy thought:

[Bonhams' book specialist Luke Batterham] added that the original books have outlived and defeated the Disney versions of the story.

As mentioned earlier, out of curiosity, I got a copy of Love Affair (1939), the film of which An Affair to Remember (1957) was a remake. This morning, I watched the earlier film.

It's a good film on its own merits, as opposed to being something that one should watch only out of curiosity or as a film buff. As to how it compares to Affair to Remember, well, I can now see why there are partisans for each. Love Affair manages to avoid some of the false steps that would later be made by Affair to Remember, but Love Affair also makes false steps that are uniquely its own.

Perhaps the greatest of these is in Terry's reäction when Michel (essentially the same character as Niccolo in the later film) begins to give his version of events when they did not meet at the appointed time. What he first tells her should at least disconcert her — in the later film, Terry momentarily thinks that she never actually had what she been hoping to recover — but in Love Affair Irene Dunne does nothing with that terrible moment.

In general, Dunne is not as compelling in the rôle of Terry as is Deborah Kerr. On the other hand, Boyer is, for the most part, more convincing as Michel than Cary Grant is as Niccolo.

The ship-board romance in the earlier movie is simply far too abbreviated to be particularly convincing (though we are mercifully spared the over-working of the intrusiveness of other passengers which characterizes the later film).

I was surprised to discover that Love Affair has as many musical numbers with children as does An Affair to Remember. But, in the earlier movie, these are fairly well handled, whereäs in the later film they are abominable. The children in Love Affair are average-to-cute, whereäs those in Affair to Remember are like something that Normal Rockwell would have painted — if he had actively hated children. And the song performed by the children in Love Affair (in this movie, the same song each time), though arguably sappy, none-the-less quite fits the story in a meaningful fashion.

Chris, who is a partisan for Love Affair (though appreciative of Affair to Remember) mentioned to me what he thought to be a problem with chapel scene in the later movie. I have to agree that the earlier film handles those specific aspects better. While I am (as long-standing readers will already know) an atheïst, these characters are not, and this interval in the chapel is where the two of them should recognize that they want a marriage that will be a sacred bond of love, rather than a convenient union with someone good and affluent. The later film fails to clearly convey this thought, basically because (as Chris would have it) it allows Terry's hat to displace the Virgin Mary; however, it does clearly convey that Niccolo is thinking that perhaps real happiness would entail marrying someone such as Terry. On the other hand, the chapel scene in the earlier film, like the ship-board romance, is far too abbreviated; the characters find themselves positioned as if being married one to another, but little more is conveyed than a sense that marriage between them is not unthinkable.

I was pleased to see that in Love Affair, as in Affair to Remember, the original fiancée and fiancé respective to the two principals are themselves depicted as good people. (We get that more clearly in Affair to Remember, but it is an element of Love Affair.) Any conflict or resolution that would come from having these secondary characters revealed as somehow deserving to be jilted would be altogether too trite and too pat. Nor would it be plausible that the heiress who wanted to provide for Michel/Niccolo and the businessman who wanted to provide for Terry could find happiness in each other.

Oog.

For many years, I've been curious about Just Imagine, a 1930 science-fiction film ostensibly depicting the world of 1980, when airplanes have replaced cars, pills have replaced food and drink, and designators such as LN-18 have replaced names as we know them.

I finally got a copy a few days ago, and this morning I finished watching it. It's a remarkably bad film — bad science, bad plot, bad acting (even Maureen O'Sullivan is hard to take), bad jokes, bad songs, bad choreography. And bad mathematics, as someone who was a little boy in 1930 has become someone in his seventies or older.

The state has intruded into people's lives in various ways, but these ways are more inane than ominous, without having much satiric value. For example, the elimination of old-fashioned names isn't accompanied by any discernible attempt to rob people of individual identity. LN-18 is called LN (pronounced /ɛlˈɛn/), which might as well be Ellén, and J-21 is called J (/djeː/), which might as well be Jay. The romantic conflict exists because the state must decide which of two men shall marry LN-18, but only because she approved an application from each. And, rather than making a better case that she should have been able to withdraw such permission, the movie concludes with the state ultimately choosing the man for her whom she loves.

(For an evaluation very different from mine, see the review from the New York Times, 22 November 1930.)

While searching for editions of She by H. Rider Haggard, I discovered that the Non-Classics division of Penguin Books has begun publishing a line of Red Classics. One might argue that the Red Classics are not classics, or that the Non-Classics division publishes classics after all; but, really, something here ought to give way.

One of the things that I did yester-day was watch An Affair to Remember (1957).

It had been many years since I saw that film, but I'd taken note of one really powerful moment in it, when things click in Niccolo's mind. The dialolgue and Grant's performance at that point are perfectly stated, and that moment makes the whole film work. (There are other moments that shouldn't even have been filmed, let alone made it past the editing process.)

I'd mentioned that moment to the Woman of Interest, who was sufficiently intrigued to rent and watch the film for herself, and seems to have responded to it similarly. Our conversation about it, and later about the unfortunate Indiscreet (1958) put me in mind to seek a copy of Affair when I was in the video section of Fry's Electronics on Saturday.

Out of curiosity, I have ordered a copy of Love Affair (1939).

Donald Duck loses $700 billion in bad mortgages: That's right: $700 billion, in bad mortgages.

Considering that Donald Duck doesn't generally wear pants, it's especially bad when he loses his shirt.

This photo was taken at night, in the yellow glow of lights illuminating a parking lot. It's of the same building that has the collapsing staircases and balcony photographs of which I've posted to this 'blog.

There was a seemingly derelict fellow on a bicycle in the parking lot as I set up to take the photo. He was amazed that I would want to photograph the building at all. I responded that the building had many interesting features. He declared that an amazing feature is that shown here: I'm not sure what sort of room is immediately on the other side of that window, but beyond the pile of stuff there is what appears to be a shower curtain. The fellow on the bicycle has decided, in all seriousness, that the pile of stuff is being thus hidden by the occupant from his friends, in a shower stall or tub — a theory which seems to imply a distinct lack of privacy for anyone previously using the shower, and that the occupant doesn't anticipate his friends ever looking into that window.

The bicyclist and I discussed the exterior staircases and balcony. He railed against the landlord, and thence against rental prices in San Diego. He opined that the Arabs (pronounced /ˈeɹæb/) might be responsible.

As I packed-up my stuff, he pedalled off into the night.