Book Meme 31-40.

[shadowkat]

[I've been watching all the interviews on West Side Story - on youtube and HBOMax. What's fascinating is they never mention Richard Beymer who played Tony. They do mention Natalie Wood. So I googled, and apparently Beymer hated his performance as Tony so much that he walked out of the London premier and refuses to discuss it at all. And Morena thought Natalie Wood was completely miscast as Maria. Chakris mentions how there's more meat to the characters of Bernando and Riff - because in the stage production, they are dead before their iconic dance numbers/performances - Officer Krupike and America, but in the musical they are still alive and get to do it. ]

Book Meme


31: Who’s your favorite contemporary author?

Don't really have one. Used to be James Joyce. Now? I don't know really.
I've been in a reading slump for a long long time. No writer sticks, I like one book but not another. Joyce was the only one I remember like all of the books from, but maybe not now?

32: Who’s your favorite fantasy author?

Used to be JR Tolkien, now? I don't know. I like Illona Andrews novels. Also, Ellen Kushner for the most part. And recently Children of Blood and Bone. When I was a kid it was Ann McCaffrey for a long time - but McCaffrey does not age well - also she's more sci-fi, I guess.

33: Who’s your favorite SF author?

Don't have one. Sad I know. But no one comes to mind. Maybe Octavia Butler, or CJ Cherryh.

34: List five OTPs.

One True Pairing, but make it Five of them!

Elizabeth Bennet/Mr. Darcy (Pride & Prejudice)
Curran/Kate Daniels (Illona Andrews - Kate Daniels Books)
Jean Grey/Scott Summers (X-men Comics - although I'm also partial to Scott/Wolverine and Scott/Emma)
Dresden/Murphy (Dresden Files)
Vickie Bliss/Sir John Smythe (Vickie Bliss Mysteries)

35: Name a book you consider to be terribly underrated.

I don't know. Is there one? I consider the 1980s-2020 X-men comics to be terribly underrated. And Slaughterhouse Five possibly is underrated? Also a lot of the books by Courtney Milan are, as are Stephen King's Short Stories.
So too are the sci-fi novels by CJ Cherryth. Genre generally speaking is terribly underrated. My favorite mystery writer...Minette Walters is very underrated. She's one of the few that doesn't do the formula. Too many mystery novelists do formula. Same with romance. Milan, Walters, Cherryth, King, Vonnegurt, and Illona Andrews are not formula - they kind of go against it. Which is why I liked them. Illona Andrews did two non-formulaic things with urban fantasy - she put the two leads together quickly and had them get married and have kids. She also, kept the female character strong and in charge, after doing that. And she brought in Russian and Asian and Babylonian folklore, as opposed to Northern European/Christian. Walters refused to do a series and fully developed the characters and made them character centric. Milan - made her female characters tough, went against the trope, and made the male kinder - she also brought in social issues but with research and keeping to the time period, and did characters that weren't white. King puts characters first. Vonnegurt? Is speculative sci-fi, but also comedic. And Cherryth does female centric space opera at a time you rarely saw it. All subversive in their own way.

36: Name a book you consider to be terribly overrated.

Atlas Shrugged and anything by Ayn Rand, god, all she does is sermonize. Also Thomas Pynchon - who copies Joyce and badly. And anything by William S. Burroughs. I also think Hemingway, Nathanial Hawthorn, Henry James, and Virigina Woolf are terribly overrated. Not to mention the guy who wrote Jude the Obscure and Tess.

37: How many books are actually in your bookshelf/shelves right now?

More than I can count. I just unloaded a bunch to the basement library downstairs. Plus I have over 1000 on my kindle, over 1000 on comixcology. And the dozens in my parents house. I collect and hoard books.

38: What language do you (most often) read in?

English. (I'm not a linguist)

39: Name one of your favorite childhood books.

Watership Down by Richard Adams (took me a while. I loved animal books as a child - read all the James Herbert, Benjy, and all the horse books - Misty, etc.)

40: Name one of your favorite books from your teenage years.

Dune by Frank Herbert - I was obsessed with that book.

Comments

[petzipellepingo]

Beymer said he wished that someone with more presence had played the part. His suggestion was Robert DeNiro.

[shadowkat]

Robert DeNiro? Although that makes sense - considering he wanted to play Tony more as a street tough or street kid, and the producers wanted him to play him as a nice guy, clean cut, all American - which didn't work. He and Natalie were given the same direction.

[petzipellepingo]

Yes, the producers wanted a "dreamboat" so Beymer got the part. The story is in the latest book :

https://www.amazon.com/West-Side-Story-Sharks-Classic/dp/076246948X/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=west+side+story%27&qid=1620572836&s=books&sr=1-2

[shadowkat]

Thanks for the link. I'll pass - don't need to buy another book right now. ;-)

In re-watching though, it hits me that both Natalie Wood and Beymer were uncomfortable in the roles, and trapped in them. Rita Morena talks about it in various interviews - how Wood didn't like the part nor did she really want it. They went with the screen idols of the time - and it didn't work. There's a reason the supporting actors got nominated and the leads never did. They are okay, but the three flaws in West Side Story are the book (the dialogue), the casting of Richard Beymer and Wood, and
the makeup (I agree with Rita Morena on that one).

[petzipellepingo]

Could have been worse, the original choices for Tony and Maria were Elvis Presley and Audrey Hepburn.

[shadowkat]

Elvis would have been better than Beymer - he could dance and sing at least. Hepburn would have been a huge mistake though - Wood was better than Hepburn. The time period was problematic. Shame they couldn't get the actual folks on Broadway to do it. But the Broadway cast was deemed too old, apparently.

Curious about the Spielberg version though.

[petzipellepingo]

Yes, they were looked at but the PTB decided they didn't look young enough - especially Larry Kert.

Presley I doubt could have covered up his deep South accent.

This time around most of the cast are Broadway performers except, of course, Rachel who just graduated from High School. Although she has done some local theatre.

[shadowkat]

Tony (Ansel Elgort) isn't really Broadway - but he can sing and dance at least. I don't know, Presley was able to drop the Southern Accent in some of his films. But I do think people would see Elvis and not Tony. He was too big a star.

Also, I think he was too old. He was in his 30s in the 1960s.

[shadowkat]

Having re-watched all of it now - Beymer and Wood do sell it. Considering both were uncomfortable in the roles, felt they were miscast, and despised each other - that's not what I see on screen. I still cry at the end. And they sell that ending. The talent around them, and their own professionalism succeeds.