Sage Woman Chronicles

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder. You always have the choice.” ~ Dalai Lama

This spring is the fifth anniversary of beginning this blog. During the winter, I felt like my posts were getting stale and repetitious. I was considering giving up on it. I struggled with what to do, when I got the inspiration to write about two things I love, movies and books, I felt energized and inspired. There are so many great stories to explore.

Today’s post is about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith It’s a movie I almost always seem to catch in the middle, but it’s so compelling I watch to the end. I finally got to see it from the beginning recently and that’s when I remembered I’ve had the book on a shelf for a long time.

I love the Nolan family because I can relate to many aspects of their life. Katie and Johnny Nolan are children of immigrants living in Brooklyn. It’s the beginning of the 20th century. They’re poor, however, they are fortunate to have had some education allowing them to get a pretty good job. Even so, life becomes more complicated when the children begin to arrive.

The story is told from their oldest daughter, Francie’s point of view. She dearly loves her idealistic and imaginative father, as does everyone else, even though he’s an alcoholic and has a difficult time finding work because of it. Her mother, the practical one, keeps the roof over their heads by exchanging her cleaning services for rent. Francie and her brother Neeley do what they can to earn small amounts of money here and there to contribute to the family coffers.

Francie sees her broken down neighborhood as an enchanted place, in spite of the mean children and teachers at school. I love her because she’s unconventional, a dreamer, and bit of a loner like me. She loves reading, is a good writer, and has a fierce desire to improve her self through learning. In fact she and her father contrive to get her into a better school not far from her home.

One segment in the book, that is not in the movie, deeply affected me. Francie and Neeley have been invited to a party or pageant for poor children during the Christmas holidays at a nearby Protestant church. At the end of the program it’s announced there is one last treat. A young girl named Mary, comes out with a beautiful large doll which she is going to give to a girl in the audience also named Mary. Francie desperately wants the doll. She’s never had one of her own. Even though the peer pressure to remain silent is strong, Francie can’t resist. Thinking she’s lying, she says her name is “Mary Frances Nolan.” The doll is given into Francie’s waiting arms.

As she walks back to her seat, the mistress of ceremonies expounds about the generosity of little rich Mary who is willing to give away her doll in true generosity. Francie blinks back tears thinking “Why can’t they just give the doll away without saying I am poor and she is rich? Why couldn’t they give it away without talking about it?” I was asking the same question. Though we were not as poor as Francie’s family, there were times when I was given something in the same spirit as the doll was given to Francie. It’s humiliating.Why do some of the more fortunate people want to make sure the less fortunate are grateful for their charity. To me it should be given freely, even anonymously.

Interestingly, the other poor girls exact their revenge on Francie as she walks back to her seat by whispering, “Beggar, beggar, beggar,” as if upholding their pride is better than trying get something they really want.

The only thing Francie regrets about getting the doll is lying about her name. Knowing that her mother hates anything that smacks of charity, Francie tells her that the doll was a prize. Neeley keeps her secret. Francie, fearing she’s going to hell for lying, suddenly remembers something important. Her confirmation is coming up soon and she decides then and there to choose Mary as her middle name so that the lie will become the truth. When she asks her mother if she may choose Mary as her middle name, her mother says “No. … when you were christened, you were named Francie after Andy’s girl … but you were also named Mary after my mother. Your real name is Mary Frances Nolan. When I read that, I felt as Francie did, that God had given her a special gift. In a way it was an affirmation that her dreams could come true.

Even though there are bright spots in the story like getting the doll, Francie begins to truly understand the struggles her parents go through. As she gets closer to graduation from eighth grade, her father’s condition gets worse. He’s out of work most of the time, which means meals are infrequent. When Katie announces that a third baby is on the way, Johnny tries to quit drinking cold turkey so he can work but It’s too late. He dies of liver failure and pneumonia leaving the family in dire circumstances.

Though Johnny was incapable of providing for his family in life, they learn something remarkable about him. He had lots of friends. And it’s one of those friends, Mr. McGarrity who comes to the family’s rescue. He owns the bar where Johnny hung out. Even though Johnny owed him money, he misses his stories, as do his other patrons, so he hires Francie and Neeley to do odd jobs so he can help the family make ends meet.

I think one of the things that makes this story timeless is the love the Nolans have for each other in spite of their failings and circumstances. They also have a deep conviction that life is going to get better. Katie is the driving force behind this. When she discovers she is pregnant with Francie, this is in the book not the movie, she asks her mother for advice. And her mother, who can’t read, says that the family should read together every night. So Katie gets a Bible and an old copy of the complete works of Shakespeare and she begins reading to her babies. When they get older, they read and by the time the children go to school, they already have quite an education. It’s one of the little things that makes the Nolan family different than most of their neighbors.

In the end, Katie’s determination to make their lives better pays off. She marries a kind and loving police officer who knows how the family has struggled. Both Neeley and Francie get to go to college. It’s the perfect story of a poor family making their dreams come true by steadfastly loving each other, dreaming of a better life, and being willing to work hard to get it.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting on my posts. I hope you’ll consider checking out A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I think it will be well worth your time.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. I you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Ben-Hur

“You can break a man’s skull, you can arrest him, you can throw him into the dungeon. but how do you control what’s up here? (taps his head) How do you fight an idea?” ~ Sextus in Ben-Hur

It’s nearly Passover and Easter. When I was growing up, every year at this time the networks would show three movies, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and for some reason, The Wizard of Oz. Of course, other religious movies were also on the menu, but these three were the staples.

As a result, I saw Ben-Hur, the 1959 version directed by William Wyler, many times before channels like Turner Classic Movies were launched and showed it more than once a year. It’s one of my favorite movies for many reasons. The characters are well developed as is the plot. It deals with complicated and universal issues like, love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, racism and entitlement, and redemption, which is probably why it’s still relevant today.

The book written, by General Lew Wallace in 1880 who was Governor of the New Mexico Territory at the time, is a story of boyhood friends Judah Ben-Hur, and Roman Tribune Messala. It takes place in Judea during the lifetime of Jesus.

The two men are obviously from vastly different backgrounds. At the beginning of the movie, Messala returns to Jerusalem a newly promoted Tribune hoping to renew his friendship with Judah a wealthy prince of the city. Unfortunately that does not work out due to Messala’s selfish ambition to rise in the ranks by bringing to justice Jewish dissidents with the help of Judah’s connections.

When Judah refuses to give up the names the discontented, Messala takes advantage of an unfortunate accident to exact his revenge and advance his career. Judah’s mother and sister are condemned and imprisoned without trial. While Judah is sent to be a galley slave, essentially a death sentence. Arresting Judah and his family spreads fear among the people of Judea giving Messala more control over the populace.

For his part, Judah embarks on an amazing journey of self-discovery. At first, of course, all he can think of is to inflict his revenge on Messala. He lives three years, a feat almost unheard of, in various galleys chained to his oar. Then a new commander, Quintus Arrius is assigned to his ship, and a connection is formed that propels Judah to Rome first as a charioteer and later as the adopted son of Arrius. This gives Judah his chance to return to Jerusalem to confront Messala and hopefully save his family.

Some of the things I love about the movie are the little glimpses we get of the Judean way of life including Judah’s visit with a Sheik, how trusted slaves of the house of Hur are treated more like friends and colleagues, and small daily Jewish rituals. We also see how the Romans treat the local citizens with contempt because supposedly they are of inferior races. And although the full title of the book on which the movie is based is Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, we don’t see much of Jesus. What is shown is the effect he and his teachings have on Judah and his family.

After years of loving and watching the movie at least once a year, last year I finally decided to read the book. Having read other classic books for the 1800s, I thought the language in this one might take some getting used to. I was wrong. The story was compelling and easy to connect with from the very beginning.

Of course, there is much more to Judah’s adventures in the novel than in the movie. For example, once Judah is an official citizen of Rome, many things happen to him on his trip back to Jerusalem. Messala hires people to kill Judah, he has two vastly different women interested in him, but, of course, both the book and the movie have the climactic chariot race, and in both Judah collides with the teachings of Jesus. He rejects them at first, but later has reason to change his mind. In the end, Judah finds peace in forgiving all that happened to him when he witnesses Jesus crucifixion, hears what he says from the cross, and then is reunited with his mother and sister.

My favorite quote from the movie is by Esther, a women who was once Judah’s slave: “It was Judah Ben-Hur I loved. What has become of him? You seem to be now the very thing you set out to destroy. Giving evil for evil. Hatred has turned you to stone. It’s as if you had become Messala.” That is the moment Judah realizes that forgiveness and love are stronger than hate and his path takes a new turn. He can finally find peace.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it very much.

Remember, you can download my book, The Space Between Time for free through 3/25. Click on the link below to get your copy. Happy reading.

Stephen King’s The Stand

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~ Nelson Mandela

I am not a fan of horror anything. I don’t like attending haunted houses on Halloween. I always shut my eyes at the bloody, gory parts of movies and I don’t read books in the horror genre. My distaste of horror probably has to do with the proliferation of slasher movies as I was coming of age, where the main attraction are the number of deaths and the buckets of blood generated from them.

Another reason I don’t like horror books and movies is because I’m a highly sensitive person. I dream about what I’ve just watched on TV or read in my book, so you can understand why I stay away from blood and gore especially right before bed.

Last night, as I was driving home from teaching, I was catching up on my Super Soul Conversations podcast. Oprah was talking to Jordan Peele, the writer, director, and one of the producers of the Oscar Nominated film, Get Out. It’s a horror movie, so I was not planning to go see it even though it’s a character study of African American/White relations, something I think extremely important. But Jordan Peele said something interesting about the horror genre, and I’m paraphrasing; it’s a genre that helps us face our fears. Hmm, maybe Get Out is a different kind of horror picture. I might want to see it because I’m a big fan of facing my fears.

As I was listening to Jordan and Oprah talk, I couldn’t help but connect it to this post. I had planned to write about Stephen King’s The Stand.

The mini-series came out in 1994. Barry and I were intrigued by the trailers. It seemed like it was going to be an interesting character study couched in a good vs evil story line so we watched and loved it. It’s really more a dystopian type story than what I would call true horror.

The story is this: A plague has been accidentally released at a government facility and quickly spreads across the United States and the world. Almost everyone dies. In the U.S., those who live fall into two camps, the ones who dream primarily of Mother Abigail, a 106 year old woman living in Kansas, and those who dream primarily of Randall Flagg, a demon character in human disguise. The Mother Abigail group join her and move to Boulder, Colorado. The other group joins Flagg in Las Vegas. A war between good and evil ensues.

The religious references are mostly from an Old Testament point of view, which at first was a major drawback for me. However, as a student of religion and spirituality, I thought King’s take on this fictional spiritual war was fascinating. It was after all, just a story.

Some of the most interesting characters were the ones who chose to align with Flagg. Lloyd Henreid, for example, is a mixture of admirable qualities which includes loyalty, and not so admirable ones like self-interest. At one point Henreid knows he’s going to hell for his decision, but his loyalty to Flagg, who saved him, prevents him from making a new choice.

Trashcan Man is another fascinating character. He’s a mentally ill pyromaniac Flagg has recruited for a special mission, not realizing that that might not have been such a good idea.

On the other side, we have Nick Andros, a deaf mute who becomes one of the prominent leaders trying to establish and rebuild the “good” community, and Tom Cullen a “retarded” man who ends up being one of the heroes at the end of the story.

The cast of characters is long and varied with enough unusual backgrounds and personality traits to keep the viewer or reader engaged. Mother Abigail, for example, talks to God and shares what He tell her. She’s wise, but she makes mistakes along the way. Flagg, on the other hand, who seems to be strong, eventually shows how deeply insecure and frightened he really is. These kinds of characters make for a richly layered story.

The mini-series was so good because Stephen King was part of the production. And that compelled me to go right out and buy a paperback copy of the book. It’s over one thousand pages long filled with more unusual characters than I’ve had space to write about here. They find themselves in extraordinary circumstances and must try to cope and rebuild. Those are the kinds of stories I find most satisfying and in The Stand Stephen King delivered exactly that.

Who knows, I may read another of his books one day. My candidate is The Green Mile, another book recommended to me by the movie made from it.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it very much.

One last thing, a commercial announcement. I’m having a Spring sale of The Space Between Time for FREE, beginning tomorrow, March 22 and continuing through the 25th. If you want the ebook version, click on the Smashwords link below to download for any e-reader available. If you want a physical book, click on the Amazon link. The only payment I ask of you is to write an honest review and share it not only on the site where you got the book, but on your social media sites as well. Word of mouth is still the best way to advertise. Thanks in advance.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. I you prefer a physical book, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

To Kill a Mockingbird

“If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” ~ Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

I know it’s St. Patrick’s day and I should be writing about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, or some other book about Ireland, or the Irish experience in America, but I haven’t finished reading Tree yet so that will have to wait for another post.

Instead, I have a confession to make. I did not read To Kill A Mockingbird until about two years ago. I know! How come I was not required to read it in school? Well, perhaps since I had just started elementary school when the book came out in 1960 and the movie came out two years later, it hadn’t become an American icon quite yet even though the book won the Pultzer Prize for literature. So, I was introduced to this amazing story by the movie.

It was probably on one of those Sunday Night at the Movies programs that were so popular back in the dark ages when there were only three TV networks. They were TV “events” showing recently released movies that had received lots of acclaim. The movie won three Oscars and was nominated for five more.

The Sunday Night at the Movies program was a godsend for our family since we lived in a series of small towns most of them with no movie theater. To Kill a Mockingbird became one of our family favorites. Whenever it was on TV ever after, I would watch it sometimes with other family members. But most often I watched it with my father. He and I would discuss the characters, events and main ideas. Loving the movie so much, it’s hard even for me to believe it took so long for me to read the book.

I can’t really say why I never felt compelled to pick up the book. It might be partly because the character of Atticus Finch was so much like my father, the way he interacted with his children was so much like the way my father interacted with my brother, sisters, and me. Or maybe it’s because I don’t understand Southern sensibilities. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where the outlook on life is very different. I’ve read a number of books about the south and I don’t understand the long held beliefs and emotions that divide classes and races. But, in truth, I think that has more to do with the way I was raised than where I grew up. No matter what the reason, I’m so glad I finally got around to reading the book.

I have another confession to make. To Kill a Mockingbird was the movie that began my life long love for Gregory Peck. There was some core of goodness about him, and most of his characters, no matter how troubled they might be that was reflected through to the audience. I love his work so much that I made sure I got an autographed photograph of him at an International Thespian Festival I attended years ago. That photograph hangs on my office wall above a photo of my father.

Just now as I write this I realize that I didn’t want to spoil the image of Atticus I got from the movie, just in case the book and movie characters were different. I was relieved that Atticus retained the same characteristics in the book that I had so loved in the movie.

Several years ago, when I was teaching high school, I was given the opportunity to acquire a course called The Story of Movies, produced by The Film Foundation in partnership with IBM and Turner Classic Movies. The course is designed to help teachers and students understand how to identify the language of film so they can get the most out their movie going experience. The first of what was supposed to be a series used To Kill A Mockingbird as the source material. There were two things I learned from teaching the course that helped me appreciate this beloved movie even more.

The first is that everything that is in a movie, whether it is part of the setting, costumes, music, or even the opening credits, has a purpose. In a way the audience is receiving subliminal information in every frame of a film. The second is what I pointed out before, the camera shows the audience what to focus upon.

The Story of Movies video and materials pointed out something I had not thought about before. Opening credits are important, especially for older movies, and particularly for this one. The camera focuses on a child’s hands opening an old cigar box while she is singing. She takes out each one of the things in the box. As the credits continue the movie theme music begins underneath the images. All the things that are shown in the box during the opening credits are things Jem shows Scout later in the movie. If you are an avid movie fan, those kinds of details are the extras that enhance your movie watching experience.

There is one scene in the movie that I find extraordinarily moving. It’s the scene after Tom Robinson’s trial is over. Everyone has left the courtroom except Atticus and the black spectators in the upper gallery. As Atticus leaves, they stand up as a show of honor for his efforts to save Tom. The camera takes in the wide shot so we see both Atticus and the people standing. Atticus doesn’t look up to acknowledge their tribute. My throat closes up every time.

There have been times when I felt like I didn’t have the right to weep at this moment because I’m a white woman. I think it’s sad that the black people of Macon are thought of as second class citizens, so much so that even a poor white family is held in higher esteem than they are. It’s such a complicated moment. I always think that Atticus can’t look up because of all the history that divide whites and blacks in his community, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to embarrass them, or maybe it’s because he feels that he should have done a better job of defending Tom, or maybe he’s ashamed of the whites in his town for upholding the status quo. All those feelings affect me. I just want the white and the black people to be able to have a clean, open relationship, but for whatever reason, they can’t.

As I said, I felt guilty about my emotion over that moment, until I listened to an interview with a black actor, I think it was with Laurence Fishburn. He nearly wept as he told the interviewer how that same moment in the movie makes him weep every time. He listed the same reasons that affect me so deeply. I felt vindicated. And what he said made me think that no matter how I’m affected by art, that’s a good thing. I should never feel ashamed of expressing my true emotions.

So often we apologize for showing deep emotions, even in our most private moments. When something touches me so deeply that I cry, I feel extremely vulnerable. But it’s in our most vulnerable moments that we have the best opportunity of connecting with others. We don’t apologize for laughing, why apologize for crying? Having come to that conclusion, I’ve vowed not to apologize ever again for weeping when I’m in public.

To Kill a Mockingbird is one case in which the book and the movie are essentially the same. Some of the events and characters are condensed or emphasized differently, but the core message is universal, loving and caring for each other no matter what the circumstances, is extremely important.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting on my posts.

I hope you have a fabulous weekend.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. I you prefer a physical book, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

More Cloud Atlas

“If God did create the world, how do we know which things we can change and which things must remain sacred and inviolate?” ~ David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas 1850 timeline

“We cross and recross our tracks like figure skaters …” ~ David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas 2012 timeline

“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb we are bound to others past and present and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.” ~ David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas 2044 timeline

The reason I watch movies, is the same reason I read books. Because I want to learn something. I want to see life through someone else’s eyes. I want to see how other people face their challenges and learn (or don’t learn) from their mistakes.

In the last post I didn’t get to write as much as I wanted to about the movie adaptation of Cloud Atlas and why it made me want to read the book. One of the things I love about both the book and movie is the idea that every life is important no matter how small. And that each soul has the opportunity to grow and progress as they live through many lifetimes.

If you’re an avid reader you know that authors have more leeway, in terms of how they tell their story, than movie makers do. This has always been obvious to me, but I’m surprised at how many people don’t seem to understand that movies and books are different forms of art. A movie is approximately two hours long. So unless you’re creating a mini-series in which you can include more plot points, the screen writer and director must choose the parts of the book that are most relevant to the main idea and leave the rest behind.

Probably the most important short cut to movie storytelling is the use of the camera. It is showing the audience what to pay attention to. Of course, I didn’t realize this when I first began watching. The camera is the omniscient point of view. Sometimes it zooms in on things we’re supposed to notice, or it spins, or shows us a scene from a great height.

When I saw Cloud Atlas for the first time, I knew enough by then to pay attention to what the camera wanted me to notice. When it focused on a comet shaped birthmark on the main characters in each timeline, I knew that was an important plot point. But it wasn’t until the third time this happens in the 1973 storyline, that I began to understand why. Sixsmith, a character we first meet in the story in 1936, comments on the birthmark on Luisa’s shoulder and tells her that he once knew someone with a very similar mark. That’s when I got the idea that this mark is not only telling me who the main character of that timeline is, but that perhaps each new body with the birthmark is inhabited by the same soul.

The idea of reincarnation is subtly reinforced by the fact that the filmmakers use the same actors to play various characters in many of the timelines. In some storylines, a man will play a woman, or visa versa, or they will play a person of one race in one storyline, then a person of another race in another. Once I identified the actors and the roles they played in each storyline, it was interesting to see if that “soul” evolved or not.

One of the strongest ideas of both the book and the movie are the opposing viewpoints that indicate the main theme. The first is a more crude version of a very old idea, “The weak are meat, the strong do eat.” Several characters state this idea in various ways throughout the movie, while other characters oppose this point of view stating that love, truth, and compassion are all more important. I think readers and movie audiences are led to ask “What is true strength? Are the powerful more important than the weak?” We get the answer as each main character is triumphant in their particular timeline.

Adam Ewing’s story from the 1849 timeline sums up the theme in the most profound way. Adam, after arriving home to San Francisco from a mission to acquire slaves for his father-in-law, informs him that he and his wife Tilda are going East to work in the Abolitionist movement. His father-in-law goes on a long tirade, “… Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain and his family must pay it along with him! And only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!” To which Adam replies, “Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”

That idea makes me weep. There are so many people who think their life means nothing in the grand scheme of things. But we all make contributions to human evolution, even those of us who are considered evil make a contribution, because those are the ones who compel us take a good look at ourselves. And hopefully we say, “I’m not going to be like that! I’m going to be better.”

Cloud Atlas is not the first book or movie to show us that every single person’s life is important even if the names of those people are forgotten by future generations. That’s what I loved about the movie. It’s THAT idea that made me want to go read the book. Both mediums made me feel like I have a contribution to make to the world no matter how small. And I’m the one who decides what that contribution will be.

I hope you find great movie/book connections that inspire you. I believe that reading books and watching movies are wonderful ways to gain a greater understanding about what makes us human.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments and likes.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks, or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical book, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.