Gradual Improvement: Charles Webb’s THE GRADUATE vs. Mike Nichols’

Posted on July 28, 2026 by JE

When I find out that a movie I like is based on a book, I frequently seek out the book. It’s not just that I like books better than movies (though a case could be made, I guess). There’s just likely to be stuff even in a fairly short book that there wasn’t space to include in a two-hour movie (or even a three-to-seven-hour movie, the current standard).

“More of what I like” is a pretty easy sell for me. The pattern was set when I read the novels that The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Thin Man (1934) were based on. Huston’s movie is an enduring classic, but Hammett’s novel is even better, and the “Thin Man” movies, though fun, are pale shadows of Hammett’s last novel.

I’ve probably watched Mike Nichol’s The Graduate (1967) fifteen times, and usually when I see the credit “based on the novel by Charles Webb” I think, “Hey, I should read that.” Then I forget about all that when Anne Bancroft appears onscreen.

But over the weekend, D and I visited NeverMore Used Books in Toledo—a truly great bookstore. I ran across a paperback of Webb’s novel there and snapped it up. (Spoilers for the 63-year-old novel and the 59-year-old film follow, if you’re worried about that.)

Left: the cover of the 15th printing of Webb's THE GRADUATE. The anonymous cover art shows a young man in academic regalia beneath the bent leg of a woman. Right: the analogous image from Nichols' movie: Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is seen smiling under the arch of the bent leg of Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft).
I was wondering if the paperback’s cover inspired Nichols’ daring shot, but this cover image only seems to appear in movie tie-in versions, so it’s probably the other way around.
Graduate to the Full Review Beyond the Jump!
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Reader’s Block: THE THIEF WHO COULDN’T SLEEP by Lawrence Block

Posted on July 13, 2026 by JE

I’ve been hearing about Lawrence Block’s crime fiction since forever, but I finally got around to reading some. Now I wish I’d done it decades ago.

Photo of a paperback copy of Block's THE THIEF WHO COULDN'T SLEEP. The cover illustration shows a blonde woman leaning against the side of a wide-finned American car from the 1950s.
Block’s The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep (in the No Exit Books edition, circa 1970).
This isn’t my copy, but is the edition I read.
Steal Through the Sleepless Night Beyond the Jump!
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How Clever Is Your Cleaver?

Posted on July 2, 2026 by JE

I was reading Dougan’s commentary on Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, which is a perfectly normal thing to do, and at one point (ad 1.49.118) he suggested that the English word clever is derived from deliver.

“Interesting, if true,” I thought, and consulted my go-to authorities, the tyrant OED and the democratical AHD.

A drawing of a cleaver.
clipart of a cleaver from http://runeman.org/clipart/2019/
Cleave the Clever Clefts Beyond the Jump!
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Two Loners: ZATOICHI’S REVENGE (1965) and PERSONAL SHOPPER (2016)

Posted on June 29, 2026 by JE

I watched these two movies last night back-to-back and found that, oddly, they had a lot in common—although maybe the main thing they had in common was the guy watching them. Both involve solitary characters who face off against monsters. In this, they reminded me of sword-and-sorcery—a subject never far from my mind—even though neither quite qualifies as S&S; the one lacks sorcery, the other swords.

Posters for ZATOICHI'S REVENGE (showing the title character, played by Shintaro Katsu under the arms of a swordsman he has just killed) and PERSONAL SHOPPER (showing the title character, played by Kristin Stewart, wearing a dress covered with reflective squares).
Above left: Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) is seen
under the arms of a swordsman he’s just killed.
Above right: Kristen Stewart fiddles with
the fastenings of an ugly and uncomfortable dress.

There are no spoilers for Zatoichi movies; if you’ve seen one, you know how this one worked out. Spoilers for Personal Shopper will be inevitable, though, especially when discussing the movie’s ambiguous ending. If all you want to know is whether these movies are worth your time, I think they are. But de gustibus non disputandum, and all that.

Ectoplasmic entities await beond the jump!
Posted in dream, fantasy, history, magic, movie review, review or meta-review, sff, sword-and-sorcery | Tagged | 2 Comments

A Spell Against Tedium: in conversation with Cynthia Ward’s “Bored of the Swords”

Posted on June 24, 2026 by JE

It’s natural not to name names in a general broadside like this, but I also think that it may be a mistake; one is as likely to wound friend as foe. However, since I’ve been writing for decades about an alcoholic wizard suffering from scoliosis, I’ll assume I’m not among the intended targets.

A screenshot of Ward's article at Reactor, linked above.
Screenshot

Appeals to weirdness fall friendly on my ear, anyway. Speaking as a reader, if imaginative fiction isn’t weird I’m unlikely to be interested in it. What’s the point? If the only weird thing about your story of an elf going through a midlife crisis is that it’s an elf going through a midlife crisis, you might as well de-elf that character and see if that story needs to be told at all.

Wave the Weird Flag Beyond the Jump!
Posted in academia, books, fantasy, fantasy art, magic, Morlock, review or meta-review, sff, sword-and-sorcery, writing | 1 Comment

Those Crazy Cats

Posted on June 6, 2026 by JE

I was reading Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, which is a perfectly normal thing to do, and he quoted a line from Ennius, to make some point he thought needed making:

egregie cordatus homo, catus Aelius Sextus

“Why is he calling Aelius Sextus a cat?” I wondered.

A drawing of an orange cat wearing a black beret and black sunglasses, with a cigarette in their paw. Above the cat is some text ("I Spend My Daze in a Catnip Haze") which is completed below the cat ("Navigating this Maze / of Dogma & inconsequentiality").
Image of beatnik cat by Doug Amey;
I’m not sure if he wrote the accompanying doggerel.
Wander the night wailing about weird words beyond the jump!
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Echoes of Wuruyaaria

Posted on June 3, 2026 by JE

Still reading Lucian, and came across a great new-to-me Greek verb: ὠρύομαι (oh-ROO-o-mai). It means (and sounds like) “to howl” (as a wolf or dog).

It comes up in conversation between Hermes, who is conducting a party of ghosts to the underworld, and Menippus, the recently dead Cynic (“Doglike”) philosopher. Hermes has been describing how the world above is mourning or celebrating the deaths of Menippus’ fellow travellers, and he goes on to (sort of) put Menippus in his place.

ΕΡΜΗΣ: σὲ δὲ, ὦ Μένιππε, οὐδείς δακρύει, καθ’ ἡσυχίαν δὲ κεῖσαι μόνος.

ΜΕΝΙΠΠΟΣ: Οὐδαμῶς, ἀλλ’ ἀκούσῃ τῶν κυνῶν μετ’ ὀλίγον ὠρυομένων οἴκτιστον ἐπ’ ἐμοὶ καὶ τῶν κοράκων τυπτομένων τοῖς πτεροῖς, ὁπόταν συνελθόντες θάπτωσί με.

—Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead 10.12f

HERMES: But no one weeps for you, Menippus. You alone lay down in silence.

MENIPPUS: Not so! In a little bit you’ll hear dogs howling most piteously over me, and ravens beating their wings when they come together to bury me.

The painting shows crows gathering around a recently dead body lying in a doorway or bridgehead.
Barrias’ “Death of the Pilgrim”
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“Ixnay on the Ocodilecray!” Lucian Against the Paradoctors

Posted on June 1, 2026 by JE

I’ve been reading a lot of Lucian lately, for reasons that are difficult to explain; maybe I’ll write something about that when I figure it out. But I am finding that he reads better in Greek than he does in English. In a good translation, the words flow by so readily and the content seems so thin that it’s easy to miss his point. In wading through the text in the original language (by no means the second language that is easiest for me), I am forced to slow down and ask, “Wait a second! What does he mean by that?” And in that moment of confusion I’m closer to getting his point than I ever am when sailing through an English version of the same work.

But when he starts throwing crocodiles around, I get confused in any language.

photo of a crocodile's head, seen from the side
image of a crocodile from publicdomainpictures.net
Swim the slimy waters of paradox beyond the jump!
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A Walk Around the Parker: Westlake’s THE HUNTER and Boorman’s POINT BLANK

Posted on May 22, 2026 by JE
Left: the cover of the first edition of "Stark"/Westlake's THE HUNTER. The cover painting by Harry Bennett depicts a guy who looks kind of like Lloyd Bridges but with enormous knotty hands, surrounded by various underworld figures. Right: a poster for John Boorman's movie POINT BLANK. The central figure is Lee Marvin holding a gun in his right hand; surrounding him is a collage of scenes from the movie.
Left: the 1st edition of The Hunter by Westlake/”Stark” (1962); Harry Bennett was the artist.
Note the deranged Lloyd-Bridges lookalike with the mutant hands: that’ll be Parker.
Right: a poster for Boorman’s Point Blank (1967).

I recently rewatched John Boorman’s Point Blank, which caused me to reread the novel it was loosely based on, The Hunter by Donald Westlake (writing as Richard Stark). The Hunter is very low on my always-reread list, and would not be on it at all except that it’s the beginning of not one, not two, but three amazing series of crime novels by Westlake/”Stark”, who was one of the great genre writers of the 20th century.

The novel and the movie are very much the same story, except insofar as they are not at all the same story. If you’re only going to tackle one, I’d recommend sticking to Point Blank, which is a self-contained and evocative crime film, an early work by the visionary director who would later helm films like Deliverance (1973), Zardoz (1974), and Excalibur (1981). The Hunter, in contrast, is not great, but it contains the seeds of greatness.

Hunt with Blank Points Beyond the Jump!
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Escape is No Escape

Posted on April 23, 2026 by JE

For escape, in the midst of the grading storm that always accompanies finals, I’m reading Innes’ England Under the Tudors (3rd ed; 1911). It scratches a longstanding itch to sort out the reigns and events of the pre-Liz Tudors, and is a dryly fun read. I realized the other night that it’s because the narrative voice reminds me of Jeeves, as played by Stephen Fry.

A poster for the BBC series JEEVES & WOOSTER (1990) with Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves.

Innes, an older contemporary of Wodehouse, must have been exactly the kind of agreeable old pedant that PGW admired and rebelled against.

But he’s no dusty old buffoon. He’s a sharp observer of character and writes with a democratic contempt for tyrants. Here I was, reading about the English Reformation, worlds away from the dangers of the 21st C, when Innes smacks me between the eyes with this (about Henry VIII’s Treasons Act):

“An irresistible instrument of tyranny was created, justified of course by the usual argument that without such powers it was not possible to deal adequately with the abnormal dangers of the situation. It need only be remarked that where there is practically no check on the abuse of such powers save the scrupulosity of the persons in whom they are vested, the risk of flagrant injustice becomes almost incalculable.”

It turns out that the past is relevant to the present. Much of my life has been devoted to sustaining this truth, but it still surprises me sometimes.

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