A glorious back-and-forth between Gary Amdahl and Jessa Crispin (aka Book Slut, although she has passed on the reins of her site) about three different film adaptations of Henry James’ Washington Square.
Listen, there’s a reason why I’ve been reading Jessa Crispin devotedly ever since I first discovered her site. Or, there are many reasons, and her eclectic taste has brought many books to my attention that I had never even heard of and now count as favorites.
But it was her writing that was the original hook. For example, this paragraph from the conversation I linked to above, where she discusses Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance in Washington Square:
Near the end, when he has left her, she runs chasing after his carriage in the rain, falls in the mud, and rolls around in her corset in the mud and horseshit wailing. Which to me says, look, don’t worry, there’s a reason why Catherine will spend the rest of her days alone. I mean, look at her, she’s a mess, you wouldn’t fuck her either.
There’s more, though. There’s much more. Read the whole thing.
Wow.
Sloper is brilliant and might very well have been as erratic as WJ had his wife lived and allowed him that special audience erratic people find in loved ones. Denied that audience, he trades the erratic brilliance in for a steady scalpel. Sloper is paradoxically as popular a man as he is forbidding, as brilliant as he is austere.
I miss Jessa at Book Slut.
I miss Jessa, too.
She’s so unique. Her description of Olivia de Havilland’s performance really captures why it is so magnificent. Love the whole conversation.
I miss her too – I think she has a book coming out – and then, of course, there’s the wonderful lit magazine she founded, Spolia.
But I don’t visit Book Slut that much anymore – looking forward to more in this Henry James series!
For those who miss her writing…
Jessa has a very interesting review of a book on polytheism over at the LA Review of Books
https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/discreet-charm-polytheism
I saw her link to that on Twitter – have not read it yet, but I will!!