Word: novelizations
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...story and film Rashomon, their accounts do not quite measure up with each other. Playwright Brian Friel, who is undergoing an inexplicable vogue among the Harvard thespian set, handles the theme of religion as a divine con game with much less sophistication than Flannery O'Conner did in her novel Wise Blood...
...STORIES of the movie star and of W218 are spun out of fantasy, full of superhuman characters and improbable events; by contrast, Ana is portrayed through her diary entries and conversations as a believable and realistic character, with human proportions and human problems--illness, exile, old lovers. The novel shuttles back and forth between these separate narratives, creating a web of associations and hazy relationships between the three women. But little is revealed to the reader for certain; of this complex interplay we know only that W218 is a descendent of the long-dead movie star, whom she sees...
...powerful force in many ways throughout the novel; it is a tool of political intrigue, a commodity exchanged between men and women, and a road to happiness. Politics rears its somewhat ugly head in each woman's life--complete with bizarre schemes and dangerous, extremely good-looking spies--usually to the woman's utter dismay. And the otherworldly is present in large measure; the dead return to life, women develop into telepaths, angels fall from heaven...
...three distinct stories are often exciting, as the actress glides from life-threatening escapade to blissful romantic encounter, as W218 runs off to her forbidden lover. Unexpected twists to the plot keep the reader on his toes. And the vague relationships and incomplete developments of so much of the novel maintain an atmosphere of suspense. The reader cannot help but wonder how the characters are related, who is in love with whom, who is a spy, why the age of thirty is so significant, how the dead have come back to life...
...successful when considered as a whole. The three interwoven parts of the narrative do not converge to a single story; they are not unified by a definite connection between the characters, and their similarities do not, in the end, seem very convincing. The optimistic, peaceful conclusion of the novel is nice enough, but does not seem adequately prepared; the message does not fit the story...