Monday Miscellany

There's a few things which I have read lately but haven't yet mentioned:

* It's been there for a couple of weeks, but there's an interesting interview in The Observer with an American author of a book comparing international attitudes to adultery. She points out that different countries have different "scripts" that most people expect to be followed in the course of adultery:

The key points of the American script resonate so strongly, it's almost tedious. For example - the first rule of infidelity in the US and the UK is that it becomes understandable, borderline-permissible even, if the prospective cheat says they're unhappy in their marriage. 'And of course,' says Druckerman, 'everyone has flaws in their marriages, things that aren't quite perfect... but here and the US, you start complaining about your marriage, and that way, you're not some lousy guy who cheats on his wife because he wants sex, you're a puppy dog who's looking for love.' Which might sound so trite that it hardly merits comment - until you consider the Japanese script, in which a cheating man praises his wife to his girlfriend, to demonstrate that he's a good husband.

I read a short novel about an Englishman having an affair in Japan a couple of years ago. He didn't mention his wife to his girlfriend, but then again, he was English. One thing the novel did point out, though, was that one of the hazzards of breaking up with a lover in Japan was the risk that she would commit suicide. The whole issue of the cultural attitude to adultery in Japan is an interesting topic. (A purely theoretical interest on my part, I hasten to add!)


* Speaking of Japan, I am currently reading "Across the Nightingale Floor", the first of a series of fairly popular novels set in a semi-fictionalised medieval Japan by Australian author Lian Hearn.

I am very impressed so far. The genre is a little hard to describe, as it contains a fantasy element, but it is really just a case of some characters having psychic abilities. (Sort of like psychic ninja, in a way.) I don't feel that the introduction of that alone means "fantasy" is an appropriate description for what I am reading.

I can say that the novel really has a very authentic sense of place. (I have spent my fair share of time around old Japanese temples, historical villages and castles.) The writing style is not overly ornate, but it has a very visual or "cinematic" quality to it, and it is a pleasure to read. I think it would be very easy material to convert to a screenplay.

I see from Hearn's website that Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy (who have produced many films with Spielberg, and generally have a good track record) have acquired the film rights. I reckon it would make a great movie, except one would hope they use Japanese actors instead of Chinese, as in Memoirs of a Geisha. (That was one spectacularly good looking film, by the way, but the story only so-so.)

* Nick Cohen talks about the odd fact that, once Middle East terrorists really became a serious threat to the West, Hollywood stopped making films about them. He points out that the BBC drama "Spooks" went even one better:

The 2006 series of Spooks, for example, showed Islamist suicide bombers taking over the Saudi Arabian embassy. Nothing too far-fetched in that; real MI5 agents are running themselves ragged as they try to close down terror cells. The BBC's novel twist was that its fictional MI5 agents discovered that the Islamists weren't Islamists at all, just Mossad agents in disguise engaged in the perennial Jewish conspiracy.

An interesting read as usual.

* The Guardian has a "Comment is Free" article by a prominent gay activist who complains that, despite vast improvements in their legal position, homosexuals still have to put up with a lot of prejudice and hate, and suggests that in fact the title "gay" should be given up. (He suggests that bisexuality, or simply fluid sexuality, is more prominent than people realise.)

The odd thing about his argument is that he starts with a (I think) jokey thought that inadvertently shows why "gay" has an image problem:

I had a gratifyingly zeitgeist moment the other day in one of London's smarter clubs. It had met with a spot of bother; people were going into the loo cubicles together to share lines of coke. So now the loo doors brandish a strict sign: 'Any two people found in this cubicle using drugs will be ejected from the club.' And I just thought of a member of staff knocking on the door when a boyfriend and I were over-amorously engaged therein and being able to say: 'Don't worry we're just having sex,' and the doorman saying: 'OK. Carry on.'

It seems very odd to me that he doesn't realise that he is encouraging an image of gay men which he is seemingly arguing against in the rest of the article. If you want to "normalise" an image of sexuality, you don't do it by suggesting that toilets are appropriate place for sex, whether gay, straight or some other colour. Similarly, hasn't the concept of a gay Mardi Gras outlived its overall political usefulness? If you truly want to blend into a society and not be treated differently, why run a parade which has such an "in your face" approach to its participant's sexuality? As with sex in a toilet, it is far from dignified, and (I would argue) counterproductive in terms of changing the minds of those who may already either hate, dislike, or just be sceptical of, the whole modern Western concept of gay identity.