The Emperor's Club meets The Palace Thief
Some of you may remember the movie that came out a few years ago, "The Emperor's Club" starring Kevin Kline as a Classics teacher at a prestigious boarding school, and his adventures with the anti-moralist Sedgewick Bell (I think I would be anti-moralist too, if my parents had named me Sedgewick). As I walked through Barnes and Noble about a week ago, I saw Kevin Kline in all his sweater-vested glory staring out of the cover of a $1.00 book entitled, The Palace Thief Stories. Now, being an enthusiast of any and all movies set at boarding schools, I saw "The Emperor's Club" when it came out, and then again while I was going through an Emile Hirsch phase fantastic actor, played Sedgewick Bell in the movie). The second time around, I watched all of the little dvd extras, including the portion on where the storyline was taken from: Ethan Canin's story, "The Palace Thief."
Having finished The Time Traveler's Wife in the train station while my train back to Boston was being delayed, I dug through my suitcase to find The Palace Thief Stories, because, really, Siddhartha just does not make for good reading on a train. I sat down and read "The Palace Thief" straight through, envisioning Kevin Kline as the moralistic Classics teacher, Mr. Hundert, in whose point of view the story is told. It was absolutely amazing. The character development in Mr. Hundert is virtually flawless: one feels as if Mr. Hundert is sitting right there on those pages, telling you the story of just how it happened. All of his old-fashioned ideas and quirks are totally believable, and his eccentricities endearing. I refuse to believe that a Mr. Hundert didn't sit down and write that story and hand it to Ethan Canin.
I have started another one of the stories (there are four in total), and it is very much the same in the character development, although with a completely different occupation, situation, etc. Once again the main character is believable in his quirkiness, and you fall in love with him almost immediately. Ethan Canin clearly has a gift for creating realistic, fun little characters, and his research into various occupations is very thorough; I'm convinced that he must have been a classics professor at some time in his life. In short, I urge any and all who may be reading this to go out immediately and find some dog-eared copy of and read it straight through. I also highly recommend The Time Traveler's Wife to all who have not yet read it, its interesting and sweet, and very well written (except that the Chicago-born characters occasionally use very common British words, like posh). It was recommended to me by a 28 year old Aussie lady that I met whilst on my travels, and now I (an almost 21 year old that wishes she was still traveling) recommend it to you( a ___ year old that ____).
Having finished The Time Traveler's Wife in the train station while my train back to Boston was being delayed, I dug through my suitcase to find The Palace Thief Stories, because, really, Siddhartha just does not make for good reading on a train. I sat down and read "The Palace Thief" straight through, envisioning Kevin Kline as the moralistic Classics teacher, Mr. Hundert, in whose point of view the story is told. It was absolutely amazing. The character development in Mr. Hundert is virtually flawless: one feels as if Mr. Hundert is sitting right there on those pages, telling you the story of just how it happened. All of his old-fashioned ideas and quirks are totally believable, and his eccentricities endearing. I refuse to believe that a Mr. Hundert didn't sit down and write that story and hand it to Ethan Canin.
I have started another one of the stories (there are four in total), and it is very much the same in the character development, although with a completely different occupation, situation, etc. Once again the main character is believable in his quirkiness, and you fall in love with him almost immediately. Ethan Canin clearly has a gift for creating realistic, fun little characters, and his research into various occupations is very thorough; I'm convinced that he must have been a classics professor at some time in his life. In short, I urge any and all who may be reading this to go out immediately and find some dog-eared copy of and read it straight through. I also highly recommend The Time Traveler's Wife to all who have not yet read it, its interesting and sweet, and very well written (except that the Chicago-born characters occasionally use very common British words, like posh). It was recommended to me by a 28 year old Aussie lady that I met whilst on my travels, and now I (an almost 21 year old that wishes she was still traveling) recommend it to you( a ___ year old that ____).
posted by Coco @ 1:15 PM
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