The Pope of Greenwich Village

The Pope of Greenwich Village

Vincent Patrick

I know what you're thinking, why is this girl reviewing a B movie with Mickey Rourke? Well, I'm not. For one of my classes this semester I was required to read the novel for Pope of Greenwich Village before we watch the movie in class next week. I wasn't really looking forward to starting this because it seemed so far out of my comfort zone. It turns out that that feeling was warranted. Pope of Greenwich Village follows a slew of characters around as they laugh at the ineffective police, do some petty crime, do some less petty crime and get involved in mob stuff. But mostly Patrick has us following the 5th cousins Paulie and Charlie.

I had a really hard time getting into this. I felt that about 95% of the characters being introduced were either pitiful or terrible. I guess I just didn't feel that any of the characters, aside from Charlie were even remotely likable. However my main problem wasn't how irritating these characters were, but instead with how randomly some of them were introduced. Each chapter would switch viewpoints, often to people, like random cops, who weren't really involved in the main story. Usually I don't mind several different perspectives but for some reason I didn't feel it worked well here.

I guess for being a New York crime/mafia/poor guy trying to get by it's not bad. This just wasn't the story for me. I'm interested to see how different the film is from the book. My teacher keeps telling me it's a good adaptation, so I guess I'll see next Tuesday.

  

September in Review

As always I borrowed the month in review post from Lily's Bookshelf, because she's awesome. 

Books Read:

Brave New World  - Huxley (review)

Running with Scissors - Burroughs (review) 

Coco Channel & Igor Stavinsky - Greenhalgh (review)

The Cid - Corneille (review)

The Night Bookmobile - Niffenegger (review)
The Pope of Greenwich Village -  Patrick (stay tuned for my review!)


Total Number of Books Read This Month: 
 5 and a short graphic novel

Total Number of Books Read This Year: 46

Most Anticipated:
Brave New World


Biggest Let Down:
Running with Scissors


Favorite Read:
Coco Channel & Igor Stavinsky 

Overall Reflection: September didn't turn out to be a great reading month for me. I did get 5 books read, but just barely. In fact I finished The Pope of Greenwich Village midday on the 30th.  Instead of dwelling on the lack of motivation that was my September, I'm looking ahead to the possibilities of October.  I just started Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and have a review copy of Moonlight in Odessa, both of which i'm eager to get through, so I'm hoping that's enough start up motivation to make October a awesome book month! 

First October Hop

Is it Friday again already? Wow, time is really flying. I can't believe it's October already! Anyways, lets get to the point of the Hop! Every week Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books hosts the Book Blogger Hop in order for us lovely bloggers to mingle and find other great book blog. 

This week Jennifer chose a question from Tina, 

"How do you spread the word about your blog?
(e.g. Social Networking sites, Book Blog Directories, comments on other blogs...)"

I much admit I'm not the greatest with this. Really I started off by blogging my reviews on livejournal and cross posting them here and eventually started to direct people over to this blog. It was slow going, and still is. I'm a shy person in real life and on the internet that isn't much different. I use assets like the hop and weekly memes to get to know other bloggers who share my taste in books. Every so often i tell myself i'll really start to use goodreads to it's full potential but I never really do. I did create a twitter a little over a week ago specifically for Loving Books, so I am trying! 

I won't bore all of you with the weekly update today because I'll have a month in review (ok, i already posted it. Follow the link!) post up within the next few hours. 

Required Reading

I realized the other day that I've been complaining an awful lot about my required reading this semester. It probably comes across and whinny and inexperienced, which, to be honest,  is really a great defense mechanism of mine but I figure, this is a book blog, talk about books? You following me so far?  

So here, for the last time of my fall semester of my senior year of college I will talk in detail about the reading I'm doing this semester. Here's a list of what I'm reading/should be reading before December 18th.

For Family in Literature I have:

The Cid

I've already finished this one. Had pretty mixed feelings about it. Was surprised that I'd never heard of Corneille. 

As I Lay Dying 

One of the reasons I was looking forward to this class was because I would be required to read a lot of things I had never gotten around to. Faulkner is one of those things. However I have rarely heard anything good about him, and my best friend hated this book passionately. Oh, and I'm kinda a Hemingway fan and this feels a bit like cheating.

A Streetcar Named Desire 

I've read this previously (who hasn't?), worked on my high school production, seen the movie, seen additional live performances. I'll be happy to get to this because It'll take me all of an hour and a half to read.

Persian Letters

Again, a classic I haven't heard of! Gee this class is making me feel dumb. Ok, not dumb, its just reminding me how many books are out there and how many I've never heard of. 

Things Fall Apart 

I was supposed to read this back at the start of my first year of college and then the class kind of deteriorated into disscosions on the uses of corn and watching Richard Pryer clips on youtube so Things Fall Apart never happened for me. I'm really looking forward to finally reading it. 

Now for Adaptation we have:

The Pope Of Greenwich Village

We're reading this and then watching the movie. I'm not enjoying it. It's not that it's a bad novel, just so far from my go to genre's. 

Touching From a Distance

Haven't started it. Am not interested in it. Am glad that about half the book appears to be lyrics.

Topics in Screenwriting: Modern Family Drama's:

No books, but so far I've read the screenplay for

Ordinary People

The Joy Luck Club

and the next few weeks we'll read

Little Miss Sunshine

Transameria

A Rose in Winter

So that's my required reading for this semester. I'm still trying to keep up a slew of pleasure books as I'm doing all of this. 

What about you? Do you have books you absolutely have to read in the next few months? Have you read any of the ones on my list? What about any great college reading memories? i'd love to hear about them all!

Top Ten Favorite Fictional Couples in Books

For this Top Ten Tuesday The Broke and the Bookish have asked us to name our top ten favorite fictional couples. 

I'm a big fan of great couples in great books, but for me they usually need to have something a little extra to get me interested. So here's my list. I'm pretty sure quiet a few of these will appear on more lists than mine, but that's ok. They're classic.


1.Beatrice and Benedict - Much Ado About Nothing - While some may go the Romeo and Juliet route, Beatrice and Benedict will always be my favorite Shakespearean couple. They're both quick witted and are so similar that they actually start off hating each other, but I think that growth (and a good deal of trickery) makes them a great couple. 


2. Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy - Pride and Prejudice - I don't even know if I have to explain this. Elizabeth is like the everygirl, especially in the bookish community and Darcy is just...Darcy. They have a tale for the ages and I just love them to pieces. 


3. Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley - Harry Potter - While Harry isn't my favorite character throughout the series, I do love his relationship with Ginny. Ok, it's a little creepy how obsessed with Harry Ginny is at the beginning of the series, but they both grow and she becomes less creepy and really cool. Oh, and who doesn't love "the monster inside Harry"?!?! PS: I didn't hate the epilogue


4.Emma and Dexter - One Day - As you're probably noticing I like couples that have to grow to fit each other, which is yet again the case with Emma and Dexter. They meet the day they graduate from college and go through the ups and downs of friendship before finally getting it right. I love that they're friends. Really and truly best friends. I like that about them.


5. Leo Gursky and Alma - The History of Love - Their story doesn't have a happy ending, and because of that The History of Love exists. I love the flashes of their loving relationship throughout the book and it kills me to see what a life without Alma has done to Leo.


6. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff Heathcliff - Wuthering Heights - I will preface this by saying they are in no way a healthy couple, but I still love them. I think it's the way Catherine describes them that really gets me "he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."


7. Claude and Camille - Claude and Camille -   I'm not a fan of Claude Monet's work, but man do I love the young him in this novel. I love both of them. They're both so single mindedly in love with each other and it's refreshing. They're the perfect example of rich girl falling for the starving artist and I love it.


8.Robin and Marian - The Robin Hood Legend - There are to many versions of their story to count, and in every version Robin and Marian are just a little different but I just love them in general. I think their story is so romantic and timeless. Ok, I'm swooning so I'm gonna move on.


9. Catherine and Arthur - The Constant Princess - I love Henry and Anne as a couple, but as this is a book list and I can't remember a single time I read a good account of their romance I'll move to the less thought of but more adorable of the Tudor Couples. Catherine and Arthur are hopelessly in love. Even though they have been betrothed to each other essentially since birth they both give themselves ot each other so completely. It's really such a tragedy that Arthur had to die so young. 


10.Arthur and Molly Weasley - Harry Potter- They just so a loving couple. I think they're a good example for everyone. They don't have much, but that doesn't matter, they love each other and they love their family and that's enough for them. That and they're awesome wizards/witches. Can't forget that. 

The Cid

The Cid

Corneille

I haven't been the best at reviewing things lately, and reading three things at once isn't helping, but here's my haphazard review of The Cid.

Do you remember all of that Shakespeare you had to read in high school? Well imagine that written by a 17th Century French man writing about 12th Century Spain. At it's core we follow Don Rodrigo and Ximena love each other and are from families of equal standing, so of course they should be married. After their fathers, Don Diego and The Count come to this agreement some lofty insults are thrown about and Rodrigo is sent to regain the family honor by killing his true loves father. From here on out the play reads like a grown up Romeo and Juliet, where the main characters realize there are consequences to their actions and will respectfully pay them.

I wasn't in love with this story, or the class for which I had to read it, but I think it's interesting to look at classic literature that I've never heard of before. I'll definitely give Corneille another chance since I have two other plays in this book.

Now I want to hear from you guys!
Have any of you read Corneille? I'd love to hear what you thought of him.
I've also been musing on if it's fair to really dissect a play like The Cid, which has been translated from its original text and still comment on the poetic structure used in the writing. I once had a teacher tell my class not to judge the actual words we were reading because no matter how close they are to the original text, they still arn't the same. At the time we were reading Gogol and while I liked the translation, I really took that concept to heart.  

I'll actually be reading a few novels for my classes in the next few weeks, and David Sedaris and Nicole Krauss both have new books coming out so I'll be pretty busy, reading wise - but that's all the better for all of you, right?

Giveaway

e-Volving Books is having a 100 followers giveaway. You can find it here.