Manuscripts Don't Burn: Books for This

Ellen Manning's poster for The Master and Margarita

This is by no means what I consider a comprehensive list. I have no doubt there are a multitude of works from a multitude of people and places covering these issues, from tomes written by those who have lived in any of the world's dictatorships to the popular genre of dystopian science fiction novels. But these are the ones I know and suggest.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Perhaps ironically, the book that's buoyed me the most since November is a Russian novel. 1930s Stalinist Moscow is already such a surreal place that demonic visitation is hardly the weirdest aspect. There are mysterious disappearances, labyrinthine but unassailable rules about everything, and overbearing but unspeakable truths, so what's a talking cat or a dance for hell's denizens? Muscovite Margarita has lost her lover, a writer who was whisked away by the authorities due to the subject of his novel. Will a mysterious stranger and his mischievous coterie be able to help her get him back?

Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita knowing that it could never be published in his lifetime. He even burned an early draft, wary and despairing, but later soldiered on with his secret writing. The book's very existence is a testament to the survival of art in impossible situations and support for one of its claims: manuscripts don't burn.

By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño

By Night in Chile is a feverish novella told in (mostly) one paragraph: the deathbed ramblings of fictional Father Urrutia, a priest and intellectual who was recruited to teach the "enemy tactics" of the left to the top brass of the new (and covertly USA-assisted) Pinochet regime. The defensive, opaque narrator is unsympathetic, but one wonders what he or she would have done differently, and what difference it would have made. While maddening in parts (it includes a Bolaño trademark: a lengthy, esoteric list - in this case a survey of churches using trained falcons to protect historic buildings from pigeon poop), the work reaches a heart-pounding climax when what lies beneath a literati dinner party is revealed.

By Night in Chile is a stark reminder that dictatorships come and go, but for their survivors, actions taken or not taken can last a lifetime in one's conscience.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I admit I haven't been able to re-read this one recently; much like George Orwell's 1984, it's too close to home now. However, I plan to steel myself and dive in, since it has an eerily well timed miniseries coming in the spring. The Handmaid's Tale, a novel of women's oppression under a far-right group that has seized power in America, is an important reminder of how quickly the unthinkable can turn into something you're being told to get used to.

The Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola

During this election season, I've been thinking of the French disaster (or La Debacle, as Zola put it) that was the Franco-Prussian War, where seemingly every bad decision that could be made was made. Zola's series of novels covering the years leading up to this war and the fall of the Second Empire - a time Zola lived through - has some intriguing parallels to today's society, especially the extreme social stratification. As a conduit of mid-to-late-19th Century French history, with its many protests and rebellions, the novels are also a reminder that progress is a struggle, and it's not always clear where or when a decisive victory will arrive.

In L'assommoir, blacksmith Goujet decides not to join in the protests of Napoleon III's 1851 coup d'etat, feeling burned out and discouraged by the protests of 1848. However, he does hesitate and wonders if, "one day the people might regret having stood by with folded arms." 

Suite Française by Irène Némirovksy

Successful writer Irène Némirovksy was living in France with her husband and children when Germany invaded. She immediately began work on a planned series of novels which were to chronicle the invasion, the resistance, and then whatever the outcome of the war would be. After finishing drafts of the first two novellas, however, Némirovksy, who was Jewish by birth (she and her husband were converts to Catholicism), was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where she died. Her husband's arrest and death at Auschwitz soon followed, but the nanny managed to get the children to safety. Némirovksy's eldest daughter, Denise Epstein, found the drafts and an outline for a third book many decades later, when she was going through her mother's papers before donating them.

The surviving writings were published as Suite Française, a captivating and near-contemporaneous account of the chaos of the initial siege of Paris and then the strange new reality of life under German rule. Knowing Némirovksy's fate, the glimmers of hope are all the more bittersweet. 

Courbet's Le Pont Ambroix

And to finish, here is the poem "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith. "Good Bones," both comforting and clear-eyed, went viral in the wake of the Orlando massacre - a rare feat for a poem. A broadside is available here.


Images:
"Manuscripts Don't Burn" poster by Ellen Manning: Master & Margarita website
Le Point Ambroix: wikimedia

Favorites of 2016

Ed Ruscha at the de Young, Seonna Hong at Hashimoto Contemporary,
Yuri on Ice, All My Puny Sorrows, The Makropulos Case 

It's no secret that 2016 wasn't great. But here are the pieces of art and entertainment, from an ice skating anime to paintings in Milan, that I loved in this crazy year. 

Books

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews: One of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies this year are about suicide, but both in an oddly hopeful way. In All My Puny Sorrows, two middle-aged Mennonite sisters - struggling writer Yolandi and renowned pianist Elfreida - grapple with Elfreida's suicidal ideation and their family's long history of mental illness. This sounds like a dreary premise, but Toews's novel is full of warmth, humor, and fierce love. In a highlight, Yolandi furiously gives her sister the kind of defense most depressed people long for, but never get.

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood: As a The Tempest superfan, I was excited for Margaret Atwood's novel take on the Shakespeare play. The resulting work, Hag-Seed, is inventive and entertaining (if not terribly deep). When a smarmy board member removes egotistical but dedicated Felix from his role as artistic director of a theatre festival, Felix goes into hiding. But when he finds a job teaching Shakespeare to inmates at a local prison, he realizes how he could have his revenge.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray: Set seven-ish years before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this eerily topical Star Wars novel captures, from Senator Leia Organa's point of view, the political tensions and escalating disasters that make way for the rise of the First Order.

Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie: A spaceship trapped in a human body teams up with a drug-addicted former colleague in a quest for revenge: this is the story Ann Leckie tells in three beautiful page-turners. The trilogy is a masterclass in world-building; a breath-taking tour of imaginary planets, space stations, and cultures. Characters like measured, compassionate, quietly determined Breq; the sometimes heroic, sometimes a hot mess Seivarden; and zany, endlessly curious Translator Zeiat become quick favorites.

After dutifully carrying out a devastating order she wishes she hadn't and then losing her omniscience in a betrayal, former spaceship artificial intelligence system Breq tirelessly plots a course that will take her to the evil leader of the empire she once served. Along the way she gains companions and rights various social justice wrongs. The vision Leckie presents of a compassionate, justice-focused way of governing is enticing and needed, but her didactic impulse can get distracting as the trilogy continues (even on the climactic brink of a potentially existence-ending war, a lot of time and energy is devoted to browbeating an emotionally unstable character over a microaggression, for example).

Older Books I Read or Re-Read

Grace Marks (L), the subject of Atwood's novel

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: One of Atwood's finest, Alias Grace is based on real murders that happened near Toronto in 1843. Told by various narrators, newspaper clippings, and even some poetry, Atwood imagines the build-up to the crimes; the lengthy aftermath; and most importantly, the precarious and complicated lives of female servants.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I revisited this classic on a whim, and got a little obsessed. (Bonus: on Halloween, I scored a reduced price ticket to San Francisco Ballet's forthcoming production of a ballet based on the novel!)

The Debacle (Le Debacle) by Emile Zola: Something I'm writing has required me to do a lot of research on the Franco-Prussian War, which lead to Zola's The Debacle. Because of this research I already knew the novel's ending, but I got so invested in the characters involved that I hoped I had misread it. I hadn't. :( The translation I read, by Leonard Tancock, was distracting (he makes the French peasants talk like English cockneys for some reason, like with them saying "tuppence" and everything), but the story of two Frances represented by two men who form an unlikely friendship on the battlefield is still powerful.

Zofloya by Charlotte Dacre and The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole: I read Zofloya for the Venetian setting when gearing up for a trip to Venice, and had no idea going in just how bonkers the 1806 Gothic novel would be. It is very bonkers, with murders, affairs, magic, kidnappings, and lovers clasping each other on top of a mountain while lightning flashes around them. But then I went back to what is considered the first Gothic novel, the 1764 The Castle of Otranto, which starts with a teenager getting killed on his wedding day by a giant flying helmet. That definitely takes the bonkers gold. Reading these made me better understand Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, her 1817 novel in which a teenage heroine who devours these types of books sees Gothic drama in everything around her.

Movies

Arrival

Swiss Army Man: This bizarre, gross-out indie about a depressed man and a corpse is also deeply affecting.

Moonlight: "That shit was perfect," announced a man behind me when the end credits started to roll. It's hard to argue with that assessment of Barry Jenkins's reflective portrait in three acts of a gay boy growing to manhood in Miami's mix of drugs, danger, and beauty.

Arrival: I was a bigger mess during this movie than in 50/50, The Fault in Our Stars, or Liz in September, and cancer wasn't even mentioned. I cried at the beginning of the movie. I cried in the middle of the movie. I cried at the end of the movie. This film about a linguist hired to communicate with recently landed, cephalopod-like aliens is based on the Ted Chiang short story, "The Story of Your Life," and I'd suggest avoiding spoilers.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople: New Zealand director Taika Waititi, unlike many people, presumably had a good 2016. Not only was he filming Thor: Ragnarok, a hopefully lighter addition to the increasingly bogged-down MCU, but his adventure-comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople was released. When it looks like Ricky - a city-raised foster kid who has finally found home at a rural farm - will be returned to the system, he and his cantankerous foster parent go on the run in the New Zealand bush.

Midnight Special: I am going to be totally honest and admit that I 100% saw this because Adam Driver is in it. He plays an awkward, studious government agent who is tracking down a boy, Alton, rumored to have strange powers. Also looking for the boy are representatives from the cult in which Alton was raised. Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst are Alton's parents, and chameleonic Joel Edgerton is a friend helping them flee. Like other artsy sci-fi films Arrival and Under the Skin, Midnight Special spends long moments lingering on its Earthen landscapes, in this case the American South at night. The shots of headlight-filled highways and glowing gas stations reminded me a lot of the Ed Ruscha show held at the de Young this year (below).

TV

Yuri on Ice: I'm not a big TV watcher, but I watched my usual stuff this year: South Park, Gotham, Drunk History, hours of HGTV in the background, etc. But what completely captured my heart (and judging my twitter feed, the hearts of girls from Japan to Mexico)? Ice skating anime Yuri on Ice.

Theater

Morfydd Clark and Janet McTeer in Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Donmar Warehouse: Josie Rourke and the Donmar Warehouse are British national treasures we're sometimes allowed access to via National Theatre Live. I loved Rourke's take on Coriolanus a few years back, and her production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel, was another stunner. (The show eventually made it to Broadway, but I saw it via telecast at the Lark Theater in Larkspur.) My favorite aspect of this production was how Rourke made use of what we know but the characters and Laclos did not: that in just a few years, the upper class's lives of luxurious boredom and bored excess would be upended by the French Revolution. As the play progresses, the sumptuous set is stripped bare, mirroring the protagonists' pretense and foretelling the storm to come. 

Much Ado About Nothing - Cal Shakes: This gender-bending, cater-waiter take on one of my favorite Shakespeare plays worked marvelously. 

King Lear - PacRep: I had no idea what to expect when my family decided to see some local theater while on a trip to Monterey, and was blown away by the caliber of acting and set design in this King Lear. 

The Makropulos Case - San Francisco Opera: The image of Nadja Michael in a Pierrot costume was enough to get me through the door for this 1926 Czech opera about a 300-year-old superstar looking to further extend her life. Michael's charisma makes the piece work, but I also truly touched by the story of the jaded diva and the everyday people who have been embroiled in a generations-long legal conflict partly of her making. 

Art

Detail from Seonna Hong's "Brotherhood of Men"

Musee Massena - Charlotte Salomon: Vie? Ou theatre?: The Musee Massena in Nice, France, celebrated the work of a young artist who once sought refuge nearby from Nazism.

Palazzo Reale - Simbolismo: When my sister and I stopped in Milan for the night on our way from Nice to Venice, we didn't do much research beforehand and didn't know what to expect. Along with the Duomo and finding the perfect duck umbrella, this exhibition of the beauty, weirdness, and sometimes gaudiness of the Symbolism movement was a highlight.

Fine Arts Museums San Francisco - Ed Ruscha and the Great American West & Wild West: Plains to the Pacific: The de Young's Ruscha show focused on the artist's work capturing both the sprawl and emptiness of the American Southwest. Its sister exhibition at the Legion of Honor was a clear-eyed survey of the West through many artists.

Hashimoto Contemporary - Seonna Hong, In Our Nature: I was immediately taken by Hong's intriguing images of youths exploring minimalist landscapes in pinks, greens, and grays. I even ended up buying a 2.5 x 2.5" painting - an addition to my tiny collection of tiny original art.

Ancillary Mercy, Swiss Army Man, Bloodline,
Moonlight, Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Previous Favorites:
Favorites of 2015
Favorites of 2014


Images:
Header and footer collages made in LiveCollage
Grace Marks: Murderpedia 
Les Liaisons Dangereuses: photo by Johann Persson
Seonna Hong: my photo of Hong's painting "Brotherhood of Men"

Dream Cast - The Tempest

Prospero with his magic staff; Miranda riding around the island;
where the bee sucks, there sucks Ariel

The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I've seen multiple productions and re-read it over and over. I've written more than one poem about it, and the one that's published is about a character who is only mentioned once and probably due to a textual error. I've read W.H. Auden's goddamn The Sea and the Mirror. I also love Margaret Atwood. So I was elated to hear that Hogarth would be publishing her novelized take on the work under their new Hogarth Shakespeare imprint.

I bought the novel, Hag-Seed, the day it was released and devoured it quickly. Of course it's always a little worrying to see a new take on something old you love, but Hag-Seed is one of my favorites of the year. After Felix is ousted as the artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival (if you're a Shakespeare festival aficionado, you'll know Atwood did her homework), he takes a job teaching Shakespeare in a prison, and plots his revenge.

Hag-Seed is clever and touching, but Atwood's take on The Tempest is different than mine would be. That's one of the reasons Shakespeare's plays endure on the stage and other media - they are open to countless interpretations. A character can be done so many ways. Reading the novel made me think of whom I would cast, and thus another overlong Dream Cast was born.

Prospero - Forest Whitacker

I have a soft spot for Forest Whitaker because, like him, I also have a wonky eyelid. That doesn't have anything to do with his acting credentials, but his career speaks for itself. Anyways, Prospero, like Lear and Shylock, is one of those Shakespeare roles distinguished actors of a certain age spend years paying their dues to play. Prospero is a bombastic egotist, passionate artist, cruel tyrant, doting father, and melancholy old man.

Prospero is also the rightful Duke of Milan and a sorcerer. Unfortunately, he is so into studying magic stuff that he doesn't notice his brother Antonio, whom he had assigned to run the kingdom, is going to usurp him. Cast out to sea with his daughter, Miranda, he lands on an enchanted island and declares himself ruler of it. When his enemies sail within his reach years later, he uses his magic to enact a complicated revenge. 

Miranda - Gugu Mbatha-Raw

We're getting flexible on the ages here, but whatever; it's Shakespeare. And anyways, if you landed on an island and saw Gugu Mbatha-Raw, you'd assume she was a goddess, right? Mbatha-Raw is in pretty much everything right now, because she's very talented. And that talent is needed to give Miranda her due. Miranda has some classic damsel moments (horror at a shipwreck, falling in love at first sight), but also shows pluck (standing up to Caliban, trying to help Ferdinand with his log-carrying).

Since toddlerhood, Miranda has been raised with no other women and with her father as the only other human. What might that mean for how Miranda acts, moves, and talks? There's a great but subtle moment in Mbatha-Raw's Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" where in anger, her character's idealized virtual reality avatar suddenly takes on her "real" mannerisms. That makes me think Mbatha-Raw could be a ground-breaking Miranda.

Caliban - Andy Serkis

Caliban has been a tricky role to cast in modern times. Caliban, born on an island in the Mediterranean and then subjugated by the first European who lands there, is read by many as a stand-in for aboriginal peoples. His is mother is an Algerian witch, but also described as blue-eyed, and critics have differing opinions on what that was meant to indicate. He's also an attempted rapist and gullible fool, so drawing too direct parallels is dicey.

For this Caliban, I'd go back to the text, which describes him as non-human and fish-like in appearance. For a fish monster, motion capture seems ideal, and for motion capture, you hire Andy Serkis. He's Hollywood's premier thespian working in this form, and he's got the chops for Caliban. Throughout the play we see Caliban as threatening, laughable, and rightfully enraged, and he also has one of the play's most moving speeches: an ode to the island's magic and beauty. 

Ariel - Kate McKinnon

Ariel is male in the text, but like fellow fairy Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream, often played by a woman on stage. Whatever the gender, air sprite Ariel has both ethereal beauty and manic energy, so who better than Saturday Night Live's Kate McKinnon? Imprisoned by Caliban's mother, he is then freed by Prospero in exchange for a set time of service. Ariel is the real magic behind Prospero, and although he serves Prospero dutifully, his longing for freedom is clear.

Antonio - Anthony Mackie

Besties Antonio and Sebastian are two of my favorite villains in Shakespeare. Why do I like them so much? Imagine that Scar from The Lion King and Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe get stranded on an island with little chance of rescue and, instead of panicking, immediately launch into a Statler and Waldorf routine. That's Antonio and Sebastian. Later, when their treasonous plot against the king is foiled, they're upset for a few minutes, and then just go back to treating everything around them as their personal RiffTrax.

Antonio is the more conniving of the two. Put in charge of running Milan while his older brother Prospero doddered away in his library, slick and competent politician Antonio was able to organize a coup with the backing of the King of Naples. Mackie is charming, and you can see how he could pull off being a schemer, too.

Sebastian - Sebastian Stan

After their banter as Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in Captain America: Civil War, who doesn't want to see these two together again? And Anthony's name is close to Antonio and Sebastian's name is exactly Sebastian, so it's practically written in the stars!

Sebastian is the younger brother of Alonzo, but unlike Antonio, the thought of betraying his older brother to take the crown doesn't seem to have ever crossed his mind. That doesn't mean he's completely at peace with his brother, though. Sebastian is furious that his niece Claribel was pressured by her father to marry against her will in far-off Tunis, and he also blames Alonzo for the supposed death of Ferdinand. With Ferdinand thought dead, Antonio is easily able to convince Sebastian that it's no biggie to kill Alonzo and his annoying ally Gonzalo. Especially Gonzalo.

Alonzo - Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been terrifying and enraging viewers of The Walking Dead as sociopathic Negan. As King Alonzo of Naples, he could show his softer side as a ruthless ruler who then feels the full emotional weight of his tactics. Already regretting marrying off his daughter Claribel on another continent, Alonzo is sent into a tailspin of grief when his son Ferdinand is thought lost in the shipwreck during their return from the wedding. By the time he's reunited with his happily alive son in the final scene, he's a changed man.

Ferdinand - Alden Ehrenreich

In The Tempest, Ferdinand needs to be sad, and then be in love, and always be pretty. This prince has none of his father Alonzo's politicking (except in chess), and his marriage with Miranda will reunite the kingdoms of Naples and Milan in love instead of treachery. Alden Ehrenreich, a scene-stealer in Hail, Caesar! and our future past Han Solo, would fill the role nicely.

Gonzalo - George Takei

Gonzalo, an elderly adviser in Alonzo's court, is kindly and means well, but also a bit oblivious and a windbag. His non-stop speechifying makes him the subject of Antonio and Sebastian's jokes, and I have to admit I've thought of Sebastian's "[and yet] he will be talking" complaint when stuck listening to a chatterer. However, he is also the one who saved Prospero and Miranda during the coup and looks out for Alonzo, Antonio, and Sebastian when they're made insane by Ariel's magic. With his cheeriness and comic timing, George Takei would be a hoot in this role. 

Trinculo and Stefano - Key and Peele

Providing the comic relief are Trinculo and Stefano, King Alonzo's jester and butler who have also been shipwrecked on the magic island. The two get drunk, meet Caliban, and get Caliban drunk. Caliban thinks alcohol-bearing Stefano is a god, and convinces the two to help him overthrow Prospero. It's a perfect plan! Or it would be, if they weren't so drunk and easily distracted. Good chemistry and comedy skills are essential for these roles, so I'm choosing duo Key & Peele. I'd pick Keegan-Michael Key as Stefano and Jordan Peele as Trinculo, but honestly, they'd be hilarious either way.

Alonzo, Sebastian, and Antonio fight imaginary monsters courtesy Ariel
while Stephano and Trinculo enjoy island life

First collage:
Forest Whitaker in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Black Mirror
Kate McKinnon from The Hollywood Reporter

Headshots: all IMDB except Key & Peele official image

Second collage:
Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The Walking Dead
Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan in Captain America: Civil War
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele in Key & Peele

Four Adaptations I'd Like to See (If Done Right)

Still in mourning over the demise of my romcom-ready love-hate relationship with the Bradley Cooper Paradise Lost movie, I at least have Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby to look forward to. Sure, there are some concerns (Why is Daisy so much younger than Gatsby? Will the 3D be used to make Myrtle's mangled body come flying right toward us?), but sometimes the projects you have concerns about turn out the best, like how everyone was raising eyebrows over Christopher Nolan casting pretty boy Heath Ledger as the Joker and then Ledger was iconic. And you know Luhrmann can nail the decadent party scenes.

Literary adaptations are a tricky thing. If it's a novel and not a short story that's being adapted, some aspects will have to be whittled down or cut. And if it's a beloved novel, there will be asshole fans like me who will probably only be satisfied if the movie turns out exactly as we had pictured in our head.

Anyway, here are four movies I would totally produce/bankroll if I won a reasonably large lottery. Hopefully they'd avoid becoming an entry in a sequel to Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops (or at least make the "secret success" or balls-out "fiasco" categories).

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood has quite the oeuvre to choose from, but I think 2003's Oryx and Crake would translate best to the big screen. This is the post-apocalyptic story of Snowman aka Jimmy, whose best friend Crake and their lover Oryx have created a brave new world and left him alone with it. Through flashbacks, we learn how the desolate Earth reached this point. Atwood's alternative near-future of corporation-run cities and execution-themed reality TV shows feels eerily real and, along with the other timeline's wreckage-scattered silent beaches, would make for a compelling movie setting. My biggest concern here would be the handling of Oryx's character. There's how Jimmy sees her, but there's also the between-the-lines Oryx, the survivor of childhood exploitation with her defiant stare. This project would need a director and actress who can see Oryx as more than just "tragic love interest."

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami

My dream is for David Lynch to take one of these novels on. This is probably the most unlikely to happen of all my dream projects, but hear me out. Yes, Murakami novels tend towards the unwieldy, Lynchs' fanbase is smaller than studios would like, and both artists have their own very strong motifs and points of view, but I think there could be magic here. They both tend towards magical realism, borrow from genre, utilize music, are masters of atmosphere, and deftly juggle multiple planes of reality in a single work. Stylish, controlled scenes like the infamous Winkie's nightmare in Mulholland Dr. remind me of Murakami's ability to present bizarre situations in a matter-of-fact way. And they both have a thing for mysterious nightclubs. With their noirish mystery and range of visuals, I think The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are best suited to film - and to Lynch in particular.

Notre-Dame de Paris/The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo

I've written about my favorite novel that is so not an appropriate source for a Disney movie before. But even non-Disney attempts at filming this novel have stumbled, generally getting caught up in the costumes and melodrama (the lucky French have a record-breaking RENTish stage musical of it, however). Notre-Dame de Paris needs a filmmaker who understands the characters, their inter-connectivity, and their society. 1400s Paris is depicted by Hugo as a dirty, dog-eat-dog world - it's a tense, dangerous time for anyone who stands out. Frollo, Quasimodo, and Esmeralda are all suspected of being the devil at some point by a paranoid, lynch-happy populace, and they all experience the grand Notre-Dame cathedral as both safe fortress and isolating prison. It's a large story of humanity and a society in transition, and also a small story of makeshift families that almost make it, but ultimately fall apart. BTW, Phoebus and Fleur-de-Lys would be perfect dinner party friends for Tom and Daisy.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

I think the biggest roadblock with adapting this novel, even moreso than concerns about race, is that it gets weird. Really weird. We all know about the raft and slavery thing, but remember the whole part with the King and the Duke? Seriously, that goes on forever. And then once Huck finds Jim, Tom shows up, and Tom's antics bring the process of freeing Jim to a dehumanizing crawl. I think these issues can only really be tackled by a screenwriter and director who get the tone of the piece and are able to be true to that without making a ten-hour long movie. Huckleberry Finn is a satire, but also very, very dark. Most adaptations try to gloss over the serious child abuse in the beginning and play the story up as a feel-good old-timey adventure, which works okayish until you get to con men putting on bizarre nudie shows. These traveling scoundrels were kind of the ShamWow guys of their time, and some of the then-topical humor just doesn't translate to contemporary audiences. All is not lost, we just need someone who can contextualize Twain's tour of the South appropriately and present with their own vision what Twain was trying to say - something beyond "omg white boy has adventure!!!"