Does an emotional impact still count if you're not sure why you feel it?
I like Gold's writing - sort of an short-attention-span smarty-pants thing - smatterings of 1910's American culture you're expected to just know - various silent movies, Krazy Kat, and the Four Minute Men; short phrases in French, Russian, German. Makes me feel smart without having to concentrate too much.
And I really like Charlie Chaplin, and am interested in silent movies in general. I was disappointed to learn one of the Mary Pickford movies with ZaSu Pitts that was in the book is a lost film.
So it was an absorbing read.
But, with about a hundred pages to go, I asked myself 'what's the basic question I'm waiting to get answered?' and I couldn't answer that. By the time I finished, I realized that like its namesake movie, Sunnyside is about things not fitting together perfectly, and real life not supplying a clean narrative driving toward anything. Things don't make sense. The universe doesn't make patterns, we just perceive them. I get it.
But Sunnyside was one of Chaplin's least successful films - financially and artistically (you know, I'm not really sure about financially, now that I mention it. The book implies it, but I think it did just fine. Not going to bother to research it). Maybe it wasn't the best structure to imitate.
I like Gold's writing - sort of an short-attention-span smarty-pants thing - smatterings of 1910's American culture you're expected to just know - various silent movies, Krazy Kat, and the Four Minute Men; short phrases in French, Russian, German. Makes me feel smart without having to concentrate too much.
And I really like Charlie Chaplin, and am interested in silent movies in general. I was disappointed to learn one of the Mary Pickford movies with ZaSu Pitts that was in the book is a lost film.
So it was an absorbing read.
But, with about a hundred pages to go, I asked myself 'what's the basic question I'm waiting to get answered?' and I couldn't answer that. By the time I finished, I realized that like its namesake movie, Sunnyside is about things not fitting together perfectly, and real life not supplying a clean narrative driving toward anything. Things don't make sense. The universe doesn't make patterns, we just perceive them. I get it.
But Sunnyside was one of Chaplin's least successful films - financially and artistically (you know, I'm not really sure about financially, now that I mention it. The book implies it, but I think it did just fine. Not going to bother to research it). Maybe it wasn't the best structure to imitate.
