Girls, You Simply MUST Read "A Thousand Acres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                              I cannot tell you  strongly enough to read this novel, which is Jane Smiley's masterpiece.  It shows clearly how "King Lear," while reworked here, is a template for American family dynamics.

                                              What she does is to tweak things a bit, so that everyone is flawed.  Here, those two fun loving sisters, Goneril  and Regan, but now called Ginny and Rose, are not quite the figures of evil they are in Shakespeare.  In fact, I directly related to Rose's rebellious, confrontational, nature.  And Cordelia, now renamed Caroline, is not quite the sweet devoted thing she is in Shakespeare.  In fact, I hated Caroline; she is a miserable bitch                                                                                                                

                                                 I always loved Goneril and Regan, and, with Ginny and Rose, I love them even more, because Larry  Cook, the Lear figure  in Smiley's work, is  one mean bastard, and what he does to his daughters throughout the novel is unforgivable.  Like Shakespeare, the storm scene, which takes  place midway, is the center piece of the novel, and while Ginny and Rose cannot literally be accused of throwing him out into the storm--though they are by townsfolk--I would not blame them, if they had.  He deserved it.  If anyone said the things to me, Larry said to his daughters, I would have tossed them out in the storm, and said things right back.  When Rose says, "I hope he dies in it!," I was with her all the way!  But, that's me, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                  What all this brings to mind is how, with this using 'Lear' as a template, Shakespeare's play is sort of a social manual of family dynamics.  Regrets, resentments, and recriminations; they all come out here, as they do in most families.  Just wait till I air mine to as yet unsuspecting members.  Maybe I will end up writing my own version of  "A Thousand Acres."  It's dramatic, compelling, and as universal as Tolstoy;s opening sentence, from "Anna Karenina."

                                                    Philosophically, it is the flip side of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind."  There, land matters, it is all important and all encompassing to its people's lives.  Smiley's work shows how that land can also destroy peoples' lives.

                                                      Don't miss it.  Then see the highly underrated 1997 film, with Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer.   It will give you a new perspective on Goneril and Regan!!!!!!!!!!

                                                        But, then, you know I just LOVE crazy bitches, darlings!   Takes one to know one, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!