Another Dot and Lionel toon.
It’s pretty clear Lionel’s me. Dot, though … she’s not anywhere near as innocent as you might think. I get the feeling she goes along voluntarily with her brother on his schemes, rather than being coerced; and she might even suggest refinements from time to time to improve on Lionel’s nefarious plans.
Anyway, something I tossed out last week below the fold.
I really, really wanted to like this movie.
See, I’ve read Gerrold’s book, and it’s very good: Sweet, hurting, reminiscent, cute.
I knew, before seeing the film, that a major component had been compromised. I figured, okay, well, how bad could it be?
I forgot that major compromises and minor ones tend to interdigitate.
This movie just didn’t know what it was about. Was it SF? Fantasy? Based in real life? Gerrold’s book, while as unclearly anchored in a few ways, at least managed to tell the story and maintain a deep coherent purpose.
I want to talk more about this but I’m still assimilating how badly, terribly wrong the movie was. How deeply and totally it swerved away from everything important in the novel it was based on.
Give me a day or two to digest this one. Even by my standards, it’s an incredibly dyspeptic lump to handle.
Meanwhile, if you’ve read the book and want to see the movie: Stop with the book.
Please.
To the market, I say to you, only to the market.
There we will buy only the things we need, and then we will return home.
And, knowing your eyes, I know the lie in my remonstrance;
for I have never been able to resist you
in your puppy looks as you plead silently after sweets
and caress with quiet longing the blister-packed toys.
We are not rich but we have soap,
which you hate,
as all boys do.
It is a small luxury I can afford, an easy price
to see you gleam.
The one penalty for going to the market
you accept with little grace,
but some tolerance, showing me you have washed
and I remind you that Allah loves the cleanly.
Then I must be very beloved indeed, you say.
Such truth in your complaint.
Dressed simply, fragrant with soap, my wealth,
you wait beside me for the bus,
your eyes bright but tainted with the fear
reflecting from my own furtive watch of the neighborhood.
It is not as it was, and I can no longer say
with the surety I once held
that our lives are better now.
But someday, son, I know
this will cease; you will one day be happy again,
your life — simple now, even still, even amid this —
filled with the simple trials of school
and girls and, one day,
marriage and grandchildren for me to relentlessly spoil,
and you wonder a little at my smile as you see it,
and smile back, tentatively, your hand slipping into mine.
So little you know.
So few heartbeats you have had.
I say I love you.
Then, you insist, with the logic of the young,
you must buy me a —
No, I say. No treats this time.
You didn’t wash up properly after supper last night
and you are still being punished.
We both know this means nothing.
Grunting along the patched, roughhewn macadam
the bus growls up its gears, and there is a crack and shudder
a blistering flash of time
scintillating around us as life becomes shattered,
glass diamonds glinting cold,
rubies bright across my eyes.
Your hand, in mine, loosens.
And I cannot hold on to you.
I wanted to say, I wanted to say —
so fast, you were away so fast, your eyes frightened, and I wanted to say —
How many nights did I hold you thus as your heart beat so fast
and rock you as you wept, comforting you, easing your childish fears
of the distant cracks of doom,
whispering into the cup of your ear that we were safe
within the walls of our home?
It has, it has ceased.
I cannot hold on to you.
Bathed now, cleaned now, safe now from any more harm,
beloved,
I leave you to move once more, numb, into the world of light
and sweets and toys,
and if only I could, my son,
I would buy all of them for you
just to feel your hand stir once more in mine,
your puppy eyes aglow.
==
