Three recs, Independence Day edition
A Japanese crime drama, a classic London gangster flick, a poignant Irish novel
I actually wrote and tried to send this yesterday, but had an internet fail, so just pretend today is still the 5th. Thanks!
Yesterday, the British public voted out a Tory (Conservative) government after 14 years of that party’s rule.
14 years. Finally!
In that time, Britain has gone from a country with virtually no food banks to one with many, all of which are struggling to provide for the sheer volume of people who come to them. It has gone from a nation with a functioning public healthcare system (free! quick! accessible!) to one that has, as an NHS doctor friend called it, an emergency damage control system. It has gone from a place with robust public services and education to one with very few functioning public services and an education system that is expected to pick up that slack (with, naturally, fewer resources).
I could go on and one, but we’re not actually here to talk politics.
We’re here to talk about hope.
See, I’m a natural optimist. When I was a kid, this was seen as a good thing. I “dreamed big.” I had faith in the as-yet unseen. An unshakeable belief that things would work out, and probably the way I wanted them to.
As I got older, though, I discovered that lots of people consider optimism foolish. Pessimism is deemed “realistic.” (I have even been shown a number of studies claiming to prove this.) Hoping for – even believing in – the best outcome is seen as naive and unserious.
Look, I get it. Since 2016, it has felt like we (the world?) have experienced a cascade of Bad Things. I have no doubt that the cynical among you are thinking that I should be starting earlier than 2016, too, and you may be right. It is safer and easier to retreat to the domain of “everything is fucked” and “we’re all doomed.” After all, if you expect that things will be bad, you can’t be hurt when they turn out bad.
The problem, though, is that cynicism is often only a stop on the way to fatalism, or, “the bad shit is inevitable” and “there’s nothing I can do to stop this car crash.” And that is a sibling of nihilism, or, “what’s the point” and “nothing is ever going to change, no matter what I do.”
One of the things that has infuriated me most during my 7+ years in the UK is the country’s pervasive pessimism – that is, fatalism and, often, nihilism. I’ve been pretty brutal in my analysis of this. It’s painful to watch some of the smartest, most socially and politically conscious people you know shrug in the face of relentless bad shit from a Tory government, because “that’s just how things are.” I’ve wanted to shake them and shout that it doesn’t have to be like that, that it can change, that humans make the rules and humans can do something about them.
Going into yesterday’s election – and coming out of it, from almost the moment Labour’s historic landslide victory was announced – I’ve noticed the country struggling between hope and fatalism. On the one hand, there were the two guys I overheard in a coffee shop yesterday greeting each other with, “Happy new government day!” The polls hadn’t even closed yet. And then, on the other hand, there is the protectively cynical refrain that Labour has moved so far right and played it so safe that they’re not actually going to change anything.
Even I catch myself caveating that this win may be a poisoned chalice. Turnout was abysmally low, indicating broad disillusionment. Huge, sweeping change is required now to fix 14 years of systematic dismantling and privatizing of the administrative and regulatory state. If it’s not done effectively and quickly, people may well sour on the party that was “not the Tories.” And we only have to look to the current French election to see a European example of where that could lead.
But that’s all putting the cart before the horse.
Right now, for the first time in seven years, I live in a country where hope has paid off. Hope, paired with a lot of hard work from a lot of people. Which is as it should be.
When I look at the US, my home country, this week, I feel sick to my stomach. It’s very hard to feel hope. And yet, I read somewhere that hope is a discipline. Living in Britain, seeing this moment of change that, even two years ago, felt like it would never come… It’s a reminder to me not to give up. Not to be weighed down by cynicism, nor to give in to the temptation of fatalism and nihilism. It’s a reminder to practice hope.
It’s ironic that, on American Independence Day, it was Britain that reminded me that hope is an inherently American value. There is a phrase in the preamble to the US constitution that sums up one of the things I love most about my country: “to form a more perfect union.” It is a promise of constant improvement. It says that the best is always yet to come, that we are a work in progress and that it is up to all of us to create a better country. If that isn’t hope, I don’t know what is.
Sorry, but I did warn you I was an optimist.
As a number of you noticed, we missed an issue two weeks ago! To be honest, I simply hadn’t watched or read anything then that I wanted to recommend. Since I don’t ever want to recommend something just for the sake of it, I figured it was better to skip an issue than force one out and regret it later. Hopefully that won’t happen again anytime soon!
And now, onto the recs…
Rec 1
Tokyo Vice, s1 (TV)
This Japan-set HBO/Max series has been on my radar for a while, but it recently reached a critical mass of people recommending it to me, bumping it up my watchlist. Inasmuch as this also coincided with HBO’s announcement that they’re not renewing it for a third season*, I’m especially bummed it took me this long to get around to it.**
It’s (presumably loosely) based on the memoir of a young American journalist who moved to Tokyo in the 1990s, busted his ass to get a job covering crime at a prestigious Japanese newspaper, and got embroiled with both the yakuza and the police in an effort to get good scoops. Naturally, he makes lots of mistakes, and he is by far the least competent of all the main characters, but he’s so eager and determined that you’re (almost) always on his side. It also helps that he’s played by the charismatic Ansel Elgort (who apparently learned Japanese for the role?), and that the always excellent Ken Watanabe leads a superb cast of Japanese actors.
One of my favorite things about this show is how smartly it uses its crime drama veneer to be so much more. When a friend mentioned she’d just finished a rewatch of The Wire, it occurred to me that this could be a good follow-up. It’s about Tokyo’s criminal underworld and its symbiotic relationship with both the press and the law, but it’s of course really about the people who get caught up in these systems – as well as the people who idealize them.
It’s also got some killer late 1990s costumes, set design, and references, and continues to feed my Japan wanderlust – though I swear the recent spate of shows about Japan hasn’t been intentional!
*There is some chatter that they’re trying to get another network to pick up the third season. Fingers crossed!
**Technically, this rec is only for season 1, since I haven’t watched season 2 yet. But I can’t wait to.
Where: HBO/Max, BBC iPlayer (UK)
Rec 2
Snatch (movie)
Maybe I’m the only person alive who hadn’t yet seen Guy Richie’s second film – and possibly the one that catapulted him to international fame? – but, well, as of this week, I guess that means the entire world has seen it.
In case I’m wrong and at least one of you hasn’t seen it: Entirely unsurprisingly, this in-your-face London gangster flick is an absolute delight. For one thing, it’s a pleasure to see loads of now-famous faces when they were still untouched by cosmetic surgery and Hollywood salaries (Jason Statham, Stephen Graham, Benicio del Toro, Ewen Bremner, Lennie James, to name a few). For another, Brad Pitt’s sometime-intelligible Irish Traveller accent is, well, definitely something. And then there are the jokes that have shockingly not aged as badly as I would have expected over the last 24 years. (Either that or my sense of humor just hasn’t matured since then.)
Plus, I just always love getting to see where a filmmaker started. Richie has become a household name, but seeing him working with a budget that was no doubt a fraction of what he gets nowadays shows off his creativity and ingenuity in a way that Sherlock Holmes and The Gentlemen just can’t.
Still, there are few filmmakers these days making really good popcorn flicks, and there’s no doubt that Richie is one of the masters.
Where: Netflix
Rec 3
The Wren, The Wren (book)
Acclaimed Irish writer Anne Enright’s 2023 novel about the daughter and granddaughter of a famous (male) Irish poet may be one of the most beautiful, insightful, and poignant portrayals of both contemporary womanhood and family inheritance that I’ve ever read. I mean, there’s a reason Enright was Ireland’s first Laureate for Irish Fiction.
Nell is a twenty-something young woman trying to find her place as both person and aspiring writer in a world of social media, dating apps, and climate change. That she freelances as a ghostwriting travel writer for an influencer, writing guides to places she’s never been, hit especially close to home for me, but I think most Millennials – and, presumably, Gen Z-ers – can relate to it. (It is worth noting that Enright is very much not of these generations, so I can only assume she had a lot of chats with her kids about their relationship to the internet.)
Carmel is Nell’s (single) mother, daughter of a renowned poet who left his young family behind in Ireland so he could “find himself” and “create art” and just generally be a famous male artist, complete with marrying much younger women. Carmel tried to move on from her father, even as her sister attached herself to their mother, but can anyone ever move on from their parents or their families? She certainly doesn’t want Nell to move on from her, though she doesn’t feel quite so great about Nell’s attachment to both her father’s poetry and egotistical men.
I loved a lot of things about this book. It’s quiet and intimate, not earth-shattering or heart-wrenching. It’s that perfect blend of modern and timeless. The language is absolutely stunning.
But what I keep thinking about – what I have been thinking about since almost the beginning – is how, in Ireland, being a poet is just yet another way for men to aggrandize themselves. As a writer, as a reader, as an Irish American, I’ve long bought the myth of the special Irish poetry tradition. But this book reminded me that that privileged tradition also means it’s yet another way for egotistical men to put themselves on pedestals, damn the consequences for the people around them.
Which makes it subtly subversive that all the beautiful poetry in this book was, in fact, written by a woman.
Where: Borrow it for free from your local library, or buy it from your non-Amazon bookseller of choice. (Here’s the Bookshop US link, and here’s the Bookshop UK link.)
(In the name of full transparency: I’ve included affiliate links to Bookshop.org – if you’re going to order from them anyway, please use my link so I can make a little extra cash! If you want to see/order any/all of my book recs, I’ve made lists on Bookshop, too: US version, UK version.)
That’s all for this week! What are you reading/watching/listening to that I should be aware of? Drop me a line (or comment) to let me know if you check out any of my recs and what you think.
Please spread the word and I’ll see you in a couple weeks.
xo
Kate
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