A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

Saturday's Book Mixer discussion was fantastic. I loved A Single Man, and I loved hearing all the other readers' different interpretations of it. There was spirited but respectful disagreement on the ending, the character's intentions, and major plot points. Most of us loved it, some were not quite as infatuated, but I think we all came away with great appreciation for the novel and the participants in the discussion.

About three quarters of the way through the book, I went to my fantastic local, indie video store (shout out to Video Isle and Alex, who makes movie magic happen!) and rented the movie. Yowzah. It was a very different story, but I thought the atmosphere and questions raised were in keeping with the spirit of the book. How does one take a very internal novel and make an Oscar-winning movie from it? Yup, you may need to add some big drama, change who's had affairs and why, substitute two adorable dogs for a garage-ful or animals, and attach geniuses like Colin Firth and Julianne Moore to the project. I have to say THANK YOU TOM FORD-- the changes added even more to my thoughts about the novel, and we had that much more to talk about! We discussed for two hours and could have kept going.

I highly recommend A Single Man for book clubs. If you can make everyone watch the movie, do that, too.