James Curtis book

[Serena]

Nov 4, 2011 18:33:17 GMT -5 HollywoodHepcat said:

Oh, noes. I was actually alluding to Desk Set back there, friend.

I'm a senile old lady, what can I say (thank you for refreshing my memory )

So I guess what I'm about to comment from now on is a spoiler, so people beware!

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First of all I must say, after finishing the book, I think that it is a really really well written biography. You can tell the author spent a lot of time researching the material, and despite the abundance of detail and information, the book was very interesting to read. Honestly, sometimes when I went to bed at night, I could't wait to wake up the next morning so I could go on reading. Also, I appreciate that the author mostly just presented us with the information and then let us draw our own conclusions, instead of pointing us into this or that direction. I think he had an intention of being as objective as he could. I think he almost was, but not completely (I will comment on that some other day).

The very start of the book confused me when the first chapter starts describing how 'she' met 'him' for the first time. And then on the second page I find out that 'she' is Louise. OK, now at least I know I'm reading the right book. And then chapter two starts with Spencer's childhood, after which all the chapters are placed chronologically. That is just confusing and I don't see what was supposed to be achieved with placing that chapter first. Should someone think I am inclined to think that because I favour Kate over Louise, they would be wrong - I would prefer if the cover of my book had that picture of 'cornered' Spence, instead of Kate and Spence from 'Woman of the year'. After all, this is Spence's biography.

I have many more things to say (about Spence, Spence and Kate, Spence and Louise, for example), these were just a couple of things I wanted to say about certain, let's say, technical aspects of the book. I hope you people who have read the book will also share your opinions here, I would like to see if we agree or not.
Good night, all

[evelien]

Hello everybody,
I finished the book last week. Here are some of my thoughts.

First of all, regarding the beginning of the book: I agree with what has been said. I think the chronology of the first chapters is out of order. I see no point in beginning with a chapter on Louise. It is a book about Spencer after all. The only reason I could think of is that the author wanted to begin the book with Louise and end it with Kate, the two women who are most prominent in the book and his life. Louise was with him at the beginning of his career (although it was not entirely the beginning) and Kate stayed with him until the end of his life. That could be a reason for arranging the chapters the way it was done, although I did find it weird when I started reading.

It’s clear that the book has been very well-researched. It includes a lot of details, not only about Spencer but also about other people and places. Sometimes this could be a bit too much. I believe that the book could have been a lot shorter (1000 pages is a lot even for a biography). In my opinion, a lot of this background information could be made shorter in favour of more information about Spencer. That’s what I missed a bit in this book: there’s a lot of factual information about his movies, about what he did at a certain date, about what illnesses he had and his alcohol problems, but what I missed is ‘Spencer, the person’, if you know what I mean. I didn’t really see that funny, witty person that Garson Kanin and Katharine Hepburn wrote about. I think that if this is the first time that you read this kind of biography about Spencer, you could come off with a rather one-sided portrayal of Spencer. There’s a lot about his alcohol problems (although he did drink considerably less than I thought he did) and his illnesses, but there’s of course more to his personality than this. It seems a bit like he was depressed for the greater part of his life (which he could have been), but there must have been more to his personality otherwise I couldn’t imagine why Kate (or Louise) stayed with him that long.

Another thing I missed and that I have read some other people did too, is a chapter about the significance Spencer has had on acting. I suppose that a lot of people who have read and are reading this book are admirers of Katharine Hepburn, since she is the one who is best remembered and I think he is often only seen as her partner in their movies (although he did so many remarkable movies). A separate chapter about why people should remember Spencer Tracy 44 years after his dead and why they should read the whole book (and not skip to the part where Kate comes in) could have been interesting.
I did like the separate chapter that Mr Curtis added about the biographies about Katharine Hepburn. Being first of all a Kate fan I might be biased of course, but I think it’s a good thing that he sets the record straight once and for all on all these ‘supposed’ biographies about her. I can only agree with what he says and I also think that the ‘definitive’ biography on Kate still has to be written.

Regarding Kate and Spence (I think that’s what most of us are interested in), I think it’s a realistic account of what their relationship was about. It’s not romanticized (the way Kate’s account about their relationship sometimes is) although there are some great moments in the book which show the affection between the two of them. I do have to admit that I sometimes thought that the author had a bit of a bias in favor of Louise Tracy. Although, having said that, I don’t think that she comes out as a very positive person. When she says ‘I will be Mrs Spencer Tracy until the end of my life’, she sounds like a bitter person. The relationship between the three of them left me with a bit of a sad feeling. There could have been more in it for the three of them, but the absence of taking action (by any of the three parties), I feel, made it sometimes into a rather unfavorable situation.

I read something negative somewhere (I can’t exactly remember where) about the writing skills of Mr Curtis. All I can say is that, as a person whose mother language isn’t English, the book is very fluently written and that’s a credit to Mr Curtis because I never thought I’d be able to pull this off in three weeks.

All in all, I think it’s a very well-researched and well-written biography with a lot of background information about the movie industry and about other actors of the time, which sometimes left me a bit wanting for more about Spencer on a personal level.

That's all for now. I hope that you'll all share your opinion about the book and we can discuss it.

Evelien

[Sherry]

Evelien -- good analysis. You've seen a lot of things that the professional critics have missed. I've begun to question if some of them even read it because of the factual errors that appeared in their comments or because of their overly general comments about the book that could have been devised after skimming not reading.

[Serena]

Did someone notice that first on p.450 it says 'There can be no doubt that she targeted ST as the project that became WOTY took place, but it's unlikely that falling for him was part of the plan' and then on p.556 speaking about State of the union - 'Lansbury's Kay zeroing in on Grant in much the same way Hepburn had targeted Tracy'. Isn't that contradictory?

Also, when she first met Spence, Kate was living with Robert McKnight AND dating Garson Kanin? You go girl ;D (I didn't know about Garson)

[Judy]

Nov 10, 2011 17:06:38 GMT -5 Serena said:

Did someone notice that first on p.450 it says 'There can be no doubt that she targeted ST as the project that became WOTY took place, but it's unlikely that falling for him was part of the plan' and then on p.556 speaking about State of the union - 'Lansbury's Kay zeroing in on Grant in much the same way Hepburn had targeted Tracy'. Isn't that contradictory?

Also, when she first met Spence, Kate was living with Robert McKnight AND dating Garson Kanin? You go girl ;D (I didn't know about Garson)

Nope. Both statements indicate the author's belief that he was targeted.

[martha]

I have found the writing of the book to be kind of a slog ... it's great to hear that its clear for some folks, but i'm finding it turgid. (lead footed) ... in fact am taking a break and have wandered over to a Pauline Kael biography for a while .. but i'll be back ....

i value the book as a research document, don't get me wrong. i'm looking things up happily and often ...