Watching the 'Featurette' provides an interesting insight, as director Mary Harron shares her insights into the tale as being a "savage portrait of male behavior at it's worst.' That's interesting because it causes me to wonder if she is interpreting Easton's ouvre through a feminist hermeneutic he is not necessarily intending. Perhaps he did intend that, but having read the book (shamelessly, several times,) I've never imagined that Easton sat down thinking, "Yes! I am going to portray male behavior at it's most shocking, denigrating worst! That's it! That's what I'll do!"
Not that she's necessarilly wrong. But that does kind of gloss over the female behavior in the book. I mean hello? Courtney and Evelyn are more than just victims of Patrick's shallowness when it comes to relational abilities. Thier own vapidity more than supports the entire structure of his ultimate lack of personhood.
The movie has it's good points; they did a good job with it. The book did it better. One thing I was left with at the end of the book, was that Patrick got away with it, and was just going to keep getting away with it. No one seemed to have the remotest interest in putting two and two together, and his world had bounced back beacuse everyone was just as shallow as he was. The movie gave me the feeling that his end was near. But again, I could be entirely wrong here. I'd read it again, but I loaned my copy out and have never seen it again. (It's not carried in the seminary library.)
It all reminds of of JPII's observations in Fides et Ratio.
[Against the background of the nihilistic, modernist trends of the last century] "... it remains true that a certain positivist cast of mind continues to nurture the illusion that, thanks to scientific and technical progress, man and woman my live as a demiurge, singlehandedly and completely taking charge of their destiny. Hello Patrick, hello Evelyn.
Anyway, enough blogging on this wonderful World Mission Sunday. The beautiful outdoors beckons, and I am away. posted by David Greenleaf at Sunday, October 20, 2002
