The first section is very boring and mundane. I might have to re-read 10,000 Acres to figure out why I gave that 4 stars. Against all odds, I loved this book. Characters' names echo mythology (Delphine = an oracle, Cassie = Cassandra, etc. Ms. Smiley lives in Northern California. I love this novel. Touted as a "glorious novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winner about ten transformative and unforgettable days in the Hollywood hills," personally I can't wait to forget this book, which is only transformative of my (previously positive) regard for Jane Smiley. stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images. Moo had struck a chord because I also have experience with being a faculty member at a land-grant school in the Upper Midwest. A violent war has begun, and a small group of family and friends has taken refuge in a secluded house high in the hills to escape the fighting. TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS by Jane Smiley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 15, 2007 Smiley, who won a Pulitzer for transplanting King Lear to 1970s Iowa ( A Thousand Acres , 1991), sets her modern-day version of The Decameron in Hollywood. They're in southern California. Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2007. I was expecting to enjoy this book far more than I did. While Smiley's use of the Iraq war created some enlightened discussion, it also seemed like a heavy-handed device. It manages to be both political and funny (but not at the same time). It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Ethnographically, she is eerily accurate, even down to the incessant talking about fitness regimens, performative orthorexia, alternative religions, and the ritual recitation of one's exact driving routes (just like in the Saturday Night Live skit "The Californians," incidentally). I got such an indulgent pleasure from lying in a hammock reading it for hours and hours and never getting bored. It is largely bereft of narrative, though, so filming it would be a pain. This one not so much, Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2007. Max—an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned—and his lover, Elena, luxuriate in bed, still groggy from last night’s red-carpet festivities. I just spent a good hour reading people’s reviews of the book on Good Reads, and I am no more certain of my own feelings toward the book than I was before I read them. stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images. I think Smiley herself must have gotten bored along the way and decided she had to switch it up to a new location where each room was more exotic than the next, only so that she had something else to describe. Max, an award-winning writer and his lover, Elena, are hosts to a house full of guests including their daughter, a movie star, a healer and an agent. Rarely is there a book I start that has me so uninspired that I just want to throw in the towel, and this happened to me several times along the way, though there were moments when I thought it might redeem itself. tamalpais, boy (9-11) and bulldog on hillside - ten days in the hills. Smiley, Jane. A glorious new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner: a big, smart, bawdy tale of love and war, sex and politics, friendship and betrayal—and the allure of the movies. The book is a thinly veiled excuse to collect a bunch of smutty stories under a thinly veiled excuse for a framing plot (ten young men and women escape to the hills outside plague-ridden Florence, and behave themselves with remarkable propriety while telling the dirtiest anecdotes over the fire). People who love to read books and magazines about decadent Hollywood characters and movies will find this novel (Ten Days in the valley by Jane Smiley) a compelling and interesting read. Where is it - charity shop. so boring. This 2007 novel tells the tales of ten people over the first couple weeks after the U.S. started the 2003 war in Iraq. I couldn't get attached to or interested enough in any of the many characters. Not that one has to do so—far from it; in fact, the best comic novels resolutely refuse to—but there was not that lusty amorality either that the best comedies of manners have. Jane Smiley is the author of more than ten novels, as well as four works of nonfiction. So many other minor points and themes are taken up throughout that it is a bit dizzying. (Hm, maybe my problem with "The Greenlanders" is that I've never spent ten years huddling around a fire saying things like, "Bah! And what opulent realms she loots: academia, horse racing, real estate, and now Hollywood. I enjoy full immersion in places and in characters' lives (Suitable Boy, Forsyth Saga, Strangers and Brothers, Richard Marius's East Tennessee trilogy, etc.) I enjoyed recognizing many of the stories and the clever ways that Smiley wove them into her frame. Smug, self-absorbed, cardboard characters, tedious detail - who cares about the nine-grain bread and roasted-garlic hummus - no plot, a crude vehicle for the author's political prejudices - what a let-down. As an anthropological collection of otherwise censored narrative, sure. The strength of the book is not what has been pushed as the book’s most outstanding feature. "Ten Days" resonates with me because I grew up in the Hollywood Hills. These are characters she knows. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item. Smiley said in one interview or another that she was going for an ea. Moreover, some of her attempts to remind readers of The Decameron are a tad heavy-handed, including the group's lengthy discussion of "The Seventh Seal," Ingmar Bergman's classic film about one man's chess match against Death in the midst of the plague. But it is about Hollywood and 'the Industry', or at least it takes place there. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but, as in "Moo," I didn't feel that she really was getting behind any of the characters. I enjoyed recognizing many of the stories and the clever ways that Smiley wove them into her frame. It follows ten Hollywood-types in the days after the Iraq war has just been declared. Be the first to ask a question about Ten Days in the Hills, Jane Smiley, who won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres, has written on a range of topics: horses, midwestern university life, real estate, Greenland, and, most recently, literature (13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, ***1/2 Jan/Feb 2006). I usually rip through her books, but this one was a bit tedious, although, as usual, very intelligent, socially and historically astute, and interesting, complex and characters. Not for everyone. One of these items ships sooner than the other. Because it's Jane smiley and she writes such good characters. Ten Days in the Hills by Smiley, Jane and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. Ten Days in the Hills Jane Smiley In the aftermath of the 2003 Academy Awards, Max and Elena- he’s an Oscar-winning writer/director-open their Holywood Hills home to a group of friends and neighbors, industy insiders and hangers-on, eager to escape the outside world and dissect the latest news, gossip, and secrets of the business. ), the Iraq war takes on Hellenic force as the uneasy backdrop, foods catalog character traits but also contemporary upper-middle-class foibles. Critics similarly diverged on the characters, which reflected their own view of the novel: some characters stood out; others did not. Ten days in the hills / Jane Smiley. Normally, I'm put off by lots of stories w/in stories because I don't care for short stories. In the early chapters of “Ten Days in the Hills,” a crowded, knowing comedy of contemporary manners seems to be taking shape. The one part I did enjoy was the discussion of movies, both real and imagined, that the characters participated in. It is the morning after the Academy Awards. I was bored by mabye 3 or 4 pages of characters describing a movie they might like to make. With its breathtaking passion and sexy irreverence, Ten Days in the Hills is a glowing addition to the work of one of our most beloved novelists. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, $37.73 Shipping & Import Fees Deposit to Vietnam. The main themes seem to be love, forgiveness, and death. And yet, s. The occasional flash of insight, if nothing especially profound. That is the sensibility that drives the book. The first idea would be a massive epic filmed partly on location in Ukraine. My silent cry is not unlike the cry for Literature at the fit-for-theater ending of Vladan Matijevic's complex postmodern work (NIN prize winner in Serbia in 2003) entitled Writer from Afar (about an empathetic writer writing while embedded in a high rise apartment in Belgrade during the NATO-led bombing campaign of Serbia). The book had about a thousand characters (but only 10 days) and no plot at all, just a spinning of individual stories that all together added up both to a history and a moment in time, and a sort of paean to beauty in chaos. Who knew sex, storytelling and Hollywood insiderism could be so incredibly boring? Ten Days in the Hills is as sunny and indolent as A Thousand Acres was brooding. The idea: a bunch of people, a sort-of family (a Hollywood movie director, his girlfriend and her son, his ex wife who is a legendary beauty/actress/singer, their grown daughter, the actress' mother, a neighbor, an old friend, the director's agent, and actress' bearded guru boyfriend...) gathered in one place and talk and explore relationships past and present, is an inter. Fans of Jane Smiley will love this decadent Hollywood story of secrets, love and lust. Nonetheless, she's good enough at telling you what you are seeing that you can at least derive some pleasure from the voyeurism. On the one hand, little happens, aside from sex (presented directly, unromanticized, with no embarrassment). This book (a modern-day Decamaron (sp)) has the reader eavesdropping on several Hollywood residents in a palatial house over the space of a week and a half, shortly after the outbreak of the Iraq war (in Boccachio's work, the characters are hiding out from the Black Plague). Touted as a "glorious novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winner about ten transformative and unforgettable days in the Hollywood hills," personally I can't wait to forget this book, which is only transformative of my (previously positive) regard for Jane Smiley. The book had about a thousand characters (but only 10 days) and no plot at all, just a spinning of individual stories that all together added up both to a history and a moment in time, and a sort of paean to beauty in chaos. Start by marking “Ten Days in the Hills” as Want to Read: Error rating book. I find the characters to be the most vacuous bunch of people and I couldn't care less about any of them. A glorious new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner: a big, smart, bawdy tale of love and war, sex and politics, friendship and betrayal—and the allure of the movies. Frank Cottrell Boyce is beguiled by Ten Days in the Hills, Jane Smiley's LA version of the Decameron Frank Cottrell Boyce Sat 10 Mar 2007 18.59 EST First published on … (Hm, maybe my problem with "The Greenlanders" is that I've never spent ten years huddling around a fire saying things like, "Bah! Please try again. I found the whole 150+ pages that I read completely ridiculous, the characters boring and wooden I kept on reading, but it only got more boring and pointless. Rarely is there a book I start that has me so uninspired that I just want to throw in the towel, and this happened to me several times along the way, though there were moments when I thought it might redeem itself. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. It was essentially a modern-day retelling of The Decameron, set in Hollywood. I. Ten Days in the Hills (Book) : Smiley, Jane : A group of friends and family gathers in the Hollywood hills for ten days of memories and gossip, including Max, a writer/director whose career is waning; his lover Elena; his She also cannot resist parables, dripping them everywhere and in the mouths of virtually every character. Look, she's a trained writer so one doesn't want to give her the lowest possible rating, but this book is as self-indulgent as its characters. Over the course of the next ten life-changing days, they share stories of Hollywood, watch movies and become entangled by the pool. This feels like the work of an academic salvaging some of their old lecture notes in an attempt to avoid the proverbial publish-or-perish meat grinder. I had to read it in college. The extended family and friends of Max, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, accidentally spend ten days together, in relative isolation, during the time of the US invasion of Iraq. More like being a fly on the wall, witnessing a variety of conversations, relationships and inner dialogue. Hopefully I didn’t give up on this too soon. And yet, somehow, the reader must be compelled to care about something in the story, if only to keep turning pages. Sparks fly and tension mounts as this unputdownab. Lovemaking with Elena, a two-hour flick during which a couple. It is based on the Decameron, which I have never read, I just know that from what I know. Pulitzer-winning novelist Jane Smiley's latest book, Ten Days in the Hills, is a satirical portrait of an Oscar-winning director, his political-activist lover, his ex-wife and her lover.

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