Gentleman's Agreement (DVD) with Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire

This is a movie about “anti-Semitism”—prejudice against Jews.  In many ways this 1947 film deals with a dated topic.  We may feel that this kind of prejudice doesn’t exist anymore.  While that issue can be debated, what struck me the most in viewing the film was how simplistic it seemed.  The film’s protagonist, Gregory Peck, makes statements that may have stirred his audience at the time, but for us barely begin to scratch the surface of what we know about racism and prejudice and how they work.  Peck is a journalist who is given an assignment to write an article about anti-Semitism in America.  He decides to “become” a Jew, for six months.  This move is possible for him since he and his mother and son have just moved to New York, where they are strangers.  With only his editor and girlfriend knowing the truth, he can experience being a Jew in reality, somewhat like John Griffin did for his book “Black like me”.    

Major obstacles that existed at the time for Jews: being barred from universities, workplaces, and dwelling places—are not exactly relevant to Peck, since he has a job, he has an apartment (which his boss had found for him) and he is not trying to go to summer camp or attend college.  The apartment building supervisor does take offense when Peck pencils in the name “Greenberg” in addition to “Green” on his mailbox. ( Peck, whose name is Schuyler Green, sends out job applications as “research” for his article, using the names Green and Greenberg and comparing the results.)  When you consider what kind of widespread discrimination there was in housing against Jews, it’s interesting that nothing else happens in regard to his apartment.   Problems, however, do creep in to Peck’s life.  His child gets bullied in school, and his mother’s doctor is disinclined to accept a consultation with a Jewish doctor, regardless of his reputation.  The biggest conflict ends up with his girlfriend, played by Dorothy McGuire, who believes herself to be against prejudice but doesn't want to face up to its consequences.

"Gentleman's Agreement" was hailed at the time for its bravery in dealing with this sickness in our culture.  While someone in the film briefly mentions racial stereotypes of Jews as being loud, brash and untrustworthy (as well as dressing vulgarly), there's no one like that in the movie. Maybe this is why the1947 New York Times review criticized the film for only showing anti-Semitism in the upper classes.  Although today we would expect a deeper examination of this problem, the film is well acted and directed. But even if we may not take Peck’s distress about his well-meaning girlfriend as seriously as he does, we can appreciate seeing firsthand the depth of the silence that surrounded the Jewish issue.  I'm glad that I viewed it. 

Click here for the film listing in our catalog.  Click here for the book of the same name, by Laura Hobson, which the film was based on.

Everything They Had: Sportswriting from David Halberstam

At the age of 8, David Halberstam began publishing a family newspaper recounting his father's missives from overseas and his brother's daily haul of fish. He followed with what became a storied, 65-year career as a prolific journalist in which he covered everything from war to race relations, politics, business and sports. Halberstam died in 2007 at the age of 73, killed in a car accident while on his way to do an interview for his next book, The Coldest War.

During his lifetime, he wrote more than 20 nonfiction books, many of them bestsellers. His wife, Jean Halberstam, told the New York Times she believed he was proudest of his trilogy on war: The Best and the Brightest (about the Vietnam War), War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals and The Coldest War (about the Korean War and published posthumously).

But for all of Halberstam's focus on the world's troubles, he always held sports close to his heart. His sports books include The Amateurs, The Breaks of the Game and The Education of a Coach. (Visit ESPN.com for a selection of some of Halberstam's columns for the site.) He viewed sports as a lens from which he could view the "changing mores of the rest of the society." In sports, he saw reflections of our culture, history and humanity. In fact, he likened sports writing to war reporting:

"Most other journalistic assignments are mundane and by their nature resistant to almost any instinct to indulge in literary tendencies. The one exception is war, which is graphic and can be readily and movingly described, and to which ambitious young journalists have always been pulled. The drama of war, like the drama of sports, is self-evident. The reporter not only set out to move his readers; he was moved himself."

Everything They Had (070.449796 HALBERST) is a collection of some of Halberstam's lesser-known essays, articles and columns on sports. They span the decades and the field, from a 1955 story on competitive rowing that he wrote as a staff writer for the Harvard Crimson to an introduction to the 2006 book Super Bowl XL Opus. What I, as a reader, find so gratifying about them is their innate readability and accessibility. The best journalism offers context and perspective; it helps you make sense of what it is you're reading and fit it into the larger picture of world. Halberstam does just that. I know little of sports but Halberstam pulls in even in the least knowledgeable with his eloquence and love of the game. He doesn't report on athletic events and personalities just for form's sake, but rather as a window into what they say — about themselves, each other, and us as a society.

At the same time, he firmly understands how sports fits in the larger picture, writing at the two-year anniversary of 9/11, "I like sports, enjoy the artistry of them enormously... But I think there is an important faultline out there somewhere: The world of sports is the world of sports, and reality is reality."

His language is spare and simple, with a conversational tone and gracefulness that make his words easily and eagerly devoured. He serves up sports history with ease, commenting on the impact of such game-changers as the Civil Rights Movement and television, as well as athletic pioneers and personalities. Nor does he neglect the quieter side of sports: the bonding between friends on a fishing trip, the pleasure of rowing with his wife. Whatever topic he broaches, he does it in such as way you feel like he's simply sitting beside you, telling you a story as a lucky "every fan" who's gotten the opportunity to go fishing in Patagonia or visit with legends like baseball Hall of Famer Williams or basketball great Michael Jordan.

And, ensnared, you can't help but listen and learn and enjoy.

Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater / by Frank Bruni

For Frank Bruni, eating has always been a labor of love. Food has been his best friend and at times his worst enemy. The product of second generation Italian Americans for whom food was a no nonsense affair, Bruni never had the chance to miss any meals much less pass on any of his family's delicious culinary delights. So it's little surprise that the lighthearted journalist's lifelong love affair with food has led to a chronic weight problem and, subsequently, a perpetual struggle against obesity. And it has been a struggle. All throughout childhood, adolescence and into adulthood Bruni has been ever-conscious of his weight as a detractor to his self-esteem and well-being. "I wore pants with a waist size two to three inches greater than his, and I sometimes had to be taken to the husky section of boys’ departments to find them. Husky: I knew that wasn’t a good thing, a flattering thing. Other kids made sure of that." (p. 37).

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Bruni has fought anorexia and bulimia, has had many an episode with binge eating and subsequent purging, has gone through every fad diet imaginable, abused laxatives and diet pills, devoted countless hours of his life to exercise and starved himself relentlessly. Nothing seemed to work, until he finally found a way to both accept his condition as, well, round and uniquely modify it to his lifestyle. A former political correspondent during the Bush/Gore election, Bruni parlayed his journalistic skills into a gig with the New York Times where he combined his love of eating and culinary expertise into a position as a food critic. It was the right fit. Bruni found "closure" about his obsessive eating and issues with weight control, resolving to live within himself and as himselrf n effect, his obsession with food was the very thing that ultimately liberated him. Bruni is as honest as he is accurate about his own neverending struggle with weight gain and eating, chronicling his issues ever since early, early childhood, his rising weight all through his pre-teen years whereupon it shaped his identity, essentially the backbone of his conscious. Many, many readers can identify with Bruni and his style is easy to catch on to in this above average memoir. (FIC BRUNI)

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

A first novel which has received considerable acclaim, The Lotus Eaters chronicles the career of Helen Adams, a photojournalist, during the Vietnam War. It reads like the author was there herself - travelling with soldiers in the field, eating food from roadside stands, helping women villagers weed rice paddies, maneuvering her way in a man’s world and in a war torn country.

She is 32 at the war’s end, and has been so caught up in the violence and sense of mission that war imposes on its players, that she is left rootless and unable to move on with her life. The beauty of the book is its vivid account of the mayhem and craziness imposed on a third world country - with wily and resourceful Vietcong against the American boy Marines, who are struggling to figure out how to fight this war.

Helen has two love affairs, one with the award-winning journalist Darrow, who has his own reasons to pursue this dangerous profession, and the second with his Vietnamese assistant Linh, who has lost everything and doesn’t want to be connected to anyone anymore. The book is well plotted, going back and forth in time to give you more nuggets of understanding – of Helen, of Darrow and of Linh.

Some reviewers assert that the book shows how love triumphs over war. In my view, the love is more incidental. What Tatjana Soli cares about, in the end, is Helen: Helen and her odyssey to bear witness, both dreading and fearing death while moving up to meet it.

The Life and Times of Homer Sincere: Whose Amazing Adventures Are Documented By His True and Trusted Friend Rigby Canfield / by Nathaniel Lande

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Rigby Canfield and Homer Sincere are best friends in 1930's New Orleans when their story begins, both living in the French Quarter despite belonging to polar opposite social classes--Rigby's family is rich, Homer is more or less a destitute orphan. Meeting over a game of marbles one day, the two instantly hit it off, united by their love of the Cinema with the local Rialto Theatre, showcasing their ultimate hero Billy Sunshine, becoming their weekly ritual. Not satisfied just to two watch movies, Rigby and Homer begin filming their own with an long-saved-up-for 8mm camera, recording the goings-on of their colorful neighborhood which usually includes its daily amusements, sideshows, frequent parades and one very savvy, rhyming vegetable cart owner named Waldo--always their leading man.

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Things fast-forward to years later when both Rigby and Homer, still best friends, are in New York City working as journalists where each cultivate their creative vision through jobs with the Time-Life news group. Together and separately they're afforded the opportunity to witness some of the period's most high-profile events in some of the world's most high profile places. It is in New York also where both fall in love with the same woman, Daisy, a beautiful, intelligent modern working woman who provides the crucible for which the pair's friendship must pass. Their bond survives though, just as it did in the early years, the two remaining united through their one fervent passion: movies. Having never forgotten their ultimate dream, the pair soon resettle in California where they confront the monster that is the world of Hollywood show business.
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'Homer Sincere' is about many things: friendship, humanity, following your dreams, the mid-twentieth century as perceived through popular events and entertainment, Americana and the cultural influence of Hollywood on a generation, etc. Lande takes tidbits from his own background as a reporter for Time magazine as well as his tenure as a film critic, and weaves together a story as unforgettable as any of the more recent coming-of-age tales, chronicling the eventful, pivotal years of the last century in all its abundance and progress through two very real, very determined and very enduring individuals. (FIC LANDE)