something new to read for ‘Sex and the City’ fans
Remember that book Carrie reads from to Big in bed in Sex and the City: The Movie? It’s called Love Letters of Great Men, and it doesn’t exist... at least until now. British publisher Macmillan just published a collection
It doesn’t take a lot of digging around, though, to see that several similar books of a quickie nature have been tossed out to SATC fans over the last few months (including one that’s a new reprint of a 1924 book!), though they're all from tiny publishers, not a powerhouse like Macmillan with a budget for promotion.
I do hope all those SATC fans who’ve been clamoring for this book won’t be disappointed, because -- as John Mullan points out at the Guardian book blog -- no one really wants to read other people’s love letters, and we probably wouldn’t want to receive one like these, either (“the intensity of the letters is usually caused by the impossibility of the passion they describe...”).
And then Mullan points out the absurdity of the whole love-letter situation in the film:
Having left Carrie at the altar, Mr Big must win her back. How will he do it? He could take out his Montblanc pen and fashion indelible sentiments of regret and devotion. His letters would be as personal as words can be. Carrie would see him struggling to express his passion (Mozart tells his beloved that she should see his tears blotting the page in front of her). His handwriting would be the very graph of his true emotions. What does he do? He copies chunks out of Love Letters of Great Men and pastes them into his emails. Tragic really.
It is tragic. And not in the least romantic. Though that’s true of the rest of the film as well, isn’t it?
(Technorati tags: Sex and the City, Love Letters of Great Men)
comments
posted by Sara (Thu Aug 07 08, 1:06PM)
Yep.
But you just knew they'd have to come out with that book that didn't exist just a bit ago.
posted by Paul (Thu Aug 07 08, 4:07PM)
The same thing happened in the horror genre. Lovecraft wrote so convincingly of an ancient book of black magic and lore that not only was the "ancient" book eventually published but it showed up in the Evil Dead movies. I think it was called the Necronomicon; people would go to libraries to try and find it.
posted by MaryAnn (Fri Aug 08 08, 12:37PM)
Ya gotta be a special kind of stupid to think that you would find the Necronomicon, the most evil book ever, in a *public library.*
posted by Der Bruno Stroszek (Fri Aug 08 08, 2:36PM)
I dunno, my local public library seems pretty damn Satanic. Something about all those Danielle Steele books in one confined space gives me the heebie-jeebies.
posted by Amy S. (Sun Aug 10 08, 6:46PM)
That's funny. Two women were in line behind me a month ago to buy tickets for Mamma Mia! (I saw Dark Knight and then Mamma Mia but anyway...) and were talking about how they'd have to see such and such film again and wondered about the book "she was reading" and of course they wanted to read it and one woman said, "and she said it was a classic too." I, the English lit snob, just giggled a bit inside. So silly.
I didn't like that whole part of that scene with "you don't seem the type to get books from the library." So dumb. a. she's supposed to be some sort of writer and when you're doing research you don't just purchase every book and b. she's a writer which means usually also an avid reader and again, you don't purchase every book you read. that would be a waste of money, resources etc.
posted by MaryAnn (Mon Aug 11 08, 12:26AM)
Real writers spend all their money on books, not shoes.