Skip to main content

White Lotus #1

 White people behaving badly in Hawaii

Mossbachers:  Sidney Sweeney daughter.  Rich mom, less successful dad, SS is traveling with college friend of color, younger brother just a miserable wreck.

Friend of color talks Hawaiian  boyfriend into robbing M. family.  He's caught, she's miserable, dad & mom reconciled, back to happy white life in NY except their son doesn't get on plane but instead stays in Hawaii where he feels alive for once.  Rowing with natives around islands

Tanya:  spread mother's ashes in Hawaii.  Drunk, a bit loony, hates her mother, needy.  She promises to help Belinda (person of color) open a holistic center, but then she finds a beau--man is sick, coughing, but friendly.  She bags out on Belinda and goes off to Aspen with her new friend

Shane and Rachel, newlyweds. Shane doesn't get the room he wants, throws a series of fits.  Makes Armand,  gay manager, miserable. Armand--five years sober--not sober anymore.  Shane obnoxious spoiled rich boy. Started at third base and thought he hit a triple. Rachel slowly becomes repelled (Shane's mom shows up on honeymoon--tells her she should be happy to  be a trophy wife.) Armand sneaks into Shane's room, takes a dump in his suitcase.  Shane returns--fearful that the Mossbacher robber is in his room--grabs knife, stabs and kills Armand. Rachel at airport returns to him, apparently accepting trophy wife status, for now at least.

Excellent acting, witty, engaging.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Napoleon 14 Amiens

"Ambassadors are essentially spies with titles."  Napoleon President of Italy . . . Peace treaty with England (Amiens) in March 1802, with Turkey in June 1802 . . . flawed peace treaty with England because there was no opening up of France for trade with England, infuriating the English who thought peace would mean trade. . . tourism, though--Brits come to Paris and admire Napoleon . . . British liberals enamored . . . Napoleon "consul for life" . . . lots of unsettled territories, Switzerland being the largest . . . Industrialization much greater in England than France . . . France in 1802 is about the same as England in 1780 as a manufacturing center . . . Napoleon is basically Anglophobic, complaining of any art work that celebrates English victories being shown in Louvre . . . peace unraveling . . . by 1803 . . .  War May 18, 1803! . . . Louisiana Territory sold, advantageous to both parties.  France gets money; USA gets land.  France avoids possible war with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, continued 2/3rds

"To all humankind, Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends, she was only a frequently passing thought." Angel Clare is a good character. He's "enlightened," in so many ways, but when Tess's confesses her "crime," he reverts to ancestral form . . . Tess's "confession" comes earlier than I expected, right after Angel reveals that he has had a bad moment with a woman. Tess points out the similarity in their transgressions, though his is the only true transgression, expecting forgiveness. She doesn't get it. She returns to her mother . . . realizes she can't stay with her. Thoughts to suicide. Unhappiness that divorce is not possible. Departs. Tragic in that the two, if Angel could just see clearly, would indeed be a great couple, each adding to the other.  Nature as a definite force involved in the tragedy.  It's not neutral--when things go bad, the very skies mock Tess. Tess as unaware of the power of her bea...
Post a Comment
Read more