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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 2003)
Winter Reading 2003-2004 Brief Life Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino by Emily W. Leider. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Hardcover, $35. M ention Rudolph Valentino to my mother, and her eyes would become misty, her lips would moisten slightly and “Ah, Valentino,” she, who as a Michigan teenager pretended she was Theda Bara, would sigh. Emily Leider’s superb new biography of the silent screen star tells me why and a great deal more besides. “Valentino had much to do with waking American women up to just how exciting, sensual, and romantic love and sex could be. He was alluring precisely because he didn’t look or behave like a Midwestern American woman’s brother, boyfriend or husband,” Leider writes in the preface to her exhaustively researched account of the silent screen star’s tragically short life. Born in Italy in 1885 to a middle class Italian father and a French mother, Valentino died in New York of acute peri- tonitis in 1926. Dark Lover is biography at its best, placing its subject squarely in the context of his times — Leider is an acute cultural historian — and written in a style that is a bit too breezy and slick at times but not often. She brings Valentino and early Hollywood to life in a manner that makes the book a genuine page turner. Since Leider’s earlier Becoming Mae West is just as good for the same reasons, I expected a fine book. What I did not expect were the meticulous analyses of Valentino’s films; the vivid descriptions of his dancing, which garnered little but con- tempt from red-blooded American males; and a searing indictment of the manipula- tion of celebrity not only by the press but also by the actor’s Hollywood masters. Make no mistake: Fearful of spoiling his image of robust health and mysterious sexuality, Valentino ignored the symptoms of ulcers and appendicitis until it was too late. He was 31 years old. — Martha Ullman West Political is Personal Revenge: A Story of Hope by Laura Blumenfeld. Simon and Schuster, 2002. Paperback, $14. I s it possible to transform evil? That’s the question on Laura Blumenfeld’s mind in the opening scene of her book. She’s sipping tea with the family of the man who shot (but did not kill) her fa- ther. She arrives unannounced, does not disclose her identity, and then listens with remarkable self-composure while the shooter’s family expresses support for his actions. “He did his duty,” the father says. “Every Palestinian must do it. Then there will be justice.” By tracking down the shooter and his family, Blumenfeld pursues her own form of justice. Or is it revenge? It’s hard to tell. Her definition of revenge is not conventional (she has no intention of using a gun, although she occasionally entertains the idea), and she’s not sure what form her revenge will take, but she is sure of her goal: “I wanted him to realize he was wrong.” For a year, she pursues this goal incog- nito by meeting with the family, corre- sponding with the shooter, and researching her options. Will it be collective or con- structive revenge? Should she leave it to God or take matters into her own hands? What about forgiveness? In an attempt to chart a course for herself, she interviews a wide range of experts on the politics of vengeance, from Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin and members of the Albanian Blood Feud Committee to shopkeepers and fifth-grade girls. This quest is deeply personal, and Blumenfeld resists all attempts to interpret the attack on her father — or on anyone for that matter — as political. For her, the political is personal. “I wanted them to understand this conflict is between human beings, and not disembodied Arabs and Jews,” she says. In Blumenfeld’s hands, the book’s title is not oxymoronic. She achieves a radical, even transformational, form of revenge and no one, including the reader, is the same afterward. Hers is a story of hope more necessary and urgent than ever. — Holly Knight Family Saga Eliza and Mentora: The Story of a Pioneer Family in Northern Maine by Brenda Shaw. Silverwater Press (PO Box 51567, Eugene, OR 97405), 2003. Paperback, $16.95. A nyone interested in real people’s lives and history will find this book compelling. Shaw has taken family records — diaries, letters, journals — and public records of deeds, deaths, births and wills, along with newspaper ac- counts of the times to weave the story of a pioneer family in the harsh world of the northern Maine forests. What is different from the history books we were subjected to in school, at least in my day, is that much of the narra- tive revolves around the women of the family, namely Eliza and her daughter, Mentora. Shaw’s earlier work, The Dark Well, takes place after this book, which she is calling a prequel. DECEMBER 4, 2003 19
