Monday, September 25, 2017

Rumpus Room Reads #8 - "The Story of Adele H."


In which I question my choice of reading material, and whether I am self-consciously trying to alienate my peers by publicly consuming obnoxiously hipster vaguely erotic-seeming vintage novels.  Spoiler alert - complete erotic let down.  French eyes tell lies, apparently.

"The Story of Adele H." is literally just the script of the the 1975 movie of the same name.  Do they still do this, sell scripts with screenshots as books?  Was this a major trend in the 1970s?  I feel like maybe it was, due to the fact that movies from that decade seem to me, as an '80s baby, particularly like slow boring visual torture, experimental but the experiment failed.  Reading this script-book took me so little time that I had a hard time imagining that there was enough to make a full movie, until I realized each four-line scene probably had like eight hours of artsy exhausting imagery.  I mean, look at the director:

"I have, how you say, a vision.  And mustard on my ascot."

The "Adele H." in the title is the daughter of Victor Hugo, and this is the true story of her obsession with a British lieutenant, some bummy loser who probably used her for her money because he chose the army over debtors' prison, then when her dad refused to let them marry he was like meh, but she was like NOOOOOOO!  She followed him to Halifax where she was again rejected by him.  Her obsession grows and her grip on reality slips as she harasses him in such cute little romantic ways as publishing a fake wedding announcement for the two of them in the local paper then sending him a hooker.  Not a happy ending either.  Not anything that dramatic, just she ends up following him to Barbados then goes home to Europe to outlive all her family members.  Boring endings - the danger of true stories.

"This is definitely art, you guys!"

This bookstore owner was all like "I'll hunchback your Notre Dame" and Adele was NOT impressed.

Caption contest in the comments, GO!











1 comment:

Cheryl Oreglia said...

I'm not too interested in reading this particular book but it does looks like something I would find in my mother's bookshelf. I love your ending - the danger of true stories - boring! Unless of course you're Hugh Hefner.

 
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