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A Bright Ray of Darkness

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But still, I liked all the Shakespeare. And what life was like for auditioning, memorizing, practicing, performing, etc. Clearly Hawke knows of what he writes in that case and, for this book, there's the rub (read: value). If you read it, take it for what it is. Lights, action, READ! Hawke spends a lot of time delving into the scenes of the protagonist on stage and the rest of the time ruminating over his broken marriage and how to handle his two children. So much of this story sounds autobiographical. What I read online, he takes parts of his life and implants it into the book. I couldn't shake the feeing of what was real and what wasn't.. It is brilliant in parts though, with some superb prose, atmospheric deep dives on theatre acting and Shakespeare and a gripping episode where he has a massive infected boil on his stomach (wtf) excised without anaesthetic.

Ethan Hawke is an author. Yes, yes, yes, I know he's actually an actor. A very fine actor. A twice Oscar-nominated actor (he has two Oscar nominations for writing, too). But he is also, without doubt, an author. That's about as good a compliment as you can pay to anyone switching crafts like this. He's an artist, if you will. This is no vanity project; it's a proper, high-quality novel. But Hawke is also known as the man who cheated on Uma Thurman and offered loutish excuses about the sexual needs of great men like Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and him. out of 5, I was almost ready to give it a 6 and call it one of my all-time faves except for a few really truly glaring moments of mediocre prose. I spent many years in the theater as an actor and playwright, so the world of A Bright Ray of Darkness is one I know well. This is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read to convey the art of pretending to be somebody else in a made-up story in front of hundreds of people who, in the best case, suspend their belief that you are really a regular schlub. Add to that the raucous insanity of a bunch of people whose real emotions don’t know the difference between what they’re pretending and being a regular schlub, and even if they do, sometimes they get overwhelmed by the professionally evoked stuff, but, unlike regular schlubs everywhere, these schlubs get distorted by all the applause, so they think what they do is a matter of life and death.This is a really magnificent audiobook narrated by the man himself - truly entertaining and engaging, I loved listening to him, but - and it’s a big but - the book is brimming with toxic masculinity and cringey sex scenes. Every woman in the book is either a sexual conquest or a potential sexual conquest and it’s a bit tiresome. I figured I'd hit some plateau that was adulthood---where I believed things would just stay level for about forty years while I would do great work and have interesting experiences---then rather uneventfully I would begin to decay and die. But this was just not the case. I was not on a plateau. I was descending, tripping, stumbling, and burning. My whole being, or personality or self or whatever is supposed to be the seat of me, or the soul behind my eyes, was being boiled away in a giant iron cauldron like the flavor leaving a carrot The way Hawke writes William's performances, the way he engages with the text and depicts so cannily how it feels to be onstage and have the world in your hand -- the way that the world, in fact, recedes as you step fully into the character, the way that your scene partners can respond to you and change what it is you are doing for the better... gosh, it is something spectacular. Hawke isn’t just funny. He is wildly hilarious and literate. He tells a great story that ripples with all that human intestinal squishy stuff we don’t want anybody else to see.

Eppure, come scrive il poeta: “preferiremmo andare in rovina piuttosto/ che mutare/ morire piuttosto nella nostra paura/ che salire sulla croce di ogni giorno/ e lasciar morire le nostre illusioni”. I'd forgotten what a kiss was like; I'd forgotten what it wwas like to hold someone who wanted to be held; who wanted you to launch your hnd up under her skirt; who was hpoing you would reach a little bit further; push a little harder; someone who made little noises. Now, I'm smart enough to know that blind pursuit of these kinds of shenanigans doesn't lead you to any kind of authentic, substantive, enlightened existence. I guess I know that. I mean, maybe I know that. Or I should say I had long held that to be true, but in that moment, I would have rather died--had a bullet zip right through my cerebral cortex and my blood splash out onto the asphalt--thn let go of that girl's hand. She felt like an instrument of the Divine." Where do you find stories like THAT? Right. National Enquirer and on the cameras of the nearest paparazzi.What we get is a subtle and realistic character arc as William starts to grow up, both professionally and personally. He starts to take some responsibility for himself but, more than that, sees himself for who he is once the narcissism is stripped away. It came across like Ethan Hawke, author, has a lot of deep thoughts and decided to "hide" his wisdom in multiple side characters (who sounded similar), hoping we wouldn't notice how deep he is (hiding, not so well, behind the arras). Was für ein tolles Cover. Was für ein wunderschöner Titel! Und was für eine unterhaltsame, verblüffend gute Geschichte. Ich war sehr überrascht, dass Ethan Hawke so gut schreiben kann und eine Geschichte über einen weißen Mann doch überzeugend und passend herausgearbeitet hat. It's about an actor (well, duh) performing Shakespeare ( Henry IV) on Broadway as he is coming off a divorce to a big-time pop singer. He drinks, does drugs, feels sorry for himself, has two kids he loves, feels insecure about his stagework (he's a movie guy), and cheats on his soon-to-be ex-wife. Oh. And the amount of advice on life and love and acting. Really. This guy has more Yoda-figures in his life than most of us have Chewbacca-figures on our hardwood floors (rug burn joke).

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