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When I was about 10, my parents rented the film My Dinner with Andre. I sat with them to watch --- for about the first half hour. After that I got up and left, declaring it the most boring movie I had ever seen. What could possibly be so fascinating about two guys eating dinner --- and just talking? Of course, when I saw the movie again a couple of years ago, I not only made it to the end but also was able to appreciate what the filmmakers were attempting to accomplish with this little experimental film without an apparent plot.
It's no accident that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley uses My Dinner with Andre as a touchstone for her new novel TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS. Near the beginning, as Max lies in bed with his lover just before a flotilla of houseguests invade his home for a 10-day house party, the slightly over-the-hill film director muses that he'd love to make a movie called My Lovemaking with Elena, a two-hour flick during which a couple would kiss and make love, but mostly have a long conversation.
That's sort of what Smiley's entire new novel feels like --- a long, sometimes rambling conversation filled with stories and anecdotes, interrupted with brief erotic interludes. Like My Dinner with Andre, TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS is certainly not for every reader; the lack of a traditional plot, the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in this house like the guests themselves, and the fact that few of the characters are eminently likable can make Smiley's latest effort a struggle at times. But her satirical take on Hollywood, on modern whims, and on politics, reality and art eventually delivers a kind of bittersweet wisdom that transcends the characters' petty concerns.
Loosely based on Boccaccio's DECAMERON, a 14th-century collection of novellas about a group of young women and men who flee to an Italian villa for 10 days to escape the Black Death (Boccaccio's work has also inspired countless other authors, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, and is being adapted as a film), Smiley's novel also takes place over a 10-day period and certainly incorporates Boccaccio's lusty spirit and storytelling enthusiasm. In the case of TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS, the setting is the Hollywood Hills and the year is 2003, the day after the Academy Awards and the start of the current Iraq war.
Joining Max and Elena at their Hollywood villa are, among others, Max's ex-wife Zoe, a vividly beautiful actress and singer; her current flame Paul, a yoga expert and healer; Max and Zoe's daughter Isabel; Max's agent (and Isabel's secret lover) Stoney, who is wracked by negative comparisons to his extremely successful late father; Max's long-time best friend Charlie, who is reveling in his newly-divorced status; and Elena's son Simon, who has gone AWOL from his senior year in college in order to star in an experimental student-directed pornographic film. Tensions run high, long-buried secrets are disinterred and desires are reawakened. What's more, countless stories are told, of films real and imagined, made and not made, of dramas that have happened and that are yet to unfold.
Throughout, Smiley maintains a sort of fondness for her eccentric, superficial, occasionally maddening characters, which reveals itself in a good-natured satirical tone that never really crosses the line into meanness. A good example is a scene on the second day, when one of the guests, trying to come up with an appropriate evening menu, has to quiz the assembled company about who is vegetarian, vegan, lactose-intolerant, low-fat, hot pepper-intolerant, and so forth. By poking gentle fun at these Hollywood types, Smiley avoids taking them too seriously while making some general commentaries about modern fixations.
Although reading TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS might require some serious adjustments from longtime fans who first knew the author from her days writing about farm families and Midwestern university politics, there is much to enjoy in Smiley's often-surprising novel, which seems to point her career in yet another new direction.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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