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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good novel about silent film days, April 23, 2008
This review is from: The Age of Dreaming (Paperback)
This is a well-written novel about the early days (through 1922, primarily) of Hollywood film-making. There are real characters in the novel (e.g. Chaplin, Pickford, etc), purely fictional characters, and characters who to degrees from about 5% to 95% are based on real people: it can be a little confusing sorting out what's real and what's fiction. The protagonist, Jun Nakayama, is tracked down by a silent film enthusiast. The novel shuttles back and forth thereafter between the present (1964) and the past (primarily about 1907-1922). There are elements of Sessue Hayakawa in Nakayama, but there are also major differences.
If you know a bit about silent film history, you can sniff out a major plot line early in the book. One of the people Nakayama speaks about is Nora Minton Niles, who will play a major role in Nakayama's life and the book. You might be able to realize that this is a fictionalized Mary Miles Minter, a young and popular star who is best remembered now for her role in the William Desmond Taylor murder case. I wasn't really happy about this--it seemed to telegraph too much of what might lay ahead. Why not use her real name, use an unrelated name such as Lola Lola, or, best of all perhaps, make up a plot element that is not a well-known part of Hollywood history.
So, later on, when Ashley Bennett Tyler enters the story, you know that this is intended to be William Desmond Taylor. The Mabel Normand equivalent(?) is rather more subtle. There are episodes in history which are hard to improve on if you try to present them as fiction. Keeping the names the same, retaining the facts, but describing thoughts and dialogue that were never set down or recorded makes for historical fiction. You can think of, say, the baseball work Eight Men Out about the Black Sox--good historical fiction based on fact. Then imagine a novel with the same facts, but with all names changed and the team is the Ruppert Mundys. Michener does this kind of thing in Centennial--not successfully, if you know a bit of Colorado history. So I would have much preferred to see real names and facts in the book, or else simply invent an interesting plot line.
The Nakayama-Niles-Tyler linkage forms a rather major part of the story, but there are other parts as well--the racism, the Hollywood life, the making of the silent films: these all make for an interesting novel. For some additional reading, Kirkpatrick's A Cast of Killers relates King Vidor's investigation of the Taylor murder: it's a very well-done piece of nonfiction, and there are photos on Minter, Taylor, etc. Also worthwhile is Mann's Biograph Girl: this is a novel based upon the real silent film actress Florence Lawrence. The actress, now 107 and in a nursing home, relates to some young people about her days in Hollywood, and some mysterious events that occurred, including her own supposed suicide in 1938. So--Age of Dreaming is a good novel for those who want a view of Hollywood in the silent film days.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional Quality and Depth, April 21, 2008
This review is from: The Age of Dreaming (Paperback)
"The Age of Dreaming" is a book for readers who want to immerse themselves in history and place. "The Age of Dreaming" is a book for readers who love to learn about a different culture. This is a book for readers who appreciate the nuances of language and the well-turned phrase.
"The Age of Dreaming" takes place in Los Angeles in the early twentieth century. The narrator, Jun Nakayama, looks back at his decision to withdraw from the world at large, but more precisely, the world of silent films after a surprisingly successful early career. His realizations about race relations, the meaning of love, and the need for family are revealed slowly and subtly with surprising twists and a murder mystery.
This is an elegant, satisfying novel from a talented writer. Ms. Revoyr treats both her subject and her readers with respect.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What dreams are made of . . ., December 21, 2009
This review is from: The Age of Dreaming (Paperback)
There's a quirky 1950's movie starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson that I've always been drawn to called Sunset Boulevard. What always fascinated me, other than Swanson's gloriously over-the-top performance, were the glimpses of the early days of movies and the larger than life escapades of the silent picture stars. That's probably one of the reasons that I first decided to read The Age of Dreaming by Nina Revoyr, since it is a novel about a silent picture star whose sex appeal and glamour kept pace with the likes of Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks in their heydays.
But there's a difference. Jun Nakayama is Japanese, and for Japanese Americans, even those native born, California in the early 1920's was not a comfortable or even safe place to be. Despite Jun's fame and success in motion pictures, he encounters many overt and many more subtle forms of racial prejudice. His legions of adoring female fans seem to be drawn to him as to forbidden fruit. In his films, where Jun plays the Oriental villain, usually with evil designs on the innocent white maiden, his sexual attractiveness is the result of his "otherness"; since his amorous advances are forbidden by white society, they seem all the more exciting to his squealing admirers.
Jun is willing to accept the strictures of society on his public life, so long as he can make the huge sums of money his movie stardom engenders. He loves the craft of acting and seeks to perfect his art. He relishes the fame, fast cars, big houses, and bigger parties, pretending not to notice the frisson in the room should he ever appear to be too intimate with any of his white co-stars.
Reckless of the tension building around him and indifferent to the growing strife experienced by the Japanese community, Jun pretends that the rules can be bent and even broken by someone of his fame and acting calibre. When his world comes crashing down, he goes into hiding--and denial--for decades.
But as an old, reclusive man in the 1960's, he is approached by an eager young man who wants to write a film script about the silent film era, and wants the feature role to go Jun, who hasn't appeared in films for 40 years. At first Jun refuses to even consider the matter, but speaking to the young man stirs up memories and fears of a long forgotten murder investigation and threatens to bring to the surface many sordid and unexplained acts of violence Jun has tried to bury. With the past revived and breathing down his neck, Jun feels compelled to ferret out answers and locate any of his former friends and film associates who might help him get to the truth.
Told in a series of flashbacks that vividly recall the special time and place of Los Angeles in the early movie-making days, The Age of Dreaming is a wonderful melding of nostalgia and edginess. There's a mystery to solve and guilt to resolve, and along the way a lost love to understand and regret. Jun is a character worthy of our admiration and our exasperation, but above all, he and his story are unique and memorable.
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