It’s disappointing how terrible this movie looks. (Here’s an even harsher review from the Times.) After seeing just how badly it seems to translate onto film — it looks like a second-rate teen melodrama in this trailer — I’m a little reticent to return to the book, for fear of finding it Fitzgerald Lite or worse. I like Michael Chabon a lot, and I loved this book when I read it. Still, I’m worried that my love may have been a function not of the book itself, but instead of a passing romantic sensibility brought on by the start of summer or a delicious meal or some family drama or whatever. I’m never very confident about my taste in books, since it’s inevitably subject to and sometimes entirely created by things external to the books themselves. Same with movies, poems, pieces of art: often I return to something I thought I loved and am left dumbstruck at just how stupid I was when I decided I loved it.
So I guess I’ll let a little time pass before I return to The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is all I’m saying, guys.
