Day 311. Peter Lake loved Beverley Penn. (7/11/13)

(Listening to The Waterboys' 'Fisherman's Box' on Spotify as the physical release doesn't appear to have hit yet. It's obviously wonderful, it's is after all the Waterboys. I've just hit the first version of Fisherman's Blues, a version so early that Mike Scott is calling the changes out to then band as they play; "G" he shouts as they hit the first chord of the chorus, "Fiddle Solo" where appropriate. This will become pertinent shortly)

I have quite a lot of books.

I may have mentioned this previously.

Too many books, a ridiculous amount of books, more books than I will ever read. Certainly more than I'm ever likely to re-read. I am fully aware that I will never revisit Lord Of The Rings. I'm okay with that fact, there are so many other, thoroughly unread, titles to wade through before that happens.

I'm in the middle of several books at the moment. 'True Adventures of The Rolling Stones' 30 pages in for over a year now, Great Expectations since 2001 (last time that I went to work by train, last time I had dedicated reading time. Obviously the new Mozart biog. (Mozart biog? Surely not. I don't think I own one, I've never read one and I'm not actually interested in Mozart. Wonder what this really was?) A history of World War II. Frank Herbert's 'God, Emperor of Dune' since April 1982. The chances of me completing the latter seem somewhat remote now. It is, in fairness, utterly wretched.

I have most of Dicken's life work. Other than the half of Great Expectations I've read none of it. The complete works of Shakespeare, bought in 1988. What have I read? Lear. For A Level in 1982.

So I have no intention of ever reading anything that I've read before. Too much to do, too little time.

But.

Today, on the wonderful Bleeding Cool website there was a little bit of film news. Akiva Goldsman, Oscar winner for his script for 'A Beautiful Mind' is finally bringing to screen a project that he's been attempting to produce for over twenty years; a love story that spans a century in New York featuring fantasy, time shifting, petty thieves and gangsters.

Starring Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly and Jessica Brown-Findlay from Downton Abbey, the film is called 'Winter's Tale'.

And that's when I got excited and just a touch worried.

I read Mark Helprin's 'Winter's Tale in about 1983 and I fell in love. The book has this 'feeling' to it that you lose yourself in.  A magic, a romance, a beauty, a conviction that nothing dies, that there's something greater and eternal. I haven't read it since the eighties and I don't remember the intricacies of the plot but I can still feel it.

I felt it so much that I wrote a song about it (and trust me, I know exactly how naff that last sentence sounds); it was a mainstay of our set, a show stopper. A song called 'White Horse'. When you see the trailer, you'll know.

But it wasn't just me that felt that way, that decided that a song was the only appropriate reaction; Mike Scott of The Waterboys (told you, pertinent) wrote a song called 'Beverley Penn' after the lead female character, the love of the life of dangerous criminal and romantic hero Peter Lake.

And the magic of the book carried on into his song (and sod it, I'm saying it, my song too). Magic, it seems, transmits itself.

The question then is this;

Can the film capture the magic of a book this special?

Well, clearly the screenwriter feels exactly the same about the book as myself and the esteemed Mr Scott, he wouldn't be making it otherwise. But that doesn't guarantee success. Ambition and desire don't always equate result.

This then, there's a moment in the trailer. I can tell you this because it's not spoiler, it's only a trailer after all.

Beverley Penn is dying. Peter Lake knows this. Peter Lake is separated from her by time. He has no memory. Then he is shown a photo from 100 years previously; a photo of him and Beverley.

And the tears fill his eyes, the tears of memory and recognition and pain and separation and sorrow and love.

It's small, subtle and very gently heart breaking.

Suitably the film is out on Valentines Day next year. I hope to God that they get it right.

Meanwhile this is one book that I'm actually going to go back to.

All I've got to do now is find it.