THE BOOK-Written by William Styron, released 1979
THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Alan J. Pakula, released 1982
THE STORY-Aspiring novelist flies north for the summer. He nests in Brooklyn. A charismatic scientist and his captivating girlfriend sit on a nearby branch. Instantly, the young writer falls in love. Gratefully, he listens. Regretfully, he learns.
MIND THE GAP-Sophie's Choice is a masterpiece--in theory. William Styron stuffed the follow-up to 1967's controversial The Confessions Of Nat Turner with heady subject matter: fascism, war, prejudice, sex, mental illness, art, addiction, child death. By and large, it is magnificently written. So why'd I struggle finishing it?
The narrator, Stingo, is a clear Styron stand-in and thus, a wizard with words. He's also a supercilious twat, sex-obsessed in the manner unique to those who've not yet had sex. The book left me awed at its protagonist's perceptiveness and imagination...sometimes. Other times, I just closed my eyes and muttered, "Shut up, Stinko."
Styron didn't just use the novel format to memorialize his younger, hornier self. He also, through his characters, posits the Holocaust as a general act of evil, a condemnation of humanity as a whole rather than an example of one religion persecuting another. Per the logic, since Christians also perished, surviving Christians need not feel guilt for atrocities committed in the name of Jewish extermination. Styron received massive backlash for this proto-"All Lives Matter" sentiment. While admirable for its surface intent of accountability shared, it can also be interpreted as an attempt to abdicate certain groups from responsibility, thereby precluding the need for any sort of reckoning.
I feel dirtier reading explicit sex scenes in serious literature than in any work of so-called "smut."
Everyone understandably flips their banana boats over Meryl Streep as Sophie (has a woman in pieces ever been more piercingly portrayed?) but don't overlook or underrate Kevin Kline's top-notch rendering of petulant hoaxer Nathan. Peter Nichol appears slightly out of his depth as the transplanted hayseed smitten with a hopelessly corroded woman...and therein sprawls the brilliance of the performance.
BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Hey, I'm facing a "Sophie's Choice" of my own! Except...nah.
By hewing to the original story, Pakula's film excels. Helpful, also, is a sober comprehension of reach vs. grasp, and a wonderful cast operating at peak authenticity. On the screen, Sophie's Choice is a world that does its citizens justice.
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