MAGNIFICENT MOVIES & BURIED MEMORIES
I saw THE KING’S SPEECH last night, and was much moved.
Fundamentally, this is a movie about decency—a theme that I seem to be somewhat pre-occupied with these days.
On the one hand, there is much about the U.S. that is cruel, capricious and corrupt—yet again and again I am encountering great decency. Sadly, the decent do not seem to be running the country.
I have the feeling that there is a story in there trying to get out but, so far, it is eluding me. That is often the case. At least where I am concerned, the gestation period for a book can be years. That doesn’t really worry me since one of the great pleasures of writing is letting a story, or even just a concept, evolve. That doesn’t mean you merely sit on the sidelines and watch—so to speak—but I find, if I keep my mind well fed, that my subconscious does much of the work.
The movie reminded me that I used to stutter badly as a child—something I had forgotten completely even though it was a problem for years. The cause, so the movie would have you believe, is severe emotional distress—and I certainly experienced plenty of that both at home and at my first boarding school in Ireland (where, at five, I was too young, and where bullying was endemic). I can but speculate, but I think the solution was a period of stability which followed my mother remarrying, and my being sent to boarding school in England (where bullying was minimal).
I watched parts of THE KING’S SPEECH in a state of some distress. Some of the experiences described were far too close to home. Still, decency triumphed—which is the way one would like life to be.
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