thursday, September 3, 1981
daily nebraskan
page 1 1
M
odel 'over the
Life is hard. My daughter Malphasia, poor kid, had to
renounce her career as a sexy, high-fashion model.
"It's no good, Daddy,' she told me, tears in her mas
caraed, green-shadowed, black-lined eyes. "I'm over the
hill."
I tried to think of some comforting remark, but what
could I say? She is, after all, 14.
I did the best I could. "You don't look a day over 12
to me, honey," I said, patting the back of her purple
sequined Givenchy.
"Nice try, Dad," she said, managing a wry smile. "But
I know what the mirror tells me. I've had my shot at fame
and fortune. And now the time has come, as it must to all,
for me to step aside and give some young hopeful a
chance. I can no longer compete with the likes of Tamara
Jones."
"Who's Tamara Jones?"
"Don't you read the papers, Dad? Tamara 's the rage of
New York. She's the sexiest, highest fashion model to hit
the magazine covers in decades. And she's really got youth
going for her. She 's 11."
"So she has a few years on you, kid. Experience
counts, too, you know."
"But 1 don't have enough, Dad. I was an aging 12-year-old
when that talent scout, Humbert Humbert, spotted
me playing jacks at P.S. 108."
Hotel . . .
Continued from Page 10
For instance, in Garp,
shining like a gem in a
crown, is a short story by
the hero-writer called "The
Pension Grill parzer." In it,
an American family in
Vienna take rooms in a
strange inn (pension, in Ger
man) fraught with oddities
- a man on his hands, a
bear on a unicycle, Irving
has taken that pension and
made it into a full-blown
Hotel New Hampshire.
He has given the hotel
extra floors to fill with
guests, terrorists and
whores; he has given it before-
and after-lives in
America. He has made the
story of the Berry family,
the hotel's owners, into a
saga of rags-to-riches and
heartbreak, a grim fairy tale,
an epic about resurrection,
growth, and the lack there
of. In The Hotel New Hamp-
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BILL MURRAY
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Outy Moo't In Mm)li
John Gi.igud
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OPEN 7:30 SHOW 8:30 I
And 'THE HOWLING"
ft
DtftaG' Eioppe
shire, the family must grow
if it is to survive the Carp
like world of calamity, sui
cide, rape and weak hearts.
Egg, the youngest Berry,
doesn't make it, nor does
Lilly, the littlest. Frank, the
oldest of the dwindling fam
ily, "would turn to believing
only in Fate - in random
fortune or random doom,
in arbitrary slapstick or arbi
trary sorrow." And John,
the narrator, is forever a
year behind his precocious
sister Franny, the loudest of
the Berry children, the Ber
ry the world couldn't beat.
John's narration, the
voice of the book, is the
crafted prose of Irving at its
finest. But because Hotel is
Shlomo Mintz, violin
Houston Ballet
Polish Chamber Orchestra
Nikolais Dance Theatre
The Acting Company waiting tor Godot.
Midsummer Night's Dream. Venetian Comedy
6. Igor Kipnis, harpsichord
7. SvsOtD q)"X r Orchestra
8. Actors from the Royal Shakespeare
9. Guthrie Theatre. "The Rainmaker"
10. Alvin Alley American Dance Theatre
1 1 . Ivan Morovec, Czech pianist
12. Barbara Hendricks, soprano
13. William Bennett, British flutist
14. Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein,
Gertrude Stein, starring Pat Carroll
15. St.o05nestra
BUY TICKETS NOW TO 4 OR MORE
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Series offer ends September 251
" KIMBALL
HALL 11 &R
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113 Music Bldg, 11th & R
472-3375
hill' at age 14
"Gee, kid, 12 is the prime of life."
"Heck, Dad, Tatum O'Neal was smoking cigarettes at
9 in Paper Moon. And when Brooke Shields was 12, she
starred as a prostitute in Pretty Baby. By 14, she had al
ready been naked, seduced and pregnant in Blue Lagoon
not to mention making those Calvin Klein commercials
in which she says, 'You know what comes between me
and my Calvins? Nothing.' "
"Well, what about Brooke Shields, kid? She's 15 now
and if she can hang in there, why cant you?"
"I lost my youth early, Dad. Don't you remember? I
showed the first signs of old age at 13."
"Oh, yes, that zit."
"And even Brooke is beginning to slip. Down at the
Ford Agency, they're whispering that she looks 16 if she's
a day."
"But how do you know you're over the hill, kid?
You're only as old as you feel."
"It's the job offers, Dad. First, it was that Oil of Olay
commercial. Then they wanted me to plug Porcelana for
those horrid age spots. And now my agent just asked me
to be the housewife with chapped hands in the Palmolive
dishwashing soap commercial.
"Don't cry, honey," I said. "There are other things in
life than being a sexy, high-fashion model."
"Don't worry, Dad. I'm not going to retire and raise
cats. I've already undergone second career counseling and
they recommended a re-entry program. So I'm going back
into the ninth grade next week and take a course on cro
cheting antimacassars at home for fun and profit."
"Good for you, kid," I said, but my heart wasn't in it.
Poor thing. Another tragic pre-teen career burnout. Oh,
how fleeting is youth! Particularly in America.
(c) Chronicle Publishing Co.
written in tirst-person and
has a wider scope, the read
ing is diffused and less com
pelling than in Garp, the
birth-to-death of one char
acter. And because Hotel,
unlike Garp, is about sur
vivors, not casualties, there
are fewer of the marvellous
epitaphs Irving sends his
characters out of the plot.
His epitaphs are becom
ing elegies. Greater compas
sion subdues some of his
muscular, madcap tone. Irv
ing 's vision is increasingly
becoming that of a family
man.
Even his ubiquitous bears
have changed somewhat. In
earlier novels, they are piti
able, majestic creatures that
KIMBALL
PERFORMING ARTS
SERIES 8182
have been caged or taught
dumb tricks by ridiculous
people. Now Irving 's bears
at last have escaped the
wiles of society.
The several bears that
pass through The Hotel
New Hampshire have a new
symbolism. They are cudd
ly, mighty things that pro
tect their kin to the death.
They represent the bonds
that must be forged if we
are to live in the mindless,
big world. (Why do you
think Jrving chose the name
Berry anyway?)
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