In the short story “Wedding Trip” (1936), by the Italian writer Cesare Pavese, a self-dissatisfied man, George, examines his marriage to Cilia. It is a fine work with some terrific small details: Cilia, referring to a landlady, says to George, ‘She thinks we’re only just married.’ “Then [from George’s first-person narration], her weary eyes full of tenderness, she asked me, ‘And are we really?’ as she stroked my hand.”

It doesn’t seem like a marriage, this between a financially poor intellectual and a half-educated woman. By the story’s end, George’s thoughtlessness—he is impelled to be thoughtless—very possibly defeats Cilia. Why is that which constitutes a true marriage less common than it ought to be? I found “Wedding Trip” in The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories: it is worthy of being anthologized. A gentle but bleak story it is, by a talented man who committed suicide at 41.

A Rage to Live (1965) is a soap opera with staying power. I haven’t read the John O’Hara novel from which it derives, but the movie is straightforward and entertaining. Addicted to physical closeness, Grace Caldwell (Suzanne Pleshette) worries her mother and brother with her potential sluttiness. She likes different flavors of men, but finally loves and marries the dapper Sidney (Bradford Dillman). Rough Roger Bannon (Ben Gazzara), however, tells her he has long been crazy about her, this being of course a threat to Grace’s marriage. So is a suspicious wife (Bethel Leslie). The big guns are aimed at Grace for her “rage to live.” What disappoints is a lack of true resolution at the end of this non-artistic lark.

Pleshette is cool—coolly restrained—and emotionally convincing. Dillman just goes through the motions, but Gazzara and Leslie are quite sapid.

Directed by Walter Grauman.

From the Dec. 2024 issue of National Review I’ve learned about the congressional Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). I do not know what a travel document is, but the article says that ICE has to have one from an illegal immigrant’s home country before the immigrant can be deported. Unsurprisingly, some countries (e.g. China) resist providing them. The INA permits the Homeland Security Department to pressure a country into sending a travel document or else visas to foreign nationals will be denied. Joe Biden’s admin never took these measures, and Kamala Harris wouldn’t have either. Donald Trump, on the other hand, did use this particular tool during his first term.

Offputting as it is that Trump picked Matt Gaetz for AG and Robert Kennedy Jr. for the health department, I trust Trump for immigration reduction.