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.

One thing’s for sure: “Love Story, with Cocaine” (2011), a 29-page fiction by Tom Bissell, is not a sex story. Ken, a jobless “writer,” does not even kiss Maarit, though she wants him to. Though Ken is American, both persons are living in Estonia—and have one thing in common.

Maarit asks Ken what he does for a living. Preparing cocaine, Ken replies, “Right now, you’re kinda looking at it.” He’s a user and so is Maarit. In Ken, physical intimacy is no match for coke. This is not quite the case with Maarit. Both are debauched, even so, because Ken will visit prostitutes and Maarit is sexually promiscuous. There are no normal, traditional pursuits here. Much has been, or is being, consumed away. . . We’ve seen these characters before; it’s nice to read Bissell’s exploration of them. “LSWC” (from the book Creative Types) is a frank, not-dull winner.

With Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Charles Chaplin tried to write a comedy, or at least a comic tragedy (which I distinguish from a tragicomedy). The humor and the dark elements of the film do not gel, however, and that is just the beginning of its problems. To support his crippled wife and young son, Henri Verdoux (Chaplin), a laid-off bank clerk, marries and murders, for their money, middled-aged women. Granted, the movie is thought-provoking, but contains no sympathy for the women—and one man—Verdoux kills. Just as bad, and tasteless, near the end it attempts to give the serial murderer the high moral ground in a wicked world. The attempt is unsuccessful. Really, Verdoux is remarkably foolish, a failed comic tragedy. Moreover, unlike co-stars Martha Raye and Isobel Elsom, who are credible, Chaplin is monotonous in his performance.