Where Have You Been All My Life?

(Based on an original article by the author, first published in the Spring 2001 edition of "Circle," the official publication of Chinese Children Charities/Chinese Children Adoption International.)

___________________________________

    "What in the world is taking you guys so long?"

     "What's the hold up?"

     "Why haven't you two heard anything yet?"

Questions. So many questions. My ex-wife and I became experts at fielding questions, it seems. I think it's fair to say, in one way or another, we probably heard it all.

    "What is taking so long?

     "Why does it have to take so long?"

     "And why did you do all of this in the first place?"

     "Why adoption?"

     "And why in the world would you want to adopt from China?"

     "And, oh, by the way... What's taking you guys so long?"

Now, I don't mean to sound glib. And I certainly don't mean to sound resentful or angry, because I'm not. Such questions were well meaning, I know. In fact, it's questions like these that, in their own way, let both her and me know--during our long adoption wait--that there were many people who cared for us and thought of us daily. And that was most definitely welcome.

But to be honest, there came a point--as in most things, I suppose--when it seemed so many things had gone wrong and so many hurdles and roadblocks had fallen in our way, slowing us down to a crawl, that neither she nor I knew what to say anymore.

In short, we ran out of answers to all the questions that came our way.

In some ways, I think, it is very unfair the way adoptive parents are treated. By the "luck of the draw," I guess, adoptive parents find themselves placed under a microscope, held up to the bright light of scrutiny in ways that biological parents will never have to know. And that's just the way it is. I know. Fair or not, sour grapes or not, that's just the way it is.

We tried our best, the two of us--my ex and I--to keep a cheery outlook as we went through our own story of adopting our daughters, Eva Lian (in 2000) and Avery Reese Yong (in 2003), from the People's Republic of China. I remember how she and I tried our best, all the while, to remain as upbeat and as positive as possible--although, again, there were some days when this proved to be a distinct challenge.

From the beginning--when we first decided on international adoption and made our initial contacts with Chinese Children  Charities/Chinese Children Adoption International (CCC/CCAI)--to the days, both times, when we returned home from that faraway land in the east with our adopted daughters in our arms, the whole process took 17 months. From start to finish, those 17 months had a way of dissolving into a maze of governmental offices, and agencies, and meetings, and seminars, and parenting classes, and home studies, and health exams, and financial disclosures, and paperwork, and more paperwork, and more paperwork, and more paperwork, and more, and more, and more...

And all the while we tried our best to smile and to find answers for all of the questions posed to us every day:

    "Have you heard anything from China yet?"

     "Why haven't you heard anything yet?"

     "When are you going to hear from China, anyway?"

     "And what's taking you guys so long?"

International adoption is not easy. And it shouldn't be. While waiting for the work to slowly grind on behind the scenes, it is, quite literally, a test of endurance. It's a test of faith. And of love. And it is infuriating. And exhausting. And unfair.

But it is also worth it. Every bit of it.

It is worth all the time and money invested. It is worth every scrap of paper signed. (And re-signed. And triple-signed.) It is worth every drop of sweat. Every sleepless night. Every tear that is shed. There is no price that could equal the memories of adopting my daughters from the other side of the world. Every last bit of it.

Of course, foremost in my mind are the mornings of August 28, 2000 (when we first laid eyes on wide-eyed Wu Li Yan in the city of Wuhan, in the Hubei province) and August 17, 2003 (the day we first held in our arms little Yong Yao in the city of Changsha, in the Hunan province). What can I possibly tell you about those days that most of you probably can't already guess?

I will never forget those moments. I never want to forget.

They were both, roughly, one year old on those days when I first saw them--both of the girls having spent the first year of their lives in an orphanage, whiling away their days in ways I don't even want to begin to imagine. But I'll always remember my first impressions of how pretty the girls were. And of how funny they were, too, both of them in their little baby clothes, whatever the orphanage could spare. And how unbelievably tiny, and petite, and fragile-looking the girls appeared. And how unbearably beautiful they were--and are. It broke my heart, such beauty. (It still does.)

Of course their personalities were different, from the very first day we saw them, just as they are now. Avery, our second daughter, was weaker, and more timid, and more hesitant to warm up at first. On the other hand, Eva, our first daughter, was--from the beginning--smiling, and laughing, and playful. In both instances, though, I remember distinctly how alive the girls were, how alert and watchful. Though different in their immediate attitudes, they could not be more alike in one thing: How open their eyes were, taking in the whole room, the whole setting around them, as if looking for someone, searching.

Until their gazes met ours from across the room--a world away.

    "Oh, can't we hold her? Please, can't we hold her now? At long last..."

And how both of the girls looked at us then--both on their own adoption days and in their own particular ways--and how they both reached out their tiny hands toward us, their Mommy and Daddy from America, and how they smiled at both of us, ever so slyly, as if to say:

    "There you are, you two... Finally! What took you so long?"



The Failcrum

If there isn't a word in our vocabulary for having been divorced exactly the length of time you were married, there ought to be. And if a word like that did exist, it occurred to me (at this particular time of year, the end of the year, with December dripping slowly away the way it does, complete with the existential stew of seasonal exultation and dissatisfaction and regret and nostalgia), then that word would adequately describe where I am at this point in my life. A point exactly in the middle. A point where I can look back equidistance either way I choose--to married life and to post-married life.

It's an interesting place to be. It's an odd place to be, in a way. It's a place that begs an awareness of how time both moves and yet, strangely enough, doesn't seem to move at all. It's a place that steers home the unavoidable conviction of not only how far one has come but also how far one has been and--perhaps most revealingly--how far off the mark one is from where one had hoped to be.

I have recently come to realize, with the year closing out in the waning days of December, that 2013 marked a watershed moment for me, a midway point-of-no-return, of sorts, marking ground covered in ways I had probably hoped to never acknowledge: My marriage lasted for nine years, and now--with the end of this year close at hand--I have been divorced, and single, and alone for nine years as well.

[Aside: Is that even possible? And when, exactly, did that happen? And how, exactly, did that happen? And just what in the hell kind of social pariah does that make me, anyway? Am I to be banished now, forthwith, to some uncharted island off a South American coast somewhere, like some emotional leper unfit for human habitation of any sort?]

How did I get here, this midway point of "relationship-stasis," this failed social experiment, this odd, uncomfortable anniversary for which no word in the English language has even yet been invented?

In fact, I don't know if that grim realization has fully sunk in: There is no word to describe me and the place I've found myself all of the sudden. There is no definition, no term, no fanciful turn-of-phrase--like a beloved "golden birthday"--to mark the place where I am now. I am a man without definition. A man without meaning, without a lexical heritage to add support and weight to my oddly-explained existence.

What can you say about someone, after all, who has found himself here? What can you say about someone who has found himself--either by stubborn "selective" choice or by what has to be one of the unluckiest losing streaks with the ladies ever recorded--single for as long as he was married?

Exactly what word or phrase best describes this maudlin anniversary? What wording would most accurately define the situation that I find myself in, this moment of being caught halfway, balancing both ends of a history in decline?

How about the word failcrum? If we need to invent a word to take the place where no word exists, I offer the invented word failcrum. (You know...something cute like that. A play-on-words sort of thing, combining the words "fail" and "fulcrum," to form its own creation: The pivot point which balances between failures.) As in: "Oh no, I suddenly find myself at the failcrum of my life. What am I going to do?" Or, "Hey, what time is it? Oh, that's right. It doesn't matter; it's time for my failcrum!." Or, "Look out! I think I just failcrummed myself!" (which obviously jumps ahead to the notion of the word morphing from being simply a noun to a verb, that venerable word of action, as in, also, "Why don't you just go failcrum yourself!"). Or better yet, one more: "Holy shit, buddy, Happy Failcrum!"

[Aside: Which begs the question--maybe--will there ever be a market for such a thing as a "Happy Failcrum" song, played at just such an anniversary? Will there ever be a world which would support such a thing as a line of greeting cards devoted specifically to the celebration of someone reaching his failcrum? Is finding oneself at the failcrum, in fact, a point to be celebrated? Does it deserve acclamation? Does it deserve our condolences? Does it deserve recognition at all? Or is it better observed, perhaps, by not observing it? Does the failcrum--like the poor son-of-a-bitch living it out in full display--even deserve any attention whatsoever?]

Like all watershed moments, finding one's self divorced for exactly the same amount of time as one was married is a weird moment that calls for inspection and introspection of matters both large and small. Life in the macrocosm and the microcosm. The things that have not gone as planned and the things that have not gone right. The things that have failed absolutely and the things that have not succeeded at all.

[Aside: This actually isn't as difficult as it may sound.]

And it could be, perhaps, that I've already--in a relatively short space--devoted way too much time to discussing or even acknowledging such an anniversary as the failcrum anyway. Perhaps it is above, or below, any mention at all. After all, it will be over very, very quickly. With the coming of the new year, and the subsequent passing of 2014, the balance will soon be shifted, and I'll be on the other side of the middle-point. Weight will have moved. Gravity will have intervened. Inarguable laws of nature will have kicked into play. And all will be as it is supposed to be. Perhaps as it always was. And life--failed or not--will go on. Maybe not as planned, but...it goes on.

And the only memory of this unnamed moment in life will be discovered years from now in a box of memorabilia marking the unmentioned milestones of my life, buried beneath stacks of other flotsam and jetsam--a bent-eared, faded, and half-torn greeting card with a simple wish encoded in its single fold: "Holy shit, buddy, Happy Failcrum!" it will read. And I'll be the only one who knows what it means.

Ritual Bath

_________________________________

Behind the locked door and the muffled, distant spray
of the shower's stream hidden by the sheer clean curtain
of plastic lining and steam I hear you tentatively say
to me, "Dad, could you please hand a towel in?"

The door handle clicks, to release the lock--I know--
and is cracked just enough to allow my hand through
the fissure where the fresh towel meets your hand below,
a humid cloud of warm water in air, followed by, "Thank you."

And the door is shut once more just as quickly, its lock again
clicked in place. It is all right. I understand. I am your father.
The unbidden, cherished privacy of a teenager in
between--young girl, young woman. This is the way it is, and not a bother,

though I must confess to a certain sense of something lost.
Those days when these hands of mine gently held tight
to your writhing, slippery body floating beneath tossed
waves of cleansing water in the bathtub every night.

Your dark eyes blinking up at me, trusting the hold I had.
The end of day, each day, the time between us. A baptism and renewal.
The world outside would stop for us, little girl and her dad.
Kneeling by your tub, a man in the grip of a daughter's grace. A fool

forgiven foolish lives. A memory in the flow of our bath ritual.
A sacrament soaking both of us in your gentle, splashing play.
A consecrated time now past, enfolded in the warmth of an unfolded towel...
I simply stand outside the locked door, now, and walk away.

Apartment Life

_________________________

i.

I have always told my friends about days
growing up in western Kansas,
the landscape a flat tabletop
with only candlestick trees,
and barn and silo--
a loaf of bread,
a glass of fresh milk.
And how storms would approach on the far horizon
(not a land for surprises, after all),
tornadoes dangerously beautiful tentacles
a kind of blue so deep almost silver,
spiraling in a marriage of ground and earth
that I could watch, and did, from safe distances.
No need to flee. Or so I felt back then
young boy and young man
growing up in a place like the plains,
where one had time and space,
and so much of it,
in fields of wheat and stubble and freshly turned soil
and legs young enough and strong enough
to run if need be.

ii.

Yesterday was a day for raking leaves.
All bagged along street curbs or banked in
heaping piles of warm colors of autumn,
like a knitted scarf of dark red, and amber,
and some orange and golden yellow to keep off the cold.
But not today.
Today the weather changed its mind
with the memory of spring
and its forgetful fickleness of an old lover.
Warm air meeting cool. And storm clouds brewed above us.
A midday sky dark,
the wind with sideways rain
against windowscreens
that looked as if trying to breathe somehow
in an airless void of twisted, turning cloud
and dust in sky.

When the tornado sirens went off today
I crouched in the bathroom of my apartment,
old knees stiff with sitting too long
on a lazy Sunday afternoon
to read a book
or to watch a movie
or perhaps the football game.
I knelt there and listened to
the sound of nature
giving way to greater nature.
And I wondered if this was it.
And I thought, however briefly,
it was okay, though I would miss
more than be missed, I know.
That's just the way it is.
I have nowhere to run these days.
The old joke, "You're not in Kansas anymore"
too true this time.
Enclosed now in the close space of a life
limited by decisions and revisions,
walled in by necessities.
I could only imagine it now,
what was happening on the other side.
Dangerous beauty.
Not simply coming down from above, not entirely,
but rising from below, on the ground,
and meeting halfway,
both parts, ground and sky,
in a handshake of air,
agreeing to disagree
and show no mercy.

When the sirens stopped
we came out of hiding, all of us
in this apartment life.
We emerged and resumed.
I heard the man above yell out his open window
to a neighbor already about the business
of looking for storm signs
to tweet to friends.
Downed limbs from already leafless trees.
Everyone's homes powerless.
"Just in time for kickoff, too!" I heard. "Of course!"
I made a cup of tea then
by striking a match to my stove's gas burner,
and I watched the leaves raked yesterday
disappear in the steel-gray sky.
And I thought of how things go on.
And I marveled at how order
in the form of electricity
would be restored.
Not in time for football, no, but maybe for our evening shows,
comfortable lives on a Sunday night
before the work of the week
intrudes with its realities.
          A life enclosed.
Our facebook friends awaiting word
that says we are here and we're
all right.
That says the world is safe
and to be trusted again.
That says we might, for dinner
tonight, order a pizza and drink
some beer as if to celebrate
such a day as this.
And besides, The Walking Dead
is on. And then there's always work
tomorrow.

iii.

Apartment life, with all its rent and its restricted views
and the memory of storm epiphany,
an emptiness revealed
within four walls
just hours ago,
now gone like leaves from the day before
when there was time and strength
to pull the world together
and all the innocence to believe
it would somehow
always stay that way.

A Force of Proportion

"What is gravity?" my younger daughter,
only eleven, asks me while riding
in the backseat of the car home
from shopping for new shoes
with the gift card I bought for her
as part of her birthday gift this year
and that has been weighing on her ever since.
As if that weren't enough, as well,
she follows that question
with yet another:
"What would happen if
there was
no gravity
at all?"

Only eleven.

(How do I tell her what I only barely understand
myself, so burdened and so weighted down
with cares I cannot let her see
--beyond the sleepless lines around my eyes--
or think to know in her eleven-year-old mind,
where Dad is the one who guides the car
and buys the shoes and knows the answers
to all questions,
even ones I do not know?

Especially those, maybe.)

It is not an easy thing to say to
a daughter, eleven, who thinks you are
the center of all things
still, the fount of all knowledge,
her resource,
her religion,
her ground that holds her and catches her
when she falls and that helps her
stand when she stands without seeing her
fly away and take off for
God knows where.

(It is a lot of responsibility, this weight of her.
She weighs nothing.
It is a lot.
She is light.)

And so I say to her all I know to say
and answer that if it weren't for such
a thing as gravity, there would be
nothing.
All would be on its own, drifting and
alone.
Careening and crashing.
Disintegrating into
emptiness.
Gravity is what holds us
together.
The universe. The stars.
The sun, and the planets, and the moon to the earth.
The water. The sky. And the air that we breathe.
This car to the road--rubber to pavement.
The shoes on her feet--new shoes--
to the ground.
Her hand in mine. Her heart
with mine, this old heart
(this old broken heart so patched and weak and worn)
held together with her own
and in her own,
keeping me grounded,
and alive
and from flying off to anywhere
but here with her right now.

Keeping me alive.

This is what I think but
do not say to her, my eleven-year-old daughter.
Instead I only think it and look
at the rearview mirror where I catch
her looking at me too and smiling
up at me, and I smile back
before she turns to look once more
at the new shoes dangling on her feet,
about to fall off,
and at the world of lights
and wind outside her car window,
flying away from her,
weightless.

Shades of Green

(for my students in English IV,
valiantly encountering Sir Gawain and the Green Knight)

______________________________

Sitting forward, facing me, their futures in front of them
like the whiteboard littered with notes of a long-dead legendary king
and his knights with names not easily remembered through mnemonic games,
committed to memory, then to the memory-hole, and cremation, forgotten, and called
"boring," and "bewildering," and "befuddling," and "bullshit,"
I nevertheless quiet my mind and set forth on a quest of my own to quench
their cynicism so soon saturating their seventeen- and eighteen-year-old minds,
draining them of dreams and of a childlike desire to see the world as a young knight might.
A classroom of today's teenagers, taut with tensions recalled through times gone by
yet with fears all their own, not yellowed by yesterdays replayed but green as their own youth.
How do I help them, handing them a tattered copy of a poem, so haunted with age
and grown old with moss, like the great Green Knight of its title, gaming with its hero, Gawain?
I can try to tell them that time plays tricks with perception, and that the poem's "green" is
boundless in meaning, at once implying beginnings, like delicate buds on branches bowed low
from spring rains, but soon rife with the "green" of rot and the restless advance of years,
and pain, and the persistence of perpetual motion, and games played and replayed
with no winner but with, instead, a withering away of "green" to gray, wasted days of youth.
The different shades of green in verse--a hue of young desire, and slow decay, and lonely death.
                              I choose
                    instead--the teacher in me--
                    to suppress the poem's role of hues
                    and to talk of codes of chivalry
                    and of games one cannot help but lose.

Under the Microscope

"It is a strange thing, this transference of emotion. We sicken with the same maladies as the poets, and the singer lends us his pain. Dead lips have their message for us, and hearts that have fallen to dust can communicate their joy. We run to kiss the bleeding mouth of Fantine...."

-- Oscar Wilde, Intentions: The Critic as Artist

_______________________

At first glance, Tom Hooper's current resume'--past awards notwithstanding--could lead to some initial confusion. How is it, after all, that a young British filmmaker (he's only 40 years old this year, for God's sake!) is chosen to direct a project the size of Les Miserables (the long-awaited, much-anticipated, highly-debated movie version of the musical version of the drastically-truncated version of the massively-celebrated 1,500-page 19th-century French novel by Victor Hugo)?

Just wondering...

But actually, upon closer review of Hooper's directorial body of work, the choice isn't all that surprising, really. With what initially may appear to the casual observer to be a case of filmic schizophrenia--a long list of smaller, closeted made-for-British-TV period-pieces as well as such feature films as Red Dust (2004), Elizabeth I (2005), the acclaimed HBO multi-part series of David McCullough's presidential biography, John Adams (2008), and culminating, possibly, in the Academy Award-winning The King's Speech (2010)--Hooper clearly seems to be thematically drawn to the idea of the microscope as opposed to the telescope, the microcosm within the macrocosm, the fate of the lone, vulnerable individual within the crushing broad sweep of epic, historical momentum.

And if that last phrase doesn't describe--in 16 words--the entirety of Hugo's weighty tome' of sin, redemption, and the 1832 Student Revolution of Paris, I don't know what does.

In other words--at least in the estimation of this reviewer--Hooper has proved himself to be the perfect choice as director and a worthy match of Hugo's vision. The merits of the film will be debated, of course, for years, I would imagine. Such designations (meaningless or not) as awards or nominations of said awards have yet to be determined, but it's almost a sure bet the film will garner several statuette-considerations along the way, if for no other reason than its inevitable and considerable sentimental heft of simply being the cultural phenomenon, Les Miserables.

[Aside: Which brings me to another point before I finally get to my main point, although, when I think about it, this may actually be my main point. I haven't decided yet. Much like Hugo's careful weaving of subplot within plot, an almost eerily postmodern intertextualizing of a story about a story within a story--like the gentle turning of the microscope's dial, bringing the insignificant (the lowly and the miserable, after all) closer into larger-than-life view--I seem to be didactically distracted and digressive. But there is a point here. I know it. And besides, Hugo would understand. At least I'd like to think so.]

And what of this curious cultural phenomenon, this global sensation known as Les Miserables: The Musical? What are we to make of all of this, finally? Since its English-language debut in 1985 on the London stage, the team of composer Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyricist Alain Boublil, and librettist Herbert Kretzmer (it sounds like a hell of a law firm, in point of fact), practically came out of nowhere with their ridiculous notion of turning Hugo's immense novel into a 3-hour musical.

*[Aside: Just try, for a moment, to imagine that virgin sales pitch to a then-unsuspecting Broadway producer, Cameron Mackintosh. Go on. I'll give you a moment....]

In the process--after a successful word-of-mouth campaign to turn around the show's initial negative reactions--the team succeeded in doing the impossible. And now--some 27 years and an uncountable number of incarnations later--the musical version of Les Miserables has, in its own inherently revolutionary fashion, won the war, so to speak. And it has now finally reached the big screen. Which brings me to where I was originally intending to go, it would seem.

First things first, though, and that is to say that I am not--by most stretches of the imagination--a fan of musical theater. But let me try to be even clearer: I am a big fan of music, and I am an equally big fan of live theater; but, unlike that advertising campaign of many years ago for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups ("You got your peanut butter on my chocolate! Hmmmm... Hey! Not bad!"), I've never really liked the incarnation resulting from the mixing of the two--live music and live theater.

I understand and appreciate the historical and cultural heritage passed down from yesterday's opera in the form of Don Giovanni to today's theatrical musical mega-opus of Wicked.

[Aside: At least I think I do.]

But I guess, for lack of a better way to say it, it's just not really "my thing."

But it is "the thing" of many, many people. And many, many people the world over have proven this many, many times by repeatedly turning out for performance after performance after performance of such shows as Les Miserables.

Myself included, as it turns out. Though admittedly not a fan of musicals, I, too, have seen Les Miz (as we--who have seen it live--like to call it) performed on the stage. Twice, if the truth be told. (An honor which I can not say about any other musical.)

And I liked it. Both times. I liked it quite a lot, actually. As it would seem many, many people could also say.

But think about that for a moment. The Sound of Music. West Side Story. Oklahoma. Guys and Dolls. The Music Man. Even the goofy, over-the-big-top freakishness of Andrew Lloyd Weber's spaced-out extravaganzas, Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Cats. I get all of that, in a way, as far as those shows existing as nearly perfect vehicles for live musical theater. I get the audience-transportation aspect of leaving the street-world outside the theater and transporting yourself into the never-never world created on the stage, where every thought is put to song, and every emotion is worn directly on both sleeves, and every show (with the above exception, perhaps, of West Side Story) leaves the audience smiling, and feeling good, and walking back out into the street-world with a lighter step and a song stuck in their collective brain that they can't and don't want to lose. 

I understand all of that. I get how it works. I even get why it works. I'm not questioning or disputing any of that.

What I don't understand (even though I guess to a large extent I do, in some hard-to-define sort of way), is just how in the hell Les Miserables manages to do all of that. Buried within its complex strata of characters and plots and subplots of pain, and anguish, and suffering, and misery, and greed, and loss, and yearning, and death, and sacrifice, and sin, and grace, there lies a very simple story of love in its most elemental incarnations--romantic, parental, and spiritual. And along the way this deceptively simple story is "delivered" in song. Lots and lots of song. (This is, quite literally after all, a contemporary opera, with hardly any spoken lines throughout its 3-hour entirety.) The music is melodic, and complicated, and stirring, and overtly manipulative and memorable. But it works. The whole damned thing works. And I have never understood how, exactly.

Les Miserables, as a novel originally published in 1862, is quite possibly the most eloquently sad and depressing work of literature the world has ever seen, in any language. Just how it has been transformed into this worldwide cultural touchstone and live theatrical phenomenon is beyond me. But it has.

First a musical. And now a movie version of the musical. So it's a done deal, I suppose.

Whether we like to admit it or not, there seems to be something going on below the surface here. Given the degree of suffering and misery presented in Hugo's original story of Jean Valjean, and Javert, and Fantine, and Cosette, and Marius, and Eponine, and given the massive popular response to the tragically sad story--in all of its various guises--there seems to be something rather unsettling and perverse in our communal enjoyment of this story.

The Germans had a word for it, this human inclination to take an almost perverse sense of enjoyment out of another's misery and unhappiness.

[Aside: Go figure.]

They called it "schadenfreude," meaning, quite literally, the pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.The medieval church called it "morose delectation," meaning our inborn, natural inclination toward impure and evil thoughts. In our more modern parlance, I suppose, we may reduce it quite simply to the more commonly heard expressions: "Better you than me," or "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

However you choose to say it, though, it all comes down to the same basic notion: We're sorry that misfortune has to fall on anyone. It's not nice, and it's certainly not fair. But if it is a given that evil and misfortune are going to happen--and it is--then we choose for it to happen to others in place of ourselves. And we don't want to admit this. And we certainly don't want to take part in this--we don't want to be spectators to the tragedy of others--but we cannot help ourselves. We cannot help but watch. And so we gather in the Coliseum to publicly witness the deaths of others. And we turn on the evening news to be drowned in the sea of misery and suffering of others. And we tap our car brakes amidst the long line of red taillights glowing in front of us, caught in an inescapable "gaper's delay," as we notice the flashing red lights of the ambulance up ahead and off to the side of the road, and we slow our vehicle down to a crawl--not because the accident is still on the road; it's off to the side, in the ditch or on the median--but we must slow down anyway, out of respect, of course, lest anyone be hurt or dead, but also out of curiosity (let's admit it, let's just finally admit it) because even though we don't want to look (we can't look, we don't want to see something not meant for us to see, we don't, we really don't) we slow down and look anyway, because deep down inside of us we can't help but look. And we shake our heads sadly. And we smile, perversely, inside. And we say to ourselves, "That could be me. But it's not me. So better you than me."

Schadenfreude.

[Aside: And, yes, to further complicate matters, I am fully aware of the irony that there is a song by that name in the contemporary musical, Avenue Q--a cute and ironic and self-referential little musical, in itself, about a Sesame Street-like world...for adults. So in a way, my using that word to talk about a popular musical over the past 27 years and now a current movie in the theaters--Les Miserables--is, itself, another example of self-aware layering upon layering upon layering. A "wink to the audience," I suppose. A form of "dramatic irony," in a way, which, again, is yet another kind of layered irony within the irony of what is already inherently and irrefutably ironic. And...well, anyway...]

Is that what's going on here with the massive popular acclaim of Hugo's original novel, and then the musical, and now the movie? Is that what's happening every time the book is opened by a new or returning (valiant) reader, or the opening chords to the musical's overture are sounded, or the movie theater's lights go dark and the first shadowy images flicker onto the screen? Is that what's happening with Les Miserables? Is that--partly, at least, in some deep psychological recesses of our human impulses and desires--what is at work within us and within the basic storyline of this deceptively simple and traditional tale?

I don't know. But I think so.

How else to explain the emotions I saw and heard--and experienced myself--while watching the new movie, directed by Tom Hooper? All around me, as the film progressed over the course of its 2 hours and 45 minutes, I heard sniffling. And I saw cheeks, wettened with tears. And I saw others in the audience dabbing inconspicuously at their eyes and trying not to draw attention to themselves. And as the film faded to black and the end credits began to roll, people got up from their seats, still wiping at their eyes, and yet (and here's the point) smiling. We were smiling at one another. And many in the audience even applauded. We were happy. We were sad, to be sure. (How could you not be sad? The film--so well done--is emotionally draining throughout. So true with Hugo's original intent, I believe, the sadness of the story and of the characters within the story is inescapable.) But we were happy, and smiling, and as we walked out of the darkened movie theater, back out to the parking lot-world and the coldness of our cars, we were singing songs from the musical--each to ourselves--as we made our way home. And we were happy for the very same reason that over the past 27 years everyone who has ever seen the musical on stage and loved it has shared in this unexplainable happiness.

In the sheer magnitude of human suffering on display within the story, there is a sense of comfort and peace and hopefulness at the end. And you are happy to have spent your time in the company of these poor people, so noble in spirit. And an overwhelming sense of not only "Better them than me" washes over you, but also a sense of "What would I do in their place?" as well as, "Would I be so noble and graceful of spirit?"

It causes one to pause and to think.

And nowhere during Hooper's film does this elemental and epiphanic "pause" get a chance to happen--again, at least in this viewer's estimation--more than it does during Anne Hathaway's solo performance of Fantine's soliloquy, "I Dreamed a Dream."

Yes, that's right: Anne Hathaway. That Anne Hathaway.

Let me be fair and clear: Anne Hathaway is a beautiful and talented young woman. Up to this point in her career, she has proven herself to be able to keep up with some heavyweight talents in the entertainment industry, such as Julie Andrews, Meryl Streep, and directors like Ang Lee, Jonathan Demme, and Christopher Nolan. She has sung before in other roles that have come her way, and she's proven herself with a more-than-capable voice. She was even nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award, for her performance in Rachel Getting Married (2008).

Not bad, actually, if you stop to think about it.

But the problem is--no matter how much this makes me sound like a pig, which I most assuredly probably am--when I have stopped to think of Anne Hathaway before now, those thoughts have generally drifted not only in the direction of: Anne Hathaway is a beautiful and talented young woman. But, instead, most particularly: Anne Hathaway is a beautiful young woman.

And so there you have it.

And let me get even more particular: When I stop to think about Anne Hathaway in recent memory, what undoubtedly comes to mind is her performance this past summer as Selena Kyle (a.k.a. "Catwoman") in The Dark Knight Rises--and by "performance," I mean (with only a small sense of shame admitting this, actually) the way she wore her little Catwoman outfit, so perfectly form-fitting in all its skintight black leather glory.

[Aside: Yes. That Anne Hathaway.]

So, what am I saying? Or trying to say?

I think I'm trying to say this: Hathaway, as a young actress, has done her share of floundering along the way, trying to find her way, certainly, with the occasional glimpse of real talent lurking beneath her natural beauty. But when Hooper looked about to cast his film and decided on Hathaway as Fantine--the archetypal sympathetic and suffering young mother-turned-to-the-streets-to-do-what-a-woman-must-do-for-her-young sort of character (which, in the wrong hands, can become an unwitting comedic turn of caricature)--Hooper was inspired. For as it turns out, Hathaway was ready for this role. Boy, was she ever. And not to put too fine a point on it, but she is stunning.

To be even more pointed, Hathaway, and her turn as the unlucky, miserable young mother of the angelic Cosette--as it turns out--is the heart of Hooper's movie. I'm not sure anyone saw this coming. I'm not sure anyone predicted this, necessarily. (I know I didn't.) But she is outstanding in this role.

Hooper demanded a lot from his actors for this film. Mainly, he sought top-shelf actors, because he knew--with this musical more than most--it is the acting which would be the most demanding of the performers. With film, unlike the live stage, the camera would be in the actors' faces--often close up, mere feet or inches from their faces, truth be told (again, much like Hugo's fascination with the "micro" within the "macro.") The singing is undoubtedly demanding, with challenging time signatures and breathing requirements and vocal ranges. But these characters--as envisioned originally by Hugo--were meant to be real people, suffering from real agonies in their real lives. And in Hooper's vision, that doesn't include clinically and technically "perfect" singers. All of the actors in his film version are good singers--some of them are very good, in fact--but a brilliant and challenging decision by Hooper, to add to the sense of verisimilitude he was going for in his adaptation, was to record the actors singing live on the set, with only a small, invisible earpiece inserted in their ear, playing back a piano track to help guide them through the song.

The rest, as seen on the screen as the finished product, was added in later--with full orchestra behind them.

Not only did this decision from Hooper add to the sense of realism on the set. It also, undeniably, required of the actors that they do what they do best while singing the songs--act.

And this brings me, finally, to my main point about Anne Hathaway and her performance as Fantine. Hathaway "found"' herself inside this sad role of Hugo's doomed young mother/prostitute. She rose to the occasion and found her acting "chops" to lead her through the performance. And she is remarkable. Hathaway is--in my opinion--the best part of Hooper's exceptional movie of Les Miserables. Her performance is daring, and risky, and she is willing to make herself as vulnerable and as open as the character, Fantine, herself. Though not in the movie for much screen time, Hathaway burns her way into your memory with her absolutely undeniable sense of screen presence. And her crowning achievement here can be found on full display in her five minutes of glory--her solo, "I Dreamed a Dream"--when the camera pulls in tightly on her face, without makeup, with her beautiful hair chopped to the skull, and her perfect teeth yellowed and decaying from her infected mouth, bleeding and so full of anguish and sorrow for the words and the feelings she has never been able to bring herself to say.

Until now, that is. And so she says them. Or better yet, she sings them. Beautifully, in a way. But painfully, as well. And honestly. And unforgettably. Shot all in one take, the camera never for a moment cuts away from her. The camera is relentless in its gaze. Like a microscope zooming in on her and her unfortunate predicament, it is like she is trapped within the borders of the frame. She can't get away, even if she wanted to. And she is forced to be there, to reveal her soul at that moment in her life. And it is shattering. It is five minutes of transcendent revelation. It is five of the most gut-wrenchingly real  moments I have seen onscreen by an actress since Naomi Watts' performance in Alejandro Inarritu's 21 Grams (2003).

It is, after all, what the ancient Greeks meant when they referred to the necessary ingredient of "catharsis" amidst the inevitable darkness of a dramatic tragedy--the human connection of character and audience, and the communal purging of feeling shared by all involved, followed by a sense of purification and peace.

Hathaway has never been better. I don't know if she will ever equal this scene again in her career. She's young, yet, after all. She might. But she did it here, at least. She steals the emotions of the moment. She owns them all--Fantine's as well as her own personal feelings (you can't help but wonder, just a little), as well as your own. She is drawing on something deep and fundamental for the performance of her career, and the result is devastating.

Though I'm guessing never one to be labeled "the life of the party" (I have yet to stumble across a picture of him in any semblance of gaiety), somewhere, somehow Victor Hugo has to be smiling about all of this.