SALON

Saturday, Apr 13, 2013 2:00 PM UTC

Must do’s: What we like this week

A&E's reality TV show "Duck Dynasty" still brings in laughs and Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder" is a work of art

By

Topics: Our Picks: Books, our picks: TV, Our Picks: Movies, Entertainment, TV, Television, literature, duck dynasty, Terrence Malick, How to Create the Perfect Wife, Mary Roach,

Must do's: What we like this week

BOOKS

Laura Miller was transfixed by Wendy Moore’s “How to Create the Perfect Wife,” which exlores the hidden life of 18th century abolitionist Thomas Day. Day would have been considered a catch during his time — except that he didn’t believe in love, and surreptitiously groomed a wife:

Throughout history, men convinced that women exist solely to serve their needs have been flummoxed to discover that women see things otherwise. Day, however, believed that he had reason and Rousseau on his side. If he could not find an already-grown woman who possessed every quality he required in a spouse, why not make one to order? In 1769, he visited a foundling home and, pretending to be seeking maidservant apprentices for a married friend, secured two girls, aged 12 and 11. His aim: educating and training them to meet his precise specifications in a wife, then marrying the one who best suited him. He even renamed his experimental subjects: Sabrina and Lucretia.

Kyle Minor admires the wit and wordplay of Mary Roach’s newest taboo exploration, “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal,” which he says reads more like David Foster Wallace and Ian Frazier than the niche writers who occupy the far corner of the science book world:

Mary Roach writes bestsellers, and a reviewer might be tempted to attribute her success to her choice of subjects, which traffic mostly in taboos about the human body, and which are often succinctly described in a subtitle which follows a high-octane, memorably single-word title. To name three: “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.” “Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife.” “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.”These titles make big promises. Implicit in them is the notion that the reader is not only going to get the science and the prurience, but also (Stiff, Spook, Bonk) a fair acquaintance with good humor, wordplay and the music language can make. When these promises pay off – and in Roach’s books, they always do – it’s more pleasure than learning, which is an extraordinary thing to say about books so packed with previously esoteric information hard won by research.

MOVIES

“The Tree of Life” director Terrence Malick is out with “To the Wonder,” an “abstract portrait of love and marriage” that film critic Andrew O’Hehir recommends despite what he predicts will be a “largely negative critical response”:

Is there a story, in this film where ordinary conceptions of plot and character are pushed so far into the background? Yes, absolutely – it’s another version of the story Malick has been telling since “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven,” the story he revisited in the strongest parts (or so I felt, at least) of “The Tree of Life.” It’s the story of a man and a woman lost in America, alone together against the gorgeous, imposing and sometimes menacing wide-open spaces of the West. It’s also the story, a little deeper under the surface, of how that beautiful landscape has been betrayed, undermined and literally poisoned by those who came from Europe and from the East to live in it.

TELEVISION

Three seasons in, A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” continues to bring in high ratings because, as Willa Paskin notes, it’s “just a great sitcom in reality TV trappings”:

I suspect that one of the reasons that “Duck Dynasty” has been so successful is that it is actually dog whistling to the men it is aiming for on the right frequency: Not only is it really funny, it’s about a bunch of guys who have not been sanded down for network TV. Because “Duck Dynasty” is a reality show, it’s allowed to be culturally, politically and socially complicated about class and religion and the South in a way network comedies with their mandate to appeal to everyone cannot be. “Duck Dynasty” is a better sitcom for all the freedom being a reality show brings it.

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com. More Prachi Gupta.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations