Thursday, October 18, 2007
Throw Your Voice Like a Professional!
Wesley Stace has a funny and appealing list, at the Guardian, of the top ten books about ventriloquism (a sinister art, needless to say--and I rather have a feeling I've read a few novels featuring ventriloquism that don't make an appearance here, must mull that one over--but I am definitely tempted to go and read all these!).
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Am I misremembering, or is there an evil ventriloquist's dummy in William Goldman's Magic? I read all of Goldman in about six weeks back in my sophomore year of high school, and while I bet I wouldn't think much of them now, they sure made an impression at the time.
ReplyDelete"Magic" is a about a schizoid ventriloquist who uses his dummy to express his aggressive side; he ends up going completely psycho and, at the dummy's urging, kills off every other character in the book. (The is-he-crazy-or-is-his-dummy-a-monster? wheeze had actually already been out there for a long time before Goldman picked it up; Sir Michael Redgrave gave a great performance as a fruitcake ventriloqist in the 1945 British film "Dead of Night." And way back in 1929, Erich von Stroheim starred in a movie called "The Great Gabbo" where the gimmick was reversed--he only acted like a nice guy when it was the puppet doing the talking.
ReplyDeleteI read Goldman in high school myself. Unless they're serious about "The True History of the Kelly Gang", it's actually the only book about a ventriloquist that I remember ever having read.
Have you seen the film adaptation of MAGIC? I recently watched it along with other vent. movies — it was definitely the most consistent/interesting...
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