From the Editor
A
s the summer days grow longer, we in the Girard household inevitably begin contemplating our movie consumption for the season. What throwback movies we’d like to see at the Sunrise, what new movies are scheduled for release in theaters, what movie we haven’t seen yet on Netflix or HBO. And, much to our children’s chagrin, my wife and I reiterate one of our family’s founding principles in life: The book must be read before the movie is watched. I know … not really on par with the Golden Rule, but for a magazine editor and writer and an English major and teacher, it ranks a close second. My daughter seems to have embraced the concept. She’s working her way through the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo before watching the first book’s adaptation Shadow and Bone on Netflix (Pride and Prejudice offered a little more of a challenge). My son is less inspired by the family creed as he works his way through Dune, and I fear his faith will wane considerably once he goes off to college and adulthood next year. I must admit, however, though it pains me to do so, that this creed has ruined many a movie for me over the years. The film adaptation, inevitably, does not live up to the book’s high standard of excellence. And I seem to fall into the trap of anticipation again and again. I still get excited when Hollywood takes on one of my favorite novels, yet almost always I walk away mumbling, “The book was better” or overanalyzing why certain plot lines were left out before cursing the screenwriter and Hollywood hacks for fumbling another one. There are exceptions, of course. My absolute favorite book serial is the Aubrey-Maturin epic by Patrick O’Brian. This 20-book canon (21 if we count the unfinished novel he was working on at the time of his death) is a masterpiece of love, loss and the British nautical world during the Napoleonic Wars. The breadth and knowledge of the early 1800s, naval warfare and seamanship, in my opinion, cannot be matched in the written world. And if you’re fortunate enough to delve into this series, I wager by book eight you’ll feel confident enough to sail yourself around the world. Almost as an afterthought, you suddenly realize you understand why the need to double-reef the topsails, when to use a 12-pound cannon or a carronade in battle or what climbing through the lubber’s hole means. It is far from unusual to come across sentences like this from book 13, The Thirteen-Gun Salute: “After a measured mile for good luck, he gave the orders that would carry the ship as nearly due west as the south-west wind would allow; and he found to his pleasure that she needed it only half a point free to run happily at seven knots under no more than topsails and courses, though a moderate sea kept striking her larboard bow with all the regularity of a long-established swell, throwing her slightly of her course and sweeping spray and even packets of water diagonally across the forecastle and the waist. This, and the taste of salt on their lips, was a deep satisfaction.” So when Hollywood decided to tackle O’Brian’s world in 2003 with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, you can imagine my overt and vociferous concern. I should not have worried. It was as much of a cinematic masterpiece as the novels it was based on. All was right with the world. Wherever you fall on the “read first or watch first” spectrum, I wish you a happy moviefilled (and novel-filled) summer.
10 ASOUTHERNSOPHISTICATION
JULY/AUGUST 2021
PUBLISHER/EDITOR Greg Girard greg@pinehurstlivingmagazine.com PUBLISHER/CREATIVE DIRECTOR Amanda Jakl amanda@pinehurstlivingmagazine.com ADVERTISING SALES Debbie Jordan debbie@pinehurstlivingmagazine.com GRAPHIC DESIGN Steve Jordan COPY EDITOR Rachel Dorrell OUR GIRLS FRIDAY Amanda Oden, Iris Voelker CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Robert Gable, Sundi McLaughlin, Dolores Muller, Robert Nason, William C. Nelson, Ray Owen, Sassy Pellizzari, Helen Ross, Whitney Weston PHOTOGRAPHY Amanda Jakl, Moore County Historical Association, Sovereign Aerospace, Tufts Archives For advertising or subscription inquiries call 910.420.0185 © Copyright 2021. Pinehurst Living is published six times annually by Sand & Pine LLC. Any reproduction in part or in whole of any part of this publication is prohibited without the express written consent of the publisher. Mailing address: PO Box 5202, Pinehurst, NC 28374 Phone 910.420.0185 www.PinehurstLivingMagazine.com Pinehurst Living will not knowingly accept any real estate advertising in violation of U.S. equal opportunity law.
