The Gypsy Moths by James Drought6/5/2023 ![]() It works better as a companion piece to Frankenheimer's flawed but always interesting film, which reunited Burt Lancaster with Deborah Kerr (From Here to Eternity was their first project together). As a stand-alone work, the novel is okay. The book is a quick read I found a public domain copy on the Internet in about five minutes and finished the novel in less than three hours. ![]() There is no adequate way to describe the experience of skydiving to someone who has not done it, though Drought makes a game attempt and Frankenheimer presents several mind-blowing aerial set pieces that approximate the sensation. I say fascinated, but more specifically I am intrigued by the psychology that would compel a man to leap out of a perfectly good airplane with a large sack of nylon strapped to his back. I've been fascinated by skydiving all my life and, in truth, parachuted from the first plane I ever flew in. ![]() I suppose any answer for the protagonist's decision - and in the film it is clearly shown to be a deliberate decision - would ultimately prove unsatisfactory. Whether this satisfies will depend on how you approach narrative fiction, but also life itself. Like John Frankenheimer's film adaptation, which I encountered first before reading this novel, the book raises more questions than it can possibly answer. ![]()
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