The Clayton M. Christensen Reader
Tag: Reader
Walt Disney, from Reader to Storyteller: Essays on the Literary Inspirations
Walt Disney, best known as a filmmaker, had perhaps a greater skill as a reader. While many would have regarded Felix Salten’s Bambi and Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio as too somber for family-oriented films, he saw their possibilities. He appealed to his audience by selecting but then transforming familiar stories. Many of the tales he chose to adapt to film became some of the most read books in America. Although much published research has addressed his adaptation process–often criticizing his films for being too saccharine or not true to their literary sources–little has been written on him as a reader: what he read, what he liked, his reading experiences and the books that influenced him. This collection of 15 fresh essays and one classic addresses Disney as a reader and shows how his responses to literature fueled his success. Essays discuss the books he read, the ones he adapted to film and the ways in which he demonstrated his narrative ability. Exploring his literary connections to films, nature documentaries, theme park creations and overall creative vision, the contributors provide insight into Walt Disney’s relationships with authors, his animation staff and his audience.
The Card Reader
A gypsy card reader reads the fortunes of all who enter his shop in a human parade of the beautiful, the young, killers, poets, dancers, the rich, divorcees, and fools. He turns over his tarot cards and tells them the truth. Each reading has its risks and rewards, and he keeps a knife in his boot. One day a young actress enters his shop and he discovers her cards are also his own.
The Card Reader is a love story about a tarot card reader and an actress just starting out. It begins with the card reader doing a series of readings that depict the card reader’s world, then blooms into a longer story of the relationship between the card reader and actress. Through the prism of the mystical meanings of the tarot cards, the card reader faces inner darkness, seeks meaning, and finds love in a young woman, a lovely fool, whose goal is applause.
The Card Reader is contemporary literature told from the unique point of view of a card reader schooled in the ancient teachings of the Tarot. Readers are immediately plunged into the intriguing world of fortune-telling and questioning seekers. Each of the card reader’s readings is a vivid vignette of human desires, foibles, weaknesses, evils, and hopes. Full of human insights derived from the interpretations of the cards, the book is a fast-paced and satisfying spiritual journey that traces the path of two unlike people finding each other.
With interest in the Tarot and mystical teaching of the Kaballah growing among scholars, Jungian psychological research, and Hollywood, this book is singular in its leading-edge content. The Card Reader is founded upon the Kaballistic scholarship of Dr. Pamela Eakins, author of Spirit of the Tarot (Weiser) and her newly published tarot deck. The central metaphors of the book focus upon The Fool card, the first card in the Major Arcanna, a card of open-heartedness and beginnings, and The Tower, a card in which worlds tumble. No matter what the reader’s experience with fortune-telling, the book presents an enthralling story of personal growth when love is in the cards.