An Afternoon In Imaginary Rodanthe: Quadraphonic Surround Sniffles

A week or so ago, I had occasion to visit the outer banks of North Carolina. The "buzz" there was all about "Nights in Rodanthe", filmed in the ultra-coastal N.C. village of the same name.

The novel that the movie is based upon was written by Nicholas Sparks, of "The Notebook" fame, who lives in New Bern. He is building a MONSTER house in a fancy river-bank New Bern neighborhood.

It's the talk of many coastal towns. They're on the map now.

Out of curiosity, while visiting, I bought the book at a local store and pretty much read it in one night . . . not because I thought it was a great novel - but simply because I read quickly and (honestly) it was not a very meaty book. In fact, I thought it was just a tad predictable and manipulative.

Of course, Nicholas Sparks is the gadzillionare author and I am not.

Yesterday, while at Borders hunting for a CD of the Broadway version of "Mama Mia" (i.e. a version without the musical musings of 007), I came across a woman looking to buy the Rodanthe soundtrack. She was holding the "Rodnathe" CD with both hands, just staring at it.

The poor soul seemed fragile and lost. She had asked me for some help in finding another soundtrack for a movie she could not remember the name of (it turned out to be "Good Will Hunting"), and after I found it for her, asked me if I had seen "Rodanthe". She wanted to know if I knew how it ended.

I told her that I had read the book . . . and offered a pseudo-smart-butt aside that if Nicholas Sparks wrote it, someone had to die.

Her voice catching, she said she had seen the movie the day before and just had to have the soundtrack. Her hands were trembling as she talked about the movie and how it had affected her. We made some small talk. I moved on.

Suffice it to say, this afternoon, Baby YaYa and I went to the movies in Asheboro.

If anything else, "Rodanthe" is a visually stunning movie . . . even if the part about the so-called "hurricane" was COMPLETELY unbelievable . . . i.e. the house - literally sitting on the cutting edge of a low tide - is minimally damaged after the storm, the roads are passable and the power & phones are back on the next morning, and the cars sitting under the house are fully functional after being pounded by the raging Atlantic all night (while their rapturous/oblivious owners made hot love).

By the end of the movie, Baby Ya was in tears and I was surrounded by quadraphonic surround sniffles. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house but mine.

Baby was curious as to why I was not sobbing and blubbering like every one else.

I told her that I had read the book and had steeled myself for the large-caliber bullet in the chest.

And let that be a lesson. Sometimes, it pays to read the book.

BTW. Richard Gere is very, very, very, very, very, very, very pretty.