Daily Arts is breaking into 

the podcast market.

Subscribe to ‘Arts, 

Interrupted’

Available on iTunes

3 & 4 Bedroom Apartments
$2100‑$2800 plus utilities.
Tenants pay electric to DTE
Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3
w/ 24 hour notice required.
1015 Packard
734‑996‑1991

5 & 6 Bedroom Apartments
1014 Vaughn
$3250 ‑ $3900 plus utilities
Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3
w/ 24 hour notice required
734‑996‑1991

 ARBOR PROPERTIES 
Award‑Winning Rentals in 
Kerrytown 
 Central Campus, 
Old West Side, Burns Park. 
Now Renting for 2018. 
734‑649‑8637 | www.arborprops.com 

CENTRAL CAMPUS
7 BD furnished house, 
LR, DR, 2 baths,
kitchen fully equipped, w/d, 
int.cable,parking 4 ‑ 5. 
MAY to MAY. 
Contact: 706‑284‑3807 or 
meadika@gmail.com.

FALL 2018 HOUSES
# Beds Location Rent
 6 1016 S. Forest $4770
 4 827 Brookwood $3000
 4 852 Brookwood $3000
 4 1210 Cambridge $3180
Tenants pay all utilities.
Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3 
w/ 24 hr notice required
734‑996‑1991

FOR RENT

DOMINICK’S NOW HIRING 
all positions FT/PT. Call 
734‑834‑5021.

HELP WANTED

ACROSS
1 Suffix with silver
or glass
5 1980 Dom
DeLuise film
10 Cry noisily
13 Acme
14 This evening, on
marquees
15 Actress Longoria
16 Fiction’s
opposite
17 Drag race racer
18 Women’s __
19 Trick-taking
game
21 “Stay With Me”
singer Smith
22 A-OK
23 Fixes
25 Does harm to
27 Prefix with gram
or graph
28 Earth sci.
29 World’s largest
cognac producer
33 Cry of distress
37 Economist
Greenspan
38 Marilyn Monroe’s
first name at birth
40 Pakistan
neighbor
41 Game piece with
pips
43 Refused
45 Former House
leader Gingrich
47 Gurgling sound
48 BBC TV series
about cars
51 “You don’t have
to tell me”
55 Kia
subcompacts
56 ’60s-’80s Red
Sox nickname
58 Makes happy
59 Raised railroads
60 Really tired
62 President before
Wilson
63 Nintendo’s 
Super __
64 Steam shovel
scoop
65 The “E” in the
HOMES
mnemonic
66 Dr. with
Grammys
67 Jouster’s horse
68 Ceremony

DOWN
1 Kit Kat layer
2 Quickly
3 Brief summary
4 Baseball
overtime
5 Egg __ yung
6 Carpenter insects
7 Rant
8 Bellyache
9 Multivolume ref.
work
10 Former baseball
commissioner
Bud
11 Sheeplike
12 Innocents “in the
woods”
14 “We’re trapped in
here!”
20 It ebbs and flows
22 Frank Lloyd
Wright house built
around multiple
cascades, and
what’s literally
found in this
puzzle’s circles
24 “Meh”
26 “The Simpsons”
beer server
29 Fooled
30 “Xanadu” gp.
31 ’60s war zone

32 Coll. periods
34 For
35 Gym cushion
36 Musical Brian
39 Nativity trio
42 Formerly, in
bridal
announcements
44 Two-part
46 Hypnotic state
48 General
tendency
49 Refueling ship

50 Old West outlaw
chasers
52 Video game
pioneer
53 Equip anew
54 Cosmetician
Lauder
57 “The Wizard of
Oz” farmhand
60 Sound units,
briefly
61 Mil. roadside
hazard

By Brian Gubin
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/13/18

02/13/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

BOOK REVIEW

If you knew the hour of 

your death, would you live 
differently? 
This 
deeply 

existential 
question 
forms 

the basis of Chloe Benjamin’s 
New York Times-bestselling 
novel “The Immortalists,” a 
saga which follows the four 
Gold siblings from childhood, 
each 
of 
their 
respective 

paths carrying magic, love, 
mystery and science in tow. 

It’s a book that calls a reader 
to consider their own lives 
at every turn of the page. 
The Golds find themselves 
juggling both unfathomable 
tragedy 
and 
joy 
as 
time 

plugs 
onward. 
Benjamin’s 

writing ebbs and flows with 
it, 
creating 
believable 
and 

engaging settings in which the 
drama of life plays out across 
decades. Though these places 
are rich and enthralling, they 
never seem to overshadow 
the poignancy of Benjamin’s 
characters — the Golds’ history 
as a family is steeped in a sense 
of the unknown, something 
which ultimately propels them 
into the future.

The novel begins in late 

1960s New York City, where the 
devoutly Jewish Gold family 
lives in a small apartment on 
the Lower East Side. The Golds 

— parents Saul and Gertie 
and children Varya, Daniel, 
Klara and Simon — live with 
both friction and admiration 
for each other, some closer 
than others but still a family 
nonetheless. Klara and Simon 
are 
inseparable, 
Daniel 

stony and adult and Varya 
withdrawn. The children hear 
of a travelling fortune teller 
who can predict when a person 
will die, and sneak out to find 
her — this is where the story 
truly starts, a point from which 
the Golds decide how their 
lives will truly be, based on 
the years they supposedly have 
left. For Simon, the youngest, 
it’s short, for Klara, somewhat 
longer, for Daniel, middle age 
but Varya is promised a long, 
long life. Benjamin’s expert 
fiction takes this sometimes-
cliché storyline and uses it 
to create a meditation on fate 
and family, following each 
Gold from that fortune-teller’s 
home with their own death 
dates lodged into the children’s 
minds.

From 
there, 
the 
novel 

spirals into four distinct parts, 
each shadowing the Golds’ 
paths into the future with the 
knowledge of the past guiding 
them. Simon and Klara run off 
to San Francisco too young, 
Simon in search of a community 
that supports his budding gay 
identity and Klara following 
dreams of becoming a magician 
to end all magicians. Daniel 
becomes an army doctor, and 
Varya a medical researcher. In 
knowing their own mortality, 
life seems to have a bitter bite — 
each Gold child grapples with 
their fortune on a subconscious 
level, especially in the wake of 
each sibling’s predicted death.

As the decades pass, this 

fortune becomes even more 
abstract, 
as the 
remaining 

Golds try to understand the 
power 
of 
their 
knowledge 

and its influence over their 
realities. Benjamin’s strength 
is in this conflict, as she 
explores the meaning of life and 
death on a small scale, in the 
situations and histories which 
the 
Golds 
find 
themselves 

a part of. The existential 
questions posed throughout 
the novel are daunting, yes, 

but easier to consider in the 
scope of one family whom the 
reader comes to know quite 
well. In this, Benjamin gives 
us a gift — a way to think about 
the 
overwhelming 
darkness 

and lightness of life as applied 
to others, as the reader is on 
the outside looking in. While 
“The 
Immortalists” 
tackles 

different places, periods and 
social issues throughout the 
lifespans of its characters, the 
core question is never lost and 
instead fuels the story, making 
it one of the more engaging and 
emotionally poignant family 
sagas in recent years.

‘The Immortalists’ takes 
on life, death and family 

Benjamin gives 

us a gift — a way 

to think about the 

overwhelming 

darkness and 

lightness of life

CLARA SCOTT
Daily Arts Writer

“The 

Immortalists”

Chloe Banjamin

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Jan. 9, 2018

“The Insult” is a Lebanese 

film that navigates the rocky 
landscape of ethnic tensions, 
systematic 
prejudice 
and 

victimization. Earning an Oscar 
nomination for Best Foreign 
Language Film, “The Insult” 
seeks to explore the complexities 
surrounding 
Palestinian 

immigration 
into 
Lebanon 

through an allegorical narrative 
of a Lebanese Christian suing 
a Palestinian refugee in court. 
The film works like a courtroom 

drama, in which the ethnic 
divide 
between 
Lebanese 

and Palestinian is examined 
and challenged through the 
framework of legality.

The conflict that sets the 

premise for the entire film comes 
almost immediately — Lebanese 
resident 
Toni 
(Adel 
Karam, 

“Caramel”) gets angry when 
Palestinian 
foreman 
Yasser 

(Kamel El Basha, “Love, Theft 
and 
Other 
Entanglements”) 

fixes his gutter. Yasser throws 
a derogatory slur at Toni, and 
Toni demands an apology. But 
when Yasser goes to apologize, 
Toni throws a derogatory slur 
right back, causing Yasser to 
punch him in the stomach. 
The exchange of insults leads 
Toni to take Yasser to court, 
and the following length of the 
film examines the underlying 
tensions behind this petty and 
inconsequential incident.

The beginning of “The Insult” 

is clumsy and nonsensical. Toni 
appears irrationally angry and 
hostile towards Yasser, who is 
doing his job with a polite and 
calm demeanor. The binary 
between Lebanese Christians 
and 
Palestinian 
refugees 
is 

established early on, and is 
the clear reason for Toni’s 
hostility, but the lack of back 
story for either character makes 
the confrontation seem one-
dimensional and archetypal. The 
pacing is rapid, making Toni’s 
decision to sue seem confusing 
and melodramatic. The film’s 
failure to ground itself and its 
preoccupations 
with 
ethnic 

tension in its first act weakens the 
gravity of the film as a whole — 
Toni and Yasser’s anger towards 
each other doesn’t translate 
seamlessly 
into 
internalized 

prejudice, but instead comes off 
as petty anger.

The court room scenes take 

up the entire second and third 
acts. The court room allegory 
is a somewhat effective tool 
for analyzing perspective in 
victimhood and creating an 
empathetic link between two 
characters 
who 
are 
victims 

of trauma and displacement. 
However, most of the time, these 
scenes are extremely tedious 
and static, with little physical or 
narrative movement. Ultimately, 
the stage on which the film 
chooses to set its discussion of 
ethnic divide is an uncompelling 
one, weighted down by dramatic 
clichés and repetitive imagery.

While Karam and El Basha 

deliver 
solid, 
if 
simplistic, 

performances, the women of the 
film stand as the most compelling 
characters. Rita Hayek (“Kafa: 
Enough”) plays Toni’s wife, a 
strong and outspoken woman 
who acts as the moral compass 

for Toni and the audience. 
Diamand 
Bou 
Abboud 
(“In 

Syria”) plays Yasser’s calculated, 
capable lawyer and Julia Kassar 
commands the film as the firm 
but rational judge. The women in 
this film are all incredibly strong 
and thoughtful characters; their 
actions drive the fate of the men 
whose stubbornness, pride and 
bouts of anger lead them to fall 

in a sinkhole of a larger national 
conversation.

Ultimately, “The Insult” does 

manage to communicate the 
impact of trauma in cementing 
ethnic prejudice, as well as 
the complicated landscape of 
contemporary Lebanon. The film 
seeks to explore silenced parts of 
Lebanese history, showing that 
identities rooted in tragedies of 
the past (the civil war in 1990, 
for example) have profound 
lifelong impacts. With its final 
images, “The Insult” resonates 
with a heavy understanding of 
irrational hatred and the power 
of human empathy to peek 
through the haze. 

‘The Insult’ lacks logic as 
it exlpores ethnic tension 
 

SYDNEY COHEN

Daily Arts Writer

FILM REVIEW

DIAPHANA FILMS

“The Insult”

Diaphana Films

State Theater

Ultimately, 
“The Insult” 

does manage to 
communicate the 
impact of trauma 

in cementing 
ethnic prejudic

6 — Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com