The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James

First, let me just get this out of the way: I am so, so, SO, SOOOOO glad I’m finally done with this book. Second, now that I’ve fully prepared you for a less than praising review, I urge you to not judge this book based on my poor review. People much smarter than me have praised this book very strongly for a very long time. Third, this is a long book…a very LONG book and I was never good at putting up with those. Fourth, possibly I’m depicting myself as educationally-challenged (if that’s even a term, which just cements the point further, I guess). And, finally, on to the book review!

It’s not that I don’t understand why this book is generally regarded as James’ best novel. Really, I get it, the themes are ripe for discussion: the juxtaposition of American ideals (namely, freedom and individuality) with European standards (sophistication and social convention); the embodiment of these conflicting ideas in the story’s heroine, Isabel Archer; Isabel’s struggles as she is faced with betrayal, deceit, responsibility, and emotional pain. I even learned a new literary technique (you know, for whenever I decide to become a writer…): ellipses. Not, not the “…” that I already use far too frequently. I mean the style of skipping over main events, rather than narrating them, and only referring to them in side conversations after they have happened. It works surprisingly well.

No, I’m afraid my problems with the book are much simpler than disagreeing with the plot, the themes, or the ideology. I was simply bored. The pace of the book induces zombie-reading (you know, reading over a paragraph before realizing you’ve no idea what you just read). And (granted James is a key figure in psychological realism) I think it was too psychological, and a lot of it went over my head. Spark notes helped a lot. In other news, I really am becoming a dunce :(

My attempt at spicing up my posts with some visuals...I'll give Isabel some credit, though...she didn't come off as that stuck up

And, lastly, I disliked Isabel. But I think that only shows that James is excellent at character development because I hated this woman as if I knew her in real life. She thinks about herself obsessively and generally has the highest opinion of herself, regarding her strong beliefs in individuality, freedom, and her moral strength. This is mostly the attitude of the first half of the book and it really does get very annoying. But character development is the major element of this portrait (I had to get that in there) and by the time we reach the second half of the novel, Isabel has undergone some… well, some development. She isn’t radically different from who she was at first, but the events she has undergone have created a conflict within herself, between who she once was and what she has become (between freedom and social convention).

I don’t want to give plot points away, but she really is incredibly stubborn and stupid at times, and even she comes to realize this by the end. So, again, it’s not that the story or the character are badly written, it’s more that James does such a good job of creating this person that I was yelling at her (in my head, of course). And, speaking of the end, this book ends with one of the biggest cliff-hangers of all time. Ok, maybe not that drastic, but it does end very abruptly and indefinitely, meaning you can’t be completely certain what Isabel has decided to do at the end. Critics generally agree on what she did end up doing, but from the text it really can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. It’s not that big a deal, you do still get a sense of completion, but be warned in case you don’t like those kinds of endings. In any case, the point of the ending is to leave the reader with a sour taste.

I probably didn’t give this book a completely fair chance. I mean, I did when I started it, I was expecting it to be a really good book, but it just lost me somewhere along the way, in between Isabel’s self-reflection and the story’s snail pace. I highly doubted whether I would finish it at one point because it was an exercise in overcoming boredom. But, after finishing it (and reading analytical overviews), I see what James did there.

20 down, 32 to go.

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

I can already tell I won’t be able to do this book justice. I’ll just get this out of the way now: I loved this book. Rock will laugh at my “sentimental female nature, the typical silly-girl stereotype that sighs at the doomed love affair and cries during the film adaptation.” Well, in fact, I did. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. Daniel Day Lewis is partly to blame, damn him and his awesome acting (though the hair…was a tad ridiculous). I didn’t cry when I finished the book, but watching the movie afterwards really put that last nail in, as the saying goes. The screenplay adaption went well beyond anything I expected. I remember liking the movie when I saw it years ago. I didn’t expect such a faithful adaptation of the novel.

It would be hard to improve on the book anyway, or to mess up the carefully-aligned series of events that take place. The novel won Edith Wharton the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, making her the first woman to receive one, which is a pretty cool feat right there. The novel is probably best known (at least, that’s what I knew about it before I picked it up) for its accurate portrayal of New York City’s upper class during the late 1800s. Wharton herself grew up in that society. In the novel, she doesn’t scorn or condemn the society, but she does question the moral righteousness and stifling social codes that the society depicted in her novel adheres to.

The central character is Newland Archer, who finds himself questioning his society’s norms – norms which he strictly upheld at the start of the novel – in light of his perfect but dull marriage, his too-perfect wife, and his wife’s modern and unconventional cousin. You see the triangle, I’m sure. My favorite aspect of the book was the complexity of Newland’s and May’s personalities. Newland’s views change quite radically (radically for the context, anyway), from strictly upholding the established social norms and seeking the perfect marriage with the perfect New York socialite, to questioning everything his society believes and the motivations of all the people he thought he knew so well. The catalyst for this is, of course, May’s cousin, the Countess Olenska, a woman who is the complete opposite of every cookie-cutter debutante he’s ever met. Then there’s May, who Newland generally attributes as a product of New York society, with little opinions or motivations of her own beyond those which have been instilled in her. In my opinion, one of the saddest parts of the book is that Newland never really understood his wife, while becoming painfully clear at the end that it was May who always understood him.

And yet Wharton doesn’t portray Newland as a complete jerk, but as a person in the middle of a personal crisis. That, I think, is why the book works so well, instead of coming off as just a book about someone’s affair. The entire environment also makes the book enjoyable. Wharton’s careful descriptions, both of characters and settings, rich with detail and meaning just make every paragraph fun to read, even if she’s merely discussing the emotions evoked in Newland by a lady’s forgotten parasol or the preparations for the annual society ball. I’m keeping a copy of this book in my phone, as I would definitely pick it up again to read a chapter here or there.

21 down, 31 to go.

The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

If you didn’t already guess, I pretty much suck at maintaining websites and at writing and at doing stuff worth writing about. Well I could talk about my WoW exploits, but I want to preserve some semblance of not being a complete junkie…though I suspect I’ve already failed at that, as well. Anyway, the one thing I have going for this site is my book reviews, because now that the mind-drain that was college is long over, I can go back to reading for fun like I used to in “the old days.” And while I’m no New York Times Book Reviewer (or even a mildly popular blogger) I continue to write up my reviews so that I can one day look over my posts and say “ah yes, I recall reading that book and according to this post written by me, found it extremely enjoyable…not sure why I don’t remember a thing that happens in it.” Why this happened just the other day when I was reading my blog titles and saw a post on Slaughterhouse-Five and I said “what the-…which book is-…oh right, right, I did read that book…huh.” But I digress. On to the book review.

It’s funny to me how I’ve always known of Sherlock Holmes. And who hasn’t heard “Elementary, my dear Watson,” in some long forgotten context, which actually never really existed? Yet I’ve never read a mystery novel written by Sir Conan Doyle, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen any of the TV movies or mini-series. Probably the closest I ever got to see an adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story was that Saved by the Bell episode where the gang winds up in some cooky old house playing a 90’s version of those mystery dinner role-playing games (those crazy kids). By the by, googling “mystery dinner role-playing” will lead to quite a few groups out there that actually stage these things for you…there’s just a whole other world out there, sometimes, is what I’m saying (and, no, it’s not pr0n). So I was actually looking forward to picking up The Hound of the Baskervilles and discovering for myself what this Holmes guy was all about. Many thanks to Rock who donated Sir Conan Doyle’s complete collection to my measly library.

Reminds me of the upcoming Worgen class for WoW....dammit, there I go again!

The first thing that jumped out, which is probably not news to anyone, is that the story is told from Watson’s point of view, and not at all from Holmes’. In fact, Holmes was absent for a good part of the story (maybe a little over half the story) so that overall we experience the entire story as Watson does. Watson is clever and inquisitive but not a master-mind like Holmes, and so, as the reader’s proxy, he is as perplexed and surprised by the conundrums of the story as the reader is. As clever as Watson is, his explanations (like ours) tend to be wrong, something which (in my opinion) amuses Holmes to no end. To be perfectly honest, I would have to say that Holmes is an arrogant, teasing, righteous know-it-all. However, he does actually know it all, so you can’t fault the guy for looking down on everyone else.

The story itself sounded like the makings of a decent X-Files episode, in which an older gentleman is found dead in his own backyard from what appears to be a heart attack, but the locals are convinced that the man was attacked by a supernatural creature in the form of a hound with blazing eyes and jaws (though I’m betting there are many X-Files episodes with similar premises…there’s only so much supernatural stuff to go around). The gentleman is Sir Charles Baskerville, the wealthy land-owner in the area (obviously), who dies leaving only one heir, Sir Henry Baskerville. Dr. Mortimer, a friend of the family, hires Holmes to solve the mystery and protect Sir Henry, who is believed to be in danger. According to Dr. Mortimer, the Baskervilles have been cursed for centuries by the Hound of the Baskervilles, who kills the Baskerville heirs as revenge for the evil doings of Sir Hugo Baskerville, described as an evil and sadistic man who enjoyed kidnapping women and later sending his hounds after them when they got away.

Knowing nothing about the story, I was not expecting any supernatural elements, which really make the story creepier. I was expecting very formal writing where nothing too unpleasant happens and murders are committed quietly and neatly. In fact, the story can get gory and violent without being over-the-top or cheesy. The story-telling did lose a bit of steam towards the last quarter of the book, as the mystery is resolved well before the end, but I think I’ve gotten too used to mystery stories that rely on the last 20 pages to bring all the events to the climax (Harry Potter, I’m looking at you). Overall, though, I highly enjoyed it and am glad I have finally read a Sherlock Holmes mystery. For those wondering, this was another card in my deck of 52 Great Books to Read.

20 down, 32 to go.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Out of my deck of cards. Unlike most, if not all, other 13-yr old girls on this planet, I did not pick up Jane Eyre during junior high (I’m not saying I strayed from Victorian romances, but that I picked up Wuthering Heights instead). I believe if I had read this book back then, I would have swooned over the romance much more than I did (after all, isn’t it the fantasy of every school girl to learn that that cute boy she has a huge crush on, the one that seems so unattainable, is secretly having a huge crush on her?). However, as a school girl harboring crushes of her own, the rest of Jane Eyre would have probably gone right over my head. As such, I’m glad I didn’t pick this up until now, since I was much more interested in Jane’s strengths as a character, completely independent of the romance storyline with Edward “Stephanie Meyer only wishes she could write Byronic heroes this good” Rochester.

Like an orphan out of a Dickens’s story (or like any heroine in a Mexican soap opera), Jane goes through some pretty tough times before finding happiness. Orphaned as a little girl, she is taken in by her uncaring aunt, then sent to a strict religious boarding school (the kind where it’s always cold and everyone is always hungry and the Man always finds a way to suck the joy out of life), and then confronted with the death of her only friend. Eventually she becomes a teacher and gets a job as a governess with Rochester as her employer. I guess I let the cat out of the bag by saying there is a romance between the two (no surprise there, though, right?) but, for a tragic heroine, things are never that easy. That’s just volume one of this book.

Anyway, there’s more to it of course, but the point is Jane survives and rises above a number of trials that would have broken down most people. I like the description given in the back of the card, and I don’t see the need of saying it any better: “Jane Eyre lives in a world of cruelty and injustice, yet nothing breaks her spirit. Readers today are still inspired by Jane’s rebellion and passion – traits that were considered merely daring in a society that had little use for a single woman.”

Now I know next to nothing about Victorian society, but I can imagine how some of Jane’s actions would have been pretty scandalous, or against what was expected. Above all else, and despite how cliché it sounds, she remains true to herself, and is committed to maintaining her sense of integrity and morality despite whatever hell may come after. Now there’s a role model that is worth reading about (not to sound preachy, but this book and this character beat the hell out of most of the young adult garbage that is out there these days).

My only complaint is that the narrative itself is pretty boring. I don’t mean the writing style is bad, just that it’s extremely proper and too straightforward (if that makes any sense…). Bronte also tends to go on and on at times, which can get a bit drowsy (I did possibly end up merely skimming some pages; I definitely skimmed over most of the whole St. John argument). Knowing that there’s no reason for comparing Emily and Charlotte other than because they are sisters, I will just say this: Wuthering Heights has more originality and drama, but Jane Eyre has more normal, relatable, and likable characters.

19 down, 33 to go.

The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman

Book two of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (audiobook format). I'm not sure what to say about this book...I think I liked it, but it took me nearly a month to finish (listening to, not reading) because I couldn't make myself stop listening to Broken River Prophet and put this on instead. That is partly due to BRP being awesome, but it was also due to Subtle Knife not being very engaging. Yes, that might be a good description, not engaging. I can think of things I liked: I loved Will (a lot of that might have to do with how good the actor's voice is); really liked Mrs. Coulter who is the kind of villain you love to hate, though there wasn't enough of her in this book; inter-dimensional travel is a plus to any fantasy story IMO (check The Riftwar Saga); the Specters turn every adult in one particular world into essentially zombies (zombies always being another plus in any genre); you get a relatively decent cliffhanger at the end, enough to make me read the first chapter of the last book right then; and, kinda unrelated, it was very well acted.

But, overall, it was a bit of a sleeper. There wasn't enough intrigue, not much mystery, and nothing totally unexpected happened. Will and Lyra meet up in an alternate universe from their own, where they realize they are both on related quests and must help each other (or, I think Lyra is told by her golden compass that she has to help Will, but same deal). After that, they run into some good people, some bad people, lose some things, acquire others, travel a lot, escape the "authorities," realize they are destined for greatness if they can only overcome their personal doubts and fears (Will), don't get to realize that they are destined for greatness if they can overcome the people that are trying to kill them (Lyra, but hang tight, your time will come in book 3), and get help from others who must make sure these two succeed above all else.

I sound mean, I know. To be fair, it's not a terrible setup, and there are a lot of different bits and pieces going on at once that will lead up to something. But, it sounds kinda rehashed, the story-telling is too serious, and maybe I'm going deaf, but I'm not really sure what this is all leading up to. At this point, I think the main conflict is that there's a side that wants to bring down God and another side that doesn't agree (yes, God). Why bring him down? Well, as far as I can make it out, Pullman is turning the tables: instead of a God that represents good (the way we know it), God in this story is the bad guy. Long ago, when the angels rebelled in Heaven and lost, things started to go bad. Now a similar war is coming, but this time "the right side must win."

Now I'm not saying that this plot is objectionable. It's actually pretty interesting, the idea that you would need to overturn a Supreme authority that you consider your God because, in actuality, he's a jerk. It worked for Stargate. But Pullman doesn't give us much in the way of back-story. Presumably that's book three.

That’s my take, anyway. At this point, I’m not jumping up and down with excitement to start book three (I’m certainly not using two Audible credits to get it, rather than the customary one, so I’ll have to read the hardcopy at some point). I’m hoping that the twist in book three is that Lord Asriel (the guy leading the rebellion against God) ends up making things way worse and everyone that supported him is left standing with egg on their face. Then again, if that does happen, it won’t be much of a twist. And if it doesn’t happen, then we just end up with a story about a guy beating God with a subtle knife and a golden compass (I guess an amber spyglass will feature somehow, as well).

Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie

Chalk up this unusual selection to my deck of cards. Knowing the story pretty well (and having watched the Disney version and Hook), I would have never picked this up on my own. But it actually did make for an interesting read, only because the details in the story are so much more bizarre than just the general plot. Barrie makes for a weird story-teller: oftentimes he is very cute and his writing is very silly (like Alice in Wonderland), but his writing also has an undercurrent of biting sarcasm (in the way the narrator will mock Mr. and Mrs. Darling, or call the children heartless, or deride Peter Pan). It's not something that is very pronounced but it just sounds like the narrator (who I assume is Barrie, but I suppose it could just be a made-up voice) is mean to the characters and doesn't necessarily like them.

I was surprised at how prominent the themes about motherhood and growing up without a mother actually are in the story. Peter doesn't just like Wendy a lot, he wants a mother. It's not just Peter Pan either. All the Lost Boys, and even the pirates, want a mother more than anything else. The pirates kidnap Wendy so she'll be their mother. And Peter won't admit it but the most scarring event in his life was being separated from his mother (I don't remember if the mother left him or he left his mother). It also gets complicated when Wendy does grow up and become a mother for real, because now Peter hates her for growing up but he still wants a mother so he turns to...Wendy's daughter. And then Wendy's granddaughter. And, in today's skeptical society, that sounds very odd I guess, but I think the point is that, for Peter (and, I suppose, the other motherless characters), grown-ups can't be caring and nurturing and adventurous all at the same time, but children can as long as they are "gay and innocent and heartless."

Now, the heartless part sounds weird to me, but those are the author's words. Barrie (or the narrator) is saying children are heartless because they can very easily leave their parents and go off with Peter Pan like Wendy and John and Michael and forget about their home and forget they ever had parents and not realize their parents are back home, sad and waiting. So, is he saying that's a good thing? It's also difficult to say whether he thinks growing up is a good thing or a bad thing. He writes that Neverland is this wonderful place where children don't grow up, where they will always be innocent and happy. But Neverland also makes them forget their family and so they become "heartless" and selfish (in the case of Peter, he eventually even forgets about Hook, and about Tinkerbell, and he forgets about Wendy to such an extent that he doesn't see her again for years). But then everyone (including the Lost Boys, except Peter Pan) return to England and everyone grows up and they settle down "to being as ordinary as you or me."

I think that, in the end, the point Barrie is trying to make ends up being more than just "never grow up" (which seems to be how his story is always remembered). I think what the moral of the story amounts to is that growing up is inevitable, and refusing to grow up just makes you selfish and heartless, but growing up doesn't mean you have to stop believing in innocence and adventure and wonder (even though Wendy grows up, she still remembers Peter fondly and retells his story to her own daughter).

I also have to mention that Hook is the most interesting and complex character in the story. He's not just the one-dimensional ruthless pirate. I mean, he is a pretty typical ruthless pirate, but he's also trying to be an effective and respected leader - while at the same time suffering from soul-crushing self-consciousness and doubts about his ability. He's always concerned with "good form" (with playing by the rules and with appearing to others as a gentleman who is skilled in proper social conduct) - while at the same time being a backstabber and knowing full well that much of what he does is in "bad form." Actually, I found the "good form-bad form" internal struggle Hook has surprising to read, because I thought that was just something that was thrown into the Hook movie version. After reading the story, though, I can say that Hook is the most faithful adaptation of the actual story (if you ignore that Peter Pan is played by a very grown up Robin Williams), right down to the issues about Peter's mother and Hook and many other things. Well, even the montage where we see Wendy growing up and becoming older and all that, is in the story. The Disney version just captures the silliness and the adventure (although it does do a good job of capturing Peter as a jerk...he was kind of a conceited brat). And I know I watched the new Peter Pan movie, but I mostly remember being bored with that one.

I almost want to watch Hook now.

18 down, 34 to go.

How to Piss Off a Country in 13 Steps: Lessons from Honduras

The following is a step-by-step guide on how to become the most hated guy in Honduras. Thanks to ex-President Zelaya for his contributions.

1. Announce that, as President, you want to add a ballot during the regularly scheduled elections (November 2009) to determine whether a Constitutional Assembly should be convened to amend the Constitution (but don't announce what changes you're hoping to make, even if people suspect that you're trying to amend the one-term law which limits a President's term to four years and prohibits re-election).

2. Decide that you will conduct an opinion poll to allow the general public to vote on whether they want to add the aforementioned ballot to the elections (regardless of the fact that the Constitution prevents any referendums from being made 180 days prior to or after an election, and regardless of the fact that the executive branch does not have the authority to hold such a vote).

3. After Congress passes a bill prohibiting the opinion poll (which they've ruled is unconstitutional, as mentioned in step 2), decide that you'll use your taxpayer's money to hire an independent firm to conduct the vote.

4. Order your Chief of Armed Forces to distribute the ballot boxes (which Congress said was illegal). (Note: the Armed Forces is the entity that conducts elections so you have to ask them to do this).

5. At this point your Chief of Armed Forces will refuse to carry out this illegal activity for you. Fire him promptly. The commanders of the Air Force and Navy will resign in protest but you can just announce that you'll run things completely on your own from now on.

6. Congress will then say "Excuse me, you can't fire these people, they will be reinstated, ok? Thanks, bye-bye." You may now refuse to comply with this announcement and retaliate by leading a mob into the Armed Forces Headquarters to pick up the ballot boxes in order to distribute them yourself. While it is legal for you to enter Headquarters, it may be seen as illegal to break through the gate and lead civilians in, but just go ahead and disregard that for now.

7. Collect the ballot boxes that were assembled in, and delivered from, Venezuela. Your good friend Hugo Chavez, who oversaw the assembly (and maybe stuffed the boxes for you in advance) sends his best and wishes you good luck.

8. Brace yourself, because now that you've pissed off Congress, the Supreme Court, and your own political party, they will be sending the Army over to your house to walk you out at gunpoint and put you on a plane and expatriate you to Costa Rica (they should arrest you and put you in jail but this could lead to civil violence, so they would rather decide to send you away). This will endear you to the international community so don't worry just yet. And mention your pajamas repeatedly.

9. The international community will now rally to you, despite your strong ties to Castro and Chavez, and demand that you be reinstated (we can't figure out why they fail to understand that your removal from office was legally mandated either, so just roll with it).

10. After a few days of putting your cause out there, and getting support from the media and other governments, decide that you will triumphantly return to your country to take up your post.

11. When the army blocks the runway with their tanks and prevents you from landing, just send out a call over national radio asking your supporters to break into the runway and show those armed soliders who's boss. One of your supporters will unfortunately lose his life over this crazy endeavor, and the runway will remain blocked so that you'll have to land in El Salvador, but at least you got the media attention you wanted.

12. For the love of God, don't try to go back to Honduras! They have about 12 arrest warrants with your name on them, including treason and drug trafficking. Stay low, continue to fly around to Washington and Costa Rica and gather international support for your cause.

13. At this point the international community will appoint a Nobel Peace laureate as mediator so that you and the interim government that was legally appointed after you were exiled can reach an agreement. The interim government will obstinately refuse to reinstate you and threaten to arrest you if you return but you still have international support. Find a way to drag this out forever.

Ta-da!

This step-by-step guide does not include the pre-requisite tasks that must be concluded first in order to fully piss of a country. These actions include appealing to the poorest sectors of society claiming you are "one of the people" despite your multi-million business enterprises; flying yourself, your family, your extended family, your servants, and your horse to various countries on taxpayer money (call it public relations); allying yourself with Chavez and joining him in talking crap about the U.S., your traditional ally and largest trading partner (also disregarding the thousands of Honduran immigrants that are awaiting a decision on their refugee status in the U.S.). There's more but this should keep you busy for now.

Congratulations, you've just become the most hated man in Honduras!

***

In all seriousness, if this was a research paper, I would have cited all the steps listed above. But (thank God!) I'm not in school anymore so I don't have to follow the rules. Instead, I've assembled a bunch of links that explain and document the situation better than I have (I'm no political or legal expert, I'm just a relocated Honduran that is worried and upset and a tad pissed off at several people, including Clinton (cow)). A million thanks to my friend Figgy and to La Gringa for rounding up these links. Please check out their sites if you want to learn more, they're doing an amazing job of reporting on the issue from the actual scene.

Events leading up to removal of President Zelaya

Following the removal of President Zelaya

Diplomatic Attempts

Trying to return to the country

The U.S. Stance

Chavez being insane

Going on in U.S. Congress

It wasn't a coup

Testimony of The Honorable Otto J. Reich, Committee on Foreign Affairs

Why Honduras Sent Zelaya Away

Requiem for a Dream With a Happy Ending

I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionarie this weekend (or, I should say, Netflix finally got around to sending me a copy after it had been on Very Long Wait status for about five weeks). As you can probably tell from the title of this post (assuming you've watched Requiem for a Dream), this movie reminded me a lot of that movie. In other words, it's a movie where a lot of really messed-up things happen to generally decent people (though I guess the people in Requiem weren't all that decent). Like Requiem, this movie made me cringe, made me depressed, and (strangely enough) made me sick to my stomach. While the queasy feeling in my stomach is partly due to a scene where a kid is blinded using scalding oil (I didn't appreciate the vomiting scene either), it is mostly due to the incredibly annoying way in which the movie was shot. The shaky camera, the out of focus shots, and the running sequences shot with hand-held cameras gave me vertigo and a headache approximately 20 minutes into the movie.

The story itself was interesting. Jamal, from the slums of Mumbai, India, enters India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" game show. Exceeding all expectations, he answers all questions correctly up to the 10 million rupee question, which he blindly guesses (though, honestly, that would never be a top question because it is a ridiculously easy answer). Suspected of cheating, he is questioned by the police, where he retells the critical events in his life that have shaped him into who he is. More importantly though, he has gathered bits of knowledge from these events, which is how he is able to answer the game show questions.

The movie is undeniably powerful, emotional, and generally quite good. And, unlike Requiem, it has a happy ending, so that's neat. Now, I've always said that Requiem for a Dream is a really good movie, but I will never, ever watch it again. Never. Same goes for Slumdog Millionaire. It's a good movie (mind you, I didn't say really good...the directing is too messed up for that), but I will never, ever watch it again. If I want to get really depressed, I'll just look at my bank account. I think it's funny that the movie review on that poster is "the feel-good movie of the decade." Yeah, ok, you feel good at the end when he gets the girl and he gets the money. But, to me, it didn't make up for the previous hour and 40 minutes of down-trodden, life-is-crappy, story.

The Golden Compass - Phillip Pullman

Its funny how there are some book reviews that I can't wait to write because I've got a lot to say about the book. Then there are others that I try to put off because I don't have much to say or because the books were so good that I can't find the right stuff to say. But now, for the first time, I completely forgot all about writing this book review. Well, it's not my fault; it just wasn't a hugely memorable book.

I wonder if I'm losing my ability to read children's books. I devoured Harry Potter books when they came out, but that was a while ago, I guess. But reading this book was just not very fun, and it bordered on being pretty boring.

The story takes place on an alternate universe (see, it sounds very Star Trek already, it should have been awesome). In this universe, a human's conscience/soul/imaginary friend/what have you, personifies itself in the shape of an animal (known as a daemon) that is intimately and innately bound to its human. Apparently Pullman got this concept from paintings such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine,” Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's "Young Lady with a Parrot," and Hans Holbein the Younger's "Lady with a Squirrel," which featured women holding animals. It's not a bad idea and Pullman develops the human/daemon relationship fairly well (though, logistically, I find it impossible to conceive of 6 billion plus animals following 6 billion plus humans around all the time, in the market, at work, in the bathroom, during a one-night stand; what do the daemons do then, what do they eat, what if you don't like your daemon…). Anyway, this alternate universe also features talking armored bears, witches, some ghoulish flying thing named a cliff-ghast, and there are possibly a few other weird creatures in there that I don’t remember.

The story centers on 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua and the sudden dramatic changes that take place in her life when a mysterious group of people start kidnapping children. Sometime prior to embarking on her adventure, and before delving into what passes for this book’s plot, she receives the golden compass, which is like a Ouija board that tells you the truth when you ask it a question (and, possibly, it conjures up the image of that girl that drowned in the lake down the road that a friend of a friend heard someone talk about ages ago). The fact that Lyra can read this compass makes her very very special but, true to the children’s book mystery genre, we don’t find out why, at least not in this book.

Anyway, Lyra sets out to find out what’s happening to the missing children, and eventually she sets out with others to rescue them, and then she finds out what’s happening to them, and then other stuff happens because there needs to be a sequel to this book. What happens to the children is the only thing this plot has going for it so I won’t divulge the details. It’s hard to briefly describe the plot of this book because there are a ton of side plots: Lyra’s parents, the armored bear’s civil war, the witches’ civil war, the nature of Dust (a mysterious particle that people are keen to research regardless of the cost), and the evil machinations of organized religion.

I didn’t mind the personification of organized religion as a dictatorial, conniving, unscrupulous institution. It’s not new. But the dwelling on it and the lengthy discussions on original sin and the explanations on the religious hierarchy and the details on the different political groups was a bit of overkill. I wonder how many kids are able to waddle through all that and keep reading. It just felt like a lot of adult content thrown in there (and by that I don’t mean that it should be rated PG-13 for mild language and suggestive scenes, I mean that it’s like reading a newspaper article about Hamas and Fatah: interesting but somber).

But, I will admit, I did not completely hate this book. I didn’t even mildly hate it. It was all right. Not very memorable and a bit too serious for a children’s story, but set in an interesting alternate world with likable characters (particularly Lyra and the main armored bear).

Oh, and also, the audiobook version is excellent. This is probably why I kept going with the book, and the only reason I got the second book. The story is narrated by Phillip Pullman himself, but all the characters are read by actors. All the voices are great (the voice of Iorek, the armored bear, I had hoped would be different, more like Michael Clark Duncan in The Green Mile, but instead it’s more like Treebeard in The Two Towers…just wrong). My favorite was the voice of Mrs. Coulter, the story’s villain. She sounds very sweet and lovely and innocent and then she sounds like a complete cow, it works so well.

The Ups and Downs (and the Gates)

This week started on a sour note. I need to renew my passport, which should really just amount to showing up at a particular destination with some choice documents, forking over way too much cash for a fake-leather bound booklet, and proceeding with life as usual. Not leaving it up to fate, I decided to call ahead and make sure I had the right documents. Picture me, starting out her Monday morning at work, coffee in hand, ready to get the day going, dialing up the number for customer service, asking if so-and-so documents are the ones needed, and getting the bitchiest call center attendant known to man. Ok, A) I realize being a call center attendant is not all daisies and sunshine; I hate talking on the phone too, I get it; I hate people in general, I understand that too. And B) it sounds like you must really hate life cause, after all, you ended up as a call center attendant. But, damn it to hell, why take it out on me? I don't want to relive the tediousness here but in all my time calling customer service numbers I have never had a ruder, meaner, and dumber attendant. A minute into the call I was really regretting that I had no way to record the conversation. Jerk.

Tuesday was considerably much more fun. Rock and I met up after work for dinner and Up. I'd been wanting to see this for some time and, strangely enough, our tiny town was playing it in 3D. Judging from the trailers, it looks like all animated movies will now be offered in 3D. The movie looked very good in 3D, though there are times when the image can look a little blurry, particularly around the edges. It's also funny how your brain adjusts to it after a while and then you no longer seem to notice that it's in 3D. The movie itself was awesome. Of course, I was bawling during the opening sequences. I'm worried that the last animated movie I saw was Wall-E and that also had me bawling at times. Apparently the animated movies are getting to be too emotional for me. I am such a wuss.

Tuesday was also like Christmas, because when I got home I found that my recent Amazon purchase was waiting for me: Stargate SG-1 The Complete Series Collection. Just look at it. It makes me ridiculously happy for some reason and I can't wait to start watching.

It is seriously so shiny...and cubic.

However, Tuesday was also like those Christmases where you have your heart set on getting a certain gift and then you open the box and it's socks or something (I'll be honest, though, I love socks, especially if they are fuzzy or striped or soft). When I opened the Stargate box, I looked over the DVD's and several of them had scratches on them, which displeased me greatly because the Amazon third-party vendor claimed the set was brand-new but they clearly just shrink-wrapped a used set and delivered an item that was clearly not new. I've written a strongly worded email, demanding to know what they plan to do about it and if they will exchange it for a brand-new item or give me my money back. Most likely they will say that those are the breaks. At which point I will slink away with my slightly defective Stargate box, though that doesn't mean I will love it any less. It's ok SG-1, it's not your fault.

Finally, today I was almost sideswiped by some jerk with Florida plates. Like I wasn't even there. I honked my horn like there was no tomorrow and then look over to see that the moron is laughing. Scared to death with my heart about to jump out the roof, I honk again, make a rude gesture to indicate he watch where he's going, and then realize I should probably keep my eyes on the road and watch where I'm going. Did I already mention today that I hate people? I thought so.

And it's only Thursday to boot.

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

This is yet another of the cards in 52 Great Books to Read. Many thanks to Project Gutenberg for the text.

I believe I read this at some point in high school for a class. I had very little recollection of what happens in it besides what is common knowledge anyway, that the story is about a man turning into an insect.

Indeed, that is the plot of this short story. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up in his home one day to discover that he has turned into a "horrible vermin." Literally, not figuaritvely. He has an armour-like back, a domed belly divided into sections, and many tiny legs. There is no actual process of metamorphosis in the book. This is not The Fly, in which we witness the (disgusting) progression of man into insect. In the story's famous first sentence, the entire metamorphosis takes place. Gregor wakes up a bug. The rest of the story is about Gregor as a bug and the happenings in a bug's life.

Thus we are offered no explanation as to how or why the change happened. We are simply introduced to a flustered Gregor, who is very confused but primarily very worried because he is in no condition to go to work and he cannot afford to lose his job. He hates his job, he hates his boss, he hates his co-workers, but he is the sole provider for his parents and sister with whom he lives. So he must make every attempt to get out of bed, despite his condition, and at least call in sick or try to catch a later train.

Kafka seriously underplays the improbability of a human suddenly transforming into a bug by writing in a very matter-of-fact style, thus underplaying the absurdity of the metamorphosis. As if turning into a bug is something that happens every day to anyone. The real conflict or exploration in the story is not how or why Gregor has been transformed but the consequences that result from his transformation: he loses his job, his family shuns him and locks him up because of how he looks, and his parents and sister must learn to provide for themselves.

A very brief look at articles that turned up during my Google search indicate that this story has been interpreted in tons of ways. It shows up in psychology and religious discussions, in existentialism and modernism and magical realism, and in biographies of Kafka (that the story is a reflection on Kafka's relationship with his dad). I don't know about any of that, I didn't really read the articles. What did strike me about the book is the writing style, which I guess is why the story is so famous, because it presents such an absurd situation in a very straightfoward way.

I also read somewhere in there that Kafka thought the story was very amusing and that he and his friends would laugh when he read it to them. I can see some humor but mostly I just felt really bad for Gregor. His life is stopped short the moment he turns into a bug, and instead of being a provider and productive person he becomes a recluse, he can't leave his room and he can't do much except run on the walls and ceilings and try to communicate with his family, who now feel his existence is a huge burden to them. I was very intrigued to find out what becomes of him and was saddened by the ending. Poor Gregor :(

17 down, 35 to go.

My Draenei Character: The Battle Within

Disclaimer: I realize I haven't moved too far from book reviews and WoW posts on this site...I assure you I am capable of writing about other things. I will attempt to do so...someday.

I have a shaky relationship with the Alliance from World of Warcraft. My very first WoW character ever was a night elf warrior. She got up to 22 before I dropped her for some forgotten reason (possibly I got bored running around the bleak landscape of Darkshore but maybe I just decided to save myself some grief brought on by Rock's incessant nagging that I roll Horde). I'll admit, the starting landscape for the trolls is much prettier, all reds and oranges and bright sunshine and crystal blue waters and breakdancing trolls that greet you with "How ya doin, mon!" So I was quite happy with my Horde home. There was a brief stint where I leveled up a gnome mage to 20 or something just cause they're so darn cute and tiny, but I stuck with the Horde.

I stuck with the Horde, even despite their abysmal showing at certain battlegrounds, particularly Alterac Valley. My poor little troll shaman couldn't last 5 minutes without being viciously killed by the Alliance. It was during these particular moments that the grass looked way greener on the other side. But the Alliance races didn't appeal to me, the humans look boring, the night elves were boring, the gnomes are cute, I'll admit that, and the dwarves, well, just no. I know, there's no rhyme or reason as the saying goes, I just wasn't interested.

Until, that is, the Burning Crusade expansion introduced the draenei. Part of me really wished the Horde got the draenei instead of getting the annoying blood elves, but the side of me that looked longingly at all those battleground victories by the Alliance realized I had finally found an Alliance race I would like to play. And how could you not? The draenei are so weird, they have goat legs and cloven hoofs, a lizard tail, tentacles coming out of their jaws, and huge glowing eyes. And their skin ranges from purple to blue. And they're technically aliens that crash-landed from outer space. Awesome.

Just look at those hoofs! And the horns! It's like the designers were drunk drawing this.

I immediately leveled up a draenei paladin to 37, at which point I decided PvP servers were not for me and I switched to a non-PvP server. I was busy leveling up my new Horde character so I forgot about the draenei until a few weeks ago when I started leveling up a draenei shaman. She's currently 30. But now I am faced with a decision, one that has stumped many others before me, that has incited dozens of articles and webpages dedicated to sorting out that all-important question: shaman or paladin?

No other two classes are compared against each other so often, and with such zeal (I think....). Once upon a time, paladins were only available to the Alliance while shamans were only available to the Horde, so the two classes were intentionally pitted against each other by Blizzard. That changed with BC when the classes became available to both sides. So even though technically these two classes aren't supposed to stand against each other anymore, the debate is still there. I know I'm still wading through it.

I started a paladin because I had never played one before and they certainly seemed to have an easy time of it by getting into their little bubble that absorbs all damage, and healing to full health in an instant, and wearing plate armor. But I think I was getting bored with the paladin, there just didn't seem to be anything too interesting going on. When I started my second draenei, I decided to try a shaman because I just really like shamans. As I write this now, I realize there's no good reason why, I just do, so I did.

But now I've decided to really evaluate that decision. I mean, I already have a shaman, I already leveled up my troll shaman all the way to 72. Why bother leveling up a second one? Shouldn't I try something new? Was the paladin really that boring? Won't I get my butt kicked a lot less if I'm a paladin? Don't shamans get invited to less groups than paladins? Aren't shamans more fun? Do I really want to start a draenei for the third time?

On and on, believe me, I bore myself, it's not just you. In the end, I have no idea. I can barely decide if I would rather have a waffle or an english muffin with cheese when I go out to breakfast. I wish WoW people read this and I could get bullied into picking one. Or that more people read this and I could put it to a vote. As it is, I will probably agonize about it for a few more days until I finally settle with the path of most laziness and decide to not start a character over and be content to have my shaman and get my butt whooped by paladins and always think: "darn it, the grass looks greener on that paladin's lawn..."

What is the Deal with Seinfeld?

I've accomplished a (relatively) monumental task, that of watching all nine seasons of Seinfeld from start to finish. This monumental task is, actually, diminished by the fact that over the course of my life I have, at one point or another, watched every single Seinfeld episode ever made. There was not one episode in the entire collection that I did not recognize. I'm not sure what that says, or if it says anything, but the point is that I've always loved Seinfeld and I guess it shows.

In terms of the Seinfeld episodes, there was not much new for me to discover by watching the whole collection except for a couple of bits of information that I never quite pieced together before. These have added to my Seinfeld lore. For example, at the end of season two Jerry and Elaine reunite as a couple. This storyline was only there because the creators (Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David) were certain the show wouldn't be picked up for season three. But, it is not a storyline the creators wanted to pursue, which is why there is no continuity between seasons two and three. Also, I didn't realize David stopped writing for Seinfeld. Consequently, episodes from seasons 8 and 9 have a very different feel from what the beginning of the show was. In particular, I missed the opening bits of Seinfeld doing his standup comedy.

I also learned that Kramer's name was actually Kessler in the pilot, which connects to a subtle joke in episode 8 of season 9 (The Betrayal, the famous backwards episode) that has a scene where Jerry and Kramer meet for the first time and Jerry, trying to remember Kramer's name, says "It's Kessler, right?" Actually, I learned several other tidbits of information that I never knew, mostly from the DVD extras. My favorite DVD extra was the "Notes About Nothing." During the episodes, instead of subtitles, you can activate the notes, which contain trivia about the episodes, the storylines, the production, etc.

I also never quite realized how many jokes or situations from one episode resurface in later episodes. There are several running jokes like this that span entire seasons. It was also interesting to watch how much the show grew, from being on the brink of cancellation during the first few seasons to exploding into a huge hit. It went from being written solely by David (who really didn't want the gig to begin with) and Seinfeld to being written by a large team.

It's hard to pick favorite episodes but on the top of my list is The Opera, episode 9 from season 4. I think this one is my all time favorite because it has a creepy, suspenful feel to it with the stalker and the clown, and it also has Jerry doing a hilarious song and dance of the theme song from The Bugs Bunny Show, and Kramer singing bits from Pagliacci. From the "notes about nothing" I learned that the Crazy Joe Davola character was named after someone the writers actually knew. This is the character that stalks Elaine during the episode. In real life, Julia Louis-Dreyfus didn't know there was a real person named Joe Davola so she was seriously freaked out when the real Joe Davola introduced himself to her at a party, thinking it was a real stalker. The Betrayal is another really good episode, which can be watched forwards on the DVD (but it's better backwards). I also find that I've picked up quite a few Seinfeld lines that I say all the time: serenity now, look at it, these pretzels are making me thirsty, that's a shame, if that helps you.

I must acknowledge something that I knew back in 1998 when the episode first aired, and that is that the series finale was pretty bad. I'm sure the pressure was huge to end the series with a bang, and there's also the feeling that there just isn't a good enough ending to a show like this. But it went pretty bad there at the very end. I didn't have a problem with them ending up in jail and that part of the plot (that's actually not bad). And I also really liked that they brought back so many memorable guest characters. But the episode itself was too serious at times, and it was very fragmented, and some of the guest characters were not that funny. Worst of all, I was actually a bit bored. I had hoped that time would give me a different perspective, but I still think that was the worst Seinfeld episode. However, the hour-long clip show that preceded the series finale is another Seinfeld episode I would put at the top of my absolute favorites list. It certainly makes the list for best clip show for a sitcom, hands down.

I think the next DVD show I must compulsively own and watch is Stargate SG-1.

Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

This is going to be one of those reviews where I won't be able to do the book any justice. This is one the books listed in my deck of cards, 52 Great Books to Read, so I figured it would be good. It was, in fact, amazing, and that's not saying much. It follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, an African-American living in Michigan. His nickname, Milkman, is given to him after neighbors discover that his mother has breastfed him way past the appropriate age. His grandfather was erroneously registered as Macon Dead after he was released from slavery. His father has overcome a difficult childhood to establish himself as one of the most prosperous people in his town. His mother has shut down emotionally due to her abusive and unloving marriage. His sisters have allowed life to pass them by. His aunt saved his life while he was still in the womb. His cousin has fallen dangerously in love with him. His best friend Guitar wants to kill him. The novel explores the lives of all these characters, weaving in and out of their stories, of the past, the present.

It's one of those books that is probably assigned in English class. The discussion will most certainly include racism, the quest for identity, the plight of women who are left behind to assume responsibilities after men pursue their own freedom, the significance and relevance of Biblical names and allusions, the search for one's ancestry and its effect on the present, the effects of greed and unrequited love, the nurturing female, and not to mention symbolism (singing, flying, names).

It's been compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," because of its fluidity of prose, its focus on the impact of ancestors on subsequent generations and the character traits that resurface over and over, and some use of magical realism (talking to ghosts, a woman born without a navel, people flying). The prose is certainly impressive and it became my favorite thing about the book, because I would pick it up and be immersed immediately and not want to put it down. It is a beautifully written, captivating story. It has a leisurely pace for the first 3/4 or so, where Morrison weaves between the stories of the different characters. The last quarter of the book is absolutely gripping and even grander than everything that preceded it.

There may have to be another Morrison book for me in the future.

16 books done, 36 to go.

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

The desert he rode was red and red the dust he raised, the small dust that powdered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led. This is not how McCarthy's novel starts, but it sums up quite nicely the main imagery of the story, which is that of a young cowboy riding through the desert plains of Mexico, owning nothing but a horse, having left behind his dead beloved grandfather and his uncaring mother who sold out their farm from under him, looking for nothing more than a place to go. I didn't have any expectations for this book. I only picked it because I needed a new audio book and this one was narrated by Frank Muller, who I've gone on about before for being an awesome narrator. I really need to write a post on Muller alone because I've pretty much decided that I will only listen to his books until I have no more of his books to listen to.

Anyway, more about the audio book later. I picked this particular book narrated by Muller because it promised to be a cowboy story and I did just finish reading Wizard and Glass and wanted more cowboy-type stories. The end result was that I love this book.

I'm no expert on cowboys (beyond watching Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven...ok, watching for the most part with some dozing off), but McCarthy seems to know his stuff. In any case, for the uninitiated like me, the western culture sounded very believable. I'm also no expert on horses but, again, the writing sounds like McCarthy is an expert on horses (or a very good researcher).

The story is about John Grady Cole who leaves his home in Texas after his grandfather's death and, along with his friend Lacey Rawlins, heads for Mexico to find work as a cowboy. Along the way, they meet up with a mysterious kid who calls himself Jimmy Blevins. What follows is a series of unfortunate events, a wealthy ranch owner and his beautiful daughter, wild colts and a magnificent stallion, a strong-willed matriarch, a rogue town sheriff, murders, a Mexican jail.

I realize the whole "cowboy falls in love with the wealthy daughter" line is very trite, but damn it if I didn't love this love story and totally believed that Cole and Alejandra were meant for each other and if McCarthy had expanded on the difficult love relationship more than he did I would have bawled. But I didn't, because it isn't a mushy love story, it is a gritty, heartbreaking love story and it might make a decent dramatic telenovela with a cheesier writer but McCarthy keeps the writing raw. He doesn't overload the sentimental details but you still get tenderness, longing, regret, loss. Other events that happen besides the love story can be violent, cruel, sympathetic, funny, depressing, terrifying. It made perfect sense for me to learn that McCarthy also wrote "No Country for Old Men." Also, and I'm having a hard time coming up with ways to describe how the story is told but, some events in the book are told slowly while other events jump out all of a sudden. The effect is that the book can at times be intimate in its leisurely descriptions and at other times be hectic and take you completely by surprise.

The writing style makes use of polysyndetonic syntax, which is not something I would have known on my own but it's what the Wikipedia article on the book mentions, and it certainly is true. Basically, it's the use of extremely long sentences joined together by conjunctions (like "and," "or"). That can be an annoying feature to some, but it really sets up a flow and it is especially interesting to listen to. I'm copying a quote below, which is rather long, but it is a good example of this style.

He stood hat in hand over the unmarked earth. This woman who had worked for his family fifty years. She had cared for his mother as a baby and she had worked for his family long before his mother was born and she had known and cared for the wild Grady boys who were his mother's uncles and who had all died so long ago and he stood holding his hat and he called her his abuela and he said goodbye to her in Spanish and then turned and put on his hat and turned his wet face to the wind and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead.

The audio book was also very good. Muller excels at character voices and giving each voice a distinct personality. His accents (Mexican, southern drawl, female, you name it) are extremely convincing and it's hard to believe that he is the only one doing the voices. I did say the run-on style is interesting to listen to but it can be slightly hypnotic too (but I tend to zone out with any audio book, so it's my fault really).

I have less hope for the movie being good because I remember watching it ages ago and thinking it was boring. Besides, if I watch it with Rock I'll have to hear him say "Matt Damon" like the Team America guys every five minutes. I'm not saying that's not funny. I'm just saying I, too, have a hard time taking Matt Damon seriously. And an equally hard time seeing his name without doing the voice too.

"He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought the world's heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world's pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower."~ "All the Pretty Horses", Cormac McCarthy

True Love

What is true love? How do you know you’ve got that something in a relationship that makes you say “I love this person, and they love me?” Love might be that he has dinner ready every night because he knows I’ve been on a long, stressful drive. Or it might be randomly buying me a chocolate cupcake because he knows chocolate makes any day instantly better. Or putting up with my random sad/whiny/angry moods when I’m being a real jerk and picking a fight and he just wants to be left alone, poor guy. Or taking me to my favorite steakhouse, even though he doesn’t like red meat. But the real proof, I think, was surprising me by transferring my level 72 shaman from our original player vs. player server to our new non PvP server.

For days now I’ve been working myself up to actually spend money to transfer my character. We moved to a non PvP server because we couldn’t go 30 minutes without getting killed by some jerk in our PvP server. There was no way leveling up to 80 was going to happen that way. So we gave up on our dearly beloved characters and started fresh in a server where PvP combat is optional. It worked really well and in no time at all I had a level 71 hunter and he had a level 73 shaman. But I never forgot my original shaman. She was the first character I leveled up to 70, back when that was the leveling cap. She was getting close to maxing out her engineering skill (which, I do believe, is one of the hardest professions in the game). And she actually had her flying mount and epic gear already. But I couldn’t make that final decision and just transfer her already.

Then last week I log into my non PvP server and I do a double-take. Standing in the login screen is Sinadia, in her epic gear, and it takes me a good 10 or 20 seconds to put it together cause I’m bewildered as to how my long-missed shaman has suddenly appeared in my new server. And that was five days ago and I still can’t believe that Rock rushed home to his computer after work (on his bike, no less) to log into my account and pay to transfer my character and make sure she was all ready to go before I got home. It is the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me :)

So there she is. She did get a slightly new name because Sinadia was taken on the new sever, but Sinnadia is close enough I suppose. I can’t wait to work on her engineering skills again and see if I can build myself a motorcycle (why, yes, I did pick engineering as a profession because I’m an engineer, but I think this post has already established that I’m a nerd). Now I need to come up with something equally outstanding and awesome to surprise Rock with. Any ideas?

Mood: lovey
Music: Broken River Prophet's "With Infinite Arms to Cradle the Flames" (it's finally mine! so awesome...)
Movie: City of Ember (soooo you're telling me that all this time you haven't figured out how to use fire for heat and light and cooking? oookaaay... and the best the builders could do for an exit strategy was a water park slide of death? i guess that was to make sure only the fittest survived to repopulate...i see what you did there)

Mirror, Mirror - Gregory Maguire

I think I've been putting off writing this review because I didn’t particularly like the book, but I didn’t dislike it either. It was just ok. Gregory Maguire is best known for his novel “Wicked,” which tells the origins of the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s story “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” That Maguire novel was pretty cool, as it tells the back story of a legendary evil character. In the telling, however, you learn that evil and good are not so black and white, and that both sides can have a little of the other in them. Perhaps I find “Mirror, Mirror” less interesting because it is a pretty straightforward retelling of the Snow White fairy tale, with some adjustments.

The story is set in 16th century Italy, where Don Vicente de Nevada is raising his only daughter Bianca after his wife’s death. There is no stepmother in this story. Instead, Maguire introduces Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, two members of a Valencian-Italian noble family and children of Pope Alexander VI (Maguire based these characters on real people, which is very neat because I would have never heard of this crazy family otherwise). Lucrezia fulfills the role of the evil stepmother in the original story and, instead of being jealous of Bianca’s beauty alone, she is jealous because her brother is attracted to the girl (incest is heavily implied but never stated outright). Also, instead of a mirror that talks and knows who is the most beautiful, the story has a mirror that acts like a window, allowing the viewer to look into other places (it only comes into play when Lucrezia is able to see that Bianca is alive and living with the dwarves, instead of being dead with her heart cut out as intended).

And the dwarves are another matter altogether. These are not the Disney variety. They aren’t even regular people with a medical condition. They are some strange rock-like beings that originate from the earth or something, and they have a collective consciousness that sounds very Borg-like to me, and their features are constantly shifting, and sometimes they are shapeless, and other times they look like dogs, and they can walk through walls. The whole thing sounded pretty stupid to me.

Other than that, it is pretty much the story you expect, down to the evil woman asking a hunter to cut out Bianca’s heart, and the hunter letting the girl go instead, and the girl meeting up with the dwarves, and the poisoned apple, and the sleeping that looks like death, and being revived with a kiss (no Prince Charming though, but I guess the kisser is supposed to be a plot twist so I won’t say who it is).

The most interesting character was Lucrezia. This aspect is similar to what Maguire did for “Wicked” (and, I’ve heard, for “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister”), and that is to explore the concept of good and evil as I mentioned above. Lucrezia is pretty twisted, allegedly not opposed to sleeping with her brother, definitely not opposed to killing her own children, or other people’s children. But her life was not always her own and she was constantly married off to people by her father and brother to advance their political careers (and her many husbands killed to make way for the next one). She had a cushioned life but not a carefree life, and rather than being all-out evil, she’s actually pretty conflicted. I also like what he did with Bianca who is actually the least developed character in the novel. She just stands for innocence, in contrast to Lucrezia. As such, Maguire didn’t write “Snow White” (his story isn’t about her); he wrote a story about greed and jealousy and revenge.

I find that I also have a hard time liking the way Maguire writes. His style sounds very forced to me, like he’s trying too hard to make things sound important and poetic and deep. He has a couple of writing devices that I liked, like some chapters told from different first-person perspectives (told by Lucrezia, or Bianca, or the dwarves) while other chapters are told from the third-person. He also inserts poem verses in between some of the chapters, which develop the personalities of different characters.

I picked this book up because “Wicked” was interesting (and because it made for a good Broadway show). But after reading this one, I doubt I’ll pick up another Maguire book. Not great, not terrible, just all right.

52 Great Books to Read

This is not my list. It is a deck of cards that my friend Villar dared me to pick up. I post it here at the request of my friend Figgy. It also allows me to procrastinate for a couple more days while I write up my next book review (the book was done a week ago...the review has not been started).

I've split it into categories according to what I've read and haven't (for anyone that cares). Feel free to post your own lists in the comments section if you like.

Books I have read:
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Allan Poe
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

Books I read for class, which means I probably just skimmed heavily, and will most likely have to read again
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
To the Lighthouse, Virgina Woolf
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Books I know the plot to but have never actually read (and by "know the plot" I mean "probably watched the movie," so that's not necessarily saying much)
Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
Hamlet, William Shakespeare (recently finished)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Grimm's Fairy Tales, the Brothers Grimm
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells

Books I have never read
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
Ten Little Indians, Agatha Christie
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
Potrait of a Lady, Henry James
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
Native Son, Richard Wright
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

Which, if I didn't leave anything out or lose a card, adds up to 52. Phew...



TV/Music/Book: DJ Shadow, The Private Press (for about 7 days straight now...)

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

This is a weird one to just pick up out of the blue. In fact, it was picked out of a deck of cards. See, many, many years ago (odd how I’m old enough to say many, many years and realize that it has actually been about ten years…eesh) my best friend Villar gave me “52 Great Books to Read” (actually a misleading title cause it includes plays and short stories). She wrote an inscription on the box: “let’s see if it’s true that you’ll read them.” Well the dare was set ages ago and, in my customary speediness, I am now taking up that dare. I’ve had a bit of a head start over the years and have already read 14 of those listed (some read many, many, many years ago, such that I don’t necessarily remember the plot, but it’s having read them that counts). So, I took out the 14 I had read, shuffled the rest, and picked out a card at random. That was Hamlet. Many thanks to Project Gutenberg for being awesome and having ebooks available. Check them out, they’re free and legal (all books with expired copyrights).

First off, a disclaimer. Shakespeare is seriously hard to read sometimes. Maybe it’s because I’ve been out of school too long. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had an English lit class since, well…actually…I don’t think I did take a class in the English Department at college ever…hmm…I remember I read stuff…but maybe it was philosophy or some such. Or maybe it’s because I am really quite illiterate. Regardless, it was a tad rough getting through this thing. So, many thanks also go out to Spark Notes.

I think the general gist of the play is well known (and there have been several stage and screen adaptations, some including Shakespearian-trained actors like Kenneth Branagh, some including unlikely megastars like Mel Gibson, some including guys like Ethan Hawke): Hamlet’s father, recently deceased, appears to Hamlet as a ghost to inform him that his wife-stealing, poison-dripping, murdering brother stole his wife, dripped poison down his ear, and effectively murdered him (the father, not Hamlet). The ghost wants Hamlet to get his full revenge on and Hamlet agrees. The rest of the play is filled with Hamlet dallying back and forth about whether to kill his uncle and how to do it, all the while pretending to be insane so that people don’t think he’s up to something (or, at least, so that people think he’s up to something like being crazy but not up to something like planning the perfect crime). Somewhere in there we get hints that Hamlet and Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius who is the King’s advisor, had a thing going on but now that Hamlet is pretending to be crazy, he’s also pretending he never liked Ophelia at all. According to SparkNotes this has much to do with Hamlet now being a misogynist because his mother, the Queen, has wedded his uncle so shortly after his dad’s death.

After Hamlet goes through some soul-searching and accidentally kills Polonius, and after the King ships Hamlet off to England, and after the ship gets attacked by pirates and Hamlet is sent back to Denmark, and after Ophelia goes crazy and kills herself, and after the King and Laertes (Ophelia’s brother) devise a plan to murder Hamlet, the play comes to it’s renowned grisly end: Laertes stabs Hamlet with a poisoned sword, Hamlet stabs Laertes with a poisoned sword, Hamlet stabs the King and forces poison down his throat, and the Queen accidentally drinks poison, and everyone dies. The end.

The story was not a surprise to me and I have no strong feelings for it except it’s a good revenge story. What I didn’t realize till I read it is what a complex character Hamlet really is. We want to think of him as a hero and victim (the play is about him after all, and his father, whom he loved very much, was taken away from him by his very own uncle). But he is also one screwed up guy. In pretending to be crazy, there is a fine line he’s crossing where he really does seem to be going crazy. He has no qualms about killing Polonius or about violently confronting his mother or about telling Ophelia that he never loved her at all or about sending two of his friends to be executed. In one scene, the King is by himself and it is Hamlet’s opportunity to kill him. However, the King is praying so Hamlet decides to wait because what’s the point of killing someone that just finished confessing when that would send him to Heaven instead of Hell? Better to wait until he’s sinning and condemn him to Hell that way. I mean, the guy is seriously a jerk and a badass at the same time.

Here’s what he says to his mother when he confronts her about marrying his uncle so quickly:

Queen.
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--

In case you’re wondering, enseamed bed does mean what it kinda sounds like it means. Here’s what he says when the King asks him what he did with Polonius' corpse:

King.
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

Ham.
At supper.

King.
At supper! where?

Ham.
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.
[some lines have been cut here]

King.
Where is Polonius?

Ham.
In heaven: send thither to see: if your messenger find him not
there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you
find him not within this month, you shall nose (smell) him as you go up
the stairs into the lobby.

I think now I see why they cast Mel Gibson as Hamlet. It kinda makes me want to watch that movie version. And it kinda makes me want to watch Reinassance Man, too. And I have to mention this somewhere because for some reason I always remember that scene from Clueless where Josh’s girlfriend is saying “to thine own self be true, Hamlet himself said that” and Cher says “no, Hamlet didn’t say that” and the girlfriend says “I think I remember Hamlet accurately” in a snooty tone and Cher scoffs and says “well I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn’t say that, that Polonius guy did” and Josh laughs cause it’s true. It always makes me think of that, go figure.

This is the only Shakespeare play in that deck of cards, so my days of poring over centuries-old english is over for a while. But that is not to say that I won't be picking up another of his plays at some point. I hear Othello is a badass, too.

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. So begins Vonnegut’s book, a story that takes place in Germany during World War II. Billy Pilgrim and several other American soldiers are captured by the Germans and taken to Dresden where they witness, and survive, the February 1945 bombing of the city. This part of the story is based on Vonnegut’s real life experiences as a POW, where he really did witness the bombing of Dresden and survived along with the other POWs and their German guards inside an underground slaughterhouse meatlocker (Slaughterhouse Five is what the real German guards called the detention facility). Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time, meaning that he travels through time to different events in his life, including his childhood, his service during the war and time spent as a POW, his marriage, his old-age as a widower, and his murder. He also visits events in his life that occurred when he was abducted by aliens and put on display in a zoo in the planet of Tralfamadore, where he was wedded to Montana Wildhack, a porn movie star that is also abducted. A reason is never given as to why Billy has come unstuck in time.

I interpreted this unusual plot in two ways (if either is correct, or if none of them are, I don’t know and it probably doesn’t matter): 1) Billy really does become unstuck in time and is able to time travel to different events throughout his life, including a time where he was abducted by real aliens; or, 2) Billy’s experiences during the war, and his repressed memories of those experiences, are turning him insane. I’d say either device is pretty cool.

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to given the subject matter and unusual plot. It is very graphic in its description of war and imprisonment, which is very significant given the source material. As Vonnegut himself says in the prelude (which is really the first chapter), the novel is “short and jumbled and jangled,” with events jumping throughout the book to different moment’s of Billy’s life. During the war, Billy grapples with his ineptness and horror at witnessing a massacre. After the war he grapples with depression. As such, it is a sad and grave book…but in a good way. It is an anti-war book but not in a preachy way. It says: “Look, these are the horrible things that happen during a war. Look.”

Also, for some reason, I liked the descriptions of the science fiction books that the Kilgore Trout character writes (Trout is a science fiction writer that also appears in many other Vonnegut books). Also, it is the sixty-ninth entry to the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000. Just thought I’d put that out there.

Code Monkey

Some of the past weekend was spent helping Rock re-design the back-end code of NobodyComesHere.com. Well, "helping re-design" is too strong a phrase. It might be more accurate to say that first I watched movies while Rock spent hours coding, then I tried very hard to understand as he explained the basics of object oriented programming and PHP, and then I copy/pasted a lot of his original code, deleted certain words, and wrote other words in their place.

I can't say I'm any nearer to writing SQL queries or figuring out what classes to write or how to write a DAO from scratch, but I do know what these things are. And I have some vague concept about the general design of NobodyComesHere.com: there's a database, and data access objects, and a controller...and I think I'm forgetting something. In any case, I found the experience not too unpleasant and, even though I'm not planning to become a programmer any time soon (I still have not forgotten that my only C in college was from the one computer science class I elected to take), I am looking forward to my next coding assignment.

Mood: accomplished
TV/Music/Book: Bridget Jones's Diary. Oh Colin Firth, how do I love thee, let me count the ways...

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Despite my realization that I really need to stop re-reading books and actually find something new, I picked up Catch-22 for the third time. It was the audiobook’s fault, really. It seemed to be the type of book that would lend itself to a good audiobook rendition, so I picked it up.

Reading Catch-22 the first time was a bit frustrating. I had never picked up a book that had that much stream-of-consciousness to it, so it felt very messy and disjointed. Plus, everyone in it, and everything that happens, is absolutely crazy. Well, yeah, that’s the point, I know, but it was too crazy. But I still enjoyed it because it had a very good mix of comedy and tragedy, and also what do they call it when you get both those things at the same time? It had that too.

I read it the second time for no real good reason except that it was there. Having read it the first time, it was much easier to follow along. Everything made perfect sense, everyone was very crazy and very sane at the same time. Now, I’ve read it (heard it) for the third time. One thing never changes: it’s still one crazy book.

The story is about an Air Force Squadron stationed on a fictional island off the coast of Italy during the last stages of World War II. It mostly follows Yossarian, a bombardier who thinks everyone is trying to kill him, particularly the enemy, which is why he refuses to fly more combat missions. However, the story has a huge cast of characters, each with well developed storylines. The story is told in a non-chronological, stream-of-consciousness style from multiple points of view (though all in the third person). No wonder I was lost the first time. Events are told out of order and described from the point of view of different characters, so that the reader learns more about a particular event each time it is re-described.

I certainly appreciate the writing style of the book much more than I did the first time. It seems to be a chaotic book, where many things happen at once and the storylines make no sense the first time they’re introduced, but Heller is very good at weaving events together and fleshing everything out. He relies on paradox, repetition, and circular logic, and is very good at combining comedy and tragedy.

The audiobook format was not as good as I expected. Jay O. Sanders is the narrator. Generally, he does a good job but he can sound a bit morose and sort of like that monotonous teacher that just drones on and on. I didn’t like his voice for Yossarian, who sounded whiny and like a jerk. It’s also my fault for having read it twice already, because certain memorable moments did not sound the way I had imagined them in my head. The narrator is very good in scenes that have several characters, and there are moments where his delivery makes a moment even funnier. But for a book that has many funny moments, it did not sound that funny because of the narrator’s delivery.

Wikipedia is Evil

So there I was, having finished reading Wizard and Glass. Three more books left in the Dark Tower series, all ready for me to start reading them. There was just one issue. Just as fervently as Rock had talked up book four, he assured me that the rest of the series was terrible.

“How terrible?”
“Pretty terrible, you won’t want to waste your time.”
“Interesting.”

Well, I had put my faith in his review of book four, and he was right…would I really want to spend the time and money to find out if he was right about this too? But what could be so bad about them? Incredibly curious, I skimmed through the remaining three books and caught a couple of key words: vampires, wolves, priest from Salem’s lot, Eddie Dean asking Roland “do you know who this Stephen King guy is?” Ok, that was really the one that sealed the deal. I mean, come on, you wrote yourself in the story? Really?

Thoroughly disgusted, I realized I didn’t really care to go through the exercise of finishing the series. After all, even though you need to read books one through three to appreciate four, the really absorbing story of book four is contained within book four…but I was dying to know how the whole thing would end. How to find out? Do they write Cliff’s notes for these things? As it turns out, they do, in a manner of speaking. A quick google search led me to Wikipedia pages. Thus began my slippery slope into reading plot summaries of books I didn’t care about but which had me desperately intrigued. So I found out what happens in the end of the Dark Tower series (very disappointing ending, Mr. King) and I spared myself the suspense. I’m not proud. I spared myself the suspense of reading stories from the master of suspense (he is quite good in that respect). It’s like choosing to get full on French fries rather than going to the most fantastic French restaurant. I know.

Sadly, though, there is no redemption in this story. I decided to watch the Twilight movie when it came out on DVD. I wanted to know why it was the New York Times’ Editor’s Choice and one of Amazon’s Best Books of the Decade…So Far. But I know that the movie is never the same as the book so I read the first book. Well, there’s a lot wrong with this one (the fact that I’m reading a teen angst book being one thing). I won’t go into it, especially when others have done a much better job than I ever could. Suffice it to say that I disagree with the New York Times and Amazon…fervently. Also, I may have found the one and only instance of a movie that actually improves on the book.

In other words, not one of my favorite books. And the story doesn’t end there. It goes on for three more books, each increasingly longer than the last. Well, I think we all know where this story is going. Ten minutes later I’m at the end of the Wikipedia summaries, again not feeling proud of myself, but at least I didn’t spend the next six days gagging and rolling my eyes at the “star-crossed lovers.” I suppose if I had nothing else to do, I would have endured it better.

Finally, the point to all this: Wikipedia is evil. No longer will I have to actually read books (that’s so last century apparently) or even have them read to me. I can just get the bastardized versions and spare myself the trouble. I’ve become like those people that watch the movie instead of reading the book, except it’s like I’m watching the 30-Second Bunnies Theater of The Shining. I should be pelted with tomatoes. But maybe I just don’t like over-bloated, self-glorified, needlessly-lengthy series that manufacture excessive side plots instead of pushing the story forward. What would I know, though, I didn’t read it.