Thank God Almighty!

I am free at last!

My doctor released me to return to work on Wednesday, which means I have to find a job. I have two promising leads, which is exciting.

If that weren't enough good news, this week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. AND I have Batman Legos.

If I don't post again for a while, this time it will be because I am enjoying live instead of enduring it.

Thanks to all of you who prayed and encouraged and cajoled me for the past ten months.

My bookbag

I just finished Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. I first discovered Bryson when Megan gave us his book Notes from a Small Island, about his experiences as an American traveler in England, for Christmas just before we left for Oxford. I loved his witty turn of phrase, and when I saw that he also wrote about linguistics, I was intrigued.

The book lived up to all of the expectations I had of it, although I must admit perturbation at the editor's inconsistency in comma usage. I had to keep repeating, "This isn't Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," although they did have much in common, not least of all the aforementioned witty turn of phrase. Something about England must release witticism.

I learned several great words from this book, including:

velleity - (n.) 1. The lowest degree of desire, with no effort to act. 2. A slight wish not followed by any effort to attain.

polysemy - (n.) The condition of having many meanings.

contronym - (n.) A word with contradictory meanings. E.g., "sanction" can signify permission to do something or a measure forbidding it to be done.

Bryson has a sequel called Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. I can't wait to read it.

I'm also reading Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil, a science fiction story about a terminally-ill elderly man who has his brain transplanted into the body of a young woman. It's odd, but Heinlein's narrative voice is always engaging.

I seem to have given up on The Historian. I say seem because I haven't officially given it up, it just wasn't holding my attention anymore, so I've started reading other books. I intend to return to it some time.

Last week I read Stephen King's Needful Things. It's a great King story, because it showcases his talent for portraying real human evil for which the always terrifying monsters merely aggravate. The movie is next on my Netflix queue, but I've read several reviews and don't hold high hopes for it.

Happy reading!

Two graphic novels

I used up the last of my Barnes and Noble giftcard, but if I take 300 more surveys from Harris Polls, I'll earn another $5 one, so that'll be good.

I got Stephen King's new novel, Cell, and Alan Moore's Watchmen. This means I'm taking a break from The Historian. It's been awhile since I had three books going at once, so it's fun. Watchmen was incredible. I'd recommend it to anyone who loves a good story with original characters, but especially to people who read comics or love superhero movies. Along with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, this book is one of the most influencial on comics today. And although the tones are completely different, "The Incredibles" wouldn't exist without this book.

I'm loving Cell so far. It's different from the King books I usually love. The Shining and It have long sections of character development before anything really horrifying happens (apart from a few terrifying vignettes), but in Cell, the horrifying stuff happens immediately, and you get to know the characters as they deal with it. The plot seems similar to The Stand, but the novel feels more claustrophobic (think of Narnia compared to Middle Earth and you'll know what I mean).

What are you reading? I'm always looking for a good recommendation.

More books for Christmas

I finished Son of a Witch. I didn't like it. I haven't read a book I didn't like in a while, so it was an odd experience, and I don't believe I regret it. Just a heads up to any of you who loved Wicked as much as I did and were thinking about reading the sequel.

I received several books from my parents this past week, including the complete "Peanuts" collection from 1955-8, a new "Zits" book, The God Who May Be by Richard Kearney, and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I'm about 100 pages into The Historian, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a modern retelling of Dracula that incorporates the historical Vlad Tepes III, a.k.a. Dracula (son of the dragon).

With my gift card, I bought Lynne Truss's Talk to the Hand, which I read in one day. Truss also wrote Eats, Shoots & Leaves, another book that I love. I found a book of her fiction and will probably buy it soon. If you hate bad grammar or manners, or if you just love witty prose, check out Truss's books.

Reading Update

I received several great books for my birthday and Christmas and cannot wait to read them all. Christine got me Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, which I read Christmas day. For my birthday she got me Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, the sequel to Wicked. While it's well-written and the character is interesting, it's not holding my attention the way Wicked did. I'm halfway through, and I'm still waiting to see where the story is going. I also got Maguire's book Lost, which is supposedly in the tradition of A.S. Byatt's Possession and ties into Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol. I'm very excited to read that, but will finish this one first.

I have a Barnes and Noble gift card that I'm saving until after the Christmas celebrations end. If I don't receive it, I'll probably buy Alan Moore's Watchmen.

Happy Reading!

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

I fell in love with the works of novelist Anne Rice a few years ago when I took my first Independent Study course in horror fiction. The previous summer I had read Stephen King's The Shining and recognized in the genre the incredible potential for stories about redemption, a theme very strong in Rice's work. Her latest novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, feels like the culmination of the long and frightening journey I began when I began reading Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

My senior thesis paper was titled "Even the Damned Can Learn: The Moral Transformation of the Vampire Lestat." In it I traced Lestat's moral development throughout Rice's epic series leading from his skepticism to, I predicted, his ultimate redemption. Another student was writing a philosophy paper on the sublime in which he was attempting to show how monsters, specifically the vampires of Rice's Chronicles, are beyond morality. One complication in our writing, however, was that the series was not finished; in fact, the final book was released a month before our paper's were due. I was thrilled when I read Lestat's opening line: "I want to be a saint." Throughout the novel, Lestat seeks the redemption and love that he found after an encounter with the incarnate God in Memnoch the Devil, and the novel ends with an act of unselfish love, something Lestat would have been incapable of in previous novels. I was able to finish the paper as I had planned; the other student abandoned his.

Lestat's development has often paralleled Rice's own spiritual journey. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after leaving the Catholic faith she was raised in. "The novel reflected my guilt and my misery in being cut off from God and from salvation," says Rice, "my being lost in a world without light." While Rice's own feelings are expressed by Louis in Interview, she speaks through Lestat throughout the rest of the series. "When I wrote the first book, I was Louis," says Rice. "When I wrote the second one, I was Lestat." The Vampire Lestat reveals Lestat as a being lost in world he doesn't understand, without direction and without hope, but rather than become a nihilist, Lestat creates a morality based on aesthetics.

In Tale of the Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil, Lestat encounters nuns, devils, and even God incarnate, all of whom challenge what he has always believed about the world. At the end of Memnoch, Lestat refuses to be the Devil's assistant, but his experiences have so shattered him that he becomes catatonic for the next few novels.

When Rice wrote Interview, she did not believe in God. When she wrote Memnoch, she was not sure, just as Lestat was unsure whether what Memnoch was showing him was real or some sort of manipulation; the interpretation is left open. But at the conclusion of the series, Rice said, "I believe there is a God."

In response to this newly regained belief, Rice returned to the Catholic Church. "My return to the Catholic Church was a very emotional one," she said. "It happened in 1998 after 30 years of being away. It was gradual. I was observing people around me here in New Orleans and some Catholics. I was back in the milieu where Catholicism was a reality rather than something eccentric." The catalyst for Rice's return was her desire for communion, a desire no doubt felt as she wrote Memnoch. "I wanted to receive the Lord," Rice says, "and I believed that the miracle took place when the priest said the words 'this is my body; this is my blood.' And I wanted to partake again, so I went back to the church."

Rice wrote Blood Canticle, the conclusion to the Vampire Chronicles, after this return to faith. In this novel, Lestat declares his desire to be a saint and says, "I want to save souls by the millions. I want to do good far and wide. I want to fight evil!" Rice herself has made a similar profession, declaring that now she writes only for God, and having concluded both her series of vampires and witches, Rice is working on a trilogy about the life of Christ.

The first novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, is the first-person account of the life of the seven-year-old Jesus. Raised in a Jewish ghetto in Alexandria, Jesus studies under the Jewish philosopher Philo until Joseph, his mother's husband and patriarch of quite a large extended family, declares that they will return to Nazareth. Through the eyes of this first century Jewish boy, readers see the violent tension that existed at the time. On their way home, the family stops in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover at the temple, but Roman soldiers are quelling an uprising, and the boy Jesus sees his countrymen slain by their oppressors. He overhears his family and the men of Israel complaining about Herod Archelaus, whom the Romans have set up as King of the Jews, and Caesar, who has declared himself the Son of God.

While trying to make sense of these issues of cultural importance, Jesus also begins to learn about his own history. His mother warns him that they will face ridicule at home, and when he first visits the synagogue, he is almost denied entry. When he asks his family why they had to go to Egypt, they all become mysteriously silent and afraid.

Rice has always devoted herself to historical accuracy in her novels, and Christ the Lord is no exception. Rice read skeptics and theologians and every translation of the Bible she could find. I was especially excited to read that she studied extensively the works of N.T. Wright, another of my favorite authors. "Wright is one of the most brilliant writers I've ever read," says Rice, "and his generosity in embracing the skeptics and commenting on their arguments is an inspiration. His faith is immense and his knowledge vast."

Rice says that Wright's latest tome, The Resurrection of the Son of God, "answers the question that has haunted me all of my life. Christianity achieved what it did... because Jesus rose from the dead." Rice says, "It was the fact of the resurrection that sent the apostles out into the world with the force necessary to create Christianity, Nothing else would have done it but that."

This revelation led Rice to write the novel as she did, to capture in fiction the Jesus of the Gospels. "Anybody could write about a liberal Jesus, a married Jesus, a gay Jesus, a Jesus who was a rebel," Rice says. "The true challenge was... to take the Jesus of the Gospels, and try to get inside him and imagine what he felt."

Not that Rice is attempting to be objective. She embraces her tradition, and her Catholic beliefs are evident in Mary's perpetual virginity, with James as the son of Joseph from a previous marriage and the rest of Jesus' brothers interpreted as cousins. Rice also includes apocryphal myths about Jesus, such as killing a bully and bringing him back to life and creating pigeons out of clay which then become real. "They were fanciful, some of them humorous, extreme to be sure, but they had lived on into the Middle Ages, and beyond. I couldn't get these legends out of my mind" Rice says. "Ultimately, I chose to embrace this material.... I felt there was a deep truth in it, and I wanted to preserve that truth as it spoke to me." The canon is always the authority, however. "I am certainly trying to be true to Paul when he said our Lord emptied himself for us," Rice says, "in that my character has emptied himself of his divine awareness in order to suffer as a human being."

Rice offers her book to all Christians - "to the fundamentalists, to the Roman Catholics, to the most liberal Christians in the hope that my embrace of more conservative doctrines will have some coherence for them in the here and now of the book. I offer it to scholars in the hope that they will perhaps enjoy seeing the evidence of the research that's gone into it, and of course I offer it to those whom I so greatly admire who have been my teachers though I've never met them and probably never will."

Rice also offers the book to those "who know nothing of Jesus Christ in the hope that [they] will see him in these pages in some form. I offer this novel with love to my readers who've followed me through one strange turn after another in the hope that Jesus will be as real to you as any other character I've launched into the world we now share."

Whether you are new to Rice's works or a longtime reader, whether you're a Jesus Freak or an agnostic, anyone who enjoys a well-written story with a sympathetic and human protagonist will enjoy Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fourth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

It seemed to be no more than some accidental side effect.
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Doing IT

If you couldn't tell by the title, this post contains a discussion about sex in the novel It. Weaker brothers and sisters take heed.

Rachel recently read Stephen King's It (I flatter myself that it was on my recommendation), and we had a brief discussion of a scene we both find troubling. If you haven't read it (get it?), the plot follows a group of children who fight an evil force as a child and must fight it again as adults.

The scene in question takes place after the children (ages 12-14, I believe) have (so far as they know) defeated the creature, but they're still lost in the sewers in which the creature lived. Before finding their way out, all of the guys have sex with the one girl. You're freaked out now, right? Everyone who reads it is. But after reflecting on the book and King's work as a whole, I think I understand the significance.

As forces of good opposed to evil, the children forge a mystical bond that allows them to work perfectly together to overcome the creature. But after defeating the creature, the bond is broken, with the children still lost in the sewer. Realizing that they must reforge the bond, Beverly, the girl, offers herself to the group. The children know that sex unites people in a mystical way, a fact that eludes many adults.

One of the themes in the novel is the need for the adults to become children again in order to confront the evil force. What is less obvious (except in this scene and a handful of others) is how the children are forced to become adults. King often writes about children who are more mature, responsible, and loving that the adult characters, and here his characters reveal the power of sex in an unsettling way. I think we can agree that our society's views of sexuality could stand to be unsettled.

Intrical: A Perfectly Cromulent Word?

A nonsense arrangement of sounds has entered the English language and is masquerading as a word. It arises not only in casual conversation, but in classrooms, business meetings, and in the lectures presented by brilliant men who ought to know better. The amalgam of syllables is "intrical."

As best as I can tell, the word speakers mean is "integral," which has several meanings, but the only definition to which I can attach the nonsensical "intrical" is "existing as an essential constituent or characteristic." The pronunciation of "integral" seems to have become confused with "intricate" (which OneLook.com defines as "highly involved or intricate," which is stupid because you cannot use a word in the definition of itself or the definition becomes self-referential to the point of being rendered meaningless and language collapses! Anyway, I have now removed the online reference from my links list).

"Intrical" is not a word, and we who care about language must not stand for it. We ignored "nucular" and it penetrated our government to the uppermost. We cannot allow the same thing to happen here. If someone uses it as a word, call them on it. If you noticed someone with a festering sore, would you ignore it out of decorum? No. It's dangerous and must be treated as such. Don't allow this cancer to destroy the integrity of language, or someday, you may hear the president talk about the collapse of linguistic "intricaty."

Thank you for your help. Tune in next time when I explain the difference between "jive" and "jibe." While your opinion of linguistic integrity may not dance to jazz music with mine, I doubt that's the message you mean to convey.

Life-changing books

I'm going to take a break from casting and ask a question that I hope generates a lot of thought and discussion, both here and among you and your literary acquaintances. What book was critical in the development of the way you now think? It may be a story, a philosophical text, a science book, anything. Any book, that is. And I don't mean Book, either. The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Vedas - those don't count. I don't want your over-arching meta-narrative, but a book that helped you make better sense of it. I'll answer, but first I'd like to hear your answers.

Renfield

I know that in the book, Renfield is small and slender, but I think Ray Winstone ("King Arthur," "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe") could portray a Renfield that is both refined and dangerous.

Dr. Jack Seward

What's more modern than a psy- chologist? I cannot abide the repression inter- pretation of Dracula, in case that isn't clear yet. I would cast Jeremy Northam ("The Net," "Possession") as Jack Seward.

Quincey P. Morris

Viggo Mortensen ("The Lord of the Rings," "A History of Violence") seems to me an obvious choice for Lucy's Texan suitor.

Arthur Holmwood, Lord Godalming

The role of Lucy's fiance would be played by Sean Bean ("The Lord of the Rings," "The Island"), whose first and last names should rhyme, but don't. He's an imposing figure who proved in "Troy" that he can pull off royalty.

Lucy Westenra

The influence of "Bram Stoker's Dracula" is probably why I see Lucy Westenra with red hair, but I think it is striking in the victim of a vampire and recalls Edvard Munch's painting. Also, Kate Winslet ("Eternal Sunchine of the Spotless Mind," "Finding neverland") is gorgeous, and I want her in my movie.

Mina Harker

As Mina Harker, I'd cast Kate Beckinsale ("Van Helsing," "The Aviator"). She's beautiful, can play intelligent, and showed in "Underworld" that she can both oppose and be a part of supernatural evil.

Jonathan Harker

Yes, a shaved chimp would have made a more convincing Jonathan Harker than Keanu Reeves, but Harker is not much of a character (a testament to how truly bad an actor Reeves is that he couldn't pull it off). I think Christian Bale ("Little Women," "Batman Begins") could get inside of his head and show us who Jonathan Harker is and what he felt while trapped in Castle Dracula. Here is one area where I won't be a purist. Give Harker a personality.

Abraham Van Helsing

As the Dutch professor Abraham Van Helsing, I would cast Dutch actor Rutger Hauer ("Blade Runner," "Batman Begins"). Is this idea really so difficult? The American tendency to portray anyone foreign as English ("Troy," etc.) looked particularly foolish in Anthony Hopkins's ridiculous turn as Dracula's nemesis. And why is the Van Helsing character German in "Monster Squad"? Hauer looks the part, was born in the Netherlands, and is a great actor. Why hasn't he been cast in this role before?

Dracula

My choice for Count Dracula is Adrien Brody ("The Pianist," "The Village"). Read some of the descriptions of Dracula in the novel: thin face, hooked nose, sharp teeth. Brody needs minimal makeup to carry the role perfectly. With a Hungarian-born mother, Brody even has the right ethnicity for the count. I also think he can pull off being hypnotic without being attractive (not to say that he is not an attractive man, but he could play Dracula, who, I will say again, is not attractive!).

Casting Call: Dracula

Last time I cast Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Tonight, I will share my cast for a movie based on Dracula.

C.S. Lewis said that a myth is a story everyone has heard of, even if they can't remember reading it. By that definition, Dracula is most certainly a modern myth. And yet, adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel tend to fall short of the original masterpiece. Basically, they suck.

I'm not a purist, and I realize that part of its being a myth is its retelling and recreation. But it should still be good. Bela Lugosi wasn't bad, but films have come so far, and the 1992 version was an absolute travesty. Keanu Reeves with a British accent? Gary Oldman deserved a much better movie.

The Christopher Lee Hammer Dracula films were the first to set the story back in its original setting. In so doing, they changed the meaning of the story. At the time they were made, the Victorian era was seen as a backward, patriarchal system that was to be overcome. Enter Dracula, a suave seducer who frees women from this world and introduces them to sensuality. The common interpretation of Dracula as a story about repressed sexuality did not appear until after "Horror of Dracula" was released.

In Stoker's novel, Dracula is an ancient evil who is opposed by utterly modern men. And women. The group of friends who oppose Dracula use trains (a recent invention), victrolas, and typewriters. While the image of the female secretary has become stereotypical, when typewriters were invented, they were seen as a tool for female liberation. Suddenly, women who could type were welcome into the male dominated workforce. Mina not only types all of the journals, but she memorizes the train schedules and eventually puts them in contact with Dracula. In fact, the most fatal error the group commits is leaving Mina out of their confidences because she's a woman. Dracula is about men and women as equals opposing ancient evil that seeks to kill, not seduce.

My "Dracula" would be set in the early 1900s, but would establish the historical context in a way that portrays the progressive nature of the heroes who are still willing to rely on faith as the only way to overcome evil.

Vampire Chronicles

That takes care of the major characters from The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned. If I've forgotten anyone, or you think another actor would be appropriate, let me know.

To view the list, scroll down to Casting Call, and work your way up.

David Talbot

As the elderly, British, homosexual leader of the Talamasca, I would cast elderly, british, homosexual actor Ian McKellen ("X-Men," "The Lord of the Rings").

Pandora

There are several categories for describing female beauty. There's hot, attractive, beautiful, and gorgeous. Then there's Angelina Jolie ("The Bone Collector," "Mr. and Mrs. Smith").

This woman seems created to play a vampire. Flawless and evil-looking, Jolie is perfect as the vampire who stole Marius's heart.

Maharet

Connie Nielson ("The Devil's Advocate," "The Hunted") has the kind of beauty that can be both sensual and motherly (I don't need any Freudian comments from any of you), as seen in "Gladiator." This would make her well suited for the role of Maharet, one of the first vampires.

Mekare is difficult for me to cast. She doesn't speak and doesn't have much of a role. Also, she is Maharet's twin, so the actress would have to either look like or be Connie Nielson, and despite today's technology, the same actor playing two roles in the same scene never looks great.

That said, I think Tori Amos would be interesting as Mekare.

Enkil

As Akasha's husband, Enkil, I would cast Monica Bellucci's husband, Vincent Cassel ("Brotherhood of the Wolf," "Ocean's 12").

Yes, I know "Those Who Must Be Kept" were black in the movies, but Akasha and Enkil are Egyptian, and Egyptians aren't black.

Akasha: Queen of the Damned

Akasha is the mother of all vampires, and as such, she embodies everything that vampires are - mysterious, powerful, sensual, and hypnotically attractive. The actress who plays her must also do this, and no one does so more than Monica Bellucci ("Brotherhood of the Wolf," "The Matrix: Reloaded"). Her vampiric talents are wasted in the horribly misnamed "Bram Stoker's Dracula."

Marius

When Anne Rice first considered the possibilty of her books being made into movies, she envisioned Rutger Hauer ("Blade Runner," "Batman Begins") as Lestat, and Hauer is mentioned as one of Lestat's favorite actors in the series. He's obviously too old now, but he would be great as Lestat's mentor.

Incidentally, Hauer is my ideal choice for Abraham VanHelsing if anyone gets around to making a good Dracula movie.

Magnus

Ever since Christopher Lee ("Dracula (1958)," "The Lord of the Rings") portrayed Dracula as a suave seducer in Hammer's horror films, people have misinterpreted the story as being about sexual repression. As penance, Lee will play Magus as he should have played Dracula, as disgusting, old, and despicable. He did this well in LOTR, so he should be able to carry the brief but memorable role of the vampire who forces himself upon Lestat.

Armand

For the evil and eternally youthful Armand, I would cast Elijah Wood ("The Lord of the Rings," "Sin City"). Armand is a character who was raised a Christian, but made a vampire. He struggles to come to terms with his beliefs and his evil nature. Wood portrays this sort of inner struggle well in "The Fellowship of the Rings."

While I enjoy Antonio Banderas as an actor, he just didn't look the part enough in "Interview."

Gabrielle de Lioncourt

As Lestat's mother and first victim/beneficiary of Lestat's new powers, I would cast Rebecca De Mornay ("The Three Musketeers," "Stephen King's The Shining"). She's strikingly beautiful and is at home in the horror genre.

Louis de Pointe du Lac

I'm not trying to replace Brad Pitt, who gave a wonderful performance as Louis in Interview, but he's done it, so it's time to make room for someone else. My choice is Henry Cavill ("The Count of Monte Cristo"). I've only seen him in "The Count of Monte Cristo," so I can't really comment on his acting, but he looks the part.

I know several people who wanted to see him as Cedric Diggory in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," but since that didn't happen, fans may enjoy seeing him in another fantasy franchise.

Lestat de Lioncourt

My choice for Lestat is Jude Law ("Cold Mountain," "Closer"). As anyone familiar with the books knows, Interview with the Vampire is Louis's story, and Tom Cruise was great as Lestat as Louis sees him. Stuart Townsend did well with what he was given, which wasn't much, but while Townsend is a beautiful man, as is Lestat, he is not a great actor.

Jude Law combines attractiveness, impishness, and talent in a way that could perfectly translate Lestat qua Lestat to the big screen.

Christine doesn't think that Lestat's long hair would work in the film, but I can't imagine him without it.

Casting Call: The Vampire Chronicles

One of Christine's and my favorite games to play is "Casting Call." We choose a book and decide what actors we would cast as the characters.

One of our favorite series is Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Two movies have been made, and while I enjoy "Interview with the Vampire" and thought Stuart Townsend was an inspired choice for Lestat in "Queen of the Damned," neither truly captures what we love about the series. So we cast our own movie.

The following is my choice, and Christine contests some of them.

I want to see a movie that begins with The Vampire Lestat. Lestat, disappointed with how he has been portrayed in previous films, determines to make his own movie telling his story as he sees it. It would end with the same cliffhanger ending as the book and lead into a good version of Queen of the Damned. These movies would actually be good, so the whole series would be filmed.

I'm still reading

I know it's been a while since I updated this blog, mostly because the literary discussions I tried to generate went nowhere. If you're interested in discussing Harry Potter, here are a couple of good blogs: Uppity Women Unite! and Page 37.

I've recently returned to Stephen King, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers. I read Cujo and 'Salem's Lot. I really had no interest in either, but I love Stephen King and want to eventually read all of his stuff. I was pleasantly surprised. Salem's Lot is an early King novel, and he does some things in it that he learns to do better later on. It sort of reminded me of The Tommyknockers, which I think is great.

Cujo was the biggest surprise for me. It epitomized everything I love about King's stories. Yes, he creates memorable monsters, but for me the strength of his storytelling is the realistic depictions of good and evil in everyday human life. In Cujo, there is a monster dog terrorizing a small town, but from the beginning, had people treated each other with love, the disaster would have been avoided. Despite King's admission that he was too drugged up to even remember writing Cujo, I highly recommend it.

I've read quite a few graphic novels this summer as well, which leads me to a discussion question that I always find interesting. If you could have any super power, what would it be? Answer first, and then ask yourself why. Is it because you personally would derive a lot of satisfaction out of the power, or because you could do the greatest amount of good with it? Right now I would choose the ability to make people shut up. I admit I would choose it for selfish reasons, but I do believe it would do a great amount of good.

Snape is Dumbledore's son!

Oh, shoot. Did I ruin the ending for you?

I just finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which, if you ask me, should have been called Harry Potter and the Comma Splice. Good Lord! Jo, I love your work, but get an editor who appreciates the integrity of the English sentence. Anyway.

As with the fifth book, I finished it in two days, so they're still engaging. I don't know how I feel about it yet, though. I'm excited for the final chapter.

For a discussion of Snape's morality, see my friends the Rachels' blog, Uppity Women Unite!

Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka

I started Catcher in the Rye, but was unable to get into it again. I brought it to my parents house with me, but my mom has so many books that I was distracted by them. the first night I stayed there, I had trouble sleeping, so i picked up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and read it all the way through. I can't help but think of Gene Wilder when I read it. I don't anticipate having that problem with Johnny Depp. I love Johnny Depp, and even the movies I've seen him in that I didn't like ("Pirates of the Carribean," "Sleepy Hollow," "From Hell"), I still thought he was good. But his casting as Willy Wonka is just ridiculous. I'll see the movie, but I don't have very high hopes.

I've been wanting to read more Stephen King lately, but I've also been enjoying realistic fiction. Fortunately, I bought my brother the book Different Seasons, which has the short story that "The Shawshank Redemption" is based on. I read that story the second night, and on the third, I started "Apt Pupil." I love Stephen King. Even his so called non-horror stories powerfully illustrate the battle between good and evil, or as King expresses it, order and chaos.

I'm still reading through NT Wright's lectures on the New Problem of Evil. I'd encourage you to check them out over at the NT Wright Page.

Catch this!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower got me thinking about The Catcher in the Rye, so that's what I'm reading next. Interesting how plans change, isn't it? I had planned to read a lot of science-fiction and fantasy, and now I'm reading stuff that is the exact opposite. I may get around to the other stuff, and I'll definitely read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when it comes out, but I may just stick with realistic fiction for a while. Any recommendations?

I can't believe I read the whole thing!

I just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's been a long time since I read an entire book in one day. I think the last time was Goodbye Mr. Chips. Anyway, it was good. If Evan ever recommends a book, I second it.

The perks of being unemployed

After posting earlier today, I decided that rather than continuing to talk about how restless and unproductive I feel, I would just stop. Today I finally followed my schedule for the first time. I read for three hours today. First, I read NT Wright's second lecture on the problem of evil. then, because I felt like fiction, I looked at the bookshelf we just set up in our room. On the top shelf was a book my brother recommended. It's called The Perks of Being a Wallflower. My brother doesn't recommend a lot of fiction, so I knew that there had to be something special about it. I'm about halfway through it now, but only because I'm such a slow reader. In style and theme, it's very similar to The Catcher in the Rye, another great book that is referenced often in this one. But the plot is different. I'm really enjoying it, and it has made me want to read more.

I also wrote my thousand words for the day. My friend Andrew, who is the only one to comment on any of my book discussions, and I are writing a story, and we worked out a schedule where we e-mail a scene idea, then we write the scene and return it with another scene idea. I wrote my first scene today. It's not great, but a lot of stuff came out in it that I wasn't expecting. I love when that happens.

In addition to the reading and writing, I exercised, made breakfast, and dusted the basement. I think Christine feels neglected because I've been in the basement all day, but she's doing math anyway.

Wednesday I leave for Grand Rapids while Christine takes a road trip with a friend to one of the Dakotas for another friend's wedding. We both get home on Monday, which is her birthday. I got her some great gifts, and I'm dying to tell someone what they are, but every time I tell someone about a surprise that I'm planning for her, she overhears. She says it's not on purpose, but I also know that she hates surprises, so I am less than convinced.

Happy reading!

My summer reading

Summer has unofficially begun, and I am sad to say that I have not read as much as I had hoped. I did finish The Dark Knight Returns, though. It was excellent: great story, great artwork, great cast. This is the graphic novel that redefined Batman as we know him today. It had a direct influence on Tim Burton's "Batman" (odd that Burton would later claim to never have read a comic book), which in turn inspired Batman: The Animated Series, probably the best Batman stories outside of the comics to date. Anyone interested in Batman or comics in general should check out this book.

I'm about halfway through The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but it is not holding my attention. It's not bad, but not great. I just picked up Stephen King's On Writing, and I am hopeful that it will inspire me to write on a more regular basis than I have been. I also started HG Wells's War of the Worlds, but only because I want to read it before seeing the movie, and the movie already looks so lame that I'm having trouble sticking with it.

I am reading a lot of NT Wright's essays from the NT Wright Page. For a discussion of his series of lectures on evil, visit Screwing for Virginity.

I'm interested to know what you're reading and what you'd recommend to an avid reader currently in a literary wasteland.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Well, the Wicked discussion kind of tanked, so let's move on to one of my favorite Sci-Fi novels, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Tom Clancy has said of Robert A. Heinlein, "We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. He shows us where the future is." Nowhere is this more true than in Heinlein's gripping tale of revolution on the moon in 2076, where "Loonies" are kept poor and oppressed by an Earth-based Authority that turns huge profits at their expense. A small band of dissidents, including a one-armed computer jock, a radical young woman, a past-his-prime academic and a nearly omnipotent computer named Mike, ignite the fires of revolution despite the near certainty of failure and death.

My favorite character in the novel is Professor Bernardo de la Paz, or Prof. If Mike is the brains of the revilution, Prof is the conscience. And this fact is what is so troubling and fascinating about him. Our introduction to him is very telling. We know before we meet him that he is a vegetarian, but at dinner, he calls the ham salmon, and thereby eats it without violating his ethical code.

This happens throughout the rest of the novel. Prof is a pacifist, but he leads the war against Earth. He is an anarchist, but he leads the newly formed senate.

So the first discussion question is this:
What do you make of the discrepancy between Profs beliefs and his actions? Is there ever a time when personal ethics should be ignored for the sake of the greater good?

These won't be graded.

By the pricking of my thumb...

I talked earlier about discussing Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress as our first book discussion, but after deliberating and discussing with friends who want to be involved, I decided we'd talk about Gregory Maguire's Wicked.

The way this will work is I will give a discussion topic, and the comments will relate to that. After about a week or so (sooner or later depending on how discussion goes), I will post a new question, and discussion will proceed the same way.

Question #1

What does Maguire say about the nature of evil? How do his ideas develop throughout the novel? What does Maguire's final statement say about the other theories offered throughout the story?

These will be graded.

Summer Reading Lists

As my time in Oxford draws to an end, I turn my attention toward summer and one of my favorite summer traditions: the summer reading list. I've been exchanging recommendations with friends, and I keep saying, "I'll add it to my list," but my list as such has been a shadowy idea in the back of my mind. In this post, I will attempt to solidify it. It includes a lot of science fiction, so I may decide halfway through the summer that I want a change.

On Writing by Stephen King
In May I'll be graduating with a BA in writing, and this summer I plan to follow King's schedule of writing 1000 words a day and reading for three hours. I'm a painfully slow reader, so my list may be a bit optimistic.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
This is the book I hope will be the first we discuss in depth on this blog. I've recommended it to several people (a few of whom expressed interest).

A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Many Waters by Madeline L'Engle
I received the first book of this trilogy as a Christmas gift from my 3rd grade teacher, who died of cancer a few years ago. This has been one of my favorite series for a long time, and I reread them my sophomore year. Recently Racie and I have been discussing them, and I want to go back to them. If I still love them as much as I'm sure I will, I'd like to read L'Engle's O'Keefe novels.

The Penultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The first novel was the only extra-curricular reading I did this term (until Moon distracted me from studying for my exam), and I loved it. I'm looking forward to the movie release at the end of the month.

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
I read the trilogy for the first time last summer (appalling, I know). I listened to them on tape while cleaning an elementary school from top to bottom. I still maintain that the first half of Fellowship is the most boring stuff in print, and I can't stand Tom Bombadil, but after spending some time in Oxford, I feel I have a better grasp of Tolkien's vision (better than Peter Jackson anyway). I haven't read The Hobbit yet, so I'll probably start there.

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
Many people have recommended this book to me, and I am intrigued, so I hope to get around to it this summer.

A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey by Brian McClaren
Evan recommended this book to me, and I told him I'd read it if he read Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves by Calvin Seerveld.

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
I have to have a graphic novel on my list, and with what looks to be the first really good Batman movie coming out in July, what better than Frank Miller's classic revitalization of the Batman mythos?

That's my list as it stands so far. I've probably forgotten something, and it will surely evolve as the summer progresses. For those of you composing your own reading lists, I've listed several resources below.

Online Reading Lists
Introduction to Horror Fiction
This is my Amazon.com Listmania! List. I made it a couple of years ago, but I still recommend everything on it. I might add a few now, including Stephen King's Desperation and almost anything by Arthur Machen.

Horror Writers Association
Recommended horror classics, no R.L. Stine.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Features two lists, one for Sci Fi/Fantasy fans and one for less experienced readers. Pick your level.

The Forbidden Library
A list of books that have been banned or challenged in the past. From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings, this site has something for everyone who wants to celebrate the first amendment.

The Victorian Reading List
From California State University, the reading list required for a Victorian literature exam.

Twentieth and Twenty-First Century
Another CSU list of more contemporary works.

Online Books
The Online Books Page
This site contains links to many public domain texts. If you're planning to read novels, short stories, or poems from the 1800s or earlier, this is a very helpful resource. If you like what you read, by the book!

Please leave your reading lists and any recommendations in the comments section.

Greetings fellow bibliophiles!

I have considered creating this type of blog ever since I started blogging. I have a couple other blogs, and one thing that unites me with most of my readers is a love of books. Although "Read any good books lately?" has become a small-talk chestnut, I find that if I can talk at length with someone about books, I have discovered a kindred spirit. Most of my conversations with close friends and family include recommendations of good and/or enjoyable books.

For that reason, I have created this blog where we can all come together to talk about what we're reading. My plan is to have a few threads of recommendations from several people, with a main thread discussing one particular book each week. I realize that that means that readers will need to pay attention to more than just the topmost post, so I may be overestimating the blogger community, but I still have high hopes.

To start things off, just for fun, take this Literature Geek Purity Test to find out how much of a literature nerd you are. My result was 37.1% lit-geek pure (62.9% lit-geek corrupt), meaning I am more lit-geek than not. You won't be judged based on your results; it's just for fun.

I've recently begun reading Science Fiction again. I read a lot of it in Middle School and then got away from it in High School. In college I started reading a lot of Horror Fiction. I really started getting into it again when I read Stephen Kings The Tommyknockers in which one of the characters mentions Robert A. Heinlein. I'm always intrigued by literary references within texts. I looked him up and saw that he wrote the novel Starship Troopers. This past summer I worked in housekeeping at a school, and I spent the time at work listening to books on tape. I tried to find Starship Troopers, but my library didn't have it. They did, however, have a another novel of his with the strangely intriguing title, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. It's the story of how the residents of Luna, a Terran penal colony, declare and defend their independence. I was fascinated, especially by the way Heinlein incorporates elements from histprical revolutions as well as different social theories. After reading Moon, I read Troopers, which was pretty good, and Stranger in a Strange Land, which I enjoy reading, but didn't like as much as the other two. I am currently rereading Moon, and am looking forward to discussing it. It's out of print in the US in paperback, but it is available at many libraries. Feel free to follow the discussion even if you are unable to read the book. We may just convince you.

And in conclusion, I promise to never refer to book-lovers who read my blogs on a regular basis as my "large literary following," no matter how appropriate the signifier may be.