Those Crazy Captains, Part V: C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower books

Last week was Christmas, and to me, oddly enough, it’s not quite Christmas without Horatio Hornblower. When Bing Crosby is incessantly crooning about wanting a White Christmas, I'd much rather be humming the "It's the INDIE!" theme:

When the A&E Hornblower miniseries came out starring Eoin Gruffudd, I had not read the books.  Between seeing the first episode and eventually getting the second from the library, I’d read pretty much all of them. Episodes seemed to come out around Christmas-time. Even if they didn’t, it turned out my cousin was also a fan, so I’d have them on the old-fashioned VHS waiting for when my cousin came to visit at Christmas. Nobody else seemed to share our fascination for watching cannons blowing French frigates to smithereens, so we’d stay up late, the sound turned down and our heads bent close to the screen in order to hear the whisper-quiet dialog while everyone else was sleeping. 

Those Crazy Captains, Part IV: Wolf Larsen of Jack London's "The Sea-Wolf"

The reason I took a small detour last week, talking about Harvey Cheyne Jr. of Kipling’s Captains Courageous, is that he reminds me of another “land lubber” who is thrown into a naval adventure: Humphrey van Weyden of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf. Both narrators are refined intellectuals shipwrecked, rescued, and then shanghaied into service on the vessel that saved their lives.  Both are hardened by their experiences, matured, and changed forever by the sea.

My first exposure to Jack London’s work was what I would consider the “average” introduction to his work: through Call of the Wild and White Fang, which are by far his most famous works. So I think I was forgivable in assuming, just from these two books and from the title of The Sea-Wolf, that it was probably about a canine. 

“Let’s see…Call of the Wild is about a dog that goes to live with wolves. White Fang is about a wolf that goes to live with dogs.” So I guessed that The Sea-Wolf was…about a wolf that goes to live with seals? 

A Little Side Character Comparison: Jim Hawkins and Harvey Cheyne Jr.

When setting out to write a character comparison of the fictional captains in nautical fiction, one of the first books that came to mind, by virtue of its title alone, was Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling. The book isn’t about a Crazy Captain, however, as much as it is about the Boy Coming of Age at Sea. The protagonist is Harvey Cheyne, Jr., a spoiled teenaged son of rich socialites. When he’s saved from drowning by the We’re Here, he’s forced to become part of the crew until the next time they come into port.  His experiences give him the opportunity to get past his sense of entitlement and pride in his possessions, and to mature into true self-confidence so that by the time he actually makes it home, his parents don’t recognize the overindulged and petty son he used to be.

Both Captains Courageous and Treasure Island have an environment of seafaring, and both have young protagonists who come of age in that environment. The captain of the We’re Here, Disko Troop, doesn’t have much in common with Long John Silver—unless it’s the fact that both have unusual names. 

But as I said, the main comparison to be made is between Jim Hawkins and Harvey Cheyne Jr. The two protagonists are both young boys with a lot to learn. Jim longed for and sought adventure, whereas Harvey was happy and complacent with his life of luxury, and was (almost literally) thrown into adventure kicking and screaming. 

Those Crazy Captains, Part III: Long John Silver of Treasure Island

I want to love Robert Louis Stevenson’s writing. I really do. I enjoy his poetry. I like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde well enough. I also thought Kidnapped was pretty interesting.  The Black Arrow was also reasonably exciting. So it would seem a shoe-in that I’d love what is probably his most famous work, Treasure Island….right? 

Wrong. Sure, the story starts out strong, with Jim Hawkins’ longing to have an adventurous life, the broken but mysterious Billy Bones, and especially the very menacing Blind Pew. Black spots and treasure maps from dying traitorous pirates are all well and good, and build up plenty of steam that should propel the rest of the plot by sheer inertia to its fantastic conclusion.

It, in my humble opinion, does not.  

The Irresistible Art of Moby Dick

Much as I don’t care for the plot of the book, I will admit that as a piece of literature, Moby Dick is one of the best symbolic works I’ve read. One of the ways I know if a story has good symbolism is if I can imagine visual motifs to illustrate them. If a book’s plot can be conveyed or at least alluded to on a T-shirt, for example, probably has at least one major symbol.

Maybe it’s just a matter of the colors—a white sperm whale on a dark background—that makes for dynamic visuals. Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for animal art in general.  Maybe it’s simply that I like sperm whales, and any time I try to anthropomorphize Moby Dick into an epitome of the world’s evil like Captain Ahab does, the unfortunate outcome is not very profound: just the part of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where a whale materializes in midair over an alien planet and has to come to grips with its existence on the way down to the ground.  

Whatever the reason, part of me wishes that I did love the book, so that I could buy, make, or wear these sorts of artistic renditions of the novel. Since I am more of a begrudging admirer, forced to admit the aesthetic value of Herman Melville’s writing Style, I’ll just leave these links and images here for others with better Taste to enjoy:  

Name Symbolism in Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick"

As I said in my last entry, I assume that in most written works authors include things deliberately—for instance, names of character. In the case of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or, The Whale, some names might be chosen for the sake of authenticity, like Starbuck, which was a common Nantucket Quaker name amongst whalers.* Others are subtly symbolic, the way a sledgehammer subtly drives home a nail:

Ishmael – means “God hears.” The character in the Bible was the outcast son of Abram. Since he says “Call me” and never gives a first or last name, this probably is not his real name. So he must have chosen this alias for a reason. 

Herman Melville's Moby Dick: Father Mapple’s Sermon and the Book of Jonah

It’s my assumption when reading any work that whatever is included or excluded by the author is done intentionally. So what is the reason Melville includes a full sermon at the outset of Moby Dick? The account of Jonah makes it clear that Melville is foreshadowing some event or theme that will follow later in the narrative. Jonah is one of my favorite books of the bible, because of its complexity despite being only “four yarns” (or chapters) long, and also because I find Jonah as a character to be very relatable.

Father Mapple sums up the themes of the book of Jonah as “A story of sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah.” I agree with this summary, with one exception: that this is only the first part of Jonah’s story, and the second part is equally as important. In the first part as discussed by Father Mapple, Jonah is comparable to Ishmael, as they both are wanderers in a sense—Jonah running away from God, Ishmael seeking to escape from the world in general. But this comparison waxes feeble when contrasted to the similarities between Jonah and Ahab.

Those Crazy Captains, Part II: Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab

I’ve done something for Herman Melville that I haven’t even done for some of the authors I’ve loved the most: I’ve read Moby Dick twice. The first time I read it was for high school—in fact, since I was home-schooled this was self-assigned literature reading on my part, since I had heard Moby Dick, or, The Whale, was a classical giant that everyone should read. I’d bought a very nice hardcover copy at my local library’s book-sale, some reproduction edition from the 1950’s with such deep-pressed type I could have read the words in the dark simply by tracing my fingers across it. 

I remember clearly sitting on a chair in my room, my feet propped up on my bed, and thinking, “This is the most boring thing I’ve ever read.”

Those Crazy Captains: Introduction

It’s been an age since I’ve done a series of Character Analyses posts, mostly because I have to have read several books containing similar or comparable characters, all within a relatively short space of time so that I can adequately compare them. This doesn’t happen much, since I try to “space out” reading books that are too similar so that I don’t mix them up later.

For some reason, though, this summer I read a lot of books with a nautical theme. I’ve already reviewed the nonfiction The Outlaw Sea and The Pirate Queen, but shortly after a third audiobook I’d had on hold for a long while came in at the library. The Caine Mutiny is a book I’d wanted to read since seeing the Humphrey Bogart adaptation (I tend to read pretty much anything that was adapted into a Humphrey Bogart movie, now that I mention it).  While reading it I couldn’t help but compare it to other seafaring novels I’ve read in the past, such as Typhoon and Lord Jim, the Horatio Hornblower series, The Sea-Wolf, and of course Moby Dick. 

Not only does it feel natural to compare these novels because they have similar characters in obviously similar settings, it also is natural for me to be interested in comparing their themes, morals, and symbolism. I live in a relatively land-locked area, with plenty of streams and rivers and ponds and lakes, but the idea of the large expanse of a sea or ocean is something I pretty much have to rely on my imagination and these books to even begin to grasp. The ocean fascinates me. What would it be like to look out and only see water from one horizon to the next? What would it be like to owe one’s very existence to a floating object, and one’s continued existence to the cooperation and toil of everyone else living there?  Even with engines, a ship is subject to the tides, currents, winds and weather, all of which are fleetingly inconstant and often unpredictable. The concept is as alien as a science fiction story.  

Aside from the instant suspense that an author achieves by simply putting all his characters on a boat, there’s also a symbolism that I’m not alone in finding attractive. After all, isn’t life as malleable and unreliable as the sea?  

The Finish Line At Last: Reading Challenge Recap 2014

This past week I finally finished my yearly quota of one hundred books. I’m a little early, I know, but I planned to read ten books a month for ten months, in order to have the last two months freed up for the holiday season. After this, anything else is just gravy.*

Below is my list. As I self-restricted myself, not included in the list are any picture books, graphic novels, How-To books (comprised mostly, though not entirely, of quilting or cookbooks), or any books I re-read.

"I Will Repay" by Emmuska Orczy - Sweded

France, 1783 

MESSENGER: Sorry but some guy named Déroulède killed your son.

DUC DE MARNY: What?  Juliette, my daughter, you must swear to kill him!

JULIETTE: Me? No offense, Father, but why don’t you do it yourself?

DUC DE MARNY: And get out of my deathbed? 

JULIETTE: Wait, if you were so sick why was my brother off dueling people for no good reason?

DUC DE MARNY: Fermez la bouche and take this oath to become a raging rampage of revenge!

JULIETTE: But I’m like eight years old!

DUC DE MARNY: Well I didn’t say you had to become one overnight! Give it about ten years or so, that way you can try wreaking vengeance in the middle of social upheaval that will threaten your life since you’re of noble blood.

JULIETTE: But I’d much rather be a sweet and pious nun than a raging rampage of revenge, father!

DUC DE MARNY: Nonsense! If you’re a nun then how are you going to be involved in the rest of the story ten years from now when I’m dead?

JULIETTE: Good point. 

Reviewing e e cummings' "The Enormous Room"

“Don’t be sad, my little son, everybody falls out of trees, 

they’re made for that by God,” 

~ The Enormous Room, e e cummings, pg. 102

Flitting about the online book world I came across a video by vlogbrothers, “18 Books You Probably Haven’t Read.”* Although I hadn’t read any of these books, I don’t feel too bad for not rushing out to read ALL of them since frankly Green goes through them so fast I couldn’t process whether I wanted to read them or not. The one exception which stood out was The Enormous Room, the autobiographical account of poet/author/playwright/artist e e cummings** and his time in a French prison in 1917.  

"The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells: A Review

A long time ago when I was just entering adolescence and had spare time to waste on doing nonsensical things, I was trying to construct a pyramid out of marbles. Marbles being round and therefore not exactly conducive to stacking like bricks, this was a laborious and time-intensive goal. Enter listening to audiobooks while I did these sorts of things. In fact, I’m not at all sure, so long after the fact, that these sorts of nonsensical enterprises weren’t created in order to be doing something while listening to audiobooks. Like the chicken and the egg, I’m not sure which came first.* 

It’s a strange thing how sometimes two sensory memories, the sight of marbles, for instance, can be connected to others, such as the sound of The Time Machine being played on cassette. But when I started composing this review, that’s exactly what happened.  Remembering my first experience with H.G. Wells made me think of what I was doing while listening to that audiobook for the first time over ten years ago.

Individual vs Community: A Character Comparison between Achilles and Aeneas

The Classical epic heroes Achilles and Aeneas serve as the respective paradigms of the Ancient Greek and Roman cultures that produced them. The Romans borrowed extensively from Greeks—after all, the Roman poet Virgil’s Aeneid was built directly upon the foundation of the Greek poet Homer’s Iliad, the Aeneid being a continuation of the story of the Trojan War. But much as the Roman mythology of artistry was rooted in Greek tradition, the heroic ideals of their cultures were distinctly different from one another.

Achilles and Aeneas are not entirely dissimilar. Both are only part mortal, with the goddesses Thetis of the Silver Feet and Venus (the Greek Aphrodite) as their respective mothers and protectors. Both heroes have destinies to fulfill: Achilles must choose between a long life and a glorious legacy, and Aeneas is destined to become the founder of the city of Rome. But, because the Greeks and Romans had different sets of priorities—Greeks for honor and glory, Romans for family and duty—these priorities necessarily produced two different, but equally iconic cultural heroes.

You Win Some, You Lose Some: Agatha Christie's "Elephants Can Remember" and "The Moving Finger"

The hazard of finding an author you like whose work is prolific is that sometimes you find yourself disappointed. I’ll explain by giving a specific example: Agatha Christie. With 66 novels, 156 short stories, about two dozen plays (though some were based on aforesaid novels and short stories), and even a few nonfiction books, the odds are that even though I may love many of her novels, there are a few that will fall through the appreciation cracks.

It’s easy to understand how this happens. As a rule I’m not drawn to an author once I know they’ve written over a hundred works, figuring such a behemoth of work has probably resulted in a dilution of style, characterization, and plot. Quality is sacrifice for quantity. In fact if I see a book whose author’s name is larger than the title, I usually steer clear of it. A novel should rest on the merits of its title and plot alone, not on the name of the author. Marketing around an author’s name excludes new readers who may not know Agatha Christie is a master mystery novelist as opposed to some woman with two first names.*

The other reason this tends to happen is because an author gets “typecast” and stuck writing the same types of things, and when they start to get sick of it their prose suffers as a result.  Christie notoriously got sick of writing Hercule Poirot, just as Arthur Conan Doyle got sick of Sherlock Holmes. The creative writer in them may have longed to try something else, but these series were what put food on the table so they were compelled to continue long after their excitement of writing these stories was depleted.

“In the Land of Invented Languages”: A Review

During this long span of weeks where I’ve been reviewing nonfiction adult books, I’ve been talking about the reason these books were written. If a nonfiction book doesn’t exist solely to instruct, its purpose is also to persuade its audience to hold the same viewpoint as the author. Sometimes the author makes their opinion clear, other times it’s not so well defined. The trick when reading nonfiction is to root out that underlying thesis, because it’s only when you know the author’s perspective that you can make a conscious decision whether to agree, disagree, or maybe meet them halfway. 

Today’s reviewed book was one of those “halfway” situations with me. In the Land of Invented Languages is about, obviously, invented languages ranging from Esperanto to Klingon. Author Arika Okrent is a linguist who structures the book around her quest to pass a fluency test in Klingon, but goes on tangents outlining the history of constructed languages (as opposed to natural languages such as modern English that’s evolved from Middle and Old English, Gaelic, Latin, Ancient Greek, etc.). Her thesis is basically “Why do Invented Languages exist?  Are they viable?  And do they serve a purpose?” 

Susan Ronald's "The Pirate Queen": A Review

Moving on to my next nonfictional audio book, The Pirate Queen by Susan Ronald. It was coincidental I got this book the same day as The Outlaw Sea, because although I do like to read about nautical topics from time to time, it wasn’t because I was in any particular seafaring mood on that specific trip to the library, but simply because those were two of the few audio books my library owns that I have not read yet. (The pile is dwindling dangerously low in that section.)

The Pirate Queen is subtitled Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire, and the thesis for this book is pretty plain: Queen Elizabeth used her Pirate Adventurers (basically sanctioned pirates, also called privateers later in history) to buoy up a chaotic and politically precarious Britain into a stable foundation for the empire that was to come. When Elizabeth took the throne, she was a Protestant monarch of a small island surrounded by powerful Catholic kingdoms, all doubting the legitimacy of her claim to the throne, all thirsty to add her lands to their own empires, and she had very little to work with in the way of money or firepower to fight against it. 

Reviewing William Langewiesche's "The Outlaw Sea"

The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos and Crime by William Langewiesche was a perfectly decent nonfiction book, often riveting and mostly well-written, but marred by two and a half flaws.

I picked up the audiobook version from my library without really knowing (or being able to discern from the blurb on the back cover) what it was about. All I knew was it was vaguely nautical and catalogued as nonfiction. It turned out to be about four main stories to do with modern seafaring—I say “about four” because sometimes the storytelling was fluid enough to merge one story into another, and other times the “storytelling” stopped while the author went on a tangent about the politics of international shipping companies and policies—and these stories varied from a shipwreck due to the boat being too old, to a case of modern piracy, to the accidental sinking of a ship in the Baltic, to an investigation into “ship-breaking yards” where old ships go to be literally broken up and junked. 

Search for the Elusive Thesis Statement

The general difference between children’s nonfiction and adult nonfiction is that children’s nonfiction is about instruction, and adult nonfiction is about persuasion. Children’s nonfiction is often centered on facts: if you go to your local library and check out a book on a U.S. president, for example, you should expect to find the simple facts of his biography, not an in-depth analysis of his administration. 

Of course there are facts-only books in the adult section, too. If you take out a “How to Repair Your Car” from the adult nonfiction section of the library, it’s not going to try to persuade you to repair your car.* The same would go for other How-To’s, crafts or cooking—although sometimes cookbooks try to persuade you to give up sugar or gluten or dairy.  But then there is another level of nonfiction that isn’t found nearly as often in the children’s section. It’s the kind of nonfiction book that one might be assigned in college, a book that I mentally have dubbed “thesis books,” because they’re basically long essays that, like all other essays, research papers, or well-written speeches, must include a thesis statement.

Literary Music

Sometimes things come full circle.  Once, at a library book sale, my mom purchased a CD by a group called Caedmon’s Call. It was called Back Home, and eventually after hearing it played in our car several times I asked if I could have it. 

Not only are the songs very good melody-wise, but the lyrics are very poetic. I’m not much of a musically-minded person—I have only the vaguest idea of what a “bridge” is, for instance—but I’ve read enough poetry to recognize a good lyric when I hear it. And that’s what Caedmon’s Call’s lyrics are like: poetry.

Now you may ask yourself why I’m reviewing a CD instead of a book. “This is totally the wrong medium,” you may be saying. “The blog is called ‘Come With Me If You Want to Read,’ not ‘Listen to a CD.’ And even if it were, the name wouldn’t be nearly as catchy.” 

Maybe if you wouldn’t keep interrupting me you’d get your explanation. 

The Amazing Multi-Fonted Post

Lately I've been reading a lot of nonfiction. Which is good because I'm learning a ton of facts about stuff I probably will never use in Real Life. But it's also a bit unfortunate in that I often don't have a lot of "review" to write here.  

Why? I can review whether the book was well-written, as opposed to being rife with grammatical or spelling errors or a despicable lack of Style. But unless it's a book on a nonfiction thing I understand well--writing, for instance, or history or cooking--I don't tend to have an opinion formulated on the actual subject, and without an opinion I can't really critique the author's.  

Take, for instance, one of my current nonfiction conquests, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield.*  Now, I don't know much about typography.  This is the first book about fonts I have read (although it has made me want to read more).  However, like most people, I hold many deep convictions about fonts and font choice.  Most people might not realize that they have a preference for things like that, because it's such a subconscious thing. Words are words, right?  Wrong. You may take something more seriously if it's written in Courier than Comic Sans, for instance.  

The Importance of Seeing a Live Performance

Over the weekend a friend of mine treated me to a showing of one of my favorite plays, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Though it's one of my favorites, it had been quite some time not only since I'd read the play, but also since I've even seen the movie with Judi Dench, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon. In a way, although I knew the plot and most of the lines by heart, the play felt fresh and new.

Now I don't want to give away too much of the play's plot, because like so many comedies to spoil the plot would be to spoil some of the surprise and comedic suspense. So when I tell you that Earnest is a comedy centered on secret identities, double lives, twisting social conventions and figures of speech on their ear...I know it's going to sound boring, but believe me that I'm trying to save the best for when you actually see or read this play for yourself.  

(For those readers who already know the plot, c'mon. You know I'm right.)

Bookworms Can Be Easy To Amuse

Yesterday at work I was using my Super Neat Sharpie Library Processing Handwriting* to write out sales tags.  Because some talents are wasted on the mundane.  In doing so, however, I found some piece of furniture named the Quimby, and that made it all worthwhile.


For those not in the know--or who haven't read my previous Beverly Cleary-lovin' blog post--Quimby is the last name of Ramona Quimby, otherwise known as Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, Ramona Forever, Ramona Age 8, etc. 

Fun with Kindle Comments

Due to a weird nerve pinch thing that affected my neck, left shoulder, and all along my back, I was laid up an entire workday last week. Of course this--and the fact that my being left-handed meant I couldn't use my dominant hand for anything whilst being laid up--meant I had to sit in a recliner reading all day. What else was I to do, aside from complete three books (two of them from start to finish)?

 

Because of this misfortune I actually cleared my reading pile. You'll notice I didn't capitalize that "reading pile," because my official To Be Read Pile is not some piffling three books tall. Ever heard of the Eiffel Tower? California Redwood Trees?  Mount Everest? Good, then not only have you received a well-rounded education, but you're also getting closer to imagining how high my TBRP measures.

Taking Sides

Reading all the good books is like a conversation

with the finest people of past centuries. 

~ Rene Descartes

It may seem strange to a person who is more extroverted and less of a bibliophile, but I often feel as if an author is a personal acquaintance of mine, and that reading their works is like carrying on a conversation with them. The author may be dead, or even if they’re alive they may not live in the same country or speak the same language. There is a great unlikelihood* that I will ever have an actual face-to-face conversation.**

This very feeling of closeness, even kinship, with an author, is part of what prompts me to want to read so much. When you are friends with someone, you want to talk to them as much as possible, and if reading is a conversation, then you want to read as much as possible for the same reasons. 

A real complication arises from this, though: when you’re having a conversation with a real person, it goes without saying that sometimes this conversation becomes an argument. And if this argument takes place between you and a book—or even worse, between two books—it’s a bit hard to know how to react.

Let's leave this Untitled for Reasons that Will Soon be Made Clear

Lately I’ve been thinking about titles. To me, books are like their own compact, self-contained worlds. Opening a cover to its first page is like opening a door and seeing the first steps into that world. But what makes you open a book in the first place? We all know “never judge a book by its cover,” and most people who read books know that this isn’t entirely accurate. I have indeed picked up a book just by merit of its gilded letters or some graphics or even the soft feel of its spine against my fingers.

But covers change. Almost every time a book is reprinted the jacket art is different, the font is altered, even the blurb on its back or inside the dust jacket is rewritten. The thing that stays the same—aside from the actual text, and even that is subject to revision, annotation, or abridgment—is the title. 

The title then is the constant that often causes readers—myself included—to pick up a book. After all, most books are stored with other books, not facing out in full glory of their graphic design, but only a sliver of spine showing. Those gilt letters may draw the eye, but it’s what those letters spell out that often clinch the deal.

The Little Sister Takeover!

<PROLOGUE: Due to work, family visits and the ever-important Statewide Quilt Shop Hop, I was at a loss as to when and what I would write for this week's blog.  Therefore I am introducing my guest blogger and little "seester," who has often voiced a desire to try her pen at blogging and is ALMOST as much a bibliophile as myself.>

Having a remorseless reader as a big sister is good for when you’re bored—she’ll throw a book right at you and if you’re not concussed at least you’ll have something to do. It’s also good when you are attempting explain a plot point to one of your friends about a piece of literature—I can easily go into “Eng. Lit. Sis’s Lil. Sis Mode” and break down The Three Musketeers into one paragraph, or talk at length about how Victor Frankenstein is really bad at making life decisions.

But having a remorseless reader as a big sister is not so great when she gives you a book to read where the eldest child is the hero and their pesky little sibling hinders their quest/life in some way and if I dare complain about this trend in literature my big sis will brush her nails and chide me on how hard it was to grow up with me!

I understand that literature is filled with annoying little sisters from Lydia Bennett to Amy March to Deryn Sharp! In comparison with Lydia Bennett—I’m a saint. But not all books have pesky little sisters! [Some cut out the little sister entirely and opt for making the protagonist an only child.] In fact there are quite a few awesome little sisters that show how lucky older sibling are. Which is why I decided to make a list.

• Cordelia [from King Lear by William Shakespeare]: the youngest child of King Lear who is banished at the beginning only barely manages to reunite with her father before the play really goes down the tragedy lane
• Susan Price [from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen]: Fanny’s little sister who becomes her best friend after Fanny is banished from Mansfield Park. Susan has a dry wit and when she meets Fanny the two become fast friends.
• Betsy Ray and Tacy Kelly [from Betsy ~ Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace]; Betsy and Tacy are best friends who go on adventures from climbing up a hill, making friendship necklaces and mimicking their older sister’s. As they both grow up their stories grow too into stories about trying to pull an all-nighter to study in high school and their first crushes and on. 
• Emma Wodehouse [from Emma by Jane Austen]: Maybe not the greatest role model with her matchmaking ways and penchant for witty dialogue that stings, she is still an excellent little sister.
• Ramona Quimby [the Ramona Books by Beverly Clearly]; my sister loves this character [but then—who doesn’t like Ramona?]
• Viola [from Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare]; the younger sister of Sebastian who after a shipwreck begins to pose as a man for comedic effects.
• Lucy Pevensie [from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis]: the first of the siblings to travel through the Wardrobe to Narnia, she becomes friends with a fawn, later she becomes Lucy the Valiant, Queen of Narnia.
• Amy Dorrit [from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens]; the eponymous Little Dorrit is a short woman whose height is made up for by her giving spirit, her kind heart and lack of bitterness toward society after growing up in a prison.
• Sapphire [from the Ingo Saga by Helen Dunmore]: the younger sister of Connor who follows him into the Mermaid realm of Ingo to find their lost father. Sapphire does some really fantastic stuff from traveling with a whale into the Deep, fighting the hatred the Mer have for the “two-legs” and saving her stepfather after he accidentally starts fishing in sacred waters.
• Eowyn [from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien]; shieldmaiden of Rohan who goes into battle to fight the Witch-king! What isn’t awesome about Eowyn?!
• Scout [from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee]: the youngest daughter of Atticus who watches as her big brother starts to grow out of childish games and take up responsibilities. Scout also has to deal with her own growing pains as she also watches a court case that stretches the moral compass of her family.
• Lila [from The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy]: The little sister of one of the many Prince Charmings—Lila runs off to help when her brother has to flee after he refuses to marry a brat. Lila is smart and genre savvy and uses these skills when she faces evil princesses, goblins and a bounty hunter! 

In short—my big sister is kind of lucky to have a little sister like me—who is made of up all the better qualities of all these little sisters.

While I am very lucky to have a big sister who forces me to read all this great literature and then lets me write on her blog without knowing what exactly I’m going to be talking about!

-the lil sis

Groundhog Day

A while back some coworkers of mine were having a deep and involved discussion of the Bill Murray film, Groundhog Day. For those who aren't aware of the movie's main plot, it's about a cynical and mean-spirited TV news reporter who gets stuck repeating the same day over and over (Groundhog Day) and only can continue with his life once he's become a nicer person and "done the day right." This being a Bill Murray movie he also gets away with a lot of pranks and things before he reforms, and because only he remembers the previous days no one else can hold him responsible for those actions beyond the 24-hour "time bubble." 

Library Binging

I don't know what it is about summer coming up, but around this time of year I always have the urge to borrow library books like crazy. I call these "library binges," in which I have to use not only one hand to hold my books but both. Sometimes the chin comes into play as I try to steady a tall, precariously leaning pile of books I'm trying to carry up to the checkout counter. 

Maybe one reason is that the summer is so short. The days are long, but it's over so fast. It makes me remember that life is short.  And my list of "books to put on hold" is so very, very long. 

It's downright overwhelming at times, seeing how many books I actually have to read. There are hundreds, even thousands of years' worth of literature to catch up on, and as if that's not enough there's always thousands, if not MILLIONS of new titles being churned out that fairness dictates I can't ignore. 

Yet overwhelming as it can be, there's nothing quite so satisfying as the feeling of your shoulders and elbows straining at their sockets, your vertebrae being smooshed, because you're carrying about 126 thick chapter books to your car. Sometimes it's worth renting a trailer or moving van for these sorts of summer expeditions to the library.

Arthurian Legends and Art

Arthurian Legends Illustrated: Part I

Don't worry I won't go back to my The Waste Land ranting for quite awhile now.  I'll even hold off on my reviews of some other Arthurian Legend-related books.  But this link is pretty cool taken just by itself.  I love when stories impact art.

T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Part 5: The Grail

How at the Castle of Corbin a Maiden Bare in the Sangreal and Foretold the Achievements of Galahad: illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1917
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Sangreal.jpg

The most important symbol in all Fisher King legends is the Holy Grail, usually described as a sacred cup which holds the blood of Christ.  However, the original French word for the Grail, the sangraal, also could be interpreted as a stone, which is also religiously significant because of the symbol of the foundation of the Christian.  Since the Grail is an important symbol, it too must play a significant role in The Waste Land’s thematic exposition, not as a nourishing symbol of a cup, but as the unwieldy stone which provides refuge.

T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Part 4: The Quester

The protagonist of the Fisher King legend is not the Fisher King himself, but an outsider who enters the Waste Land on a quest for the Holy Grail. Although the Quester may not realize it, his destiny is not only to attain the Holy Grail, but to deliver the Waste Land and its inhabitants from their suffering. In The Waste Land, however, Eliot strips the Quester’s character from any of the religious goals found in traditional romance cycles. Without spiritual initiative, his journey, like that of all the personae in The Waste Land, is one traveled in a world of secular humanism gone stagnant. Unfortunately, the Quester’s ignorance is not confined to his lack of identity, but also of the actions required to fulfill his quest.  

T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Part 3: The Fisher King

As I mentioned in my introductory post, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was influenced dramatically by Jessie L. Weston’s book From Ritual to Romance, which focuses on the medieval cycles about the Fisher King, the Holy Grail, and other aspects of what we normally call “Arthurian Legends.” The Fisher King is the guardian of the Grail, and his close proximity to this object of supernatural healing makes it impossible for him to die of his injury, although this injury is somehow so profound that even the Grail is unable to completely heal it. Thus the Fisher King, like the Waste Land and its inhabitants, can neither change nor end his existence. 

T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Part 2: The Setting

The setting is one of the The Waste Land’s most important thematic contributions.  Scene by scene, Eliot fully explicates an image of the Waste Land, eliciting a sense of illness and decay. Even in the poem’s initial lines, “April is the cruelest month,” the spring rain brings false hope with seemingly no true possibility of renewal, a false hope that continues throughout the poem, when “There is not even silence in the mountains / But dry sterile thunder without rain."

T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and Arthurian Legend: Part 1

To celebrate April’s being National Poetry Month, I am going to indulge my love of two favorite things: my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot, and my interest in Arthurian legends.  So bear with this overlong series of posts, as I wax both academic and fangirl at the same time….

T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land uses the Fisher King and Grail mythology from medieval romance cycles.  The poem establishes themes of humanity’s mortal existence and spiritual thirst for redemption from depravity and suffering, while simultaneously demonstrating these themes’ relevance to contemporary society. Repeatedly the poem invokes imagery from various myths and legend to illustrate these themes to the reader. Although these various allusions to traditional works are seemingly unrelated, Eliot particularly focuses on the Fisher King legend as a main plot which unifies all the other mythologies. From the epigraph of the Cumean Sybil to his concluding words of shanti, Eliot interweaves elements of different cultures into his poem, thus unifying a narrative on the themes which the Fisher King myth represents. Through the omnipresence of this myth throughout the poem, Eliot is able to convey the single message, affirming that despite humanity’s lack of idealism, loss of identity, and vitality, there is nevertheless a constant hope and possibility for deliverance from these inadequacies.

My Latest Haul

Last week for my birthday I only got two books. I know, I know: this is uncharacteristically restrained for me. But lately my book collection has become more about quality than quantity. (Not that quantity is every going to be a problem. At last count I was nearing 800 volumes—counting picture books, but not Kindle downloads—though my personal library is in a constant state of flux.) Most books I own I've bought myself, usually at obscenely low prices at book-sales, out of bargain bins, or even for free from "book drops." When I ask for a book for a gift, knowing it will be bought at full price, the titles I select are few and with a great deal of deliberation. So when I say I only got two books, what I mean is I got two books that I know I will treasure for years to come.

Reviewing Cervantes' "Don Quixote"

I like to review books that I recommend as opposed to standing next to a book with a warning sign, partly because my mission is to encourage you readers in the great expanse of the internet to love books as much as I do, but also because, as my fellow English majors would agree, it’s easier to criticize a book’s failings than laud its merits.** So as an exercise in positivism, I stay away from books I hate and try to put forward the hidden literary gems from classic and not-so-classic genres. 

That said, being a voracious reader sometimes comes with the same side-effect as being a food critic. Just as a gourmand may turn up their nose at a lot of things in favor of one quality bite, I sometimes find myself feeling “meh, it was okay” about most books. But then once in a while that one quality book comes along that reminds me of what drew me into reading in the first place. 

One of those books was El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha AKA The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, AKA Don Quixote.  Now, I’ve owned this book since I was about twelve and started to snobbishly buy any book that looked old and had gold leaf on the spine. 

“Oh look,” I’d say to myself (quietly because this was usually at a library book-sale and librarians tend to frown on exclamations of joy even when said exclamations are caused by reading material***), “This book has gold leaf on it, it must be a classic!  I am SO smart and will read this and be cultured, sitting in my leather wing-back chair next to a fireplace with the theme song from Masterpiece Classic playing in the background.”