We Are Not Amazon and Living Up To Unreasonable Expectations

I have a lot of collectibles. A garage full, in fact, which is something I've mentioned in the past. In an effort to divest myself of said collectibles, I've been selling things on eBay. This is mostly fine other than the part where it's really slow.
And the part where I sometimes have to actually deal with people.
People who are mostly trying to convince me that my prices are too high.

For instance, because this is a fun one:
I've been selling some cards from the Harry Potter tcg recently. I listed this card:

The Ginny holofoil card is very hard to find and expensive. Expensive to the point that I haven't seen any sell for less than $100, so I had it listed at, anyone?, $100. I had a string of people message me that they would offer me something less than that. Like the guy who offered me $30 and, then, argued with me about it when I said "no thanks," finally went all the way up to $40, then argued with me some more when I said "no thanks" to that one, too. The card sold for $120.

Don't get all excited for me about all the money I'm making, because those kinds of things are few and far between. Mostly, I'm selling things at about the $3-10.00 level.

The other thing I have to deal with a lot is people complaining about the cost of shipping, which is the actual thing I want to talk about.
And before I go on, sure, shipping and shipping charges suck. I get it. I do everything I can, personally, to order from places that offer free shipping or to order enough to meet the minimums for free shipping. The big companies that can offer that kind of thing are just that: big companies, big enough to make deals with the USPS to cut their shipping costs so that they can afford it. Even eBay has a deal with USPS to cut their sellers' shipping costs if we run our shipping through eBay, and that has to be good for eBay because I'm sure their discount is greater than what they pass on to us, which means they're making money from both ends of that deal.

Even with that, eBay pushes (and pushes and pushes) its sellers to offer free shipping. I'm sure that's something that totally works for some sellers, but it doesn't work for someone like me who, say, sells a trading card for $2.99 (or, even, a comic book, for $4.99) and, then, has to pay $2.80 to ship it. That's with the eBay discount and is just the cost of the actual shipping. The envelopes cost another $1.00, so I'm spending close to $4.00 for each item I ship, but I only charge $3.50 for shipping. Don't worry, I may be losing money on every sale, but I make it up in volume.

Which brings me back to my previous statement about how shipping sucks, because the buyer is paying $3.50 in shipping for a $3.00 card, something which I personally wouldn't do.

And it gets even worse when you have to deal with international shipping. I just went through a huge ordeal over the cost of shipping with a guy in France. Seriously, huge ordeal. The guy took all kinds of penalties from eBay for not paying for his auction wins on time because he was haggling with me over the cost of shipping. For a week.

On the one hand, I get it but, on the other hand...
Look, on the other hand, only so much of the shipping is under my control, and part of the problem this guy ran into is that I use eBay's Global Shipping Program for international orders so that I only have to mail the items to eBay and eBay takes care of the shipping charges with the buyer. And I guess that service isn't cheap? I don't really know, because I can't see what eBay charges, but the guy in France flipped out over what eBay was going to charge him, all of which could have been avoided if he'd listened to me before the auctions closed when I tried to tell him about how eBay would handle it. (He told me I didn't know what I was talking about, that shipping should be no more than x amount and he was sure eBay would handle it just fine. eBay wanted to charge him 30x, as I tried to warn him, and, well, I already said the rest. I spent a week of going around and around with the guy so that he could finally get what he paid for shipping down to only 2x.)

All of which goes to the point I want to make: I am not Amazon. Or Wal-Mart. Or... whatever big chain store you want to say. I can't get amazing shipping discounts from USPS, and I can't afford to pay for your shipping, especially when the shipping costs more than the item you're buying. Stop expecting that from me, other eBay sellers, or from any small, independent business trying to make some kind of profit. If you want free shipping, please, feel free to order what you need/want from Amazon or Wal-Mart or... oh! Amazon doesn't have this card that you want? They don't sell those kinds of things? Neither does Wal-Mart? oh... well, then, I see. Of course, of course, it should be up to me to provide you with the same service as Amazon... Amazon who doesn't have the product you want.

So there's your tradeoff. Pay the shipping or don't get the whatever it is that you want that Amazon doesn't carry or have in stock. Pay the shipping and don't fucking complain about it or try to convince me that I'm charging too much for it. You know how I know that I'm not charging too much for shipping? Because I take a loss on it from every order I ship. If you don't want to pay the shipping, don't buy it. To paraphrase the internet, "I am not the asshole here."

The Cuckoo's Calling (a book review post)

 

Let's get the issue of Rowling out of the way before I get into the actual book review. First of which is to say that I'm not going to discuss Rowling beyond saying that the fact that she doesn't know when to shut her mouth shows that having lots of money can affect the way that anyone views themselves and the world. She's at that stage where she believes that she, because she is who she is, is right and doesn't need to listen to other people, so she has continued to dig her hole bigger and bigger rather than just shutting up and keeping her opinions to herself. That she didn't shut up shows an amount of entitlement which is disappointing.

The other thing I want to say is that I started reading this book... well, so long ago that I don't remember when it was. I picked it up during some free promotion thing just to check it out and have been reading it in bits and pieces ever since. It's on my Kindle, and I don't really read from my Kindle all that often. I don't carry it places with me like I do physical books, so I lag a lot with books on there unless they are really engrossing. Which tells you that this book was not. Seriously, I've been working on it for over a year, maybe closer to two.

What this book has taught me is that I need to read some Agatha Christie, something I've been meaning to do for a long time and have never gotten around to. Maybe I don't like detective novels? I don't know. I like Butcher's Dresden books, but they're hardly detective novels after the first few. Beyond those, I can't recall any mystery novels I've ever really liked, including this one.

Which is not to say that I didn't like it, I just didn't much care for it. Rowling doesn't make it possible for the reader to really solve the mystery as they're reading, which seems to me to be the point of detective novels, because she doesn't reveal crucial information until the actual reveal at the end of the novel, and the reveal was one of the most contrived things I've ever read. And this is an ABSOLUTE SPOILER, so turn away now if you don't want to know who the killer is...

I'm waiting...

Still waiting, because I'm absolutely serious that I'm going to spoil the ending of this book. And let me just toss out there that I never spoil a book that I think you ought to read. If I spoil it, it's because I don't think it's really worth your trouble.

Having said that, the book itself was just fine. By that, I mean it's readable. Mostly engaging, though not engaging enough to prompt me to read it more quickly. It's... typical. Down on his luck private eye getting a high paying, juicy case which might just get him out of debt. Your basic story about an underachiever finally getting a break and getting to show the world who he really is. Honestly, after Harry Potter, I expected something less... cliché.

So the book goes along with our detective -- the son of a famous rock star, seriously? -- gathering up evidence about a case that is several months cold. And closed. But he's hired by the brother of the murdered woman because the brother believes it was a murder though the police ruled it a suicide. And this is the hitch and what I'm sure Rowling thought would make it a clever story: the brother is the murderer. So Strike is hired by the murderer to discover who the murderer is. The motivation for this is never explained adequately since the murderer had already gotten away with the crime.

What the novel mostly does, as most mystery shows do (I don't know about mystery novels, as I said, but I have watched a lot of detective shows) is to show that everyone had a motive for killing the victim. Rowling walks us through the suspects over and over again almost always strengthening the case for why each person might have wanted Lulu dead. In fact, the only person not shown to have a motive, not until the very end of the book, basically not until just before the reveal, is the actual murderer. Of course, the motive is money, but we don't get to find out the murderer's money issues until Strike is sitting alone in a room with the murderer revealing all the things the murderer already knows.

The reveal was clumsy and contrived. The fact that Bristow (the murderer) sits through Strike's walkthrough of the entire crime is, frankly, unbelievable. The fact that Bristow then attacks Strike is even more unbelievable considering that Strike is a bear of a man and ex-boxer while Bristow is your very stereotypical account type, even though he's a lawyer, not an account, a "gag" that is run into the ground over the course of the book.

I want to say that Rowling's strength as a writer is her characters but, as I'm thinking of this now, she has no real strength in that, either. Her character's tend toward the stereotype, including pretty much all of the characters in Harry Potter. In Harry Potter, we're able to overlook that, though, because the world is so new and interesting, but this world, the world of C. B. Strike, is not new or interesting so the fact that all of the characters are two dimensional really stands out. The most real character in the book is Strike's temporary secretary, Robin, and she's really just a pale reflection of Hermione Granger.

Also, the title of this book is stupid. It's just tossed in somewhere over the halfway mark of the book that "Cuckoo" is a nickname of the murdered woman that only one character in the book ever called her. It's a throwaway excuse to have "Cuckoo" in the title. Without that very vague reason, the title of the book is meaningless.

So, yeah, I suppose I am actually disappointed with this book and don't really understand all the praise for it. Again, maybe I just don't really like detective novels; I don't know. This book doesn't inspire me to try more, though.

Sundiver (a book review post)

I had high hopes for this book. Okay, well, that's not exactly true; it's just that I haven't read a book I really loved in a while now, and I was just hoping to at least like this one. It's an award winning book, and my wife liked it and the other books in the series back when she read them, though that was a long time ago at this point. Needless to say, I was disappointed. In the book, not my wife.
I was disappointed a lot.
Not Snow Crash a lot, but a lot nevertheless.

But I think I get it, why sci-fi fans like this book and Snow Crash and other books like them: They're responding to the concepts, the ideas, rather than to the book itself and the actual writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good idea, but I think if you're going to make it into a book, you have to back it up with some writing that supports it, and this book didn't have that. Nor did Snow Crash.

So, yeah, yadda yadda, uplift, yadda yadda. The idea is that older alien races will find pre-sentient lifeforms and raise them to sentience and be their patrons. There's this whole galactic system for it. Yes, it's an interesting idea, but the book... Man, it was hard to read.

Mostly because the protagonist was his own deus ex machina. As it turns out, Jacob, the main character, had a split personality, and he somewhat inappropriately referred to his alter ego as Mr. Hyde. Basically, any time Jacob ran into a situation he couldn't handle he could whip out Hyde and Hyde could do it. Because Hyde could do everything. Need a lock picked? Hyde can do that. Need to pocket someone else's belongings without anyone else seeing? Hyde can do that. Need to shit flying monkeys out of your ass? Well, Hyde didn't do that, but it wouldn't have surprised me.
It's lazy writing, though, having a way for your protagonist to personally meet any and all challenges on his own with his own secret weapon. Actually, it reminds of a horrible 80s movie, The Dungeonmaster, in which the hero had a laser-firing, computer watch that would defeat all of the bad guys.

As a total aside, that is one of the strengths of the Harry Potter books: Harry can't do much of anything on his own. I mean, he needs help, a lot of it, and he gets it by having a support team around him. Secret Harry never pops out of his head with all of the correct spells to accomplish whatever he needs to do at any given time. It makes him believable as a character.

Having a split off personality hiding in your brain does not make for a believable character.

Not to mention the part where anytime the story would get stuck because the characters didn't have enough information to move forward (not to mention the audience), Hyde would pop up with an insight and move the plot forward. Not that it was an insight Hyde had any right to have, but, hey, when the author gets stuck with how to move the plot along... Yeah, just toss the new info in from, basically, nowhere.

As if that's not already asking a lot from the reader in terms of accepting things, we also have to believe that we've managed to make spaceships that can fly in the sun... using "refrigerator" lasers. And I'll buy that. I mean, I will if that's the thing the author is asking us to accept but, then, he has to throw in aliens that live floating around in the outer layer of the sun. And other stuff... All together, it was just too much to put up with at any given moment. Something was always coming across as dumb to me because there was just too much to buy into.

Mostly due to the issues with the protagonist. But when you have that going on, when I can't buy into the main fucking character, then I can't buy into the rest of the story.

And, as if that wasn't enough, the author kept adding things in that really should have been a part of the fabric of the book. It was as if, as he was writing, he'd have a brilliant idea about something that should be in there and, from that point onward, that thing would be in the book, but he never wove those things back into the story that he'd already written. And maybe that's just me, as a writer, who is seeing that, but I know how that kind of thing goes and, if you're unwilling to go back and work those things into the bit you've already written, then leave them out of the book.
Seriously.

So... I suppose the real question, now, is whether I'm going to go on to the next book in the series. Honestly, I don't know. I have the books here and had planned to read the series because I had thought I was going to enjoy it and all of that. And it's one of those things where I have this question poking at me now about what people have seen in these books. Maybe the next one's better? Book two does, actually, have higher ratings than this one. For the moment, though, I'm going to read something else. Once I finish that book, I'll see how I feel about giving Startide Rising a chance. I'd say it's not looking good but, then, I did read all of that Lovecraft shit and L'Engle's mess, too.

Rebels: "Legacy" (Ep. 2.11)

"Stay in the moment. Be in this place at this time."

Ezra has had a vision of his parents. His missing parents, taken away by the Empire when he was a kid. Did I mention that before? Anyway...

Everyone has mostly been operating under the assumption that they're dead because what else can you do? But Ezra has had a vision...

Hold on a moment...

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but why does every young hero have to be an orphan? Seriously, why?

Ezra

Luke

Harry Potter

Garion

Peter Parker

Clark Kent

Bruce Wayne

The list on wikipedia for orphaned heroes is pretty extensive.

Anyway, just a thought. Visions of parents brings up this question for me.

Other than the vision, this was a pretty typical type of episode. There's a trap. There's an escape. There are tractor beams and there are Inquisitors. It's a fine episode within the sequence of things, just nothing special to make it noteworthy.

"You've grown powerful if you can track down a lothcat with the Force."

"The Force? I planted a tracker on it."

Rebels: "Out of Darkness" (Ep. 1.6)

"Stay calm; it's all part  of the plan."

I was going to say, at some point you have to start revealing the back stories of the supporting characters, then I realized they've revealed the major points already on the male characters. Sure, it's only episode six, but they gave us the stories for each of the male characters by the end of the second episode.

1. Ezra: The protagonist. Orphan boy with special powers. Fantasy cliche hero. Same model as Luke, actually. And Anakin. And Harry Potter. You get the picture, I'm sure.

2. Kanan Jarrus: Jedi on the run from the Empire and trying to do it harm at the same time. Sure, we don't know everything about him, but that's really enough to place him in the spectrum of things. He's the mentor character. Flawed, but the best available.

3. Zeb: The strong man. One of the last survivors of his race. The Chewbacca replacement, down to the part where his race was exploited and killed by the Empire.

We get all of that in the first two episodes with nothing about the women other than that Hera owns The Ghost and is the pilot, and Sabine wears some pieces of Mandalorian armor.

We get to find out a tiny bit about Sabine in this episode. She was a loyal Imperial in the Academy on Mandalore, blindingly following orders... until something bad happened. Now, she has trust issues and hates it that Kanan and Hera keep her in the dark about things. The whole episode is an exploration of trust between Hera and Sabine.

There is some fighting of monsters, too.

And the repeated referring to someone called Fulcrum.

But, overall, this episode was back down into the "kids' cartoon" realm for me as the fight with the monsters had a very video game feel with even the characters referring to the combat as "wave one" and "wave two" and so on. So I'm back to waiting to see where the show goes after the brief moment of hoping that it was rising about merely being a cartoon for kids.

How the System Failed My Son: Part One -- What's Love Got To Do With It?

It's no secret that the education system in the US is in trouble. It has been for decades, study after study showing the decline in performance among millennials in the United States as compared to millennials in the rest of the developed world. The PISA has shown a steady decline in US results going back to when the OECD first started doing the testing more than a decade ago. You can visit their site here if you're really interested.

But this is not really a post about the education system and what I think, after being involved in it in three different states, is wrong with it. Nor is it a post about how to fix it. Or a post about who or what caused it or who or what should fix it.

No, this is a post about my son, my younger son, and how the system has failed him, specifically.

Now, let me make one thing abundantly clear, my son is smart. Brilliant, even. And I know that's what all parents say about their kids and they probably even believe it, but I'm not saying this from any point of bragging, and the things I'm writing about here are facts, not beliefs. Look, my kid is probably smarter than me, and I don't say that lightly. To put this in perspective, if we're talking about the 1% of smart people, I'm that. I also don't say that to brag. It's an objective, testable thing, and I want you to understand what I'm saying about my kid in this post.

Which is to say that if there's anyone the system should not have failed, it's my son. Smart kids, really smart kids, not the ones who are just a bit above average, should not have to struggle through school the way they so frequently do.

So what happened?

It all started in 1st grade.

[Note: Much of what I'm going to talk about throughout this post is stuff I personally witnessed while working in the various classes at my kids' school.]

There were three smart kids in my son's 1st grade class.

The first one was very obnoxious and a know-it-all. When given assignments, he would flat out refuse and say that he didn't have to do the work because he already knew how to do it. He would also make comments about how smart he was and that the teacher was dumb. Remember, this is a 1st grader. It didn't take long for the teacher to get tired of dealing with him and transfer him up to 2nd grade... just to get him out of her hair.

The second one was also obnoxious and, actually, a troublemaker. His mother was on staff at the school, and he was frequently sent to her classroom to sit because he was in trouble. His strength was math, but he was a poor reader, and the teacher actually gave him over to my son to tutor in reading. And my son, a 1st grader!, was really good in that capacity. But, then, my son was already independently reading Harry Potter in 1st grade.

After the first boy got bumped up to 2nd grade, the second boy's mother put in a request to have her son, also, get bumped to 2nd grade, and it was granted. I can only assume that that happened because she was on staff. That and the boy was a troublemaker whom the teacher was glad to be rid of. But, remember, he was only advanced in math and was actually a bit behind in reading.

Now, I found it a bit annoying that the first kid got promoted, but he was actually smart enough for it. He might have been obnoxious (and, actually, that boy got better as he grew older), but he was a bright kid and was telling the truth when he said he already knew how to do the work they were doing. He's probably on about the same level as my son, math wise, but he never rose to the same level in other areas as my kid.

That the second boy also got promoted, though, made me mad. Both we cases of kids being rewarded for their bad behavior, but the second boy didn't actually deserve it academically. (And to draw a comparison, he did not grow out of his obnoxious behavior and remained a troublemaker all the way through middle school.)

So I went to the principal and requested that my son, also, be promoted. She said it had to come at the recommendation of the teacher. So I went to the teacher one day after school when I was picking my kids up. It went something like this:
Me: I'd like to have Phillip promoted to 2nd grade.
Teacher: Why do you want to do that?
Me: Phillip is at least as capable as <student 1> and more capable than <student 2>. Phillip was tutoring him in reading, after all. If they are going to be promoted, Phillip deserves to also be promoted.
Teacher (at this point, she pulled Phillip to her and hugged him against her): Oh, no, I could never promote Phillip this soon; I love him too much. He's the sweetest boy in the class.

I kind of stared blankly at her, because how do you respond to that? You want to think that teachers have the best interest of the kids at heart but, although it was great to hear her say how much she liked my kid, it was clear that she was more interested in her own well-being than what was good for the kids in the class. It didn't take her response to me to show that because she already had when she promoted the other two kids because she was tired of dealing with them.

To make matters worse, there was a boy with Asperger's in the class, and Phillip was the only kid he felt comfortable with. In fact, my son and that boy were best friends all the way through elementary school. Basically, until the other boy left the school and it became too difficult for them to maintain their friendship.

The long and the short of it is that, after my wife and I discussed it, we decided that it wasn't worth a fight to get him moved up to 2nd grade. It was, after all, only 1st grade, and it would all work itself out, right?

Right?

Angels Unbound: Jhudiel (a-to-z) and Clone Wars -- "ARC Troopers" (Ep. 3.2)

Jhudiel

Jhudiel is an Archangel and in charge of rewarding those who toil, especially those who toil for spiritual labors. He holds a crown in one hand as the reward for those who faithfully fulfill their work. However, in his other hand, he holds a three-thonged whip so that he can "exhort" those who flag in their efforts to greater diligence. He is of the flaming Sacred Heart, and it can be seen burning within him at all times. It is the mercy of the Father which never goes out.

Clone Wars

-- Fighting a war tests a soldier's skills, defending his home tests a soldier's heart.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

As the previous episode directly precedes the first season episode, "Rookies," this episode comes directly after it. It makes for a good followup to "Clone Cadets" by wrapping up the dangling plot thread of 99. So, yeah, 99 gets to learn the fate of Hevy, and we get to learn the fate of 99.

The episode revolves around an attack on the planet Kamino, the clones' de facto homeworld, by General Grievous and Asajj Ventress. Of course, with those two involved, nothing is as it seems. Also, of course, Anakin, being the charging in type, completely misses it and goes for the feint. That tends to be his role. But it gives Obi-Wan a chance to work out what's really going on.

So, while the larger plot deals with the Jedi:

We have Obi-Wan facing off against Grievous. That's always a good thing and helps build toward the climax of their eventual confrontation in Revenge of the Sith.
We also have Anakin going toe-to-toe with Ventress. Also, always good. In a lot of ways, they're like Harry and Draco... you know, if Harry was eventually going to become a Sith.

The real story focuses on the clones and what it's like for them to be defending their home rather than fighting on some other world. We get a full spectrum view: young cadets cutoff from the rest of their group, fresh troopers (Fives and Echo) just returned for reassignment, seasoned veterans (Cody and Rex) who have been away for a while, and the outcast who didn't cut it as a clone trooper (99). Kamino is home, though, to all of them, and they all come together to defend her.


"Only you could be worried about the ships I already shot down."

Parcivillian -- Part 4 (a local color post)

Technically, I know the above photo does not qualify as a successful photo, but I really like how it looks, so it's the one you're getting. Well, and the one below, too.

The photos are from a recent performance by Parcivillian and, whereas I would love to talk about that performance and talk about the rehearsal session I sat in on (which was fascinating!), I need to finish up the interview. The part I skipped over. See, being a writer, I felt compelled to ask the guys about, well, what kinds of things they read. In relation to that, I found it really cool that the name of their band comes from a book (see last week's post).

Me: The next question I'm going to ask is going to seem, possibly, weird or offtrack because it has nothing to do with music.

Elliot: How many pets do you have?

Me: No... [And that did make me laugh.] I'm a writer, and a lot of the people who follow my blog are writers, so, as a writer, do you read and what do you read?

Someone, at that point, said, "Oh, boy!" but I can'd tell who it was.

Me: Or have there been any influential books you have read? Even if it's like The Monster at the End of the Book.

Delek: John Steinbeck is my all-time favorite writer. I've read every book he's written.

Me: What's your favorite Steinbeck?

Delek: Actually, Cannery Row. Or, no... I always forget the name. The one about the pirate. That's my favorite one. [There followed a discussion where we (Delek, Elliot, and I) tried to figure out the book, but none of us could come up with which one he meant. I'm still not sure, because I haven't read whichever one it is.] Bukowski, too. I love Bukowski. [I redirected back to Steinbeck through some questions about Steinbeck's King Arthur stuff, so the next comments are about Steinbeck.] Mainly the things about California. And people. How he writes about people. His knowledge of what makes people human is probably what attracts me to his writing.... He's probably my all time favorite writer, but I've read countless books, and I'm still reading countless books. Some stuff in science, some in history. I just read this incredible biography about Benjamin Franklin. It's like music; I read a lot of stuff. I used to read a lot of fantasy.

Me: I went through high school reading fantasy.

Delek: Do you know David Eddings?

Me: Oh, yeah! The Belgariad, after The Lord of the Rings, I think is the best fantasy series ever written.

Elliot: I read that, too.

Delek: I liked that. I liked that actually better than The Lord of the Rings. I liked his writing a lot.
[There was some more discussion about Eddings (during which I do entirely too much of the talking), after which Delek turned to Stav and said, "What do you read?"]

Stav: That's the weird thing; I actually don't read that much. And it's weird because I love writing lyrics to songs but, as far as books and novels, I just don't do it.

Me: They're completely different beasts.

Stav: Yeah, that's right. I did read the Harry Potter books when I was a kid, of course. Those, I loved. They were great. Read books for school. But I'm a very slow reader so, as far as school goes, I kind of struggled through the books, so that's kind of where I'm at. But I love poetry, even though I don't know many huge poets. In school, I loved analyzing and studying the poems. As far as literature, I love poetry, and that's what I try to do when I write songs.

Me: As a song writer, I'd be surprised if you didn't have some kind of attachment to poetry.
[There was a bit more general talk of poetry before we moved on to Elliot.]

Elliot: My all time favorite book is The Pastures of Heaven by Steinbeck.

Me: I haven't read that one.

Delek: That one's amazing.

Elliot: It is. It's the most incredible perspective I've ever seen on the human being. [There's some discussion about Pastures and what it's about.]

Me: Y'all are going to make me have to pick back up on Steinbeck after this.

Elliot: Lately, I've gotten into more novels. Actually, this is a funny story [points at Delek]; he taught me how to read.

Me: Yeah? That's cool!

Elliot: He gave me the first Harry Potter book and worked through about the first chapter with me, I think, and said, "You're on your own." Then I read the whole thing.

Delek: That is a funny story.

Elliot: Yeah... I got into David Eddings. I got into Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett...

Delek: Yeah!

Me: Good Omens.

Elliot: Exactly. [There followed a back and forth discussion of Gaiman and Pratchett.] Somewhere after eighth grade, I got really into Shakespeare, including the poetry. I love that stuff. [Then, there was a discussion of Hamlet.]

Interestingly enough, this all moved into a discussion of the book Parzival, which is the book they took they name from (which you know if you read last week's post (link above)), but they didn't mention the connection at that point. They (Elliot and Delek) just went on and on about how good it is. Stav will have to read it this year, so he hasn't had that experience of it, yet.

Elliot: Of course, I've read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Actually, I like The Hobbit better. I've read [it] three times.

There was some other discussion about The Hobbit during which I talked way too much, and that's where we left the discussion of reading and went back to music. It was great for me to talk to them about what they've read and what's influenced them, and, really, I may have to pick Steinbeck up again. It's actually something I've been meaning to do anyway, so...

And that's a look inside an up and coming band. I hope great things for these guys. They're music is great, and they were a pleasure to meet and hang out with. I'm sure you'll hear a bit more about them from me in the future. They have a concert coming up, so it's not too unlikely that there will be a post about that. Until, then, check out "Lonely Road."

The Theory of Everything (a movie review post)

I'll start by making it clear that I am not a Hawking fan. In general, I am not a fan of science that has a greater relation to the kind of "science" that Greek philosophers did than to actual science. But that has nothing to do with the movie, which is kind of unfortunate, actually, since the movie barely touched on anything to do with science other than that Hawking was working on his PhD in physics.

In fact, the movie doesn't seem to have much to do with anything. The trailers seemed to indicate the movie was going to be focusing in Hawking's survival of his early onset motor neuron disease, and, maybe, the movie looks like it's heading in that direction at one point. Hawking meets Jane (the movie opens with that), they fall in love, Hawking falls on his face and discovers he's going to die. He has two years. Jane proclaims, "We'll fight this together." And, well, that's it. They just glide on through and never mention the fact that Hawking failed to die or why he lived. So, basically, the thing that might have made the movie interesting is left behind as if it was nothing more than a conversation over breakfast, "Oh, and by the way, we'll fight your disease together. Have a good day at work doing physics."

I did become curious, though, as to why Hawking did survive, and I tried to find out, but there's not a lot out there on the subject, at least not any information that requires a lot more time to find than I was willing to put into it. Basically, though, it sounds like the general attitude is, "Oh, he just didn't die." Did he have better care (Jane) than other people? Was it love? Was it determination? Was it just that he's so smart? None of those things are touched on in the movie, and I didn't see anything in a quick survey about Hawking, either. He just lived. Kind of like Harry Potter.

As far as the movie goes, there was nothing compelling about it. It's not that it was boring (that would be something that could be said about it, at least), it just wasn't anything. If the power had gone out or the projector broken or, for any reason, the movie had to be stopped, I would not have felt enough interest to wonder what happened. When it comes down to it, more than anything else, the movie is about what a horrible deal Jane struck when she said she wanted whatever time she and Stephen would have together, but, then, she didn't expect that to be more than two years.

In effect, the movie is about the horrible marriage that seems so common amongst most couples and hardly needs to have Stephen Hawking in it to drive that point home. And if it has a point, it's probably during the fantasy sequence at the end where Hawking imagines himself walking again and gives his "where there is life, there is hope" speech. I don't think I needed a movie to make that point, and this movie certainly doesn't support that point. Not in any way that matters.

For some reason, people seem to think that Eddie Redmayne did some kind of spectacular job playing Hawking but, mostly, he just sat in a chair with a grin plastered to his face. To say that I was underwhelmed would be an understatement. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing impressive about this movie, least of all Redmayne's performance. As to why it's being considered for any kind of Oscar has everything to do with the person it's based on and nothing to do with the merits of the film, of which it has very few. This has Heath Ledger written all over it to me, i.e., getting an undeserved Oscar for which there would have been no nomination if he hadn't died. Not that Hawking is dead, but it's the same kind of sympathy.

Maybe, I'm a heartless person, but I don't have that kind of sympathy. Redmayne hasn't delivered an astounding performance, and people wouldn't think he had if he was playing someone we'd never heard of. But, you know, it's Hawking, and we all feel bad for Hawking, so "Oooh! He was so good!"
Sorry, I cry "Bullshit!"

Benedict Cumberbatch as Frankenstein

Back in 2011, Britain's National Theater put together a production of Frankenstein directed by Danny Boyle (who also directed Trainspotting, 28 Days Later..., and Slumdog Millionaire) with a new script written by Nick Dear. There were two things that set this production apart from previous iterations of Frankenstein:
1. The focus was on the creation, something that I'm not sure has been done since Mary Shelley wrote the book.
2. The production would feature two actors (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, both of whom currently play Sherlock Holmes in separate television series) in the roles of the doctor and his creation who would switch off playing the two roles from performance to performance.

Fortunately, the National Theater has National Theater Live who film the performances for worldwide showings. Also, fortunately, one of the local theaters here (one that tends toward independent films) did special screenings of the production. Unfortunately, though, I was only able to see one of the variations, the one with Cumberbatch as the monster.

There were some clips before the "movie" started about the making of the production, and Cumberbatch talked about his method for learning how to move as the monster. He studied the movements of people who are in physical therapy to re-learn how to use their bodies after a stroke or accident. He was pretty impressive. He had this jerky, twitchy way of moving around, even after he "learned" how to move, that made it clear he wasn't quite in control of his body. Or, well, anything.

Overall, it was an excellent production; however, there were a few things I had issues with.

The play opens with the creature being "born." There's a long sequence of him learning to move his body around which culminates in the doctor coming in and freaking out to find his creation alive. He abandons the creature to the world. Then there's a long sequence of the monster discovering grass and the sun and rain and... people. People who persecute him for his ugliness. All of this is fascinating, especially Cumberbatch's depiction of the monster, BUT... It just went on for too long. The floundering around on the stage learning how to stand and walk took something like 15-20 minutes then another 15 to 20 minutes of the creature doing things like eating grass until he's finally chased away by a mob. So, while Cumberbatch's performance was impressive during this section, it was too much. His performance of the monster was impressive throughout the play and, once the play got into the story, it was good, too.

However, I was a bit underwhelmed by Jonny Lee Miller. He didn't really seem a "mad genius" or like someone playing God or anything at all like how I would think of Victor Frankenstein. Actually, he seemed much more like a kid throwing rocks through the windows of an abandoned house or pulling the legs off of a spider, doing it because he could but without much interest. I've heard that he was better as the creation, but that's just what I've heard; I can't verify that, because I didn't see that version.

I was also not impressed by the performance of George Harris (Shacklebolt in Harry Potter), who played Victor's father. He came off as rather flat to me, no real emotion in what he was acting. The people I saw it with agreed with me, but they saw the other variation of the play, also, and said he was much better as Victor's father when Cumberbatch was playing Victor. So, maybe, he was having an off night or, maybe, the synergy between Harris and Cumberbatch was better than it was with Miller.

As I said, overall it was an excellent production, and I would really like to see it from the other perspective with Cumberbatch as Victor. It looks like it might get a DVD release, so, hopefully, I will get the chance. If there happens to be a showing of this near you, I would highly recommend it, if nothing else, just for the chance to see the "live" performance.

Let Me Incite You

There's a lot of talk in the "writing world" [I'm not exactly sure what the "writing world" is, which is why it's the "writing world" and not the writing world. I think it must be like, to some extent, the "wizarding world" (which probably doesn't need the quotation marks (or maybe it does)) but, then, I wonder if there is a special school for people in the "writing world," a Penwarts or something, and, if there is, why wasn't I invited?] about starting in "the middle of the action" (this feels like it's going to be a quotation mark-heavy post) and how important it is to hooking your reader. However, I'm not quite sure that people understand what it means to "start in the middle of the action."

See, the problem there is the word "action." We all have this Idea of what Action is, and it involves car chases and shootouts and smashing and crashing and all of that just like at the beginning of the movie The Goonies, which is rather brilliant, actually, in putting all of that in there and making it mean something without actually skipping... oh, wait, I think I'm jumping ahead. At any rate, what people think when they read that about "starting in the middle of the action" is "starting in the middle of the Action," and that's not what that means.

For those of you that don't know, I've been teaching creative writing for a few years at my kids' (well, now, "kid's," since there's only one left at the school) middle school. One of the things that I have to talk about every year -- and not just every year but multiple times every year -- is where the kids should begin their stories, how it starts. About half of the short stories I get start with the protagonist (almost always a middle schooler) waking up, getting dressed, brushing her teeth (the teeth brushing is always included, which is good, you know, because I'd say that probably means the authors are brushing their teeth, too, but I do, also, find it curious), eating breakfast, and going off to school. I equate this with standing in line, a long one, for a roller coaster at an amusement park. Lines are boring and pretty much the same no matter where you're standing in it, at an amusement park or at the bank or in a grocery store. And most everyone does the same kinds of things when they get up in the morning, and we don't want to read about it.

The thing is, the line is not part of the roller coaster. It is not "the action."

The action starts somewhere around the curve going up. How much before is, yes, subjective and probably depends upon the kind of story it is, but I'd say it's the part of the line where you're actually on the ride itself or, maybe, when you're in the little herding areas being sent along to the meat processing... oh, wait! Roller coaster... right! ...being sent along to the specific part of the ride where you're going to sit or to the specific car (or boat or whatever) that you're going to be in.

That part of the story is called the "exposition," and you can see it circled in the above drawing.  "The action" of the story starts with the exposition, not somewhere up the line of rising action. If you have to skip the exposition because you think it's too boring to draw in readers, then you need to strengthen your exposition, not find some sequence of Action to start in the middle of and, then, flashback to the exposition so that it makes sense.

Those of you who pay a little more attention may have noticed a red line through the action in the middle of the exposition: That line is called the "inciting incident."

The inciting incident is the moment in the story where the protagonist's life is sent off in a different direction. We also call this the "point of change." The exposition should be centered around this event, thus you are starting in the middle of the action, not somewhere back in the boring, mundane stuff that makes up everyone's life. Like getting up every morning and getting ready for school or work.

I most frequently use Star Wars (specifically A New Hope) to illustrate this (because it is the most common denominator among the students. Always. Even more than Harry Potter). The action starts with Luke buying the droids, his inciting incident, the point where his life changed (and, yes, I know that's not where the movie starts. That stuff up in space with Leia and the droids is prologue). That moment, the purchase of the droids, is not Action. It is, however, in the middle of the action.

Another curious thing about my middle schoolers: The most common inciting incident is the protagonist receiving a mysterious note or book.

The point is that "starting in the middle of the action" does not mean, necessarily, starting with something exciting, starting with Action. It just means finding that point in which your protagonist's life changes, where it veers off course. That can be a very boring thing, in all actuality. Like buying a pair of droids or finding a mysterious note or a birthday party. Not everything has to be explosions and gun fights.

All of which leads me to what had me thinking about "inciting incidents" in the first place, other than that's what we're working on in class, right now. The thought was something like, "If someone was making a biopic of your life, what would your inciting incident be?" I mean, there's no need to cover anyone's whole life in one story, right, so, if you were looking for the most significant moment, the moment of change, what would it be? Sure, that can be a lot of different things depending on the story you want to tell, but, let's say, it's about, for me, being a writer. That inciting incident is not one of Action. It was just a quiet moment where I read something (I talked about it way back here if you want to read about it), but it changed me.

Anyway... That was just a stray thought that prompted all of this, but I do think it's important to not skip the exposition and to know what your inciting incident is. If you're a writer, that is. Or if you're not, depending upon how you want to take this. Maybe you've never had an inciting incident in your life and you need one? Sometimes, all it takes is a decision.

Exploring Personality: Part One -- "Who Am I?" (an IWM post)

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

Oscar Wilde

The search for self is central to the human condition. Selfhood is our first great struggle in life. Differentiation. "Who am I?" "Why am I?" I am not just an extension of my mother and/or my father. Okay, well, after potty training, the struggle to establish an independent identity, to become "me," is our first great obstacle in life. Some people, perhaps most people, as Oscar Wilde says, never become "I;" they remain, in some form or another, "we" and "us."

Actually, that's a true thing that most people never really become themselves, but we'll get to that and the research around it later in this series. However, it is that thing, that thing where people are mostly other people that has always struck me about the Bible's use of the term "sheep" in its description of humanity. But I digress...

* * *

To find out what I digress from, you'll have to follow the herd right over to Indie Writers Monthly. You know you don't want to be left out, so head on over.

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Six: The Draw (an IWM post)

I suppose the real question is, "Why does all of this matter?" Of course, that's the real question for so many things, but let's just look at it in relation to fantasy for the moment. Why does it matter? Why should we care about fantasy or where it comes from?

And that could go in all kinds of directions and get all kinds of philosophical, but I want to look at it in relation to the fantasy model itself. You can find the list here.

So... Let's start with kids.

* * *

But let's start with kids over on Indie Writers Monthly. Yeah, I know you know the drill.

I'll see you there. I better see you there.

Kids' Clothes Were Never This Cool

Have you seen the clothes they make for kids these days? They're amazing. Kids' clothes were never this cool when I was a kid. It was all like tiny grownup clothes. I mean, they didn't even have Star Wars t-shirts! Well, okay, they did, but it was only every once in a while. And they were made with those big iron decals, basically, so, once you wore it about three times, the image was all cracked and peeling off. Well, not when you wore it; once it was washed a few times, it looked like it really came from a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away. Of course, the answer to that was to never wash it. Right?

One of my friends... Hold on; let me really emphasize that: ONE of my friends had a Star Wars shirt with R2 and C-3PO on it. He was the envy of every boy in our class. I was in my 20s before I had my own Star Wars t-shirt. Unless you count Underoos. Yeah, that was about as cool as it got when I was a kid. You could get underwear with stuff on it but not actual clothes. I had the Boba Fett Underoos

which were cool if you wanted to run around the house pretending to be Boba Fett (a Boba Fett with no pants), but you couldn't really wear the shirt out in public without every other person asking you what was on your shirt. Saying "a chest plate" really didn't help. Yes, I know.
I also had the Yoda Underoos

which were better, because you could wear that shirt out in public. Even if someone didn't know who he was, you could just say, "He's Yoda. He's from Star Wars."

When I was a kid, you couldn't even get band t-shirts (not that I wanted any) unless you actually went to the concert and bought them! It wasn't really until the late 80s and U2 that you could actually go to a store and buy a band t-shirt. Other than Spencer's, I mean. You could get that stuff in there, but I wasn't allowed in that place. Regular department stores and clothing stores had regular clothes, and that was it. Cool was not allowed.

All of that has changed now. Pop culture is everywhere. Any brand of cool you can think of, you can find. And you can find it virtually anywhere.

So, yeah, I've been back-to-school shopping with my kids, and it's always envy-making. Well, clothes shopping in general with my kids is envy-making. Even with my daughter. Not that I want all the pink, sparkly stuff she has, but they have cool Star Wars clothes for her, too! She's got the one shirt with... wait, I'll show you!

I love that shirt! And she even picked it out. I'm not sure what that says about how she thinks about me, but I don't think I really care. And clothes shopping with my daughter always makes my wife depressed. She's always, "I want one of those," or, "I want those colors," but they don't make that kind of stuff for adults.

I just have to say: These days, kids have it good.

And it's not just with clothes; it's with books, too. When I was in middle school, there were no books being written for kids my age. Or, well, there were, but they were all romances aimed at girls. The "YA" section (or whatever they called it then) didn't even get a full-sized bookcase. The entire section was located on one side of a bookcase that was only waist high. And it was all romance like Sweet Valley High, which had just come out. Things like The Chronicles of Narnia were stocked in the sci-fi/fantasy section because Harry Potter was still more than a decade away and the idea that you could actually write mature(ish) books aimed at teens and young teens was still a foreign concept.

I'm not even going to talk about Lego. Because, oh my gosh, THAT is just so unfair.

Anyway...
Kids have it good. And they don't appreciate it.
But, then, what kids ever do?

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Four: The Darkest Hour (an IWM post)

Along our fantastic fantasy journey, so far, we've learned that we're special and could be the prophesied one, among other things. We've met a mentor and found some friends. We've also gone on a journey, probably in search of something. Hopefully, it's a been a learning experience, and we're fully prepared to meet the final challenge. It's a dark time for the rebellion, after all.

From the initial list I made (which you can see here), we need to cover three more points:

* * *

And, like always, to find out what those three more points are, you will need to hop over to Indie Writers Monthly. This one is all about technology and dark lords. Go read!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Three: Who's Gonna Learn Ya? (an IWM post)

There's no teaser, today, for part three of my exploration into the origins of the modern fantasy arc. If you want to read it, you'll just have to go right over to Indie Writers Monthly and do that. And you totally should.
Today, we really get into what's Tolkien and what's not.

Go, now, and read THE POST!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Two: Orphans and the Gum Under the Seat (an IWM post)

It may seem that the easiest way to find the origins of fantasy literature would be to simply follow the trail of fantasy literature back in history until we get to the earliest examples of it, but that would cause some problems. For instance, when does fantasy cease to be fantasy and become legend or myth? Are we going to call Beowulf a fantasy story? Or the tales of the Greek and Egyptian gods? Or Gilgamesh? It gets kinda messy if we do that. And that's not really what we're looking for, anyway. No, we're trying to establish where our current model for fantasy writing comes from. Look back at the last post to see the list.

So, although we're not going to go looking for historical beginnings, we are going to start at the beginning. Or, at least, where all fantasy stories start: the orphan boy. Sure, sure, it's not always a boy; Disney has given us plenty of girls, after all; but, when we start talking about the genre of fantasy literature, it's nearly always a boy. Or, even, outside the strict confines of fantasy. Let's take a look at some of the most popular examples (and some that I just like):

Oh! Wait! That list is over on Indie Writers Monthly, but it's a good list, so you should go on over and read it. Go see if your favorite fantasy character made the cut!

Abandoned Places: North Brother Island and NIMH (a book review)

North Brother Island, situated in New York's East River, was unpopulated until 1885 when Riverside hospital, a smallpox hospital, was relocated there. Eventually, the hospital came to specialize in quarantinable diseases. Because of this, in 1907, Typhoid Mary was brought to the island. She stayed there until 1910 when she finally agreed to take safety precautions to prevent the spread of the typhoid bacteria she was carrying. Upon release, however, she quickly resumed her life as a cook and continued to spread typhoid fever, changing her name as she moved around each time people became infected because of her. As many as 50 deaths may be attributed to Mary. She was finally recaptured in 1915 and returned to North Brother Island where she lived for the remainder of her life, more than 20 years. Shortly after her death in 1938, the hospital was closed.

During the 1950s, a facility for the treatment of drug addicts was built on the island, but it failed to be successful and closed only a decade later.

The island is now closed to the public and is a bird sanctuary. Until 2008, the island was home to one of the largest colonies of Black-crowned Night Herons, but they have inexplicably also abandoned the island.

North Brother Island was also the home to New York's worst disaster in terms of life loss prior to the 9-11 when, in 1904, a passenger steamboat, the General Slocum, crashed and burned causing the deaths of over 1000 people.

Image by Jonathan Haeber and used under the linked license.

Note: The island contained more than just the hospital. It is the entire island that has been abandoned.

I think these photo credits are to Richard Nickel, Jr., but I was unable to verify that.

I wanted to also include Nara Dreamland, Japan's first amusement park. It was modeled after Disneyland and built in 1961. By the time it closed in 2006, it was virtually already abandoned due to lack of visitors. At any rate, I couldn't find pictures that I could verify were available for use, so here's a link instead.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Robert O'Brien

For being someone who doesn't frequently re-read, I've been doing a lot of that lately. But this one isn't my fault. Well, not exactly.

To say that my daughter is difficult is an understatement at best. She's a great kid, but she's a constant challenge. She likes to be busy. She's always planning ahead. And she rejects any and all book recommendations out of hand even though all of the books she loves (like Harry Potter) were suggested by my wife or me. I have to suggest a book many, many times before she's willing to give it a try. One of the things I've done to entice her is to suggest books that I read when I was her age and that I liked. One of the most successful of those suggestions was Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

I first read about the rats when I was about 10, and I remember really falling in love with the idea of a secret lab that made rats as smart as people. In fact, a bunch of us in my class all read the book around the same time, and I remember that there were many conversations centered around  those rats. I don't, now, remember any of those conversations, but I remember having them.

So, without telling her what the book is about, I told her how much I had liked the book when I was her age and suggested she read it, which she did. And she loved it. As soon as she finished reading it, she wanted to talk to me about the book, and I think she probably wanted to have those same kinds of conversations with me that I had with my friends when I was a kid. But that was 30-odd years ago, and I just couldn't remember enough about it to have a satisfying conversation with her. So she asked me to read it again. That was about a year ago, but I did finally manage to do it.

Before I go on, I do want to say that I think this a great book for kids in the 10-ish age range. And not a disenjoyable read for an adult, which may come off as more harsh than I mean it to sound, because I still did like the book. There's just a few things I didn't like about the book, too. They're things I don't like about it as an adult, though, not things that a middle schooler would be bothered by.

That said, the biggest issue I have with the book is that Mrs. Frisby, ostensibly the protagonist, is nearly superfluous. If the goal in writing a book is to create empathy for the main character, then O'Brien failed. Not that you don't care about Frisby, it's just that who you really care about are the rats. It's like O'Brien had this story about the rats but decided that either it was too long for a "kids' book" or too mature. Maybe both. So he took that story and inserted it into the Frisby bookends and just gave us the rats' story as background. The Mrs. Frisby bit isn't long enough to be a book and the rats' stuff is too long, so I wasn't really satisfied with either story. Not to mention how he leaves the story of the rats hanging at the end, because the story about Frisby was over, and he had no good way to continue on with the rats.

Also, in light of the rest of the book, Frisby is not a believable character for me. She is supposed to be a normal mouse, but he presents her, basically, at near the same level as the rats, who are supposed to be much smarter, possibly smarter than humans, so, basically, Frisby is just too smart for the world he has presented to us. And while I get that he needed her to be the way she was since we're seeing the story through her eyes, it doesn't really make sense within the confines of the story.

The other thing I found annoying was Frisby's convenient capture by Billy so that she could find out all the information that the rats needed. I mean, have you ever tried to catch a mouse? It's not like you can just sneak up on them.

Those things aside, though, it was still an enjoyable (and quick) read and, as I said, a great book for the 4-6th grade age range. Now, I just have to wait for my daughter to finish re-reading it (because the day after I started it, she was assigned the book in class!) so that we can finally have that talk about the Rats of NIMH and how cool they are. And, really, they are cool.

The Sparrow (a book review post)

As I've mentioned before, I am not much of a re-reader. It doesn't matter how much I like a book, I'm very unlikely to go back to it. There are just too many books I've never read for me to spend time re-reading things I've already read. However, as soon as I finished reading The Sparrow, I knew that one day I would read it again. I actually kind of just wanted to re-read it right then. But there was a sequel, so I opted to go that route instead. That was many and several years ago, that first reading, and I have finally gotten around to that re-read. I'm happy to announce that it holds up, which is always the worry when re-reading a book, that it just won't hold up to a second reading.

I think the first thing to point out about The Sparrow is that, for a science fiction book, you probably won't find it in the science fiction section of any bookstore. Generally, The Sparrow is found in the literature section (or whatever they call it now), which is--I want to say impressive, but that gives the wrong impression--abnormal for a book with aliens and interstellar travel. I'm going to say that this is because the book is not about the science fiction; the science fiction is just the stage for the true story, the story of a man and his faith.

So, while there is a voyage through space, the real voyage is spiritual. And I've probably given the wrong impression about what this book is about at this point, because it's not some book of Christian ideology. It's a book that asks questions, hard questions, and doesn't really know what to do with them or how to answer them. It never falls back on "God works in mysterious ways." I really appreciate the book for that. And it's not going to give you a bunch of "answers" at the end, either. There's no "trust God and it will all work out" pat on the back, and I appreciate it for that, too. To put it another way, this not a book preaching a bunch of Christian dogma.

It's not a "Christian" book at all, in fact, not from that perspective, anyway. It's not telling you the answers to all the questions of the universe. It's more asking those questions for you. Or, maybe, asking the questions you thought you weren't allowed to ask. Then it leaves you to figure out what you think about them, which can be a lot more uncomfortable than you might think.

This is one of those books that really speaks to me. It doesn't shy away from all of the crap that life can give you, and it certainly doesn't say, "Well, if bad stuff is happening to you, God must be punishing you." And I really want to talk about the specifics, but I'm not going to, because I think you should go read the book. This is one of the few (three, in fact) books that I think everyone should read. Everyone should have the opportunity to confront the questions The Sparrow asks and figure out if they're going to try to figure them out for themselves or shy away from them or pretend they don't exist.

The structure of the story only adds to everything else that's going on with the book. You follow the main character, Emilio Sandoz, through two different time lines: the trip to Rakhat in the past and the investigation into the trip in the present. It generates one of those situations where you know, ultimately, what happened, but you are rooting for the characters, anyway. You want to know "what" and you want to know "why." It's much more gripping than if the story had been typically linear.

That said, this is no lightweight book. It has humor, but it also has pain. It has enlightenment, but it also has darkness. It has great joy, but it has greater suffering. This is not a Harry Potter "This is great!" recommendation. It's not an amusement park; it's a mountain. But the journey, and the requirement of the climb, is worth it in the end. If you can make the climb. And I do get that not everyone can and not everyone wants to (it's hard work) but, probably, you will not regret it.

There's a good chance that in another five or seven years I will read it again.

The Hobbit: A Review (Part 2)

Disclaimer: The fact that I'm reviewing this right now has nothing to do with the release of the movie.

Note: Those of you who have read my "Of Significance..." page may remember that The Hobbit is listed there, so this is (by far) not my first reading of the book.

Part 1 of this review is here.

It is of great interest to me that Tolkien is considered the "father of modern fantasy" when so much of modern fantasy has nothing to do with what or the way Tolkien wrote. While it's true that The Hobbit is a classic fantasy story, it is not classic in the sense that it uses all the normal conventions of fantasy. In fact, despite that many (most?) people would say that modern fantasy is largely based on Tolkien, you will find few to none of what we consider basic fantasy tropes in The Hobbit (or The Lord of the Rings).

One of the most common bits of fantasy literature is the young, male protagonist. Young often means teenager. Most often, probably. The last couple of decades have finally brought us a bevy of female protagonists, but, still, youth is the most common theme. Bilbo, however, is not young. He's not even what we would consider middle-aged. He's not quite "old," but he's definitely on his way. Definitely "established" and definitely set in his ways. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other piece of fantasy literature that's like that except The Lord of the Rings, because Frodo (and the other hobbits), also, is not young (something Peter Jackson conveniently forgot). [And it's not one of these things where hobbits are old but still young like elves can be, because hobbits are Tolkien's stand-ins for humans and age about the same way (when Bilbo is turning 111 in LotR, he is old, as in really old, as in ancient).] The closest other thing I can think of is Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, who is not old but is definitely not young.

The next piece is that this young protagonist is frequently (almost always) an orphan of some kind. Maybe, s/he has one of his/her parents, but the protagonist generally has lost at least one of them and almost always to some kind of violent circumstance. Maybe this is why the orphan princess is so common in Disney? Bilbo is definitely not an orphan. Which is not to say that his parents are alive, because they're  not, but, then, he's 50, and there is no indication that they died of anything other than old age. Or, maybe, boredom.

Then there is the requisite prophecy about the protagonist. The list of fantasy literature which feature a prophecy would probably exceed my usual word count, so I'll just remind everyone of Harry Potter and how he fits all three of these so far. Even The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a prophecy. The Hobbit contains no prophecy (neither does LotR). There is nothing "special" about Bilbo in that sense. He has not been chosen by fate to do what he does. This is a story about a hobbit that rises to the occasion. It's more like your boss at work needing a job done, choosing the person the boss thinks is most qualified, and that person choosing to do it.

And there is no "party" of adventurers. No, the dwarves don't count, because they're all interchangeable on the whole. And Gandalf abandons them half way through. So there's no wizard, no fighter, no ranger, no healer, none of that stuff we expect to find among the heroes band of followers. Just the burglar, and that's Bilbo.

Possibly the biggest break from convention is that Bilbo is not the valiant warrior that "saves the day" in the end. He does not slay the dragon, and he does not defeat the goblin army. He's not even conscious for most of that. Bilbo is a hero of another type, let's say a moral hero, which is so much more important and believable. Bilbo's bravest moment is when he walks down the tunnel to see the dragon. Not to fight the dragon, just to see him. I love that bit:

Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.

And his most significant contribution to the end of the story is standing up against his friends when they are set on a wrong path. Neville Longbottom's stand against his friends and Dumbledore's rewarding of it very much reminded me of Bilbo handing the Arkenstone over to Bard.

Basically, despite what everyone says about "all fantasy" being based on Tolkien, almost no fantasy is based on Tolkien. What Tolkien did was original and, amazingly, remains original to this day. No one else has written a story like The Hobbit (and, although people have attempted stories like The Lord of the Rings, no one has succeeded), and I have to wonder if that's because the story becomes so much bigger in our minds after we read it. Bilbo becomes this larger than life hero that he's really not in the book, and that's, frankly, amazing. We remember him fighting the spiders and riddling with Gollum and the dragon, but we forget that it's Bard that kills the dragon and the Eagles that save the day in the Battle of Five Armies. It really is like what Gandalf tells him in the end:

You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.

We don't tend to have characters like that in our fantasy. Our protagonists are huge, essential characters who have the fate of the world hanging on their shoulders, and Bilbo is not that kind of hero.

He's just a guy that learns that he's capable of more than he believes he is, and I think that's an important lesson to learn. And I love that we see that change through the pages of The Hobbit. He goes from being a guy that runs away from just the idea of an adventure, of anything different, to the guy that gets them all caught by trolls, to the guy that everyone depends upon. There's no unlocking of the secret, magical talent that only he possesses; there is only Bilbo learning to use the "gifts" that everyone is given. There is only Bilbo deciding to go instead of stay and to do instead of not. It is Tolkien telling us that there is a bit of the Tookish inside of all of us... if only we can wake it up.