Not only my favourite Jane Austen novel, but also my eighteen year old son's (with whom I listened to Greta Schachi's beautiful reading of it during oNot only my favourite Jane Austen novel, but also my eighteen year old son's (with whom I listened to Greta Schachi's beautiful reading of it during our daily walks), Persuasion is a slice of literary perfection.
All of Austen's novels have something to recommend them (I speak of her completed six, having never dipped into Sanditon), and they are all books I have read and read again, but for me Persuasion is Austen's masterpiece. I imagine most readers would choose Pride and Prejudice as the best Austen, and I can understand why, and I know I certainly love it myself. Yet I find the love between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth to be truer than that of Lizzie and Darcy, the truest of all the loves in all of Austen's books. It is also the love that is best earned, the love that ripens naturally and lasts through genuine difficulty before coming to fruition.
Moreover, Anne and Frederick are people I can say I would like to know without any reservations. I would be thrilled to spend time in their company (more than any Austen couple except, perhaps, Emma and Knightly), and I care deeply about them and their love. Beyond our lovers, the world of Persuasion is populated by the least caricatured, the most genuine of supporting players. The villainy seems properly villainous without ever feeling moustache twisting; the foibles of Anne's family don't descend into the ridiculous as many of our heroine's silly families do; and the tensions and misunderstandings that entangle all the books' lovers -- not just Anne and Frederick -- feel as true as anything Austen has ever written.
I will take a short break to read Mansfield Park and some other non-Austen things, but I know I will return to Kellynch Hall and Bath soon enough....more
I am sure I am not the only person to see what I saw in Anne Rice's classic, Interview with the Vampire, and it's possible (although unlikely since shI am sure I am not the only person to see what I saw in Anne Rice's classic, Interview with the Vampire, and it's possible (although unlikely since she wrote this book in the seventies) that Rice intended this reading of her text all those years ago, but having spent the last near decade deep diving into true crime (a wealth of bizarro knowledge I never had at my disposal when reading the Vampire Chronicles in the past), it was impossible not to see the tale of Louis de Pointe du Lac as the confessions of a serial killer-paedophile-deviant rather than the confessions of a vampire.
And for me, this reading of Interview with the Vampire makes the book leap from top notch vampire book to a piece of impressive literature.
Indeed, Interview with the Vampire is more truly unnerving when one realizes and embraces that the way Louis thinks -- guilt and all -- is the way serial killers think. His immortal vampirism is the serial killers' superiority complex; his misgivings and sadness are the serial killers' doubts and lack of self-worth; his justifications are the serial killers'; his desire to stop, his hunger for forgiveness, his hunger for more -- these too are the serial killers'.
How can Louis' love for and relationship with Claudia be anything other than paedophilic, no matter how subtle and brilliant her ancient vampire mind becomes?
It is an astonishing way to read a book that I first read as a compelling pseudo-horror, then read again as a twisted erotic romance between two men who could only love each other as vampires (still a favourite reading of mine) -- whose homoerotic desires could find no other outlet than the intense sensuality of their vampirism. Add these readings to the serial killer reading and you can see why I now declare that Interview with the Vampire is literature. This is no mere popular entertainment. There are layers and layers in this book. It is deep with possibility. And it is truly amazing that at a time when the concept of criminal profiling had only just begun, Anne Rice created the ultimate fictional profile of a killer.
Miloš, my son, I want to thank you for so many things.
It will be years before you read this. Probably not until I am gone and you are sifting throughMiloš, my son, I want to thank you for so many things.
It will be years before you read this. Probably not until I am gone and you are sifting through the internet looking for scraps of me -- either to scream at or take comfort in -- but you will find this, I know it, and I am speaking to you from this hot July night, across however many years have passed, to tell you that I loved you deeper than blood, deeper than the parental bond.
You are my hero. Everything about you fills me with awe. Your art blows my mind. Your athleticism is beautiful to behold. Your kindness and maturity constantly humble me. Your hair is glorious. Your imagination is ineluctable. The control you have of your temper, your ability to find calm when your storms are brewing, eclipses anything I could ever approach. Your passion for the smallest things is inspiring. And somehow we have become more than son and father. We have become friends. And that is the greatest stroke of luck I have ever experienced.
So imagine what it means to me to have been given -- by you -- the opportunity to read The Road aloud. Every syllable of McCarthy's book is infused with love between the man and the boy, and you shared it with me, night after night, curled up in the red light of my head lamp, even though the nights are too hot in the summer and the girls were clamouring to get to bed. Yet once I started reading, the whole world that is melted away, and we found ourselves in that terrible, awful, seemingly inevitable world that will be, but there we were with each other, being reminded night after night that the fire is love, and we have it for each other because we let it in, we let it be.
Soon you will grow older and you will drift away from me, but I will carry nights like tonight, nights when our tears were shared over the fate of the boy and the man, in my heart and mind until death, and maybe then, when my star stuff is returned to the universe, you will find this letter and read it one night (maybe even the night you finish reading this book to one of your children), and you will remember our love for one another, and you will be back in your childhood home as if you never left, and you will remember the hope of the fire that lifts The Road up beyond seeming hopelessness, and you will remember why we go on, and you will know that you were the greatest friend I ever had.
I love you, Miloš. You are a beautiful being. You have the fire. And you are my fire. I hope your life, when you read this, is as wonderful as mine is because of you right now. Kiss the ones you love, my son, and know that you have always been loved yourself.
I have been known to argue against hope. To argue that hope is evervating. That it leads to apathy and inaction. That it is anathema to change. I haveI have been known to argue against hope. To argue that hope is evervating. That it leads to apathy and inaction. That it is anathema to change. I have argued these things and probably will again, so it is particularly strange that one of my all time favourite books should be a book so filled with hope, so about hope.
In this age of fantasy books great and not so great getting their own shows on HBO or Netflix or MTV, my most fervent wish is to see The Lions of al-Rassan on screen. Not only do I think it would make an insanely entertaining show, but I think it could be the most important show of its kind in our popular culture precisely because of its message of hope.
Guy Gavriel Kay's Lions of al-Rassan offers a slightly veiled take on the al-Andalusian period in medieval Spain, replacing the Catholic Spanish with the Jaddites, the Jewish diaspora with the Kindath, and the Muslims with the Asharites. Amongst these groups are individuals capable of almost any atrocity, but there are also individuals capable of almost any sacrifice or goodness too. It is from these benevolent moments, springing out of two cultures of fundamentalism, superstition and ever changing power, that Kay delivers us his message of hope. That there are men and women -- no matter what surrounds them -- who strive to make their world and their lives and the lives of those around them better, and that they can come from the same culture (and religious background) and ethical structure that creates the ugliest expressions of humanity.
Some of the criticism I have read of the Lions of al-Rassan, takes Kay to task for both the almost superhuman skills of his main players, and what is often seen as the black and white of their beliefs and actions. And while I can see that this is present (more in their talents than in their belief systems), I do think that these qualities are purposefully present so that Kay can make his greater case for hope. Jehane, the brilliant Kindath physician, and the two men she loves, the poet-assassin-swordsmen-general Ammar ibn Khairan and the swordsman-general-leader Rodrigo Belmonte, are great at all the things they do, and they each embody what could be best about their peoples. These archetypes are employed to point a way to greatness of spirit as much as greatness in the individual, to offer us inspiration in a trio of characters deserving of our love.
For all their archetypal greatness, however, I am and always have been most impressed by their complexity. Each of them contains beliefs that can't help but create internal conflict in a world of mixed loyalty, religious complexity, cultural inertia and extreme violence. So many of the feelings they have are in direct opposition to the things they are told they should feel, so many of the things they are contravene the standards of the day, and rarely are they faced with easy decisions, and when they are they don't always make what we may consider the best or right decisions. Yet through it all they -- and even many of the supporting characters -- remain self-aware, and that it is within that self-awareness that the good of all the characters, even the most blatantly villainous, can be found.
And that is the place from which the hope of The Lions of al-Rassan springs. It is a beautiful message, and we need it now more than ever. So long as it doesn't make us believe that it can be done by anyone other than ourselves. ...more
I found myself back in Paris this winter because my 10 year old son, the indomitable Miloš, took on The Three Musketeers for his essay, and I read it I found myself back in Paris this winter because my 10 year old son, the indomitable Miloš, took on The Three Musketeers for his essay, and I read it in support. It is my sixth or seventh reading, but I haven't read it in a while so I honestly can't remember which reading it is, not that it matters. I had quite the experience this time through.
In the past I have been obsessed with the treatment of Milady de Winter -- both Dumas' treatment of her and the Musketeers' treatment of her -- but this time I was much more focused on the Musketeers themselves. Most if not all of that can be chalked up to Miloš' essay topic. About half way through he was zeroing in on the fact that the Musketeers, particularly Athos and D'Artagnan (who begins the tale unattached then turns Guard then turns Musketeer) are vastly less than heroic. So my reading went down the same path, and damn are they an ugly bunch.
I've spoken and written of their iniquities in the past, so I'll leave the listing of their bad behaviours aside, but I will say that I was struck most profoundly -- once again -- by the way pop culture has twisted the Inseparables.
I am sure that Dumas' didn't conceive of them as humorous, sexy, devil-may-care, lily white, honourable or even upstanding heroes. He conceived of them as flawed men living in a flawed society, busy taking advantage of whatever they could to get ahead, get in a bed, get rich or richer or forget their pasts. Sure they are fun to read when they have a rare sword or musket fight (and there are precious few when you consider the page count of this book), but so much of who they are is so unsavoury that, as Miloš said to me, "they can't be heroes." No. They really can't.
I wonder if we started a petition of literary fans if we could get HBO to produce a version of the Musketeers that makes them appear as they truly are, though I doubt it. BBC has succeeded in making their time dirtier and grungier, and even made Cardinal Richelieu vastly more nasty than Dumas intended, but their Musketeers are as charming as ever Hollywood made them. I, for one, would rather see the nasty Musketeers. I want to see them as they were conceived by Dumas. That would be something. ...more
I took up a writing about reading challenge recently, and I ran into a question asking, "What is your favourite series?" I'd have thought this was an I took up a writing about reading challenge recently, and I ran into a question asking, "What is your favourite series?" I'd have thought this was an easy topic to write about. How man good series can there be? Turns out quite a few.
And that's before I even considered the looser, less confined series, like China Miéville's Bas-Lag books, Iain M. Banks' Culture novels and Ursula K. LeGuin's Hainish Cycle. Myriad choices.
Yet with all this choice, and all these series that I love (and more than a few that I've left unmentioned), there really is only one choice for me -- Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books -- so it turns out to be an easy question after all.
O'Brian wrote twenty books in the series, and died in the middle stages of his twenty-first. Twenty books about two men: Captain Jack Aubrey, the big, brash, reluctantly bellicose Captain of many ships (but most often the HMS Surprise), and his best friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, the half-Irish/half-Catalan natural philosopher with a talent for espionage and a dangerous temper. We get to know their characters in ways and depths that I've never experienced anywhere else, and O'Brian never strikes a false note. Not once. Everything his men do are exactly what these men would do and when they would do it and how and why. We get to know all the people they love, all the people they hate, all the things they believe in, but most of all we get to see two men love each other over decades. Two men for whom the most important person in the world is the other.
We see Jack save Stephen from torture at the hands of the French, and carry his best friend with the delicacy of a father carrying a newborn, fighting back his sorrow because he must remain a Captain in charge. We see Stephen buy Jack a ship when Jack's been ignominiously drummed out of the service, and somehow he manages to give the gift without wounding his friend's pride.
I came to this series quite late, just before my twins were born eight years ago, and already I am back to book five in my reread (though much slower this time than last). Meanwhile, I am listening to the original book, Master and Commander, with my son whenever we get a chance to sneak into my office, all wood panelled and candle-lit (like a small cabin on the Surprise herself), and lose ourselves in the earliest meetings of Aubrey and Maturin. I've even passed these books onto my non-reading father (despite our longstanding problems), and even he has become a fan (no surprise, really, considering his nautical background).
For sheer comfort there is no series like Aubrey/Maturin. I love spending time with them. I love the action when it comes; I love the women they love; I love the intrigue and political machinations and way the wind and the sea make them the most themselves. More authors need to dedicate themselves to characters the way O'Brian dedicated himself to his men (not to plots and tales, but to the characters themselves). The literary world would be a much richer place. ...more
Whenever I read Shakespeare, I always find myself longing to be back in Rome watching the assassination of Caesar. So I do just that.
I read Hamlet foWhenever I read Shakespeare, I always find myself longing to be back in Rome watching the assassination of Caesar. So I do just that.
I read Hamlet for class, and I immediately pick up Caesar. I read one of the plays I've been meaning to get to, and I immediately pick up Caesar. I catch a late night TV showing of Much Ado About Nothing or Othello, and I immediately pick up Ceasar. It feels like home to me.
It contains the elements that make Shakespeare's great plays great (at least to me). Death as the great equalizer. The corruption of power. Errors in judgement. The indecision that "goodness" necessitates. The supernatural as an inescapable motivator. The manipulative power of speech.
It's an old friend, is Julius Caesar. My son's middle name is Cesar, and at least part of the reason for that is my love of this play. It is always on my mind, even when I am not reading other Shakespeare. Yet I cannot watch the Brando/Mason film of the play (too daunting); and I've never actually seen it staged (when I wasn't involved).
I want to play Brutus some day soon. Then maybe Cassius before it's too late. And then Caesar when my hair is all grey. Maybe by then Milos Ernest Cesar can play Antony. Now that would be cool. ...more
there is no better way to kick off a semester of literature than a modest proposal. one smart ass student always tries to derail the conversation withthere is no better way to kick off a semester of literature than a modest proposal. one smart ass student always tries to derail the conversation with an early declaration of the proposal’s satire, but no one listens, and within moments i have a class of fifty - sixty students angry, frustrated, and sometimes rabid as i take swift’s ironic side and ask the students, with all the seriousness i can muster (which is quite a bit), if we shouldn’t give it a try? i follow that up with “why not?” after “why not?” then smack them upside the head with their universal humanist superiority complex, and force them to think. it’s so new to them they leave hating me or loving me. but they do leave thinking. poor bastards. except that one mormon in the front row. he never leaves thinking anything other than how superior he is. and what a dipshit i am....more
Your decade long run of Calvin and Hobbes was the greatest run of any comic strip in the history of comic strips, and you madAugust 7, 2011
Dear Bill,
Your decade long run of Calvin and Hobbes was the greatest run of any comic strip in the history of comic strips, and you made the right choice putting an end to it when you did. I can't believe it's been gone for 16 years now. Your precocious Calvin was what every kid with an overactive imagination is in their own heads, but you also gave us the view of what the rest of the world sees in these kids and does to try and beat the imagination out of them. There's implied sadness in the explicit joy you gave us, and it makes Calvin and Hobbes a true masterpiece.
I was fourteen when you started your opus, and I was close enough to my own hyper-imaginative childhood to connect at a visceral level. My youthful imaginary friends were still fresh in my mind, and my current imaginary friends were just taking hold, and your strip gave me something to relate to, someone to cheer for, a place where it was okay to turn dreary realties of the world into exciting fantasies and be proud of that ability all at the same time. It was also a fabulous way to relax my brain (though not too much) amidst all the literature I was devouring at a frightening rate.
But I have a request. Now that I am forty, and I have a precocious little Calvin of my own making explosive sounds with his mouth as he blows up his LEGO creations (as I write this, in fact), and my little Calvin’s twin sister, who happens to be a lot like Susie, I would love it if you came out of retirement and gave us just one year of Calvin and Hobbes and Son (or Daughter). I want to see where Calvin is now. I want to see Calvin as a Dad, and I want his son (or daughter) with a beaten up, super ratty, devilish-as-ever Hobbes. But I don't want this comic to be about the kids, I want it to be about Calvin. I want to see how well Calvin was able to fight off his indoctrination; I imagine he’s one of those rare folks who didn’t join the mainstream, who somehow continued to live on his own terms, but my imagination aside, I am dying to see what he became for you. Please, please, please come back, Bill. We could all use a bit of Calvin again.
I know that my request will never reach you, and that, if it did, you'd probably never even consider the possibility, but I know you could do the "parenting thing" better than all your peers, just as you did the "kid thing" better than anyone else.
So I'll just leave you with the firmest, most heartfelt thank you that I have in me: thank you for that little corner of joy you carved into my world. I’ll never forget it, and late at night, when I am dipping my peanut butter and jelly into my hot chocolate, I’ll have one of my Calvin and Hobbes books open so that I can stain the pages with the purple of some yummy Welch’s grape jelly. Just as Calvin would.
Thank you for the dazzling joy of Freedom & Necessity. This book went toe to toe Summerside, Prince Edward Island 29th August 2010
Dear Steven and Emma,
Thank you for the dazzling joy of Freedom & Necessity. This book went toe to toe with Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and won the battle for my attention (and that's saying something). I don't know how you did it, but I am so glad you did. THIS was one of the best reading experiences of my life. Where do I begin?
I want to begin with the form you chose. But I am going to hold off on that and talk about Hegel, Engels and Marx. Hegel, your unifying thread, was used in a way that I am sure he would approve of; he was the natural connection between your boys. Richard and James sparring over the Science of Logic while their lives are at their most uncertain was pure genius. Then you gave us Engels, but not Engels as an abstract ideologue whose impossible ideals inform the characters' actions but as a fully developed character whose realism is a fulcrum about which the novel's action necessarily turns. Then you add Karl Marx in a family man cameo that brings the great historical thinker down to the Earth of his family life. Again...genius.
But you weren't content with your brilliant invocation of historical figures. No. You wanted us to believe in your four main characters. No. More than that. You wanted us to love and pull for and fear for and cheer for your lead cast. And you succeeded. James Cobham, Susan Voight, Kitty Holbourn and Richard Cobham are the most completely realized characters I've read since Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin in Perdido Street Station (and speaking of Perdido, thanks to China Miéville for pointing me towards your marvelous book). They go beyond the page. They live and breathe. Their relationships feel true because they are true. They are petty and self-indulgent and unrelenting and selfish and cruel and spiteful and occasionally silly. But they're also heroic and outward looking and tractable and selfless and kind and mostly serious. They are people I want to know, and they're people I do know thanks to you two.
And now it is time to talk about your form, because the epistolary nature of Freedom & Necessity -- and your masterful execution -- makes all of this possible -- this and so much more. James, Susan, Kitty and Richard are given to us on their own terms because everything is shared with us through their journals and letters (and by the end I felt like one of their children reading the family's history, which I am sure you intended). We only know them through what they want to tell us and through what they need to say about and to one another, and there is no truer record of a life or lives than one's own correspondence coupled with the thoughts and epistles of others.
But even that wasn't enough for you. You had to create one of the most compelling adventure-intrigue-mystery-historical fictions ever written, and again the ultimate genius was in your choice of the epistolary form. I have never read an ending like that, Steven and Emma. You build and build and build towards the denouement, then you skip ahead a couple of days because that's when the players would be ready to write their thoughts, so we get fragments from Richard, nothing from Kitty and James, and the perfect recall of Susan (albeit from her limited perspective). You withhold and withhold and then deliver in dribs and drabs the final actions of your tale in a way that blows my mind. Druidic conspiracies mix with greedy grabs for property mix with labour disputes and revolution, and all of it is delivered from the perspective of our four correspondents. UTTERLY...FUCKING...BRILLIANT!
So thank you for your genius. I am going to read your solo books A.S.A.P, and I beg you, please, to come together and write another novel because Freedom & Necessity is damn near perfect. I want more.
Yours in humility,
Brad Simkulet
p.s. thanks, Jacob, for giving me the final push to pluck this off my shelf and read it. I am forever indebted....more
When I first met Erika, for some long forgotten reason and situation, someone said, "Do you like my hat?"
I answered: "No. I do not." There was an awkwWhen I first met Erika, for some long forgotten reason and situation, someone said, "Do you like my hat?"
I answered: "No. I do not." There was an awkward pause and I added, "Good-bye. Good-bye again," with some totally bizarre, guttural, kiddie voice. It became a fun inside joke for Erika and me, but for the life of us, we couldn't remember where it came from. It sounded familiar; it didn't sound me-invented, but we couldn't place it.
Then we had babes, and I picked up a bunch of board books -- and there it was.
"Hello!"
"Hello!"
"Do you like my hat?"
"I do not."
"Good-by."
"Good-by."
It wasn't quite how I remembered it, not quite the way my mind had twisted it over all those years, but we had finally found the source, and we were stoked.
5 years later my boy is reading it to me. It is a great book to foster reading , but even if I didn't have a prior bond with the book beyond learning to read, I would still love Go Dog. Go because of my son.
That was me, that is your humble commentator, sitting down to pass my glazzies over a book eemyaed A Clockwork Orange'What's it going to be then, eh?'
That was me, that is your humble commentator, sitting down to pass my glazzies over a book eemyaed A Clockwork Orange I'd sobirated from the biblio. I was ready to be tolchocked in my litso, to have my mozg pried out of my gulliver, to feel that sickening drop in the yarbles when falling from a great tower block; I expected to be preached to by that nadmenny veck A. Burgess in all his high goloss; I expected to loathe Alex and all his malenky malchick droogs. But by Bog or God I got something much more horrorshow.
I actually enjoyed A. Burgess's nadsat burble. I found veshches -- like all the ultra violence and razrezzing and oobivatting and twisted radosty -- to be oomily delivered. I ponied where little Alex was coming from and raged against the millicents and infintmins and prestoopniks and bolnoy sophistos that were arrayed against him. I actually guffed and smecked at like many veshches. But I nearly platched at how malenky little Alex saw the error of his ways and looked forward to a life of chai and a zheena and malenky vecks of his own.
But once I viddied the story like once I wanted rookerfuls, and I've returned again and again, both to A. Burgess's book and S. Kubrick's sinny.
A Clockwork Orange is one of the five or six true greats ever govoreeted. The nadsat isn't at all gimmicky. The lomticks of philosophy are compelling and grow in relevance with the passing of raz. And I for one, oh my brothers, will always "remember the little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal."
Now he was a chelloveck of malevolently heroic proportions....more
Twenty-five years ago I'd have given The Lord of the Rings my highest possible praise. I came to Tolkien's masterpiece on my own, and that meant much Twenty-five years ago I'd have given The Lord of the Rings my highest possible praise. I came to Tolkien's masterpiece on my own, and that meant much to me at twelve. The only books that had been reached by me alone were books on mythology and horror. Everything else I read, from DH Lawrence to Hemingway to Dickens to Shakespeare (and this also included Dracula and Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde because they were "true" classics), was suggested and sanctioned by my mother (for which I will always owe her deeply).
It is easy to forget that The Lord of the Rings was not a pop culture phenomenon in the seventies and early eighties. It was a fringe book (at least in North America), something that was not yet considered a part of the canon, something that was not a name on every boy's lips (even if they were just getting to know D&D) let alone every child's lips. Sure it was respected and loved by those who knew it, but knowing it was not a foregone conclusion as it is today, and its audience was almost completely genre oriented. In my little community (my school and the blocks surrounding my home), I was the first kid to read it.
And that first reading was a revelation. Sure I'd read The Hobbit, but that didn't prepare me for the breadth and depth of The Lord of the Rings. Middle Earth in its grandest incarnation.
To create a fantasy world is one thing, but to breathe life into ages of that world, to keep all the pieces together with such magnificent detail and rigour, to create character after believable character and make us care about most of them, even poor Smeagol/Gollum, that is a literary labour of Hercules. And by pulling it off, Tolkien created the single most important manifestation of Fantasy that has ever and will ever be written. The Lord of the Rings has rightly been named a classic. It is part of the canon, and it deserves its place. It is entertaining, it is weighty, and it is loved by nearly all.
Aye...and there's the rub.
Its indisputable greatness has made it indisputable.
It has become dogma among fanboys and fangirls that the bastions of The Lord of the Rings are unassailable. Criticize Tolkien's work -- academically or otherwise -- and you put yourself in almost as much danger as a chatty atheist trying to engage in a theological discussion in a coliseum full of Jehovah's Witnesses (how many of those folks will make it into the afterlife? Isn't there a limit?).
Feminist critics point out the lack of women in The Lord of the Rings, and that those women who are present fulfill only the narrowest stereotypes. Éowyn's strength is dependent upon adopting male gender qualities, a typical stereotype of "powerful women in fantasy," and she is alone amongst the Rohirrim as a woman who can and will fight. All other women in her culture are present as a reason to fight rather than as integral parts of the struggle. Arwen's place (in the books, at least) as a maiden waiting for the hand of her king takes the "reason to fight" to even greater heights. And the only powerful female, Galadriel as the terrible, beautiful elven Queen, is too far removed from mortality and reality to be anything more than a mid-tale deus ex machina, thereby removing her from the realm of women and men and making her a pseudo-god whose power is allowed only because it is arcane and mysterious.
Post-Colonial critics have latched onto the racism inherent in The Lord of the Rings, pointing out the hierarchies between the races: from the "superiority" of the elves, to the "chosen" role of "European" Men of the West under the leadership of Aragorn, to the lesser races of Dwarves and Hobbits (the former are "lesser" because they are "too greedy" and the latter are "lesser" because they are children). Post-Colonialists look to the "orientalization" of Sauron's forces and the configuration of evil as an inherent quality of Orcs and "the dark folk." They point out Tolkien's family's history as a cog in the mechanism of English Imperialism, and his own birth in one of the most blatantly racist colonies of all, South Africa (while he did leave at three years old, his family's presence there at all suggests that some of the classic colonial opinions about the colonized "dark races" helped form the man who wrote these books), as possible reasons for this racism.
These criticisms further suggest, at least to me, that the archetypal source of all fantasy's entrenched racism -- even those books being written today -- is The Lord of the Rings. Those fantasy authors who have followed Tolkien consistently and inescapably embrace his configuration of the races (yes, even those like R.A. Salvatore who try and fail to derail this configuration) and the concepts of good and evil that go along with them, which leads to the stagnation and diminishment of their genre.
The fact is that these flaws do exist in The Lord of the Rings. They are present. They are easy to find. But few of Tolkien's rabid fans want to hear about them.
And even when the criticism is not necessarily suggesting a flaw in Tolkien's work but merely the presence of some subtext, the dogmatists react with rage and condemnation. A fine example of this is when Queer and Gender theorists point to the overwhelming relationships between men, and how the relationship between Frodo and Sam is homosocial, at least, and possibly even homosexual. The only true intimacy in the book occurs between the men, after all, and to ignore that fact is to ignore one of key components of why The Lord of the Rings is so emotionally satisfying, especially to young men.
Even faced with these ideas supported by convincing arguments, however, many fans either strive for ignorance or attack the messenger. This may have much to do with the worry -- unreasonable though it is -- that to admit that a flaw or something uncomfortable exists in any of these books, which so many people love so deeply, is to accept that The Lord of the Rings is neither great nor worthy of love.
But this is not the case.
I love The Lord of the Rings even though I subscribe completely to the post-colonial criticism, and see the merits in both the feminine and queer criticisms, not to mention the countless other criticisms and subtexts that are floating around.
The books are racist; they are sexist. They are not perfect. And I must criticize the elements of The Lord of the Rings that make me uncomfortable and deserve no praise. But my complaints and the complaints of critics make Tolkien's achievement no less great.
Tolkien created the most magnificent imaginary world ever conceived, and, for good or ill, Fantasy would be nothing today were it not for him. The Lord of the Rings is a triumph on countless levels, but it is not the word of God, nor should it be elevated to such heights.
I love The Lord of the Rings, but I love it with reservations. I love it because of its place in my personal mythology, its genuine originality, its creativity, its power, but I love it with my mind open to its flaws, and I refuse to make excuses for Tolkien or his work.
Twenty-five years ago I'd have given The Lord of the Rings my highest possible praise. Not today. But I am still willing to admit my love. ...more
Dallas was on TV, and my Mom was sitting in the kitchen doing her nails. I was in the living room with a blank Player Character Record Sheet, a new baDallas was on TV, and my Mom was sitting in the kitchen doing her nails. I was in the living room with a blank Player Character Record Sheet, a new bag of dice, a pencil, an eraser and Gygax's masterpiece.
Mom and I could still talk, even separated as we were by the full kitchen wall, and I could smell the mixture of her menthols, nail polish and nail polish remover from the other room. Our home was small and intimate: a great place to be on a Friday night when it was just the two of us hanging out with bad 80s TV, and our own devices. My little sister was in bed down the hall, and my Dad was off playing poker, so it was just me and my Mom and one of the biggest moments of my life.
It was a Friday night, and I was playing D&D with Robert S--- and his friends the next day. It was going to be my first time. Much to my Catholic father's dismay, and after long attempts by my mother to talk me out of it, I'd spent all the money I'd been saving from my paper route on D&D gear. I bought the Dungeon Master's Guide, The Monster Manual, dice, a couple of metal figures (I remember that one was a dwarf with an axe), a sheaf of PC Record Sheets, and the most magical item of them all The Player's Handbook.
I smelled the smell of my Mom's Friday ritual. I was repeatedly distracted by oil barons and their substance abusing wives. And I was totally stunned into paralysis by the giant fracking mess I'd gotten myself into. I had no idea how to make a character. I'd been reading and flipping and trying to figure things out, and I was lost. Each page made me feel more stupid, each page made me angrier, and I exploded, finally, into tears of frustration.
I was in grade seven at the time, and I was only months away from reading Lady Chatterley's Lover. I'd devoured the Scottish play. I'd spent the summer immersed in Middle Earth. I was a math whiz. I had big glasses. I was a geek extraordinaire, and I sat on our turquoise carpet beaten by THE role playing game before I'd even begun. And I just kept crying. Sobbing, more like.
But then my Mom was there.
She had even less clue than I did, but she didn't really need a clue. All she needed was to be there, to be my support, and she did that. She tried to wrestle with the things that were stumping me, and through her struggles I was able to figure out what I was missing. She played the dunski to my pre-teen pseudo-genius, and just the chance to bounce stuff off someone outside my head helped me unlock bonuses and percentages and thieving abilities and armor class, et al. I figured out the attributes, and I made myself a Halfling thief named Malachi (I know...it wasn't tremendously original, but the Halfling dexterity boost gave me an 18 dexterity, and that seemed wicked deadly to me back in those days).
By the time Falcon Crest was over and missed by both of us, with no chance of a rerun, I had created my first D&D character, and I was ready to sit by Lauren L---, the coolest girl in our class, in Robert S---'s super cold, harshly lit, linoleum floored basement.
It didn't take long for all the "cool" kids to leave D&D behind. Mike C---, Paul E---, Lauren L---, Robert S---, they all moved on to headbanging, and that left me, Jeff, and Mark to spend the rest of our Junior High days in a happy D&D oblivion, (I'm still friends with Jeff and Mark, by the way).
I wait patiently for Brontë & Miloš (and now Scout) to grow old enough for our first foray into D&D, and I hope I can be a worthy guide into the coolest worlds of their imagination.
And even though my Mom wasn't my guide, she was my protector that night twenty-six years ago. And she'll always be tied to The Player's Handbook for me.
Too bad she's gone now. I'd love for her to be here when her grand-kids make their first characters. I bet Të makes a magic-user and Loš makes a fighter, and I suppose I'll have to plan a NPC Cleric to keep them alive.
The Sea Change -- This story represents much that Hemingway is great at, distilled to its most fundamental.
He makes us feel his characters in a heartThe Sea Change -- This story represents much that Hemingway is great at, distilled to its most fundamental.
He makes us feel his characters in a heart beat. The Sea Change is three and a half pages, yet we know almost everything we need to know about Phil and the Girl instantly, and Hemingway makes us care.
He also expresses setting so perfectly and sparingly that we feel we're in this tiny bar in Paris, yet the description of the bar is implied, mirrored in his descriptions of the couple and James the bartender. Who they are, how they look, how they behave, gives us most of the goods on the bar, and the two additional clients, with their brief interruption of proceedings, give us all the rest we need. The bar is airy and small and private. James is close to his clientele, a trusted barkeep in the traditional mode. There is rich wood throughout and a zinc bar with mirrors behind. Phil stares into those mirrors and sees the change that is in him.
Which is the other thing Hemingway does so well: he expresses the change in people, and the moments that change them, better than any other.
As Phil's Love asks his blessing to conduct an affair with the woman she loves, Phil feels himself responding as society prescribes. He is angry. He threatens violence. He is wounded and tries to wound her with guilt and recrimination. But he loves her too much, and the prescription is overthrown. He is accepting, quickly accepting, and therein lies The Sea Change. He is not the prescribed male he thought he was. His comfort is rocked, not by his Lover's infidelity (for what can that really mean in a world where love cannot be controlled?), but by his realization that he is not the man he tried to be. He looks in the mirror and his true self is revealed beneath the unchanged image that stares back.
It's a pretty powerful message in three and a half pages. I wish I could do that....more
Say! I love Green Eggs and Ham. I do! I love it Seuss-I-am.
So I will read it with Miloš Or he will read it cause he's precoš. And I will read it with Say! I love Green Eggs and Ham. I do! I love it Seuss-I-am.
So I will read it with Miloš Or he will read it cause he's precoš. And I will read it with my Të And we will read it night and day. And I will read it to my Scout And she will love it, I have no doubt. And I will read it in the rain. And I will read it on the train. And I will read it in my socks. And I will read it with a fox. And I will read it in the shower. And I will read it every hour. And I will read it doing dishes. And I will read it with the fishes. I will read it here or there. Say! I will read it ANYWHERE!
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