Things I Read 'N' Things I Thought 2010: Part 1

I seem to have read at a swifter pace in 2010, so I thought I'd take a look back at my readings with a mid-year update. Looks like a lot of fantasy books. I guess I'm on a kick.

1. Beastly by Alex Flinn - Affably bland and unnecessary "Beauty & the Beast". Wish I could travel back in time and see what I'd think of YA books like this if I were an actual teenager.
2. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander - I highly enjoy Eilonwy's constant use of analogies.
3. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire - He seems less unwieldy and enamored of his own writing style, meaning I can understand him. Tentative thumbs up.
4. A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce - Not at all crappy retelling of Rumplestiltskin. Don't know why I read it because Rumplestiltskin has always disturbed me. Witness this other terrifying illustrated version.
5. The Dark Divine by Bree Despain - He's a werewolf, we know, just spit it out.
6. The Dream-Maker's Magic by Sharon Shinn - More of a "follow these characters through life" story than an "I have a story to tell" story and I don't think I mean that in a good way (it makes sense).
7. Fables (Vols. 1-11) by Bill Willingham - Fairy tale characters are real. And immortal. And living in New York. Not life-changing, but pretty damned amusing.
8. The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl - Glory.
9. The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury - Did you know that when man gave up fiction in the name of science that the ghosts of authors and their stories went to another planet and now man is flying in spaceships to that planet and Edgar Allen Poe wants to make a glorious last stand but Charles Dickens is having no part of it?
10. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - So long, so good, so exactly like the movie. Scarlet is hilarious, hateful and sympathetic all at once.
11. His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik - Dragons are branch of the British military during the Napoleonic Wars. Go. Read it now.
12. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - Wish I were this British girl. I don't talk nearly well enough.
13. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - It will never be anything other than spectacular.
14. Just an Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson - Not as mind-blowing as The Lottery, but Shirley is always entertaining.
15. Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I want to go barefoot on the prairie and spend my days knitting and cooking. I'll skip the malaria and blizzards and locusts and possible starvation.
16. Lisey's Story by Stephen King - Lisey. Her slightly crazy sister. Her husband's horrible life. Inter-dimensional travel. A good read.
17. Matilda by Roald Dahl - She likes book and has psychic powers and she's British? Done.
18. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis - You know what the problem of pain is? We don't like it.
19. Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede - Magic and spellcasting are logical and fairly matter of fact. A less rage-enducing retelling of "Snow White and Rose Red" [see: Tender Morsels]
20. The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman - Unending drama. If I didn't love her use of language and delicate, soul-clutching magical realism so dearly I don't think her stories would interest me all that much.
21. The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan - Vampires are disgusting. Vampires are parasites. Watch out! your blood will turn white.
22. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan - I try not to think about this book because it fills me with rage and confusion and wild disappointment and frustration and unbearable sadness. I will never recommend this to anyone. I desperately wish she'd left out 70% of this book and stuck with the 30% that had such amazing, heart-wrenching, human potential.
23. The Walking Dead (Vols. 10-11) by Robert Kirkman, et al. - Zombiiiiies! Human dramaaaaaa!
24. Watchers by Dean Koontz - One of my all time favorite books of ever anywhere.
25. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier - 12 Dancing Princesses meets Frog Prince set in Transylvania. Quite enjoyable! Gogu just about broke my heart.
26. The Witches by Roald Dahl - Do not accept chocolates from women in wigs.
27. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs - Yea, for he hath grown a mighty beard and did make me both laugh and think, even unto the end of the book.
    

So Shall It Be Written, So Shall It Be Read

I like "reviewing" books when I am confused by or dislike or am disappointed by them...

I am on a continuing quest to find good retellings of fairy tales. A long, non-consecutive and somewhat haphazard quest, but a quest nonetheless. Combined with my love of movie trailers, this lead me to read Beastly, a modern Beauty and the Beast retelling by Alex Flinn. I heard about a movie a while back and last night saw the trailer with that girl from High School Musical (playing one of those super attractive losers with impossibly perfect hair - you know, like those ones in your high school? uh....) and one of the Olsen twins (I am strangely fascinated by them) and some dude I've never heard of. I did a lot of eye-rolling and so of course I thought I'd give the book a whirl (bless you, digital library books).

I'd have to categorize it as "superfluous". I'm not opposed to retellings that hew close to the original and don't take risks and turn the story on its ear. Fairy tales are usually so slightly written that you can expand rather than alter and that's great. Go ahead and stick to the basics, but you have to give me SOMETHING - use new and interesting language, give us a deeper look into the characters, make us care more somehow. Flinn's writing was technically proficient, I suppose -- I understood her sentences and what she was trying to convey (and there were no grossly overwrought sentences a la Twilight) but I didn't identify with any descriptions or feel moved, amused or impressed by any of her phrases or images. Nothing struck me as beautiful or true or right. As for the characters, I'll give them a solid "meh". I didn't find anyone becoming an interesting, well-developed person that I cared about -- even the beast narrating from first person couldn't interest me much. The witch who cursed him was the most intriguing one I encountered but she barely featured so it just left me wanting more.

The biggest "superfluous" point against it is its setting. She placed the story in modern New York where apparently cool, 15-year old guys still say "Duh" and doctors encountering a strange unknown "disease" would rather just tell a rich boy "Well golly, we're stumped, you'll never be cured so just go home," than continue to work on his case and delve into something brand friggin' new (doctors aren't into that shit). It doesn't suffer for being modern it's just...pointless. I'm honestly not sure why she bothered to knock it forward a few centuries other than she could. She doesn't make much use of even the most obvious modern science/skepticism vs. magic bit (most characters think, "Whoa! Magic? Okay" and are never bothered by it again). The trimming is all modern but it felt heartless -- if she hadn't decorated with a cell phone or a Wii every few pages you'd never even notice it had a specified time period (product placement as literary device?). Extending from this, the one thing that rang completely, frustratingly false in this book was a series of chat transcripts from an online support group for people who have been transformed. The screen names were all cutesy, face-kickingly blatant fairy tale names for the Beast, the Little Mermaid, the Frog Price, and the Bear from Snow White and Rose Red. And the group is moderated by Chris Anderson (LOL...?). [Side note: I will accept the Frog Prince's explanation that he "sneaks up to the castle" to use the internet and the Bear's that there's wireless everywhere these days, "even in the woods", but tell me: where does a mermaid (PRE-humanity switch, mind you) get a computer underwater? Back to the time-period griping.] Supposedly the chat transcripts range from the beast joining the group near the start of his curse to the happy ending and this is the "opportunity" for him to tell the other participants his story -- the bulk of the book. I think the author was aiming for an interesting framework, but to me it was just an obnoxiously cute "hip" way of screaming, "Hey! LOOK! Its modern! R U totally impressed w my cul2ral relevnz?" Rather than making use of modern technology and socialization in the story itself she slapped (in my estimation) some modern trim on and called it current. I actually found the "sassy" chat transcripts so jarring from the beast's otherwise gentle narration and so unecessary that I just skipped them as I went along.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this book - I wouldn't NOT recommend it, though. Let's just say that while I didn't get much out of it, I won't be filing a complaint with the universe to get back those few hours of my life.

If you want to read Beauty and the Beast from his point of view I would much rather recommend Beast by Donna Jo Napoli - now THAT lady has a knack for keeping the basic plot while giving it a swift kick to make it feel shiny new, completely steeped in its time-period and emotionally relevant. (While you're at it, go ahead and also read The Magic Circle, her lovely and utterly heart-breaking version of Hansel and Gretel. Yes, Hansel and Gretel.)

Choral Orchestral Goodness Explosion Happy Fun Times

We finished the Ravel Daphnis et Chloe concert recently and boy am I glad it's over - I didn't find it too thrilling to sing, save the last section where it sounds like the wind in a storm (I didn't read the synopsis of the ballet, bad musician that I am, so I don't know what it's SUPPOSED to be, but let me tell you, I have never heard a better musical hurricane). The piece itself, though, is rockin'. As our director said (and I paraphrase) "There's not a movie composer who can touch Ravel's FEET." It is by turns ethereal, threatening, gorgeous, comic, dramatic, wild and perfect.

This time I also became very aware of something I've thought of in passing before - how unique and delightfully amazing an experience it is to sit on stage behind the musicians. It's 3-4 opportunities to watch and hear the process in its entirety. When you're performing you can't drift off like you can in the audience - even if you're composing the weekend's grocery lists in your head (a common occurrence) you have to be at least present enough to track where you are in the score so you can stand up and sing on time. And if you take the opportunity to pay attention you learn it better, hear it better, notice something new, every time.

I love that you can hear something new on Thursday and anticipate it every performance following. Every night I add something new to look forward to and to thrill at when it arrives.

I love that I can see the conductor's face and not just his back. Seeing their back from the audience you think, "What, they're waving a stick? What do you need them for?" But when you can really watch what they do from the front, it's unbelievable - you'd never again ask why orchestras and choirs need a conductor (and believe me, several people have asked me that question).

I love that I have the chance to watch new musicians every night - tonight the horns, tonight the bass, tonight the bassoon... I've actually come to enjoy instruments that never interested me much one way or the other because now I see them, hear them, now I can focus on them and know them. How AMAZING and clear and rousing is the trumpet when it's played with skill? And how can you NOT like the bassoon in all it's deep, yet nerdy and even kooky character - seriously? Timpani are not just some low drums that go boom - have you ever really watched someone play them who knows what they're doing? So fascinating! What a deft touch it takes. And I always thought flutes were kind of dippy and bland - NO. Spectacular and agile and soothing and flirty and piercing. In Daphnis et Chloe they're bird songs at sunrise.

Sigh.

Yar, I loves me books!

It has been years since I read the Little House series and as of recently, I own them all again and am really excited to reread them. Last weekend my roommate and I went to a used and new children's book store (I want to live in there and be that woman) and I was absolutely thrilled to find a complete set. I know you can buy them new easily at just about any bookstore, but this was both a matched set (came in a "fancy" cardboard box with illustrations on the sides) and an OLD set - it was the old blue covers I remember from childhood (we had a mix of yellow and blue covers). And the paper was all browned and it smelled like the used books we always bought when I was a kid. Big deal, right? Well, if you know me, you know my dark secret: I'm really particular about my books. It is almost painful to me to own a series of books if they're not all the same edition or if I don't like the edition. I will make do - I'm not quite hardcore (or wealthy) enough - to replace books I already own for the sake of matching a set, but I will try my very very hardest to buy the right edition. I have two sets (two of my favorite children's series, incidentally) where I have one that is out of place. It KILLS me. I also am pretty controlling about the condition. When I lend people hardcover books, I usually keep the dust jacket so nothing happens to it. I refuse to dog-ear pages and it's still hard for me to underline or write in books - even text books I don't like. I have a set of books I have owned since at least early high school, if not before, and they look brand new even though I've read them about 10 times each. Add to that a heavy dose of nostalgia (I LOVED my childhood books) and you've got a girl who has wanted this series for years but refused to buy a shiny plastic-wrapped set from Borders. When I have children, I may end up buying them their own copies of books I already have so that they don't scribble in them or get food on them or bend the corners of the pages. I will be the worst mother. But the best book mother.

God Bless the End of the Work Week

1) I don't know Hindi but that doesn't stop me from singing along.
2) Breakfast with other people than Liz. That's a big social step forward for me.
3) Attempting to actually use my creative abilities. Bought one small shadowbox at Goodwill. We'll see where this goes.
4) Listened approximately 12 times to "Electric Sky" a song so gently beautiful I actually shed a few tears (I do that sometimes). You can hear a lovely but not quite as perfect version on Eleanor Murray's MySpace page. The one I have is from a homemade CD I bought at Goodwill of her - I assume now defunct - local Washington duo Eleanor & Benny. It's just not the same with only one voice and no banjo.
5) I want two bodies so one can go running and the other can snuggle down and knit.
6) I miss snuggling.
7) When's spring? I love winter, but this winter sucks.

My Name is Darcy, and I'm a Stephen King-aholic

I just finished the novel Lisey's Story by Stephen King and thought it was time to take stock of which books of his I have read (far more than I realized). If I recall it all started with The Shining in the 8th grade...

1. Bag of Bones
2. Carrie
3. Cell
4. Christine
5. Cujo
6. Danse Macabre
7. The Dark Half
   
8. The Dead Zone
9. Desperation (read at least 4 or so times)
   
10. Dreamcatcher
11. Dolores Claiborne
12. Everything's Eventual
13. Firestarter
14. Four Past Midnight
15. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
16. Insomnia
17. It (read 3 times)
    
18. Just After Sunset
19. Lisey's Story
20. The Long Walk
    
21. Misery
22. Needful Things
23. Night Shift
24. Nightmares & Dreamscapes
25. Pet Sematary (read twice)
    
26. The Regulators
    
27. Salem's Lot (read twice)
    
28. Skeleton Crew
29. The Shining (read at least 3 or 4 times)
    
30. The Stand (read at least 4 or 5 times)
    
31. Under the Dome
    

Sleeping Beauty; At Last!

My sister was here last weekend. I likes her! As usual it was a lot of eating and being silly and that's perfect. We made Greek food and pasta with mushrooms and a homemade cream sauce (several attempts, but the last one came out delicious). The primary reason for her visit was to see The Sleeping Beauty Ballet, which I have waited my whole life to witness in person. I did not disappoint. Visually excellent - great costumes and use of color and a clean set. Dancing is always a weird mix of "That doesn't look so hard" and "Holy crap!" I'm torn in deciding the best part of the ballet. It was one of two things. Either the evil fairy (played by a man, of course) who FLEW by way of harness, was heralded by explosions and lighting, and who had a bit of the Baba Yaga about her if I do say so myself. OR, the skeleton. Yes, the skeleton. At the end of the second act the fairy appears at Princess Aurora's birthday party and starts kicking up a fuss. One of four princes there to court Aurora (who seems a bit of a tease) pulls out his sword to do away with the fairy and is struck down by a fireball. No one seems to notice his demise and his corpse just kind of lays down stage left. When the heroic prince shows up at the castle one hundred years later he is greeted by sleeping courtiers and...a skeleton. A finely dressed skeleton. God bless you, ballet skeleton.