The Last Days – Scott Westerfeld

So, earlier I was under the impression that Peeps didn’t have a sequel, but ah, it does: The Last Days.

To sum up my reaction, I read the book in two days, but I was ultimately kind of disappointed. It shares some similarities with Westerfeld’s other novels (I’m specifically referring to the Uglies series), but those similarities don’t serve this book as well as they did, say, Extras.

For example, The Last Days is basically about a band getting together and trying to make it big, except it’s set against a backdrop of a spreading epidemic that basically turns people into vampires. Similarly, Extras is about our fame-obsessed culture and one girl trying to make it big, except it has a futuristic backdrop and a possible plan to end the world woven into the story. Furthermore, like Extras, The Last Days sort of forgets about the previous main characters and starts afresh, with only a few appearances from Cal, Lace, and others.

This formula (the idea of looking at a teen wish through a new lens and starting with different characters) worked for me in Extras but did not appeal to me in The Last Days, for several reasons. The book switches the first-person narrator with every chapter, and we meet several band members – including Minerva, who’s obviously been infected. This is quite a departure from the engrossing format of Peeps, in which every other chapter talked about parasites; in The Last Days, that technique survives as only a single italicized page before each major section of the book, and they seem much more watered down than the detailed and surprising descriptions of Peeps. In any case, meeting so many characters just for this one book – none of whom are particularly exciting (the smart and rich one, the “fetching” one, the slow and large one…the only different one is a girl with a mental disorder, but even she ends up becoming predictable, neatly summed up as “logical” and “ethical”) – seems like a waste, especially when I as a reader had invested so much in Cal and Lace in Peeps. Furthermore, in the Uglies series, the main battle has been fought by the end of Specials, so it’s easier to let go of the main characters for Extras. The Last Days arrives at the final battle with very different characters, after an unexpected story about making a band during an impending apocalypse, and that final battle doesn’t come until the last chapters of the book, when the main characters don’t even have to fight in it (though they participate), and the so-called apocalypse is basically summarized during the epilogue.

Furthermore, because The Last Days has introduced us to new characters who function outside the Night Watch, we have to go through the whole process of watching them learn about the parasite and the underground enemy again. Maybe it’s just my preference, but though I liked the passages about band practice and band drama, I would have preferred to see the tension mounting among characters involved in the Night Watch as the “apocalypse” approaches, or to even have seen these newcomers worry more about how their city is falling apart.

I won’t say much more, besides that the way characters speak didn’t strike me as authentic as it did in other Westerfeld novels – with words like “fawesome” and “fool” instead of “awesome” and “cool,” I got the impression that either the characters or the author was trying too hard.

But I love Westerfeld, and I highly recommend Peeps and the Uglies series – but feel free to pass on The Last Days.

Also, on a separate note, the book cover is ridiculous. I can understand the image-oriented ones of the Uglies series featuring different phases of Tally’s life and all that, but this cover just doesn’t fit what the book is about.

 

Extras – Scott Westerfeld

If you’ve already read Specials, the “last” book in the Uglies trilogy, you may have been…disappointed…with the less-than-happy ending. Personally, I was saddened by it, but I was pleased by how unconventional it was. But, for those of you who have yet to forgive Westerfeld for what happened to Zane and how Tally ends up, here’s Extras to solve your problems.

Taking place a few years after the events of Specials, Extras is set in Japan, as the Asian features of the girl on the cover should tip you off (compare to the other covers), as well as the -sama, -sensei, and -chan titles, and the group of pretties called manga-heads, who style themselves after…manga-style characters, I guess.

The plot: Because of the mind-rain, which freed all the enslaved minds of humanity in Specials, people have been freed to think and thus to pursue hobbies and their own paths, meaning that resources are being used up quickly. To try to control that rapid consumption, one city in Japan has adopted a reputation economy, in which merits (earned by, e.g., going to school) and face rank (earned by getting hits on your feed) give you the status to get nice things, like nice apartments and clothes, not to mention bask in fame (which is only earned by face rank). The main character is 15-year-old Aya Fuse, a kicker, which means she’s kind of like a journalist except she posts news stories on her feed. Her main concern is boosting her face rank, especially since she’s lived in the shadow of her famous older brother Hiro for so long. Her opportunity comes when she discovers a secret clique called the Sly Girls; they surf on mag-lev trains at 300 km/h at night. If she can kick the story about the Sly Girls, she’ll be famous, but in her adventures with them, as an undercover kicker, she finds out more about what’s going on outside her city than she’d imagined – indeed, it seems she and the Girls have discovered something that could destroy the world.

Like the other books in the series, Extras deals with popularity, relationships, and aspects of modern-day culture (online fame and celebrity). It also, as always, does not hesitate to say the truth about our world and how we’re destroying the environment, though it never offers much of a way out except advancing our technology and seeking compromise. I’d elaborate more, but it’s worth reading the book to see how the characters come up with a solution to over-consumption.

For Tally fans… SPOILERS Tally makes an appearance, along with several other characters from the previous books. We also get some kind of resolution for her that’s a bit more satisfying than what Specials offered, and of course it’s interesting to see how retaining her Specials wiring in her brain has affected her. Really, getting another view of her not only from another character’s perspective (Aya’s) but from another culture’s perspective (Japan’s) puts Tally in a different light that complements what we’ve learned from her first-hand throughout the first three books. END SPOILERS The point is, if you missed Tally, this book won’t disappoint you.

And as always, the futuristic slang is all over the place, with tech-heads, kickers, manga-heads, surge monkeys, etc. Once you finish, you’ll have a hard time extracting those words from your vocabulary.

By the end, it’s hard to understand what point Westerfeld wants to make about fame, unless you realize that fame means something different to different characters, and it can matter either a lot or a little depending on who you are and what your priorities are.

In comparison to the earlier books, Extras is a lighter read, with less tragedy, but an ensnaring plot, with Westerfeld’s characteristic reversal of meanings (you know, when everyone believes one thing, and then it turns out to be something totally different). I read it in one sitting, though I ended up with a twitchy eye afterward.

I highly recommend this book for those who’ve made it through Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. BUT, if you haven’t read the first three, please do NOT pick up this book; you’ll miss out on so much. It’s better to read the first three, and then read Extras to get the full enjoyment out of it. =D

 

The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud

Okay, as promised, I’m revising this post. I handed in my paper on this book a while ago, so I think I ought to comment a bit on it. I can’t remember the characters’ names, so I hope you’ll excuse my vague descriptions.

1.) Most of this book focuses on an elite journalist and those around him who either worship him, love him, or hate him.

2.) Most of the book takes place in New York City.

3.) Most of the book seems like a satire of writers and journalists. In particular, it reminded me of Age of Innocence, in which it was hard to care about the characters’ circles too much because you had to be acquainted with those circles to catch references and understand how ridiculous they were. In this book, it seemed like being in the loop about these literary circles would have made reading it more enjoyable.

4.) Most of the characters are caricatures, e.g. the gay man (who can’t help cheating) who’s living with a pretty rich boy who does crack, while the characters that seemed like they would have promised a more straight-forward, dramatic, and moral core (e.g. the ignored wife of the elite journalist who does social work and is currently caring for a young black boy whose step-father is abusive) fall by the wayside.

5.) Most of the characters are selfish.

6.) 9/11 happens.

After reading this book, I ended up with a sickening feeling. To understand where a lot of things are, and grasp what kind of social network Messud is satirizing, it seemed to me that you had to be a New Yorker. I know New York relatively well, and live close enough that I could see the smoke from the Towers’ after 9/11, and had an acquaintance who lost her father during 9/11. To me, reading this book and getting to 9/11 amid all the satire and selfishness of the characters was awful. I couldn’t understand what Messud wanted to say – that so many people were and remained selfish after 9/11? How could a satire take place in the face of such a huge, real-life catastrophe that cost thousands of lives then and continues to cost lives today in the form of the wars that took place afterward and the after-effects of even trying to help at the Towers?

This should have been a short story, then perhaps the message would have been easier to convey.

This isn’t to say that Messud’s prose isn’t good. It’s fantastic. But on the level of a novel, her plotting needs help, what with various broken promises (e.g. the tension of seeing an extramarital affair unfold but NEVER seeing it properly discovered) and this confusing inclusion of 9/11. On the whole, I was disgusted when I finished, and despite her prose, I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. After reading it, either the world seems a much more selfish and crude place, or the book itself seems selfish and crude.

 

Water by Takehiko Inoue

I just bought Takehiko Inoue’s Water, a collection of Vagabond-related illustrations. I found it by chance at Forbidden Planet in NYC when I was desperately looking for something to spend my $20 gift certificate on. I found the art book, but was sad to see it cost $55.99. Ah, but with my gift card, it was $35.99, and I got an added 10% off for having my college ID, plus tax. All in all, a sweet, sweet deal for this collection of fantastic art.

Lately, I haven’t been quite into art books because so many crappy ones keep coming out. Naruto art book, say? Come on – you can find those pictures online – and it’s not even very artistic, it’s just…I don’t know. Anime? So I’ve enjoyed Yoshitoshi Abe’s Lain art book, though, as well as the fantastic first two volumes of Japanese Comickers. I would have bought Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary art book, but those pictures are all over the net. Though I have CLAMP’s North Side, despite the fact that I loathe their storylines.

In any case, turns out Water was well worth the cash. Inoue has an incredible, realistic style. As I mentioned in another post, each of his characters has distinctive features. Even eye shape varies, though I tend to find similarity among the mouths Inoue draws.

Water mostly depicts illustrations/paintings of characters, with very little background/scenery, although there are some lovely landscapes interspersed. I’m not sure what medium Inoue uses – it seems like he does brushpainting/sumi-e and uses watercolor or inks. In any case, you’d be hard-pressed to find an illustration lacking in the appropriate energy necessary; his depictions of Musashi always impress me, particularly during a fight or merely when power is radiating from him. Kojirou is also big in Water, having several pages devoted to him toward the end. Other characters from the manga Vagabond appear occasionally.

Water also has some interesting choices; for example, a few pages have photographs of Inoue painting with water on paper (which, as I understand it from my brief time doing Chinese brushpainting, would be like a shadow drawing before he puts the ink down). There are also some funny/amazing drawings of the Vagabond characters as spunky Japanese teenagers, wearing modern clothes. The most startling, in fact, is a two-page spread of the adult Musashi. It seems like he’s wearing his dirty old kimono, but then you look at the second page, and instead of hakama, there’s a pair of jeans! Very…startling.

I truly wish Inoue would get more notice in the states; I can barely find Vagabond in any stores. At first, I thought this was because it contained graphic content, but I’ve seen comics like Banana Fish far more often than Vagabond. Someone on Facebook made the interesting comment that more people are into Naruto, when Vagabond is a far deeper read. Definitely agree with that statement. I love reading the Naruto comic (not watching the anime, believe it), but Vagabond is on another, grander level. It’s art meets manga and fine story-telling.

Uh…so my point? I hope you’ll check out Vagabond or just Inoue’s illustrations! He’s quite the artist =D

 

Starship Troopers and South Park

This thought just struck me.

I just finished reading Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. It reminded me of Ayn Rand’s stuff in that it seemed very keen on promoting a view of how society should be, but at least I wasn’t cursing Heinlein the way I cursed Rand when I read Anthem. (And no, I’m never reading her again. I had the kind of black anger you’d think only exists in anime or in one of Tony Jaa’s movies…that crazy, crazy anger).

In any case, Heinlein – or one of his characters – proposes the idea that beating children when they do wrong will keep them in line when they grow older and keep them from crime. It seems that the solution to juvenile delinquency in our century would be, to simplify, to beat some sense into these kids. Which I’m totally pro. At first. You see, the character making the argument compares a person to a puppy; you have to “paddle” it to get it to learn right. Okay, that works for a dog…but a human…?

Well, this is the idea that occurred to me; you see, that scenario was tried on South Park in the episode called “Tsst.” The Dog Whisperer goes to Eric Cartman’s house to get him under control. And if anyone is a juvenile delinquent, it’s Cartman. Using dog training techniques, Cesar Milano manages to change Cartman’s behavior. And he makes the same argument that Heinlein seems to make – that once the behavior changes, the personality will follow.

This reminds me of my psych class, when we learned that this kind of behavior modification works for phobias, for example. But other problems need other cures; I’m sure you couldn’t cure schizophrenia with “paddling.”

In any case, at the end of “Tsst,” Cartman returns to his normal self, proving that Heinlein’s theory that paddling will set people straight is pure bull. Hahaha, no that isn’t my real evidence. I don’t even have much evidence, except that I was never hit (okay once or twice) when I was younger, and neither was my brother, and we still turned out fine. Plus, I think there are plenty of parents that abuse their authority to spank their kids. My neighbor told how she and her husband once saw a large, older man beating the crap out of a nine-year-old in the street; when her husband told the man to stop, he turned and said, “You’re next.” (And her husband was probably in his sixties when this happened. What the hell is wrong with people?)

Well, I seem to have lost my thread here, but the idea is that just as Rico in Starship Troopers says that people are not the same as potatoes, I argue that they aren’t the same as puppies either.

Puppies are cuter.

 

Did Rowling Write the Epilogue?

Warning: Spoilers

So Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was amazing, brilliant, enjoyable…until it got to the epilogue… So many new characters were introduced that I stopped bothering keeping track of whose name was whose and counting those little kids. That terribly fake “All was well” didn’t ring true for a minute, especially since I think HP takes place in the 1990s and I don’t think ANYTHING will be well in ten years. Also, the way in which information was introduced seemed contrived – like when a villain monologues and gives out the info that should have been given in another way (in exposition, maybe? instead of dialogue). Here’s my question: Did Rowling actually write this?

I remember that a while ago, it was announced that the last word in Deathly Hallows would be “scar.” Now, of course, it’s obvious that that has changed. Why? Did Rowling want to end it with “scar” and her editor meddled? What pushed her to write this crappy chapter, that bears no resemblace – in my opinion – to any other chapter in any of the Harry Potter books? Every other story piece has been a carefully structured cog in the clockwork that is her plot – except for this epilogue.

This isn’t to say that other books don’t have similarly flatlining epilogues – I remember Garth Nix’s ending to Shade’s Children doing something similar – what with a marriage and kids named after fallen heroes. But Harry Potter seemed above that… (And to be honest, I think Nix’s concise epilogue was written better.)

How would I have ended Harry Potter? Well, as I mentioned in my semi-review, Rowling could have simply given us more hope during the main body of Deathly Hallows so we would know that Harry and Ginny would end up together – I don’t think we needed to know they’d be naming their kid Albus Severus. Also, I personally might have done an epilogue that takes place one year later – and given an update on the restoration of Hogwarts, what happened to the Dursleys, what happened to Hermione’s parents, what kind of job Harry would get in the future (he was going to be an Auror, but then he messed up on his exams, remember? which was why I thought he might die in DH since he had no life outside Voldemort, it seemed), and the HarryxGinny relationship. But, hey, Rowling might reconsider (I beg her to!) and rewrite the ending to this. I wouldn’t mind buying another copy with a better and more fitting epilogue to this amazing series.

What are your thoughts on the epilogue? Was it a hack rushed job? Do you think others meddled? Or was it just not edited enough? How would you have done it?

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Warning: Spoilers

Okay, I’ve waited long enough!! Time to detail some of my thoughts on the conclusion to Harry Potter. So, first, a warning: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE BOOK!!! This is an excellent book and I would hate it if I spoiled it for you. So consider yourself warned. That said, it isn’t the point of this blog entry to spoil the ending – but I have to spoil some things in order to give my opinion.

Also, before I go on, I’d just like to point out that I am NOT familiar with all the details behind the making of Harry Potter since I purposely avoided them so I wouldn’t spoil the ending for myself in any way. Now that the books are over, of course, I may go back and read about the mythology that influenced aspects of HP and how Rowling came to write it. As of now, I only know what I’ve heard from my friends.

Okay, and here we go:

I think it is interesting that so many online theories were right, yet none to my (limited) knowledge had quite grasped the scope of what the last Harry Potter book would be. The way love and friendship formed this book is incredible, as so many things seemed to come together because of those themes.

Harry was the last Horcrux indeed, but what implications did that have? Well, that resulted in one chapter that I cried my way through as he marched to his death – I wanted to hope that he would live, I wanted him to use the Hallows to conquer death, but I knew he shouldn’t – and love saved him…

As for the Horcruxes, let’s see… Dumbledore destroyed the ring. Ron destroyed the locket. Crabbe indirectly destroyed the diadem. Hermione destroyed the goblet. Neville killed Nagini. Harry got rid of the diary. And Voldemort obliterated the piece that was inside Harry. Theme: Teamwork! Even Voldemort lended a hand in his own destruction.

SNAPE. I knew it! I knew that if I just had faith in him, he would turn out to be all right. This, of course, returns to the theme of love as an all-conquering force. Without love, Snape might have ended up like Voldemort – a cruel, twisted being. The irony, though, is that fanfiction was right – Snape DID love Lily! How amazing is that? Also, I feel that Harry’s dad in the end did turn out to be rather arrogant. I’m still interested in learning what Lily saw in him (I know he was also an awesome Gryffindor guy), but I suppose it was like how Ron and Hermione ended up together. And Sirius, ah, Sirius…I wish they had picked a more compelling actor to play him in the movies…I always thought he was HOT and turns out he was cool even as a child…but back to Snape.

What a horrible way for Snape to die, although it did seem quick. I suppose he was on the verge of going off to find Harry in the battle and deliver Dumbledore’s message when Voldemort decided to kill him. I wonder how that would have turned out – if Snape had tried to help Harry in the midst of battle, Harry would probably not have listened… I was never a Snape-lover but I think he was one of the series’ most compelling characters – a traitor to Voldemort (which was awesome) yet misunderstood – on purpose, since he didn’t want others to know the “good” parts about him, as Dumbledore realized.

NEVILLE. Although this was not in my previously-posted prediction, my friends and I had agreed that Neville would be playing a larger part this time around, and he most certainly did! Heading Dumbledore’s Army as part of a mini triumvirate, and then slaying Nagini – Neville’s the man! The fact that his grandmother turned up was too good to be true; I’m really fond of her.

Okay, and the heartbreaking deaths. That Dobby died – that had me on the verge of tears, especially the sweet message Harry wrote on his “tombstone.” (Also, I nearly cried when Harry was reading the messages of encouragement on the sign outside his parents’ former house.) Hedwig died, which was sad, but…well, Hedwig is a bird. Mad-Eye Moody’s death didn’t bother me too much – he was a battle-hardened, badass kind of guy, and I figured he wouldn’t mind dying that way, though it made me sick that Umbridge had his eyeball placed in her office door. But Fred…ah, Fred! George wasn’t even mentioned in the epilogue – how did he cope with his twin dying? That had me in tears as well – it’s hard when happy people die – and once again, Fred died like Sirius and Cedric did – suddenly and irreversibly. Tonks and Lupin – that was a little hard to believe since we didn’t see them die, but it was also hard to swallow because they’d just had a son. If Harry had died, I imagined little Teddy growing up like Harry – without parents…and without even his godfather to protect him.

That said, the epilogue… Unnecessary, I’d say. I enjoyed the closure and having it confirmed that HarryXGinny and RonXHermione would work out, but I think that if some hints had been thrown into the main section of the book, the epilogue would have been unnecessary. And come on, “All was well”? As I said before – what happened to George – earless and without his best friend/twin brother? And what of Mrs. Weasley – having lost her son? At least Percy came back to the family before Fred died; I was very glad for that.

Several times, I could sense the tide changing. I would reach a certain paragraph and be overcome by the certainty that something was going to change in the plot, and everything I had believed before would be framed differently. For example, when Snape’s past was revealed. And when it became clear that Harry had to die. I think that was the most excellently written part of the book – Harry’s “last moments.” I felt like Rowling was telling us to value life without being didactic. And boy, did I cry through that. Even though I’ve insisted for so long that Ron was my favorite, despite his temper tantrums, I realized that if Harry died, I wouldn’t be able to bear it (and neither would Rowling, I’m sure). And it isn’t just because he’s the “hero” – it’s because after seven books, Harry’s become like someone I know. We’ve been with Harry through so many hardships, it seemed a shame to have to say goodbye to him before Voldemort had died. The chapter following his “death” reminded me of Advent Children – after Cloud “dies” he finds himself in a white space, with Aerith and Kadaj speaking to him, and then he’s sent back to the world.

Some parts of this book also reminded me of other fantasy stories. For example, Garth Nix’s Sabriel. At the end of Sabriel, the battle goes to her school, where she loses classmates and teachers. Similarly, HP’s battle goes to Hogwarts. I don’t remember any teachers dying, but we do lose classmates, and the pain is even greater since we’ve seen these kids for longer – I mean, come on, Colin dies! In addition, the mention of Spaghetti bolognese in the early chapters reminded me of Uglies (SpagBol!) but I don’t think that was intentional. Eew…SpagBol… And when Hagrid carries the supposedly-dead Harry, I remembered Aragorn carrying Frodo in the LOTR books, thinking he had died.

Also, a note on Expelliarmus. I am so glad Harry used it again! Already he’d used Unforgivable Curses like Imperio and Crucio (which I think was used at EXACTLY the right moment), and I was worried that he’d do Avada Kedavra but he did not – Voldemort totally killed himself. That was quite brilliant, even though Harry had been warned not to make Expelliarmus his trademark. And hadn’t he used it in the cemetary after Cedric died?

There were a few things I didn’t quite believe. For example, although it was magic, I couldn’t quite understand how the Deluminator worked; it seemed to do far too many things for just one “lighter,” and I wished Ron had used that walkie-talkie-like function again so it would be easier to believe (and he couldn’t use it to escape the cellar at Malfoys’ and go to Hermione?). Also, the storming of Gringotts seemed much too simple. So much time was spent planning it, but it didn’t seem like they needed that much time to pull off such a short raid on the vault, especially since they never planned an escape. I did like the way the gold multiplied and burned, though – thieves are killed by their own greed! Though what good is a blind dragon for guarding your gold? I don’t think Smaug was blind, was he? Lastly, Hermione was tortured, but later she seemed fine. No mention was made of it later at all. Even Ollivander seemed all right, or at least getting there. I think, all in all, wizards’ idea of torture is a lot milder than the United States’. Even Avada Kedavra provides a nice, instant death.

Those are my thoughts for now. Feel free to comment. I will probably update this entry in the future as more things occur to me. After all, I loved this book!! (Snape forever! And Sirius! But most importantly, Harry Potter!!)

 

My HP Experience

Nah, I won’t spoil the ending. In due course I’ll be commenting on my Deathly Hallows thoughts, but for now I’ll leave it at my experience of reading the last Harry Potter.

First of all, the book’s price. Cover price is $34.99. Amazon has it for $17.99. I bought it for $18 and change at Costco. Barnes & Noble has it for $20.99 ($18.89 for members). Why is this book’s cover price so high? Half-Blood Prince was $29.99, and I dare compare Deathly Hallows to a similarly long fantasy book, and also the conclusion to a series – The Amber Spyglass, which costs around $22.99 in hardcover. If anyone has the answer to this question, I’d be most interested – why so costly when so many will want the discounts?

So, I skipped out on the BN party and bought Deathly Hallows early on Saturday morning at Costco. I waited in a line outside the building until 9:30 am or so, then darted in a grabbed my copy from the books section. I was out of there in twenty minutes (and I bought other things too). I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan in the sense that I don’t read HP fanfiction, I never checked out the HP websites or much of the theories (although I couldn’t help overhearing them), and I did not re-read any of the books in preparation for this one (but I ended up having to reread Dumbledore’s death in Half-Blood Prince and then Wikipedia its summary because I’d forgotten a lot of the minor character’s names – like Scrimgeour). But while I clutched Deathly Hallows, I couldn’t help feeling supremely happy – I nearly started reading it as I walked around, unable to get a hold of the idea that after so many years – I HAD THE ENDING TO HARRY POTTER IN MY HANDS!!

I think I got almost halfway through the book on Saturday, my efforts stalled by an acrylics workshop I went to (incredibly interesting) and the fact that I’d only slept five hours or so the night before (I had a doctor’s appointment at 7 am that morning…ridiculous, huh?). On Sunday, I agreed to help my brother move to a college dorm for the week, which took longer than I expected, and then went to the mall, where I nagged and scowled until I got to go home and…READ…

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to live somewhere else more than I did then. How ridiculous is it for me to be reading for hours and have my dad jumping into my room to steal the book from me, nagging me from behind closed doors, telling me to give my eyes a rest and take a break? He acting like I was committing some sort of crime – and I was just reading!! But…I’ll be fair. Back when I was in elementary school, I got two Young Jedi Knights books for Christmas and read them in two days. For days after I could barely see right. So I guess it was for my health…but I’d risk it for Harry Potter! Within reason… (Slytherin brewing here)

Anyway, as I said before, I don’t want to spoil the ending. Other sources have already done that. And why, I wonder. The New York Times basically laid out the gist of it. And I guess it’s “news” but I think there are more important things newspapers should cover than the secrets of Harry Potter’s ending, and wouldn’t J.K. Rowling agree – that there is enough suffering in the real world for us to worry about and try to end and for the newspapers to cover?

So, the book was a rollercoaster. I agree with the Times, though – a bit clunky at times. I honestly felt that Rowling’s descriptions of romance (the kissing, come on) didn’t quite ring true in the books, felt a bit rushed, as did the deaths, but whatever. The point is – I laughed (even in some sad parts – I love Ron to no end), and I cried (and I usually don’t cry – even at the end of Specials I was only on the verge…not there yet – the last time I can really remember crying during a book was…Bridge to Terabithia? Over 10 years ago. Usually there’s just shock). I ended up with tear speckles all over my glasses. So read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and laugh and cry away.

And when you’re done, read my prediction for what would happen. Granted, it was very vague, and I based it solely on Rowling’s grasp of the spiral-like nature of plot – and my confidence that she’d be resolving loose threads and sticking to her themes. Well, now you can see whether or not my prediction was accurate.

In the meantime, read this book!

 

HP and Reading

The New York Times published an article today entitled Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits. The article challenges the notion that HP has made lifelong readers out of kids who would normally not have read. Apparently, rates of reading are still as low as they were before HP.

There are several kinds of HP readers, which the article points out. There are those who pick up HP and continue to read other books for pleasure outside of HP. Then there are those who pick up HP for a bit, then quit it and don’t bother reading anything else.

I think the article largely ignores those who don’t read HP but watch the movies. Let me put it this way:

Until Harry Potter, “I don’t think kids were reading proudly,” said Connie Williams, the school librarian at Kenilworth Junior High School in Petaluma, Calif. “Now it’s more normalized. It’s like, ‘Gosh we can read now, it’s O.K.’ ”

I’d like to argue that the HP books did of course make reading okay, but more importantly, for some people, they made liking Harry Potter okay. That is, some people look at the HP craze and see the HP craze, not the HP books craze. So there are those who bought into the HP craze without ever picking up a book. Two of my friends, for example, are great HP admirers but staunchly refuse to ever read the books, claiming they’re boring (any HP reader would claim otherwise, I’m sure). And what an amazing thing – kids who don’t like to read don’t have to, because the HP movies fill them in well enough on the book series! So now the NY Times article mentions a kid who used to read HP but quit – but will he be watching the movies to keep up with the series? That I’d like to know. Because, after all, it only takes $10 and a couple of hours to get through a movie, and around $20 and a couple of days to get through a book. My hypothesis is that the movies are working against the would-be lifelong readers who began with HP. Especially if none of their friends read either, they might just quit reading HP and go to the movies instead. Especially now that the movies seem to be up to mustard.

The New York Times also brings up another interesting idea:

Some reading experts say that urging kids to read fiction in general might be a misplaced goal. “If you look at what most people need to read for their occupation, it’s zero narrative,” said Michael L. Kamil, a professor of education at Stanford University. “I don’t want to deny that you should be reading stories and literature. But we’ve overemphasized it,” he said. Instead, children need to learn to read for information, Mr. Kamil said, something they can practice while reading on the Internet, for example.

Interesting, eh? I think that maybe adults should be reading for information, but not kids. After all, if a kid grows up reading the newspaper, learning facts and facts from the Internet, where will he get his sense of wonder and idealism? What kind of childhood lacks fantasy and adventure? Professor Kamil’s idea reminds me of the kids whose parents start putting them through the hoops to prepare for college starting in preschool. Why should reading be just a functional thing – a practical thing – for your job? Reminds me of the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. You should be intrinsically motivated to read, that way you’ll read for pleasure and information. But if you’re extrinsically motivated to read, i.e. if you have to read or else you won’t know enough for your occupation, then you might not read for pleasure and not read anything outside your field. I personally think being intrinsically motivated is better, as it may make you more well-rounded and open-minded. But, hey, I’d love your opinion, too.

 

Stephen King – The Gunslinger

I have only a limited background on Stephen King’s books. I’ve read Carrie, Pet Sematary, and Salem’s Lot, and seen The Shining, It, and Christine. Not much there, huh? I would have read more, except as King once said, “If I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify; and if I cannot horrify I will go for the gross-out.” Carrie of course didn’t much scare me, although I enjoyed it (though it was strange to feel that the narrator both liked and hated Carrie). Salem’s Lot had some chilling moments, as when the vampire is floating outside the window, or when the basement staircase is cut away so visitors fall on the knives laid out below. Pet Sematary was creepy, but the climax wasn’t scary, and I got so bored reading the whole sequence where the father goes to dig up his son at the graveyard. What I really want to read is It, though I’ve seen most of the movie and read quite a bit about it. Still, what intrigues me about It is the way King refers to other books he’d written up to that point and the turtles. The turtles sound so creepy…

Anyway, I don’t know what prompted me to do it exactly, especially since I don’t like reading anything longer than a trilogy (which is why I never finished the Narnia books), but I picked up The Gunslinger over the weekend and just finished it. Needless to say, I had various feelings while I read it, not the least of which was, Wow, why doesn’t Stephen King always write fantasy? And then it came to me that this wasn’t quite fantasy – it was a western and horror and sci-fi. I ended up both loving the book and hating it. And now come the lists, since paragraphing makes me bored, hehe.

Loved:
1.) The Man With No Name. Err, I mean, the gunslinger. I admit I imagined Clint Eastwood’s face for most of the book, although it was jarring to learn that the gunslinger had black hair.

2.) The names. Alain, Rhea, Roland…then Jake, Steven, Cuthbert. So much variety, you know…and the first three names I listed there were names I had used in stories I wrote. Was Stephen King using babynames.com, too? Hehe. Probably not.

3.) The language. It took some getting used to. I expected some wild west slang, but then ran up against words like “yar” and “thee”, which threw me off until I figured out that this world wasn’t quite this, wasn’t quite that. The prose was nice and tightly constructed. Very clean, I thought, with just the right amount of detail. The kind of detail that makes me feel like I’m eating the words. Very filling. But: The repeated descriptions got annoying sometimes, such as the references to the sandalwood of the gunslinger’s guns, and the fact that Allie was the woman from Tull. I suppose it reminds me of epics like The Aeneid, when epithets often accompanied the names, but still. This is English, not Latin or Greek, and it’s prose, not poetry. I could have done without some of that.

4.) How real Roland’s world seemed. Of course, there were the obvious ties to LOTR, with Mid-World, but the world also had its own density. The descriptions of In-World contrasted with Mid-World nicely, and again, that edible detail everywhere was immersive.

5.) “The man in black”? Come on. Somebody’s been reading The Princess Bride.

Hated (okay, not quite that extreme):
1.) It eventually sickened me that every female character was shown in some sexual way. I assume it has something to do with all the Bible references and that the women are Eve (or Lilith) and living in some sort of sin or something… But it got old pretty fast. First we have Allie, who asks for sex in exchange for information, then can’t control herself and requests to know what the afterlife is like, which drives her crazy (a classic horror device, I suspect, but also a comment on the weak will of women, perhaps?). There was the preacher-woman pregnant with some demon baby – and did Roland put a gun up her…? I read that scene over and over and I’m not sure I want to believe what actually happened… Then there’s Roland’s mother, who cheats on his father; I think Roland kills her for it, but I’m only 98% sure. Then Susan, who I suppose was the pure one, but Roland still slept with her. Then the succubus. Then all the whores that fill up the background scenery from In-World to Mid-World. WTF? I hope we get some more positive representations of women in the next books, because that was about enough to turn me off from the rest of the series.

2.) The death of Tull. I could just imagine a shoot-’em-up video game during that scene. Not that I’m against violence, but something about killing everyone in some godforsaken town just isn’t fun to read – it’s just repetitive.

3.) The journey. I know it’s classic. I know Tolkien did it, and King greatly appreciates LOTR. But I’m getting sick of it. It isn’t just The Gunslinger, it’s all these fantasy books I’ve been reading lately that involve moving from point A to point B and the endless description of the environment on the way. Though, of course, King has some great description, that doesn’t stop me from just knowing how the book is going to end up.

4.) The Dark Tower. Love it and hate it. I sincerely hope there’s more to the tower than what the man in black gives away at the end. Why? Because this is Book I out of seven. Remember the Da Vinci Code, how we found out what the Grail was halfway through? At least for me, that ruined the book.

5.) The Bible. The Bible. I know The Gunslinger was published back in the ’80s, so this Bible annoyance is just on my part, not on the book’s. First Narnia, then the Golden Compass, now The Dark Tower…and probably so many other fantasy books. I can’t think of any based on, say, the Koran, or the Torah. Something else besides the Bible… At least it’ll be interesting to see how King looks at this. I did find it interesting that Roland wasn’t an expert on the Bible at all. But I hope the final boss (lol) isn’t some red devil like in Legend.

So will I read the rest of the series? That’s the big question. The ending to The Gunslinger was conclusive enough for me to not want to read more (not like Uglies, that left me railing because it was a cliff-hanger). And I’m starting to remember the common themes in what few things of Stephen King’s that I’ve read/seen – his likes and dislikes seem to shine through, which is great because it defines his writing in a way, but also it’s a bit of a turn-off if you’re not in agreement. (I guess if you didn’t see Sergio Leone’s great trilogy, you’d be in the dark about what was going on with the gunslinger. And I still feel disgusted by the representation of women in this book.) Anyway, if I read more, you will know (what, thought I wouldn’t blog about it?). If you’ve read The Gunslinger, I’d love to hear your thoughts (but not spoilers! lol).

Update: Uh, yeah, I’m not finishing the Dark Tower. Partly because of what the commenter said below but also partly because of strong curiosity, I went on Wikipedia and read the summaries for the books in the series. I couldn’t make much of it – just that I know I’ll hate the ending and I’d rather not go through all that to end up with that as an ending. So feel free to post spoilers if you like!