Currently Reading: Impossible

“What was she singing, Sindy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Lucy bit her lip, containing her impulse to sing a few bars of a particular song and ask if that was it. But she knew it was. Miranda had been singing one song, a version of an old folk ballad, every time she showed up in Lucy’s life. Lucy was sick of it.

But the ballad still haunted her. Twined itself unexpectedly in her mind and inner ear, which was where it was now.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She must be a true love of mine

Author: Nancy Werlin

Synopsis: Pregnant by rape while still in high school, Lucy Scarborough discovers that she is one of a long line of women who give birth to daughters at age eighteen and immediately go insane. Her own mother, Miranda, believed they were cursed by an Elfin Knight, and that they could only be saved by completing the three impossible tasks their version of the song Scarborough Fair asks for. Lucy is matter-of-fact and realistic by nature, but her sanity, and her baby’s future, depend on her ability to believe in—and do—the impossible.

Notes: This is a fascinating, albeit horrifying premise. I’ve wanted to read the book for a long time; the more so because I enjoyed Werlin’s Extraordinary.

The novel starts off very strong, giving an intriguing and dimensional picture of the protagonist and her pre-fairy-tale life. I was hooked right away—immediately fond of Lucy, of the musical Leo and motherly Soledad, of homeless Miranda, and of neighbor boy Zach. The music history and use of the old ballad also intrigued me.

When it came time to talk of rape, Werlin chose a well-phrased discretion, respecting the probable youth of her audience (I’d expect to see girls as young as eleven or twelve reading this book.) Faced with the consequences of that moment, Werlin’s characters stick to the Widely Acceptable Belief that abortion is entirely okay if pregnancy interferes with a woman’s life goals, which I cannot agree with. Their perspective suffers as well from the notion that college and career is the only right path for a smart young American.

Where Werlin herself stands, I couldn’t say, as the story itself is a step in a more generous direction. Lucy refuses to sacrifice her baby, even to save her own sanity. From a greater understanding of her family history, particularly of Miranda’s situation, she is grateful that her mother chose to give her life. She thinks of the baby as “my daughter” and loves her. I thoroughly respect that.

The story is ultimately a modern encounter with a harsh fairy tale—an evil elf-lord playing a cruel game with human women. The requisite three tasks must be accomplished, all of them designed to stump the realistic mind. But the brutal faerie curse is battled by the tough realism not only of Lucy, but of her foster parents and Zach.

Zach is a hero in the good old romantic tradition: courageous, chivalric and larger-than-life. I would have taken a little more filling out of his character, but then, the entire last half of the book covered so much time that character development, even Lucy’s, got a bit lost in the action. But still, he's a good-hearted and likable hero. I like the good boys best. Along those lines, I recommend Nancy Werlin's own thoughts on the writing of this book.

The ending is worth the read, not that anyone would be able to stop once they got started.

Special thanks to Arabella for getting me a copy of this book. I enjoyed it, and will probably re-read it to see if I get a better sense of the characters on the second time. Sometimes I blast through too quickly in the quest to find out what happens, and miss things. :)

Recommendation: Naturally, this book goes best with a good arrangement of Scarborough Fair. Simon & Garfunkel’s is popular and even mentioned in the story. My favorite is probably Sarah Brightman’s.

Top Ten Tuesday Freebie: Best Houses in Books

This week, The Broke and the Bookish have chosen to let us pick out our own themes. And I wished very much that they hadn't (albeit quite innocently) chosen to do that during my chaos of half-packed boxes and appallingly long lists of things to clean. Until the idea of new house—which I have to remind myself of every hour to bear the moving stress—gave me an idea.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

We've done favorite settings, but for that list, slots get too easily taken up by Hogwarts and Narnia and the like. I am thinking about mansions, apartments, shacks—anything that could be described as a house. There will, of course, be some overlap.

Here are the top ten off the top of my head:

1. Pemberley. With exquisite natural beauty "so little counteracted by an awkward taste," a park ten miles round, pianofortes and great halls galore, it's hard to blame Elizabeth Bennet for thinking that "to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!" Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

2. Moonacre Manor. Little round tower rooms, a tunnel entrance, a friendly lion, a splendid resident cook, magic and unicorns—what's not to love? The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge

3. Green Gables. Doesn't every girl dream of living at Green Gables, sleeping in Anne's attic room with the window open to let the cherry blossom fragrance blow over her face at night? With a lake nearby, and lanes to ramble in? Also, honorable mentions to Patty's Place, Windy Poplars, the House of Dreams and Ingleside. The author made characters of houses like few others. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery.

4. The Alm-hut. Who wouldn't want to sleep in a hayloft and wake to the fir-trees' roar, make goats'-milk cheeses (I've actually done that) and walk up to the wildflower meadows on the side of the Alp? It might be a bit cold in winter, but what a peaceful life. Heidi, Johanna Spyri

5. The Burrow. Admittedly, everything's a bit broken-down under the influence of poverty and seven active children, but the place is full of love and fun. Also, there's a clock that tells where every member of the family is, including whether or not they're in mortal peril. That's helpful. I could do without the ghoul, though. The Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling

6. Misselthwaite Manor. The primary interest of the house proper is in its 'corridors'—a word that filled me with the thrill of adventure when I read the novel as a child. But what I like best about the place is its Secret Garden, surrounded by ivy-covered walls, with robins and a world of roses therein. The Secret Garden, Francis Hodgson Burnett

7. Bag End. Unfortunately I'm too tall to live comfortably in a hobbit-hole, but it sounds like fun: food (with mushrooms, of course), books, ale, and peace and quiet. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

8. Rivendell. I am not too tall for Rivendell, and it sounds beautiful. Feasting, singing, Elves, and a lovely wooded setting. Honorable mention to the tree-houses of Lorien, too. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

9. Moor House. After wandering on the moors for days, exhausted and destitute, Jane Eyre finds a quiet country home filled with soft light, intelligent conversation, and the warmth of affection. Little is said about the place itself, but it feels homey. And it's not dark and haunted like Thornfield. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

10. Cair Paravel. Lewis doesn't describe it in great detail, but I thought I ought to get a castle on here somewhere. No doubt it's exceptionally beautiful. The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Now I feel all dreamy. There's something magical about the idea of house and home, be it humble or be it proud. Hopefully that magic can stick with me while I pack boxes and take soap and garden hose to dusty apartment window blinds.

What are your favorite houses in stories?

The Influence of Art

A blogalectic with Masha and Mr. Pond.

The three of us are currently going through a sort of poetic exercise where we discuss our impressions of the various words we've struggled to define. Last week, we covered beauty. Masha's impressions included this revealing and fascinating idea (explained more fully in her post):

For the most part, I try to live what many people consider a life of impractical priorities.

Whereas Mr. Pond ended his thoughts with a short piece of fiction, a hauntingly lovely scene between a young Edvard Grieg and the older, more experienced Franz Liszt.

Imagine, if you will, the tableau of the two musicians standing at the piano. They are in the salon, a high-ceilinged room redolent of the era, the curtains heavy, the carpet lush, the great piano forte in the centre of the room.  The scribbled bits of foolscap are spread across it....

You should really read the whole thing. It's not the first time I've thought my critique partner had a genius for the short story form.

This week's word: art.

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Red Scarf and Blue Jeans by Anne Olwin. Source.

At the word art, I think first of my mother. When my sisters and I were very small, Mom dragged Dad over to a watercolor on a friend's wall and said "If I could just do that!..." Shortly thereafter, Dad bought her paints and brushes and six weeks of lessons from the artist. Some of my earliest memories are of playing with the teacher's young sons in the Florida sunshine while Mom learned to paint.

I grew up tracing Mom's pieces and then drawing my own, learning from her about perspective and foreshortening and light and shadow. And I grew up with her aphorisms: "What's in your heart will come out in your art." "Half of learning how to draw is learning how to see." "You don't have to draw a cross to make Christian art."

Early on, of course, I had different ideas for pencil and paper. The art teacher's oldest son, whom I reverenced, was the first to let me know that it was not normal to narrate my existence out loud. "She walked down the hall and turned on the light," I'd say, as I did just that. And he said "All you ever say is she, she, she."

"No, it's not all I say."

"Yes it is! You just said it. She did this, she did that. She, she, she."

That's how much reading and writing was a part of my life, even at five or six. I went from Curious George to Billy and Blaze to Little House on the Prairie, and read a set of the latter books to pieces. My own first stories were made of sheets of paper stapled into manila folders. They were entirely plotless. But they started me toward a lifetime of learning to write prose—which, under the influence of my mom's self-taught piano and guitar playing, later branched into music and lyrics as well.

Dress by Mom, flowers by Beth, veil by Mom and I
Photo by Casey Karbowski

Other influences have helped form my understanding and working out of art. For instance, the move beyond Christian pop music to country, then rock and singer/songwriter sounds, then the Celtic Women and popera. Or the way John Granger and Travis Prinzi have taught me to look at story and literature, via Lewis, Tolkien, Rowling, and others. And the way the Catholic Church integrates art into worship.

But not one influence has done more to shape me as an artist than my first and best teacher. Art is a way of life in my mother's house. For us, it has been the planting of roses and Canterbury bells, the hanging of sheer curtains and the four-step painting of walls. Mom's work displayed around the house, and her classes in the living room. Dad building grape arbors and hammering roses out of metal. One sister's photography and another's skill with food presentation. Me with Mom's old guitar, in a chair in the corner. Mom and my sisters and friends and I designing and producing the family weddings—dresses, cakes, flowers, music, hair and makeup, favors.

Today, for every member of my family, it is the way we look at life and try to express it through our chosen media.

Antique Roses in Pink and White by Anne Olwin. Source.

Art never seems far from me now. It's in bookshelves and arias, dreams of gardening, and in wondering whether I can cut and hem my red and gold curtains to fit our new living room windows. And it's with me as I shape every phrase, every nuance of character in my beloved little books. I'll echo Masha here: I love my life.

These Happy Golden Years and other stories

Yes, I just shamelessly ripped off one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's book titles.

If I've seemed a little absent from comment boxes and other internet stuff this week, I have two reasons for that. First, three years ago as of Wednesday, this came to pass:

Still pretty much the best day of my life.

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Second, I've started packing up the apartment, because—God willing and all goes well—we're closing on a house in a few weeks!!! Can you sense the excitement? I'm going to be able to garden.

Forewarning: chances are, I'll be taking a couple of weeks off the blog around the core moving time. I'll try to keep it to that. :)

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The only downer news: I've had to back out of music for the time being, thanks to probable vocal cord nodes. I hate not being able to sing. Hate it. But it's cut back for awhile now, or possibly do permanent damage. If I haven't already—I've been dragging my heels on this for a good six months.

For now, at least I can still go in the kitchen, where the acoustics are good, and do a small amount of gentle practicing. If I sing very lightly and carefully, things seem to go okay.

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Back to cheerful thoughts: until 2012, there are only two more Wheel of Time books to review (unless I miss it desperately and decide to go for the prequel), and I've already read one of them! Which means I can start resting my eyes as well as my voice. It also means that if you're all bored of my going on and on about those books, there's other stuff coming. :)

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Writers' link of the week: Jay Kristoff guest posts at YA Highway, talking about how to write outside your gender (and really, how to write about anyone who is different from you):

"But whatever you do, never, ever fall into that baffling belief that you should only write in your own shoes. Unless you’re a part-time super-spy or possessed of mutant powers, chances are, a book about you is going to be a boring book."

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Music of the week: Line of Sky. No video to be had at this time, but you can listen to the songs over on Bandcamp. Line of Sky is otherwise known as Mike Grigoni, and I've got to say, we have very talented friends. :)

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Funny of the week: From The Onion, "Scientists Trace Heat Wave To Massive Star At Center Of Solar System." (Thanks to George for linking it on Facebook.) This just made me happy. Now if only the Pacific Northwest could catch sight of that star a little more often...

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Ah, moving. The kitchen holds a few empty boxes, and the whole house holds loads of unboxed stuff. I suppose I can pack my recording equipment. But I'll hold off on the main bookshelves for a week or two.

Happy weekend, everybody!

Currently Reading: Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, Book 11)

“Do you intend to go back on your word?” A drawn blade that might be used soon. Worse, Tuon was watching, looking at Mat like that hanging magistrate in truth. Burn him, if she died, something would shrivel up inside him. And the only way to stop it, to be sure it was stopped, was to do what he hated worse than work. Once, he had thought that fighting battles, much as he hated it, was still better than work. Near enough nine hundred dead in the space of a few days had changed his mind.

Author: Robert Jordan

Synopsis: While Rand continues to search for a truce with the Seanchan and has an altercation with Semirhage, Perrin plans to infiltrate the Shaido camp to free Faile and Mat attempts to return Tuon safely to her people. Egwene refuses to submit to Elaida, Nynaeve prepares her uncrowned king of Malkier to ride with his people, and Elayne discovers a nest of Black Ajah in Caemlyn. Most of all, signs of the approach of Tarmon Gai’don appear everywhere—food spoiling, the dead walking, the Pattern loosening in ever more terrifying ways.

Notes: Halfway through this book, I was grinding my teeth. Nothing would progress, and I kept getting stuck in the heads of people I didn’t know, like, or care anything about. Besides, there were just too many Darkfriends.

Then things actually started to happen.

Jordan picked the last half of book eleven to resolve more than one long-held plot thread, while still holding us on edge for the book twelve. Relief made me so grateful that I decided to like this book after all. Though I possibly could have liked it just for Egwene’s unbelievable strength and for what Nynaeve did for her husband.

The time with Rand broke my heart—just shattered it. When Lews Therin held saidin away from him, I was nearly as worried as Min. And almost the last thing we heard through his ears was Semirhage’s lie.

Come on. It’s Semirhage. It has to be a lie.

Perrin did all right for himself in this book, again proving a good general in his own right. But—and I never thought I’d say this—Mat was more interesting to follow, both as a general and as a man in love with a woman. Mat made me laugh, and the back-and-forth between him and Tuon was just as much fun in this book as in the last. I wanted to cheer more than once.

Elayne’s story got to progress quite a bit in this novel, which was pleasant. I thoroughly enjoy the Warder bond between Elayne and Birgitte, which got some airplay when Elayne thought it a good idea to walk into a houseful of Aes Sedai Darkfriends. Jordan did a good job of differentiating it from the bond of Aes Sedai to Warders of opposite gender.

To my great surprise, I was completely wrong about who murdered Adeleas.

Also, Logain has me impressed. I can see that crown of glory coming.

Recommendation: Push through the first half. It'll satisfy some long-held suspense later.

Top Ten Tuesday: Underrated and Overly Obscure Books

This is a great topic. Don't all of us readers have a few cherished books that we champion regularly, only to meet with blank stares and courteous smiles?

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

Why am I always surprised when not everyone on Earth responds with equal passion to everything I love? It's one of the great mysteries of human nature. :P

1. The Little White Horse (Elizabeth Goudge). JK Rowling has spoke of her great love for this book, even blurbing a reprint, yet hardly anyone else talks about it. But it's so beautiful that I cry every time I read it.

2. Patricia St. John's books. I grew up with these, and can't understand how they've ever gone out of print. Star of Light and If You Love Me are my favorites.

3. Summer of the Monkeys (Wilson Rawls). Ever read Where the Red Fern Grows? I liked that book, but Summer of the Monkeys, by the same author, is hilarious and fantastic and apparently much less popular. I've no idea why it isn't talked of more.

4. The Wingfeather Saga (Andrew Peterson). Maybe it's more famous than I realize, but like I said when I reviewed North! Or Be Eaten, I think it deserves a place next to Terry Pratchett's work.

5. Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger). Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye gets both lauded and hated regularly, but I found Franny and Zooey more interesting, more pleasant, and no less worthy of acclaim.

6. In the Reign of Terror (and possibly others by G.A. Henty). An excellent book for boys, telling of an English lad who attempts to protect his French host family during the Revolution. Henty's books are occasionally reprinted nowadays.

Wow, this list is proving much more difficult to create than I expected. Help me out here. What books do you think the rest of the world should love as much as you do?

A l'alta fantasia qui mancò possa

A blogalectic with Masha and Mr. Pond.

Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new.... —St. Augustine, X.xxvii

After some weeks of talking back and forth with Masha and Mr. Pond, it's become clear that a fair portion of our different ideas come from being different personalities and having different associations for different words. This was the focus of last week's conversation, and talking about our impressions of the word entertainment proved so profitable that Masha suggested we try and do the same thing with some of the other words we've discussed.

This week's focus is beauty, which we've already talked about a fair bit. We've talked definitions, the mystery of beauty, and the relation of beauty to art. Now, I'm supposed to talk connotation and impression, more what the word means to me than the plain statement of what it means.

I've spent a fair portion of the past twenty-four hours thinking about what to say. I've thought of it while listening to Beethoven's Piano Trio #2 with the sun streaming golden through the sheer drapes. I've thought about it at Mass, going through the reading of Scripture and the recitation of creed and the prayers of the Eucharist. I've thought about it while reading Dante's Paradiso aloud, with Lou, by candlelight.

And to be honest, I'm not sure what else I can say—not without breaking the sacred wall that keeps me from getting too free with what ought to be kept a mystery. Write a blog-post about what beauty means to me? Too blunt, and too difficult. I had to write a whole novel about that.

Perhaps Dante can express it for me. I don't always understand the Italian political references or the mythology, and the Inferno horrifies me at every turn, yet I love the Divina Commedia. The higher the ascent up the mountain of Purgatory and through the stars to the Empyrean, the closer I come to perfect Beauty. And its pinnacle is in the last canto—its goal fulfilled in the joy of these last lines, which make best sense when one has made the entire climb. The translation here is Anthony Esolen's.

...Already were all my will and my desires
turned, as a wheel in equal balance, by
the Love that moves the sun and other stars.

Nerds in Print and other stories

Over a year ago, Blogengamot chief Travis Prinzi asked me to write an essay for a book he was editing for publication. He used all the magic words—write, book, publication—so I couldn't say no.

So I wrote an essay, entitled Harry Potter and the Greatest Virtue. It quotes Dante and Aquinas and Lewis and Gregory of Nyssa. It discusses Dobby and Lily and Snape and Dumbledore and, of course, Harry—all in the context of Christian charity or Love. Travis did his editing work and put the essay into the book.

Ladies and gentlemen... Harry Potter for Nerds just went up on Amazon!!!

Are you a nerd? Do you like Harry Potter? This is the book for you!

Among the other essay authors are Travis himself, John Granger, and Mr. Pond. I am so excited! Thrilled! Cheering Charmed and Stupefied! And I can't wait to read everyone else's chapters.

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Speaking of Harry Potter:

By 'lucky few' they mean 'the first million'... it's kind of like being a Google Plus tester...

Thanks to Travis and George for saving me the trouble of getting up before 7 AM! I am now registered on Pottermore as NewtPixie133, a user ID which was randomly generated. The name totally delights me. I am nearly six feet tall. No one has ever called me anything Pixie before.

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Writers' link of the week: Well-known fantasy author and writing teacher Holly Lisle quits big publishing to publish herself. Not wholly surprising, but still... wow.

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Music of the week: Look at these Anacortes, WA boys playing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Did I say that loudly enough? THE LONELY FOREST PLAYED ON JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! And now that they're famous, I suppose this is the time for reminiscing about playing street hockey with John and his family, and calling Eric on Sunday mornings to remind him to show up and play on the worship team. :P

Holy crow, guys! I am so excited for you!



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Funny of the week: I went to xkcd, hit the Random button, and got this. And it totally rocks.

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This little blog is just not big enough for all the big news this week! Everything is requiring exclamation points! Lots of them!!! Okay, I'll stop now.

Well, one more. Happy weekend, everyone!

Currently Reading: North! Or Be Eaten

“You know what I want? I want a long string of days like yesterday, when we walked through the forest, listening to poems about Uncle Peet, laughing together. No swords or bows or Fangs. I want to rest. But I’m afraid that we won’t be able to for a long, long time—not until we make it to Anniera. Until we make it home. If we have to fight to make it there, I’m willing to do it. And if I have to pull you by the collar, you’re coming with me. Look.” Janner pulled Esben’s sketchbook from Tink’s pack, flipped it open, and held it in the light that crept through the tent flap. “See this picture? The lawn below the castle wall, where the people are sitting by the shade tree?”

“Yeah. I’ve looked at it a hundred times.”

“That’s a real place. And it’s ours. And I’m going to wallop you at zibzy on that lawn someday.”

Author: Andrew Peterson

Synopsis: Janner, Tink and Leeli aren’t just three children driven by Fangs from their small-town life—they’re the Throne Warden, High King and Song Maiden of Anniera. But they’ve got a long way to go to reach their rightful kingdom. They must face many monsters, including their own jealousies and fears, and learn what it means to be who they are in a world run by evil (a very specific evil named Gnag the Nameless.)

Notes: First, this book is the sequel to On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, book two of the Wingfeather Saga. Book three, Monster in the Hollows, is recently out and there should be a couple more.

Second: move over, Terry Pratchett and Lloyd Alexander. Make room on the bench for Andrew Peterson.

It takes me a little work to get into humor-based fiction—all of it, not just this series. My sister told me to plan on reading this entire book through in one sitting. My brother-in-law wants to see it made into a movie. But I reacted to it very much like I did The Colour of Magic or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or The Book of Three—fantastic books all, but more humor and action than emotional sympathy, especially at first. I laughed a lot, but my heart didn’t dive headfirst into the story till perhaps the Fork Factory. Though I teared up a number of times, once well before then.

Yes, there’s a Fork Factory. In the words of the venerable author, Woe!

Peterson’s footnotes, his Creaturepedia pages, and the quotes Oskar N. Reteep is always spouting were just brilliantly funny. As was the Florid Sword. I got a big kick out of the Florid Sword.

The amount of action should make this a good book for young boys. The characters are always on the move, running into danger after battle after murderous scoundrel. And the characters themselves are interesting: Peet the Sock Man, Podo the pirate, fierce little Maraly and gentle Sara, and of course the Wingfeather family. Then there are the non-humans. Creepy ridgerunners. Fearsome toothy cows and a gargan rockroach. Sea dragons and Snickbuzzards and bomnubbles...

But what I loved best about the book was Janner’s relationship to his younger brother. His understanding of his protective role over Tink went through a good deal of growth. I’m an eldest sister, and I could empathize strongly with that. That storyline made the ending worth crying over. And I did. Much more than I expected to.

Also, hopefully we'll see more of Sara Cobbler in the tale's future installments.

Recommendation: Read it by an open window with the breeze blowing through, and think of adventure. (A treehouse would be better, if you have one.) But watch out for gargan rockroaches.

Top Ten Tuesday: Trends We'd Like More or Less Of

Cheers to The Broke and the Bookish for a great topic this week! Now, if only I read more trendy stuff. I might have to get a little PRUBONic* for this.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

For the sake of getting much list at all, I'll cover both more and less.

More, Please:
1. High fantasy. And as Robert Jordan is currently destroying my eyesight, I'd love to see some shorter, tighter stories that maintain strong worldbuilding and character development.

2. Fantasy/sci-fi combinations. The best examples I've read are L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and sequels and Engdahl’s Enchantress from the Stars.

3. Religious protagonists in any and every genre. I'm not sure this counts as a trend, but a fair number of people are actually religious; it only makes sense that some of the characters in novels would be.

Less, Thanks:
4. Vampires. I liked Twilight in large part because Edward Cullen didn't want to be a vampire and kept an impressive self-control over the monster within. The several feet of shelf space devoted to vampires nowadays looks a lot more sketchy. But again, PRUBON.*

5. Demons. Call me superstitious, but I do not read demon-protagonist or demon-love-interest books on purpose. I read one by accident once, and have never wanted a novel out of my house so badly.

I'd add Monster Mashups, but no amount of hype has ever convinced me, or will ever, to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

There's my short list! What trends do you want more or less of?
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*PRUBON, acronym. Presumptive Reader Unworthiness Based On Non-reading, as in "Such-and-such novel is a bad book." "Oh, have you read it?" "No, of course not!"

By Any Other Name

In response to Masha, Art and Entertainment, and Mr. Pond, the way up is down

This blogalectic began with Masha and I disagreeing over terminology. And while my goal last week was toward clarification and synthesis, I suspect I only continued arguing about terms, and therefore proved more frustrating than helpful to my good blogalectic partners.

To be honest, I think a lot of society's problems and arguments are semantic. Everyone has their own set of words they're sensitized to, based on beliefs and experience and which bumper sticker slogans they've based their life philosophy upon, and therefore you have mystified conservatives who don't feel hatred even toward their worst enemies, and mystified sacramental Christians who don't consider their religion "works-based", and mystified secularists who don't consider their passions evil, and on and on and on. It's not that these words don't have meaning; they do. It's just that one side attaches a great deal of meaning to the words, which the other side finds irrelevant.

So, Masha and Mr. Pond and I are trying to come to terms over art and entertainment. Mr. Pond's post was wonderfully brainy, focusing on the reality of beauty. I encourage everyone to read it. Maybe a couple of times—I had to, to get some of the complex concepts. But Masha asked me questions, and to keep this from becoming a 2,000-word post, I'll focus on responding to her today.

Her thoughts and questions gave me some understanding of where she's coming from. Exempli gratia:

I like distinctions, they give clarity, and they give an opportunity for excellence that one large grouping cannot allow - a children's abridged production of the Tempest can be very entertaining, but it can't help but fail when compared artistically to a well-prepared, nuanced, professional production. That doesn't make it a bad production, in it's own sphere, it could be excellent, but only if we don't force it to compare itself to something its not."

You know what? I don't have a problem with any of that. In all my protestations, I have never once intended to suggest that Mrs. Hawk's fifth-grade class performance of Romeo and Juliet, in which the Nurse says forcefully "I'd bet fourteen of my teeth, even though I only have four..." ought to be compared with a professional company's subtle and polished rendition using the original language.

I'd honestly never considered such an idea to be a possible implication of my arguments. See, I don't divide created product into art and non-art. I classify it by level, according to what its goal was and how well it succeeded. Ergo, I don't generally compare Little Women with For Whom the Bell Tolls. The two books had different goals, and both succeeded remarkably well for what they aimed at. But as I'm not shy of calling both novels, I'm not shy of calling both art.

...which statement takes me right back to the beginning of the very circle I'm trying to escape. Masha generally uses the term Art to refer to what I would call classic works or canonical great art. She is more comfortable with the term entertainment for creative works outside that category, whereas I take that term almost as belittling, as if books that changed my life should be classified with cheap-joke sitcoms. We might not be able to do anything about that semantic variance, or the fact that the different terms are important to us. That might even be all right. But let me answer Masha's questions, and see if it helps us toward common understanding.

I would like to know why a distinction between art assumes passivity on the part of the audience...

It's the word entertainment, actually, as separate from art. The word conjures, for me, images of lying sprawled on the couch, too exhausted to do anything but watch The Wedding Story or Brady Bunch reruns. That's about as passive as I get. But I responded to Little Women with everything in me, despite its simple prose and wandering narrative. It taught me a lot about how to be a sister, a daughter, a wife, and (hopefully someday) a mother. There's nothing wrong with a little entertainment, but that's not what Little Women was to me.

why it seems to place importance on the outward instead of the substance (I would have thought the opposite).

I suspect here that we're defining outward and substance differently. When I say outward, I mean the prose, the surface beauty that makes Hemingway an objectively better writer than Alcott. When I say substance, I'm referring to the vision coming through the text, the outlook on life and death and what it means to be human. Substantially, I put Alcott higher than Hemingway. Alcott infuses faith and hope and charity into her work, letting them walk with the reader through every curve of life and up to the deathbed. Hemingway was a brilliant man who lived a tragic life; he brushes up against Alcott's virtues only by accident, if at all.

I would like to know what it is about acclaimed works that make you feel they are offering very little.

Just to clarify: the mere fact of acclamation isn't a deciding factor. It's when acclamation seems to lean on destructive ideas and popular politics that I get frustrated (which goes on just as much in young adult fiction as it does in the stuff taught in college classes, by the way.) Critical acclaim simply seems oddly irrelevant to what I find moving, encouraging, pleasant, or otherwise beneficial.

And I would like to encourage you to delve into the despairing works, which so often offer more than they seem to. I remember reading and rejecting some books that seemed to strip me down, only to realize that it is only by "dying down to the roots" that I can regrow again in strength and certainty.

This is an exceptionally kind recommendation, and I feel the truth of it. But it does bring up one key point that I think might help bring about understanding: I've experienced depression. The real thing, the soul-sucking, physically painful sadness that you can get put on pills for (I escaped that by a very fine hair); the kind that makes you seriously question whether life is worth living. And while I will pick up some very dark works on occasion, I'm cautious, because I don't encourage that monster in my mind. Not ever. This, more than anything, may be my answer to Masha's questions. The only art that speaks beauty into my darkness is the art that leads me toward light.

I respect Masha greatly, and a few terminological differences won't trouble me. After all, I already know we have solid and sure common ground beneath us as artists, believers and friends. I just have no other name for works like Alcott's but art.

Social Geometry and other stories

Google Plus! Add me to your circles, if you will. I might just talk to myself over there till everyone migrates in from Facebook and Twitter. The benefits:

• it shares an account with your GMail address/Blogger blog/YouTube channel/anything else Google-based
• the share function works kind of like retweeting, and for everything
• you're not limited to 140 characters, although it's still better to keep it short
• you can control what you share with which group of friends/family members/bosses and coworkers/etc.
• (my favorite) theoretically, eventually you won't have to try and be clever on numerous social networks at once

The down side: Google might take over the world.

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Dear people who make hymnals for the Catholic Church, please reconsider the following lines: "One is the breath of the star and the rose", "When love explodes across the sky", "A gleaming cloth of white... the fabric of our lives", and "...who was rage against the night." And about half of the song that goes "We are harvest, we are hunger, we are question, we are creed..." I cannot sing these lyrics with a straight face. Thanks.

* * *

Writers' link of the week: I really appreciated this piece by Mike Duran on 'The Myth of "Secular" Fiction'. Sample quote:

"A blanket condemnation of all myths -- especially myths that are so rich in spiritual allegory -- does not do justice to either myth or Christianity. Which is why on Mars Hill (Acts 17), rather than condemn the pagan poets, the apostle Paul quoted them, highlighting elements of their art which corroborated biblical truth."

Well said, good sir.

* * *

Music of the week: The instrumentation to this is incredibly beautiful.


Gloria Video from Maralynn Rochat on Vimeo.

H/T Mr. Pond, who recommended them. Apparently some of them are his friends. :)

* * *

Funny of the week: This year's Bulwer-Lytton awards. They're all brilliant, but I think the Dishonorable Mention is my favorite.

* * *

Happy weekend, everyone!

Currently Reading: Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time, Book 10)

“Only...I’ve heard Grady and Neald talk about how it is, holding the One Power. They say they feel more alive. I’m too frightened to spit, in a battle, but I feel more alive than any time except when I’m holding Faile. I don’t think I could stand it if I came to feel that way about what I just did back there. I don’t think Faile would have me back if I came to that.”

Elyas snorted. “I don’t think you have that in you, boy. Listen, danger takes different men in different ways. Some are cold as clockwork, but you never struck me as the cold sort. When your heart starts pounding, it heats your blood. Stands to reason it heightens your senses, too. Makes you aware. Maybe you’ll die in a few minutes, maybe in a heartbeat, but you’re not dead now, and you know it from your teeth to your toenails. Just the way things are. Doesn’t mean you like it.”

Author: Robert Jordan

Synopsis: As Rand cleanses saidin and sets out to make a truce with the Seanchan, Elayne continues to pursue her throne and discovers she is carrying Rand’s twins. Perrin comes across Darkhounds as he searches for Faile. Mat courts the Daughter of the Nine Moons, and Egwene puzzles out how to take the White Tower.

Notes: First, this novel ended on a cruel cliffhanger. I read spoilers on Wikipedia to keep myself from sacrificing this week to the next seven-hundred-page book.

Second, I managed to really enjoy this installment despite the fact that very little ground was gained toward any of the main plot threads. Aes Sedai and Asha’man dropped whatever they were holding all over the world to stare toward the massive beacon of the One Power as Rand and Nynaeve did their cleansing work. Elayne still isn’t queen; Egwene still hasn’t attacked the White Tower; Perrin has found the Shaido, but not Faile; Mat is still trying to get away from Seanchan rule....

Mat’s tale was hilarious in this novel. He’s such a womanizer that I’ve never been able to stand him, but Tuon appears to be just the person to shake him back into decency. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them attempt to set each other on their ears.

I’ve noted before that the depth of cultural worldbuilding is fantastic. At this point, I feel like I know the Aiel, the Atha’an Miere, and the Seanchan fairly well. The lot of them are strange and sometimes horrifying to the reader, much as they are to the Two Rivers folk, whose culture and morals are similar to those of nineteenth-century Western agricultural communities. But they’re also endlessly fascinating.

It’s been interesting to watch the young Two Rivers people make their way in a tougher world. Every one of them is harder, except possibly Nynaeve, whose ferocity has become more like petulance. Rand hardens himself to do what he thinks he must, and then tortures himself because women keep dying. Mat lives entirely for his own pleasure and safety until his few remaining shards of morality force him into stepping up and protecting someone who would die otherwise. Egwene is cool, calculating, and powerful, but has retained most of her conscience. Perrin has held onto his old ways better than any of the others, but he’s made Faile the start and finish of his existence and I get impatient with some of his thoughts.

It did feel very strange to get nothing of Rand until page 657, and then only a few pages. It was nice to see Loial return, though—he’s been gone for books and books.

How did people wait years for book eleven? I’ve had trouble waiting days.

Recommendation: Read it when you can plan on following it immediately with its sequel.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books that Tackle Tough Issues

Disclaimer: I tend to avoid books that get lauded for Dealing with Tough Issues, generally because—as noted yesterday—I prefer stories without agendas. To be fair, sometimes the agenda is in the marketing or even the reviews. Unfortunately, it annoys me there, too.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

So I simply haven't read most of the currently-popular issue books. But here's a list of well-told stories that provide beautiful and redemptive coverage of some of humanity's deepest difficulties.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). I love it for its immense compassion toward the vulnerable, and it also shows a heartbreaking picture of human injustice.

2. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky). Here, there is hope and redemption for the murderer and the prostitute, and therefore all of us.

3. Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling). If this series doesn't make you consider your own heart and make you want to be braver, kinder, more loving in the face of weakness and need and death, I don't know what will.

4. Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card). The man who unintentionally destroyed a race of sentient beings shows understanding to an abusive husband, an angry and faithless woman, a family of desperate children, and a species that murders its honored citizens. And he searches for a way to right his own wrong in the process. It's beautiful.

5. If You Love Me (Patricia M. St. John). Amid war, hatred, and loss, an Arab Christian girl finds healing through self-sacrifice, forgiveness, the love of a Muslim baby, and her murdered brother's best friend.

6. Kristin Lavransdatter (Sigrid Undset). The consequences of Kristin's sexual wrongs as a teenager have a startling reach into her relationships and outlook as she ages, yet she still finds redemption.

7. Christy (Catherine Marshall). A seventeen-year-old city girl chooses a missionary life teaching in deep Appalachian poverty, and learns a very active form of faith and love.

8. Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis). Lewis lets his main character wrong others again and again through her all-too-powerful jealousy, controlling nature, and insecurity. All the while, of course, walking her toward grace.

9. That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis). While the world shudders under threat of cold totalitarianism, Ransom and Mark and Jane deal with gender roles, loveless marriage, the use of magic, and the various temptations of power.

10. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo). All right, Hugo does soapbox way too much. But I'm letting him into this list for his exquisite pictures of justice and mercy.

What do you recommend?

In Search of Beauty

In response to Masha, Beauty is Not..., and Mr. Pond, the way down is up

Last week's challenge was to show what beauty is not, hopefully to grant us a better image of Beauty itself. After I pointed out that beauty is not innately evil, Masha carried the idea further:

"Beauty is never evil, and never banal. But it can be small, and it can be simple. It can be grand and it can be dark and terrifying. It is often unsettling in some way, like the angels who greet us with "Fear not" - it overwhelms us."

Mr. Pond hit the discussion with the rather shocking statement that "Beauty is not. Nor is it bounded" and then went on to explain:

"Empirically, there is nothing which can be recognised as beauty or the beautiful. We cannot say with scientific precision that this thing is certain and this other thing isn’t, any more than we can successfully, scientifically determine the precise nature that separates one work of art from another."

And as someone who, while appreciating science for what it can do, considers the spiritual and mysterious to be at least as important, I like both these concepts very much. Beauty is not simply especial prettiness; it can be terrible, strange, unsettling. It haunts, as John Eldredge would say. And like its creators, whether man or God, it cannot be easily boxed up by empirical observation and cold data.

So what are we to do with this concept of Beauty—that strange thing that makes us smile and weep and yearn and laugh and tremble and relax in turn? Beauty, which we cannot objectively quantify, but can recognize with all confidence? Beauty, which I find in Harry Potter, Masha finds in Hemingway, and Mr. Pond finds in grim old fairy tales, though we may occasionally look askance at each others' choices?

We've come a long way from defining art, where we began our blogalectic; here, we can circle back to it. We once debated the definition of art and what qualifies as such. And in hopes of progressing further toward mutual understanding, here's—not so much my arguments as my passion for granting the name art to Little Women along with Les Miserables.

1. Separation of Art proper from mere entertainment seems to make several grave mistakes. Exhibits:

• It presumes passivity on the part of the audience. (I am never a passive receptor, not even when watching television.)
• It strikes against the creative powers, which are the same whether forming penny dreadfuls or Nobel laureates.
• It seems to place importance upon the beauty of the surface while generally ignoring that of the substance.

2. I want different things from art than the Gatekeepers of Greatness seem to desire. I don't want to find a liberal political agenda in a story any more than I want to find a conservative religious one. I want a story to wrap me up in faith, hope, love, virtue; I don't want it to strip me down to disillusionment and amoral existential despair. I want paintings and sculptures that hold meaning and images, not ones that are without form and void. I want art to ask questions without cutting off all possibility of answers.

That is where I find the Beautiful, the True and the Good. All of that matters more to me than elite awards or scholarly acceptance or even, to a certain extent, technical perfection. Life is too short and too painful to weight my longings further toward this world.

[Note my repeated use of the phrase seems to in the above claims. Perhaps I have misunderstood. If so, enlighten me.]

Too Many Endings and other stories

Some days were never meant for blogging. This was one, but I'm going to try anyway.

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For years, I've worked off and on at knitting this scarf. And I'm pretty sure that when I began it, this nice skein only had two ends.

Now there are, like, eight.

I can't say for sure, but I'm very tempted to blame a certain someone.

That is hardly the face of innocence.

* * *

Ever wondered approximately how many words you know? Now you can find out. My score was above average, but not far enough to make me wish to post it. But I'll try and be humble: 30,100. Go forth and beat me.

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Writers' link of the week: Nathan Bransford's The Thing About Self-Promotion is that Self-Promotion Sucks (But You Have to Do It Anyway). Not really what I want to hear, but true.

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Music and funny together: My new favorite Weird Al song. I don't get a lot of forwards anymore, but oh, do I remember the days.

Hey, Weird Al, you missed your cue though... Why didn't you use Comic Sans font in your video? And make the text bright pink and purple, or maybe red and blue and an absolutely unreadable yellow? Seriously.



* * *

Lou and I are going to be up all night giving out free coffee, so I'm going to go try and sleep. Happy weekend!

Currently Reading: Beauty

“You are the one who does not understand, Papa,” I said. “We are not asking that I be killed in your stead, but that I be allowed to save your life. It is an honourable Beast at least; I am not afraid.” Father stared at me, as if he saw the Beast reflected in my eyes. I said: “He cannot be so very bad if he loves roses so much.”

“But he is a Beast,” said Father helplessly.

I saw that he was weakening, and wishing only to comfort him I said, “Cannot a Beast be tamed?”

Author: Robin McKinley

Synopsis: A wealthy man had three daughters: Grace, Hope, and Honour, nicknamed Beauty, though she did not consider herself so. When hard times destroy the family’s wealth—Grace’s fiancé, Robbie, disappearing with one of the ships—the father and sisters move into the mountains with Hope’s fiancé, Gervain. They mostly smile at the rumors of a monster and an enchanted castle in the forest near Ger’s home, until the father loses his way in the woods and meets the Beast... and thus begins the fairy tale.

Notes: I’ve been hearing about Robin McKinley for years now, and finally decided to get ahold of one of her books. As a fan of fairy tale retellings, I chose this one. Beauty convinced me that I need to read much more of McKinley’s work.

First, I just loved the writing. McKinley is a master of the antique elegance that naturally belongs to the fairy tale. Surprisingly, she pulls this off through first-person voice.

Second, I loved the characters. The Beast is mostly just grave and quiet—I would have taken more interest from him—but Beauty, Ger, Grace, the invisible housemaids Lydia and Bessie, and the horse Greatheart, are all strong and appealing personalities.

Third, I’ve read the Grimm version of this tale, and as far as I can recall, McKinley simply fills it out rather than taking it in odd or Disneyfied directions. I haven’t seen Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (I know, right?) but I’ve read its little book version to little kids, and this is not the same story.

The voice never slips, and the tale carries its loveliness through to the end.

Recommendation: This is a quiet, comforting sort of a story, one to read wrapped in a blanket with some steaming tea at hand.

Top Ten Tuesday: Required Reading for Teens

I have a streak of libertarianism that makes me dislike the idea of required reading in general. There are really only one or two books that I think absolutely ought to be read and taught in schools.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

Beyond the first couple, there's a whole broad world of great reading material. I won't presume to be able to state the best, though I might be able to state what I'd have my own hypothetical kids read in high school. Here goes.

1. The Holy Bible. The idea of teaching Western civilization without this book is preposterous. And I hope it doesn't have to be said, but every young American, no matter their background, should learn Western civ.

2. Shakespeare. If there were a second absolutely necessary book, a solid contingent of Shakespeare's plays would be the one.

3. Bulfinch's Mythology. Less necessary than the above, but helpful nonetheless. I wish I'd read it in high school, as the business of life nowadays makes me keep forgetting that I haven't finished it.

After that, the list can broaden and even be tailored according to interest and focus. Some of the more obvious choices include To Kill a Mockingbird, several of Mark Twain's works, Austen and Dickens, some of Lewis' works, The Lord of the Rings, Tolstoy and/or Dostoevsky, possibly the Qu'ran (considering how hard Islam is trying to spread into the Western world), the Grimms' Fairy Tales, Dante, Chaucer....

Oh, yeah... I still haven't read Chaucer. Or Tolstoy. Hmm. Or much of the Qu'ran, for that matter.

Current works can be selected according to taste, situation and whatever happens to be going on in society at the time. Hence, my failing to list any of those. We'll see if any of today's bestsellers merit required reading status when I have teenagers. :)

I wrote this list in half an hour, so tell me: what have I missed?

The Virtue of Beauty

In response to Masha, The Beauty We See, and Mr. Pond, Mononoke Tachi dake

Last week, for the sake of lighter conversation, we discussed our own images of beauty. And I could sympathize with the lot, from Masha's 'scent of bread' to Mr. Pond's Princess Mononoke theme song. I never really listed mine, but if I had, the list might have included fog among the darkly spring-green hills, the feel of warm sun and cool water, 'The Forest Again', polyphony in a Gothic church, Psalm 139, the scent of lilac blossoms, a good sweet Riesling, bravery, compassion, Dante's Paradiso, peace lilies, chickadees, the human face, the Liturgy of the Hours, and innocence. Among other things.

Masha ends her piece with a lovely statement:

"I find [beauty] in these things because they touch something beyond themselves, and I love them for it."

In other words, if I understand correctly, she'd go along with the philosophers who counted the Beautiful as one of the transcendentals, along with the True and the Good. Well may she do so. I would.

Mr. Pond expounds upon that idea:

"Nor do I think—or can I think—that beauty is equated with happiness. Or with seriousness. Beauty can be heartbreakingly terrible. Beauty can be silly. Beauty is capricious and winsome, Beauty frustrates and eludes us and then rewards us with a sudden unexpected burst of laughter.

There was, I think, a deeper intent than the pragmatic when painters drew and poets sang of Beauty as a woman."

And later, describing the Mononoke theme,

"I don’t claim to understand it quite, but I don’t think beauty is ever quite understood."

Agreed, wholeheartedly. To a certain extent we can put beauty in strict scientific or mathematical terms; the eight notes of the scale may be beautiful sung in solfeggio, but not if they're all pounded at once on the piano. But the disciplines of logic will have a harder time explaining why we weep over Beethoven's ninth symphony. And if they succeed, I'm not sure I want to know about it.

Beauty is difficult to define or categorize because it is greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps, then, it might make for interesting discussion if we come at it from the side of mystery, and attempt to describe what beauty is not.

I'll begin simply by positing that beauty is not, in and of itself, wicked. Admittedly, wickedness loves to hide in the beautiful, as that's how it sells itself. And I love fantasy literature in part because it allows us to strip away that base marketing tactic and separate the evil from the beautiful, showing the former in all its horror and the latter in all its purity. Beauty, if I'm right, does not carry evil by nature.

And now I'll look forward to what Masha and Mr. Pond have to say.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 and... not a lot of other stories

This, more or less, has been the tale going around Harry Potter fandom of late:



Christian Caldeira wrote the song, of course, for the end of the books, not the movies. But it works for both to some extent... except that it doesn't for me. Much as I love the song and the generality of Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls' work, the era isn't ending for me in the way it will for many.

The movies never mattered that much to me, and I think the community has already done most of its changing. But I'll still have Potter friends. I'll still be the nerdy girl known by friends as a resource for all Potter details. Someone who understands the astounding, even life-changing power of the story, and always has a listening ear ready for those who have just discovered it for themselves. A musician who usually plays a song or two about the tale whenever the guitar comes out for a practice set. It's a part of my life, now, and I'll probably remind myself of Gryffindor House when I need courage for the rest of that life.

* * *

So, the movie. I'd like to put up a decent review at The Hog's Head, if I can garner some writing time in the next day or so, but here's the mini-version with letter grades. Minor spoilers, if you've never read the final book.

• Keeping Dumbledore's lines: B. They got "Of course it is all in your head..." but replaced "Of house-elves and children's tales..." with some mumbo-jumbo about words being powerful magic, which I should've liked as a writer, but was too angry with the change to accept.
• Keeping Molly Weasley's classic line: A+. Very important.
• Following the book instead of turning it into a special-effects battle fiasco: F. Just about killed the movie for me.
• Neville: B. We all cheered every time he came onscreen, but I didn't like the way his great scenes were revised.
• Snape's memories: A-. Beautiful, but I wish they'd left in more of that backstory instead of amping up the Harry-Voldemort battle.
• Keeping the Christian symbolism: C. At least they mentioned "King's Cross", but how hard would it have been for Lily to put her arms out to the side as she took her blow?
• The epilogue: A. I couldn't take my eyes off Ginny and Hermione. Dan Radcliffe said Harry's line to his son wrong, though, and as I was mouthing the words along with him, I was not pleased. Come on, Warner Brothers. It's been made into a Ministry of Magic song. Do your research.
• Getting to see the movie at midnight, with a bunch of strangers who cheered and cried at all the right moments: priceless.

* * *

All right, I hate to end a Friday post after having talked about nothing but Harry Potter, but seriously, my week has been too busy even for Twitter. Links? Unfortunately, I have to have actually read some things on the internet.

But I do wish all of you a happy weekend. :)

Currently Reading: Winter’s Heart (The Wheel of Time, book 9)

Their heads swiveled toward the golden-haired woman as one, and the magpies fell blessedly silent. Silent, yet hardly accepting. Min could grind her teeth all she wanted, but Nynaeve’s sullen glower irritated Cadsuane. The girl had good material in her, but her training had been cut far too short. Her ability with Healing was little short of miraculous, her ability with almost anything else dismal. And she had not been put through the lessons that what must be endured, could be endured.

Author: Robert Jordan

Synopsis: Rand, having survived the attack of the crazed Asha’man, sets out to cleanse the taint from saidin, the male half of the One Power. Nynaeve goes to help him, and Lan goes to protect Nynaeve. Elayne, Min and Aviendha unite to work things out with Rand. Mat meets the Daughter of the Nine Moons. Perrin searches for his own lost wife. And Cadsuane, still hoping to teach Rand laughter and tears, follows that quest from Cairhien to Far Madding to Shadar Logoth.

Notes: At various moments I don’t understand Min, or Elayne, or Aviendha, but as of book 9, I still cheer for Rand al’Thor. Despite the loss of his moral compass, despite his continual hardening, despite the immense number of deaths he can now credit to his name, some part of him remains redeemable.

He owes his hardening in part to his failure to recognize that the women who have died for him made that sacrifice of their own choice. I love that he hurts over the death of every woman, but that’s still the root of his problem.

Inside the redeemable part of Rand al’Thor is the impulse that made him respond as he did to Lan’s request when the pair of them were hanging from the roof. Also, the man got down on his knees beside Nynaeve and put everything he had into cleansing the taint from saidin. Bravo, Rand. You’re still a hero.

I also love Cadsuane. Rand does need to learn laughter and tears again, and he wouldn’t have survived this book without her. Besides, I like the way she thinks. The lesson that “what must be endured, could be endured” is not easy to learn, but I like to think her ideas stopped me complaining a time or two since the read.

This book read well, and felt like it pulled off more of a mystery aspect than usual. I can think of a number of reasons why I never figured out Dashiva’s true identity, and almost no reasons why I should have, but I still can’t believe I didn’t.

The three girls’ Warder bonding and Elayne’s subsequent seducing of Rand made for the closest Jordan has come to a sex scene, and the necessary awkwardness more than came through. I could have done without that. Birgitte’s reaction made me laugh in spite of myself, though. Birgitte is weird and incomprehensibly risqué, but sometimes, she’s just hilarious.

I loved Elayne and Aviendha’s becoming first-sisters, though. The Aiel are awful sometimes, but they’re still my favorite of the cultures.

Here in book 9, I love Egwene more than ever, too. Her cool strength amazes me. Robert Jordan does a great job with character progressions for the most part, and hers is among my favorites to watch.

And I still like Nynaeve, and love that she’s become—at her core, anyway—content. Lan’s growing on me, too.

Recommendation: Books 6 and 7 were a little hard on me, but I loved book 9. Reading on!

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I'd Die to Meet

The name of this topic raises a question: do the authors need to be already dead?

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

I'd say yes, limiting my list just for kicks, but I don't have time today to look up everybody I'm not sure about. Therefore, here are the top ten authors I'd love to meet, alive or gone on.

1. J.K. Rowling. I might actually drop dead—or at least unconscious—at the thought of meeting her in person. Of course, I'm the helpless sort of person who gets a little starstruck even meeting the mayor. I did once dream, though, that we had a lovely chat over lunch at my grandmother's house.

2. David the Psalmist. Anyone who can write poetry that's endlessly beautiful even in translation is a genius in my book. The charismatic, multi-talented shepherd-turned-king wrote some of my favorite pieces in existence.

3. Jane Austen. I think. It'd probably be a riot, hanging out with her, but unlike Mr. Darcy, I'm not confident that all my own failings are beyond being laughed at. But I'm sure she'd be courteous and use a pseudonym for the over-shy, childishly enthusiastic housewife in her next book.

4. Orson Scott Card. He can talk. I will listen.

5. Shannon Hale. Another potentially hilarious conversationalist, and she can autograph my copy of Princess Academy.

6. C.S. Lewis. I want to attend some of his lectures, especially anything on medieval thought and symbolism. Maybe I should finish The Discarded Image first.

7. St. Augustine. I've never yet finished reading the Confessions, but I'd just love to hear him preach or talk about love for God.

8. Elizabeth Goudge. I suspect I would have liked her.

9. Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II). The stories about him are almost mythic, and oh, the man could write.

10. Madeleine L'Engle. I count her A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door as among my greatest influences in loving and writing science-fiction and fantasy.

Who would you meet? I'm curious.

Truth Beauty Freedom Love

In response to Masha, Towards Understanding, and Mr. Pond, Playing Poetics.

First, congratulations to Masha on the birth of her daughter, Yarrow! The baby's very cute. :)

Since Masha is in the middle of new motherhood, and Mr. Pond is busy with various projects, and I am all kinds of crazy right now with house-hunting and trying to submit my novel, et cetera, I'm going to set us up for a light week on the blogalectic. The three of us are in the process of searching for our areas of agreement and the points where we begin to diverge; today, I'll focus on the former.

We've tracked down one way we differ, which aims us in opposite directions even as we move toward the same goal. From Masha:

"Perhaps this is part of the reason we have so many disagreements, we see ourselves and respond to our own tendencies: [Jenna] is ever-needing to remind herself to accept and I am ever-needed to encourage myself to attempt."

Mr. Pond claimed to fall somewhere in the middle, and continued with an old memory—an interesting word picture that sort of describes our whole blogalectic thus far:

"Now I’m twenty years away on the day we decided that we wouldn’t stop the merry-go-round, just keep spinning to see how fast it would go, and then got in an argument about which way it should go, resulting in us all climbing on board and pushing in opposite directions until it wound up spinning unstoppably the wrong way. And I find myself seized with the overwhelming conviction that this glorious, terrifying, misguided moment is somehow the answer to everything."

And I have to smile, and remember why I feel such a solid artistic kinship with these two blog-friends, despite our philosophical variances. The three of us share a love for artistry founded in a love for what is truly good, and even if we come at it in different ways, all of us value the quest for mystery and wonder involved in a vocation to the making of beautiful things.

Masha and Mr. Pond and I have debated whether beauty must be a part of art. According to Masha's definitions, it must; according to mine, it only should. But we still think alike in many ways, as I cannot imagine attempting to create art without striving for beauty.

Perhaps we simply hold different images in our heads when we think of beauty. For example only: I see some truth in Edvard Munch's Scream, though only the half-truth of horror, but not much that I'd call beautiful. Whereas, Thomas Kinkade... nobody's ever given me a reason not to like his work, except that there's a heck of a lot of it, and it's popular and easily copied, and it's too often associated with greeting cards, which means everybody with any taste is supposed to hate it. But I still don't understand how he makes those little cottages glow.

But then, I like Disney movies, too. And the Backstreet Boys. And Little Women. Right alongside my Into Great Silence, and Mozart, and Austen. And now we're right back where we started.

The point is this: whenever I take up my pen to create, I put my best effort into making something beautiful and true and good. Which, for the three of us, means that even if our definitions overlap like a Venn diagram rather than uniting exactly, our goals have made us companions.

That Which is Random and other stories

Wow, Blogger... new dashboard! Totally new. I think I've found all the controls, though. Everything looks great. And very white.

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Scattered notes from the week: For the first time this year, Bellingham broke 75 degrees. Maia finally managed to get on top of the dresser in the bedroom. Lou solved a great mystery by discovering four little cat toys and the drain basket from the bathroom sink under that same dresser. And I've learned that if I read Wheel of Time just before going to sleep, I'm more likely to dream about it than not.

Now I'm looking at my to-do lists to find out what else I did, so clearly I'm as brainless as I feel.

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Writers' link of the week: Rachelle Gardner on why you're getting rejections.

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Music of the week: Meet HeyHiHello! I'm grateful to them and Meekakitty for creating my favorite song of the week, Wizard Love. But since half of you have already linked that off The Hog's Head, half of you don't care about a love song between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor, and the other half of you.... oh, never mind. I love this little song, Goodnight Moon, though.



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Funny of the week: Engrish never grows old. This one's hilarious.

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Happy weekend, everyone!

Currently Reading: Howl's Moving Castle

In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.

Sophie Hatter was the eldest of three sisters. She was not even the child of a poor woodcutter, which might have given her some chance of success!

Author: Diana Wynne Jones

Synopsis: When shy, pretty Sophie is turned into an old woman by a witch, she goes to seek her fortunes—and winds up taking a night’s rest at the moving castle of Wizard Howl. Before long, she’s bossing around the castle’s fire-demon and cleaning the messy place from top to bottom, much to the chagrin of the sloppy bachelor wizard and his nervous assistant. But Howl never seems to get around to kicking her out. Indeed, he begins to need her assistance in various adventures: finding the king’s brother, killing the witch who put the spell on Sophie, and straightening out his romantic life.

Notes: All right. First, I thought this book was hilarious.

Second, there are some people who will never read it comfortably, thanks to the presence and role of the fire-demon, who turns out to be an affable and not particularly evil creature named Calcifer. His name made me laugh. Even knowing that Ingary is not Earth, though, I could not quite get past the word demon, which as far as I know has no good construction even in myth.

Whatever the limits of one’s imagination, it’s hard not to thoroughly enjoy this book. The story had me at the opening paragraph, which is posted above. Like Sophie Hatter, I am the eldest of three sisters, and the eldest can never cut a break in fairy tales. Every firstborn child in the age of the Grimms must have grown up with a severe complex.

Sophie was a delight of a protagonist. I could sympathize with her early shy days, and the way she talked to her hats. She bore finding herself suddenly sixty years advanced with admirable philosophy, and no one but her ever stood a chance of straightening out Howl.

Howl made me laugh, though he’s not really the sort to make me swoon. I hear swooning is a common response.

Jones’ imagination is as comic and garish in Howl’s Moving Castle as it was in The Dark Lord of Derkholm. I’ve never been a big fan of garish, but at least it isn’t trite, and I do love good comedy.

Recommendation: It should certainly amuse eldest children with a grudge against fairy tales.

A Time to Strive, and a Time to Cease Striving

In response to Masha, Mediocrity: Meanness and Indifference, and Mr. Pond, mediocrity, n.

For proof that different words mean different things to different people, look no further than our last week's discussion. I defined the word mediocre as, basically, neither wonderful nor awful. Masha defined it more along the lines of the lukewarm being spat out of God's mouth:

"Mediocrity in my understanding is the failure of the person to be a person, to be an active participant in his own life. It is the pursuit of the "good enough" and not the Good.... Mediocrity fails to create Art because it is indifferent to Beauty, and uninterested in effort - it lacks not only talent but desire."

Faced with two such dissimilar sets of connotations, Mr. Pond did the only thing he could do: pulled out his authoritative old Oxford Dictionary and wrote a lighthearted piece about the time when mediocrity came from the Aristotelian mean, and was therefore something to strive for.

"But what happens when, if you’ll forgive the reductiveness of the analogy, we use a horizontal spectrum? And the goal is balance at the centre point.... If this is the case, then perhaps what we should be striving for is mediocrity, the aurea mediocritas. This becomes the third road, the middle way, ‘Where thou and I this night maun gae’. Are we, in fact, not mediocre enough?"

I do love etymology. It's fun.

The laws of probability dictate that if I push forward into the next topic on the list, we'll come up with more ways to interpret words differently. At Masha's suggestion, then, I'm taking a step back. We're going hunting for the ways in which we do agree, the beginning places that set us together as likeminded artists even while starting us in certain different philosophical directions.

Because I don't disagree with Masha that we ought to strive wholeheartedly for the Good, the True and the Beautiful, any more than I disagree with Mr. Pond that we should search for the elusive third road. (Though I've never liked the analogy of the intermediate point between two extremes; I believe in fusing the rightful passions from both ends of the spectrum. It's an exhausting way to live, but worth trying, I think.) Here's where I start: I don't know what it is to not strive.

I strive hard. I try long past the point of frustration; I try to that icy burning point where you know that a single step further will break you irreparably. Once in my life, I went past and learned the lesson. And while there are very bad mistakes that any aching, haunted human can repeat, there are some only a true fool makes more than once.

Which works out to this: when I hear that it's a bad thing to ever settle for being 'good enough', I have to back away from the searing idea and breathe before I can see any sense in the words. But in that moment, that intermediate point between killing oneself trying and giving up completely, I look up and find the answer—the transcendental secret I am confident both my artistic dialectic partners understand. It is grace.

Happy Independence Day!

Today being the Fourth, and Lou being off work, I'm taking a break from blogging. I'll try and have the usual Monday post up tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy your holiday. :)

In Search of Hours and other stories

JuNoWriMo wrapped up last night—for me, with two and a half hours of happy storytelling. I got a thousand words down in that time, which is pretty good for me. I am slow.

The final tally:

Week 1 hours: 10
Week 2 hours: 5.5
Week 3 hours: Vacation, but 45 minutes
Week 4 hours: 11
Extra day: 2 1/2 hours

Which leaves me just fifteen minutes shy of my goal (3 weeks of 10 hours, since I had vacation). Maybe I can make that up in July.

Congratulations to all my JuNoWriMo comrades, many of whom experienced a good deal of success themselves! And thanks again to Shallee MacArthur for hosting.

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As noted a couple of weeks ago, I'm kind of done with the big Wall Street Journal vs. Young Adult Fiction war. When @AndrewPeterson tweeted a link to a related piece by YA author Sara Zarr, then, I almost didn't read it. But I did, and I'm glad. She makes the point that drives me to YA and kid lit in the first place:

The fun-house mirrors in the most talked-about literary fiction show me that existential despair, marital misery, adultery, addiction, suburban malaise, and basic careless cruelty between people are inevitable and ubiquitous. That especially between midlife and death, life is one big flaming ball of self- and other-destruction that is temporarily escaped, here and there, via soulless sex and lots of cocktails.

Isn't that a hideous distortion, too?...We don't stop needing stories of hope and redemption and reconciliation and joy and beauty as adults.

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This week has been catch-up and the thrill of accomplishment. I finished a critique, cleared over 500 items from my Google Reader with two clicks so I could stop being afraid to open it, and got eleven hours in on JuNoWriMo. I feel so much better.

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Writers' link of the week: Fantasy fans and writers, come one, come all to Mythic Scribes! George sent me a link to one of their articles this week (thanks, George!), and before I knew it I was registered on the forums, posting my little heart away.

So much of the publishing industry information I read is focused on the mainstream sellers: contemporary, paranormal, crime fiction, urban fantasy, etc. Sci-fi and high fantasy are a different beast, and I'm more than excited to have found a community of these writers.

One reason to love them: they actually request that their users attempt to use proper grammar and spelling. :D

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Music of the week: I've linked a fair number of Mike Lombardo's friends; it's about time I linked the guy himself. Some of his stuff, especially his classic Hey Molly, reminds me of vintage John van Deusen, which I loved of course. This is off his new CD.



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Funny of the week: Want to match your cocktail to your favorite reading material? Forever Young Adult has done this for you. I got a kick out of the quiz.

Luckily for me, mead is actually available in Bellingham. Good stuff.

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Though JuNoWriMo has ended, I plan to keep up a goal of ten hours per week on novel-writing. With the intention of doubling that eventually. That's feasible in my life... it's just difficult.

What with a whole party of girls coming over tonight to help assemble a friend's wedding programs... if I want to write, I'd better get started.

Happy weekend!