I'm rereading Watership Down for book club this week. I really wish I understood why this book appeals to me so much.
I guess part of it, like many of my favorite books, is that I remember it as a first - the first time I understood that I was reading an unreliable and limited narrative. There are many things in the world Hazel does not understand. There are many other things he initially mistakes or misreads. He makes mistakes and then comes later to the understanding of the truth.
I love that aspect of storytelling and wish more writers used it solidly and clearly. There's been a tendency in many of the books I've read recently for the POV character to either almost always be right or, when they are wrong, for the narrative to make it obvious and clear what the real truth is.
Of course, I can't accomplish that myself in my writing so I don't suppose I have any place to complain about other people. But I guess it's true what they say, those who can't do, criticize? :)
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the books I read before I started blogging that I count in my top 10.
I'm not really sure where to take this one. I've been blogging as far as a personal blog since about 1997, gbut only started writing in earnest about books and reading in maybe 2011. So I'm going with that second number, since the first would make forming the list VERY difficult.
1. The Waste Lands, Stephen King - My favorite book of all time, at this point in my life. I reread it regularly - just reread it last month as a matter of fact! I love the characters, love the setting, love the tension of many of the scenes, the only thing I hate about it is the memory of having to wait for 4.
2. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynn Jones - not for Howl, but for Sophie and, to a lesser extend, Michael and Calcifer. I read the book because of the movie, and loved the book so much more than the movie. I loved the wonderfully practical and yet deprecating way Sophie looked at the world, and I loved the language. Wynn painted pictures with words.
3. Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavrial Kay - A love triangle? Usually a massive turnoff for me, but the way it was woven around a tale of love and loss and trying to find something to cling to in a world that feels like it's falling apart around your ears was incredible to me.
4. Candide, Voltaire - Satire is not always my thing, but the flow of this narrative just irresistably drew me along.
5. Watership Down, Richard Adams - A tale about a bunnyquest. Somehow, this always seemed more vibrant and harrowing and exciting to me than any number of lost princes on save-the-world quests. Everything seemed scary and their triumphs seemed all the more worthwhile for that fear.
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling - I know a lot ofm people hated this book, but for me, it was the one that most fleshed out one of my favorite characters, Neville, and therefore positioned itself firmly at the top of the series for me.
7.The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle -the atmosphere of whistfulness and a memory of things lost and out of reach permeated this story. Even as a kid, it left me with a bittersweet, melancholy feeling and a tendency to consider the meaning of immortality and of life. And you know? Even now, I can read this book and be left with that same feeling.
8. Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King - Another fantasy from King, but this one a standalone. I love his fantasy far more than his horror, and I think the only thing that kept this book so low on the list was that I wanted MORE from it.
9. The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope - I don't often like romances, but at its heart this isn't really a romance, but a story about a young woman coming into her own, finding ehr own strength, and accepting romance as a part of it.
10. Mattimeo, Brian Jaques - Yeah, yeah, Redwall, but before I found Discworld, the Redwall books were my brainless candy, the ones I read when I needed something unchallenging and comfortable but wtill with a little bit of excitement and fun (and food porn, yummmm),
I'm not really sure where to take this one. I've been blogging as far as a personal blog since about 1997, gbut only started writing in earnest about books and reading in maybe 2011. So I'm going with that second number, since the first would make forming the list VERY difficult.
1. The Waste Lands, Stephen King - My favorite book of all time, at this point in my life. I reread it regularly - just reread it last month as a matter of fact! I love the characters, love the setting, love the tension of many of the scenes, the only thing I hate about it is the memory of having to wait for 4.
2. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynn Jones - not for Howl, but for Sophie and, to a lesser extend, Michael and Calcifer. I read the book because of the movie, and loved the book so much more than the movie. I loved the wonderfully practical and yet deprecating way Sophie looked at the world, and I loved the language. Wynn painted pictures with words.
3. Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavrial Kay - A love triangle? Usually a massive turnoff for me, but the way it was woven around a tale of love and loss and trying to find something to cling to in a world that feels like it's falling apart around your ears was incredible to me.
4. Candide, Voltaire - Satire is not always my thing, but the flow of this narrative just irresistably drew me along.
5. Watership Down, Richard Adams - A tale about a bunnyquest. Somehow, this always seemed more vibrant and harrowing and exciting to me than any number of lost princes on save-the-world quests. Everything seemed scary and their triumphs seemed all the more worthwhile for that fear.
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling - I know a lot ofm people hated this book, but for me, it was the one that most fleshed out one of my favorite characters, Neville, and therefore positioned itself firmly at the top of the series for me.
7.The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle -the atmosphere of whistfulness and a memory of things lost and out of reach permeated this story. Even as a kid, it left me with a bittersweet, melancholy feeling and a tendency to consider the meaning of immortality and of life. And you know? Even now, I can read this book and be left with that same feeling.
8. Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King - Another fantasy from King, but this one a standalone. I love his fantasy far more than his horror, and I think the only thing that kept this book so low on the list was that I wanted MORE from it.
9. The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope - I don't often like romances, but at its heart this isn't really a romance, but a story about a young woman coming into her own, finding ehr own strength, and accepting romance as a part of it.
10. Mattimeo, Brian Jaques - Yeah, yeah, Redwall, but before I found Discworld, the Redwall books were my brainless candy, the ones I read when I needed something unchallenging and comfortable but wtill with a little bit of excitement and fun (and food porn, yummmm),
Monday, April 8, 2013
Princeless
Let me just say this up front - I love Princeless. I think it's cute and clever. I love the art. I love the characters. I'm very excited to see where the story goes from where it left off at the end of the cirst collection.
I also like Demon Knights, the current ongoing from DC. I love that it still clearly feels like a superhero comic, but set in a fantasy setting (that sort of vaguely Europe-ish setting with a lot of hedging about the real world at the time).
Overall, I really love the things that comics can offer to fantasy stories. I'm always surprised that there aren't more. And yes, I know there are many, many more than the two I named. Heck, last week's Wizard of Oz post was about one such, as are the GoT and Fables books. But as compared to the number of superhero books, or even horror books it feels like, there just aren't as many.
It feels like they'd be a natural fit. The ability to paint the strange and wondrous is a hallmark of fantasy, and comics allow a person to do it in a much more literal way. But I guess, we've sort of given fantasy a bit more of an "adult" pass over the decades, where comic books still struggle to be seen as anything but a child's medium.
Alas. At least the numbers seems to be on an uptick. Perhaps I'll find many more such that I can embrace in the cominc years.
I also like Demon Knights, the current ongoing from DC. I love that it still clearly feels like a superhero comic, but set in a fantasy setting (that sort of vaguely Europe-ish setting with a lot of hedging about the real world at the time).
Overall, I really love the things that comics can offer to fantasy stories. I'm always surprised that there aren't more. And yes, I know there are many, many more than the two I named. Heck, last week's Wizard of Oz post was about one such, as are the GoT and Fables books. But as compared to the number of superhero books, or even horror books it feels like, there just aren't as many.
It feels like they'd be a natural fit. The ability to paint the strange and wondrous is a hallmark of fantasy, and comics allow a person to do it in a much more literal way. But I guess, we've sort of given fantasy a bit more of an "adult" pass over the decades, where comic books still struggle to be seen as anything but a child's medium.
Alas. At least the numbers seems to be on an uptick. Perhaps I'll find many more such that I can embrace in the cominc years.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Retcons for the win?
Nothing specific here, but I've been hearing reports that Booster Gold will start appearing in issues of a bunch of series in DC comics, leading up to a new solo series.
Now, this excites me. I love Booster Gold. He was on yesterday's crush list, but that's sort of... obligated? That's not the right word, but its sort of close. But I will try any series with Booster in it. I may stop getting it after a while. But the idea of something focusing on him, even the stunted, watered down version of him, is pretty exciting to me.
BUT... there are additional rumors associated with this. People are saying that Booster may start remembering the old universe.
Now, I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I dislike massive swaths of the reboot. Part is just that I thought the whole idea was dumb, but I tried. I started out with subscriptions to ten of the new series and gave them all at least three issues to hook me. the only ones that I actually liked enough to stick with were Demon Knights and Batwing, and there wasn't much in either that couldn't be done under the old system.
So on the one hand, I'd love to go to the old, more complex characters and get back some of the now-departed characters. but on the other hand, the fact that so far DC had stuck to their guns about the reboot was really the only shred of credibility they had left with me. So I may buy more DC if they eventually revert to the old universe... but I don't think I'll ever be able to take DC seriously as a company again.
Though maybe the joke's on me for taking them seriously in the first place...
Now, this excites me. I love Booster Gold. He was on yesterday's crush list, but that's sort of... obligated? That's not the right word, but its sort of close. But I will try any series with Booster in it. I may stop getting it after a while. But the idea of something focusing on him, even the stunted, watered down version of him, is pretty exciting to me.
BUT... there are additional rumors associated with this. People are saying that Booster may start remembering the old universe.
Now, I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I dislike massive swaths of the reboot. Part is just that I thought the whole idea was dumb, but I tried. I started out with subscriptions to ten of the new series and gave them all at least three issues to hook me. the only ones that I actually liked enough to stick with were Demon Knights and Batwing, and there wasn't much in either that couldn't be done under the old system.
So on the one hand, I'd love to go to the old, more complex characters and get back some of the now-departed characters. but on the other hand, the fact that so far DC had stuck to their guns about the reboot was really the only shred of credibility they had left with me. So I may buy more DC if they eventually revert to the old universe... but I don't think I'll ever be able to take DC seriously as a company again.
Though maybe the joke's on me for taking them seriously in the first place...
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I Would Crush On If I Were Also A Fictional Character
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the characters I would crush on if I were also A fictional character.
1. Eddie, The Dark Tower - I love this series, and Eddie was a large part of it. He's not perfect, not terribly gentlemanly some of the time, and can be a right idiot at times. But he's funny - so funny! - and once he can care, he does so genuinely and deeply.
2. Talia, Jim Hines' Princess books - I love this woman. She was focused and immensely capable, and while she didn't always know how to express it, she cared fiercely for her friends and would do anything for them without smothering them with that knowledge.
3. Michael, Howl's Moving Castle (BOOK please!) - First off, I'd have to assume myself back in teenage-ness like I was when I first read this because otherwise... ew. I suppose this one is more of a product of the story in which he appears, but there was something charming about the way he was trying to figure out his own life and keep Howl's on track as well.
4. Booster Gold, DC comics - Yeah, yeah, a man in spandex.A man in spandex who's known, essentially, for being a humbug and, in private, often highly insecure. But when the chips are down he gets the job done regardless of what everyone else thinks, which I think is great.
5. Aoki, X/1999 - Definitely a distant crush in this case, as he has a family already and cares about them very much. He's kindhearted, brave and honest, with a willingness to put himself on the line for others but a manner of doing it that doesn't feel quite as aggravating to me as those types sometimes can, especially in manga.
6. Christopher, The Perilous Gard - Another one of those strong-willed sorts, but the one who also comes across as a verbal sparrer, one who enjoys fencing wiht phrases. It's that largely, his wit, that puts him on this list.
7. Robin, One Piece - This lady's aloof and studious and more than a little pessemistic - at least about the possibilities. But I think that's part of what makes her so fun. :)
8. Genevive, The Parasol Protectorate - Smart and curious and loyal and totally willing to step outside the box of approriate behavior tom see her ends met? I find that very attractive, thank you. :)
9. Jez, Tales of the Ketty Jay - I almost feel like I could cut and paste Robin's entry here, except that Jez has a different skillset and is less self-assured.
10. Kohaku, Grand Guignol Orchestra - In a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. With a CLAMP boy on the list I needed one of Kaori Yuki's as well for fairness.
1. Eddie, The Dark Tower - I love this series, and Eddie was a large part of it. He's not perfect, not terribly gentlemanly some of the time, and can be a right idiot at times. But he's funny - so funny! - and once he can care, he does so genuinely and deeply.
2. Talia, Jim Hines' Princess books - I love this woman. She was focused and immensely capable, and while she didn't always know how to express it, she cared fiercely for her friends and would do anything for them without smothering them with that knowledge.
3. Michael, Howl's Moving Castle (BOOK please!) - First off, I'd have to assume myself back in teenage-ness like I was when I first read this because otherwise... ew. I suppose this one is more of a product of the story in which he appears, but there was something charming about the way he was trying to figure out his own life and keep Howl's on track as well.
4. Booster Gold, DC comics - Yeah, yeah, a man in spandex.A man in spandex who's known, essentially, for being a humbug and, in private, often highly insecure. But when the chips are down he gets the job done regardless of what everyone else thinks, which I think is great.
5. Aoki, X/1999 - Definitely a distant crush in this case, as he has a family already and cares about them very much. He's kindhearted, brave and honest, with a willingness to put himself on the line for others but a manner of doing it that doesn't feel quite as aggravating to me as those types sometimes can, especially in manga.
6. Christopher, The Perilous Gard - Another one of those strong-willed sorts, but the one who also comes across as a verbal sparrer, one who enjoys fencing wiht phrases. It's that largely, his wit, that puts him on this list.
7. Robin, One Piece - This lady's aloof and studious and more than a little pessemistic - at least about the possibilities. But I think that's part of what makes her so fun. :)
8. Genevive, The Parasol Protectorate - Smart and curious and loyal and totally willing to step outside the box of approriate behavior tom see her ends met? I find that very attractive, thank you. :)
9. Jez, Tales of the Ketty Jay - I almost feel like I could cut and paste Robin's entry here, except that Jez has a different skillset and is less self-assured.
10. Kohaku, Grand Guignol Orchestra - In a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. With a CLAMP boy on the list I needed one of Kaori Yuki's as well for fairness.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Three cheers for the jerk
I sometimes surprise people by saying my "favorite character" in some story or another is someone widely agreed to be a jerk. But I've often found jerks to be some of the most interesting characters, the ones that give you the most to think about. And the characters I like the most are the ones with depth and layers, the ones you can think about after the story is done and worry out how and why they acted that way.
As always, spoilers behind the cut.
As always, spoilers behind the cut.
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