Wordless Wednesday: Literary Halloween Costumes
Month: October 2012
Marry Date or Dump: Social Networking Sites
This weeks Marry Date or Dump requires a dash of imagination and a pinch of internet savvy. List which site you would marry date and dump in the comments below. Why am I still explaining this? You know what to do!
Life As We Knew It: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
In Life As We Knew It, by Susan Pfeffer, sixteen-year-old, Miranda, records her family’s struggles after a meteor strikes the moon in her diary. It is a slightly disconcerting book to read, while waiting for the “Frankenstorm”, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it … and made my mother go back to the grocery store to get a few more cans of black beans. Just in case.
The book succeeds on three levels, which in my book is pretty impressive. Level one, is what I like to call The Anne Frank Test. Which is to say that even in the midst of terrible tragedy/upheaval Miranda is a believable teenager who still cares about boys, her appearance, and her hair.
Level two, consists of a believability of the natural disaster/end of the worldish setting of the book. I don’t exactly understand the science of what would happen if the moon was knocked off its normal gravitational route. But I believe Pfeffer’s description, from the changes in the weather to medical epidemics and emergencies. The government and social responses also seem believable to me.
While Miranda tries to survive with her mother and two brothers, all of them show moments of great bravery, and moments of moral weakness. Their complex reactions draw on each character’s history and position with in the family.
The third level of success is that the book deals with complicated issues and doesn’t try to simplify them. Religion, divorce, social responsibility, gender roles, and facing death all play prominent roles. Perhaps the thing I had the most trouble with, was the unexamined and accepted fact that men would survive better in a true disaster. However, the fact that it was unexamined seemed to me to make a stronger statement than if they had talked it to death. In fact, it seemed to mirror global gender issue I was constantly learning about when I worked at Save the Children (sons being fed more than daughters in food crises, parents unlikely to seek medical help for their girls, etc.).
Life As We Knew It is by no means a new favorite of mine. However, it was an almost perfectly constructed, interesting, and fast-paced read. If you have a little time and inclination, I can recommend it. Now back to building a wall of diapers to keep the basement from flooding!
Six things I learned about J.K. Rowling on Charlie Rose
This morning, my grandfather emailed me a link to watch a recent interview of J.K. Rowling on Charlie Rose. Papa, in his own words, is one of the only people in America who hasn’t read the Harry Potter books, but I think he likes watching J.K. Rowling interviews because of her extreme success.
Watching this interview, reminded me of how much I like watching them too. J.K. Rowling on the Oprah Winfrey Show is permanently saved on my DVR. Not only am I interested as a HP fan and aspiring writer, but also because she comes across as a thoughtful and intelligent person.
You can watch the hour-long interview, here.
If you don’t have the time/inclination to watch, here are some of the things that I enjoyed the most:
- J.K. Rowling said her biggest obsessions were morality and mortality. I love that these have alliteration and rhyme (or at least slant rhyme). That’s hard to do!
- The way she writes and her desire to write haven’t changed since the huge Harry Potter success (or so she says).
- She is happiest when she’s 2/3 of the way through a project and she has all day to write.
- She can write for eight hours straight.
- She works on several different writing projects at the same time. She actually wrote almost an entire different’ children’s book while she was supposed to be writing the Harry Potter books.
- She had the idea for Harry Potter on a train, and the idea for The Casual Vacancy on a plane. What’s next an automobile?
Wordless Wednesday: Literary Castles
Marry Date or Dump: The Volturi
They are everyone’s favorite vampire royals. If you HAD to marry, date and dump each one, which Voluturi would you choose for which role? Let me know in the comments. People with reasons get extra credit!
The Book Thief: A Holocaust Novel with a Twist
There is an incredibly amount of hype and acclaim surrounding The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak and it is all deserved. It is successfully conceptual in the best possible way. It is an innovative book for young people (although I think it was more literary fiction than young adult fiction) about the Holocaust – which is not small feat.
The book is basically a series of narrative lyric poems, following young German orphan Liesel Meminger, living in a poor neighborhood outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. The twist, besides the poetic quality, is that the book is narrated by Death.
Liesel deals with the tragedy and lack of control in her life through an impressive career of stealing books. Seeing her grow up, watching her neighborhood transform through the stages of WW2, and hearing the viewpoint of death camps, conditions for Soviet soldiers, and the Normandy invasion all through the lens of Death is fascinating. It is strange twist on the omnipresent narrator.
The characters in Liesel’s life are richly imagined and complexly explained. A particular favorite is her best friend, who after the 1936 achieves neighborhood fame by covering his entire body in coal dust and pretending to be Jesse Owens.
Without giving any spoilers away, I will say the book contains a lot of the traditional elements of holocaust fiction (i.e. main character realizing Jews are not the enemy, etc.). What is nontraditional, aside from the POV, writing style, and structure, is the theme of the importance of words, reading, writing and books. The books in Liesel’s collection, ranging from a grave digging how to guide, to a banned book stolen from a bonfire, to a handmade account of a Jew – all have symbolic and thematic significance.
My only criticism is that while the book is beautiful, I didn’t find it engaging. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it.
Kristen and Rob: Back Together! (?)
As some of you might know, the whole Kristen Stewart cheating scandal, and ensuing Robert Pattinson break up in July caused me a little distress. In fact, you can read about it in this post. I discovered, that I was not alone in this. In the days following the alarming news, we tried to analyze the relationships chances through messages on Kristen and Robert’s t-shirts, checked people.com hourly for updates, and almost lost it when we heard that Robert was putting the couple’s shared house on the market and was hiding out at Reese Witherspoon …. okay, maybe that was just me.
The close attention didn’t just last for days or weeks. When Robert went on the publicity circuit for Cosmopolis, everyone was watching to see if he would fall apart or give us a clue as to the future of their relationship. He was (perhaps unsurprisingly) mum on the subject. Even though he did look adorable eating ice cream on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, things didn’t look good.
It surprises me then that as the couple has apparently gotten back together, that people aren’t making a bigger deal. It trickled up last week on a few entertainment cite. This week people.com (I would say a more reputable site, also the cite that broke the break up scandal to begin with) confirmed the rumors. They are back together. The house isn’t being sold.
The surprise in fact has me questioning if they are really back together. I’m crossing my fingers, waiting for the Breaking Dawn premiere … and looking for something healthier to fill my time/interest.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: thoughts on the movie and the book
The Perks of Being a Wallflower marks another trend I am a late adopter of. I read the book for the first time last week and saw the movie this weekend. This might not be the most interesting opinion but both completely enthralled me. The book has been on my goodreads too read list for years, but it was a desire to read the book before the movie that made me pick up the book.
My desire to see the movie was part David Levithan recommending it at the National Book festival, part intrigue based on the very “cool” trailer, and part interest in seeing how Bobby from Jack and Bobby and Hermione would play characters. It is kind of funny to test these child star’s adult acting abilities, in films where they are playing children.
Emma Watson and Logan Lerman pass this strange test with flying colors. Ezra Miller as Patrick has been particularly lauded in the media, but Logan Lerman as Charlie seemed to me to be the most difficult and successful. The attention is on him the entire film, but from the title to his long letters to “a friend” he is defined by a lack of charisma. Learman walks this line, remaining interesting, sympathetic, relatable, and, yes, a wallflower. In fact, I think his performance adds depths that make the character stronger in the film than the book (there are fewer moments of reader frustration/annoyance).
The closeness of the film to the book, is due to the novel’s author Stephen Chbosky’s role as screenwriter and director. The film is more reflective, while the book is active and in the moment, but they are slightly different interpretations of the exact same story. All of my favorite moments from the book are included.
Another difference is that while the book is firmly set in 1991, the movie seems more timeless. When I told my Mom it was set in the early 90’s, her response was, “I wondered why they were making mixed tapes that way and why the cordless phones were so big.” The clothing, music, haircuts (etc) matched the time, but resisted the urge to be campy and overstated.
Where both the novel and the film intrigues the most is in the tension between contrary elements of success. The protagonist is by definition isolated, but also charming. The story shows an overall sense of ethics, but also contains moral ambiguity and relativism. It exposes the lightheartedness of youth, first friendship and first love – and the depth and weight of young adult life. It is both unique/individual and relatable. I imagine that Chbosky knows not only what is in Charlie’s bedroom drawer. He knows how Charlie thinks about it, and feels about it, and what emotions and memories each item triggers.
I think to say more, would be to give away details of the story – which I want you to discover for yourself. If you want to laugh and feel good about yourself, this is not the book/movie for that feeling (go see Pitch Perfect – it is also amazing and much more light hearted). But I definitely suggest you read this book and watch this movie if you get the chance. If you do – or you have – let me know what you think!
Links for a Lazy Sunday
Hi blog friends. Here are some fun links I’ve seen on the internet this week.
What does Jane Austen have to do with neuroscience? Find out in this Huffington Post blog post. Also an Israeli singer-songwriter has put the words of Emily Dickinson to music. Listen and read more here.
Love them or hate them, ebooks are changing publishing. This infographic shows how. If you want to get in on the action, here are the steps to publishing your book through Amazon kindle. I’m still on the fence about self publishing vs. more traditional routes, but this seemed like the clearest explanation of a self publishing process I’ve seen.
I don’t know about you, but I am pretty infatuated with Lena Dunham. Yeah Girls is awkward and uncomfortable – but it is also fresh, funny, and pretty authentic/genuine. Also how is anyone so consistently charming in interviews. I will definitely be reading her book when it comes out.
I finally got on the Perks of Being a Wallflower bandwagon this week (only 10+ years late!). If you are similarly enthralled, I think you’ll enjoy this Vanity Fair interview with author and subsequent screenwriter and director Stephen Chbosky.
Hope everyone has a good week!
Alison Doherty 