The Pen Pal Club

So Beth and I haven’t been so great at keeping up to date with our original goal of a book a month. But because I’ve been in work limbo where I never seem to know what my next assignment will be or how many hours I’ll actually end up working throughout the week, I had been devouring books like candy. Here are my brief views on the books I’ve read on the side of our little project.

After finishing War and Peace I knew I needed to tackle something a little lighter. But I also knew that I was going to be spending a lot of time being useless backstage of the Reps as they figured out tech and didn’t require my assistance except for the occasional thing to run downstairs for. So I decided to read a book that came highly recommended to me by various people on crew and actors (Aaryn had read it during Midsummer). American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it to others. It is epic and brilliant, engaging and unique. It gives life to all the old gods of religions you remember briefly talking about in old history classes and makes you wonder, what does happen to all those gods once the people have moved on? I was immediately drawn into the story and although it had a slow build to the giant war, I was not bored or hoping for a swift conclusion. Which is one of the only complaints I have about the book. After such a drawn out foundation, the ending came way too quickly for me that I was sadly wanting more.

So I turned to another Neil Gaiman book, Stardust. I figured that I had already enjoyed his longer book and I had less time as I was starting to actually do some work on the Reps so I picked something short and familiar. However this short book that was then turned into a halfway decent movie, was not one of my favorites and fell flat after reading such an intriguing fantasy. I didn’t really care about any of the characters and although it had that fairy tale feel, I never really understood the point of the story. So I decided to leave the fantasy genre and going after something a little darker.

World War Z was another book that’s been on my to-read list for a while but I didn’t own it and didn’t really want to shell out the money when I’m so anti the zombie-phase that everyone seems to be obsessed with. But when we were packing and moving into the new house Emily decided to donate most of her books and offered me first dibs before she gave them away, which included this book. I was a little surprised to say how much I enjoyed it. Written as a collection of interviews explaining the build up to, survival tactics during, and consequences after the Zombie War. It’s presently in a way that seems so factual and possible that you can’t help but buy into this world that is created. In the way that Michael Crichton would mess science and history and fiction to create these amazing novels, Max Brooks created a history book that I actually liked.

After finishing up reading an actual book instead of my digital books on my kindle, I dove back into my digital world with abandon. Not quite knowing what kind of mood I was in when I wasn’t running Christopher’s track for Coriolanus and Wallenstein when he got strep throat I chose my “classroom homework” book of Walden by Henry David Thoreau and my “pleasure reading” book of continuing the Sherlock Holmes series that I had started earlier with The Return of Sherlock Holmes. I then found in one of my daily emails of digital book deals this satirical and totally inappropriate dry humor gem How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide. So I currently have been flipping between these three books depending on my mood. Walden is hard to pick up but although I may not agree with all of Thoreau’s extremist hermit ways, I can appreciate the sentiment behind them. Sherlock Holmes stories are pretty quick and fun, so easy to pick up and put down. And The Self-Hurt Guide is funny in a black comedy sense but something, it’s hopelessness can get too much for me so I much switch back to one of the other “light-hearted” books I’m reading. Winter’s Tale tech starts on Wednesday, so hopefully I can finish one or two of these books and less my self-imposed literary load which will nag at the back of my mind.

This action packed movie took a really long time to watch what with life and my move to NE getting in the way. Then we had to wait to actually install our cable and internet, so I couldn’t watch the movie until that was done. After all that I really enjoyed the movie. Of course it reminds me of the beautiful similarities of that genre with such colorful costumes and locations, a poetry of motion to the fighting, and a sense of pride and honor that is never quite conveyed in an American (or Western) film. In the same vein of House of Flying Daggers, Hero, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon this film really showed a myriad of fighting styles and sacrifice for the greater good. I enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

Play the Game was kind of what I was expecting in a combination of comedy and traumatizing images of the elderly in the dating world. I did like the “twist” ending of this movie; it made the whole thing seem a little less pathetic and simple. The writing and acting weren’t great and it’s not a movie that I’d highly recommend but I do believe that it would be a fun movie to watch with friends when you feel like watching something light and easy. I wish I had more to say about the movie but it really wasn’t that memorable (for being either great or terrible). It was a palate cleansing movie to watch on our journey but now I'm ready to dive back into some more thought provoking movies.

            On the side of our various assignments I decided to tackle the epic War and Peace, just for fun because that’s what the cool kids do. My goal was to finish the entire book during the run of Hughie and I was very excited to achieve my goal.

            I have to admit that I kind of love Tolstoy’s way of presenting the facts and the different viewpoints of how history is presented in Russia to what really happened before he dives into the story from the various characters’ perspectives. Except for the second epilogue where he just went on his own philosophical discussion of history and religion that I didn't particularly enjoy. It’s interesting and engaging and makes me enjoy reading about the war even though I had to get though half the book to get to these beautiful insights.

            It’s funny but the largest frustration I have with this book is its epic size. I find it interesting, I enjoy the style it’s written in and although the numerous characters can sometimes be hard to keep track of (especially switching back and forth from Moscow to St. Petersburg to wartime to parties in the royal society to Tolstoy’s own history lessons) I like picking the book up. But when I look at how far I still have to go when I feel like I’ve been reading for a lifetime, I get distracted and frustrated. Maybe the quick pace of society now has transformed my attention span to make it hard to commit to such a long book or maybe it’s just hard sitting down and reading such a massive book. I did enjoy getting back into my school phase of highlighting and taking notes again though. So here are a few of the quotes that stood out to me that I’d like to share.

“One must be believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!”

“If there were no suffering, man would not know his limitations, would not know himself.”

“We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness.”

There were a lot of insights into religion, the part of free will vs. inevitability that made me think and want to right a term paper. Questions posed that made we want to dash to the library and research the war, Tolstoy’s political views and why he wrote the book. The second epilogue bored me with Tolstoy’s ranting on historians and their own prejudices skewing the facts and misinterpreting the role the leaders such as Napoleon and Alexander had on the people of France and Russia. But being the uneducated person that I am when it comes to history I still enjoyed his take on looking at the "facts" in many different lights. He would explain what happened in a battle about how the French would consider it a failure and why, how the Russians considered it a success and why, and what the historians were now saying about it changing the way that it happened at that time. I really found his insight into how history changes over time fascinating. It reminded me of when I was reading McNamara's book when I was working on Last of the Boys and the confusion and lack of accurate data that made it difficult for the men in charge to make decisions. But then once they were in the war and saw that they had gotten themselves too deep into a problem that they could not easily get out of, there was no turning back. And Tolstoy talks about how these Russian generals made decisions, hundreds of orders sent out that never seemed to make it on time, or the plans were never able to be fulfilled because war is unpredictable and doesn't make sense. But then years and years go by and historians write about what happened and what it led to and forget about all the failed plans until history is presented as a succinct timeline of events culminating in war. It become inevitable and the "genius" of Napoleon becomes exaggerated until that this the only way we perceive these events. People look back and question "why didn't the leaders see this coming and plan accordingly?" and forget all the hundred of other things going on and the thousands of possibilities that could have resulted. And I found this insight refreshing. Sometimes we need that reminder that there is more than one way to look at things.

            The final book of the Farseer trilogy, I have to admit that I was kind of eager to read it and then be done with the whole series. The farther I got in the series, the more Beth’s comment about the similarities between Fitz and Harry Potter became more apparent. Especially when just a small list of his heroic accomplishments was named back to him by the minstrel. How many times can one guy save the world, narrowly escaping death only to be needed again? The Catalyst is awfully close to the Boy Who Lived. The murderer with a heart of gold, who has magical abilities that cannot be matched by anyone and is surrounded by a loving network of friends that will die for him even when he rants and complains and takes out all his anger on them. 

            The farther I got in this series, the more irritated I got at the introductions at the beginning of each chapter. Fitz's excerpts from his histories that he is writing pretty much for no one but to pass the time in his lonely existence post-war and death. That was another Harry Potter similarity, the whole cheating death thing, which I honestly hate. I accepted Aslan's return in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I read that book in middle school (and was naively unaware of its strong Christian undercurrents and teachings) but cheating death is usually cheap in my eyes.

            But there was a gnawing at me the entire time I read these three books. Why does this often used writing trope bother me so much with this particular series when I so readily accept it for other stories? I wish I had an answer to this but I'm just glad that I am done with these books, I do not recommend them to the general public. Our next book is Casino Royale by Ian Flemming, the first James Bond book. I'm eager to find out if I love the books that the movies are based on.

            So for our first documentary we tackled Life in a Day which I stole from Anthony’s Netflix queue list. It was a very interesting watch that was beautiful, horrifying, touching, intriguing and sad. It was a story without a story, a look into the lives of strangers. It was poetic and made me want to be philosophical. It asked what people love and fear. It made me feel superficial and materialistic and the desire to just give everything up and live simply pulsed though my chest. It made me want to call everyone I love and tell them how much they mean to me and made me sad that I am so alone. It made me think about myself and where I am and what I am doing, how I am both so small in this world and made me question what my dreams of the future are. It’s funny because where you are in your life and the people, places, books, movies, day-to-day experiences that you share are what make you who you are and influence your perspective at that moment. Because all my friends from high school are having babies I’ve been thinking about family a lot. Because Micah is going through treatments for his leukemia I’ve been thinking about death and how we never know how much time we have or what God's plans for us are. Because I’m reading War and Peace I’ve been thinking about love and hatred, the triviality of the traditional mating rituals and the futility of war. Duty and philosophy. All these things swirl around in my brain and if I wasn’t doing or seeing one of these things than my perspective might be completely different.

            I guess I don’t know how to write about this movie and how it made me feel. It made me feel a lot of things but it also made me feel my lack of feeling. It made me disgusted with the amount of time I waste, the amount of tv I watch and all the goals I have abandoned. It makes me sad that I don’t wake up and write every day, that I don’t go to the museums much any more and challenge myself in new ways. It makes me sad that I have become complacent with the way that I live. But this is me going off on a stream of conscious overflow.

            I enjoyed the movie but it made me sad because I wanted to know more about these people and their lives and I know I never will. I wondered how in the world so much beautiful footage was taken and I can’t even imagine how many hours in took to watch, compile and edit all of the video.I was interested the entire time and although I didn't enjoy the final monologue and it made me question what the original intention of the documentary was, I really take my hat off to all the people who made it happen. I totally recommend it and maybe I'll have to watch it again some time.

         So here are some thoughts from when I wasn't even halfway through this book. I realize that I have some major problems with it. I get the déjà vu of feeling like I already have encountered this story. The similarities between this series and the Alanna series overwhelm me. But unfortunately, I feel that the series written for teenage girls was more compelling. Or maybe it’s just because I found it easier to relate to, or because I read it first. But the farther I get in the book, the more I don’t like the character of Regal. I partially blame Anthony and his love of complex dark characters and anti-heroes. He and I actually talked a little about Once Upon a Time and how he felt that their “bad” characters were not interesting enough for him. Regal is a character that is immature, greedy, selfish, egotistic and presented as pretty much evil with no redeeming qualities. Now I feel that similar to the character of Roger in the Alanna series, he desires more power and the kingdom to bend at his will. He uses his good looks and cunning to sway people to his desires. However, Regal is impatient and does not seem overly intelligent as Roger was. They keep talking about how he was “weak” as a child and did not learn to Skill, so much so that he must have this power and was taught in secret by Galin who was so close with his mother. Spoiler alert! (in finishing the book, apparently I guessed wrong. Regal really is just a weak, manipulative douche) How else does he know so much of what is going on and seem to have so much control over everything? 

            I suppose one of my major disappointments with this book is in only seeing things through Fitz’s eyes.I don't get a chance to really understand the other characters or hear their stories even if I find them more interesting than his. I also have been swayed to Beth's initial reaction of frustration with the top of each chapter beginning with his ramblings or his history segments. If you are going to trap me in one person's perspective than stick to his story, otherwise give me a view of the enemy and his plans. I really hope that the third book reveals more to Regal's desires than just avenging his mother's supposed murder, because that felt like such a weak motivation for destroying the entire kingdom that I immediately rejected it as only a piece of the puzzle and not the full thing.

           Maybe it’s the combination of reading too much about war, maybe it’s seeing the similarities and comparisons between different art forms like I was taught in school but so much about this book frustrates me in a “haven’t I already read or seen this before?” kind of way. The ships fighting the Raiders makes me think of Pirates of the Caribbean, the whole story makes me think of the fantasy stories of my youth. At times it feels like a jumbled mess of every kind of fantasy thrown together to make sure that the author has hit everything that could draw in his readers, and at other time I really am intrigued by the interesting story. I want the mystery solved and I want to discover who and what is behind it all. So I keep reading even though the end of this book left a bad taste in my mouth.