Saturday, February 23, 2013
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.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Typical John Wayne western that seems just ridiculous enough
to be enjoyable but not real at all. There’s a love triangle, lots of
action-packing brawls, a gold rush and a typhoid fever epidemic all thrown
together in an hour and a half. Sometimes the scenes just rush by and you
wonder how it’s possible that so much could happen in only a few short minutes.
It was a pretty bad movie, although I enjoyed watching it for its “badness.” I
have to say that I was surprised that there was not more time and energy spent
on the love triangle (or square). Once it was set up, the other woman suddenly
disappeared and became a silent, unseen threat. Then a totally unexpected plot
twist with the gold rush coming on. So hat’s off to you, writers, on totally
surprising me with that one. I was not expecting the singer to suddenly abandon
the town and man she loved to become a nurse with all the grungy men of the
gold rush. I also learned that if you ever want to prove yourself a badass
without a fight all you have to do is bend a quarter and give it some kid like
it was no big deal. I’d write more about this movie but really there isn’t a
whole lot to say, it’s not John Wayne’s best. Our next movie to tackle is a documentary called Life in a Day.
Monday, February 4, 2013
So the first book we were to read
was The Assassin’s Apprentice. I’ve been reading so much science fiction
lately that I forgot how palate-cleansing fantasy can be for me. In reading
this story I thought of my teen fantasy series that I like to read and re-read
even now as an adult written by Tamora Pierce. This story goes back to the good
old medieval-like times where most fantasy is set, in the rough days of raiders
on ships and kingdoms ruled by princes and kings. It also has its share of
magic but not in the sense of spells and potions. The “Skill” and the “Wit”
melds minds of humans and animals alike.
I actually
wouldn’t mind continuing this series. Although I wasn’t too excited about the
ending and I felt that there were a lot of interesting, unexplored subplots,
one can only hope that they grow and develop in the following books in the
series. There were a lot of questions posed that I felt never got answered and
even if a book is part of a series, I believe that it needs to be a whole
piece. That is the problem with most sequels in a trilogy that you are left
with an ellipsis at the end. But overall I enjoyed the relationships and felt
that it had a lot of potential to continue the excitement. I wasn’t too large a
fan of the Raiders ability to turn the people into zombie-like shells of their
former selves. I wanted the strange dynamics of the royal family, servants and
soldiers to be explored a little more. And what is up with the Fool? Is he a
prophet? What is his connection to Fitz and why does he take it upon himself to
steer him in a certain direction or not? Also, I felt like the book kept
hinting at the secret past of Burrich’s that I never quite understood. Even
though I enjoyed the book, it left so many questions unanswered. I also feel
that it could have been simplified a lot and still been enjoyable because they
instead of a ton of little stories interconnected, their would be few fleshed
out storylines driving the central plot. But that’s just my personal opinion
and preference.
Side note unrelated to this “assignment;”
after a couple of months of struggling through reading one of the “classics of
literature,” I also finally finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Although I have to admit I did enjoy it much more than Love in the Time of
Cholera, I was still not a fan of Marquez or the magical realism genre. I
know that it is a symbolic literary choice to make all the characters have the
same name, but it makes for very difficult and confusing reading when people
live to be over a hundred years old and are living in incestuous relationships
and then naming their children the same names as their grandparents. Yet again,
I am adding another literary classic to the list of books that I was not that
impressed with. Maybe I just don’t give these epic novels the time and
attention necessary to truly enjoy them but I’m finding it hard to stay engaged
in these gigantic books. Atlas Shrugged made me angry with its black and
white view of the world and its tendency to redundantly over-explain its
methodology. Don Quixote I gave up reading three quarters of the way
through because I was sick of all the side stories that took forever to tell
and ended up going nowhere. I supposed some day I’ll pick it up again to finish
so I can officially say I read it and disliked it but I was tired of spending
so much time on a character that I didn’t find that sympathetic or heroic, but
arrogant, selfish and foolish. I hope that my next epic classic, War and
Peace fares better. I also want to finish the Sherlock Holmes series since
I enjoyed the first couple of books I did read and I recently finished watching
the television show Sherlock on Netflix,
which was highly rated by both of my siblings. Although each episode is almost
an hour and a half long, they are fascinating and I eagerly watched both
seasons. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a contemporary look at
some old classics that I can get behind. Although, I did find it interesting
that they chose to give Sherlock an addiction to nicotine patches instead of
his cocaine habit that he indulges in in the novels.
Monday, January 28, 2013
So I finally watched Planet of the Apes which has been on my
must watch list for quite some time. I guess I should specify, the 1968
version, I had no interest in seeing the 2001 version. Although maybe I will
have to watch it later and then compare. Unfortunately I am a purist snob and
most of the time I am not a fan of remakes. V would be rolling her eyes at my
frustrations with putting Shakespearean plots in modern times. I am all for a re-imagining of a classic story, but one of my pet peeves is the smashing
together of conflicting time periods. I am not ok with saying “Oh happy dagger”
and pulling out a gun. Either change the line or the prop. But I’m veering away
from the assignment.
Now I’ve seen the iconic shocking
twists of Planet of the Apes on AFI’s
movie lists multiple times so I knew that the movie would have a little less
shock value when I saw it. But even if you know the spoilers of an iconic
movie, you still want to see why it is so iconic. Like watching Psycho, which is still haunting even
though I’d seen who the murderer is and the last creepy scene before I saw the
movie. Or Soylent Green, knowing what
it is from the very beginning. (See what I did there? I’m trying really hard to
not write spoilers, even though I’m not writing this for random people to read)
I think that Hitchcock is a brilliant director and that his movies stand up to
multiple viewings and are still engaging to the audience member. And while the
book Make Room! Make Room! on which Soylent
Green is based has very few plot points in common with the movie, I still
wanted to dive into a story that could be so horrifying and yet, slightly
plausible for a future of overpopulation.
It’s interesting to me to see a
“classic” movie both to enjoy the story that is being told and to remark on how
much the film industry has changed in a relatively short time span. I’ve also
been on quite a sci-fi kick lately so it was really fascinating for me to watch
this movie after having just finished reading the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.
He’s the guy that came up with the three laws of robotics and is the king of
science fiction writing. His Foundation Series apparently was based on the fall
of the Roman Empire and so reading the books made me question, “what makes us
human? And what can create and destroy a society?” So Beth picking this movie
for the first assignment was perfect for me. This movie also made me want to
re-watch Season 5, Episode 9 of The
Twilight Zone “Probe 7, Over and Out.” This episode is about Adam and Eve
and presents a very interesting and heretical story of man’s beginnings here on
Earth.
I actually loved the movie. Maybe
it’s because I’m in the right frame of mind for a movie like this but I found
it intriguing, comedic and tragic. The satire of the apes talking about their culture,
religion, laws and evolution was fascinating. It makes me think of high school
and how I was taught to change everything I learned and that we have to
discover our own beliefs for ourselves. Sometimes you are faced with the choice
of the red pill or the blue pill and you have to decide your own fate. Will you
fall down Alice’s rabbit hole or will you choose blissful ignorance and accept
whatever you are told? Because the truth may hurt, it may not be what you were
expecting and you may wish to change your mind after your eyes have been opened
to return to your former naivety.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
When close friends are separated by profession, time and distance but not shared interests how do they keep in touch? In the digital age we are all connected and the world is a lot smaller thanks to social media and the power of the internet. But somewhere along the lines of technological discovery we lost the power of real social connection. In How I Met Your Mother Season 7 the characters discuss this dilemma in Ted's dating life of "mystery vs. history." Because it is easy to figure out everything about a person online from their profile, you no longer need to have that first conversation where you learn a person's likes and dislikes. But they also show in a funny yet disturbingly true clip that because everyone has their smartphones, conversation dwindles to the clacking of a person's nails on the phone's screen as we are torn between various other worlds and distractions outside of the present moment we are in. But that's just me ranting about things that bother me. I work with Shakespeare every day so obviously I'm a fan of antique or "classic" things.
Even though I no longer live with Beth and V, I still consider them my roommates. Because "friends" doesn't do our relationship justice and even though they are as close to me as my own family "former roommate" is the only inadequate title I can think of that coveys this sense of closeness. One of the things I love about our phone conversations is that we never have any problems talked for hours, and that was before time got in the way and months would pass making "catching up" take a lot longer. When we lived together, we could all cuddle on the couch with blankets and a movie marathon or we could sit each other's rooms and just talk about anything and everything. That was my favorite part about college. D8
So in an effort of enacting a New Year's Resolution of doing better at catching up, we decided to start our own movie and book club that spans the country and keeps our friendships strong. Thanks to the glory of Netflix and our Kindles, we can watch movies that have always been on our "must watch sometime in my lifetime" list and read books while having someone to discuss them with. Instead of indulging in our obsessions solo, we have made this into a social experiment. And I'm the dork that misses school and loved homework so the first assignment is to watch Planet of the Apes and read Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice. We gave ourselves ample time for the first round to dive into the homework just in case work and real life got into the way. We have a little over a week to watch the movie and a month to read the book.
Even though I no longer live with Beth and V, I still consider them my roommates. Because "friends" doesn't do our relationship justice and even though they are as close to me as my own family "former roommate" is the only inadequate title I can think of that coveys this sense of closeness. One of the things I love about our phone conversations is that we never have any problems talked for hours, and that was before time got in the way and months would pass making "catching up" take a lot longer. When we lived together, we could all cuddle on the couch with blankets and a movie marathon or we could sit each other's rooms and just talk about anything and everything. That was my favorite part about college. D8
So in an effort of enacting a New Year's Resolution of doing better at catching up, we decided to start our own movie and book club that spans the country and keeps our friendships strong. Thanks to the glory of Netflix and our Kindles, we can watch movies that have always been on our "must watch sometime in my lifetime" list and read books while having someone to discuss them with. Instead of indulging in our obsessions solo, we have made this into a social experiment. And I'm the dork that misses school and loved homework so the first assignment is to watch Planet of the Apes and read Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice. We gave ourselves ample time for the first round to dive into the homework just in case work and real life got into the way. We have a little over a week to watch the movie and a month to read the book.
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