13 posts tagged “books”
It's been a long, gray week. It's October in Minnesota, so there's a lot of gray, there's a lot of cold, and you can feel this palpable heaviness in the knowledge that the weather will only get worse. Normally, weather like this would make a depressing book seem even more dismal. Cormac McCarthy's tale of desperation and heartbreak in a post-apocalyptic wasteland actually made my environs seem like sunshine and puppy dogs playing hopscotch on a fricking rainbow.
The Road actually featured a puppy dog. If I recall correctly, the dog let out a haunting howl, prompting a little boy to beg his father not to kill the dog and eat it. Wheee! The boy and his father are the key figures in this story. They trudge through a decimated landscape, ravaged by fire and untouched by sunlight, quietly observing the horrific nature of people at their most desperate and reflecting on their wretched lives.
There are certain expectations in a post-apocalyptic book. The sudden appearance of monsters. The narrow escape from starvation. The moments of tension between the main characters. One thing I discovered, though, was that whenever something good happened, like the obligatory humble Christmas feast, I expected it to end as horribly as possible. It may be because the first thing we hear the main characters talk about is what they would do if the other died. After that, I was just waiting for disaster around every turn.
I can just tell you that every morning before going to work and every afternoon before heading home, I was ensconced in dread. I had to gird my loins. I needed to pause for just a moment before turning the car on to prepare myself to reenter a world where death was the only escape from misery. At one point, I had to worry about my driving being affected by copious amounts of weeping. I'd roll into work, and stare emptily into the building, and before I could go in, I'd need to convince myself that life was worth living, and that there are still reasons to hope, and that if you look you can still find basic human decency, and that maybe there would be donuts.
It was a tough book. Was it a good book? I don't really know, because I was so busy being weighted down by a hopelessness so all-encompassing that I could barely breathe. I guess it won some kind of Pullitzer Prize. Also, it's an Oprah book club choice. And the soon-to-be-made major motion picture will probably win an Academy Award. So with the Oscar, the Pulli, and the Opie, clearly some people out there have said (or will say) that it's a good book. It also may have had some cool typography. I don't know. I listened to the audio book.
The Road was read by Tom Stechshulte, who did a great job shaping the characters. They sounded really, really wretched. Sure, I sometimes doubted the sincerity of the father's apologies, but other than that, Stechshulte did a great job. I never felt like the narration detracted from the conversation, and it usually, though not always, kept me interested in the descriptive, morose, heart-wrenching depictions of the world after the apocalypse. It may help that there weren't a lot of female voices for Stechshulte to tackle, but he did a convincing job of making the old man sound old and the kid sound young.
Would I recommend it? If you think life is too damn happy, or if you kind of miss misery, or if you like to laugh at other people's misfortune, then this is a great book for you. If not, it's still a good book. It stays with you. It puts the Dow Jones in perspective, as long as you don't start wondering if falling stock markets might lead to scorched earth and cannibalism.
Just be sure to save something light for later. Maybe some Terry Pratchett. Or a trip to Disneyland. Or Christmas. Or see if you can get your hands on The Adventures of Sunshine Puppy and the Great Hopscotch Rainbow. You'll thank me later.
Thanks to my ol' pal Streppy, I was able to finish reading the last of the city watch books from the Discworld series. I found out that there are really only seven. I'm a slow reader. However, I can now tell you which order to read them in depending on what kind of personality you have. You're welcome.
If you were born on a Monday, you are gentle, attractive, and maybe something of a pushover, and so you should read the books in chronological order. This meshes well with your tendency to think that everyone's always laughing at what you haven't figured out yet, because you're figuring things out in order. It also helps your sense of symmetry because the exclamation points are spaced out to the beginning and end.
Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud!
If you were born on a Tuesday, you are athletic, eager to get people involved in active activities and also eager to humble them by showing off your superior skills, you should read the books in the same order that I read them in so you can tell me how much more you appreciate them. This order appeals to your natural rhythm by resembling a kind of call and response pattern.
Feet of Clay
Thud!
Men at Arms
Guards! Guards!
The Fifth Elephant
Jingo
Night Watch
If you were born on a Wednesday, you are blessed with an abundance of common sense, which means that you're also frequently miserable and a downer to be around. The best order for you. Read the last one (chronologically) first. Since things generally get better and better for Vimes and company, all you need to do is start with Thud! and Vimes loses his family, his high honorific ranking, his police force chums, and finally, his ability to succeed at anything. Plus, you'll know who's going to die first so you can mourn them while reading about their previous exploits.
Thud!
Night Watch
The Fifth Elephant
Jingo
Feet of Clay
Men at Arms
Guards! Guards!
If you were born on a Thursday, you have great ambition, and a path stretches out before you promising a shining future, but you're also kind of stupid. You're going to want to read them in the order they were written. You're also going to want to note the character arcs of Vimes and Nobby and figure out how to make your own path mimic the former rather than the latter. Also, you're going to want to get started early, with a dictionary on hand to look up the big words.
Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud!
If you were born on a Friday, you are practically perfect in terms of intellect, attractiveness, kindness, and ambition, and everyone hates you for it. Your best bet is to read the city watch books in alphabetical order, because then they'll really be easy to refile using your perfect book filing system for your original autographed copies in mint condition, you big jerk. It also turns out that this is just a really good order to read the books in, with the best book first, and the second best book last. Boy, everything always works out for you, doesn't it?
Feet of Clay
Fifth Elephant, The
Guards! Guards!
Jingo
Men at Arms
Night Watch
Thud!
If you were born on a Saturday, you are a hufflepuff. Show everyone that it's through your hard work, extra perseverance, and tireless re-dedication to your goals that you can just barely keep up with the rest of society. You will find yourself one day at the top of a great mountain thinking, I did it, I finally did it, while everyone else mutters, Sure, but it was a molehill when you started. You have to work hard at everything you do, and for people like you, there is an excellent order in which to read the books. I'm not telling what order it is.
If you were born on a Sunday, I don't know anything about you. Probably there are some good things, but not good enough to make up for the bad things. You're probably blithe, and like it. You can read the books from my least favorite to my favorite, since it'll help you to get to know me better. Although I might swap Jingo and Guards! Guards! This list looks a little to blithe as it is.
Men at Arms
Jingo
Guards! Guards!
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud!
Feet of Clay
It must be nice to be a humorous crime-novel reader from Florida. You can read all of Dave Barry's books, then move on to Carl Hiaasen, then Elmore Leonard, then Tim Dorsey, then John D. McDonald, and have them cater to your love of mischievous Miamians with being chased by angry alligators and you can nod and say, "Oh yes, that's quite the witty and perceptive look at my fellow states-people," to your the other beach bums reading beside the wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon. I read these books and think "Angry alligators? Smuggling nuclear devices from Cuba? People driving around a gun battle? This is all a little much," while the Floridians are like, "Oh, wow, ripped from the headlines." So I feel left out.
Fortunately, Minnesotans have an author who knows them and captures the wackiness of Lutheran Scandinavians for us to identify with. And it's Garrison Keillor. The only thing is, instead of a funny book about crime and intrigue, we have to read a funny book about the fear of dying alone.
Weighty themes aside, though, Pontoon is a terrific book. At least, I thought so. If you're from Florida, or Nevada or Alabama or something maybe you won't see the same charm I did. Maybe you'll wonder why no one calls each other hoser and or speaks French or calls dollars "Loonies" and the simple answer there is that you're thinking of Canadians, not Minnesotans. If you know Minnesotans, then all the right notes are here -- WCCO, lutefisk, Herb Carneal, fishing at the Boundary Waters, a constant distrust of late summer, all those things that just scream Minnesota. You can imagine the thrill I felt when it was revealed that one of the characters sang in the Concordia Choir. I sang in the Concordia Choir! Garrison Keillor is talking about my peeps!
I found the story to be somewhat Hiaasenian in nature, with several wacky families up to wacky hijinks all getting together for the wacky climax at the end. In this case, a pontoon boat-themed wedding, parasailing-themed funeral, and visit from Danish agnostic pastors all took place at the same time on Lake Woebegone. Along the way, we find out that no one in town is without their problems, but you can't really hold it against any of them (except the out-of towner from LA, he was beyond reproach). They try, sometimes they get better, and deep down, they act this way mostly because the Lutherans drive them to it. Even if the Lutherans happen to be Catholic. Along the way we follow Barbara, who never left town because she wanted to be with her family. She learns that you have to leave things behind before it's too late. We also meet Debbie, who left her family early on for a life of debauchery and incredible success, who learns that you have to go back home before it's too late. Also, she sang in the Concordia Choir. Probably under Paul J. Christiansen. She probably knows that Thank You song. That is just so cool.
The book is read by the author, so it has all the warmth and weightiness of a hot dish. It had to be Garrison. They could have hired some of the greatest book-readers in the world, and this would have been a vastly inferior book. Keillor's voice doesn't change much from character to character, but the inflections are perfect. The hesitation, the uncertainties, the knowing clucks that I'd hear all the time up north at the cabin are reflected here in every character. You hear about some people who fall in love with the sound of their own voice, but Keillor is one person who has earned that right. It is practically hypnotic. Prairie Home Companion has been an institution in Minnesota, even more important to our culture than Duck-Duck-Gray Duck. And it's because of the dude's voice. It's so reassuring, so comforting. If he didn't work in radio, he could have been an excellent hostage negotiator.
Pontoon was very enjoyable, with a lot to say about living your life, and a lot to say about ties to the institutions that made you who you are. It gets a little graphic at times, so it's probably not the best choice for the family trip to Lake Itasca, but if you don't mind breathy, dulcet-toned Garrison Keillor devoting several minutes to the sexual awakenings of half a dozen characters and you've lived in Minnesota, visited Minnesota, have relatives in Minnesota, or ever given Minnesota a second thought, then what are you waiting for? Read it now, while the sun is still out late and Lake Minnetonka is crowded with boaters, swimmers, and swimmer's itch. You have all winter to read books about Florida.
Some generations define themselves by heroism in battle, others by breaking cultural barriers, and others by making great strides forward in technology. My generation defines itself with a movie. A movie with laser swords.
I have been collecting Star Wars stuff for as long as I can remember. I had an AT-ST, the chicken walker from Return of the Jedi that would walk when you pushed the little button in the back. My pajamas, lunch box, and toothbrush were all adorned with Luke Skywalker's determined, banged-up face. I remember how excited I was when I got a package of Jawas made by the people who made Micro Machines. I was 23.
Obviously, Lucasfilm Enterprises loves nerds like me. They can slap a wookie on any old merch and they know I'll be drawn to it like a lightsaber is drawn into the force-powered hands of a skilled Sith lord. The books detailing the further adventures of Han, Luke, Leia, and the rest a good forty years after the movie takes place were meant for pitiful Jedheads like me and my ilk.
So I was surprised to be a little disoriented by Bloodlines. (By the way, spoilers ahead if you have any interest in reading Star Wars novels.) See the thing is, I kind of stopped reading the novels after the Yuuzahn Vong invaded Corellia. It was all just too painful. And the thing about licensed books is that their goal is to have huge, planet-shattering events sweep through the galaxy leaving all of the major characters entirely untouched. Sure, R. A. Salvatore got his one exception, but I was well versed enough in Star Wars literary canon that I knew about poor, poor, Chewie. I was a good disc and a half into this one, introducing myself to new relatives of old characters like Ben Skywalker and Thracken Sal-Solo and Britney Fett when I suddenly realized, "Hey, where the hell is Anakin Solo?"
I turned to Wikipedia (Wookiepedia, actually) and was shocked to find that Anakin was dead. In fact, not only was he dead, but he was so dead, and had come back to life and died so many times, that no one even mentioned him in this book. His name did not come up. That's really dead.
That bombshell aside, I was more enamored with this book than I thought I would be. I've read some Star Wars stinkers in the past (The Courtship of Princess Leia, anyone?) and figured that now, at a point when the original characters have reached retirement age, there's not a lot left to hold my attention. Boba Fett was 72, for crying out loud. Still, I thought this was pretty good.
Part of the charm of the book was the completely dedicated narrator. You know a narrator like this has to have a few Ewoks in a box in his basement somewhere. I'm still not entirely sure there weren't more than one narrator. Well, the settings were announced by a woman, I'm sure of that. And yet, this dude, Mark Thompson, in spite of having a female reading chapter headings for him, insisted on doing Princess Leia's voice himself. I noticed his credits included the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I was briefly excied about that until I realized that he's from the gritty new retelling of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saga, and I have no interest in getting involved with that until the crossover special with Admiral Ackbar. Still, he did a spot on Luke, a pitch-perfect Boba Fett, and a reasonable facsimile of the other male characters.
I was impressed. You could almost hear the turbo thrusters scraping against the transparisteel rear shields when the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace. Sorry, my mistake. I meant you could literally hear the turbo thrusters scraping against the transparisteel rear shields when the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace, because this book included sound effects, and the John Williams score throughout. And I had no argument with that. Except when I was listening to the book while waiting in line at the drive-thru, and the cashier would give me a funny look when she heard laser blasters shooting droids somewhere in my car.
The story itself was OK, too. I felt like the whole Boba Fett searching for his family thing was a little bit of a stretch and seemed to be in the book because the author said, "I'm planning to write a whole bunch of books, but I need to make sure that Boba Fett doesn't play any role in them, so I'm writing something for him to do now." However, the family dynamics between the Skywalkers and the Solos was very interesting, and of course you could see a lot of subtle commentary of global politics from the last ten years.
So if you've ever dreamed of spending a weekend in stormtrooper armor, and you haven't listened to any Star Wars audio books, this one might be a good one to listen to. Not a great place to start, because like I said before, no Anakin, but not a bad read at all.
And fortunately for me, the library has a second Star Wars book on CD that I'm sure no other self respecting citizen would check out in public. Yes that's right.
There is another.
It's one of those great libraries where there's odd staircases that lead to odd book filled places and it's kind of a little maze lined with shelves after shelves of books. It reminds me of the library at college, which always inspired me to imagine secret collegiate espionage agents on chases up and down the stairs, grabbing at collars through open spots on the shelves, and the heroes only catch up with the evil library infiltrators by throwing a book through the security gate just as the infiltrators are leaving, locking it and causing them to fall helplessly to the ground.
The final blow against Chicago's library is that it's also good looking on the outside, making the "award-winning facade" of Rogers Park seem a little flimsy.
The one area where it's lacking, however is books on CD. There's a sizable audio book section, but they're all books on tape. I was so disappointed with last week's offering that I gave up and sought out the children's audio book sections.
I picked Artemis Fowl because I've often heard it mentioned in the same breath as Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket. And I can see that. All three prominently feature bespectacled adolescent boys. And all three have a chapter about trolls (except Lemony Snicket). But although I enjoyed the book, Artemis is clearly a distant third after Harry and
Klaus. He is easily the least likable and the least funny of the three, and his supporting cast of characters is not nearly as rich as either the world of the muggles or the world of the VFD.
I suppose it's unfair for me to compare this series against those two heavyweights, though. It's good on its own merits. I was pleasantly surprised to learn the Artemis, the eponymous adolescent kids are supposed to relate to, is the antagonist. He's the one doing all the mean things in the book, but he's still very interesting, and you find yourself torn between wanting him to win and wanting justice to prevail. He transcends the evil rich genius persona to be more of a tragic figure and less of a bond villain with a thing for leprechauns.
The heroes are also more ambiguous than most adult fiction likes to venture into. Me, I like that. Makes them more believable, easier to understand their motivations. Gives them someplace to go in the upcoming books. And oh yes, this book makes no qualms about setting up years upon years of sequels, several of which have apparently already come out. By the end of this book, you get mentions of various plot points of a few of them, and everyone is left in a position that could best be summed up as "ready to cross paths again for another rollicking adventure."
So I liked Artemis, I liked the pacing, and I really liked the narrator. Irish accents, Scottish accents, German accents, and even one of those adorable American accents by a British speaker who tries really hard but sounds kind of like if John Wayne was in the movie Fargo. I was a little let down by the supporting cast, the war cliches, and the big reveal at the end that explains why Artemis was so confident about his theft/kidnapping/boat-blowing-up plan all along. You know, the one about Santa Claus. Kind of lame.
Does it all balance out? Yes. It was a good "read". I'd try another Artemis Fowl book. Especially if the library's CD collection continues to favor kid's books over grownup books.
What's that? Did you think that maybe it might not have been on? Because it is on, my friend. Super, totally on.
Me listening to books on CD again is on, that is.
Since Jenna and I have been on a mega Terry Pratchett kick for months now, I was thrilled to find not only a Terry Pratchett book on CD, but a Terry Pratchett book about Sam Vimes and the city Watch. On CD.
I've been enjoying reading books about the Watch more than I liked The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. More than Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. More, even, than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In fact, I've been trying to match friends and family with specific books in the Watch series, just so I could recommend different books to different people. For Dave, Thud. For Becky, Monstrous Regiment (which isn't technically a Watch book, but Sam Vimes is in it). For Joe, The Fifth Elephant (mostly for the title, admittedly). For Bill, I think I might recommend this book. (Or Small Gods, which features a character named Brutha.)
So now that I'm back to the world of commuting and commuting, I'm also back to the world of books on CD. Guards! Guards! is a poorly titled book that introduces the Watch characters that you will surely come to grow and love. Surly alcoholic Sam Vimes, disgusting, disappointing Nobby, even Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, the gang's all here. The plot centers around a group of mysterious hooded strangers who summon a magical dragon in an attempt to manipulate the people of Ankh-Morpork into re-instituting a monarchy. Meanwhile, Carrot Ironfoundersson's parents tell him he's not really a dwarf and send him out to seek his fortune. These two plots intertwine.
It was pretty much a given that I would like the book. I'm biased. But I also liked the reader, which is kind of the X factor in books on CD. He did a great job with the earnestness of Carrot, the cool stoicism of Venitari, the somewhat similar but never confusable Nobby and Colon, and the whole gang of dragon summoners. I was not crazy about the way he did Vimes, who sounded like he had a cold throughout the book, and so when he spent the first two CDs or so drunk, he was difficult to understand. Also, Sybil, the only female character with any speaking lines (pretty much), was a little cliched. But not so much as to interfere with the story.
I realize that when I was railing against earlier books on tape, I was especially dead-set against flat, completely unlikeable antagonists. The bad guys in this story really have no redeeming social values, but they're funny, and that goes a long way in helping me forgive them for being a little one-dimensional. I didn't feel like Pratchett was picking a type of person he didn't like, painting them as evil, and then killing them off as painfully as possible, as I sometimes feel with Carl Hiaasen books. The bad guys were crummy, but the good guys are never much better, and you always feel a little bad for the bad guys in Pratchett books when they get what's coming to them. Fortunately, Death is pretty funny too, so at least they start the afterlife off on the right foot.
Would I recommend this book? Yes I would. Is it a book for everyone? Yes it is. But would everyone like listening to it over and over again even after I spent hours and hours building it up to heights no book could ever possibly reach? Again, yes.
I liked this book.
With the release of book 7 less than a month away, I figured it was of the utmost importance that I record my Harry Potter predictions here, so that you'll all be amazed by my prescience and thoughtfulness when they're all proven to be true. I've tried to add some justification for these predictions, but I'd love to hear counter-arguments, if you've got them. Or whatever theories you've worked out.
If you haven't read the books yet, and you'd like to, I don't think I need to say that there are spoilers here. But I will. There are.
1. Harry does not intend to return to Hogwarts, and just when it seems that no one can talk him into going back, circumstances beyond his control will compel him to return to school and finish off his seventh year. That sounds vague, so I'll throw out a wild guess that evidence leads to at least one Horcrux being hidden somewhere in school grounds, so Harry starts there. My argument here is that the Harry Potter series is a specific kind of genre -- a boarding school genre -- with fantasy and mystery elements surrounding the framework. Book six was not the culmination of a maturing student's character arc that's been building throughout the series, therefore, Harry needs to grow more and accomplish more at school.
2. Of the total Horcruxes: the diary, the locket, the cup, the ring, the ?, the snake, and the scar, Harry will have personally only destroyed two: the diary and the scar. In the later books, Harry has had to deal with the limitations imposed upon him, and I don't think book 7 will be any different. There are plenty of other people doing the same work as Harry, and we don't know for certain that Dumbledore would have kept any knowledge about Horcruxes from the rest of his Order. Harry will finish the task unfinished by him at the end of book six and discover that the locket was already destroyed. All of the Horcruxes are McGuffins, but the ? I think will be especially useless. It will either be the part of the soul that's still in Voldemort (if this is the case, Harry will have destroyed three, not two), or some Ravenclaw trinket found and destroyed by, say, Kingsley Shacklebolt.
3. Harry will face Voldemort once again in the Ministry of Magic. He will realize that his scar is a horcrux, and although he sacrifices himself, his life will be spared via deus ex machina. My guess is that he will sacrifice himself by dragging Voldemort through the Veil in the Veil Room and Harry will be spared by some long shot plan, possibly involving the abilities of a Dementor's kiss. We will hear from Sirius again while Harry is in the Veil. One of the ongoing themes is that Voldemort fears death. Harry will have to face death in order to defeat Voldemort. Harry is the character who was originally slated to die but given a reprieve.
4. Harry and Ginny will wind up together. Harry will become an Auror and Ginny will take over operations at the twins' Hogsmeade branch. As a character, Ginny is not developed enough to be killed off and become Harry's great lost love. The development in book 7 will lead to her being an ingenue, not a victim. Their relationship was interrupted for whatever happens in book 7. Once it's happened, they're free to resume snogging. So they will.
5. More than two characters will die. They will be Wormtail, Snape, Voldemort, Hagrid, and George Weasley. Voldemort is a no-brainer. Wormtail owes a debt to Harry. He will show Harry lenience and Voldemort will kill him for it. He would be too much of a threat for Voldemort to keep alive. Snape will be vindicated as a good guy, but Bellatrix will finish him off, and Harry will ever only be able to respect him posthumously. Hagrid is a long shot here, but I think one of the characters needs to give plant the idea of self-sacrifice into Harry's mind, and I think Hagrid is the most likely character to do that. It's what he's been doing all along, and I can't help but wonder if there's something to the alchemy theory that passes a character through a black state (Sirius Black), white state (Albus) and red state (Rubeus). And character-wise, Fred and George are the practically the same, so one of them can die without removing the character from the story. Plus, since they're comic relief characters, the death would add a lot of dramatic weight to events.
6. Ron and Hermione will end up together. Harry will be convinced that they will die, but he will be mistaken. I see a paralle here to Return of the Jedi, where Luke watches out the window at the trap set up for his friends and finally lets them go. In this case, I see Draco Malfoy getting the upper hand against Ron and Hermione in a fight, but unable to actually kill them, and turning against his father instead. Hermione will dedicate her life to House-Elf rights. Ron will end up with Ludo Bagman's job, a cross of his father's job and his love of sports. There will be an epilogue that takes place long after year 7 to divulge this information.
7. The year 7 defense against the dark arts teacher will be Tonks. She will return to her Auror job at the end of the year, but give the post back to her boyfriend (husband?) Lupin, who will then break the curse. I say this because I think Tonks would be a good DADA teacher, but I know Lupin is a good DADA teacher.
8. Neville will incapacitate Bellatrix, but he will not kill her or use the cruciatus curse.
9. It will be revealed that the reason that Harry Potter survived as a baby was because Voldemort cast a horcrux making spell on him instead of plain old Avada Kedavra. His mother's charm caused the spell to backfire and created the horcrux scar, which explains why dementors take a particular liking for Harry, why he shares so much in common with Voldemort, and why his scar reacts to events in Voldemort's life.
10. The last sentence of the book will be, "Harry Potter Jr. will return in Harry Potter Jr. and the Case of the Lost Scar."
Here's a first. I'm not just spoiling this book. I'm pretty much spoiling the whole series.
I thought I might be done with books on CD for a while, but I still drive on the occasional Friday, so I headed back to the ol' library. I'd already read The End, but I liked the Series of Unfortunate Events, so I thought I'd give it a listen.
One interesting thing about the series is that the Audio books include a song specially written for the story. This one was about being shipwrecked. There's a commercial playing in Chicago about fax machines, and how there's a band called "the Fax Machines" and they're horrible singers, and dude, they sound exactly like whoever was singing this song. I understand they're not going for Aretha Franklin or anything, I was just wondering if they actually hired The Fax Machines to sing this song.
As for the rest of the book, well, I think this was a great series with a weak ending. One of the overarching themes of the book is "some things are better left unsaid", so it should come as no surprise that a lot of the loose ends stay loose. The story of the Sugar Bowl is dismissed, the details of Lemony's life aren't really touched upon here, all the interesting characters who came back in the Penultimate Peril are absent throughout (with one exception). It seems like all the events that have been building in all of the other books were cast away to tell a castaway story.
Don't get me wrong: it's still funny. There's a lot of metahumor here, and the whole story is jam packed full of allusions to other castaway stories, including a bunch I'm sure I missed. It's very intelligent humor and builds not only from book to book, but also builds on the humor of each book. I was very excited to read this book (much in the same way I'm excited about the last Harry Potter book). It's a great series. It's even a good entry into the series. It's just not a great ending. I was expecting something breathtakingly brilliant, and I just felt like there was more building, more character development, and no ending. Yes, I know that's the theme. I hope Harry Potter ends better.
Here's what I would have liked: A happy ending. Justice Strauss adopts the orphans, all the questions are answered in clever and funny ways, Count Olaf is sent to prison, everyone is deliriously happy... and then the story continues. Sonny's cooking skills make her a child celebrity, and she's rich and famous. Violet and Quigley meet up again and start dating. Klaus is accepted into a prestigious university. Sonny's celebrity leaves her separated from the family, feeling abandoned, and her money can't buy her happiness. Violet and Quigley realize what they shared was simply a childhood crush, and go through an awkward breakup. Klaus finds that the university is filled with people who love to do research, and feels like he loses some of his identity. And their lives, so soon after this wonderful happy ending, become dreary again.
Maybe there will be a fourteenth book. I'd have no problem with that.
Beggars can't be choosers. This is the abridged version, and it went by way too fast. However, since I'm at the mercy of the selection at the Rogers Park Library, I've got to take what I can get.
William Goldman was right: this story has everything. He made it relevant to boys even though it's got the girliest title imaginable by creating a subplot about a boy not being interested in it. That's genius. What's here is funny, structured well, and a heck of a lot of fun to listen to.
And now I want to hear Meathead read the whole thing unabridged. He really does a great job, and even the female voice thing didn't bother me. I'm certain he's trying to capture the sound of the actors from the movie (and he does a great job with the narrator voice, played by Peter Falk in the movie, that he doesn't even need to do voices for the rest). If there is a web petition floating around somewhere that asks the best-facaded library in Chicago (awarded 2003) to start stocking the unabridged version of the Princess Bride before June, let me know, because I will sign it, and probably re-sign it with several psuedonyms, which is why these web petitions aren't such a great idea in the first place.
This is a great story to read to your kid. This is a great story to read in an airport, waiting for the conditions to clear. This is a great story to read just before bed. This is a great story.
Aaron picked out my library books for me this month. They were: The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen Carter, and The Hornets Nest, by Jimmy Carter. (He had also picked out Candy Apple Death by Sammi Carter, but I limited him to two). Both are abridged from the original print version, and that reminded me of a column I read by my old nemesis, Marilyn Von Savant (damn you Marilyn!). Someone asked if listening to a book on tape was as valuable as reading it. She deftly sidestepped the issue by pointing out that some audio books are abridged, and therefore offer an incomplete, or "abridged" experience compared to reading the book as published on paper.
What if they are unabridged? What if the abridgement has been approved by the author? Do these count as books or not? Marilyn remains bitterly silent. I live in terror of going to the pearly gates and hearing St. Peter tell me that I never really read The Life of Pi or The Shining and therefore don't qualify for a spaceship.
Frankly, reading through the Amazon reviews of The Emperor of Ocean Park, most people found the descriptions too lengthy and drawn out. Listening to the story gallop along on five CDs, I didn't have that problem. Also, keep in mind that every original published work has already been edited by all kinds of people before it even hits the bookstore. And just because I'm not looking at words doesn't mean that I'm not absorbing the author's ideas, prose, and stylistic choices. Sure, occasionally I'll miss out on a clever pun or a helpful illustration, but the narrators do their darnedest to talk me through them. I even listened to a Dave Barry book on CD, which as every Dave Barry fan could tell you, was full of footnotes and zany clip art, but I was still able to follow what was going on.
On the other hand, that Dave Barry book was probably not a great choice for adapting for audio, especially as it was read by Chuckles the Clown, who emphasized wackiness with his wacky clown-voice on every wacky page. I can honestly say that reading Dave Barry is funnier than listening to him. At least, funnier than listening to Chuckles.
Maybe the reason people like Ms. Von Savant (puh-lease) tend to draw a line between audio books and written books is that audio books impose an element on you completely outside of the author's grasp. If I had listened to that Dave Barry book before reading anything by Dave Barry, I probably wouldn't go back and try another one.
So what counts as reading the book? Everything above the line of truth, of course.
Reading the unpublished manuscript originally written by the author
Reading the book
Listening to the unabridged audio book
Reading an author-approved abridgement of the book
Listening to the audio book with the abridgement approved by the author
-----------The Line of Truth-------------
Reading a renegade abridgement of the book
Listening to a renegade abridgement of the book
Watching the movie adapted by the book
Watching the movie loosely based on the book
Skimming through the book looking for sex scenes
Reading the Cliff's Notes
Reading the comic-book adaptation
Reading the Cliff's Notes of the comic book adaptation
Listening to the Cliff's Notes of the comic book adaptation
Piecing the plot together from Amazon reviews and hearsay
Reading only the jacket, even if you write a book report based on it
Hope this helps!
