Night of the Living Short Reviews…
SPACE RACE update next week when I have all the requisite photos for a glorious illustrated entry. In the meantime, they’re baaaaack…
Wet Magic (E. Nesbit, 1913) — Aside from having a giggle-worthy title that will lead to NSFW Google hits [that link is just to the public-domain text; don’t look so shocked], this book is nifty. I love how E. Nesbit manages to capture the inter-child politics in a large family — the way siblings of different ages interact and get into trouble. Her characters always remind me of me and my sister and our cousins and family friends — the little arguments, the ideas for games based off of favourite stories, the conflicts that arise between older and younger sibs, the projects that seem perfectly reasonably to kids and utterly silly and impractical to the adults in charge.
Brothers and sisters Mavis, Francis, Bernard, and Kathleen aren’t quite as jump-off-the-page lively as the Bastables, but they do splendidly in this whimsical story about rescuing a mermaid. Well, at least until halfway through, when the story takes a sudden “dive” (uh, literally) into a whimsical underwater kingdom full of poor puns and unfortunate words-that-are-no-longer-used-the-same-in-2010:
“Do you have cats here then?” asked Kathleen, whose attention had wandered, and had only caught a word that sounded like Pussies.
“Only Octopussies,” said the Princess, “but then they’re eight times as pussy as your dryland cats.”
This part of the story, in which the children accidentally start and then end an undersea war, gets a little twee and tedious. Nesbit’s really at her best when mixing magic and the everyday, not creating secondary worlds, but her best is amazing enough that not-quite-her-best is still great fun. Anyhow, as Levar Burton was wont to say, you don’t have to take my word for it.
Ghost Story (Peter Straub, 1979) — Why do horror stories take so long? I am — or at least, I thought I was — a fan of atmospheric horror, stuff like this and the works of authors like Shirley Jackson, but when I consider how much I’ve actually enjoyed reading the actual books I just referenced, I’m forced to admit that I’ve been lying to myself. Or maybe I need a creepier atmosphere?
I liked Ghost Story, a narrative about four old men who may have something evil stalking them, but mainly for the second half of the book, in which secrets spill out, questions are answered, and our heroes finally go on the trail of the creature (or is that “creatures”?). Gotta admit, I prefer individual ghosts or monsters to the “Beings of Pure Evil Incarnate That Are Defined Solely By Being Evil and That Inspire All Horror and Myth Everywhere In All Cultures” genre of horror (see also: Stephen King’s It), so that may be why I found the first part of the book disappointing. I was willing to put up with the slow build-up as long as I believed there’d be a unique and cool payoff at the end, but then it seemed like it was stuff I’d seen before. Not that I hold this against Straub — Ghost Story is a classic, so I’m reacting to works that rip him off rather than the reverse. It’s not his fault I was born after this book was published.
(I do, however, hold it against him that all the women in this book are seen through male eyes as objects of sexual desire, victims of sexual desire, and/or incarnations of sexual evil, even though the one time the most major female character encounters an agent of evil, she totally whups its butt in, like, five seconds, while it takes the men friggin’ chapters to even figure out what they’re dealing with.)
Incidentally, this book also has some mis-steps with “phrases that mean different things in 2010”. I know when the Chowder Society says, “That’s what she said”, they mean, “No, that’s really what the woman we’re talking about said,” but… it’s funnier my way.
The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco, 1980) — With apologies to all the medievalists and semioticians I know, I found it really difficult to get into this one. All the back-cover stuff makes it sound like the awesomest smart-person novel ever, but I couldn’t get over how dry it was, even though the plot deals with ostensibly intriguing things like murders and disappearances and illicit monastery affairs. Sure, I’d love it if academic papers could be as exciting as this book, but being more exciting than an academic paper doesn’t translate into being an exciting novel.
The plot runs as follows: William of Baskerville is the medieval Sherlock Holmes, although of course it is anachronistic to think so and probably ruins the meticulous atmosphere the author has expertly set about to construct. Whatever. He and his apprentice/Watson/narrator arrive at a monastery where an important political meeting is to take place in a few days only to find the simple case of suicide they’ve been called in to investigate has turned into a complex case of monk-murdering-mania. Also, everything is symbols.
Okay, maybe part of the reason I found this book tedious is because I don’t much care for semiotics (oversimplifying-ly: I find it either makes sweepingly unfounded claims or is so patently true as to be trivial), but I still wish the plot had moved faster. I appreciated the historical accuracy; I guess (unfortunately for a historian), I needed a little more to keep me hooked. Also, I realize this is a book about monks — you know, all-male — but for crying out loud, that’s all the more reason not to have a gratuitous female character who’s there in order to sleep willingly with a sympathetic male character instead of being forced to sleep with a mean male character, just to underscore what a harsh world it is. If I wanted to watch Moulin Rouge, I’d rent Moulin Rouge!
Enchanted Glass (Diana Wynne Jones, 2010) — YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!
(… although, also, re: the very end, ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!! Not being the adult FTL!*)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) — This movie drove me nuts until I finally went on IMDB and learned I recognized the Baron from when he played the Well-Manicured Man on The X Files. Mystery solved!
*ahem* Anyhow, this is a Terry Gilliam flick that blends fiction and reality, to tell the story of the legendary Baron Munchausen, his magical servants, and a little girl named Sally on the quest to save Sally’s hometown from the invading Turkish army. It’s lots of fun, with plenty of famous cameos (Robin Williams as the King of the Moon was actually somewhat… inspired), and it skillfully walks the line between making us care about these characters and allowing us not to take their actions seriously. For instance, the Baron is human enough that we want things to end okay for him. He’s also a total dick, but we aren’t expected to approve or condemn him, so it’s all right to watch him do all sorts of unfeeling things.
I liked the whimsy of the movie and of course the meta-story-within-a-story-within-a-story. I wasn’t too impressed by the SCIENCE = TEH EBIL (because of course, wanting to think empirically or logically is just a slippery slope to allowing people to die in an arranged war because it’s more efficient that way), and for some reason, all Terry Gilliam’s movies move a little more slowly than I’d like, leaving me with a constant feeling of impatience. Still, I enjoyed it enough that I remember everything that went on, which is more than I can say for a lot of films. And I loved the hearkening back to myth, even if I wasn’t impressed with the comparison between it and “modern thinking”.
Also, while I was watching it, I accidentally ate some bugs. Never eat trail mix in the dark. I don’t wanna talk about it.
* Don’t worry, you won’t understand what I’m spoiling until you’ve read it.